What are we to say in reply to these attacks? Are the facts of

statistics really so decisive and convincing as to compel us to

abandon the time-honored dogma of Free-Will, to which the noblest

and loftiest minds of all ages have so tenaciously adhered? Can

those imposing arrays of figures operate in us to the conviction

that, when a man contracts marriage, commits a crime, puts an end

to his own life, or performs any other act, he necessarily

follows a universal law of nature, and cannot, therefore, be held

responsible for his deed? Do the acts of men enter into the

economy of nature like ebb and flow of tide, day and night,

summer and winter? It is not our purpose to enter into deep

philosophical disquisitions on free-will. Its materialist

adversaries ignore all philosophical speculation. They occupy

themselves exclusively with _facts_--visible, palpable

facts--and upon this vantage-ground we intend to oppose them. Our

task, then, in the present instance, is to demonstrate that the

conclusions drawn from the given premises are unwarranted and

erroneous; that the _regularity_ in the recurrence of

certain acts can be satisfactorily accounted for by _other_

causes, without having recourse to a mysterious _law_ of

_nature_; and lastly, that there are many facts which, even

without free-will, are problems not less difficult to solve.

{649}

In examining the method by which our adversaries draw inferences

from facts, we shall find that their logic is in contradiction to

all the laws of correct thinking. "Not all acts are free,

therefore some acts are not free," is a proper conclusion; "but

some acts are not free, therefore all acts are not free;" who

would admit such a conclusion? As an illustration, let us take

another example from statistics. According to the testimony of

statistics, of 908,000 families in Belgium, only 89,630 were in

good circumstances in the year 1857. 373,000 were in a very

straitened condition; 446,000 were in downright misery. In all

probability, the same relative situation may be found existing

through a series of years. Now, what would the enemies of

free-will say to the following reasoning: "In Belgium, the masses

are in poverty, therefore all Belgians are poor; affluence does

not exist at all in Belgium"? Is not the following reasoning of

theirs identically the same: "In marriages, suicides, crimes, and

other human acts, the influence of free-will is imperceptible, as

shown by statistics; therefore, these acts are _not_ free;

therefore, the influence of free-will is impossible in _all_

acts; there is no free-will at all"? We might even, for

argument's sake, grant--which, of course, we do not--that the

above-mentioned acts are not free, without thereby doing away

with free-will in numberless other human acts.

But this is not the only logical blunder made by our opponents.

They infer from the _deed_ to the _volition_. "The deed

is not free, therefore neither is the volition." Do the deed and

the volition always correspond so perfectly that we may, under

all circumstances, infer from the former to the latter? The very

fact that in trials before courts extenuating circumstances are

so strongly insisted upon, is proof positive that the deed and

the volition are not always identical. It is a long way from

deliberation to decision, and from decision to execution. We may

not more infer from the deed to the volition than from the

volition to the deed. How absurd to infer from the volition to

the deed! And should the reverse be more logical?

What does experience show--in trials, for example? A man is

murdered, for instance. In one case, the evidence shows that the

murderer had harbored his dark design for years, until finally a

favorable moment presented itself for the execution. In another

case, it will appear that, in a casual quarrel, a man dealt a

mortal blow to another, perhaps even to his friend, _without

intending to do it!_ The criminal courts of all countries

present multitudes of such instances. It is the statistician's

province to note the deed, but not the volition; and hence, sound

logic will never permit inferences in regard to the volition to

be drawn from statistical facts.

Let us now examine the foundation on which arguments against the

freedom of man's will are based. This foundation is the

_regularity_ with which the aforesaid acts have been

observed to recur, as if within the range of a higher and wider

law. How have statisticians discovered this regularity? Evidently

only by summing up facts as they took place within a period of

some duration, and over an extensive range of territory, a

process by which the actual differences were entirely put out of

sight. We learned above that, from 1855 to 1862, a yearly average

of 6244 criminals was arraigned before the criminal courts of

Prussia. But particular years fall wide of this average figure.

Thus, in 1856, the number was 8722, that is, 2500 more than the

average; in 1858, the number was 4995, that is, more than 1300

less than the average; and the total of the difference of these

years, 3800.

{650}

It would seem that this might as truthfully be called

_irregularity_ as _regularity_. If, in Prussia, crimes

are merely the necessary consequences of a natural law, and of

political and social circumstances, can it be reasonably believed

that these underwent so great a change in the space of two years

that the number of crimes was diminished by one half? It is

impossible to draw from such premises conclusions strong enough

to uproot convictions planted as deeply in the human breast as is

that of the freedom of man's will. External circumstances may

indeed have undergone changes within two years, still these

changes are not sufficient of themselves to account for such

variations in statistical figures as we have above quoted. These

can be accounted for only by taking into consideration the

freedom of the human will, which may be influenced, in a measure,

by external circumstances, but not _necessarily_ controlled.

But grant that a certain regularity is perceptible in human acts.

Undoubtedly 8722 and 4995 come nearer to the average figure,

6244, than would 1200 and 500. Still the regularity may be

explained without subjecting all human acts to the influence of a

law of necessity. It is on account of the point of view from

which statisticians examine facts that their _regularity_

appears so remarkably great, and their differences so

immaterially small. We will illustrate what we mean by a

comparison. By standing on the brink of a river, we hear the

plashing and perceive the motion of its waters. By going to a

mountain-top, at a distance from the stream, we neither hear a

sound nor observe a motion. Now, could we, whilst standing on the

mountain-top, reasonably say, "Before, as we stood on the brink

of the stream, we _imagined_ that the water was in motion

and produced a sound but in this elevated position, from which we

see the stream for miles, we discover that we were mistaken; the

stream is evidently silent and without motion"? Where lies the

mistake in this instance? and where the truth? Is not the case of

the statistician the same? If, viewing things from his elevated

stand-point, he fails to recognize the free-will of the

individual, is the cause to be found in the absence of all free

volition, or is it not rather owing to his having taken too high

a stand-point? In order to obtain correct information concerning

the material creation, we must enter into details, and carefully

examine single specimens; hence the importance of the microscope

in natural sciences. And why shall we pass by the individual

altogether, and generalize our observations, when we undertake

the study of moral phenomena? Surely, there can be no reason for

proceeding thus. No man looking from a high tower upon a flock of

sheep can expect to obtain accurate knowledge of their animal

nature and conformation.

Quetelet, the founder of the science of moral statistics, and its

most talented representative, expresses himself as follows upon

the question at issue: "I do not believe that, in view of such

evidences, the freedom of the human will can be denied. I only

think that it is greatly limited, and, in social affairs, plays

the _rôle_ of an accidental cause. Accordingly, by not

considering individual cases, and by taking things summarily and

in bulk, it will appear that the influences of accidental causes

neutralize each other in such a manner as to let none but real

causes, in virtue of which society exists, appear.

{651}

The Supreme Being has wisely put limits to our moral powers, as

well as to the physical, in order to hinder man from encroaching

upon his eternal laws. The possibility of founding a science of

moral statistics, and of drawing useful inferences from it,

depends mainly on the fact that, as soon as observations are made

upon a _large number of individuals_, the human will retires

and manifests no perceptible influence."

The action of the free-will of man is, in reality, confined

within very narrow limits. The less a man knows, the fewer must

be the objects of his volition and of his desire. Most men have,

in this respect, but a very narrow range. It is the poor and the

illiterate who everywhere compose the bulk of the population, and

it is this bulk precisely that the statistician is obliged to

consider. The _power of execution_ is still more limited.

For executing, ability and means are required, which, however, in

innumerable instances, are found insufficient. But even though

the will and the power to execute be limited, freedom of volition

may still exist. For we speak of the freedom of a merely

_human_ will, and man is by nature a _limited_, not an

infinite, being. The freedom of man's will can be made available

only within the limits placed about the individual. The

individual can _will_ only that which he has knowledge of,

and do that which he has the means to do. Nero once wished that

the whole Roman people had but one head, that at a single blow he

might strike it off. It was simply the wish of a tyrant gone

crazy. It is pretty nearly the same with free-will as with

unencumbered bodily motion. We have it in our power to wander in

every direction upon the globe, but the globe itself we cannot

leave. It revolves about the centre of the planetary system, and

carries us with it in its career. In the same manner can we

possess freedom of volition and of _doing_; but step beyond

the limits of our nature we cannot, and for this very reason,

says Quetelet, does the influence of free-will disappear when

larger groups become the object of observation.

The transition from the will to the deed depends on the objective

possibility of accomplishing the deed. External circumstances

must be considered; at times they are favorable, at times again

they are unfavorable. Any man can elevate his thoughts to God.

The will becomes the deed forthwith. But raising his hands in

prayer is quite another thing. This can be done only by a man who

has the free use of his members. We may infer from a glance at

the statistics of marriages and crimes, how much the execution of

the will depends upon external circumstances. We quoted above

that, among every 10,000 inhabitants, there are usually 87

marriages in Prussia, 82 in Saxony, and only 66 in Bavaria. Now

the question arises, Is there less inclination to marriage

amongst young people in Saxony and Bavaria than in Prussia, or

does the law of necessity, supposed to control such events, cease

to be in force when it reaches the boundaries of Bavaria? Not at

all. The difference is simply this. In Prussia it only requires

two parties, a bride and a groom, for a marriage contract, whilst

in Bavaria it requires three, a bride, a groom, and a functionary

of the police department, and, as everybody knows, it is harder

for three to come to an agreement than for two. Besides these

legal hinderances, there are many others that oppose the will to

marry. We have only to look about to notice them.

{652}

One man may have the will to marry, but cannot find a suitable

match; another may not be able to obtain the consent of his

parents; a third may not have a sufficient livelihood; a fourth

may be prevented from marriage by war, by sickness or any other

cause. They all may have the will to get married, but external

circumstances do not permit it.

External circumstances exert a similar influence upon crimes.

Statistics show that five times more men than women are arraigned

for crimes. Are we to suppose hence that women are so much better

than men? Hardly. The number of women criminally disposed cannot

surely be much less than that of men; but women want the ability,

the means, and the adventurous spirit necessary to carry out

their evil designs. In years of famine, as the number of

marriages decreases, that of theft increases. In France, in 1846,

a year of plenty, 31,768 persons were convicted of larceny. In

1847, a year of scarcity, the figure rose to 41,626, and the year

after, it fell again to 30,000. Similar facts might be quoted for

England. What becomes of the _law_ of _nature_ in

presence of such evidences? Starvation is something exceedingly

_natural_, if you will; but if a man prefers starving to

stealing, he will not be dragged before the tribunals. In 1836

and 1837, there was great distress in England, during which many

died of starvation. Many had not the _will_ to prolong their

lives by stealing, many others had not the chance. No statistical

record can acquaint us with the ratio of those who had not the

will, to those who had not the chance; whence we are authorized

to argue that no inference can be drawn from such records

regarding the _will_ of men.

It is incontestable that the individual is greatly influenced by

the social, moral, religious, domestic, and intellectual

circumstances in which he happens to be placed. Still it cannot

be conceded that these circumstances do away with the freedom of

man's will. True enough, men permit themselves to be controlled,

in a great measure, by the circumscribed relations of private

life, but they do so for the very purpose of remaining in those

relations. There are many cases in which men see no motive for

withdrawing from under the influence of existing circumstances.

Sacrifices are even made to existing circumstances in order that

they may continue the same. As for instance, in the case of

tax-paying. We may complain loudly of the burden of taxes, still

we pay them. Should we have a mind not to pay them, we leave the

country for another less oppressed. The man that remains pays his

taxes _unwillingly_ indeed, yet of _his own free-will_.

Unwillingness does not preclude free-will.

The narrower the circumstances, the more limited the education,

the lower the rank of a man, the greater are his efforts to

accommodate himself to circumstances; and _vice versa_, the

greater his wealth and the higher his education, the more

independent is he.

In European countries, a son usually adopts the profession of his

father. The son of a farmer becomes a farmer, and the son of a

mechanic becomes a mechanic. Statisticians might easily adduce

imposing columns of figures to prove this, and the enemies of

free-will might call it a law of necessity. Yet what multitudes

of exceptions are there not? Thousands submit to the

circumstances that surround them at their birth, nevertheless

there will always be a few who will not submit. These will

struggle and push their way into the highest positions of life.

{653}

When nature and natural laws are alone in operation, and there is

no interference on the part of man, natural circumstances

continue the same during centuries. At the present time the

Amazon river presents about the same appearance as when the first

white men paddled their frail canoe along its luxuriant banks.

