ROEHAMPTON I 
 PRINTED BY JOHN GRIFFIN. 
 
STONYHURST PHILOSOPHICAL SERIES 
 
 NATURAL THEOLOGY 
 
 BY 
 
 BERNARD BOEDDER, SJ, 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO 
 
 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON 
 
 FOURTH AVENUE & S OTH STREET, NEW YORK 
 
 BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 
 
 1915 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE manual of Natural Theology which now makes 
 its appearance before the English-speaking public, 
 existed in manuscript substantially ready for print in 
 the year 1889. Through a combination of untoward 
 circumstances its publication has been delayed till 
 now. The delay in its appearance has not been 
 without advantage for the book itself. Its subject 
 makes it most suitable to be the last in order of 
 publication among those volumes of the Stonyhurst 
 Series which are concerned about Speculative 
 Philosophy; for though the utmost care has been 
 taken to make it intelligible even to those who 
 have studied no other branch of Philosophy, yet 
 minds prepared for the reading of this manual by 
 a careful perusal of its companions in the depart- 
 ment of Speculative Philosophy, will arrive at a 
 far deeper and fuller understanding of its contents. 
 The better readers are versed in the laws of right 
 reasoning by the study of Logic, the more 
 thoroughly convinced they are of the absolute 
 
 358886 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 necessity for the human mind to admit the exist- 
 ence, sources, and criteria of Certitude, as laid 
 down in the First Principles of our Series, the 
 greater diligence they have bestowed upon acquir- 
 ing a firm grasp of the fundamental notions and 
 principles treated of in General Metaphysics, 
 and the more solid the knowledge is they have 
 gained of the moral freedom, spirituality, and 
 immortality of the human soul expounded in 
 Psychology, the greater will be their ability to 
 appreciate and to turn to practical account the 
 doctrine about God which is explained and de- 
 fended in the present volume. 
 
 This manual embraces not only those questions 
 which in our Latin compendia usually are treated 
 of under the heading Theologia Natnralis, but also 
 those which commonly are discussed as a part of 
 Cosmologia. This was done in order to give the 
 necessary completeness to the treatment of my 
 subject. Our English volumes are in the first 
 place intended to help those who do not intend 
 to study in detail Catholic Theology to a sound 
 understanding of the most important questions of 
 Philosophy, and particularly to show them the way 
 to judge intelligently and to solve clearly modern 
 difficulties against those natural truths which form 
 the basis of Christianity. 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 In the celebrated Catholic controversy about the 
 manner of Divine foreknowledge of and concur- 
 rence in human actions, it has been my endeavour 
 to give a good account of the opposite opinions and 
 of my own position. I have purposely avoided 
 quotations, as often as I could conveniently 
 without doing harm to the cause of truth, in 
 order to eliminate any element of prejudice or 
 party strife. 
 
 B. BOEDDER. 
 
 St. Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst 
 April 4, 1891. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY . ' * 
 
 BOOK I. -OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 CHAP. I. VIEWS OF MONOTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHERS ON THE 
 NATURAL FOUNDATION OF A REASONABLE BELIEF 
 IN GOD. REFUTATION OF ONTOLOGISM AND OF 
 THE SO-CALLED ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT . 8 
 
 ,, II. PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF AN INTELLIGENT 
 
 FIRST CAUSE OR PERSONAL GOD . . -3 
 
 ,, III. ON THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE PER- 
 SONAL GOD . . .... 85 
 
 ,, IV. THE FUNDAMENTAL RELATION OF GOD TO THE 
 WORLD. REFUTATION OF PANTHEISM. DOCTRINE 
 OF* CREATION .... . . 109 
 
 ,, V. SOLUTION OF DIFFICULTIES AGAINST THE FUNDA- 
 MENTAL TRUTHS OF NATURAL THEOLOGV . . 149 
 
 BOOK II. THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA ......... 233 
 
 CHAP. I. THE IMMUTABILITV OF GOD .... 238 
 
 ,, II. THE ETERNITY OF GOD 243 
 
 ,, III. THE IMMENSITY OF GOD . . . - 249 
 
 ,, IV. THE DIVINE INTELLECT . . ... 256 
 
 ,, V. THE DIVINE WILL . . 290 
 
 ,, VI. THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD . . . 3*9 
 ,, VII. THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD . . -325 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 BQOK III. -THE ACTION OF GOD UPON 
 THIS WORLD. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PROLEGOMENA. CONNECTION OF THIS BOOK WITH THE TWO 
 
 PRECEDING ....... 344 
 
 CHAP. I. DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE . . 348 
 ,, II. DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND ITS RELATION TO EXISTING 
 
 EVIL 381 
 
 ,, III. POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE . 412 
 
 APPENDIX I. ST. THOMAS AND PREMOTION .... 439 
 ,, II. EXAMINATION OF PROPOSITIONS I. VI. IN 
 
 SPINOZA'S ETHICS ...... 449 
 
 ,, III. IMMEDIATE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD IN THE 
 
 PATRISTIC WRITINGS 461 
 
 IV. ST. THOMAS AND THE IDEA OF INDETERMINATE 
 
 BEING . ...... 463 
 
 ,, V. THE LOGICAL CONNECTION BETWEEN THE UNITY 
 
 AND INFINITY OF GOD 465 
 
 ,, VI. ON THE OPTIMISM OF ST. THOMAS . . 467 
 
NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 . NATURAL THEOLOGY is the science of God, so far 
 as God can be known by the light of our reason 
 alone. In order to make the meaning of this 
 definition clear, we have first to explain what we 
 understand by Theology ; then what signification we 
 attach to the compound term Natural Theology; and 
 finally, what right we have to call Natural Theology 
 a science. 
 
 First, then, as regards the word Theology. It is 
 derived from two Greek nouns, fleo? and \6yos, and 
 means literally speaking or reasoning about God. 
 In this sense the word occurs in both Plato and 
 Aristotle. 1 By Natural Theology is meant that kind 
 
 1 Plato (Republ. 379 A) speaks of ol TVTTOI irepl fleoAoyfoy, 
 meaning the forms in which tales about gods should be shaped. 
 Aristotle (Meteorolog. Lib. II. c. i.) gives us the opinion of ol 
 Siarpipovrfs irepl TO.S 6eo\oylas on the sources of the ocean. He 
 refers to the old poets, Orpheus, Hesiod, Homer, and their fables 
 about the gods. St. Thomas, in his commentaries on Aristotle, calls 
 them the poete theologi; by Aristotle himself they are styled ol 
 eeo\6yoi. (Mctaph. Lib. XI. al. XII. c. vi.) According to Max Miiller. 
 Qf6s, Deus, is connected with the Sanscrit Deva, signifying " the 
 Brilliant," a very suggestive denomination of the Supreme Being 
 who, according to St. Paul, dwells in light inaccessible (i Tim. 
 vi. 16), and according to St. John, is "Light" (St. John i. 5). (Cf. 
 M. Miiller, Science of Language, Second Series, pp. 405, 449, and 
 Science of Religion, p, 269.) 
 B 
 
NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 of reasoning about God, which starts from princi- 
 ples, the truth of which can be known to us by the 
 light of our natural reason left to itself, that is, to its 
 innate capacity of perceiving and judging the facts 
 as well of common as of scientific experience, and of 
 drawing conclusions from these facts according to 
 principles that either are self-evident or have pre- 
 viously been proved. If this reasoning is carried on 
 systematically, it results, as we shall discover, in a 
 system of truths about God, the First Cause of all things, 
 and may therefore be rightly called the Science of 
 Natural Theology. 
 
 It is the object of this science to vindicate the 
 existence and honour of the one true God against 
 the denial of Atheists, the doubts of Agnostics, the 
 misrepresentations of Pantheists, and the absurdities 
 of Polytheists. 
 
 2. There is another system of truths regarding 
 Almighty God which is called Supernatural, or more 
 commonly, Dogmatic Theology. Between this and 
 Natural Theology there is a wide difference. 
 
 (1) In the first place they differ in their founda- 
 tion. For whereas Natural Theology is based upon 
 principles known by reason with human certainty, 
 Supernatural Theology has for its foundation prin- 
 ciples accepted by faith which rests on the autho- 
 rity of God Himself, who has declared them to us 
 by Divine revelation. 
 
 (2) From this difference there results another 
 regarding the method of demonstration used in the 
 two sciences. Natural Theology draws its arguments 
 from the intuitions of reason and from facts of ex- 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 perience ; Supernatural Theology finds the premisses 
 of its conclusions in the sources of Christian Revela- 
 +ion, which are the Canonical Scriptures and the 
 documents of Divine Tradition. 
 
 (3) Finally there is a vast difference between the 
 achievements of the one and the other. Natural 
 Theology inquires into the existence, the attributes, 
 and works of the one infinite God, without being 
 able to treat of the inscrutable mysteries of the 
 Blessed Trinity and of the Word Incarnate ; whereas 
 Supernatural Theology, although it does not pre- 
 tend to make these mysteries comprehensible to 
 reason, yet, guided by Divine revelation, which has 
 established their reality, analyzes their meaning, 
 shows their consequences, illustrates their harmony 
 with known truths, and thus throws light upon the 
 Divine beauty of Christian Revelation. 
 
 Hence we see that the chief subject-matter of 
 which Natural and Supernatural Theology treat, is 
 the same ; but the aspect, under which they view it, 
 is altogether different, or to express this in the 
 language of the schoolmen, Natural and Super- 
 natural Theology agree to a large extent in their 
 material object, but they differ in their formal 
 object. 
 
 3. The very nature of Supernatural or Dogmatic 
 Theology implies and demands that Natural Theology 
 should precede it and prepare its way. For it is the 
 duty of reason to prepare the minds of men for the 
 acceptance of Divine revelation, upon which Dog- 
 matic Theology is built. Before an infidel can 
 reasonably feel obliged to acknowledge a creed as 
 
NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 Divine, he must be convinced that there is a God, 
 who can communicate truths to men, and that men 
 can accent these truths without danger of deception. 
 It is Natural Theology that opens the way to this 
 conviction by strict logical reasoning. Christian 
 Doctors therefore rightly call the truths developed 
 in Natural Theology the prceambula fidei; and the 
 office assigned to Philosophy in general, when it is 
 called the handmaid of (Dogmatic) Theology, belongs 
 especially to the particular branch of Philosophy 
 now under consideration. 
 
 We may add that Dogmatic Theology taught 
 under the supervision of the Infallible Church, is for 
 the Catholic philosopher a guiding-star even to his 
 philosophical reasonings about God. This is a 
 most sound and intelligible proposition, but it is one 
 peculiarly liable to misrepresentation. We are far 
 from claiming the right to draw the course of 
 philosophical reasoning away from its natural paths 
 in order to bring the results into fictitious conformity 
 with those of revelation. Such a procedure would 
 be as foolish as it would be dishonest. Our claim 
 is to imitate the mariner to whom the star is a 
 guiding-star, not because it dispenses him from the 
 due use of the compass, but because it enables him 
 to check the errors into which he may have fallen in 
 his estimate of the records of the needle. The 
 Catholic philosopher is conscious that human reason, 
 particularly when it embarks on the difficult sea of 
 philosophical speculations, is liable to go astray 
 through defective observance of its own laws. On 
 the other hand he has sure grounds for his con- 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 viction that the Church's teaching is absolutely 
 reliable. What more reasonable than that on 
 finding a discrepancy between the results of his 
 philosophical reasoning and his Dogmatic Creed, he 
 should conclude the former to be in some point 
 defective and should retrace his steps to discover 
 where the defect may lie ? 
 
 4. In what we have said about the stand-point 
 of a Catholic writer on Natural Theology, we cannot 
 reasonably expect to be fully understood by those 
 outside the Church. All that we ask for from non- 
 Catholic readers is to judge our conclusions in 
 Natural Theology by the light of principles which 
 must be admitted by every reasonable man. Let 
 them consider whether we ever make an undue use 
 of authority to establish a truth which should be 
 proved by reason alone; let them judge for them- 
 selves whether we meet our adversaries with solid 
 arguments or with empty phrases, and whether we 
 enunciate any opinion which is out of harmony with 
 well-established scientific facts. 
 
 5. Approaching our subject in this spirit, we 
 have a reasonable claim to the sympathy ai^ interest 
 of our readers. For what subject of inquiry can be 
 compared with the first source of all things, the 
 Infinite Majesty of God ? Moreover, if as reason- 
 able beings we are irresistibly drawn to inquire into 
 the causes of things, must not all our researches 
 suffer from want of solidity and completeness, if we 
 lack a true knowledge of God, the First Cause 
 of all things, and of His relation to this world ? 
 Such knowledge throws light upon the origin of 
 
NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 the universe, upon the nature and destiny of man, 
 upon the true meaning of life, upon our duties here 
 on earth, upon our prospects for the future, upon 
 the wonders as well as the woes of human history. 
 Nay, there is no department of knowledge which 
 is not ennobled when viewed in the light of these 
 truths : because from God, and through Him, and in 
 Him, are all subjects that can possibly have a claim 
 on man's attention. 
 
 What makes this study still more important is 
 that without it we cannot hope truly to estimate and 
 solidly to refute the charges brought forward against 
 the reasonableness of Christian faith by atheists, 
 agnostics, and pantheists, who know well how to 
 support their statements with an array of specious 
 arguments. If we wish to diminish the harm inevit- 
 ably caused by the spreading of such false opinions, 
 we must be able to produce a good store of 
 arguments by which the existence of God, His 
 attributes, and His relation to this world are proved, 
 in such a way, that their force may come home 
 to the mind of every one who does not obsti- 
 nately prefer darkness to light. 
 
 For some of our readers it may be useful to 
 call attention to the danger of resting content with 
 a partial knowledge of our subject, or thinking that 
 a thorough grasp of it can be obtained without 
 patient study. Beginners who have not persever- 
 ance enough to reason step by step, but who 
 pick out one question or another at random, must 
 not wonder if they very soon find themselves 
 hopelessly confused, and utterly unable either duly 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 to appreciate or clearly to solve the difficulties of 
 adversaries. 
 
 6. The order of our discussion is suggested by 
 the three following questions : 
 
 I. Can we know for certain that there exists 
 One first intelligent and infinitely perfect Cause of 
 all things, that is to say, One personal God of infi- 
 nite perfection, Creator of the world ? 
 
 II. Granted that there exists One personal God 
 of infinite perfection, what are the special attributes 
 of this One infinite Being ? 
 
 III. If there be such a personal God, what can 
 we know about His action upon this world ? 
 
 Following the line of thought suggested by these 
 three questions, we shall divide our treatise into 
 three books : the first treating of the existence of 
 God, the second of the attributes of God, the third 
 of the influence which God exercises upon this 
 world, 
 
NATURAL THEOLOGY, 
 
 BOOK I. 
 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 VIEWS OF MONOTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHERS ON THE 
 NATURAL FOUNDATION OF A REASONABLE BELIEF 
 IN GOD. REFUTATION OF ONTOLOGISM AND OF 
 THE SO-CALLED ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT. 
 
 SECTION I. Explanation of the different opinions about God's 
 existence and the proofs for it. 
 
 7. THE chief object which we aim at in the first 
 part of Natural Theology, is to discover the true 
 reasons why the existence of an intelligent First 
 Cause of the universe must be admitted as certain. 
 To clear the ground, we first give a short review 
 and estimate of the different opinions held by philo- 
 sophers who believe in a personal God, concerning 
 the natural relation of the human mind to that 
 belief. 
 
 8. The more noteworthy opinions on the subject 
 in question may be reduced to these four headings : 
 
VIEWS OF MONOTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHERS. g 
 
 (1) The opinion that we have naturally an 
 immediate consciousness of God's existence. This 
 opinion is known under the name of Ontologism. 
 
 (2) The opinion that we can prove the existence 
 of God a priori from the mere concept which we 
 form to ourselves of God. This kind of proof for 
 the existence of God is commonly called the Onto- 
 logical Argument. The name is unfortunate, as it 
 suggests a connection of the argument so styled 
 with the system of Ontologism. In reality there is 
 none. 
 
 (3) The opinion, that the existence of God, 
 although it cannot be perceived by us immediately, 
 nor be proved a priori, can yet be proved evidently 
 a posteriori by reasoning from the contingent and 
 finite things of this world to God, the necessary, 
 self-existing, infinite Being. 
 
 (4) The opinion, that it is reasonable and man's 
 duty to believe in the existence of God, but that it 
 is impossible to prove by evident arguments that 
 the denial of that existence is an untruth. 
 
 9. Of these four opinions, the first has its most 
 eminent representatives in Nicholas Malebranche 
 (I7I5), 1 Vincenzo Gioberti (1852), Antonio Ser- 
 bati Rosmini (1855), and Casimir Ubaghs (works 
 published 1854 1856). The second can boast of 
 such great names as St. Anselm of Canterbury 
 (nog), and in later times, Ren6 Descartes (1650), 
 and Leibnitz (1716). The third was generally held 
 by metaphysicians of all ages, from the bright 
 
 1 The figures added to the names of philosophers in this section 
 refer to the year of their death, with the exception of Ubaghs. 
 
id OF THE EXISTENCE OF GO?). 
 
 dawn of metaphysical inquiry in Plato's Dialogues 
 up to the bold revolution attempted in the realms 
 of philosophical thought by Kant in his Critique oj 
 Pure Reason. That the human mind is able to rise 
 from the knowledge of the finite things which sur- 
 round us to a certain, though inadequate, know- 
 ledge of God, the first and the intelligent Cause of 
 the universe, was unanimously asserted by Plato 
 (348 B.C.) and Aristotle (322 B.C.), by St. Augustine 
 (430 A.D.), by St. Thomas Aquinas (1274), and the 
 long series of the schoolmen, by Bacon (1626), and 
 Locke (1704). 
 
 Moreover, although St. Anselm, Descartes, and 
 Leibnitz thought the ontological argument to be 
 a very easy proof of God's existence, they were 
 by no means of opinion that it is the only one 
 possible. On the contrary, in the writings of all 
 three we find also arguments for God's existence 
 drawn from the contemplation of finite things. 2 In 
 recommendation of this third line of argument, we 
 may further say that it is supported by scientific 
 men of the first rank, such as Kepler, Newton, Faye, 
 Sir John Herschell, Sir William Thomson, &c. 3 
 
 But, notwithstanding the great authority of the 
 third opinion, its hold over the best minds of 
 educated Europe was shaken considerably by Kant's 
 Critique of Pure Reason. In this work, the first 
 edition of which was published in the year 1781, 
 the fourth opinion mentioned above was advo- 
 
 2 St. Anselm's Monolog. cc. i. iv. inclusive; Descartes* Pnncipia 
 Phil. Part I. pp. 17, 18; Leibnitz, Opera (Edit. Erdm.), p. 506. 
 8 See below, 40. 
 
VIEWS OF MONOTHEISTIC PHILOSOPHERS. il 
 
 cated as the only reasonable defence of the belief 
 in God. According to the author of the 'Critique, 
 convincing proofs for the existence of a Supreme 
 Being are not attainable by the Speculative 
 Reason. In order to confute atheism, he therefore 
 appeals to what he calls the Practical Reason. 
 Man, he says, feels himself under the sway of 
 an internal voice which categorically commands 
 him to do good and to avoid evil. He cannot 
 despise this voice without violating his human 
 dignity, nor can he follow it consistently, unless he 
 acknowledges a supreme Lawgiver and Judge, to 
 whom he is responsible for his moral conduct. 
 Consequently it is man's duty to believe in God's 
 existence, although he is not able to show con- 
 vincingly that the denial of that existence contains 
 an objective untruth. 
 