The hand of man has made but few changes. But within the same

space of time the Mississippi and its tributaries have undergone

the most astonishing changes. Flourishing towns now occupy the

former pasture-ground of the buffalo, and where the alligator

once held undisturbed possession, are now to be seen golden acres

of corn and snowy fields of cotton. It would be hard to recognize

in the Germania of Tacitus the Germany of the present day. Soil

and climate have both undergone changes. Were men controlled by

laws of necessity like the rest of creatures, they never would

have been able to effect these modifications of physical nature.

There is a principle in man which other creatures want. Together

with understanding, he is endowed with a free-will whose action

is always perceptible where man engages in an unusual struggle

with nature.

Much ado is made about the influence of the social, domestic, and

religious condition of the masses upon the individual. It is said

that his action is necessarily directed and controlled by this

influence. But we would know who creates these particular

conditions--who brings them about--and who changes them?

Everybody knows that elephants are very sagacious animals. But

the elephants employed nowadays in India for the chase and other

purposes are not a whit more sagacious nor a whit less stupid

than those which King Porus employed in the war against Alexander

the Great, 2000 years ago. Had elephants been endowed with

understanding and free-will, they would, in all probability, have

made some little progress within 2000 years. We never speak of

intellect, morals, and religion when animals are the subject of

consideration; we only speak of their natural condition, and this

circumstance alone shows that we must not look upon man as a mere

part of material nature, under the same necessary laws. So far as

the body is concerned, he belongs to material nature, and

undergoes its influence; but, as to the spirit, he rises above

nature, and for this very reason, enters into a contest with

nature, and triumphs. The fertile marshes of Holland and

Friesland are not a gift from the ocean, but man has wrested them

from the ocean; they are the creation of his mind and invincible

strength of will.

We several times before made mention of the happy influence of

Catholicity upon its adherents. Most Catholics, it is true,

belong to the communion by virtue of their descent from Catholic

parents, and, thus far, this may be called a natural

circumstance. But this same circumstance is brought about by the

deliberate and free will of thousands of persons who in England,

Germany, and America are annually returning to the old church.

Somebody might perhaps imagine a "conversion-law," according to

which a certain number of Protestants must inevitably become

Catholics every year.

It seems to us that the science of moral statistics has been

turned against the dogma of free-will, chiefly because

statisticians have directed their attention to such facts only as

are most immediately under the control of external circumstances.

Had they selected other facts, the result would not have led men

so easily to form conclusions opposed to the freedom of the human

will.

{654}

We will give an example. France is a Catholic country. There are

35,000,000 of Catholics in France. It is customary amongst

Catholics to go to confession. We suppose it would not be putting

the figure too high if we said that about 100,000,000 confessions

are heard annually in France. Every statistician will readily

grant that in France, and in every Catholic country, the

aggregate of the confessions will be nearly alike for different

years--and that the proportions of men and women, and the

variances for the different seasons, months, days, etc., will

present a decided appearance of regularity. Now, would Buckle be

ready to say: "In the present condition of France, one hundred

millions of confessions must take place every year. This is the

general law. The particular inquiry as to who is to go to

confession depends, of course, on special laws whose united

forces must, however, obey the general laws to which they are

subordinate. And the force of the general law is so irresistible,

that neither fear of the priest nor the impenitence of man can

exert the slightest influence for the hinderance of its action"?

We are inclined to think the materialistic historian would have

hesitated a while before ranging confession under the _economy

of nature_.

Before concluding, there are two more facts which we beg

permission simply to state. Materialists believe in facts. They

say that there is no effect without a cause, and that the effect

corresponds with the cause. Now, it is an undeniable fact, that

every man that has attained the use of reason believes his

_will_ to be free. How will materialists account for this

fact? The belief in the freedom of the will is an effect--the

effect of what?--of real necessity? We thought the effect should

correspond with the cause. For centuries men have believed their

will free, and for centuries criminals have been held responsible

for their deeds, and have been punished--and lo! now the

statistician does away with free-will altogether! It is plain

that this mode of blotting out free-will is merely a cunning but

erroneous piece of calculation.

The second fact is this: As often as a reaction follows upon a

period of greater political and social freedom in a state, it has

been remarked that at once the number of births decreases and

that of deaths increases. It was the case in France in 1854, and

in Prussia in 1855. From this fact we infer that liberty is the

atmosphere that suits the nature of populations best, and

furthers their increase most. If this is the case, can we, in

consequence of the mistaken evidences of statistics, refuse

individual man the faculty of free-will, which must be the basis

and condition of every other kind of liberty? Certainly not.

One more observation. The free-will of man is one of the

fundamental dogmas of Christian, and in particular, of Catholic

faith. We have seen what can be advanced against it on the

evidence of moral statistics. But the case of statistics is like

that of many other sciences. Its results, at first, appear

opposed to Catholic faith, and the enemies of the church begin to

shout with joy at the victory of "Science over Superstition." But

when more closely inspected, the new facts and developments are

not only nowhere in contradiction to faith, but are often found

to agree with and even to aid in substantiating it.

----------

{655}

From The French Of Marie Jenna.

The Volunteers For Pius IX.

Both from Rome and France these men have earned a radiant crown of merit;

As they drew their sword of fire, all hell, with trembling, saw its flashings.

What their name? One--Christians! Fear no more when such have come to guard thee,

Throne and home of Pius!

On they came, those boasters, fed by Rapine, armed by drivelling Folly,

Eager to profane with blood-stained hands the apostolic altar.

They were met. And now, as ever, at thy gates, O holy City!

Hate by Love is conquered.

At thy pure and sacred majesty they dared, O holy Pontiff!

Dared to mock with cries defiant; and like wolves for blood were thirsting--

Thine! No, never! Thou hast drunk enough of Suffering's bitter chalice.

Father! look--thy children!

These for thee have gladly quitted wives and mothers, home and country:

When the clamorous dastards cried, "Down with the Pope!" then these, uprising,

Clutched their arms, and shoulder unto shoulder marched. "Fear not!" they shouted,

"We will come and save thee!"

In their faces gleamed the sacred fire that burns in breasts of Frenchmen!

If but one of them should fall--for thee the boon of life disdaining--

From their country's borders there would rise upon the morrow morning

Thousands to avenge them.

Only that one day, at least, the Christian phalanx--serried closely,

So that heart may beat to heart--could know that thou hast gazed upon them;

Only that the Holy Church in prayer their names will once remember,

Death they gladly welcome.

Holy Father, keep thy double sceptre and thy stainless glory!

Rome is spared to thee and thou to Rome. Not yet, O sacred exile!

Heaven will claim thee soon enough, and then, bereaved of thy dear presence,

We shall be the exiles.

{656}

Yes; the Christian world has sworn that thou from Rome shalt not be driven,

As a gage it sends these dauntless heroes forward to thy rescue.

Look upon them. Mark that steady tread, those eyes that flash forth victory.

Raise thy hand and bless them!

On to triumph, cavaliers of Christ! Yea, Lord, for thee they conquer,

When they overcome the enemies of him who represents thee.

Count _this_ faithful band, O Thou who in thine hour of dereliction

Saw all thine desert thee!

You whose dear and sacred memory is upon our hearts engraven--

You, who were the elder brethren of this youthful band of heroes--

You, who bore the white cross banner till the hands of all fell lifeless

At Castelfidardo--

You were there! And more than one of these beheld your glorious spirits

Hovering o'er them as they proudly fell and yielded up their life-blood,

Waiting with the crowns and palms prepared for such as should be honored

So to die and conquer.

Happy ye, O chosen ones! your death is fruitful. Ever passing

Through the world the Church broadcasts her seed in sadness;

Harvesting in turn with overflowing hands upon the places

Sown with blood of martyrs.

Mothers, wives, they come not back, the nearest, dearest that have left you!

Weep! _He_ also wept. But ponder well the words that He has spoken:

"Greater love no man may show for him he loves than dying for him."

Even thus they loved Him!

Weep! but sing a song of triumph as the bitter tears are flowing.

Blest are ye who, in his temple, humbly kneeling at the altar,

There can offer him a sacrificial incense of such sorrow

With such glory mingled!

----------

{657}

Catholicity And Pantheism.

Number Four.

The Blessed Trinity, Or Multiplicity In The Infinite.

General Idea Of The Blessed Trinity.

Catholic doctrine admits that the most pure, simple, and

undivided unity of the Godhead lies in its nature; but that this

most simple nature is terminated by three real, distinct

subsistences or persons, who form the only true and living

Infinite. How this answer affords the solution of the problem

will be seen in the course of this treatise, in which we shall

endeavor to develop the idea of the church in a scientific form.

But, before we proceed to analyze it, we feel obliged to develop

it in a cursory manner, in order to enable the reader to follow

us in the analysis to which it will be subjected.

We say, then, that the essence of God, absolutely simple, is

terminated by three real, distinct, opposite subsistences, which

are a primary unbegotten activity, a begotten intelligibility, an

aspired goodness; all three in a state of personality. For this

primary, unborn activity in the state of personality, in whom the

whole Godhead resides, by understanding himself, begets a most

faithful conception of himself, an intellectual utterance, a word

or _logos_. Now, the nature or essence of intellectual

conception or logos, consists in being the object conceived in

the state of intelligibility. It follows, then, that the

conception of the primary activity, in whom the fulness of the

Godhead resides, is, in consequence, the Godhead itself in the

state of intelligibility, whilst the conceiver is the Godhead

itself, in the state of intelligent activity. Under this last

respect, to wit, of intelligent activity and of intelligibility,

the conceiver and the conception are necessarily related to each

other; a relation which arises from an opposition of origin,

since the conceiver, as such, originating the conception, is

necessarily opposed to it, and the conception, as such, by being

conceived, is necessarily opposed to the conceiver. In this sense

they are necessarily distinct from each other. It follows from

this that each one has a concreteness of his own, a termination

or a state, by whatever name it may be called; which concreteness

is incommunicable to the other, and hence each one has the

ownership of himself, and therefore is a person. For the first is

the whole Godhead under the termination of unborn intellectual

activity, which termination is strictly his own and

incommunicable. The second is the fulness of the Godhead, under

the termination of intelligibility or conception, which belongs

to him alone, and is likewise incommunicable. But because in both

resides the whole identical Godhead, though under a distinct,

opposite, and relative termination, they are both one and the

same God.

God conceiver and God conceived are, then, in nature and essence,

one and the same; whilst as the conceiver and the conceived, they

are two distinct persons; and in this sense, there is a necessary

duality in the infinite.

{658}

This duality is brought into harmony and unity by the production

of a third termination, the Holy Ghost. The conceiver and the

conceived necessarily love each other. This is the result of a

metaphysical law of the act of intelligence, including subject

and object; since to intelligence an object produces an

inclination or attraction in the subject toward it. Now the two

persons in the Godhead intelligence each other; therefore they

love each other. It is, again, the nature of love that the object

loved should abide in the subject loving, in a state of feeling

or an actively attractive state, a state which human language

cannot utter. The best expression we can find is, that the object

should abide in the subject in the capacity of beatifying it. The

Godhead, under the termination of conceiver, loves the Godhead

under the termination of conceived; and, _vice versa_, the

Godhead, under the termination of conceived, loves the Godhead

under the termination of conceiver. The result of this operation

is a third termination of the Godhead--the Godhead under the

termination of love, goodness, or bliss, proceeding from the

other two terminations, the conceiver and the conceived. This new

termination being distinct from the two former, and opposed to

them, inasmuch as it originates from them, is consequently its

own, incommunicable to the others, and hence a person. But as it

is the same identical Godhead, under the termination of love, the

three are but one and the same God. Without these terminations or

triplicity in the Infinite, the God cannot exist or live. For

what is a being without the knowledge of himself and without

love? What is life but action? and action without a term

originated is a contradiction in terms. The Godhead must, then,

intelligence and love himself. The result of this are three

terminations in the Godhead; a primary, unbegotten activity, a

begotten intelligibility, an aspired goodness. That these three

terminations do not break the unity of the Infinite will be

manifest from the analysis to which we shall subject them.

We shall now proceed to vindicate the personality of the three

terminations against a class of disguised pantheists--disguised

even to themselves--that is, the Unitarians.

Why should these three terminations in the Godhead be persons?

Could not the Godhead understand and love itself without

supposing three personalities?

We answer that without the admission of three persons in the

Godhead, we should necessarily fall into the pantheistic theory

concerning God.

The Unitarians will concede to us that God must understand and

love himself. Without this he were inconceivable. Now, we beg the

Unitarians to tell us what this intelligence and love are? Are

they only passing and transient acts or modifications, or are

they faculties and attributes? What are they?