 10. The opinion of Kant has been adopted under 
 various forms by many philosophers of our century, 
 who nevertheless have been far from committing 
 themselves to the whole of his theory of human 
 knowledge. Thus Jacobi (1819) maintained that 
 God's existence can be known neither by reasoning 
 nor by immediate intuition, but is manifested to us 
 by a kind of irresistible spiritual feeling. On the 
 Continent, De la Bonald (1840) found what he 
 thought a sufficient proof for God's existence in 
 the necessity of a primitive Divine revelation, with- 
 out which, according to his views, the origin of 
 intellectual human knowledge cannot be explained. 
 Lamennais (1854), in order to show how unreasonable 
 the denial of God's existence is, fled for refuge to 
 
ft OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 the universal consent of mankind, which he took 
 to be the general criterion of truth and certainty. 
 In England, Hamilton and Mansel, urging that we 
 necessarily entangle ourselves in glaring contradic- 
 tions as soon as we compare the attributes of the 
 Infinite with one another, deduced the obligation of 
 faith in God, as He is put before mankind by Christ 
 and His Apostles, chiefly from the perfect harmony 
 between that faith and our moral instincts. 
 
 This last way of defending God's existence 
 against atheism proved injurious to the good cause 
 on behalf of which it was undertaken. For the 
 most striking of the arguments, by which Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer in his First Principles, tries to 
 prove that nothing definite can be known about 
 the underlying cause of the universe, are borrowed 
 trom Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought. 
 
 11. We shall now proceed to give our reasons 
 for adhering to the third of the opinions we have 
 just mentioned, which maintains that man can come 
 to a certain knowledge of God by means of his 
 natural understanding, not however by way of 
 immediate intuition, nor by reasoning a prior*, but 
 by arguments a posteriori based on the essence and 
 properties of the things comprised under the term 
 " world." 
 
 SECTION 2. Refutation of Ontologism. 
 
 12. As we said above ( 8), Ontologists are those 
 philosophers who believe that the mind of man, by 
 its very nature, has a certain direct consciousness 
 of God's existence. They do not affirm that man 
 
REFUTATION OF ONTOLOGISM. 13 
 
 by his natural faculties is able to see God face to 
 face, to perceive Him as He is in Himself, or to 
 have a direct intuition of His Essence. Indeed, 
 they could not say so without exposing themselves 
 to ridicule, and to the charge of contradicting the 
 Christian Creed which they profess. What they 
 mean is that man's knowledge begins by some dim 
 perception of God, considered not in His Essence, 
 but in His relation to creatures. 
 
 13. A germ of Ontologism thus explained is 
 found in Descartes' Principia Philosophies.* He says 
 that the idea which we possess of an infinitely 
 perfect Being, could not be produced in us but by 
 this Being Himself. Malebranche developed this 
 germ into a philosophical system. In his celebrated 
 work, Recherche de la Verite, he tells . us that the 
 human mind knows all things save its own existence, 
 through the ideas it forms of them. These ideas 
 are occasioned by sense-impressions ; but they are 
 not the mere result of sensations, nor are they the 
 product of our mental activity. They are perceived 
 in God, who is immediately present to us. He is, 
 so to say, the Sun in the midst of the world of 
 thinking created spirits, and only inasmuch as He 
 pours out the light of His eternal ideas upon our 
 minds do we see truth in Him, who is the First 
 Truth, the Prototype of all things and of all 
 thoughts that are true. 
 
 Since Malebranche, no one has defended Onto- 
 logism more vigorously than Gioberti in his Intro- 
 duzione allo studio delta Filosofia. He represents the 
 * Part I. pp. 17, 18, 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 immediate intuition of God, which he believes to 
 be natural to man's mind, as a direct perception of 
 God's influence upon this world. Consequently the 
 starting-point of all human learning is this judg- 
 ment : " Being creates existences." (L'Ente crea le 
 esistenze.) By Being he understands the self-existing 
 Divinity ; by existences, creatures, which he does not 
 call beings, because they have no independent being 
 of their own, but are dependent upon' the creative 
 act of their first cause. His opinion consequently 
 is, that our first intellectual act is a direct intuition 
 of God creating the world. 
 
 Another and milder form of Ontologism is to 
 be found in Rosmini's Theosophia, and in Ubaghs' 
 Theodicea. Rosmini holds that the idea of being, 
 which according to his theory respecting the origin 
 of ideas is innate in us, must be nothing else but 
 the idea of God, the Creative Cause of finite beings. 
 Ubaghs thinks that we are born with the idea of the 
 Infinite God, and that this idea is in the beginning 
 unformed, but becomes formed by reflection, to 
 which we are led by our education in human 
 society. 
 
 Similar views on our natural knowledge of God 
 are defended by Maret in his Essai sur le Pantheisme, 
 by Gratry in his work De la Connaissance de Dieu, 
 by Fabre in his Defense de I'Ontologisme, and by 
 others in France, Belgium, and Italy. 
 
 Notwithstanding the wonderful ingenuity which 
 these authors exhibit in support of their hypothesis, 
 we must, in the interest of truth, lay down the 
 following thesis. 
 
REFUTATION OP ONTOLOGISM. 
 
 Thesis I. Immediate intuition of God, as held by 
 ontologists, is beyond the reach of man's natural under- 
 standing. 
 
 14. In stating this proposition we admit with 
 the ontologists as a fact of Christian revelation, 
 that all men who die in the grace of God, shall 
 in Heaven see Him as He is. And they on their 
 part admit that this Beatific Vision, reserved for 
 the servants of God, is not the natural endowment 
 of our human understanding, but the supernatural 
 reward of living faith. Consequently, to explain 
 the possibility and truth of this Vision does not 
 belong to the domain of Philosophy. So far 
 we are at one with our adversaries. What we 
 have to prove against them is, that God in His 
 relation to creatures cannot be the object of our direct 
 intuition here on earth. The first reason for which 
 we assert this, is drawn from our internal ex- 
 perience. 
 
 15. If the direct intuition of God in His relation 
 to creatures is a natural endowment of the human 
 soul, we certainly must be able to become with the 
 greatest facility perfectly convinced by mere reflection 
 of the fact that we are in God's presence, and no 
 thought should be easier to us than the thought of 
 God. However, this is not so. Effort is required 
 to raise our mind from things visible to their in- 
 visible First Cause. Even those who are perfectly 
 convinced of God's existence, may live hours and 
 days without thinking of Him. Nay, at times 
 doubts may arise in their minds against their faith 
 
16 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 in God, and how can they put off these doubts? 
 Not by mere reflection, but either by dwelling upon 
 the strong reasons from which God's existence is 
 mediately evident, or by calling to their minds certain 
 practical maxims, the reasonableness of which has 
 been once understood, and with which the doubt 
 about God's existence is incompatible. Every well- 
 instructed Christian knows that the existence of an 
 all-wise, all-powerful, and infinitely good God is a 
 fundamental dogma of Christianity. Moreover, he 
 has satisfied himself about the reasonableness of 
 adhering to the truths of Christianity. After this 
 it is a practical maxim with him, that a wilful doubt 
 about God and His attributes is a serious sin. 
 Appealing to this maxim, he rejects the doubts 
 against God's existence as unreasonable sophistries. 
 This is a reasonable process, and corresponds to 
 a palpable need of the believing mind. But on 
 the ontologistic hypothesis, such a need would not 
 arise. 
 
 16. If we examine a little more deeply into our 
 subject, we find that the conflict between experience 
 and Ontologism has its root in the very nature of the 
 human soul. This soul is neither an outgrowth of 
 matter, as materialists would have us believe, nor 
 is it a pure spirit, that is to say, a thinking and free 
 being altogether independent of matter in the exer- 
 cise of its natural functions. Man's soul is a spirit, 
 organizing and quickening matter. The fact that 
 our soul cannot exercise its vegetative and sensitive 
 energies except in a material body and by the help 
 of material organs, necessarily reacts upon its 
 
REFUTATION OP ONTOLOCISM. 17 
 
 spiritual faculties of understanding and free-will, 
 albeit the acts of these faculties considered in them- 
 selves are not organic acts. The conclusion drawn 
 from this state of things, the fuller discussion of 
 which belongs to Psychology, is this. Man's mind 
 has for its immediate and direct object only such 
 things as can be perceived by the senses. It can 
 arrive at the knowledge of immaterial beings only by 
 reasoning, and by faith in reliable authority. Con- 
 vinced of this, Aristotle uses language which implies 
 that it is as impossible for man's mind, left to 
 its natural resources, to have a direct perception 
 of spiritual things, as it is for an owl's eye to find 
 delight in the rays of the mid-day sun. 5 Experience 
 fully verifies this conclusion, for in order to explain 
 things not accessible to sense perception, we con- 
 stantly have resort to illustrations drawn from the 
 objects of sense. If, then, no spiritual thing is 
 directly accessible to our mind, how can we have 
 an immediate vision of God the Infinite Spirit ? 
 If there were any truth in the Ontologist hypo- 
 thesis, such a direct intuition of God would be 
 natural to us. For the ontologists say that we 
 
 Aristotle, Metaph. Lib. I. brev. c. i. Aristotle's words are: 
 Ssarirep yap KO.I ra ruv WKTfpiScav <jjj.fji.ara irpbs rb (peyyos e% 1 r ^ M 6 ^' 
 fifjifpav, ovrw Kai rrjs ^/xerepas ^vx^s & vovs Trpbs ra rfj (pvffei fyavtpA- 
 rara iravruv. According to this passage, our understanding is like 
 the eyes of nightbirds for daylight, as regards the beings most intel- 
 ligible in themselves. Now spiritual beings are more intelligible in 
 themselves than material beings, inasmuch as the pre-eminence of 
 internal intelligibility follows the pre-eminence of natural being. Cf. 
 the beautiful remarks of St. Thomas on this passage of Aristotle. 
 Comment, in Metaph. Aristot. Lib. II. Lect. i. "Ostendit causam 
 praemissae difficultatis," etc. 
 
 C 
 
18 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 directly perceive God's relation to creatures. Now 
 it is evident that a relation between two terms 
 cannot be directly perceived unless each is the 
 object of direct perception. 
 
 17. No wonder that a theory so inconsistent 
 with experience and with human nature is also 
 inconsistent with itself. Ontologists say that we 
 perceive immediately something of God, yet do not 
 immediately perceive His essence. In this there is 
 a contradiction. For in God, as the ontologists 
 willingly grant, there are no accidents. His essence 
 is absolutely simple. It is therefore impossible to 
 see anything of Him immediately without seeing 
 His essence. From this conclusion ontologists 
 recoil, and rightly, for it is opposed to Revealed 
 Truth ; but it logically follows from their hypo- 
 thesis, and therefore that hypothesis must be 
 rejected as false. 
 
 18. Nor can the reasons which ontologists bring 
 forward to support their theory move us to give a 
 more favourable verdict on it. The more important 
 of their arguments are the following, to each of 
 which we shall add its respective answer. 
 
 A. We have an idea of the Infinite. This idea 
 cannot be got by abstraction from finite beings nor 
 by reasoning about them. Therefore it must be 
 admitted that it was given to us together with our 
 existence ; in other words, that the direct intuition 
 of the Infinite is natural to the human mind. (Thus 
 Malebranche, Gioberti, Ubaghs.) 
 
 Answer. It is true that every Christian, nay, 
 every monotheist who understands his position, has 
 
REFUTATION OF ONTOLOG2SM. 19 
 
 a genuine idea of the Infinite. His idea of the 
 Infinite is not a merely negative one, as Sir William 
 Hamilton would have it. He does not only know 
 that the Infinite is altogether different from the 
 Finite ; he knows something positive about the 
 attributes by which it is characterized. But from 
 this it in no way follows that the representation 
 of the Infinite by the human mind has its origin 
 in direct intuition. On the contrary, from the fact 
 that our idea of the Infinite expresses its object not 
 in a purely positive way, but by the help of negation, 
 it is evident that not the thought of the Infinite but 
 the thought of the Finite is most natural to our 
 mind. Why is it that when we speak of God, who is 
 pure reality, or, so to say, pure affirmation without 
 negation of perfection, we speak of Him in such a way 
 as to predicate of Him perfection, and at the same 
 time remove the limits of these perfections, calling 
 Him infinitely wise, infinitely powerful, and so 
 forth ? No other sufficient reason can be given 
 save this, that the power, the wisdom, and the other 
 positive perfections of creatures which we predicate 
 of God, are directly known to us only within certain 
 limits. We first think of finite things according to 
 their own being, not paying attention to their limi- 
 tation; then comparing less perfect finite beings 
 with more perfect, we become aware of their limi- 
 tations; finally, thinking of all possible finite 
 perfections united in one Being, and denying all 
 limitations which are necessarily proper to them 
 in finite beings, we form a negative-positive concept, 
 as it is called, of the Infinite. In this manner we 
 
so OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 do really think of the infinitely perfect Being, 
 although we think of it in a very inadequate way. 
 
 Now it is true that such an idea of the Infinite 
 cannot be got from finite things by mere abstraction, 
 nor can it be arrived at by one step of reasoning, 
 but it can be reached by a chain of lawful reasonings 
 from absolutely certain premisses. And this is what 
 we have to make clear in the course of our treatise. 
 For the present it may suffice to indicate the prin- 
 cipal links in this chain. Things produced suppose 
 a first unproduced cause ; an unproduced cause 
 exists by virtue of its own essence, or is self-existing; 
 there can be but one self-existing being; the one 
 self-existing being must be the source of every 
 possible being in other words, it must be infinitely 
 perfect; otherwise the total first cause of all con- 
 tingent being would be less perfect than the effects 
 which it can produce. 
 
 B. There must be harmony between the order 
 in which things follow one another in their real 
 existence, and the order in which they are ideally 
 expressed in our minds; otherwise our mental 
 representations would not be true. Now of all 
 existing beings God is the first. Consequently the 
 first judgment of the human mind must refer to 
 God. (Thus Gioberti.) 
 
 Answer. For human cognition to be true, it 
 is not requisite for antecedent to be known before 
 consequent, cause before effect. I may first come 
 to know a book, and thence proceed to learn" by 
 inference the existence and character of the author. 
 Or I may first come to know the author, and thence 
 
REPUTATION OF ONTOLOG1SM. 
 
 infer the nature of his book. In either case my 
 knowledge of the book and the author can be true. 
 It would only be false if it were to represent to me 
 the book as the cause of the author, instead of the 
 author as the cause of the book. The requisite of 
 truth, alleged by Gioberti, is not the requisite of 
 truth in general, but that of perfect truth, which 
 comprehends all possible truths. And this exists 
 nowhere but in the Divine intellect. To have truth 
 in general, it is enough that everything mentally 
 affirmed to be real, really is what it is affirmed to 
 be ; it is not necessary that the order of mental 
 affirmation follow the order of real existence. 
 
 C. The human mind is naturally directed to 
 God as to its last end. Consequently, as God is 
 the first object of the human will, so must He be 
 the first object of the human understanding. (Thus 
 Malebranche.) 
 
 Answer. From the fact that God is man's 
 last end, it follows that the human soul at some 
 time or other (at least after death, in the case of 
 one who dies before attaining the use of reason), 
 must come to some knowledge of God carrying with 
 it a natural tendency of the will towards God. But 
 it does not at all follow that man from the beginning 
 of his existence must have the actual use of his 
 intellect ; much less that the first acts of his intel- 
 lect must have God for their object. 
 
 D. As God alone exists by Himself, so He 
 alone can be intelligible by Himself. Therefore 
 created things cannot be known except so far as 
 God is known. (Thus Gioberti.) 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOtf. 
 
 Answer. In a certain sense it is true, that 
 God alone is intelligible by Himself. His is the 
 only existence which is essential, which cannot not 
 be ; or, in other words, He alone has the reason of 
 His existence in His own essence. In all creatures 
 actual existence is not essential, but only possible 
 existence ; or, in other words, the essences of 
 creatures considered in themselves are merely 
 possible things, only existing on the condition of 
 God's creative act, which is not necessary, but free. 
 However, this truth is of no force to prove that 
 really existing creatures cannot be known but 
 in God. A creature which really exists is really 
 distinct from a merely possible creature. It is 
 not a pure essence, but a created essence, and 
 therefore has an existence of its own distinct from 
 God's existence, although it owes its existence to 
 God's free creation. Now as intelligibility results 
 necessarily from existence, so from an existence 
 distinct from God's existence there must result 
 an intelligibility distinct from God's intelligibility, 
 although God is the efficient cause of the creature's 
 existence, and consequently of the creature's intelli- 
 gibility. 
 
 E. The universal attributes which we give to 
 creatures, when we predicate, for instance, that 
 "John is a man," or that " Bucephalus is a horse," 
 express something necessary, eternal, unchangeable. 
 But created things are contingent, temporal, change- 
 able. Therefore we cannot have drawn our universal 
 ideas by abstraction from created things ; but they 
 must be due to a direct intuition of their uncreated 
 
REFUTATION OF ONTOLOGISM. 23 
 
 cause. (Thus Vercellone, Milonc, Fabre, Sans-Fiel, 
 and other modern ontologists.) 
 
 Answer. Properly speaking there is, as St. Thomas 
 rightly affirms, only one being which is necessary, 
 eternal, unchangeable, namely, God. 8 If we say 
 that the universal attributes of created things are 
 necessary, eternal, unchangeable, we mean simply 
 that God is the necessary, eternal, unchangeable 
 source of all kinds of possible things which we 
 express by universal ideas, and that consequently 
 these things are understood by God necessarily, 
 eternally, unchangeably, as imperfect imitations of 
 His own essence, and producible out of nothing by 
 His infinite power. Hence we may say that uni- 
 versal attributes, or, in other words, the objects of 
 universal ideas, are negatively eternal; but we may 
 not say that they are positively eternal. A thing is 
 positively eternal, if it exists by its own essence, un- 
 changeable, without beginning and without end. It 
 is negatively eternal t if, as a thinkable, conditionally- 
 existing object, it is not limited to a certain time. 
 Thus the object of the universal idea " man " is 
 negatively eternal, because no possible time can be 
 given at which by the power of God that idea might 
 not be verified in one or many individual men. The 
 human mind is obviously capable of forming such 
 a negatively eternal idea. Perceiving with our 
 senses an individual thing, we at once grasp with 
 our intellect that which w, or at least may be, 
 
 * Cf. Sum. Theol. i. q. 9. a. 2. and q. 10. a. 3. especially ad 31*1 
 A more full explanation of the eternity of all truth is given by 
 St. Thomas, Qq. Disp. dc Veritate, q. i. a. 5. 
 
OP THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. 
 
 common to many such individual things. This wa 
 do without penetrating into their individual con- 
 stitution. It is therefore a baseless assertion that 
 the formation of universal ideas is conditioned by 
 a direct intuition of God. 7 
 
 SECTION 3. Criticism of the Ontological Argument. 
 
 19. Having proved that the Ontologistic hypo- 
 thesis, according to which all our knowledge is based 
 on a direct intuition of the Infinite, cannot be ad- 
 mitted, we have now to explain our objection to the 
 opinion of those who think they can prove the existence 
 of the Infinite from the idea of the Infinite. Their 
 argument is known among scholastic philosophers 
 by the name of the " Ontological Argument," a 
 term which we must distinguish from the " Onto- 
 logistic Hypothesis." It has three celebrated forms, 
 of which the first was proposed by St. Anselm, the 
 second by Descartes, and the third, virtually at 
 least, by Leibnitz. 8 We give the substance of all 
 three. 
 
 20. St. Anselm reasons thus : By God is under- 
 stood the greatest Being which can be thought of. 
 But a Being which not only exists in the mind a? 
 
 7 For further discussion of Ontologism, we may recommend 
 Stockl, Geschichte der neuern Philosophic, Vol. I. pp. 123, seq., Vol. II. 
 pp. 570, seq., 579, seq., 621, seq.; Lepidi, O.P., De Ontologismo ; 
 Zigliara, O.P., Delia luce intelhttuale e del? Ontologismo; Kleutgen, 
 Phil. Scholastique, nn. 377 490 ; Liberatore, Psychol. Edit. I. 
 novae formse nn. 200 206 ; Theol. Nat. n. 3 and n. 6 ; On Universal* 
 (Translated by E. H. Bering), pp. 64 95, and pp. 180 196. 
 