Besides essence and nature, which includes substance, our minds

cannot conceive any other categories than the following:

1st. Attributes or perfections.

2d. Faculties.

3d. Acts of the faculties or modifications.

4th. Subsistence and personality.

Now, excluding subsistence and personality, the understanding and

love of the Godhead must be either an attribute or faculty, or a

transient act, or both of these together.

{659}

The Unitarians may demur at so many distinctions; but we would

beg them to observe that when we see the most sacred dogmas, nay,

the very pivot of knowledge, attacked by a flimsy and proud

philosophy, we have a right to descend into the depths of

science, and ask of the flimsy and boastful philosophy what it

means when it attacks so sweepingly and so confidently. This

remark has been forced from us by reading the following words of

Channing: "We believe in the doctrine of God's unity, or that

there is one God, one only. To this truth we give infinite

importance, and we feel ourselves bound to take heed lest any man

spoil us of it by vain (?) philosophy. This proposition, that

there is one God, seems to us exceedingly plain. We understand by

it that there is one being, one mind, one person, one intelligent

agent, and one only, to whom underived and infinite perfections

and dominion belong. We conceive that these words could have

conveyed no other meaning to the simple and uncultivated people,

who were set apart to be the depositories of this great truth,

and who were utterly incapable of understanding those

hair-breadth distinctions between being and person, which the

sagacity of other ages has discovered."

We have read very few passages of other authors in which we find

as much magisterial tone, sweeping assertion, profound ignorance

of true philosophy, confusion worse confounded, as in these few

lines of Channing.

Is it possible that Dr. Channing should call a hair-breadth

distinction, that which lies between essence and nature, and

personality? We suspect that the distinction between these terms

being so nice, Dr. Channing never apprehended it; and without

this elementary apprehension of the most fundamental notions of

ontology, Dr. Channing should have kept his peace, and never have

written a book touching mysteries, held and defended even unto

death by thousands of the sublimest, the profoundest, and the

most universal geniuses of Christianity; such men as S.

Athanasius, S. Justin, S. Irenaeus, S. Hilary, S. Augustine, S.

Ambrose, S. Chrysostom, S. Jerome, S. Fulgentius, S. Thomas,

Bossuet, Fénélon, Pascal, Leibnitz, etc. Before the testimony of

such intellects, even the self-assurance of Dr. Channing should

have hesitated. Dr. Channing, then, along with all those who hold

his opinion, will be kind enough to tell us what they mean by God

being one mind, one person, one intelligent agent. Are these

things attributes, faculties, or acts? Let us define the terms,

that the distinction which exists between them may be more

manifest. An attribute or perfection is a partial conception of

our minds, of a certain nature, and more particularly of the

Infinite. The idea of the infinite implies all perfections. But

as our limited minds cannot apprehend all that is contained in

that idea at one intellectual glance, we are forced to apprehend

it partially, and to divide it mentally, and to consider each

side apart. The ideas or notions corresponding to all these

apprehensions of the infinite, we call perfections or attributes.

But let it be distinctly understood; ontologically, that is, in

the order of reality, they do not exist out of, and are not

distinct from, the essence of the Infinite. A faculty is the

capacity of development in a being. An act is the transition from

capacity into movement. Now, before we close with the Unitarians,

we shall give the definition of individuality and personality as

carefully and intelligibly as we can.

{660}

That last termination or complement of a being, which makes it a

unit, _in se_, separated or at least distinct from all other

beings, which makes it _sui juris_ and incommunicable to all

others, constitutes what ontology calls individuality. To

illustrate this definition, let us suppose our body in the two

different states to which it is subject, when it is united to our

soul, and when it is separated from it. It is evident that when

my body is yet united to the soul, it is a corporal substance,

but not an individuality, because it has none of those elements

necessary to constitute individuality. It is not a unit _in

se_, neither is it separated from any other being, because it

is united to the soul, and hence it is communicable; and above

all, it is not _sui juris_, since the soul possesses it as

its most intimate and most subordinate organ and instrument. Let

us take the other state of our body, when the soul has left it.

By this very fact, the body becomes an individuality, that is to

say, a unit _in se_, distinct and separated from any other

being, _sui juris_, and incommunicable. So true is this,

that should that body in such a state, undergo any change, or do

what we might improperly call an action, that change or action

would be attributed to it, and to it alone.

For instance, suppose that body should fall and crush by its

weight some living creature, we should say that body has killed

that creature, because it _is_ an individuality; whereas,

suppose that same body, possessed of the soul, falling at night

out of bed, should kill by its weight that living creature, we

could no longer say that body has killed, but we should say that

man fell last night out of his bed, and killed, for instance, his

child; because the union of the body with the soul as its most

intimate organ, deprives it of its individuality, and

consequently of solidarity.

Personality adds to individuality the element of intelligence,

and consequently of self-consciousness.

A person, therefore, is a substance, possessed of intelligence

and self-consciousness, forming a unit _in se_, and hence

being distinct from all others, having the ownership of himself,

_sui juris_, and being the principle of imputability for all

his actions.

If these notions, on which depend the whole field of ontology,

which are the foundation of morality, of all social and political

rights of man, on which the very bliss and ultimate perfection of

man rest--if such notions are hair-breadth distinctions, we thank

God that we are endowed with intelligence enough to apprehend

them; else, were a man to-morrow to force us into slavery, on the

plea that we are only things, and not persons, we should be at a

loss how to stop him, not being able, like Channing, to apprehend

our own personality, that supreme gift which makes us feel master

and owner of ourselves and accountable for our actions.

Having premised these notions, we say the Unitarians, who grant

that the Infinite is endowed with intelligence and will, must

admit one of these three things: either the intelligence and will

are perfections or attributes, or they are faculties, or they are

persons. If they admit them to be perfections, they divide the

Infinite; if they admit them to be faculties, they fall into

pantheism.

This is what we are going to prove in the following propositions.

First proposition: If intelligence and will were admitted to be

mere perfections in God, the admission would imply a division in

God and a breaking up of the Infinite.

{661}

Before we proceed to prove this proposition, we premise that in

the argument we take intelligence and will in action, and not in

potentiality; in other words, we take them as acts, and not as

faculties.

The reason is because, as we shall prove, there can be no

faculties or potentiality in the Infinite. This premised, we lay

down the undoubted ontological truth that between intelligence in

act and the conception or interior _logos_, the result of

intelligencing, there is and must be a real distinction. In other

words, the intellect in act and the conception of the intellect

necessarily imply a duality.

The reason of this is evident. First, because between the

intellect in action and conception there is necessarily an

opposition. The intellect in act, is such, inasmuch as it is not

conception, and _vice versa_. Now, a real opposition

implies, necessarily, a real distinction. Again, the conception

or interior _logos_ is to the intellect in action as the

effect is to its cause, or, better, as the consequence is to its

principle.

If, therefore, there were no real distinction between the

intellect and the conception, there would be no real distinction

between the effect and its cause, the principle and its

consequence. Hence, thinking and thought are necessarily

distinct. What is true of the act of thinking and of thought is

true of the will and its _volition_, for the same reason.

Hence it is evident that the intellect in action, thought or the

conception, the will in action and its volition, are necessarily

distinct by their very ontological nature and relation. It

follows, then, that if we admit them to be mere perfections of

the Infinite, we would imply a real distinction in the essence of

the Infinite, in other words, a duality of essence; because a

perfection in the Infinite is identical with essence, since we

have said that perfections have no real existence _in re_,

and are only partial conceptions of our minds, which cannot take

in the Infinite at one intellectual glance.

Intelligence in action and conception, therefore, being

considered as perfections, would be identical with the essence;

and they requiring, in force of their metaphysical nature, a real

distinction, the distinction would fall upon the essence of the

Infinite. Any one versed in ontology will perceive this truth at

a glance. Hence, Unitarians cannot say that the intelligence and

the conception of the intelligence, the will and love in the

Infinite, are mere perfections, without admitting a real

distinction in the essence of the Infinite, and thus admitting a

multiplicity of Infinites, which is absurd.

Second proposition: If Unitarians rank the intellect and thought,

the will and its volition, of the infinite among faculties, they

then fall into pantheism.

Ontology, as we have said, defines a faculty to be a force of

development by union with its object.

Its notion implies three elements:

1. A force residing dormant in a being.

2. An object.

3. A union of the force with the object, to render the

development actual.

Applying this idea to the subject in question, every one can see

at a glance that a faculty cannot be predicated of the Infinite

without falling into pantheism.

For it would be to admit in God a force of development, a

capacity of unfolding, of actualizing himself.

{662}

Now, every faculty of development necessarily begins, from the

minimum degree of actuality, to travel by progressive stages of

unfolding to an indefinite maximum of progression. Hence, in the

supposition, we should be forced to admit that God started from

the minimum of life and action, and that he travelled through

numberless stages of development, and will travel indefinitely

through higher stages in the direction of a maximum of progress

never to be attained. Now, this is almost verbatim the

pantheistic theory of Hegel.

Every one who has read Hegel will have observed that his idea of

the Infinite coincides perfectly with the above. For he starts

from a minimum of reality, the _Being, Idea,_ which, through

a necessary interior movement, becomes matter, organism,

animality, intelligence, etc.

It would not do for Unitarians to say that the argument does not

apply to their system, since they admit a substance already

existing and perfect as to being, only endowed with faculties.

For, in the supposition, they would admit a finite, not an

infinite being.

In a finite being we can conceive one already perfect in the

order of existence, with faculties or force of accidental

development. But we cannot say the same of the Infinite. The

positive infinite, so to speak, is essentially actuality itself;

hence, perfection itself, all terms which exclude and eliminate

every possibility of development. If it be not that it must be

the Infinite of pantheism, a mere abstraction and unreality.

From what we have said, we conclude:

First, that the mystery of the Trinity is essentially necessary

to the idea of God; that there can be no conception of Infinite

actuality but through the supposition of three distinct

terminations of the same essence.

Secondly, that Unitarians are absolutely powerless before

pantheism; nay, that their system is disguised pantheism; and

that by holding fast only to the unity of God, they sap the very

foundation of the reality of the Infinite.

The Infinite is essentially living. A living God is essentially

conceiving himself by intellect. A subjective conception

necessarily implies an objective conception. These two are

absolutely and necessarily opposed to each other, and hence,

really distinct. Again, a living God, who necessarily conceives

himself, necessarily loves himself through his conception. Again,

subjective love necessarily implies an objective love, and the

two are essentially opposed, and hence distinct.

Thus we have three real distinct relations in the Infinite, a

conceiver, a conception, and love.

On the one hand, these three relations cannot be either

perfections or faculties; on the other, they cannot be denied of

the Infinite without destroying the very idea of the Infinite. It

follows, then, that they should be three terminations of the same

essence.

The act of intelligence in God is so actual and perfect as to be

in the very same state of personality intelligence itself. The

production of this act is also so actual and perfect as to be

conception itself, a personality distinct from the first. Love,

the necessary production of both the intelligence and the

conception, is also so actual and perfect, as to be love itself

in a state of personality, three distinct subsistences of the

same one infinite essence.

----------

{663}

Heremore-Brandon; Or, The Fortunes Of A Newsboy.

Chapter IV.

In the beautiful dawn Dick awoke, hardly remembering where he

was, and almost frightened at the wonderful absence of many

noises which had never before failed to greet his waking. Not

knowing whether it were very late or very early, Dick took the

safest view of the subject, and hurriedly dressed himself; then,

cautiously opening his door, he looked out to see if there was

any sign to guide his further movements: All was silent around

him; but the hall door stood wide open, letting in a square of

golden sunshine at the foot of the stairs. He went carefully and

noiselessly down, and found himself, when he reached the porch,

in a flood of glorious light. The flowers that hung above the

porch were sparkling in it, for the dew was yet fresh on all the

world; a thousand birds were carolling songs of exultation from

every tree, while the cool, fragrant morning air came to him in

the freshest, purest breezes that ever were known.

Even the pebbles, from which the sun had not yet kissed away a

single dew-drop, were sparkling like jewels as Dick approached

them on his way to the little rustic gate under the evergreen

arch. He stood leaning over it a long time, looking down the

cool, shadowy lane, his heart joining in the joyous morning hymn

of nature, for the first time heard.

He was standing by the gate, enjoying all, when new voices

reached his ears--human voices--and the children all at once came

rushing from the garden at the back of the house, in a tumult of

delight, surrounding him almost before they were aware of his

presence, so intent were they upon their mission to the village.

"Me doing to the 'tore!" exclaimed little Trot, rubbing her

hands. "Me dot a pocket."

Which double hint Dick took at once by putting pennies in the

"pocket," much to her delight and the older ones' annoyance.

"For shame, Trot!" said Will, "that's as bad as asking; and you

can't go to the store either; you'll get wet, the grass is all

wet. 'Tan't no good for girls; you stay home."

Whereupon Trot rubbed her brown little fists in her eyes, and

loudly bewailed her misery in being only a girl, showing also

that she had a will of her own that by no means acknowledged this

big boy as its lord and master. Dick attempted to show him that

whereas Trot's dress was already a finger deep with wet from the

long grass through which she had been tramping all the morning so

far, it couldn't make much difference if it got a little wetter.

But Will was firm, and Trot inappeasable, until, much to our

hero's relief, the noise brought out Rose, who was greatly

ashamed of Trot for making "such a time before the strange

gentleman," and very firmly decided for Will. In some magic way

she sent the boy portion unencumbered by any of the weaker sex,

on their way rejoicing, found something for the girls to do, and

took Trot's hand so resolutely that not a sob was ventured by

that small maiden, so that there was again peace in the land.

{664}

Then came breakfast, with a further display of clean calico, a

great deal of laughing and merry talk, but in a less leisurely

way than at tea, for the day's work was before not behind them.

Breakfast finished, the children, our hero, Rose, and Rose's

bosom friend, Clara Hays, were sent off to pick berries in the

woods. Half the morning they were in getting started; for

everybody spoke at once, and everybody hurried and detained

everybody else. There were at least a dozen false starts. As soon

as seven got to the gate, Trot and Minnie were reported missing;

no sooner were Trot and Minnie secured, than some one else was

out of the way. But at last they got fairly off, and went down

the lane in great glee; the children swinging their pails and

baskets in advance, and running back every two minutes to give

some valuable information about the road or the woods or the

berries, or something equally important. Rose, Clara, and Dick

brought up the rear in a manner that showed they had a becoming

sense of the responsibility thrown upon them as the elders of the

party.

What they did all day in the woods, how many brooks they crossed,

who fell in and was fished out with much laughter; how little

Trot got in everybody's way, and ate the others' berries as fast

as they were picked; how the children met other children on the

road; how often all parties rested, and teased each other, and

compared the quantity each had picked; and whether Dick, who had

soon got over his awkwardness, put his berries into Clara's pail

or into Rose's basket, I am not able to relate. I only know they

returned at evening very noisy and very tired; and that Rose had

a larger stock than any other one of the whole party; and that as

she took off her broad-brimmed straw hat, and pushed back the

moist curls from her face, this young lady did not go up at once

to wash off the purple berry stains from her hands, and to put on

the pretty blue muslin with its tiny bit of lace around the neck,

but lingered to hear the children, each interrupting the other,

until they were nearly all talking at once, tell Mr. and Mrs.

Stoffs and Mrs. Alaine the day's adventures. Dick, too, had

somewhat to relate, and glanced at Rose while he told it,

although it was only what the children had told twice over

already, how Mr. Dick--it had come to that with the

children--didn't know a turkey from a goose, and had called

things by their wrong names all day; whereat Rose laughed with

the rest, and then ran up to bathe her glowing cheeks in time to

help get tea.

When she came down, she found the children in the same eager

excitement, following the two women from kitchen to cellar, from

the closet to the table, still telling about the big snake they

were sure they had seen run across the path just before them, and

the rabbits, and what Minnie had said, and Will had done, and

Charley had thought; to all which the listeners gave an attentive

ear, laughing when there was need, and surprised at the proper

moment. At tea, the day in the woods continued to furnish food

for animated discussion, and neither Rose nor Dick looked as if

the subject were a tiresome one.

"And how did my little Trot get along?" asked Uncle Carl; but

Trot, who was tired, and cross, and impatient for her piece of

cake, made no answer.

"Trot tumbled into the water," said Will; "she always tumbles

in."

{665}

Then Trot who couldn't bear to be teased, looked as if she were

about to cry, but was appeased by a word or two from Rose, and

Carl asked who pulled her out.

"Oh! I did," answered Will readily; "I and Mr. Dick."

"I see that Mr. Dick is very good to you," said Mrs. Stoffs, with

a kind smile toward our hero, who colored and looked his delight.

"I don't think we can get along without Mr. Dick any more, can

we?"

The children declared they could not, and Dick was as pleased as

if he had just taken a degree; but Rose said nothing about the

matter.

Well, that was a merry, merry week; there were so many things

needed, and such long walks were required through the woods, and

over the hills, and even down to the beach, in order to procure

them, while every errand took all day to perform, that Dick

learned to walk on the soft grass without stumbling; even to

loiter slowly along by Rose's side, not often looking to see

where he placed his feet; and the children were such good tutors

that he learned the names of the birds and animals and insects

that came in his way, and knew where there had been the best

cherries in the spring, where there would be the best place for

nutting in the fall, and when the grapes would be ripe, "If only

he could be here!"

If only he could be here! But a week is only a week, and it will

end, if it has a life-time in its seven days. The last day had

come, and they all knew it; there had been a better dinner. "Mr.

Dick's last dinner with us, you know," they had said to each

other; and something more than sweet-cakes and peaches for tea,

for "to-morrow Mr. Dick will not be here." But, for all their

consideration, Mr. Dick hardly knew that night if he were eating

sweet-cakes or bitter bread.

It was a very quiet evening that followed the last tea at

Carlton. The children were more silent than usual; even Trot was

not proof against the indescribable feeling that settles over a

group from which one is about to take his departure. She climbed

into Dick's lap, and--an uncommon thing with that restless

maiden--did not offer to leave her position all those long

twilight hours. When Miss Brandon rode by--as I forgot to state

she did at twilight every evening--her beautiful pony, her long

dress, her hat with its drooping feather, her veil fluttering in

the evening breeze, her buff gauntlets, and her silver-handled

riding-whip--things which had set the whole flock in commotion

before--were hardly commented upon. When Mr. Irving, so tall and

princely, left her side for a moment, and, coming close to the

gate, called after Will, it was found Rose had forgotten the

usual bouquet of flowers for the ladies, and had to beg the

gentleman to wait. Rose felt very guilty; but Dick endeavored to

console her by saying that, without doubt, Mr. Irving was glad to

have a little more time with such a beautiful young lady as Miss

Brandon; and then fell to praising Miss Mary vehemently--how

beautiful she was, how gracious and pleasant to all, and yet

always remembering she was a grand young lady. Rose thought it

very easy to be good and pleasant when people are rich and

beautiful; and then Dick tried to comfort her again, and perhaps

with better success than before; for her only answer was a silent

act of contrition for the envious thought that had flitted across

her mind. Then, still in silence, she cut the flowers that she

could hardly more than guess at in the gathering twilight.

{666}

Dick was silent, too; and yet there was a great deal he would

like to have said, even though he little suspected that all he

had so far made clear to her was that Miss Brandon was to him

like an angel in a picture, or a heroine in some old romance, and

that, beside her silent act of contrition, poor little Rose's

heart had given one great throb, and had then made an act of

resignation beside. But Dick found voice to ask for a good-by

flower, which Rose gave; and it may be there were spoken then a

few words of more solemn meaning, such as will come when two

people, young and fresh, find their skies suddenly glowing above

them, and their hearts full of grateful praise to God, who has

made life so sweet. And it may be that little Rose, who said her

prayers so regularly for all sinners and for all who are tempted,

said a few broken, bashful words, exhorting Dick to goodness even

in the midst of the "snares of the great city," and that he

eagerly caught the words as they fell, promised her never to

forget them, and inwardly made a quick cry for God's grace to let

him die then rather than do aught to offend him who had showered

such blessings upon him. It may be, too, that Rose--the

simple-hearted maiden--was sure he would never break the

promise, and that their good-by there was a request and a promise

each to pray for the other. But if so, it was not said in long

paragraphs, with flowing periods; for Rose was too conscientious

to detain Mr. Irving a moment longer than needful.

But I am afraid Rose had to make another act of contrition that

night; for when Will brought her the money for the flowers--the

garden was her own--she would not take it, but told him to divide

it among the children, himself, of course, included. Dick thought

it very generous of her; but I have my own opinion about that.

Too soon for all the last "good-nights" were said, and Dick knew

he had spent out his last evening in Carlton for who could tell

how long? Yet his dreams were not sad. If he did not actually

believe he was riding on a splendid great horse, by the side of a

fair damsel on a white pony, down the shadowy lane, into the

broad road of the future; that he had given Carl a home for life,

and a load of toys to the children, with, perhaps, an uplifting

of his heart, and a readiness to bear, whatever life should bring

him worthy of a faithful Christian, I think it was something

"very like it."

The next morning there was a hurried breakfast, after which they

all went to the little yellow station-house to see him off, and

waved their hats and handkerchiefs until the train was out of

sight. A little longer, and they had returned in a rambling

procession home, each with some remembrance of him to tell the

other, while he was in the city at work once more, but as a

different Dick Heremore from the one who had said goodby, not

without emotion, to his slovenly landlady.

{667}

Chapter v.

When Christmas came around again, and made the first break in the

routine of his life after his ever-memorable visit to the

country, Dick, now no longer a follower at a distance of that

Sunday morning crowd, but a devout and well-instructed Catholic,

to whom all the glory and grandeur of the Christmas lights and

flowers, the music and the bells, were no longer mysteries; after

hearing the grand high mass--not the only one he had heard that

day--turned down Fourteenth street, according to the custom of

many years, in order that he might pass the Brandons' house,

which had ever held a charm for him, since on its broad steps he

had first seen the beauty and loveliness of charity. But he was

not thinking just then of Miss Brandon, nor of his newsboy days,

nor yet of the fast approaching hour when he should present

himself at Carl Stoffs's table, in a quarter of the city very

different from this, where he was to eat his piece of Christmas

turkey. His thoughts, I am afraid, will seem wild ones; but he

was young, it was Christmas-day, he had just come from that

glorious mass, and the world seemed so small and easy to conquer

to one who had heard the "glad tidings," so that he may be

forgiven for dreaming, in a less prosaic and unspiritual manner

than I can tell you, of a time when he would eat his Christmas

dinner neither at a boarding-house nor at another man's board,

but would carve his own Christmas turkey, at his own table. Of

whatever he was thinking, he did not fail to notice the house,

and to glance upward when he came to the stoop where he--was it

really he, that rough, shaggy, ragged little newsboy, ignorant

and dirty?--where he had, for the first time in his hard young

life, heard a voice address him kindly; and his glance changed to

a steady gaze of surprise when his eye caught a name on the

door-plate that was not Brandon. He looked at the number--that

was all right, but the old name was gone. He was perplexed, and

walked absently backward and forward for several moments.

"Then Mr. Stoffs was right," he said, "and he" (meaning Mr.

Brandon) "has had to come down a peg or two, or he would not have

given up his house at this season. I wonder where they have gone

now."

He remembered, at this moment, that none of the family had been

at Ames & Harden's during the whole fall, and that he had not

seen Miss Brandon since she and Mr. Irving had ridden down the

lane for the flowers that Rose had forgotten to have ready at the

usual hour. It so happened that, remembering the neglected

flowers, why they had been forgotten, and how the negligence had

been repaired, Dick's thoughts strayed from the graceful figure

of the beautiful lady, who had seemed to him more magnificent and

gentle than a vision, and turned to another figure, not tall nor

stately--to another face, not grand nor graciously sweet.

But when he met Mr. and Mrs. Stoffs, almost the first words he

said were,

"I went by the house on Fourteenth street to-day, and Mr.

Brandon's name was off the door. I had not heard of their going

away."

"It's long ago, though," said Mr. Stoffs.

"Is it any difficulty made them leave their old house?" asked

Dick.

"There's been no end of difficulties," answered the German,

puffing out great clouds of smoke between every sentence. "Things

were bad enough last summer, and when Mrs. Brandon died--"

"Mrs. Brandon dead!" exclaimed Dick.

"Oh! I forgot that was after you left; it was quite an

excitement. The horses ran away one night--those same stylish

bays of which she was so proud--when she and her daughter were

returning from some party, and she was dead before morning."

"And Miss Brandon?" Dick could hardly ask, his terror of the

answer was so great.

{668}

"Miss Brandon," answered Mr. Stoffs in a formal way, and puffing

out greater clouds of smoke than ever, "Miss Brandon was ill for

some days, and they were afraid would never get over the shock;

your fine ladies are so nervous!"

"Miss Brandon is not that kind," said Dick hastily, vexed by the

contemptuous tone of his friend's remark. "And I don't believe

fine ladies are any more--more--fussy than others."