 8 Cf. Opp. S. Anselmi, Proslogium, c. 2 ; Descartes, Principia 
 Philosophic, Pars I. 14 ; Leibnitz* Opp. (Edit. Erdm.). pp. 374, seq. 
 
REFUTATION OF ONTOLOG1SM. 25 
 
 an object of thought, but has also actual existence 
 outside the mind, is greater than a Being which 
 exists in the mind- only. Therefore God actually 
 exists outside the mind. 
 
 In Descartes the argument takes this form : 
 Whatever is contained in a clear and distinct idea 
 of any object must be affirmed of that object. But 
 a clear and distinct idea of an absolutely perfect 
 Being contains the notion of existence. Conse- 
 quently, we must say that there really exists an 
 absolutely perfect Being. 
 
 Leibnitz remarks on the two forms of the Onto- 
 logical argument just proposed that the scholastics 
 were wrong in rejecting them. He says they are 
 not fallacious, but only need completion. They do 
 not, it is trae, offer any reason for their assumption 
 that the idea of the greatest and absolutely perfect 
 being is possible and not self-contradictory. He 
 thinks, however, we may safely assume this possi- 
 bility as long as no one proves the contrary. Thus 
 according to his mind the Ontological argument 
 ought to be cast into this shape : God is at least 
 possible, for in the concept of Him no repugnance 
 is discovered. But if He is possible, He must exist, 
 because the concept of Him implies existence. 
 
 21. It has been said in answer to St. Anselm and 
 those who took up his argument, that it only proves 
 the existence of an infinite being in the world of 
 ideas, not in the world of realities ; that it proves 
 the ideal possibility of such a being, but not its real 
 existence. Even in St. Anselm's time this objection 
 was raised by a certain ingenious thinker named 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 Gaunilo. After having first objected to the validity 
 of the premisses, this man argued thus against the 
 conclusion : 
 
 " There are people who say that somewhere in 
 the ocean there exists an island, which certain men, 
 because of the difficulty or rather impossibility of 
 finding what really does not exist, have surnamed 
 the lost island. This island is by fiction represented 
 as possessing in incredible abundance all sorts of 
 precious and delightful things, far more than the 
 celebrated Isles of the Blessed ; nay, as surpassing 
 in riches all the countries inhabited by men, although 
 no proprietor or settler is living on it. If somebody 
 were describing all this to me, I should of course 
 easily understand his explanation : there could be 
 no difficulty in that. But if he went on thus to 
 argue : You cannot any longer doubt but that the 
 island I spoke of, the idea of which you admit 
 without hesitation to be in your mind, exists also 
 in reality somewhere. Indeed, you cannot deny it, 
 if you only attend to what I now say: It is more 
 excellent to exist not in the mind only, but in 
 reality, than to exist in the mind only. Therefore 
 the aforesaid island must really exist ; for if it did 
 not, any other real country would surpass it in 
 excellence, and consequently the island which you 
 have thought to be superior to all, really would not 
 be superior to all. If the speaker attempted thus to 
 make me admit the real and undoubted existence 
 of that island, I should either believe him to be only 
 joking, or I should not know which of us to think 
 the more stupid, myself, if I granted such a con- 
 
8XPUTATION OF ONTOLOGISM 
 
 elusion, or him, if he really thought that he had 
 proved the actual existence of that island with 
 anything like certainty. Assuredly, I should not 
 yield to him, unless he convinced me that its 
 excellence was thought of by me as something really 
 and undoubtedly existing, and not only in the same 
 way in which we can think of what is false or un- 
 certain." 9 Nevertheless, this mode of putting the 
 objection is not so strong as it may seem at first 
 sight. St. Anselm answered it thus : " If any one 
 can find anything whatsoever, either really existing 
 or only represented by the mind, with the one 
 exception of the greatest being conceivable, such that 
 he can reasonably apply to it the form of this my 
 argument, I promise to find him the Most island' 
 with such success that it shall never be lost again." 10 
 So far the Saint is perfectly right. Whoever 
 grants as certain that we have a true idea of an 
 infinite being, cannot deny that existence is implied 
 in that idea without contradicting himself: for an 
 infinite being cannot be otherwise than self-e.xisting. 
 A being which is not self-existing is necessarily 
 limited : for it cannot possess anything but what it 
 has received from its cause ; and its cause cannot 
 give it the perfections of self-existence. Therefore, 
 when there is question of finite being, it may be 
 granted that I can think of a finite being better 
 than any that really exists ; and yet quite con- 
 sistently with this concession it may be denied that 
 such a being as I think of does really exist. For 
 
 8 Qpusculum pro Insipiente, inter Opp. S. Anselmi, c. d 
 ** Liber Apologeiicus, inter Opp. S. A.nselmi, c. 3. 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE Of GOD. 
 
 a finite being is contingent, and without internal 
 contradiction can be conceived as not existing. But 
 if it be admitted as certain, that I really think of 
 an infinite being, the actual existence of such a being 
 must be allowed ; for an infinite being cannot with- 
 out internal contradiction be conceived unless it be 
 conceived as self-existing. 
 
 Thus far, then, we do not find any serious fault 
 with the advocates of the Ontological proof. Our 
 reason for not admitting the demonstration as a 
 valid refutation of agnosticism is its failure to 
 provide us with a warrant for the absolute certainty 
 of the assertion, that we have an idea of an infinite 
 being. We therefore state our objection thus: 
 
 Thesis II. In the so-called Ontological Argument 
 the supposition underlying the premisses that the idea 
 of an infinite being is not self -contradictory , is assumed 
 without sufficient warrant. Consequently, that argument 
 is not a perfect demonstration of God's existence. 
 
 22. Of course we readily allow that the idea of 
 an infinite being is in fact not self-contradictory. We 
 only deny that this can be ascertained with certainty 
 otherwise than by the a posteriori argument. It 
 must be established by consideration of contingent 
 things, and by inference from their existence of the 
 necessary existence of One First Cause. As long as 
 this has not been shown, the agnostic may justly 
 reply to the Ontological proof: " Possibly there 
 may be many self-existent beings. In that case the 
 idea of an infinite being is self-contradictory. For 
 none of the many self-existent beings would be the 
 
REFUTATION OF ONTOLOGISM. 29 
 
 source of the perfections of all other beings ; and 
 consequently none of them could be really infinite ; 
 because a being which does not unite in itself all 
 thinkable perfections, must be finite. Of the many 
 self-existent beings, then, which I suppose there 
 may be, none can be infinite. And as you yourself 
 allow, no contingent being can be infinite. But all 
 being is either self-existent or contingent. The 
 conclusion is that an infinite being is absolutely 
 impossible, and consequently we can have no real 
 idea of such a being." 
 
 To this objection the advocate of the Ontological 
 argument has no satisfactory answer. He can say 
 nothing but what Leibnitz said; " We may safely 
 suppose the possibility of an infinite being, till it 
 be disproved." Perhaps we may. But a supposi- 
 tion made on these terms is no basis of certainty. 
 In short, the Ontological argument is a very strong 
 argument ad hominem against one who does not 
 challenge the supposition of the premisses ; but in 
 no way an objectively evident proof. 11 
 
 11 St. Thomas Aquinas criticizes and rejects the argument of 
 St. Anselm in I. dist. 3. q. i. a. 2. ad 4m.; Sum. Theol. i. 2. i. ad 
 2dum, and Contra Gent. i. c xi. " Nee oportet ut statirn cognita." 
 An estimate of it is also given by Kleutgen, Phil. Schol. nn. 
 937942. The history of this argument, which may be seen in 
 the Life of St. Anselm, by Martin Rule, M.A., Vol. i. pp. 195, seq. is 
 very interesting. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF AN INTELLIGENT 
 FIRST CAUSE OR PERSONAL GOD. 
 
 SECTION i. Method of Proof. 
 
 23. THE object of the three following chapters is 
 to prove not only that there is a First Cause of all 
 things else that exist, but also that this First Cause 
 has the attributes which are associated with the 
 conception of a First Cause in the minds of mono- 
 theists, especially of Christians. This is most 
 necessary if we are to make our ground sure. In 
 a certain sense materialists and pantheists maintain 
 the existence of a First Cause. What else are the 
 eternal atoms out of whose combinations and move- 
 ments the materialist believes the cosmos to be 
 composed ? What else is the Absolute of the 
 pantheists, alleged to be eternally evolving itself 
 under manifold aspects and conditions, and thereby 
 creating the world out of its own substance? In 
 truth, what is denied, particularly in these days, 
 is not so much self-existence, as personal self- 
 existence. We have to prove the existence of a 
 Personal First Cause, that is to say, of an intelligent 
 self-existing Being who is distinct from the cosmos 
 of which He is the ultimate cause. 
 
OP AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 51 
 
 24. The proof of this position is three-fold. We 
 have the argument of the First Cause, the argument 
 from Design, and the so-called Moral argument. 
 The argument of the First Cause draws from the 
 simple fact that some things exist the conclusion 
 that there must be a First Cause, and then from the 
 fact that intelligent beings, namely, men, exist, the 
 further conclusion that this First Cause must be 
 intelligent. It can thence proceed to the ultimate 
 conclusion that such a First Cause must be One 
 and Infinite in all respects. 
 
 The argument from Design starts with the order 
 observable in the world, and infers the existence 
 of a supra-mundane intelligent Designer. It then 
 continues, in accordance with the method of argu- 
 ment already pursued by the argument of the First 
 Cause, to argue for the self-existence, unity, and 
 infinity of this Designer. 
 
 The Moral argument is that drawn from the 
 general recognition of the existence of an invisible 
 Lawgiver, a superhuman Lord and Ruler. It 
 contends that a recognition of this character must be 
 taken as the genuine voice of nature, and not as the 
 outcome of any of the deceptive influences to which 
 nature is subject. However, this argument, like 
 that from Design, only proves the existence of an 
 intelligent, superhuman ruler of the world. It does 
 not tell us whether this ruler is self-existent or 
 himself dependent on some previous Maker or 
 Ruler. For this we must again go back to the 
 argument of the First Cause. 
 
 Thus it is seen that the argument of the First 
 
32 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 Cause is the only one which is sufficient in itself. 
 Absolutely, therefore, the others might be dispensed 
 with. Nevertheless, they have their useful purpose. 
 The argument of Design brings out more impres- 
 sively the need of recognizing Intelligence in the 
 First Cause, and the Moral argument fortifies our 
 minds in their grasp of the previous arguments, 
 for it shows them to be no mere outcome of an 
 individual speculation, the conclusion to which 
 the minds of men are impelled in such numbers 
 and under such conditions that we are constrained 
 to recognize in the impelling force the voice of our 
 intellectual nature. 
 
 SECTION 2. The Argument of the First Cause. 
 
 Thesis III. Not all things are effects of causes, but 
 there exists an unproduced First Cause, endowed with 
 intelligence and free-will, in other words a personal God. 
 
 25. Kant, in his Critique of Pure Reason, 1 acknow- 
 ledges that the human mind cannot divest itself 
 of the idea that everything that has a beginning 
 has a cause. However, he demurs to the objective 
 certainty of this principle when applied to parti- 
 cular cases without limitation. According to him it 
 is one of those judgments which he was pleased to 
 call synthetic a priori judgments, judgments, that is to 
 say, which we are constrained by a natural necessity 
 to accept as universally true, although they are 
 neither self-evident nor verifiable by experience. 
 
 1 Kant's Critique of Pure Reuse* (Translated by M. Muller), p. 9 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 33 
 
 26. Yet if we would not fall into the abyss of 
 universal scepticism, 2 we must admit the objective 
 validity and universal range of the principle of 
 causality rightly understood. Our reason demands 
 absolutely that we should say that whatever does not 
 exist of absolute necessity, cannot exist without a propor- 
 tionate cause. That this principle must be admitted 
 as universally valid, will become clear by showing 
 its connection with the principle of contradiction. 
 We lose all hold on truth the moment we cease to 
 acknowledge the principle of contradiction, that is 
 to say, as soon as we allow that the same thing 
 under the same aspect may be and not be at the 
 same instant. But the principle of contradiction 
 stands or falls with that of causality. That which 
 does not exist of absolute necessity is of itself only 
 contingent, depending for its existence on a con- 
 dition outside itself: otherwise, existing uncon- 
 ditionally, it would be an absolutely necessary being. 
 If we suppose that there was in any particular case 
 a beginning of existence without cause, in other 
 words, that a violation of the principle of causality 
 took place: this could not happen without there 
 being an instant in which a mere possible thing a 
 thing, that is to say, which depends for existence 
 on a condition external to itself really depended 
 upon itself as the condition of its existence ; and 
 this would be a manifest violation of the principle 
 of contradiction. 
 
 1 To understand fully the intrinsic absurdity of universal scep- 
 ticism, the reader may consult The First Principles of Knowledge, by 
 the Pev. John Rickaby, especially c. viii. pp. 134 147. 
 D 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF 
 
 Moreover, this principle is not only violated if we 
 admit a beginning of existence without cause, but 
 also if we admit such a beginning without a pro- 
 portionate cause ; namely, without a cause which con- 
 sidered in its totality contains a perfection at least 
 equal to that of the effect. For if it did not, the 
 excess of the effect over its cause would really be 
 without any cause, in violation of the principle of 
 contradiction. 
 
 27. By means of the same principle of causality 
 we now go on to prove that there must be some- 
 thing self-existing. For the present we do not 
 inquire whether the thing self-existing be matter or 
 mind, whether it belong to this world as a part of 
 it, or whether it be above this world. The only 
 truth to be established is this. Not all beings can be 
 effects ; there must be something which is a cause 
 without being the effect of another cause, and this 
 something must be self-existent. 
 
 Our argument is as follows : Everything in so far 
 as it is an effect is indebted for its actual existence 
 to some other thing. But supposing there be no 
 self-existent being, then the totality of being must 
 be an effect, no matter whether it be a finite or an 
 infinite series of various kinds of being. Conse- 
 quently in that supposition whatever falls under 
 the concept of existing being past or present, must 
 be indebted to another being for its existence. But 
 this is evidently absurd ; for it cannot be true 
 without the existence of something beyond the bounds 
 of what fails under the notion of existing being. 
 Therefore the supposition that there is no self- 
 
Of AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. S( 
 
 existent being is unreasonable, and the assertion ol 
 a self-existent being is demanded by reason. 
 
 28. A strong confirmation of this truth is to be 
 found in the fact already mentioned, that neither 
 materialists, nor evolutionists, nor pantheists are 
 bol'd enough to give an explanation of the origin of 
 the present world, without supposing an eternal 
 something, either " Matter," or the " Unknown," or 
 the so-called "Absolute," or the pure "Ego," 
 or the "Idea" of Being, or the "Will," or the 
 " Unconscious." What they all refuse to admit is 
 the existence of an intelligent and free self-existent 
 being, a personal God, distinct from and superior 
 to this material world and to mankind. The task 
 now remains to show that the same principle of 
 causality, which led us to acknowledge a self- 
 existent being, leads us further to the conclusion 
 that this self-existent Being is personal. 
 
 29. The human soul is an immaterial (spiritual) 
 and free being. But the First Cause of an imma- 
 terial and free being cannot be a material being, and 
 one constrained by an irresistible natural impulse to 
 the production of its effects. Consequently the First 
 Cause of the human soul must be an immaterial 
 free being, which implies that we must consider a 
 self-existent spiritual and free being to be the first 
 cause of man. But such a being is manifestly 
 distinct from, and superior to the material world 
 and to man. Therefore the existence of a self- 
 existent being, immaterial and free, superior to the 
 material world and to man, cannot reasonably be 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 denied ; or what amounts to the same, the existence 
 of a personal God is evident. 
 
 30. Is there any flaw in this reasoning ? Surely 
 no one who admits the first premiss upon which 
 the argument is based, can reasonably object to 
 the rest. What it means is this. The human soul, 
 that is to say, the inmost principle of thought 
 and will in man, differs altogether from everything 
 material. We call it therefore a spiritual being, 
 by which we understand a being not composed 
 of parts, as matter is, but complete in its simple 
 essence, and able to act and to exist by itself 
 without being united to matter. Freedom also 
 we attribute to the soul, by which we mean a 
 power of self-determination existing in the will. 
 The human soul is free inasmuch as its will is able 
 to choose or not to choose any object presented 
 to it by the understanding, as long as that object 
 does not appear desirable under every possible 
 aspect. 
 
 But are we sufficiently warranted in making 
 these assertions ? Are they more than an attempted 
 answer to some of the deepest psychological pro- 
 blems, supported, it is true, by the authority of 
 mediaeval schoolmen, but directly opposed to the 
 tendency of modern thought ? Can it then be 
 reasonable to take for the basis of the solution of 
 the most important philosophical questions such a 
 debatable fact as that of the existence of a spiritual 
 human soul endowed with free-will ? 
 
 These are questions which no doubt suggest 
 themselves to some of our readers, and we are 
 
OP AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. ^ 
 
 bound not to pass them by unanswered, although 
 the complete answer belongs to Psychology. 3 
 
 31. The answer to the question, whether our 
 soul be an outgrowth of matter or an immaterial 
 being, must not be given a priori, but must be based 
 on facts. As the tree is known by its leaves, its 
 flowers, and its fruit, so does the human soul 
 manifest its nature by its ideas, its judgments, and 
 its desires. It is to these that we must give our 
 attention in order to become convinced of the 
 spirituality of the soul. 
 
 There are two sorts of ideas in us, sense ideas 
 (or phantasms, imaginations) and intellectual ideas. 
 A sense idea is an internal representation of a pheno- 
 menon, or of a combination of phenomena, that 
 have impressed themselves upon one or more of the 
 organs of sensation with which the human body is 
 endowed. An intellectual idea is the expression of 
 being under a more or less general aspect. The 
 difference between the two will be best seen in 
 concrete instances. I have a sense idea of a 
 circle, if I represent to myself a perfectly round 
 plane figure ; I have an intellectual idea of a circle, 
 if I know what constitutes the being, the essence 
 of a circle, its "what ness," or what is commonly 
 
 3 These questions, all-important as they are, do not belong to a 
 treatise on Natural Theology. For anything like a satisfactory 
 discussion of them we must refer back to the Manual of Psychology 
 (Stonyhurst Series), by the Rev. M. Maher, pp. 361 393, also 
 pp. 443 467 ; and to the Manual of Logic (ibid.), by the Rev. 
 R. F. Clarke, pp. 105 120, also pp. 140 157. We shall, however, 
 be consulting the convenience of our readers by indicating at least 
 the outline of the argument of which the fuller development is to 
 be found in the books referred to. 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 called its definition. My sense idea of a circle is 
 as variable as the magnitudes of circles are, but in 
 each representation it corresponds only to one magni- 
 tude ; my intellectual idea of a circle on the contrary 
 is as invariable as the definition of a circle con- 
 sidered not in its verbal expression, but in its meaning- 
 and at the same time it is applicable not to a limited 
 number of circles, but to all possible circles. In the 
 same way the sensile idea or phantasm of a man 
 corresponds either to one particular man or to 
 several men perfectly resembling one another in 
 external appearance, but the intellectual idea of 
 man or the mental expression of what is meant 
 by the word " man " is applicable to all possible 
 men. 
 
 32. This premised, we admit readily that our 
 sense ideas or imaginations are caused directly by 
 organic impressions, and require the immediate co- 
 operation of a material organ, the sensitive nerves 
 and the grey matter of the brain. Moreover, 
 because of the substantial union between soul and 
 body, the formation of intellectual ideas and the 
 rise of indeliberate desires connected with them, is 
 also largely dependent upon the imagination, and 
 consequently upon the state of the brain and the 
 whole nervous system as acted upon by the ex- 
 ternal corporeal world. We allow therefore that 
 the human brain may be called the organ of under- 
 standing inasmuch as it is the organ of imagination, 
 the operation of which in this our mortal state is a 
 prerequisite to the working of the understanding. 
 To this must be added that we cannot by direct 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 39 
 
 intuition get intellectual ideas except of things 
 represented by our imagination. The consequence 
 is that to a certain extent a change in the operation 
 of the imagination naturally carries with it a change 
 in the operation of the understanding. There is 
 thus some foundation for the expression borrowed 
 from mathematics, that the understanding is a 
 "function of the brain;" since by "function" 
 mathematicians mean a quantity so connected with 
 another quantity that any change in the one is 
 accompanied by a corresponding change in the 
 other. But the expressions referred to must not 
 be taken to mean that our intellectual knowledge 
 consists of sense impressions. Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 is therefore wrong in saying : " Feelings are in all 
 cases the materials out of which in the superior 
 tracts of consciousness, Intellect is evolved by struc- 
 tural combination." 4 And again, he is wrong in 
 speaking of our senses thus, " The impressions 
 received by these senses form the materials of 
 intelligence which arises by combination of them, 
 and must therefore conform to their development^ 5 
 
 33. Against theories such as these we maintain 
 that our intellectual ideas, our rational judgments, 
 and our deliberate resolutions cannot possibly be 
 the effects of organic impressions either hereditary 
 or acquired. 
 
 A man who knows what mathematicians mean 
 by the word "circle," and what philosophers under- 
 stand by the term " rational being," has an intel- 
 lectual idea of the words "circle," and "rational 
 4 Principles of Psychology, Vol. I. p. 192. 5 Ibid. p. 388. 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 being." No doubt he has also in his brain the 
 phantasms of circular figures seen before, and the 
 phantasms of many rational beings with whom 
 he has conversed. Again, there are in his brain 
 the organic impressions of the words in which the 
 explanation of " circle " and " rational being " are 
 given to him. But there is a vast difference between 
 these phantasms in whatever combination they may 
 be taken, and the meaning of the words, " circle " 
 and "rational being." Organic impressions can 
 only lead to the representation of what has really 
 affected our organs. But the meaning of a word 
 cannot really affect an organ ; for it is not an existing 
 particular thing which can move and change, it is the 
 term of an act of our mind, it is that which our 
 thinking mind manifests to us as something really 
 belonging to those particular things which, on 
 account of their similar natural properties, are 
 denoted by the words in question. Consequently, 
 the meaning of a word as known by our minds is 
 something which has no proportion to organic move- 
 ments, and therefore cannot in anyway be considered 
 as the result of organic action. This holds good 
 about the meaning of any word, but especially of 
 such terms as, " Being in the abstract," " Impossi- 
 bility," "Causality," "Spirit," "Infinite perfection," 
 " Consciousness," " Intellectual idea," " Infinitesi- 
 mal," "Differential calculus," finally, "the Un- 
 known," as explained by Mr. Spencer himself. 
 
 34. Moreover, as intellectual ideas expressing 
 things in general, by their very applicability to an 
 unlimited number of things, infinitely surpass the 
 
OP AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 4 x 
 
 effects which can reasonably be attributed to organic 
 impressions, so neither can the concomitant con- 
 sciousness which we have of the existence of these 
 ideas in us be explained on the hypothesis of mere 
 organic causation. I think for instance of the 
 signification of the word " spirit," and whilst I 
 entertain this thought I also know that I am 
 entertaining it. Thus the thinking principle de- 
 noted by the pronoun " I," is at once the thinking 
 subject and the object of its own thought. Assur- 
 edly this could not be, unless this principle is an 
 immaterial being; for in matter no particle acts 
 upon itself, but one particle acts upon another. 
 Therefore the thinking principle in man which is 
 called the soul, must be an immaterial spiritual 
 being. 
 
 35. If intellectual ideas and the reflection of 
 the mind upon them are due to quite another 
 principle than matter, much more must this be 
 said of intellectual judgments and the concomitant 
 reflection on them. Let us take the principle of 
 contradiction : " Nothing can be and not be at the 
 same instant and under the same respect." As 
 often as we enunciate this principle, we affirm that 
 there is absolute opposition between any perfection 
 and the negation of the same. We feel certain about 
 this opposition, not only with regard to the past and 
 present, but also with regard to all future time, and 
 with regard to all possible perfections to which the 
 concept of being may be applied. How could the 
 knowledge of the unlimited value of that principle 
 be attributed to an organic impression, without 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 admitting an effect infinitely superior to its total 
 cause ? 
 
 36. The spirituality of the human soul, following 
 as it does from the preceding considerations, is the 
 foundation of that freedom of will by which man is 
 enabled to become master to a large extent, not only 
 of the rest of the visible creation, but of his own 
 actions, so far as they are dependent upon his deli- 
 berate resolutions. It is because we have a spiritual 
 soul, that we are able to consider one object under 
 many aspects, and to weigh the motives which 
 recommend its choice or dissuade it. As our 
 reasonable will is a property of the same spiritual 
 soul, which is the spring of our intellectual ideas 
 and judgments, we cannot be necessitated to the 
 choice of any object, so long as reasons against that 
 choice present themselves to our mind. We often 
 have to decide whether we will follow the reason- 
 able counsel of a friend, or stubbornly and selfishly 
 take our own way; whether for the sake of charity 
 we will undergo an inconvenience, or for the love of 
 pleasure procure ourselves a superfluous comfort ; 
 whether we will act upon an approved moral maxim, 
 or yield to the mere impulse of anger, pride, or other 
 passion. In all these cases we are responsible tor 
 our choice, unless the use of reason be so disturbed 
 in us as to make reflection impossible. Our own 
 consciousness bears witness to the fact that what- 
 ever we choose deliberately, we choose without 
 being necessitated to the choice. It is for this 
 reason we experience remorse and self-reproach, 
 when we have chosen ill. And as we naturally 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 43 
 
 hold ourselves responsible for our deliberate 
 volitions, so our very nature inclines us easily to 
 forgive indeliberate offences committed by others, 
 however grave they may be ; whereas nothing 
 provokes us more than deliberate malice. All these 
 internal facts can be explained only on the admission 
 of the truth, firmly recognized by mankind taken as 
 a whole, that our deliberate resolutions depend upon 
 the free choice of our reasonable will. Whoever, 
 with the pantheist Spinoza 6 and other monists or 
 determinists, denies this freedom of will, not only 
 puts himself in glaring opposition to the common 
 good sense of mankind, but also implicitly denies 
 the essential distinction between praiseworthy 
 virtue and blameable vice; 7 nay, he teaches a 
 doctrine which leads to absolute scepticism ; for he 
 cannot hold his opinion without confessing a natural 
 and indelible tendency of the human understanding 
 to accept what in his view is a mere delusion, the 
 notion that man in some of his actions is a deli- 
 berate, free, and responsible agent. 
 
 37. If man's soul were nothing more than a 
 principle of growth, of individual and specific bodily 
 development, of sense-perception, and of animal 
 appetite, then, of course, he could strive after 
 nothing but what is in harmony with animal 
 craving, or tends to individual organic comfort, or 
 to the good of kith and kin ; and he would do even 
 
 Cf. Spinoza, Ethics, Part II. prop. 48, and Part I. Appendix. 
 
 7 Spinoza denies this distinction explicitly: "No action con- 
 sidered in itself is either good or bad." (Ethics, Part IV. prop. 59, 
 towards the end of the demonstration.) 
 
44 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 these actions with a certain specific uniformity, as 
 dumb animals do them, always in the same way. 
 But man by his free-will rises infinitely higher. He 
 alone in the whole animal creation, sits down deli- 
 berately to meditate how he may do things better 
 than his ancestors have done for centuries before 
 him ; he alone has invented and continually makes 
 progress in the arts ; he alone cares for the study of 
 nature ; he alone utilizes it for intellectual purposes. 
 He alone is free either to yield to the immoderate 
 cravings of animal appetites, or to subject them to 
 the demands of reason and conscience ; nay, he 
 is able deliberately to struggle against sensible 
 pleasure, deliberately to mortify his passions, deli- 
 berately to aim at the " higher things." The evidence 
 of these facts has induced Mr. A. R. Wallace, who 
 is called by Mr. Mivart " the surviving chief of 
 the encompassed and besieged citadel of Darwin- 
 ism," to throw in his lot with those who maintain 
 the spirituality of the soul. In his Exposition of the 
 Theory of Natural Selection* after having shown that 
 man's mathematical, musical, and artistic faculties 
 cannot be accounted for by the hypothesis of evolu- 
 tion, 9 Mr. Wallace thus continues: "The special 
 faculties we have been discussing clearly point to 
 the existence in man of something which he has not 
 derived from his animal progenitors something 
 which we may best refer to as being of a spiritual 
 essence or nature, capable of progressive develop- 
 ment under favourable conditions. On the hypo- 
 thesis of this spiritual nature, superadded to the 
 8 London : Macmillan and Co., 1889. 9 Pp. 466, seq. 
 
OP AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 43 
 
 animal nature of man, we are able to understand 
 much that is otherwise mysterious or unintelligible 
 in regard to him, especially the enormous influence 
 of ideas, principles, and beliefs over his whole 
 life and actions. Thus alone we can understand 
 the constancy of the martyr, the unselfishness of 
 the philanthropist, the devotion of the patriot, the 
 enthusiasm of the artist, and the resolute and perse- 
 vering search of the scientific worker after nature's 
 secrets. Thus we may perceive that the love of 
 truth, the delight in beauty, the passion for justice, 
 and the thrill of exultation with which we hear of 
 any act of courageous self-sacrifice, are the workings 
 within us of a higher nature which has not been 
 developed by means of the struggle for material 
 existence." 10 
 
 38. We have therefore a right to say that the 
 fact affirmed in the major premiss of our argument 
 for the existence of a personal God, viz., the spiri- 
 tuality of the soul ( 29), cannot be reasonably 
 doubted. But if we must admit this fact, we 
 cannot but allow its legitimate consequences. It is 
 evident that there must be a cause of the human 
 race. Astronomers and geologists, palaeontologists 
 and historians agree, that man did not always exist. 
 How then did the first man come into existence ? We 
 pass over the question as to the origin of his body ; 
 but whence came his spiritual freely-electing soul ? 
 A spiritual and free being cannot be the outcome of 
 a mere organic development. Therefore the cause of 
 
 10 Ibid. p. 474 ; cf. ib. as far as p. 476 ; cf . Dublin Rcvitw, Jan. 
 1890, " Darwinianism," by M. Mivart. 
 
OP THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 the human soul must be an agent itself spiritual and 
 free. And if you suppose this agent to be not a 
 self-existing but a created spirit which hypothesis 
 we shall discuss later on that created spirit must 
 have a self-existing spirit for its First Cause. This 
 follows evidently from the impossibility of any series 
 of produced causes which is not dependent upon 
 an unproduced First Cause; an impossibility we have 
 proved in 27. The conclusion is that the First 
 Cause of the human race is a spirit, self-existent 
 and freely-choosing, in other words, a personal God. 
 
 SECTION 3. The Argument from Design. 
 
 Thesis IV. The manifold and beautiful order of 
 nature is the work of a designing mind of vast 
 intelligence; and must be ultimately explained by the 
 existence of a personal God. 
 
 39. The argument from Design is built upon the 
 fact that material things do constantly and in a 
 most complex way group themselves together into 
 well-ordered wholes and systems. This fact cannot 
 be explained sufficiently otherwise than by admitting 
 an Intelligence presiding over nature's works, design- 
 ing and adapting means to ends with foreknowledge 
 of eventual results. That the Intelligence we speak 
 of is self-existent, we cannot directly prove by this 
 argument. We shall have to supplement the de- 
 ficiency in this regard by the argument of a First 
 Cause. Yet considered apart from it, the argument 
 from Design is in itself a striking refutation of 
 materialism, whether in the shape of a fortuitous 
 
OP AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 41 
 
 mechanical concurrence of atoms, or in the monist's 
 mystic vision of the undifferentiated developing into 
 the differentiated and individualized. 
 
 40. The order which prevails throughout the 
 visible world has excited the attention of thinkers 
 from the very dawn of Philosophy. According to 
 Cicero, 11 Thales, the leader of the Ionian school, 
 held Gd to be that Intelligence which out of water 
 forms all beings. Anaxagoras 12 believed likewise in 
 a Superior Reason pervading the whole of nature. 
 Plato 13 attributed the harmonious order of celestial 
 and terrestrial bodies to a designing mind ; and 
 Aristotle, at the end of the twelfth book of his 
 Metaphysics, concludes from the unity of the order 
 in the physical world to the unity of its Ruler. 
 The same argument was treated more fully by the 
 Stoics, a fine specimen of whose reasoning is pre- 
 served by Cicero in the second book of the De 
 natura Deorwn. 1 * 
 
 To say nothing of scholastic philosophers, 15 
 Bacon 16 held it for absolutely certain, that the attri- 
 butes of God, and particularly His wisdom and His 
 ruling providence, are traceable in creation. Leib- 
 nitz 17 expressed it as his persuasion, that the material 
 
 11 De Natura Deorum, i. 10. Cf. Aristot. De Anima, i. 5. 
 
 12 Cf. Stockl, Geschichte der Philosophic, p. 51 ; Ueberweg, History 
 cf Philosophy, i. p. 63. 
 
 13 Philebus, pp. 30 b, seq. 
 
 14 Cf. especially the beautiful illustrations in c. xxxiv. and 
 c. xxxvii. 
 
 15 Cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. q. 2. a. 3. c. " Quinta via." 
 
 16 Bacon de Verulam, De dignitate et augmentis Scientiarum, Lib. III. 
 c. ii. pp. 207, seq. Cf. Stockl, Geschichte der neuern Phil. I. p. 21. 
 
 v Leibnitz, Opera (Edit. Erdm.) p. 506. 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 elements of the world, considered in themselves, are 
 capable of quite another order than that by which 
 they actually are connected ; whence he concludes 
 that the realization of this one order out of many 
 possible orders must be attributed to the deter- 
 mining mind of God. Kepler's reverence for the 
 Author of Nature is well known. Newton concludes 
 his Scholia with a scholion generate in praise of the 
 Creator, whose infinite wisdom in arranging the 
 solar system had struck him with admiration. 
 "This most elegant contrivance, consisting of the 
 sun, planets, and comets," he says, "could not 
 originate but by the design and power of an intel- 
 ligent Being." What this great astronomer saw so 
 clearly, the great biologist of modern time, Charles 
 Darwin, 18 felt instinctively and "with overpowering 
 force," although he did not care to draw the con- 
 clusion suggested to common-sense by his own 
 observations. Let us add here that although John 
 Stuart Mill doubted whether the Darwinian principle 
 of the "survival of the fittest" be not able "to 
 account for such truly admirable combinations as 
 some of those in nature," he was nevertheless of 
 opinion, "that it must be allowed that in the 
 present state of our knowledge, the adaptations in 
 nature afford a large balance of probability in 
 favour of creation by intelligence." 19 
 
 Of far more weight, however, than Mill's timid 
 admission of a large balance of probability, is the 
 
 18 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, by F. Darwin, Vol. I. p. 316. 
 note. 
 
 19 Three Essays OH Religion, pp. 172, 174. 
 
OP AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 49 
 
 firm conviction of many of the best scientific men 
 of our own century, that it is absolutely impossible 
 to explain the adaptations we meet with in all 
 departments of nature, otherwise but by intelligence 
 and design. St. George Mivart tells us that the 
 cause of the phenomenal universe " must be orderly 
 and intelligent, as the first and absolute cause of 
 an orderly series of phenomena which reveals to 
 us an objective intelligence in the bee and the 
 ant, which is not that of the animals themselves, 
 and which harmonizes with and is recognized 
 by our own intellects." 20 Dr. W. B. Carpenter, 
 after having given us in his Vegetable Physiology 
 a highly interesting chapter on the Secretions of 
 Plants, 21 pauses to contemplate with his readers 
 " the important inferences which may be drawn 
 from the foregoing details, in regard to the 
 Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of the Almighty 
 Designer." 22 
 
 With the two great biologists just mentioned, 
 A. R. Wallace, in the work already quoted above, 
 agrees at least to a certain extent. According to 
 him, the "three distinct stages of progress from 
 the inorganic world of matter and motion up to 
 man, point clearly to an unseen universe to a 
 world of spirit, to which the world of matter is 
 altogether subordinate." 23 
 
 No less pronounced statements in favour of the 
 existence of an intelligent arranger of the universe, 
 
 n Lessons from Nature, p. 358. - 1 Vegetable Physiology, c. x. 
 22 Op. cit. n. 404, pp. 258, 259 in First Edition. 
 98 Cf. Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection, pp. 475, 476. 
 E 
 
50 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 came from other quarters of modern science. 
 " Overpowering proofs of intelligence and benevo- 
 lent design," said Sir William Thomson some years 
 ago, 24 " lie around us, showing to us through nature 
 the influence of a free-will, and teaching us that all 
 living beings depend upon one ever-acting Creator 
 and Ruler." Two years later, Sir William Siemens 
 repeated the same judgment in these words : " We 
 find that all knowledge must lead up to one great 
 result, that of an intelligent recognition of the 
 Creator through His works." 25 
 
 At the same conclusion which English scientists 
 drew from the order of nature, the French astro- 
 nomer, Faye, in his work Sur Vorigine du monde 
 (Paris, 1884), arrived from the consideration of the 
 human mind. After having stated that human 
 intelligence must owe its origin to an intelligence 
 higher than human, he thus continues: "Plus I'idee 
 qu'on se fera de cette intelligence supreme sera grande, 
 phis elle approchera de la verite." 2Q 
 
 But what seems to us the best extrinsic evidence 
 of the great strength of the argument from design, 
 is the fact that such a judge of the value of argu- 
 ments as Kant thinks it a blameable imprudence not 
 to conclude from the order of nature to an intelli- 
 gent designer. " This proof," he says, 27 " will 
 
 24 Presidential Address, 1882. 
 
 28 See also statements made by Professor Stokes, Professors 
 Stuart and Tait, and Sir John Herschell, in The Month of January, 
 1889, pp. 39, seq. in "The New Genesis," a criticism of E. Clodd's 
 Story of Creation, by Rev. John Gerard. 
 
 26 Op. cit. p. 114. 
 
 87 Critique of Pure Reason (Translated by M. Muller), ii. p. 535. 
 
OF At* INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 31 
 
 always deserve to be treated with respect. It is the 
 oldest, the clearest, and most in conformity with 
 human reason. It gives life to the study of nature, 
 deriving its own existence from it, and thus constantly 
 acquiring new vigour. It reveals aims and intentions, 
 where our own observation would not by itself have 
 discovered them, and enlarges our knowledge of 
 nature by leading us towards that peculiar unity, the 
 principle of which exists outside nature. This 
 knowledge reacts again on its cause, namely, the 
 transcendental idea, and thus increases the belief in 
 a Supreme Author to an irresistible conviction. It 
 would therefore be not only extremely sad, but 
 utterly vain, to attempt to diminish the authority of 
 this proof. Reason, constantly strengthened by the 
 powerful arguments that come to hand of them- 
 selves, though they are no doubt empirical only, 
 cannot be discouraged by any doubts of subtle and 
 abstract speculation. Roused from all curious specu- 
 lation and mental suspense, as from a dream, by 
 one glance at the wonders of nature and the majesty 
 of the cosmos, reason soars from height to height 
 till it reaches the highest, from the conditioned to 
 conditions, till it reaches the supreme and uncon- 
 ditioned Author of all." Later on, 28 Kant refers to 
 the objection that we must not argue from the need 
 of foresight in human workmanship to a similar 
 need in nature. His answer is : " We cannot do 
 better than follow the analogy of these products of 
 human design, which are the only ones of which we 
 know completely both cause and effect. There 
 
 28 P. 537. 
 
33 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GQC. 
 
 would be no excuse, if reason were to surrender a 
 causality which it knows, and have recourse to 
 obscure and indemonstrable principles of expla- 
 nation, which it does not know." 29 
 
 It is true that Kant, while granting thus much, 
 has nevertheless some speculative difficulties against 
 the argument from Design. We shall treat of these 
 later. For the present we are satisfied with knowing 
 that one of the most acute leaders of modern 
 thought, forced by the voice of reason, bears testi- 
 mony to the great truth that "the heavens show 
 forth the glory of the Lord," 30 that "by the great- 
 ness of the beauty and of the creature, the Creator 
 of them may be seen so as to be known thereby," 31 
 and that "the unknown God" 32 "left not Himself 
 without testimony, doing good from Heaven, giving 
 rains and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with 
 food and gladness." 33 
 
 We now proceed from authority to argument. 
 