"I suppose you know them well enough to be a certain judge," said

Carl, who seemed in a very ugly humor.

"Of course I don't know one in the world," answered Dick, with

considerable animation and a deeper color in his face. "But I

can't see the good of always running down people, just because

they happen to be richer than ourselves."

"Hush! now," interposed Mrs. Stoffs, as her husband was about

answering, "or no dinner shall you have this day. I will not let

you two quarrel."

"You were going to tell me about Mr. Brandon's difficulties,"

suggested Dick very gently, after both he and Mr. Stoffs had

assured their peacemaker that they were never in better humor

toward each other. "You were going to tell me about Mr. Brandon's

difficulties."

"Yes. His wife she died, and it was found he had used all her

money and had lost it, as he had his own; there was a failure and

everything was sold out, and so--there's an end of him."

"Did he leave New-York?"

"I don't know. Who asks what has become of a one-time rich man

after the bubble has burst?"

"I think I heard he wanted some situation to start life again,"

said Mrs. Stoffs. "Poor man!"

Mrs. Stoffs was right. Mr. Brandon had tried to start again; but

he had been a hard man in his days of prosperity, and an

unfaithful man, or he would not be as he was now; and so, many

who heartily pitied him and his family for their fall, and who

would willingly have given them assistance out of their own

pockets, did not feel justified in giving him a position that

could be better filled by some man in whom they could trust. Thus

among all his rich friends, not one of whom felt unkindly toward

him, there was none to push him a plank with which to save

himself from drowning.

Dick had learned all that his hosts could tell, and knowing well

how fearfully rapid is a man's fall when once he is over the

precipice of failure, his heart was heavier than it had ever been

for troubles of his own. He sought to sustain his part in the

conversation, feeling that a silent guest seems selfish and

ungrateful, and tried to laugh as heartily at his friend's jokes

as ever; but it was not without an effort, and his friends were

keen and saw that he was troubled.

"I do not like it," Carl grunted in his deepest tones, that

Christmas night after Dick had gone and the children were asleep;

"I do not like it."

"You must not think too hardly of him," answered Mrs. Stoffs,

who, with that sort of perception women obtain when they become

wives, knew her husband referred to Dick's troubled manner, the

anxious way in which he had asked about Miss Brandon, and his hot

resenting of Carl's careless words. "You are too hard on him,"

said Mrs. Stoffs, not because she did not equally dislike it all,

but because there would be no conversation between them if old

married folks were always to agree.

{669}

"Fine ladies, indeed!" muttered Mr. Stoffs, puffing away harder

than ever. "Miss Brandon--what for should he care if Miss Brandon

was hurt, more than for any other lady?"

"She is poor enough now," said Mrs. Stoffs musingly. "It would

not be so strange now;" and under her breath she sighed, "Poor

Rose!"

"Not that he has one thought of such a thing," Carl went on

consistently; "you women always get such ideas into your heads."

Mrs. Stoffs, being an experienced wife, raised no question about

the ownership of the "ideas," whatever they were, but sat looking

into the fire for a long time before she spoke again, and then it

was to say, "After all, I am glad we were too poor to have Rose

come up for Christmas."

"If she would not be satisfied with what we had, so am I,"

grumbled Mr. Stoffs.

"I was not thinking of that," answered his wife mildly.

"I know Heremore's never such a fool as to be thinking of one so

much above him as Miss Brandon," remarked Mr. Stoffs.

"She is not above him now that they are poor," answered his wife.

"It isn't the money that made the difference," said Carl rather

impatiently, "it's the habits that money gives. That's what is

the matter. Miss Brandon may not be half worthy of him, and yet

he would be mad to think of her; it is misery when people marry

out of their rank, misery to both."

"But if they love each other?" suggested his wife.

"That only makes the matter worse; he knows not her ways. She has

a language that is not his; if they did not care, they could go

their own ways, and seek their own. I think Heremore is a great

fool; I do!"

"I don't believe he has a thought of such a thing," said Mrs.

Stoffs; but there was a manifest question in her voice.

"If he has, he'll rue the day he thought of it first," said her

husband emphatically; and there the conversation ended; but when

Mrs. Stoffs wrote again to Mrs. Alaine, which she did not do for

some time--for to write a letter was an event in the honest

woman's life--she thought proper to give her sister a hint of

that which they had observed; and Mrs. Alaine, in her turn,

thought proper to convey the hint, in the form of information, to

Rose, who, however, answered readily,

"Love Miss Brandon? Well, mamma, and why shouldn't he?"

"Because Miss Brandon is not in the same class of life that he

is, dear."

"I am sure Mr. Heremore is better off than her father is now,"

urged Rose; "for he has a regular salary, and Mr. Brandon has

nothing left, and nobody will give him any place."

"No doubt, my child; but it is not money that makes the

difference. Miss Brandon has her ideas of life now just as she

had them when she was rich; and Mr. Heremore is what he is, and

would not be different if he were suddenly made a millionaire."

So Rose said no more.

While Mr. and Mrs. Stoffs were thus disturbed about him, Dick,

unconscious of any cause he had given for their disquietude, was

walking slowly and thoughtfully home. "Where was that little Mary

with her fair hair and gentle smile this cold Christmas night?"

was the question he kept putting to himself. It was a clear,

bright night, with the moon shining on the pavements and the

frozen earth, not at all such a night as that during which he had

slept by her father's steps, and there was no fear that her fair

head was shelterless; but still it was very sad to think of her,

whose Christmas days had been such pleasant ones, in mourning for

her mother, and perhaps in troubles such as those which men hear,

but shudder to see, clouding the girlish youth that is so short,

and should be so sunny.

{670}

"With God's help I'll find them out before to-morrow night if

they are in this city," said Dick to himself, and then walked on

more rapidly.

And he kept his word, though not without much trouble; and within

twenty-four hours he stood in front of the wretched

boarding-house to which poverty and sickness had already reduced

the family that, a few months before, had never dreamed of the

meaning of want.

But though he had found them out and stood before their door,

Dick had done and could do nothing to lessen their trouble. Mr.

Brandon had not seemed more unapproachable when, a rich man, he

scowled and said hard words to the ill-dressed errand-boy--than

he now did to the simple clerk, though Dick himself was richer

now than was the once rich merchant. Miss Brandon was, in his

eyes, now no less a lady, belonging to a sphere far above him,

than she had been when, in all the glory of wealth, youth, and

beauty, he had seen her ride down to the Stoffs's cottage to buy

flowers for her hair. It seemed to him greater presumption for

him to think of approaching her now than it would have been then,

so he passed and repassed her door, grieved for her trouble, but

more grieved, if possible, that he, with his youth and strength,

should be powerless to give her one grain of comfort. How often

and often, as he had watched her--she all unconscious of him and

his grateful reverence--in her days of prosperity, had he dreamed

of her as like some damsel of olden romance in sore distress, and

thought that never had knight rushed more joyously or more

potently to the rescue than he would to hers. Now his dream had

come to pass--she was a damsel in sore distress; but where was

his prancing steed, his burnished armor, his ready lance? Then,

as he smiled in remembrance of his boyish fancy, he suddenly

thought of Mr. Irving, the gentleman--just a boy's ideal of a

gallant knight--whom he had seen so often with Miss Brandon in

the country. He recollected well the manly bearing of that

"perfect gentleman," whom he and Rose had looked upon as a

veritable Sir Launcelot; he had seen many an act of "gentle

courtesy" shown in a grave, tender way, to the fair lady by whose

side he always rode; and where was he now that that fair lady

needed her knight as never before?

There was nothing morbid or bitter about Dick. When he asked

himself that question, it was with no thought of the common

judgment pronounced upon "summer friends." He recognized Mr.

Irving's right to aid and comfort the family of his former host.

He knew that he had wealth, position, character, and, of course,

ample influence, and not for an instant doubted that he would use

every means in his power to befriend Mr. Brandon, if only for the

sake of that beautiful daughter whom he so evidently admired.

Where, then, was Mr. Irving? If he had been here, all this could

not have happened. But as Dick asked himself this, it did not

occur to him that Mary thought as he thought: if Mr. Irving had

been here, all this would not have happened.

{671}

At last Dick, fully convinced that he would be guilty of no

presumption in speaking his mind to Mr. Irving on this subject,

cheerfully turned his steps homeward, and resolved that the first

moment he had of his own should be spent in seeking Mr. Irving,

and informing him of what he could not now be aware of, the

downfall of the Brandons. For the fall of the Brandons, as he

heard from one or two who knew, had been very great, very rapid,

and, it was feared, was not yet completed. Mr. Brandon had never

held his head up since his failure, but dragged around, shabbily

dressed, querulous and half-sick, dejected and clearly miserable.

His two sons had been given very poor situations, on very

niggardly pay, by a relative in another city, who, having always

been odiously cringing to Mr. Brandon when he had money, seemed

to delight now in heaping humiliations upon his sons. So great a

crime it was in his eyes to be better bred, better educated, and

more kindly cared for than were his own rude, blustering,

ignorant boys. If only Fred and Joe had been taught whence come

adversity and prosperity, doubtless these humiliations would have

been crowns of glory for them; but theirs had been only a vague,

dreamy sort of faith, which they never suspected had any

application to their real life. I dare say they were very idle,

useless, self-conceited and aggravating boys; but I can't help

feeling sorry for them in their troubles. Miss Brandon, Dick was

told, had not recovered her strength since the accident, and

however well she might have been, with all her accomplishments,

could not have done more than she was now doing: giving

music-lessons to a few persons residing near her new home.

But all hope of seeing Mr. Irving faded the first thing the next

day; for Dick's questions brought the unwelcome information that

he had left home in October for two years' travel in Europe, and

Dick, of course, could not presume to write to him.

----------

Porter's Human Intellect. [Footnote 272]

[Footnote 272: _The Human Intellect; with an Introduction

upon Psychology and the Soul_. By Noah Porter, D.D., Clark

Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics in Yale

College. New-York: Scribner & Co. 1868. 8vo, pp. 673.]

This formidable volume is, unless we except Professor Hickok's

work on _Rational Psychology_, the most considerable attempt

that has been made among us to construct a philosophy of the

human understanding. Professor Porter is able, patient,

industrious, and learned. He knows the literature of his subject,

and has no little facility and fairness in seizing and setting

forth the commanding points in the views and theories of others;

but, while he shows great familiarity with metaphysical and

psychological questions, and some justness and delicacy as an

analyzer of facts, he seems to us to lack the true philosophical

instinct, and that synthetic grasp of thought which seizes facts

in their principles and genetic relations, and reduces them to a

dialectic whole, without which one cannot be a philosopher.

{672}

The professor's book is a hard, book for us to read, and still

harder for us to understand. Its mechanical aspect, with three or

four different sizes of type on the same page, is repulsive to

us, and prejudices us against it. It is not absolutely dull, but

it is rather heavy, and it requires resolution to read it. It has

nothing attractive or enlivening, and it deals so much with

particulars and details that it is difficult for the reader to

carry what he reads along in his memory. Even when we have in our

minds what the author actually says, it is not easy to understand

it, or determine which of several possible meanings he adopts.

Not that his language, though seldom exact or precise, and

disfigured occasionally by needless barbarisms, and a terminology

which we hope is not yet in good usage, is not clear enough for

any one accustomed to philosophical studies, nor is it that his

sentences are involved and hard to be construed, or that his

statements, taken as isolated statements, are not intelligible;

but it is hard to determine their meaning and value from his

point of view, and in relation to his system as a whole. His book

is composed of particulars, of minute and not seldom commonplace

observations, without any perceptible scientific reduction to the

principle which generates, co-ordinates, and explains them.

It is but fair to the professor to say, in the outset, that his

book belongs to a class of books which we seldom read and

heartily detest. It is not a work of philosophy, or an attempt

even to give us a science of things in their principles and

causes, their progress and destiny, but merely a

_Wissenschaftslehre_, or science of knowing. Its problem is

not what is or what exists; but what is knowing, how do I know,

and how do I know that I know? With all deference to the

Fichteans, we venture to assert that there is and can be no

science of knowing separate from the science of things, distinct

from and independent of the subject knowing. We know, says all

that, we know that we know, says. He who knows, knows that he

knows; and if one were to doubt that knowing is knowing, we must

let him doubt, for we have only knowing with which to prove that

knowing is knowing.

We can by no possible anatomical dissection of the eye, or

physiological description of its functions, explain the secret of

external vision. We are told that we see not external objects

themselves, but their pictures painted by the light on the

retina, and it is only by them that we apprehend visible objects.