 41. Order is the adaptation of diverse things to 
 one definite result. Order of simple coexistences is 
 called statical; order of motions and activities is 
 called dynamical. Thus for instance, in a well- 
 arranged library we have statical order, in machinery 
 not only statical, but also dynamical. These defini- 
 tions supposed, it cannot be doubted that the visible 
 universe in all its parts bears marks of a most 
 varied and beautiful order. Darwin was so struck 
 by this complex final order, that he did not hesitate 
 to pronounce " nature's productions far truer in 
 
 9 P 538 *> Psalm xviii. i. 3l Wisdom xiii. 5. 
 
 33 Acts xvii. 23. 33 Acts xiv. 16. 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSS 53 
 
 character than man's productions;" and to maintain 
 that they are " infinitely better adapted to the most 
 complex conditions of life, and plainly bear the 
 stamp of far higher workmanship." 34 
 
 Any good popular treatise on astronomy and 
 physiology will serve as a rich source of illustrations 
 bearing on the truth of these statements, nor is 
 there any one who will be foolish enough to dispute 
 them. It must, however, be carefully noted, that 
 we do not as yet affirm that everything in this world 
 is well-ordered, nor do we say that there is a. 
 universal combination of things for the fulfilment of one 
 common purpose. Were we to claim all this, we 
 should indeed be claiming only what, if rightly 
 understood, is most true. But so far-reaching a 
 proposition is not necessary for the argument from 
 Design, nor would it be sufficiently warranted until 
 we have carried our inquiry further. 
 
 42. Confining, therefore, our attention to those 
 manifestations of order which are obvious to every 
 one who cares for the study of the workings of 
 nature, we ask : How did these orderly arrange- 
 ments, their harmony, beauty, and usefulness, come 
 to be ? May we suppose, with Epicurus, that they 
 are the effect of chance ? in other words, that they 
 are owing to an accidental concurrence of atoms, 
 moving in infinite space, and meeting one another in 
 such a way as to form, after many failures, various 
 kinds of inanimate and animate bodies ? Such an 
 hypothesis would be not only inadequate to account 
 for the laws and results of chemical combinations, 
 
 34 Origin of Species, c. iv. p. 65. 
 
54 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GCD. 
 
 and for the origin of life ; it would be intrinsically 
 absurd, conflicting with the universality of the Prin- 
 ciple of Causation, inasmuch as this fortuitous con- 
 currence would be an uncaused concurrence. 35 There 
 must then have been a cause of the formation of 
 the heavenly orbs and their arrangement in systems: 
 a cause again which, on our earth, grouped together 
 the elements into organized structures, moving, 
 growing, repairing themselves, and reproducing 
 their kind according to definite laws. Where shall 
 we find this cause ? It must either be inherent in 
 the elements of matter, or it must be something out- 
 side these. If it is outside matter, it can only be a 
 mind, understanding and designing the order of 
 matter. But will not the inherent forces of matter 
 suffice to explain this complex order ? Let us see. 
 
 35 On this point not only all sound metaphysicians, but also all 
 true scientists, are at one. " The one act of faith in the convert to 
 science," says Professor Huxley, "is the universality of order, and 
 of the absolute validity, in all times and under all circumstances, of 
 the law of causation. This confession is an act of faith, because, 
 by the nature of the case, the truth of such propositions is not 
 susceptible of proof. But such faith is not blind, but reasonable, 
 because it is invariably confirmed by experience, and constitutes the 
 sole trustworthy foundation for all action." Then picturing, for 
 illustration's sake, the raging sea, he thus continues : " The man of 
 science knows that here, as everywhere, perfect order is manifested ; 
 that there is not a curve of the waves, not a note in the howling 
 chorus, not a rainbow glint on a bubble, which is other than a 
 necessary consequence of the ascertained laws of nature, and that 
 with a sufficient knowledge of the conditions, competent physicc- 
 mathematical skill could account for and indeed predict every one 
 of these 'chance' events." (Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, by 
 F. Darwin, Vol. II. c. 5, written by Professor Huxley, p. 200.) We 
 agree fully with all of this, inasmuch as it implies that nothing happens 
 without a proportionate cause, and that consequently an accidental 
 concurrence of causes is nonsense. 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 55 
 
 43. In the first place, the inherent forces of matter 
 cannot be appealed to as the cause of the order 
 prevailing in the inorganic world. We know that 
 material elements produce different effects according 
 to their different collocations in regard to one 
 another. 36 Consequently, each effect is the natural 
 outcome of a previous disposition of the parts of 
 matter. This being so, every orderly effect is due to 
 a pre-arrangement of particles suitable to the pro- 
 duction of such an effect. That is, the order which 
 is worked out by the elements of matter, presupposes 
 order in the combination of the working elements. 
 Thus the question of order in the world of inani- 
 mate matter is thrown back to the origin of that 
 combination of elements which gen-crated order. 
 
 Nor do we escape the necessity of seeking a 
 cause external to the combinations themselves, by 
 pleading the possibility of an eternal series of 
 combinations. In the first place, eternal succession 
 is a self-contradictory conception. Succession im- 
 plies links of a series, it is constituted by the con- 
 tinuous addition of link to link. Now links added to 
 one another are always numerable. Links of a series 
 must always be in some number, however immense 
 the number may be. But to be in some number, is 
 to be finite : for every number is made up of finite 
 unities. Thus eternal succession would be essentially 
 finite, because it was succession, and yet infinite 
 because eternal. 
 
 36 " The last great generalization of science, the Conservation of 
 Force, teaches us that the variety in the effects depends partly 
 upon the amount of force, and partly upon the diversity of the 
 collocations." (Mill, Three Essays on Religion, p. 145. Third Edit.) 
 
56 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 In the second place, even if eternal succes- 
 sion were possible, it would furnish no explanation 
 of the phenomenon of orderly combination which 
 the world exhibits : any more than infinite exten- 
 sion of a chain hung in air would supply the 
 want of supports for it. Consequently, although 
 we have nothing to say against the assumption 
 made by astronomers, that our cosmic system 
 resulted from the condensation and division of a 
 primitive rotating nebula; yet we cannot admit 
 this nebula, without observing that there must have 
 been a first arrangement of the material elements 
 which constituted it, one which already contained 
 in germ the present system, or else the said system 
 could never have resulted from it. Now this first 
 arrangement was neither the effect of the forces of 
 matter, nor was it essential to matter. Had it been 
 the effect of material forces, it could not possibly 
 have been the first disposition of matter, but was 
 rather the effect of a preceding disposition of the 
 elements. Again, had it belonged essentially to 
 matter, it could not have yielded to another dispo- 
 sition so long as matter existed, and thus the present 
 cosmic system could never have been formed. There- 
 fore, if we w r ould explain the origin of that system 
 without violation of reason, we are forced to say 
 that its first beginning, nebular or otherwise, is due 
 to an intelligent cause. 37 
 
 37 Professor Huxley supports our conclusion, when in defence of 
 Darwin's Origin of Species he writes: "The teleological and the 
 mechanical views of nature are not, necessarily, mutually exclusive. 
 On the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the 
 more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement of 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 57 
 
 44. If the forces of matter are inadequate to 
 explain the order of the inorganic world, much less 
 can they account for the existence of life and the 
 orderly relations which exist between animate and 
 inanimate beings. 
 
 Whence comes the adaptation of inanimate 
 nature to the support of life ? The natural tendency 
 of brute matter cannot explain it. The relation 
 of brute matter to life is accidental to its nature. 
 Whence then did the relation originate ? No 
 satisfactory answer to this question can be given 
 except this : that an Intelligent Ruler of this 
 world arranged the material elements of which 
 the universe is built up in such a way that they 
 gradually became adapted to the service of living 
 beings whose existence he intended and foresaw. 
 This answer must be insisted upon all the more 
 from the fact that man, the most noble being on 
 earth, finds it rich with an innumerable multitude 
 of things accommodated to his bodily and mental 
 wants. As we have proved before ( 32, seq.), the 
 soul of man is not the outgrowth of matter, but 
 the work of an intelligent Creator only. No evolu- 
 tion of matter, of plants, and of animals, could 
 culminate in the existence of man, composed of a 
 human soul and a human body ; and yet matter and 
 
 which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences, and 
 me more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist, 
 who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular 
 arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the 
 universe." (Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, by F. Darwin, Vol. II. 
 pp. 201, 202, in Professor Huxley's chapter on "Reception of 
 The Origin of Species.") 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 life inferior to man, conspire to furnish him what he 
 needs for the maintenance of his body, and to help 
 him in the cultivation of his intellect. Certainly no 
 reasonable explanation of this great fact can be 
 given but by recurring to an intelligent mind, 
 superior to man and the irrational world, which 
 arranged the latter, ere man was created, with a 
 view to prepare him a fit dwelling-place. 38 
 
 45. We have then seen hitherto that the adapta- 
 tions to one another which connect the various 
 groups of beings in the macrocosm of the universe 
 must be attributed to a Designing Mind. The same 
 conclusion we arrive at by pondering the order pre- 
 vailing in the microcosm of each living organism, 
 from the tiniest unicellular plant up to the most 
 highly organized animal. Just as in scientific 
 inquiry, the further that it proceeds, the more 
 it becomes evident that brute matter by its own 
 forces alone never developes into organized living 
 structures ; so, when we look at the subject from 
 a metaphysical point of view, we are forced to 
 maintain that the vast differences which separate 
 the natural tendencies of living bodies from 
 those of lifeless matter, are a sufficient evidence 
 of the impossibility of a natural evolution of the 
 latter into any species of the former. And with 
 this conclusion coincides the verdict of scientific 
 experience. 
 
 33 " A successively increasing purpose," says St. George Mivart, 
 " runs through the irrational creation up to man. All the lower 
 creatures have ministered to him, and have, as a fact, prepared the 
 way for his existence. Therefore, whatever ends they also serve, 
 they exist especially for aim." (On Truth, p. 495.) 
 
OP AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 5 j 
 
 Mr. St. George Mivart speaks on this point with 
 authority. He says : 
 
 " That there is an absolute break between the 
 living world and the world devoid of life, is what 
 scientific men are now agreed about thanks to the 
 persevering labours of M. Pasteur. Those who 
 affirm that though life does not arise from inorganic 
 matter now, nevertheless it did so 'a long time ago,' 
 affirm what is at the least contrary to all the evi- 
 dence we possess, and they bring forward nothing 
 more in favour of it than the undoubted fact that it 
 is a supposition which is necessary for the validity 
 of their own speculative views. There is, then, one 
 plain evidence that there has been an interruption 
 of continuity, if not within the range of organic life, 
 yet at its commencement and origin. But we go 
 further than this, and affirm, without a moment's 
 hesitation, that there has, and must necessarily have 
 been, discontinuity within the range of organic life 
 also. We refer to the discontinuity between organ- 
 isms which are capable of sensation and those which 
 do not possess the power of feeling. That all the 
 higher animals ' feel ' will not be disputed. They 
 give all the external signs of sensitivity, and they 
 possess that special organic structure a nervous 
 system which we know supplies all our organs of 
 sensation. In the absence of any bodily mutila- 
 tion, then, we have no reason to suspect that their 
 nervous system and organs of sense do not act in a 
 manner analogous to our own. On the other hand, 
 to affirm that the familiar vegetables of our kitchen- 
 gardens are all endowed with sensitivity, is not only 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OP GOD 
 
 to make a gratuitous affirmation, but one opposed to 
 evidence, since no vegetable organisms possess a 
 nervous system, and it is a universally admitted 
 biological law, that structure and functions go 
 together. If, then, there are any organisms what- 
 ever, which do not feel, while certain other organisms 
 do feel (as a door must be shut or open), there is, 
 and must be, a break and distinction between one 
 set and the other." 39 
 
 What then was it which gave birth to organic 
 life ? To say, it had no beginning, but that from 
 eternity there existed one or several series of living 
 organisms, would involve the postulate of succession 
 without beginning, which we have proved to be self- 
 contradictory. ( 43.) But, if organic life can neither 
 be considered as an effect of the forces of dead 
 matter, nor have the source of its own existence 
 within itself, we cannot reasonably explain its origin 
 except by admitting that an intelligent Being, ruling 
 over the matter of our earth, first put into it the 
 germ of life, although we are not able to point out 
 when, and in what way, this influence was exercised. 
 Hence, the countless living organisms that people 
 our globe are the realizations of ideas conceived by 
 an immaterial superhuman Intelligence. This Intel- 
 ligence drew the plans on which they are built, fore- 
 saw the stages of evolution, through which they run 
 with so astonishing a regularity, furnished them 
 with a multitude of skilfully-contrived organs, and 
 adapted their whole structure to the environment in 
 v/hich they are placed. 
 
 10 Origin of Human Reason, pp. 10, n. 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 6l 
 
 46. That the Ruler in whose mind the order of 
 the world originated is a self-existing intelligence, 
 and consequently a personal God, does not follow 
 immediately from the fact that the order of the 
 world must be the work of a superhuman Intelli- 
 gence. What does, however, follow immediately is, 
 that the Intelligence which rules the physical world 
 is so vast, that no human understanding and wisdom 
 can be compared with it. For many ages the 
 cleverest of men have been occupied in studying 
 the relations that exist between the different parts 
 of living beings, and between these parts and their 
 functions, and yet there is no man who understands 
 completely the mysteries hidden even in one living 
 cell. Far indeed then above human comprehension 
 must be the excellence of that Mind whose ideas 
 were the models after which the universe was 
 fashioned, with its wealth of marvels and com- 
 plexity of order. 
 
 If, however, we would show that the order of 
 the world is due, not only to an Intelligence far 
 exceeding all intelligence of man, but ultimately to 
 a self-existent Intelligence in other words, to a 
 personal God, we must go back to the argument of 
 the First Cause. Either the intelligent mind who 
 designed the order of our world is dependent upon 
 a series of other minds without beginning, or it 
 depends upon a first mind, or it is itself the first 
 mind. The first alternative is absurd, because it 
 implies a series of causes produced without a self- 
 existent cause to produce them ( 38); therefore either 
 the second or the third must be admitted. But this 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. 
 
 is equivalent to an admission that the order of the 
 world depends upon an intelligent, self-existent 
 cause ; for the cause of the cause of order must 
 also, at least mediately, be the cause of order itself. 40 
 
 SECTION 4. The Moral Proof. 
 
 Thesis V. Mankind has at all times believed in 
 the existence of an intelligent nature superior to the 
 material world and to man. This universal belief can 
 only be explained as the result of the real existence of 
 such a nature. But to grant this much is to grant 
 implicitly the existence of a personal God. 
 
 47. When we have convinced ourselves by a train 
 of reasoning that some proposition is true, we 
 are always anxious to know if our conclusion is 
 identical with that of other minds. Our own 
 minds may have been the victims of some lurking 
 fallacy, but it is less likely that other minds should 
 have been simultaneously deceived in the same 
 manner. Thus we gain confidence when we find 
 them to be in agreement with us, and our confidence 
 becomes very great indeed when these other minds 
 are in immense number and belong to various 
 classes of persons acting independently of one 
 another. It is natural therefore that now that we 
 have completed our proofs of the existence of God 
 drawn from intrinsic evidence, we should go on to 
 inquire how far the Divine existence is universally 
 
 40 On the argument from Design, cf. Janet, Final Causes. Trans- 
 lated into English by William Affleck, B.D. Second Edition. 
 Edinburgh : T. and T. Clark, 1883. 
 
Of AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 65 
 
 recognized, and that we should claim the result of 
 the inquiry as a signal corroboration of our position. 
 
 We claim more, however, than this in the 
 present argument. We claim to find in this uni- 
 versal recognition which we assert, not only a corro- 
 boration of what has preceded, but an argument of 
 absolute value in itself. We claim that a fact like 
 this of the consent of nations in the recognition of 
 God must be deemed the voice of universal reason 
 yielding to the compelling evidence of truth. The 
 cause must be adequate to the effect. A universal 
 effect must imply an equally universal cause. But 
 truth alone is such a cause. Error is always partial, 
 local, temporary ; truth alone is everywhere the 
 same. 
 
 48. This is the outline of the argument we now 
 advance. Its force will become more manifest 
 when we have examined into its details. 
 
 First, about the fact. From the ancient writers, 
 pagan as well as Christian, many well known 
 passages have been collected in which this universal 
 recognition of a Divine government of the world is 
 attested. Thus Plutarch says : " If you go round 
 the world, you may find cities without walls, or 
 literature, or kings, or houses, or wealth, or money, 
 without gymnasia, or theatres. But no one ever 
 saw a city without temples and gods, one which does 
 not have recourse to prayers, or oaths, or oracles, 
 which does not offer sacrifice to obtain blessings or 
 celebrate rites to avert evil." 41 And Cicero has 
 declared that "there is no nation so wild and 
 
 ** Adv. Coloten Epicnreum 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 fierce, as not to know that it must have a God. 
 although it may not know what sort of a God it 
 should be." 42 From among Christian witnesses we 
 may take Clement of Alexandria, who tells us that 
 " all nations, whether they dwell in the East or on 
 the remotest shores of the West, in the North or 
 the South, have one and the same rudimentary 
 apprehension of Him by whom this government 
 (of the world) has been established." 43 
 
 One is prone nowadays to suspect passages 
 like these of resting too little on solid information, 
 too much on the inferences and generalizations of 
 oratory. Still they have their value, and attest to 
 us the results of such actual experience as came 
 within the reach of former generations. They have 
 a right also to be taken together with the results of 
 modern inquiry which, if they are found to agree 
 with them, they can complete. And they do agree 
 with the discoveries of the most recent times. 
 There are few tribes of the earth which have not 
 been scrutinized by the active-minded explorers of 
 the present century, and scrutinized on the whole 
 with scientific care and skill. Out of the entire 
 number thus examined it is just possible that a few 
 are altogether without religious ideas. Sir John 
 Lubbock has maintained that there are such. But it 
 is a task of no small difficulty to elicit from savages 
 a true account of their religious beliefs. They are 
 shy in the presence of the white man, and they have 
 also often a superstitious fear of mentioning the 
 names of their gods. Thus it becomes likely that 
 De Leg. I. c. 8. 43 Strom. Lib V. n. 260. 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 65 
 
 even this small residuum is not really as atheistic 
 as it has been alleged to be. This is the judgment of 
 one who is in the front rank of anthropologists, and 
 is clear from any suspicions of undue partiality in 
 favour of the religion of theists. Mr. Tylor writes : 
 
 "'The assertion that rude non-religious tribes 
 have been known in actual existence, though in 
 theory possible, and perhaps in fact true, does not 
 at present rest on that sufficient proof which for an 
 exceptional state of things we are entitled to 
 demand. ... So far as I can judge from the 
 immense mass of accessible evidence, we have to 
 admit that the belief in spiritual beings appears 
 among all low races with whom we have attained 
 to thoroughly intimate acquaintance." 44 
 
 That the facts brought forward by Sir John 
 Lubbock to prove the contrary, are not really to the 
 point, has been clearly shown by Gustav Roskoff. 45 
 The conclusion at which he arrives is, that " hitherto 
 no tribe has been found to be without any traces of 
 religious sentiments." In this he is fully borne out 
 both by the distinguished German ethnologist, Oskar 
 Peschel, 46 who denies categorically that any tribe 
 has been met with without religious ideas, and 
 
 44 Primitive Culture, Vol. I. pp. 378 and 384. 
 
 45 Gustav Roskoff 's words are as follows: " Es ist bisher noch 
 kein Volksstamm ohne jede Spur von Religiositat betroffen worden." 
 (Das Religionswesen der rohesten Natiirvolker, p. 178, Leipzig, 1880.) 
 
 46 " Stellen wir uns die Frage, ob irgendwo auf Erden ein 
 Volksstamm ohne religiose Anregungen und Vorstellungen jemals 
 angetroffen worden sei, so darf sie entschieden verneint werden." 
 (Oskar Peschel, Volkerkunde, p. 260. Fifth Edit. Leipzig, 1881.) 
 
 F 
 
66 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 also by F. v. Hellwald, in his Natural History of 
 Man. 47 
 
 49. Even if there were a few races altogether 
 without religion it would not touch our argument. 
 Our object is to ascertain the voice of nature, and 
 of rational nature. It is only to be expected that we 
 shall find its tones affected by an admixture of 
 the tones of error in degraded races, and that the 
 extent of the confusion should follow the degrees of 
 degradation. 
 
 Here, however, the very natural objection will 
 occur to the reader's mind : Do we not find an 
 opposing voice at the other end of the scale of 
 civilization ? Do not those who deem themselves 
 and are perhaps deemed by the mass of men to repre- 
 sent the acme of intellectual culture, proclaim them- 
 selves to be conscientiously agnostic in reference to 
 this important doctrine? That there are these 
 apparent exceptions to the general law must of 
 course be admitted. But we must not allow our 
 adversaries to assume too much. Undoubtedly 
 there is an increasingly large number of persons 
 who profess themselves to be agnostics. Still only 
 a small portion of these can be regarded as persons 
 of special culture : and if there are some such, it 
 must not be forgotten that there are many more 
 of equal culture who are earnest theists. The fact 
 thus alleged against us when reduced to its proper 
 
 47 " Mit Fug und Recht darf man von einer Religion der Wilden 
 sprechen ; denn bisjetzt sind noch keine vollstandig religionslosen 
 Volkerstamme gefunden worden." (F. v. Hellwald, Natnrgeschichte 
 des Mensclien, p. 95. Stuttgart, 1883.) 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 6? 
 
 proportions becomes this. In the present age there 
 are many agnostics who declare that they do not 
 see grounds for admitting the Divine existence, and 
 some among them are in the front rank among the 
 thinkers of the day. After all, this is a fact not 
 peculiar to the present age. It can be paralleled 
 by similar instances in the last century, and it can 
 be paralleled also by similar instances among the 
 philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome. Even 
 the reasonings on which modern agnostics rely are 
 substantially the same with those which we find in 
 the writings of these ancient atheists. 
 
 If any one, certainly Professor Huxley must 
 know, whether the scientific progress of our age has 
 really created new and formidable difficulties against 
 Natural Theology. Yet he says : " There is a great 
 deal of talk and not a little lamentation about the 
 so-called religious difficulties which physical science 
 has created. In theological science, as a matter of 
 fact, it has created none. Not a solitary problem 
 presents itself to the philosophical Theist at the 
 present day which has not existed from the time 
 that philosophers began to think out the logical 
 grounds and the logical consequences of Theism." 48 
 
 50. Thus we are able Jo state as generally true 
 the fact with which we have to deal. The acknow- 
 ledgment of a superior and invisible intelligence 
 governing the visible universe is common to all ages 
 and all regions, to civilized and uncivilized tribes 
 alike. We find a disposition on the part of 
 
 48 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, by F. Darwin, Vol. II. c. v 
 p. 203. 
 
68 CF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 some few philosophers to dispute the validity of 
 the belief, but nevertheless the belief has proved 
 to be persistent and indestructible in the mass of 
 mankind. It is this persistency among the mass 
 of men, retained even in the teeth of sceptical 
 opposition, on which our argument is based. 
 
 Now for the interpretation of this important 
 fact. How comes it that minds are so accordant in 
 their inference that the nature and movements of 
 the visible world imply the existence of an invisible 
 over-ruling spirit ? There must be motives acting 
 on the mind to induce it to draw this conclusion : 
 and the motives must have been the same every- 
 where, since the effect, the inference, is the same 
 everywhere. If the inference is of the character 
 which we have investigated in the previous theses, 
 and if this inference is true ; if it is true that the 
 universe bears upon its face the characteristic marks 
 of an effect, and an effect presupposes a propor- 
 tionate cause, if the universe bears upon its face the 
 marks of design and purpose, and the only pro 
 portionate cause of design and purpose is a cause 
 endowed with intelligence, then the world-wide 
 recognition of such an intelligent ruler of the 
 world is fully justified and explained. And that 
 this is the true explanation we may establish by 
 way of elimination. What other explanation is 
 there in the field ? Bayle in the seventeenth century 
 undertook to suggest other possible causes. He 
 named the following : 
 
 (i) Ignorance of natural causes. Men observed 
 the marvellous course of nature in the midst of 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 6 g 
 
 which they lived, and, unable as yet to detect the 
 physical causes from which they actually spring, 
 attributed them to the action of invisible beings 
 which they anthropomorphically invested with form 
 and qualities resembling their own. 
 
 (2) Fear excited by the stupendous forces of 
 nature, by the flash of the lightning, the roll of 
 the thunder, the fury of the waves, and the shock 
 of the earthquake. 
 
 Primus in orbe decs fecit timor ardua cceli 
 Fulmina durn caderent. 
 
 (3) The fraud of the ruling classes, of priests and 
 kings, who played upon these natural predisposi- 
 tions of the people by stamping them with the 
 seal of their own superior authority : so doing 
 because they perceived that the tendency of the 
 beliefs was to exalt their own character as priests 
 and kings by causing them to be regarded as the 
 Divine representatives and as the mediators through 
 whose instrumentality alone the Divine anger could 
 be appeased. 
 
 Of these three reasons only the first is radical 
 and need be considered. Given a belief in the 
 existence of a Divine ruler, fear would naturally 
 ensue, and where the idea of God was mingled 
 with error, as it undoubtedly has been among 
 barbarous nations, this fear would take an unreason- 
 able form. But fear alone could not create a belief in 
 God. In like manner, given belief in the existence 
 of God formed on other grounds, the natural 
 consequence would be a conviction that earthly 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 rulers are His representatives holding authority 
 under Him, and this conviction might lend itself 
 to the interested motives of unworthy rulers where 
 the people were sufficiently untutored to credit such 
 fraudulent representatives. 
 
 What then is to be said of the ' first alleged 
 cause of the belief in question ? And be it noticed, 
 that this self-same cause which is said to have 
 originated the belief in God in past ages, is 
 alleged to be sustaining it now among the ignorant 
 theists, who, according to our modern men of 
 progress, shut their eyes to the enlightenment of 
 modern thought. You discover final causes, is the 
 charge against us, and you then infer from them 
 the existence of an architect of the universe, 
 because you fail to see that the existing physical 
 causes are quite able of themselves to evolve the 
 complicated system which we call the world. 
 
 This charge, however, is a little out of date 
 now. Those who used confidently to make it 
 are beginning to realize what was seen by their 
 adversaries all along, namely, that the appeal to 
 physical causes and even to a long course of 
 evolution under their action only results in push- 
 ing back the need of a designer to an earlier stage, 
 and indeed makes the need itself the more impera- 
 tive. However, this is a point that has already been 
 sufficiently considered. All that we are at present 
 concerned to notice is, that if failure to regard 
 physical causes as containing within themselves an 
 adequate explanation of the cosmos has been the 
 motive which has engendered this universal recog- 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. *i 
 
 nition of the Divine existence, the failure is not one 
 which can be confidently appealed to as discrediting 
 the recognition. We are merely reduced to this, 
 that whereas a certain argument seems to modern 
 agnostics unsound and to modern theists sound, the 
 general consent of mankind is on the side of the 
 theists, not of the agnostics. And this is just what 
 the theist appeals to as constituting an independent 
 argument in his favour. How explain, he says, this 
 persistent general belief without seeing in it the 
 voice of rational nature ratifying the truth of the 
 conclusion and the validity of the inference ? 
 
 51. Of course it must not be supposed that we 
 deny that here and there some among the thinkers 
 of former ages have erred, just as barbarous tribes 
 even may err now, in attributing to the immediate 
 action of the Divinity results of which the imme- 
 diate cause was the action of some physical agent. 
 Errors in assigning wrong causes to physical facts 
 have no doubt been committed repeatedly, and have 
 been corrected by our superior information. Herein, 
 in fact, we see, from the opposite side, an illustration 
 of the value of our principle that persistent universal 
 belief is an evidence of truth. The errors in question 
 proved themselves to be errors by dropping out with 
 the march of discovery. They have proved not 
 to be universal and persistent. But these crude 
 notions of immediate Divine action in the move- 
 ment of the storm or the flash of the lightning, are 
 not what we are appealing to. The question is not 
 why some men multiplied their gods, or attributed 
 to them this action or that ; but why mankind in 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 general have agreed in thinking that the world as 
 a whole presupposes the existence of an intelligent 
 governor, and why this belief has shown itself, 
 and continues to show itself to be as persistent in 
 the face of all attacks made upon it by the agnostic 
 thought of the various ages, as the other beliefs 
 have shown themselves to be yielding and transitory. 
 Error, we know, cannot live for ever. It is always 
 in danger of destruction, because its foundations 
 are insecure. Truth, on the other hand, though it 
 may lie for a time obscured, must persist, because 
 its foundation is on the rock of evidence. 
 
 52. It will help to render the force of our argu- 
 ment more distinct, if we bear in mind the difference 
 between what were once happily called by Cardinal 
 Newman "Implicit and Explicit Reason." To reason, 
 that is to say, to be intellectually moved by certain 
 premisses to the adoption of the conclusion towards 
 which they point, is one thing. To give an accurate 
 account of the nature of the premisses grasped by 
 the mind, is quite another. To quote the Cardinal's 
 words : 
 
 " Let a person only call to mind the clear im- 
 pression he has about matters of every-day occur- 
 rence, that this man is bent on a certain object, or 
 that man was displeased, or another suspicious : or 
 that one is happy and another unhappy; and how 
 much depends in such impressions on manner, voice, 
 accent, words uttered, silence instead of words, and 
 all the many subtle symptoms which are felt by the 
 mind, but cannot be contemplated ; and let him 
 consider how very poor an account he is able to give 
 
Of AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 73 
 
 of his impression, if he avows it and is called upon 
 to justify it." 49 
 
 The illustration is taken from one class of in- 
 ference, but is applicable to others. To give an 
 accurate account of one's reasoning is a faculty 
 confined mainly to those who possess the art of 
 reflection and analysis, born of the discipline of 
 philosophical training. To reason correctly is a 
 faculty much more widely found. It is noticeable 
 that most men reason correctly concerning practical 
 matters which come within their special sphere of 
 interest and experience. All men who are in their 
 right senses reason correctly concerning those 
 matters which are of fundamental importance for 
 the conduct of life. And thus it comes to pass that 
 in a certain sense untrained minds are given to 
 reason more correctly than philosophers. The latter, 
 although enjoying the power to analyze their reason- 
 ings into its elements, do not always enjoy this 
 power to perfection. Accordingly they set down the 
 premisses. inaccurately, and then, finding them in- 
 sufficient to bear the weight of the inference, dis- 
 card as unsound conclusions which are really valid. 
 Meanwhile the untrained mind, undistracted by any 
 such false notions, pursues its natural course, and 
 arrives with certainty at the true conclusion. Here, 
 then, we have the justification of the stress we have 
 been laying on the appeal to the persistent universal 
 consent of mankind in recognizing the existence of 
 a superior intelligence. The appeal is from the 
 mind caught in philosophical mazes through its 
 
 49 Sermons before the Universitv oj Oxford, p. 274. Third Edit. 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 inability to grasp with sufficient accuracy the true 
 premisses on which the arguments for God's exist- 
 ence rest ; and it is to minds free from this dis- 
 tracting influence which by their concord in such 
 number, variety, and persistency, prove themselves 
 to be dominated by the evidence of truth. 
 
 53. In the last clause of the thesis we are proving, 
 we assert that to admit this universal recognition 
 of a superior intelligence governing the universe is 
 implicitly to admit the existence of a personal God. 
 The word " implicitly " must be carefully noticed. 
 The argument from universal recognition is often 
 misapprehended, because it is understood to aspire 
 to more than it really does. Cicero, long ago, said, 
 in words already cited : " No nation is so wild and 
 fierce as not to perceive that there must be a God, 
 although ignorant what kind of God it must be." 
 The two questions, whether God exists, and what 
 is the true nature of God, are to be distinguished. 
 As to the latter, the grossest and most absurd of 
 notions have prevailed, and it might be urged 
 against us that if we desire to take the beliefs of 
 the mass of mankind as in itself an evidence of 
 truth, we ought in consistency to take their gross 
 and absurd notions as an integral part of the belief. 
 What right have we to pick and choose ? What 
 right have we to cite as valuable witnesses the 
 polytheists and even the fetish worshippers, and 
 at the same time disregard as valueless their belief 
 in polytheism and fetichism ? However, the answer 
 is reasonable enough. The element of persistent 
 universality on which we lay stress is to be found 
 
OF AX INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 75 
 
 in the belief in the existence of a supreme intelli- 
 gence. But as soon as men went beyond this, and 
 sought to conceive to themselves the form and 
 manner of this overruling intelligence, they fell into 
 error, and their error is revealed as such by its 
 want of universality and its want of persistency. 
 The forms which mythology has assumed among 
 the various tribes may resemble one another in 
 certain general characteristics, because even erro- 
 neous thought is an attempt to understand realities, 
 and must be governed to a certain extent by what 
 it sees ; still, on the whole, the mythologies are 
 characterized by their dissimilitude : they are racy 
 of the soil where they spring up. 
 
 We are content, then, to appeal to the consent 
 of mankind for the rudimentary conception of a 
 governing intelligence (or intelligences) overruling 
 the world. But we contend that in this rudimentary 
 conception is contained implicitly the doctrine of 
 a personal God. To show that this is the true 
 inference from the premisses is not the task of the 
 present thesis. It has been partly demonstrated 
 already, and remains to be more completely 
 demonstrated in the theses yet to come. 
 
 Such is the Moral proof, grounded uoon the 
 belief of the human race in the existence of God. 
 It is not absolutely conclusive, except when 
 taken in conjunction with the argument of the 
 First Cause. That argument shows perfectly the 
 existence of a personal God ; yet it gains much in 
 practical value, when accompanied by the other two 
 
76 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GGD. 
 
 (the argument from general consent and the argu- 
 ment from Design), which appeal more directly to 
 ordinary understandings. To confirm our conclusion 
 now indirectly, by evincing the untenableness of the 
 opposite, we will point out some of the practical 
 consequences that flow from agnosticism. 
 
 SECTION 5. Logical consequences of Agnosticism. 
 
 Thesis VI. The logical consequences of Sceptical 
 Atheism or Agnosticism in the practical order show 
 clearly that tlie position of the agnostic is opposed to 
 reason. 
 
 54. The word atheist suggests the idea of a man 
 living without regard for God. If he does so, 
 because he thinks that there is no sufficient reason 
 for believing in God's existence, he may be called 
 a theoretical atheist ; if on the other hand, he admits 
 that existence, but disregards the law of God in 
 regulating his free actions, he will then be called a 
 practical atheist. In this place we have not to treat 
 of the consequences of practical atheism except 
 in so far as they are included in those connected 
 with atheism maintained as a theory. Confining 
 ourselves to the theoretical atheists, we have again 
 to distinguish dogmatic and sceptical atheism. A 
 dogmatic atheist is one who asserts without doubt, 
 "There is no God;" whereas a sceptical atheist, 
 commonly called an agnostic, maintains only that 
 we can know nothing definite about the First Cause 
 of things. 
 
 If the logical consequences of Sceptical Atheism 
 are disastrous, those of Dogmatic Atheism will 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 77 
 
 not be less disastrous, though they can hardly be 
 more. We may, however, limit our attention to 
 the consequences of the former only. Dogmatic 
 Atheism is not very common now-a-days, at least 
 among men of culture. Agnostics, we know, are 
 wont to protest very strongly against the desig- 
 nation of atheists being applied to them, and 
 the protest, whether reasonable or not, proves at 
 least this much, that in their estimation the intel- 
 lectual position of one who should claim to have 
 demonstrated the non-existence of God is altogether 
 irrational. Under these circumstances it is not 
 necessary to consider the practical consequences of 
 Dogmatic Atheism, but only those of Agnosticism. 
 This we call Sceptical Atheism, since the name 
 is one that is founded on truth and required 
 by symmetry. The objection that may be raised 
 to it by agnostics may become less if they will 
 observe that the name atheist taken by itself has 
 been defined to mean one who acts as if there 
 were no God. Agnostics can hardly deny that they 
 do this. "Worship of the silent sort" has indeed 
 been pronounced fitting before the " altar of the 
 Unknowable." But is such an evanescent homage, 
 whether it be fitting or not, really sufficient ? 
 
 We assert then, in the present thesis, that the 
 logical consequences of sceptical atheism in the 
 practical order are so opposed to reason as to 
 involve a condemnation of its tenets. There are 
 pessimists in the world, and their number is said to 
 be increasing with the spread of " modern thought." 
 But although these may be cited as valuable wit- 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 nesses to the force of the argument about to be 
 advanced, the thesis is not addressed to them. It 
 is rather addressed to those who cannot think that 
 Nature is a fraud or a pest, but believe its course to 
 be stamped with the promise of a true hope. 
 
 In proof of our thesis, we will first invite atten- 
 tion to the moral paradox in which the agnostic 
 finds himself entangled, or rather would find himself 
 entangled if only he would reflect sufficiently. Few 
 agnostics would deny that, if the Christian assump- 
 tion were correct and the existence of such a God 
 as Christians believe in were an ascertained truth, 
 it would follow at once that He must desire the 
 worship of loving reverence. Just as it is incon- 
 ceivable that, if two persons hold towards each 
 other the physical relationship of father and son, 
 the father should not desire to enter into the moral 
 relationship of intercourse with his son and have it 
 reciprocated by loving and reverent affection and 
 obedience, so also, if there is a personal God from 
 whom man, has received his being, faculties, and all 
 else that he can call his, it is inconceivable that God 
 should not desire to enter into moral relationship 
 with him and receive a loving and obedient service 
 and worship. The conception of a God who, at 
 some past moment, made the world, set it spinning 
 like a top, and then ceased to care about it, has 
 always been rejected by the larger part of civilized 
 nations, and at the present day has fallen into 
 discredit. If, therefore, God desires this worship, 
 man ought to render it, and in the case of his 
 not rendering it, the requirements of natural 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 79 
 
 equity are violated and an indignity is offered to 
 God. 
 
 So much as this will be generally conceded to us 
 by agnostics. They do not challenge the inference 
 as to conduct and worship which Christians draw 
 from Christian premisses. They only challenge the 
 premisses, that is, the certainty of the existence of 
 God. They do not go so far as positively to deny the 
 existence of God. They merely contend that it is 
 uncertain. But in declaring it to be uncertain most 
 of them go farther, and admit with Darwin that it is 
 more probable than the opposite opinion. That is to 
 ay, it is probable that there exists a God desirous 
 of receiving love and worship from His creatures, 
 and therefore reciprocally probable that it is man's 
 sacred duty to render it to Him. This the agnostic, 
 by the very fact that he protests against being called 
 an atheist, is bound to admit, and yet because he 
 professes himself unable to go farther and convert 
 the probability into a certainty, he cannot render 
 the worship. Such is the moral paradox to which 
 the agnostic is reduced. 
 