But suppose it so, it brings us no nearer to the secret of

vision. How do we see the picture? How by means of the picture

apprehend the external object? Yet the man who sees knows he

sees, and all that can be said is, that to elicit the visual act

there must be the visible subject, the visible object, and the

light which mediates between them and illuminates them both. So

is it with intellectual vision. We may ascertain some of the

conditions under which we know, but the knowing itself is to us

an inexplicable mystery. No dissection or possible inspection of

the soul can explain it, or throw the least light on it. All that

can be said is, that to the fact of knowledge, whatever its

degree or its region, there must be the intellective subject, the

intelligible object, and the intellectual light which places them

in mutual relation and illumines alike both subject and object.

Having said this, we have said all that can be said. Hence works

intended to construct the science of science, or knowledge, are

not only useless, but worse than useless; for, dealing with

abstractions which have no existence in nature, and treating them

as if real, they mislead and perplex the student, and render

obscure and doubtful what without them is clear and certain.

{673}

Professor Porter is a psychologist, and places all the activity

in the fact of knowledge on the side of the soul, even in the

intuition of principles, without which the soul can neither

exist, nor think, nor feel. His purpose in his Introduction is to

establish the unity and immateriality--spirituality, he says, of

the soul against the materialists--and to vindicate psychology

not only as a science, but as an inductive science. With regard

to the unity and immateriality of the soul, we hold with the

professor, though they are not provable or demonstrable by his

method; and we recognize great truth and force in his criticisms

on materialism, of which we have to deplore in the scientific

world, and even in popular literature, the recrudescence. That

psychology is, in a secondary sense, a science, we do not deny;

but we do deny that it is either "the _prima philosophia_"

as the professor asserts, or an inductive science, as he

endeavors to prove.

All the inductive sciences are secondary sciences, and presuppose

a first science, which is strictly the science of the sciences.

Induction, the professor himself maintains, has need of certain

first principles, or _a priori_ assumptions, which precede

and validate it. How can psychology be the _prima

philosophia_, or first philosophy, when it can be constructed

only by borrowing its principles from a higher or prior science?

Or how can it be the first philosophy, when that would suppose

that the principles which the inductive sciences demand to

validate the inductive process are contained in and derived from

the soul? Is the professor prepared to maintain that the soul is

the first principle of all the sciences? That would imply that

she is the first principle of things, of reality itself; for

science is of the real, not of the unreal. But this were pure

Fichteism, and would put the soul in the place of God. The

professor would shrink from this. He, then, must have made the

assertion that psychology is the _prima philosophia_

somewhat hastily, and without due reflection; unless indeed he

distinguishes between the first principles of science and the

first principles of things.

The inductive sciences are constructed by induction from the

observation and analysis of facts which the soul has the

appropriate organs for observing. But psychology is the science

of the soul, its nature, powers or faculties, and operations; and

if an inductive science, it must be constructed by induction from

psychical facts observed and analyzed in the soul by the soul

herself. The theory is very simple. The soul, by the external

senses, observes and analyzes the facts of the external world,

and constructs by induction the physical sciences; by her

internal sense, called consciousness, she observes and analyzes

the world within herself, and by way of induction from the facts

or phenomena she observes, constructs psychology, or the science

of herself. Unhappily for the psychologue, things do not go so

simply. To this theory there are two grave objections: First, the

soul has no internal sense by which she can observe herself, her

acts or states in herself; and second, there are no purely

psychical facts to be observed.

{674}

The professor finds the soul's faculty of observing the facts of

the internal world in consciousness, which he defines to be "the

power by which the soul knows its own acts and states." But

consciousness is not a power or faculty, but an act of knowing,

and is simply the recognition of the soul by the soul herself as

the subject acting. We perceive always, and all that is before us

within the range of our percipient powers; but we do not always

distinguish and note each object perceived, or recognize the fact

that it is we who are the subject perceiving. The fact of

consciousness is precisely in the simple perception being so

intensified and prolonged that the soul not only apprehends the

object, but recognizes itself as the subject apprehending it. It

is not, as the professor maintains at great length in Part I., a

presentative power; for it is always a reflex act, and demands

something of memory. But the recognition by the soul in her acts

as the subject acting is something very different from the soul

observing and analyzing in herself her own powers and faculties.

The soul never knows herself in herself; she only recognizes

herself under the relation of subject in her acts. Recognizing

herself only as subject, she can never cognize herself as object,

and stand, as it were, face to face with herself. She is never

her own object in the act of knowing; for she is all on the side

of the subject. She cannot be on one side subject, and on the

other object. Only God can be his own object; and his

contemplating of himself as object, theologians show us, is the

Eternal Generation of the Son, or the Word. Man, St. Thomas tells

us, is not intelligible in himself; for he is not

_intelligens_ in himself. If the soul could know herself in

herself, she could be her own object; if her own object, she

would suffice for herself; then she would be real, necessary,

self-existent, independent being; that is to say, the soul would

be God.

We deny not that the soul can know herself as manifested in her

acts, but that she can know herself in herself, and be the object

of her own thought. I can not look into my own eyes, yet I can

see my face as reflected in the glass. So the soul knows herself,

and her powers and faculties; but only as reflected from, or

mirrored in, the objects in conjunction with which she acts.

Hence the powers and faculties are not learned by any observation

of the soul herself, but from the object. The soul is a unit, and

acts always as a unit; but, though acting always in her unity,

she can act in different directions, and in relation to different

objects, and it is in this fact that originates the distinction

of powers and faculties. The distinction is not in the soul

herself, for she is a unit, but in the object, and hence the

schoolmen teach us that it is the object that determines the

faculty.

It is not the soul in herself that we must study in order to

ascertain the faculties, but the soul in her operations, or the

objects in relation with which she acts. We know the soul has the

power to know, by knowing, to will, by willing, to feel, by

feeling. While, then, the soul has power to know herself so far

as mirrored by the objects, she has no power to observe and

analyze herself in herself, and therefore no power of direct

observation and analysis of the facts from which psychology, as

an inductive science, must be constructed.

But there are no such facts as is assumed to be observed and

analyzed. The author speaks of objects which are purely

psychical, which have no existence out of the soul herself; but

there are and can be no facts, or acts, produced by the soul's

own energy alone. The soul, for the best of all possible reasons,

never acts alone, for she does not exist alone.

{675}

"Thought," says Cousin, "is a fact that is composed of three

simultaneous and indissoluble elements, the subject, the object,

and the form. The subject is always the soul, [_le Moi_,]

the object is something not the soul, [_le non-Moi_,] and

the form is always the relation of the two." The object is

inseparable from the subject as an element of the thought, but it

exists distinct from and independent of the soul, and when it is

not thought as well as when it is; otherwise it could not be

object, since the soul is all on the side of the subject. The

soul acts only in conjunction with the object, because she is not

sufficient for herself, and therefore cannot suffice for her own

activity. The object, if passive, is as if it were not, and can

afford no aid to the fact of thought. It must, therefore, be

active, and then the thought will be the joint product of the two

activities. It is a grave mistake, then, to suppose that the

activity in thought is all on the side of the soul. The soul

cannot think without the concurrent activity of that which is not

the soul. There is no product possible in any order without two

factors placed in relation with each other. God, from the

plenitude of his being, contains both factors in his own essence;

but in creatures they are distinct from and independent of each

other.

We do not forget the _intellectus agens_ of St. Thomas, but

it is not quite certain what he meant by it. The holy doctor does

not assert it as a faculty of the soul, and represent its

activity as purely psychical. Or if it be insisted that he does,

he at least nowhere asserts, implies, or intimates that it is

active without the concurrence of the object: for he even goes so

far as to maintain that the lower acts only as put in motion by

the higher, and the terrestrial by the celestial. Hence the

_praemotio physica_ of the Thomists, and the necessity in

conversion of praevenient grace--_gratia praeveniens_.

But even granting that there is the class of facts alleged, and

that we have the power to observe and analyze them, as, in the

language of Cousin, "they pass over the field of consciousness,"

we cannot by induction attain to their principle and causes; for

induction itself, without the first principles of all science,

not supplied by it, can give us only a classification,

generalization, an hypothesis, or an abstract theory, void of all

reality. The universal cannot be concluded, by way of induction,

from particulars, any more than particulars can be concluded, by

way of deduction, from the universal. Till validated in the

_prima philosophia_, or referred to the first principles,

without which the soul can neither act nor exist, the

classifications and generalizations attained to by induction are

only facts, only particulars, from which no general conclusion

can be drawn. Science is knowledge indeed; but the term is

generally used in English to express the reduction of facts and

particulars to their principles and causes. But in all the

secondary sciences the principles and causes are themselves only

facts, till carried up to the first principles and causes of all

the real and all the knowable. Not without reason, then, has

theology been called the queen of the sciences, nor without

warrant that men, who do not hold that all change is progress,

maintain that the displacement, in modern times, of this queen

from her throne has had a deleterious effect on science, and

tended to dissipate and enfeeble the human mind itself.

{676}

We have no philosophers nowadays of the nerve of Plato and

Aristotle, the great Christian fathers, or the mediaeval doctors,

none of whom ever dreamed of separating theology and philosophy.

Even the men of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had a

grasp of thought, a robust vigor of mind, and a philosophic

insight into the truth of things and their higher relations that

you look in vain for in the philosophers of the eighteenth

century and of our own. But this by the way. When things are at

the worst, they sometimes mend.

Psychology, not psychologism, is a science, though not an

inductive science, nor a science that can be attained to by the

study of the soul and her phenomena in the bosom of

consciousness. The psychologists--those, we mean, who adopt the

psychological method, a method seldom adopted before the famous

_cogito, ergo sum_ of Descartes--seem incapable of

comprehending that only the real is cognizable, and that

abstractions are not real but unreal; and therefore that the

first principles of science must be real, not abstract, and the

first principles of things. Thus Professor Porter appears to see

no real connection between them. True, he says, (p. 64,)

"Knowledge and being are correlatives. There must be being in

order that there may be knowledge. There can be no knowledge

which is not the knowledge of being. Subjectively viewed, to know

implies certainty; objectively, it requires reality. An act of

knowing in which there is no certainty in the agent, and no

reality in the object, is impossible in conception and in fact."

This would seem to assert that only being can be known, or that

whatever is known is real being, which is going too far and

falling into ontologism. Only being is intelligible _per

se_; but existences which are from being and participate of

being, though not intelligible in or by themselves, since they do

not exist in and by themselves, may yet be really known by the

light of being which creates them. We know _by_ being, as

well as being itself.

But be not alarmed. The professor's being, the only object of

knowledge, his reality without which there is no cognizable

object, is nothing very formidable; for he tells us, in smaller

type, on the same page, that "we must distinguish different kinds

of objects and different kinds of reality. They may be _formed

by the mind, and exist_ [only] _for the mind that forms

them_, or they may exist in fact and space for all minds, and

yet in each case they are equally objects. Their reality may be

mental and internal, or material and external, but in each case

it is equally a reality. The thought that darts into the fancy

and is gone as soon, the illusion that crosses the brain of the

lunatic, the vision that frightens the ghost-seer, the spectrum

which the camera paints on the screen, the reddened landscape

seen through a colored lens, the yellow objects which the

jaundiced eye cannot avoid beholding, _each as really

exists_ as does the matter of the solid earth, or the eternal

forces of the cosmical system." The "eternal forces" of the

cosmical system can be only God, who only is eternal. So the

illusions of fancy, the hallucinations of the lunatic, and the

eternal, self-existent, necessary being whom we call God, and who

names himself I AM THAT AM, SUM QUI SUM, are alike being, and

equally real!

The learned author tells us elsewhere that we call by the name

being beings of very different kinds and sorts, owing to the

poverty of our language, which supplies but one name for them. He

will permit us to say that we suspect the poverty is not in the

language.

{677}

We have in the language two words which serve us to mark the

precise difference between that which is in, from, and by itself

alone, and that which exists in, from, and by being. The first is

_being_, the other is _existence_. Being is properly

applied only to God, who is, not Supreme Being, as is often said,

but the one only being, the only one that can say, I AM THAT AM,

or QUI EST; and it shows how strictly language represents the

real order that in no tongue can we make an assertion without the

verb TO BE, that is, only by being, that is, again, only by God

himself. Existence explains itself. Existences are not being,

but, as the _ex_ implies, are _from_ being, that is,

from him in whom is their being, as Saint Paul says, "For in him

we live, and move, and are," "_vivimus, et movemur, et

sumus_." Reality includes being and all that is from and by

being, or simply being and existences. Nothing else is real or

conceivable; for, apart from God and what he creates, or besides

God and his creatures, there is nothing, and nothing is nothing,

and nothing is not intelligible or cognizable.