 And the paradox will be felt the greater if the 
 agnostic will observe that, on his own principles, 
 the hypothesis of the existence of an intelligent ruler 
 of the world is not only probable, but even the most 
 probable theory to account for the facts. When he 
 forgets his philosophy, and as a man of science, that 
 is, of physical science, adopts the attitude of the 
 pure realist, he professes himself agnostic on the 
 ground that Evolution in its extremest form may 
 account for that order reigning through Nature 
 
do OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 which is the theist's foundation-stone. Now, Evo- 
 lution thus conceived, however it may be dressed 
 up in modern fashions, is in essence nothing but 
 the old theory of the fortuitous concourse of atoms : 
 the theory that, given eternal atoms and eternal 
 motion, eventually order will result from their inter- 
 action, since order is self-sustaining and chaos is 
 not. Although in answer to this we have given 
 clear reasons to show that neither the theory of 
 chance nor that of evolution can account for the 
 orderly arrangements of the universe ( 42 46) ; 
 nevertheless let us grant again, for the sake of 
 argument, that either of the two is a conceivable 
 explanation of the genesis of the cosmos. Can it pos- 
 sibly be claimed as relatively probable, or anything 
 but relatively most improbable when set in competi- 
 tion with the rival theory of a personal Designer ? 
 
 If the agnostic puts on his philosophic cloak and 
 becomes a transfigured realist with Mr. Spencer, 
 the existence of an " Infinite " is admitted, and all 
 denied is the lawfulness, in face of the relativity of 
 knowledge, of attributing to the Unknown Cause 
 of the universe any attributes derived from the 
 consideration of the things of this world, man not 
 excluded. The protest made against the practice 
 of assigning them to Him is made on the ground 
 that they are likely to be altogether beneath Him : 
 that is to say if logically explained on the 
 likelihood that He may possess attributes which 
 may go so far beyond even the most noble qualities 
 of the human mind, that the latter are nothing but 
 a dim and comparatively insignificant image of a 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE 8* 
 
 First Mind, and that human personality is but a dim 
 and comparatively insignificant image of the Person- 
 ality of the First Cause. In other words, that the 
 great " Unknowable " is supereminently a person. 
 
 If the agnostic declines to be in any sense a 
 realist, and shuts himself up in some form of pure 
 idealism, we will not attempt to press him with 
 the statement of the present thesis. . The idealist 
 is guilty of inconsistency in his every act of inter- 
 course with the outer world. With such a burden 
 of inconsistencies upon him, and all so easily borne,, 
 we cannot expect him to shrink from one more. But 
 we may say this, that for realists the hypothesis of 
 the existence of a personal God ought to count as the 
 most probable of the theories in the field, and thus 
 the moral paradox which has been described as arising 
 out of the agnostic position becomes the more acute. 
 
 55. Such is the logical consequence of agnos- 
 ticism as regards the duties more properly called 
 religious. Its logical effects on the observance of 
 the moral law in general are also fatal. We main- 
 tain that in the great mass of mankind, were agnosti- 
 cism ever universally accepted, its effects, moral and 
 social, would be most pernicious. Individuals 
 of the average human type cannot lose the belief 
 in an all-seeing and infinitely holy and just God 
 without being exposed to commit many crimes,, 
 which they would not have committed if they had 
 persevered in that belief. If God does not exist,, 
 no one is able to point out any sufficient prin- 
 ciple of morality, which he can prove that man 
 is absolutely bound to abide by. .Of course certain 
 
 G 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 actions will be more becoming than others, because 
 more suited to rational nature. If a man is a man 
 of good taste he will so far forth abide by these 
 actions and abstain from their opposites. But 
 suppose he does not care to be a man of taste, 
 what is to oblige him to it ? On that supposition, 
 no one has a right to blame his fellow-man for 
 enjoying life as he thinks fit. What is man, if you 
 take God away? What else but a machine made 
 .of matter, held together by material forces ? What 
 shall oblige me to have more respect for that 
 machine called man, than for another called ox or 
 sheep or monkey, which anatomy proves to be con- 
 structed on quite a similar plan and to be made 
 of the same organic elements ? Why is it a greater 
 crime to destroy a man-machine than to destroy a 
 monkey-machine ? Unless there is an immaterial 
 Divine Spirit, there cannot possibly be an imma- 
 terial human soul, and if there is not an imma- 
 terial human soul, our so-called freedom of will 
 is an illusion. But if our freedom is an illusion, 
 moral responsibility is an empty name, and if 
 that is an empty name, nobody is to be blamed, 
 however erroneous may be the misdeeds by which, 
 in the opinion of men, he sins against the dignity, 
 as it is called, of man. These and the like are the 
 practical lessons which logically follow from agnos- 
 ticism. How can they be put into practice without 
 giving free rein to the most revolting vices in the 
 mass of men? 
 
 Again, if agnosticism with these moral conse- 
 quences, which objectively are implied in it, were 
 
OF AN INTELLIGENT FIRST CAUSE. 83 
 
 universally prevalent, all social relations would sooner 
 or later be in hopeless confusion. The good order 
 of a commonwealth rests above all upon a healthy 
 family life. Where domestic relations, domestic 
 authority, domestic virtues are not respected, civil 
 relations will constitute a very frail machinery : 
 civil authority will only rest upon changeable party- 
 passions ; civil virtues will degenerate into hypo- 
 critical egotism. But if in the family God is not 
 acknowledged, if His fear does not check the impe- 
 tuosity of vicious cravings, the most sacred bonds 
 of family life will soon be broken. A nation 
 of agnostics soon would suffer from so many evils 
 that, to quote the saying of the Roman historian, 
 Sallust, "neither the evils nor their remedies would 
 be bearable." If such a nation did continue to exist 
 for awhile, if agnostic philosophers succeeded in 
 stemming the deluge of universal disorder by the 
 moral principles of utilitarians and altruists, the 
 reason could only be this, that human nature is too 
 good to suffer a universal application of the moral 
 principles which strict logic would recommend as 
 the consistent outcome of the agnostic theory. To 
 sum up, Agnosticism is a hypothesis which in its 
 logical consequences leads to the destruction of the 
 most fundamental principles of reason, and to the 
 moral and social ruin of mankind. Therefore it 
 must be out of harmony with human reason, it 
 must be altogether untrue and unreasonable. 
 
 No doubt it will be objected to this reasoning, 
 that agnostics are numerous now-a-days, and are 
 found to be as respectable as Christians in their 
 
CF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 moral conduct. If by agnostics are meant select indi- 
 viduals of that body, mainly persons in comfortable 
 circumstances, no imputation on their moral conduct 
 is intended. Their probity is quite recognized, and 
 is consistent with our argument : although it must 
 be admitted that agnosticism has yet to show that 
 it can scale the moral heights on which Christian 
 heroism is so much at home. The question is as to 
 logical consequences: and these must be sought, not 
 in individuals, but in masses. Moreover, a suffi- 
 ciency of time must be allowed for the tendencies to 
 work out their natural results. If agnosticism and 
 Christianity are compared in their effects on the 
 masses of men, already the baneful tendency of the 
 former is disclosing itself in a growing corruption 
 of morals wherever it prevails. 
 
 This, we may infer, is only the beginning. 
 Centuries of recognition of the Christian sanctions 
 of the moral law have bequeathed a strong here- 
 ditary bias in favour of morality which will hold out 
 for awhile against the adverse forces. But this bias 
 must abate, if the world continues to drift away from 
 the only sound form of theism, which is Christianity. 
 Mr. Spencer, we know, ?nticipates a blissful age 
 when the feeling of moral constraint, of the "ought," 
 will die of atrophy, becau se the path of right and the 
 path of pleasure will, under the influence of more 
 suitable education, have been made to coincide. 
 We can only say that the pi>$ent outlook, if we go 
 by observation, not by questionable a priori infer- 
 ences, offers no anticipations Oi *ny such eventual 
 coincidence. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE PER- 
 SONAL GOD AND HIS FUNDAMENTAL RELATION TO 
 THINGS DISTINCT FROM HIM. 
 
 Introductory Remarks. 
 
 56. THERE exists a personal God, that is to say, 
 a self-existing, intelligent Being, upon whom the 
 material world and mankind depend. This state- 
 ment is the outcome of the proofs given in the 
 preceding chapter. Against it and the evidences for 
 it several difficulties have been advanced, which it is 
 our duty to weigh and to solve. However, to do 
 this with greater clearness, it will be useful first to 
 treat of the most fundamental attributes of the 
 personal God, His unity, simplicity, and infinity; 
 and then to state the fundamental relation, in which 
 nil things distinct from God stand to Him ; in other 
 words, to show that there is no being besides God, 
 which does not owe its origin to creation out of 
 nothing by God's power. 
 
 SECTION i. The Unity of God 
 Thesis VII. There can be but One personal God. 
 
 57. When we say that God is One, we mean 
 that the Divine Nature exists undivided, and con- 
 
86 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 sequently is not something belonging to several 
 Beings. From what Christian Revelation teaches 
 about the incomprehensible mystery of the Blessed 
 Trinity, the Christian student is acquainted with 
 the dogma that God is One and Three ; that there 
 are three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost, each of whom is the same One God. 
 Therefore if we say the Father is God, the Son is 
 God, the Holy Ghost is God, we do not wish to be 
 understood as predicating the Divine Nature of the 
 Divine Persons in exactly the same sense in which 
 we predicate the human nature, when we attribute 
 it to three human persons, Peter and Paul and 
 Andrew. By the affirmation that one human nature 
 is common to three human persons, we do not 
 mean that really one and the same existing human 
 nature belongs equally to the three, for, as St. 
 Thomas expresses it, in three individuals of the 
 human nature there are three humanities; 1 that is 
 to say, three human persons are not rightly spoken 
 of as having one human nature, but as being per- 
 fectly similar to one another, in regard of those 
 attributes, which, being contained in our general 
 idea of human nature, are predicable of each of 
 them. But quite another meaning is to be given to 
 the statement that One Divine Nature is common 
 to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It means 
 that the three Divine Persons are One real Divine 
 Existence, One undivided Divine Essence. In the 
 language of St. Thomas we may thus express, the 
 
 1 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. 39. 3. In tribus suppositis humanae 
 naturae sunt tres humanitates." 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. Sy 
 
 difference between the meanings of the terms "one" 
 and " common " in the two phrases mentioned : 
 " The unity and community of the human nature is 
 not an objective reality but a subjective conception 
 of objective reality, . . . but the actuality signified 
 by the name ' God,' that is to say, the Divine 
 Essence, is in its objective reality both one and 
 common." 2 
 
 58. The mystery of the Blessed Trinity and its 
 relation to the Unity of God is in our thesis neither 
 affirmed nor denied. Its truth transcends human 
 reason, and is to be believed on the authority of 
 that personal God whose unity and infinity we can 
 prove, and whose infinite perfection guarantees His 
 veracity. The Divine character of the doctrine of 
 the Blessed Trinity is to be vindicated by Dogmatic 
 Theology, whose task it is also to show that there is 
 no manifest contradiction between the two state- 
 
 3 St. Thomas, i. 39. 4. ad 3m. " Unitas autem sive communitas 
 humanae naturae non est secundum rem, sed solum secundum con- 
 siderationem. . . . Sed forma significata per hoc nomen, Deus, 
 scilicet essentia divina est una et communis secundum rem." 
 Neither St. Thomas nor we ourselves must be understood to mean 
 that there is no objective foundation for the oneness of our conception 
 of human nature. There is indeed an objective foundation for it ; 
 but it does not consist in the real identity, but in the real similarity of 
 human nature as considered in many human subjects. It is this 
 which St. Thomas teaches (Sum. Theol. i. 13. 9), saying: " Natura 
 humana communis est multis secundum rem et rationem." He 
 implies thereby that the meaning of the abstract term " human 
 nature " is really verified in each of many human individuals. Yet 
 as each individual verification of that term differs from any other 
 individual verification considered as individual, there is no objective 
 identity, but only objective similarity. For further information on 
 this subject, cf. Clarke's Logic, pp. 140 162. 
 
88 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 ments, God is One in Essence, God is Three in Persons, 
 We have to prove only the former of these state- 
 ments. 
 
 59. We may commence by appealing to the unity 
 of the universe as testifying to the unity of its 
 author. It is true that a two-fold objection may be 
 taken to the validity of such an appeal. It may be 
 urged that in addition to the universe in which we 
 are placed, there may possibly be other universes, one 
 or more, in the remotest regions of space, so far off 
 as to enter into no relations whatever with any even 
 the most distant of the constellations which belong 
 to our cosmos. Whatever unity we discern in our 
 own cosmical environment, however it may point 
 to a single Creator of itself, is quite consistent, it 
 may be urged, with the co-existence of other self- 
 existing creators for other universes of the kind 
 suggested. This is the first objection. Another is 
 that unity of result need not imply more than unity 
 of action in the cause. Thus the unity even of our 
 own universe might be satisfied by the hypothesis of 
 several self-existing Gods acting in friendly com- 
 bination. 
 
 It must be conceded that in view of these 
 objections an appeal to the unity of our universe as 
 evidence of the oneness of God fails short of absolute 
 validity. In other words, it can only establish a 
 presumption, predisposing our minds to the accept- 
 ance of the metaphysical arguments presently to be 
 propounded. The presumption, however, is entitled 
 to be regarded as exceedingly strong. The two 
 possibilities mentioned as depriving it of full cer- 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 3$ 
 
 tainty are not of a very solid character. Only 
 captiousness could accept them as in themselves 
 probable solutions of the problem of cosmical unity. 
 On this point we may hear Mr. John Stuart Mill, 
 a man not too given to assent to the conclusions 
 of Natural Theology. He says: 3 
 
 "The specific effect of science is to show by 
 accumulating evidence, that every event in nature 
 is connected by laws with some fact or facts 
 which preceded it, or in other words, depends for 
 its existence on some antecedent; but yet not so 
 strictly on one as not to be liable to frustration or 
 modification from others : for these distinct chains 
 of causation are so entangled with one another, the 
 action of each cause is so interfered with by other 
 causes, though each acts according to its own fixed 
 law, that every effect is truly the result rather of the 
 aggregate of all causes in existence than of any one 
 only, and nothing takes place in the world of our 
 experience without spreading a perceptible influence 
 of some sort through a greater or less portion of 
 Nature, and making perhaps every portion of it 
 slightly different from what it would have been, if 
 that event had not taken place. Now, when once 
 the double conviction has found entry into the mind 
 that every event depends on antecedents ; and at 
 the same time that to bring it about many ante- 
 cedents must concur, perhaps all the antecedents 
 in Nature, insomuch that a slight difference in any 
 
 3 Mill, Three Essays on Religion, pp. 132, seq. We give Mill's 
 words in full, without committing ourselves to every statement he 
 makes on the subject. 
 
90 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD 
 
 one of them might have prevented the phenomenon, 
 or materially altered its character the conviction 
 follows that no one event, certainly no one kind of 
 events, can be absolutely pre-ordained or governed 
 by any Being but one who holds in his hand the 
 reins of all Nature and not of some department 
 only. At least if a plurality be supposed, it is 
 necessary to assume so complete a concert of action 
 and unity of will among them that the difference is 
 for most purposes immaterial between such a theory 
 and that of the absolute unity of the Godhead. . . . 
 The reason, then, why monotheism may be accepted 
 as the representative of theism in the abstract, is 
 not so much because it is the theism of all the 
 more improved portions of the human race, as 
 because it is the only theism which can claim for 
 itself any footing on scientific ground." We agree 
 fully with Mill's last statement, and would refer 
 the reader to Ch. Pesch, 4 who argues that the 
 result of the best modern archaeological researches 
 is to show that monotheism and not polytheism 
 was the primitive form of religious belief. 
 
 60. Let us now pass on to the metaphysical 
 argument, for which we must claim certainty, 
 although it has to be acknowledged that it is some- 
 what subtle and requires careful reflection for the 
 perception of its full force. But this, after all, is 
 only what must be expected when we have to deal 
 with so sublime a subject. 
 
 With St. Thomas we may introduce the argument 
 
 4 Cf. Ch. Pesch, Der Gottesbe griff, i. and ii. Freiburg : Herder, 
 1885 and iSSS. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. gj 
 
 thus : If the reality expressed by the concept of 
 Socrates did not comprise more notes than the reality 
 expressed by the concept of man, the extension of 
 both concepts would be the same : in other words, 
 there would be only one man, as there is only one 
 Socrates. Now the reality corresponding to the 
 concept of this God does not contain more notes 
 than the reality corresponding to the concept of 
 God or of Divine Nature : because God has not 
 a nature produced by another being, but is His 
 nature, being a cause without cause. 5 
 
 In other words, when there are diverse beings 
 sharing the same common nature, as there are 
 distinct men sharing the common nature of man, 
 there must be a principle of diversity as well as a 
 principle of unity. The diversity cannot be without 
 its raison d'etre any more than the unity. In the 
 case of God there is not this double principle. 
 
 It will help to the understanding of this 
 argument, which we acknowledge to be very 
 abstract, if we put it also in another way. If there 
 are several self-existing beings, the reason of the 
 distinction between them must either be self- 
 existence as such, or something necessarily con- 
 nected with self-existence as swc/t, or something 
 accidentally connected with it. Manifestly, however, 
 self-existence as such cannot be the ground of the 
 distinction in question. Nor can the distinction 
 
 6 Cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. n. 3. "Si ergo Socrates per id 
 esset homo per quod est hie homo, sicut non possunt esse plures- 
 Socrates, ita non possent esse plures homines. Hoc autem convenit 
 Deo : nam ipse Deus est sua natura. . . . Secundum igitur idem est 
 Deus et hie Deus. Impossibile est igitur esse plures Deos." 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 proceed from anything necessarily connected with 
 self-existence as such; for that must be wherever 
 self-existence is. Nor can anything accidentally 
 connected with self-existence be said to constitute 
 a reason for the said distinction ; because a self- 
 existent being is necessarily unchangeable, change 
 implying the possibility of successive states of exist- 
 ence, and such possibility is incompatible with self- 
 existence, which must be as constant as the essence 
 with which it is identical. 6 
 
 SECTION 2. The Simplicity of God. 
 
 Thesis VIII. God's Being is physically and 
 metaphysically simple. 
 
 61. What is one is undivided in so far as it is one ; 
 what is simple, is not only undivided but indivisible. 
 Oneness does not exclude composition, although it 
 excludes division ; with simplicity all composition is 
 incompatible. Every man is one natural being, but 
 he is not one simple being, because he consists of two 
 substantial principles, body and soul, united with one 
 another. Man therefore is composed of substantial 
 parts ; in him there is substantial composition. If 
 we consider the immaterial soul of man alone, we 
 have a being not composed of substantial parts, and 
 therefore rightly called a simple substance. Never- 
 theless, even the soul is not exempt from all compo- 
 sition. It is liable to accidental composition. For 
 it is changeable in regard to its thoughts and voli- 
 tions, so that we can distinguish these and it as com- 
 
 6 See another wa]' of proving the Unity of God in Appendix V. 
 pp. 465, seq. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ATl'RIBUTES OF GOD. 93 
 
 ponent parts of a whole. Both these kinds of com- 
 position are found in existing things, and we call 
 them real or physical composition. In God neither 
 of them exists, consequently He is physically simple 
 in the strictest sense. 
 
 The proof of the physical simplicity of God 
 rests upon His self-existence. Whatever is sub- 
 stantially compounded, depends in its essential 
 constitution upon the union of parts, each of which 
 differs from the compound substance. But since 
 the self-existent owes nothing to what is different 
 from itself, its essential constitution cannot depend 
 upon the union of parts different from itself. There- 
 fore God, being self-existent, cannot be substantially 
 compounded. Nor is accidental composition con- 
 ceivable in the Divine Being. How could it be ? 
 An accident is a perfection or modification added 
 to the nature of a substance. But to the nature 
 of the Divine Substance no perfection or modifica- 
 tion can be added. Any addition made could not 
 be the addition of anything self-existent, because 
 what falls under the conception of self-existence 
 belongs to the Divine Nature itself. Nor, again, 
 could it be the addition of anything not self-existent : 
 because what is not self-existent cannot be found in 
 the Divine Nature. 
 
 The same follows from the infinity of God which, 
 as we shall see, is a corollary of God's self-existence 
 and unity. This infinity supposed, we argue thus : 
 What is infinitely perfect can receive no addition. 
 But every accident is an addition to the substance 
 in which it inheres. Therefore a being infinitely 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. 
 
 perfect, as God's Being really is, can receive no 
 accident. 
 