Dr. Porter understands by reality or being only what is an object

of knowledge, or of the mind in knowing, though it may have no

existence out of the mind, or, as say the schoolmen, _a parte

rei_. Hence, though the soul is certain that the object exists

relatively to her act of knowing, she is not certain that it is

something existing in nature. How, then, prove that there is

anything to correspond to the mental object, idea, or conception?

In his Second Part, which treats of the representative power, he

tells us that the objects represented and cognized in the

representation are purely psychical, and exist only in the soul

and for the soul alone. These, then, do not exist in nature; they

are, in the ordinary use of the term, unreal, illusory, and

chimerical, as the author himself confesses. If the object of

knowledge can be in any instance unreal, chimerical, illusory, or

with no existence except in and for the soul itself, why may it

not be so in every instance, and all our knowledge be an

illusion? How prove that in any fact of knowledge there is

cognition of an object that exists distinct from and independent

of the subject? Here is the _pons asinorum_ of exclusive

psychologists. There is no crossing the bridge from the

subjective to the objective, for there is no bridge there, and

subject and object must both be given simultaneously in one and

the same act, or neither is given.

Dr. Porter, indeed, gives the subjective and what he calls the

objective, together, in one and the same thought; but he leaves

the way open for the question, whether the object does or does

not exist distinct from and independent of the subject. This is

the difficulty one has with Locke's _Essay on the

Understanding_. Locke makes ideas the immediate object of the

cognitive act; for he defines them to be "that with which the

mind is immediately conversant." If the soul can elicit the

cognitive act with these ideas, which it is not pretended are

things, how prove that there is any real world beyond them? It

has never been done, and never can be done; for we have only the

soul, for whose activity the _idea_ or concept suffices,

with which to do it, and hence the importance to psychologists of

the question, How do we know that we know? and which they can

answer only by a paralogism, or assuming the reality of knowledge

with which to prove knowledge real.

For the philosopher there is no such question, and nothing

detracts so much from the philosophical genius of the illustrious

Balmes as his assertion that all philosophy turns on the question

of certainty.

{678}

The philosopher, holding that to know is to know, has, after

knowing, or having thought the object, no question of certainty

to ask or to answer. The certainty that the object exists in

nature is in the fact that the soul thinks it. The object is

always a force or activity distinct from and independent of the

subject, and since it is an activity it must be either real being

or real existence.

The error of the author, as of all psychologers, is not in

assuming that the soul cannot think without the concurrence of

the object, or that the object is not really object in relation

to the soul's cognitive power, but in supposing that the soul can

find the object in that which has no real existence. He assumes

that abstractions or mental conceptions, which have no real

existence aside from the concrete or reality from which the mind

forms them, may be real objects of the soul in the fact of

knowledge. But no abstractions or conceptions exist _a parte

rei_. There are white things and round things, but no such

existence as whiteness or roundness. These and other abstractions

are formed by the mind operating on the concretes, and taking

them under one aspect, or generalizing a quality they have in

common with all concretes of their class, and paying no heed to

anything else in the concrete object. But these abstractions or

general conceptions are cognizable and apprehended by the mind

only in the apprehension of their concretes, white or round

things. They are, as abstracted from white things or round

things, no more objects of thought or of thought-knowledge than

of sensible perception. We speak of abstractions which are simply

nullities, not of genera and species, or universals proper, which

are not abstractions but real; yet even these do not exist apart

from the individual. They and their individuals subsist always

together in a synthetic relation, and though distinguishable are

never separable. The species is not a mere name, a mere mental

conception or generalization; it is real, but exists and is known

only as individualized.

The unreal is unintelligible, and, like all negation, is

intelligible only in the reality denied. The soul, then, can

think or know only the real, only real being, or real existences

by the light of real being. If the soul can know only the real,

she can know things only in their real order, and consequently

the order of the real and of the knowable is the same, and the

principles of the real are the principles of science. The soul is

an intelligent existence, and the principles, causes, and

conditions of her existence are the principles, causes, and

conditions of her intelligence, and therefore of her actual

knowledge. We have, then, only to ascertain the principles of the

real to determine the principles of science. The principles of

the real are given us in the first verse of Genesis: "In the

beginning God created heaven and earth," and in the first article

of the Creed, "I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth,

and all things visible and invisible." Or, as stated in strictly

scientific terms, as affirmed in intuition, Being creates

existences. The real and necessary being given in the scientific

formula or intuition is indeed God; but this is not intuitively

known, and can be known only discursively or by contemplation and

reflection. We must not, then, in stating the first principles of

the real, and of knowledge as given in intuition, use the term

God, but being. We know by intuition being, but do not by

intuition know that being is God. Hence the mistake of those who

say we have intuition of God, or know by intuition that God is.

{679}

We have intuition of that which is God, but not that what is

given is God. Ontology is a most essential part of philosophy;

but exclusive ontologists are as much sophists as are exclusive

psychologists.

The first principles of reality are being, existence, and the

creative act of being, whence the ideal formula or judgment,

Being creates existences. This is the _primum_ in the real

order. All that is real and not necessary and self-sufficing

being must be from being; for without real uncreated being there

can be nothing, and existences are something only in so far as

they participate of being. Things can exist from being, or hold

from it, only by virtue of its creative act, which produces them

by its own energy from nothing, and sustains them as existent.

There is only the creative act by which existences can proceed

from being. Emanation, generation, evolution, which have been

asserted as the mode of procession of existences, give nothing

really or substantially distinguishable from being. Existences,

then, can really proceed from being only by the creative act,

and, indeed, only by the free creative act of being; for

necessary creation is no creation at all, and can be only a

development or evolution of being itself. In theological

language, then, God and creation include all the real; what is

not God is creature or existence, and what is not creature or

existence is God. There is no reality which is neither God nor

creature, no _tertium quid_ between being and existence, or

between existence and nothing. The _primum_ of the real is,

then, the ideal formula or divine judgment, _Ens creat

existentias_, for it affirms in their principle and their real

relation all that is and all that exists. This formula is a

proper judgment, for it has all the terms and relations of a

judgment, subject, predicate, and copula. Being is the subject,

existences is the predicate, and the creative act the copula,

which at once unites the predicate to the subject and

distinguishes it from it. It is divine, because it is _a

priori_, the _primum_ of the real; and as only the real

is intelligible or knowable, it must precede as its principle,

type, and condition, every judgment that can be formed by an

existence or creature, and therefore can be only the judgment of

God affirming his own being and creating the universe and all

things, visible and invisible, therein.

Now, as the soul can only know the real, this divine judgment

must be not only the _primum_ of the real, but of the

knowable; and since the soul can know only as she exists, in the

real relations in which she stands, and knows only by the aid of

the object on which she depends for her existence and activity,

it follows that this judgment is the _primum scientificum_,

or the principle of all real or possible science.

Is it asked, How is this known or proved, if not by psychological

observation and analysis? The answer is, by the analysis of

thought, which discloses the divine judgment as its idea, or

necessary and apodictic element. This is not psychologism nor the

adoption of the psychological method. Psychologism starts from

the assumption that thought, as to the activity that produces it,

whatever may or may not be its object, is purely psychical, and

that the ontological, if obtainable at all, is so by an induction

from psychological facts. The first assumption is disproved by

the fact just shown, that thought is not produced or producible

by the psychical activity alone, but by the joint action of the

two factors subject and object, in which both are affirmed.

{680}

The other assumption is disposed of by the fact that what is

found in the analysis of thought is not particular facts or

phenomena from which the first principles are concluded by way of

induction, which could give us only a generalization or

abstraction, but the first principles themselves intuitively

given.

Philosophers generally assert that certain conditions precedent,

or certain ideas _a priori_, are necessary to every fact of

experience or actual cognition. Kant, in his masterly _Critik

der reinen Vernunft_, calls them sometimes cognitions,

sometimes synthetic judgments, _a priori_, but fails to

identify them with the divine judgment, and holds them to be

necessary forms of the subject. Cousin asserts them and calls

them necessary and absolute ideas, but fails to identify them

with the real, and even denies that they can be so identified.

Reid recognized them, and called them the first principles of

human belief, sometimes the principles of common sense, after

Father Bouffier, which all our actual knowledge presupposes and

must take for granted. Professor Porter also recognizes them,

holds them to be intuitively given, calls them certain necessary

assumptions, first truths or principles without which no science

is possible, but fails to identify them with the divine judgment,

and seems to regard them as abstract principles or ideas, as if

abstractions could subsist without their concretes, or principles

ever be abstract. We deny that they are abstract ideas, necessary

assumptions, or necessary forms of the understanding or cognitive

faculty, and hold them to be the principles of things, alike of

the real and the knowable, without which no fact exists and no

act of knowledge is possible. They cannot be created by the mind,

nor formed by the mind operating on the concrete objects of

existence, nor in any manner obtained by our own mental activity;

for without them there is no mind, no mental activity, no

experience. Dr. Porter, after Reid, Kant, Cousin, and others, has

clearly seen this, and conclusively proved it--no philosopher

more conclusively--and it is one of the merits of his book. He

therefore justly calls them intuitions, or principles intuitively

given; yet either we do not understand him, or he regards them as

abstract truths or abstract principles. But truths and principles

are never abstract, and only the concrete or real can be

intuitively given. Those intuitions, then, must be either real

being or contingent existences; not the latter, for they all bear

the marks of necessity and universality; then they must be the

real and necessary being, and therefore the principles of things,

and not simply principles of science. Dr. Porter makes them real

principles in relation to the mental act; but we do not find that

he identifies them with the principles of the real. He doubtless

holds that they represent independent truths, and truths which

are the principles of things; but that he holds them, as present

to the mind, to be the principles themselves, we do not find.

Dr. Porter's error in his Part IV., in which he discusses and

defines intuitions, and which must be interpreted by the

foregoing parts of his work, appears to us to be precisely in his

taking principle to mean the starting-point of the soul in the

fact of knowledge, and distinguishing it from the principle of

the real order. He distinguishes between the object _in

mente_ and the object _in re_, and holds that the former

is by no means identical with the latter. He thus supposes a

difference between the scientific order and the real, and

therefore that the principle of the one is not necessarily the

principle of the other.

{681}

This is to leave the question still open, whether there is any

real order to respond to the scientific order, and to cast a

doubt on the objective validity of all our knowledge. The divine

judgment, or ideal formula, we have shown, is alike the _primum

raale_ and the _primum scientificum_, and therefore

asserts that the principles of the two orders are identical, and

that the scientific must follow the real, for only the real is

knowable. Hence science is and must be objectively certain.

The intuitive affirmation of the formula, being creates

existences, creates, places the soul, and constitutes her

intelligent existence. The author rightly says every thought is a

judgment. There is no judgment without the copula, and the only

real copula is the copula of the divine judgment or intuition,

that is, the creative act of being. Being creating the soul is

the principle of her existence; and as we have shown that she can

act only as she exists, the principle of her existence is the

principle of her acts, and therefore of her knowing, or the fact

of knowledge. There is, then, no thought or judgment without the

creative act for its copula. The two orders, then, are united and

made identical in principle by the creative act of being. The

creative act unites the acts of the soul, as the soul itself, to

being.

The difficulty some minds feel in accepting this conclusion grows

out of a misapprehension of the creative act, which they look

upon as a past instead of a present act. The author holds that

what is past has ceased to exist, and that the objects we recall

in memory are "created a second time." He evidently misapprehends

the real character of space and time. These are not existences,

entities, as say the scholastics, but simple relations, with no

existence, no reality, apart from the _relata_, or the

related. Things do not exist in space and time; for space and

time simply mark their relation to one another of coexistence and

succession. Past and future are relations that subsist in or

among creatures, and have their origin in the fact that creatures

as second causes and in relation to their own acts are

progressive. On the side of God, there is no past, no future; for

his act has no progression, and is never in _potentia ad

actum_. It is a complete act, and in it all creatures are

completed, consummated, in their beginning, and hence the past

and the future are as really existent as what we call the

present. The Creator is not a _causa transiens_, that

creates the effect and leaves it standing alone, but a _causa

manens_, ever present in the effect and creating it.

Creation is not in space and time, but originates the relations

so-called. The creative act, therefore, can never be a past or a

future act, an act that has produced or that will produce the

effect, but an act that produces it always here and now. The act

of conservation, as theologians teach, is identically the act of

creation. God preserves or upholds us in existence by creating us

at each instant of our lives. The universe, with all it contains,

is a present creation. In relation to our acts as our acts or our

progressiveness toward our final cause or last end, the universe

_was_ created and will remain as long as the Creator wills;

but in relation to God it is created here and now, and as newly

created at this moment as when the sons of the morning sang

together over its production, by the divine energy alone, from

nothing; and the song ceases not; they are now singing it.

{682}

There is nothing but this present creative act that stands

between existences and nothing. The continuity of our existence

is in the fact that God creates and does not cease to create us.

We have only to eliminate from our minds the conceptions that

transport the relations of space and time to the Creator, or

represent them as relations between Creator and creature, where

the only relation is that of cause and effect, and to regard the

creative act as having no relations of space and time, to be able

to understand how the divine judgment, intuitively affirmed, is

at once the principle of the real and of the scientific, and the

creative act, the copula of being and existence, is the copula of

every judgment or thought, as is proved by the fact already

noted, that in no language can an assertion be made without the

verb _to be_, that is, without God.

Dr. Porter, engaged in constructing not the science of things,

but a science of knowing--a _Wissenschaftslehre_--has

apparently been content with the intuitions as principles or laws

of science, without seeking to identify them with the real. He is

a doctor of divinity, and cannot intend to deny, with Sir William

Hamilton and the Positivists, that ontology can be any part of

human science. The Positivists, with whom, in this respect, Sir

William Hamilton, who has finished the Scottish school, fully

agrees, assert that the whole field of science is restricted to

positive facts and the induction of their laws, and that their

principles and causes, the ontological truths, if such there be,

belong to the unknowable, thus reducing, with Sir William

Hamilton, science to nescience. But though Dr. Porter probably

holds that there is an ontological reality, and knows perfectly

well that it cannot be concluded from psychical phenomena, either

by way of induction or of deduction, he yet seems unable or

unwilling to say that the mind has in intuition direct and

immediate apprehension of it. The first and necessary truths, or

the necessary assumptions, as he calls them, which the mind is

compelled to make in knowing particulars, such as "what is, is,"

"the same thing cannot both be and not be at the same time,"

"whatever begins to exist must have a cause," etc., are, in his

doctrine, abstract ideas, which, though they may represent a

reality beyond themselves--and he tries to prove that they

do--are yet not that reality itself. These ideas he states,

indeed, in an abstract form, in which they are not real; but they

are all identified in the ideal formula, or divine judgment,

which is not an abstract but a real, concrete judgment. He holds

them to be intuitions, indeed; but intuition, in his view, simply

stands opposed to discursion, and he makes it an act of the soul

immediately affirming the object, not the act of the object

immediately affirming itself by its own creative act. Till being,

in its creative act, affirms itself, the soul does not exist; and

the intuitive act is that which creates it, and creates it

intelligent. The intuition cannot, then, be the act of the soul,

unless you suppose the soul can act without existing, or know

without intelligence. If we make intuition the act of the soul,

and suppose the necessary truths intuitively given are

abstractions or representative ideas, how can we know that there

is any reality represented by them? The old question again: How

pass from the subjective to the objective?--from the scientific

to the real?

{683}

The doctrine of representative ideas comes from the scholastics,

and most probably from the misapprehension of their philosophy.

Plato maintained that we know by similitude, which similitude he

called _idea_. No doubt, Plato often means by _idea_

something else; but this is one of the senses in which he uses

the term. This idea, with the peripatetics, becomes in sensibles

the phantasm, in intelligibles the intelligible _species_.

The intelligible _species_ was assumed as something

mediating between the soul and the intelligible object. But

though they asserted it as a medium, they never made it the

object cognized. In their language, it was the objectum

_quo_, not the objectum _quod_; and St. Thomas teaches

expressly that the mind does not terminate in the _species_,

but attains the intelligible object itself. In this magazine for

May, 1867, in an article entitled "An Old Quarrel," we showed

that what the scholastics probably had in mind when they spoke of

the intelligible _species_, is adequately expressed by what

we, after the analogy of external vision, call the light, which

illuminates at once the subject and object, and renders the one

cognitive and the other cognizable. This light is not furnished

by the mind, but by being itself light, and the source of all

light, present in every fact of knowledge in the creative act.

The Scottish school has made away with the phantasms, and proved

that, in what our author calls sense-perception, we perceive not

a phantasm, but the real external object itself; but in the

intelligible or supersensible world, this direct apprehension of

the object Dr. Porter appears not to admit. He consciously or

unconsciously interposes a _mundus logicus_ between the mind

and the _mundus physicus_. The categories are with him

abstract relations, and logic is a mere formal science. This is

evident from Part III., in which he treats of what he calls

"thought-knowledge." But the categories are not abstract forms of

thought, but real relations of things; logic is founded in the

principle and constitution of things, not simply in the

constitution and laws of the human mind. Its type and origin are

in being itself, in the Most Holy Trinity. The creative act is

the copula of every strictly logical judgment. The Creator is

logic, the [Greek text], or, as Plato would say, logic in itself,

and therefore all the works of God are strictly logical, and

form, _mediante_ his creative act, a dialectic whole with

himself. Whatever does not conform to the truth and order of

things is illogical, a sophism; and every sophism sins against

the essence of God, as well as against the constitution of the

human mind. Psychologism is a huge sophism; for it assumes that

the soul is being, and can exist and act independently when it is

only a created, dependent existence; that it is God, when it is

only man. Satan was the first psychologist we read of. Ontologism

is also a sophism of very much the same sort. Psychologism

asserts that man is God; ontologism asserts that God is man. This

is all the difference between them, and they terminate at the

same point. Existences cannot be logically deduced from being,

because being, sufficing for itself, cannot be constrained to

create either by extrinsic or by intrinsic necessity. Existences

are not necessarily involved in the very conception of being, but

are contingent, and dependent on the free-will of the Creator.

God cannot be concluded by induction from psychological facts;

for the universal cannot be concluded from the particular, nor

the necessary from the contingent.

{684}

Both the ontological _primum_ and the psychological must be

given intuitively and in their real synthesis, or no science of

either is possible. The mind must take its starting-point and

principle of science from neither separately, but from the real

synthesis of the two, as in the ideal formula. The attempt to

construct an exclusively ontological or an exclusively

psychological science is as absurd and as sophistical as the

attempt to express a judgment without the copula, or to construct

a syllogism without the middle term. The real copula of the

judgment, the real _medius terminus_ that unites the two

extremes of the syllogism, is the creative act of being.

All Gentile philosophy failed, because it failed to recognize the

creative act. Outside of Judaism, the tradition of creation was

lost in the ancient world. In vain will you seek a recognition of

it in Plato or Aristotle, or in any of the old Gentile

philosophers. In its place you find only emanation, generation,

or formation. The error of the Gentiles reappears in our modern

philosophers, who--since Descartes detached philosophy from

theology, of which it is simply the rational element--are

endeavoring to construct science and the sciences without the

creative act, and if they escape pantheism or atheism, it is by

the strength of their faith in revelation, not by the force of

their logic. Dr. Porter really attempts to construct the

philosophy of the human intellect, unconsciously certainly, on

purely atheistic or nihilistic principles; that is, without any

principles at all. He, of course, believes in God, believes that

God made the world; but most likely he believes he made it as the

watch-maker makes a watch, so that when wound up and started it

will go of itself--till it runs down. This is a very wide-spread

error, and an error that originates with so-called philosophers,

not with the people. Hence we find scientific men in large

numbers who look upon the world God has made as a huge machine;

and now that it is made, as independent of him, capable of going

ahead on its own hook, and even able to bind him by its laws, and

deprive him of his freedom of action, as if it were or could be

anything but what he at each moment makes it. He ought, as a

doctor of divinity, to understand that there can be no science

without the efficacious presence of God, who created the soul,

and none without his presence creating it now, and by his light

rendering it intelligent. To construct science without God in his

creative act as the principle, is to begin in sophism and end in

nihilism.

We need hardly say that, in asserting the divine judgment or

ideal formula as the principle of all science, and as the

necessary and apodictic element of every fact of knowledge, we do

not pretend that the mind is able in the first moment of

intellectual life to say to itself, or to others, God creates

existences. This is the real formula which expresses in principle

the entire real order, but it is the formula to which the

principles given in intuition are reduced by reflection. There

are a large number of minds, and among them our illustrious Yale

Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics, who do not

recognize the identity of being with God, or are aware that the

intuition is of that which is God. A still larger number do not

distinguish the so-called necessary ideas from the contingent

objects of experience cognizable only by them, and very few, even

among professors of philosophy, ever identify these ideas--the

necessary, the universal, the eternal, and the immutable--with

real being, or reflect that they cannot subsist as abstractions,

and that the universal, the eternal, the immutable, the

necessary, of which we have intuition in all our mental acts, is

and must be real, necessary, universal, eternal, and immutable

being, that is to say, God himself.

{685}

Few reflect far enough to perceive that in intuition the object

is real being; and the number of men who distinctly recognize all

the terms of the formula in their real relation is a very small

minority, and every day growing smaller.

But the intuition is not, as Dr. Porter supposes, of ideas which

lie latent or dormant in the mind till occasion wakes them up and

calls them into action; but they are the first principles, or

rather the principles from which the mind proceeds in all its

intellectual acts. They are intuitively affirmed to the mind in

the creative act, and are ever present and operative; but we

become aware of them, distinguish them, and what they imply or

connote, only by reflection, by contemplating them as they are

held up before the mind, or sensibly represented to it, in

language. Though the formula is really the _primum

philosophicum_, we attain to it, or are masters of what is

really presented in intuition, and are able to say, being is God,

and God creates existences, only at the end of philosophy, or as

its last and highest achievement.

The principles are given in the very constitution of the mind,

and are present to it from its birth, or, if you will, from the

first instant of its conception; but they are by no means what

Descartes and others have called _innate ideas_. Descartes

never understood by _idea_ the intelligible object itself,

but a certain mental representation of it. The idea was held to

be rather the image of the thing than the thing itself. It was a

_tertium quid_ somewhere between real and unreal, and was

regarded as the medium through which the mind attained to the

object. In this sense we recognize no ideas. In the fact of

knowledge, what we know is the object itself, not its mental

representation. We take _idea_ or the ideal in the objective

sense, and understand by it the immediate and the necessary,

permanent, immutable object of intuition, and it is identical

with what we have called the _primum philosophicum_, or

divine judgment, which precedes the mind's own activity. Hence we

call that judgment the "ideal formula." With this view of idea or

the ideal, analogous, at least, to one of the senses of Plato,

from whom we have the word, it is evident that the Cartesian

doctrine of innate ideas, which was afterward changed to that of

innate faculties, cannot find in us an advocate.

The formula is ideal and apodictic, but it is not the entire

object of the cognitive act. It is that which precedes and

renders possible experience, or what Kant calls synthetic

judgments _a posteriori_. We have said the soul can know

only as she exists, and that whatever object she depends on for

her existence must she depend on for her acts, and it enters into

all her thoughts or facts of knowledge. The soul depends for

existence on God, on humanity and nature. In the formula, we have

only the ideal principle of man and nature, and therefore the

ideal formula, while it furnishes the principle and light which

render knowledge possible, does not supersede experience, or

actual knowledge acquired by the exercise of the soul and her

faculties. Here the soul proceeds by analysis and synthesis, by

observation and induction, or deduction, according to the nature

of the subject. We do not quarrel with the inductive sciences,

nor question their utility; we only maintain that they are not

sciences till carried up to the principles of all real science

presented to the mind in intuition. Induction is proper in

constructing the physical sciences, though frequently improperly

applied; but it is inapplicable, as my Lord Bacon held, in the

construction of philosophy; for in that we must start from the

ideal formula, and study things in their principles and in their

real synthesis.

{686}

We have got through only the author's Introduction, yet that has

brought up nearly all the salient points of his entire volume.

Here we might stop, and assuredly should stop, if we had no

higher object in view than to criticise its author, or simply to

refute his psychological method. We believe one of the first

steps toward arresting the atheistical or pantheistical tendency

of the age, and of bringing the mind back to truth and the logic

of things, is to set forth and vindicate sound philosophy, the

philosophy which in substance has always been preserved in the

Christian church. To use up an author or to denounce a false

system is a small affair. The only solid refutation of error is

in presenting the truth it impugns. As there are several

questions of importance raised by the author on which we have

hardly touched, we propose to return to the book and consider

them at our earliest convenience.

----------

The Catholic View Of Public Education

In The United States.

[We republish the following article from _The American

Educational Monthly_, with the permission of the editor, on

account of the importance of the subject, the intrinsic value of

the article, and to aid in giving it a wide circulation. ED. C.

W.]