 62. Moreover God is not only physically simple, but 
 also metaphysically. As physical simplicity excludes 
 physical composition, so metaphysical simplicity 
 excludes metaphysical composition. The difference 
 between physical (real) and metaphysical (virtual) 
 composition may be thus expressed : Physical com- 
 position means union of diverse realities completing 
 one another to constitute one really existing being, 
 as for instance, man is a physical compound of 
 body and soul ; metaphysical composition means 
 union of diverse concepts referring to the same real 
 being in such a way that none of them by itself 
 signifies either explicitly or even implicitly the whole 
 reality signified by their combination ; man, for 
 instance, is a metaphysical compound of animal 
 and rational. This metaphysical composition belongs 
 to all creatures, even to such as are physically 
 simple. The reason for this assertion is obvious 
 enough. That which is signified by the defi- 
 nition of a created thing, its essence as we call it, 
 depends for its existence, not upon itself, but upon 
 its creating cause. Without the influx of the 
 creating power of God the creature is nothing but 
 an objective idea of the Divine Mind, something 
 known only as capable of existing under the con- 
 dition that God wills its existence. In other words, 
 the essence of every creature is in itself a mere 
 possibility ; not a real, but a conditional existence. 
 In conceiving its essence, or the contents of its 
 definition, we thereby neither express nor imply its 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 95 
 
 existence. Consequently the objective concept of 
 the real existence of a creature is metaphysically 
 compounded of the two concepts of its essence 
 and existence. 6 That this first kind of metaphysical 
 composition cannot be predicated of God is evident; 
 for its only foundation is the contingency of created 
 being; therefore it must be alien to the Divine 
 Nature, which exists with absolute necessity. 
 
 63. Another sort of metaphysical composition in 
 creatures is that contained in the objective concept 
 of their specific nature. The species man or rational 
 animal includes what is meant by the two concepts 
 animal and rational. As the former is equally 
 applicable to irrational beasts and to men, it 
 evidently neither expresses nor implies the meaning 
 of the concept rational. Therefore we say that 
 human nature is metaphysically composed of the 
 genus animal and the specific difference rational. 
 Now this sort of metaphysical composition is in- 
 compatible with the Divine Nature ; because God 
 cannot be included in any genus of beings. Beings 
 can be classed as one genus, only so far as under 
 some one aspect their essences are perfectly similar, 
 occupying in this respect a perfectly equal position 
 in the scale of beings. But God cannot be perfectly 
 similar to any order of beings diverse from Himself 
 under any aspect whatsoever; because all other 
 beings are dependent upon Him; they are, as it 
 
 6 St. Thomas and the scholastics expressed this briefly by 
 saying that in no created thing are essence and existence the 
 same ; and that every created thing is composed of essence and 
 existence, or of potentiality and actuality (potentia and actus). 
 
96 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 were, an outflow of His unchangeable simple self- 
 existence. His justice cannot be perfectly similar 
 to any sort of created justice, nor His mercy to any 
 mercy belonging to any of His creatures. Borrowing 
 a beautiful, although necessarily inadequate illustra- 
 tion from the Angelic Doctor, 7 we may say : As the 
 sun by his light and heat is the unapproachable prin- 
 ciple of millions of forms of life and growth, so God 
 by His wisdom and power is the unapproachable 
 principle of all kinds of beings, surpassing in His 
 simplicity the manifold perfections of all and each 
 of them by an infinite distance. It is this which 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer has in view when he rightly 
 maintains that those who admit a first self- 
 existing unconditional Being must admit that 
 this Being cannot be classified. " Between the 
 creating and the created," he says, 8 " there must be 
 a distinction transcending any of the distinctions 
 existing between different divisions of the created. 
 . . . The infinite cannot be grouped along with 
 something that is finite ; since, in being so grouped, 
 it must be regarded as not-infinite. It is impossible 
 to put the absolute in the same category with any- 
 thing relative, so long as the absolute is defined as 
 that of which no necessary relation can be pre- 
 dicated. . . . There cannot be more than one First 
 Cause. . . . The unconditioned therefore as classable 
 neither with any form of the conditioned nor with 
 any other unconditioned cannot be classed at all." 
 So far so good. But when the same author goes on 
 to say of the unconditioned First Cause: "To 
 
 7 Sum. Theol. i. q. 4. a. 2. ad im. First Principles, p. Si. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 97 
 
 admit that it cannot be known as of such or such 
 kind, is to admit that it is unknowable," he certainly 
 is wrong. It is true, from the impossibility of 
 classifying God with any creatures, it follows that 
 no creature can know Him adequately as He is 
 knowable and known by Himself; that no creature 
 can comprehend Him. But our inability to com- 
 prehend God does not imply that we cannot 
 predicate of God whatever real perfection there is 
 in creatures. Later on we shall give reasons to 
 show that we have a real and true knowledge of 
 God, however utterly inadequate it may be. 
 
 64. For the present we may add that not 
 only the metaphysical composition mentioned above, 
 but any conceivable sort of metaphysical composi- 
 tions are all inapplicable to God. The general reason 
 for this may be stated thus : Concepts which in 
 their application to objective reality are absolutely 
 inseparable, so that none of them can have a real 
 foundation different from the real foundation of the 
 rest, cannot be metaphysically compounded. For 
 though none expresses what is expressed by the others, 
 yet each of them implies all the rest. But the 
 concepts which we form of the Divine attributes are 
 in their application to objective reality absolutely 
 inseparable. Each of the Divine attributes in its 
 objective reality coincides with the one self-existing 
 Divine substance, which we have proved to be a 
 simple unchangeable essence. Consequently none 
 of the Divine attributes has any objective foundation 
 except in so far as it is one with the rest; which 
 is evidently the same as to say that the Divine 
 H 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 attributes are absolutely inseparable in their appli- 
 cation to objective reality. Divine justice, for 
 instance, without Divine mercy is impossible ; and 
 so is Divine power without Divine wisdom. There- 
 fore these attributes are not metaphysically com- 
 pounded, although they must be said to be meta- 
 physically or virtually distinct; the concept of justice 
 does not express what is expressed by the concept of 
 mercy, although it implies the same. 9 
 
 SECTION 3. The Infinity of God. 
 Thesis IX. God is infinitely perfect. 
 
 65. Infinite, according to the etymological mean- 
 ing of the word, is that which has no limits. Now 
 a thing may be said to have no limits, either because 
 we are not able to assign its limits, or because it 
 is really unlimited. We speak, for instance, of an 
 
 * Real distinction does not necessarily mean real composition, nor 
 does virtual distinction necessarily mean virtual composition. For 
 things to be compounded they must first be distinct ; but, given the 
 existence of distinct things, it is not necessary that they should be 
 compounded together into a unity. Catholic Theology recognizes 
 a real distinction between the three Divine Persons, because They 
 are, as " substantial " relations within the One Godhead, opposed 
 to one another ; but it is not constrained in consequence to admit 
 that the Godhead is really compounded of Them, because it teaches 
 that each Person is not really distinct from, but really identical 
 with, the Essence of the Divinity. Again, Catholic Theology 
 recognizes a virtual distinction between the Divine Essence and 
 each Divine Person, but it does not teach us that the Divine 
 Essence is virtually compounded of the three Persons, because the 
 concept of each Divine Person does not prescind from, but involves 
 the concept of the Divine Essence. These observations show us 
 that the mystery of the Blessed Trinity is opposed neither to the 
 physical nor to the metaphysical simplicity of God. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OP GOD. 99 
 
 infinite number, of infinite space. These expressions 
 do not imply that number and space do or can exist 
 without limit. That is repugnant to reason. For 
 what is number in reality but a collection of units, 
 all of which are equally conceivable by one general 
 concept ? But no collection of such units can be so 
 great that the addition of another unit would be 
 inconceivable; on the contrary, however much it 
 may be increased, it must remain a limited number. 
 If it ever became really unlimited or infinite, the 
 taking away of one unit would make it finite ; and 
 its infinitude would be made up of a finite number 
 and a finite unit, which is evidently absurd. 19 
 
 66. Nor can space be actually unlimited, because 
 its real foundation consists in the dimensions between 
 the extreme surfaces of one body, or of many bodies 
 taken together, or of all bodies forming the one 
 universe, as we call it. Now such dimensions cannot 
 become so large as not to allow of a larger one. If 
 space ever were actually infinite, a certain part of it, 
 say a cubic inch, would be contained in the whole a 
 really infinite number of times, the impossibility of 
 which is clear from what we have said about infinite 
 number. 11 
 
 67. A so-called infinite number, therefore, can 
 only be a number so great that every number assign- 
 able by us is next to nothing in comparison with it. 
 In the same way, infinite space can exist only so far 
 as there can exist a space so great that any corporeal 
 magnitude assigned by us is next to nothing when 
 compared with its dimensions. 
 
 * Cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. 7. 4. u Ibid. 7. 3. 
 
too OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 These remarks about infinite number and space 
 vvill serve to illustrate the meaning of the word 
 " infinite " when applied to God. We do not intend 
 thereby to suggest the idea of a being containing 
 infinite extended parts, or compounded of any sort 
 of infinite entities. Such notions not only suppose 
 the possibility of infinite extension and number, but 
 are also opposed to the simplicity of God, as already 
 proved. 
 
 68. Infinity, then, when predicated of God, 
 means that He is unlimited in His perfection, that 
 is to say, that every perfection conceivable belongs 
 to Him. The proof of this statement is based on 
 the truth that God alone is self-existent, and every- 
 thing else contingent. This truth supposed, we may 
 argue thus: All perfections conceivable fall either 
 under the heading self -existent or under the heading 
 contingent, in other words, they are either uncaused 
 or capable of being caused. The former class God 
 possesses formally, that is, He possesses them as 
 tfiey are in themselves according to their own 
 proper nature. The other class, since He, as the 
 only First Cause, is able to produce them, He 
 must have equivalently and eminently : that is, in 
 some manner superior to the manner in which 
 they exist outside Him, and at the same time 
 enabling Him to realize them in their own proper 
 nature. 
 
 Thus God is infinite in all perfections. For it is 
 no limitation to His perfection that He does not 
 contain contingent perfections formally. To contain 
 them eminently is more than to contain them merely 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OP (?07>.^ , 39l 
 
 formally. It is, in fact, to contain them in an 
 infinite instead of a finite manner, 
 
 69. This truth of the infinite perfection of God 
 must be our guide in deciding whether any given 
 attribute can be predicated of God or not. There is 
 a truth underlying the error of the agnostic, namely,* 
 the fact that our knowledge of God, although evi- 
 dently true as far as it goes, must necessarily be 
 inadequate. From this, however, it by no means 
 follows that no name expressing a created perfection 
 can be given to the Most High. On the contrary, 
 we say that all nouns and verbs applied to creatures, so 
 far as their objective meaning expresses pure perfection 
 without connoting imperfection, must be true of God 
 before they can be true of creatures. Indeed perfection, 
 as such, signifies something actual ; and everything 
 actual, so far as it can be conceived without the 
 limitations and privations which accompany its 
 existence in created beings, must be eminently in 
 the Infinite Being. 
 
 70. The preceding observations enable us to lay 
 down the following three canons for the predicates 
 to be given to God in common with creatures in 
 general and with man in particular. 
 
 I. Although no predicate given to creatures, and 
 expressing a perfection, attributes this perfection to them 
 without limit; yet the meanings of some predicates, taken 
 by themselves, do not connote imperfection, whereas the 
 meanings of others always connote it. The former must 
 be applied to God in the proper sense of the words, the 
 latter not. Thus we may say of God that He is 
 infinitely mighty, infinitely wise, has infinite know- 
 
102 OF THE EXISTENCE OP GOD. 
 
 ledge, is infinitely just, infinitely benevolent, and so on. 
 But we cannot say that He is infinitely extended like 
 a body, that He reasons with infinite perfection, that 
 He possesses infinite courage, &c. To illustrate the 
 difference by an example, let us take the two 
 adjectives wise and courageous. I may say and must 
 say of God that He is wise in the proper sense of 
 the word. And why so ? Because the word wise 
 denotes the perfection of knowing the causes of 
 things, and this perfection can be conceived without 
 the addition of any imperfection. But it is quite 
 otherwise with the word courageous. This connotes 
 the condition of having to face danger, whereas 
 a being which can be threatened with danger 
 necessarily must be limited in its perfection ; 
 only things weak and not wholly self-sufficient 
 can be brought into danger. And thus the infi- 
 nitely perfect God cannot be properly said to be 
 courageous. 
 
 71. II. Although certain predicates are in the most 
 proper sense applicable to God and to creatures; yet they 
 are true. of God in an infinitely higher sense than of 
 creatures. In God they are found without limit and 
 independently, in creatures they are found under 
 limitation, and with entire dependence upon the 
 power of God. Consequently, the relation of these 
 predicates to God and to creatures is not equal, 
 but most unequal, although their meaning is 
 realized in both : and, in consequence, when we 
 ascribe them to God, our intention is to ascribe 
 them to Him with the understanding, implied or 
 expressed, that there is this inequality of relation 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. ZOj 
 
 between the mode in which the reality signified 
 exists in Him and in creatures. This may be 
 illustrated by our parallel procedure when in 
 propositions worded in exactly the same terms, we 
 ascribe beauty of countenance to a portrait and to 
 its living original. In each case we say, " What a 
 beautiful face," and by employing in each case 
 exactly the same language, we signify that the same 
 reality finds a truthful concrete expression alike in 
 the original and in the portrait; but we are quite 
 aware of the great difference between the mode in 
 which beauty of countenance is realized and predi- 
 cable in the two cases. If we do not call attention 
 to the difference by the wording of our proposition, 
 this is partly because when a reality is predicated of 
 a subject in a simple proposition, the predication 
 asserts only the fact of the subject possessing the 
 reality, not the mode in which it is possessed, partly 
 because the difference of mode is sufficiently clear 
 to the persons addressed without formal statement, 
 or at all events can be left to stand over till another 
 time, as one cannot be always explaining. As it is 
 always an advantage to have technical terms to fix 
 distinctions like this, predication is said to be 
 univocal when the reality predicated is not only 
 found in all the subjects of predication, but found 
 in each of them in the same manner, and analogical 
 when it is found in them, and thereby founds an 
 analogy between them, but is not in them all in the 
 same manner. 
 
 To apply this doctrine to the case of God, 
 we say that attributes like "being," "goodness," 
 
104 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 "power," "wisdom," &c., are predicable of God 
 as well as of creatures, meaning thereby that the 
 meaning of these terms has a true realization in 
 Him, although we are quite aware, and on fitting 
 occasions explicitly declare, that the manner in which 
 they are realized in Him differs widely from the way 
 in which they are realized in His creatures : that 
 His Being, Goodness, Power, Wisdom, &c., are 
 necessary, uncaused and self-existent, and without 
 limit ; whereas the being, goodness, power, wisdom, 
 &c., of creatures is contingent, caused, and finite. 
 We say, therefore, that these terms are predicable 
 of God and creatures, not mtivocatly, but analogi- 
 cally. 12 
 
 From this second canon there follows the very 
 important corollary : 
 
 The application of the same predicates to God and to 
 creatures does not imply co-ordination or classification of 
 God with creatures. 
 
 Wherever two things are co-ordinated or classi- 
 fied together there must be not only likeness, but, 
 under one aspect at least, perfect likeness. Now 
 creatures, though imitations of the Divine Essence 
 in all their perfections, are under no aspect perfectly 
 like that Essence. What we mean, when we speak 
 of created perfections, is in God really ; but the way 
 in which it is in Him, differs under all aspects from 
 
 12 " Quantum igitur ad id quod significant hujusmodi nomina, 
 proprie competunt Deo et magis proprie quam ipsis creaturis, et 
 per prius dicuntur de eo. Quantum vero ad modum significandi 
 non dicuntur proprie de Deo." Sum. Theol. i. 13. 3. c. Cf. ibid. 
 ad adum. : ' Id quod significatur per nomen non convenit eo mode 
 ej Deo quo nomen significat sec} exceUentiori modo. ' 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 105 
 
 the way in which it is in creatures, not only in 
 degree but in kind. 
 
 Thus, for instance, wisdom, or the knowledge of 
 the nature of things and their causes, is truly in 
 God, and can to a certain extent be truly in man. 
 But in God it is identical with the simple and 
 infinite Divine substance ; consequently God is His 
 wisdom, and His wisdom is an eternal all-compre- 
 hensive act of knowledge, including (as identical 
 with it) an infinitely perfect Will, which never can 
 act against the practical corollaries of theoretical 
 wisdom. In man, on the contrary, wisdom exists as 
 an acquired accidental quality, now as actual know- 
 ledge, now as an habitual disposition to actual 
 knowledge ; and so far as it is actual knowledge in 
 the mind, it is composed of many successive mental 
 acts, all of which are more or less inadequate 
 expressions of their objects. In a word, a wise 
 man is not his wisdom, but has wisdom, and has it 
 only in a very small degree. 
 
 72. III. Predicates, the meaning of which expresses 
 perfection with connotation of imperfection, though they 
 cannot be true of God in their proper sense, may be true 
 of Him when used metaphorically. 
 
 As man belongs to the order of sensible things, 
 he is fond of clothing his thoughts in impressive 
 imagery drawn from the objects of sense. A hero is 
 a lion ; a discoverer a luminary of science ; and so 
 forth. This use of metaphors, provided it be in 
 taste and moderation, is a great aid to human 
 language, even in speaking of God Himself. Instead 
 of naming a perfection of His directly, we may 
 
to<5 OF THE EXISTENCE O/ GOD. 
 
 suggest it indirectly by expressing something which 
 bears a resemblance to it at least under one or other 
 aspect. Thus we may attribute eyes to God to signify 
 His knowledge, ears to express His acceptance of 
 our prayers. We may speak of Him as angry with 
 sinners, when we would point to effects of His 
 justice. 
 
 73. This subject of the application of terms of 
 human thought to the Deity is treated by St. 
 Thomas, 13 whose doctrine is the doctrine of all 
 Catholic philosophers. It could therefore only 
 be want of familiarity with their teaching which 
 led Mr. Herbert Spencer not to except them 
 from the charge of anthropomorphism which he 
 launches against even the most civilized believers 
 in a knowable Deity. These are his words : 14 
 " From the time when the rudest savages imagined 
 the causes of all things to be creatures of 
 flesh and blood like themselves, down to our own 
 time, the degree of assumed likeness has been 
 diminishing. But though a bodily form and sub- 
 stance similar to that of man, has long since ceased 
 among cultivated races to be a literally-conceived 
 attribute of the Ultimate Cause ; though the grosser 
 human desires have been also rejected as unfit 
 elements of the conception; though there is some 
 hesitation in ascribing even the higher human 
 feelings, save*in greatly idealized shapes ; yet it is 
 still thought not only proper, but imperative, to 
 
 is St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. q. 13. Especially, art. 3. art. 5. and 
 art. 6. are to be noted. 
 
 w First Principles, pp. 109, no. 
 
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 107 
 
 ascribe the most abstract qualities of our nature. 
 To think of the Creative Power as in all respects 
 anthropomorphous, is now considered impious by 
 men who yet hold themselves bound to think of the 
 Creative Power as in some respects anthropomor- 
 phous, and who do not see that the one proceeding 
 is but an evanescent form of the other." 
 
 Certainly it would be great irreverence to enter- 
 tain an anthropomorphous conception of God, so as 
 to attribute to Him human perfections, as such, in 
 the limited and imperfect way that those perfections 
 exist in ourselves. But no instructed theist will do 
 so. It is true that we attribute to God what Mr. 
 Spencer seems to call the most abstract qualities of 
 our nature, understanding, free-will, wisdom, bene- 
 volence, love of justice, &c. Yet at the same time we 
 explain that only the abstract meaning of these 
 perfections is objectively real in God, not the 
 dependence and limitation which attend the realiza- 
 tion of that meaning in man. Instead of co- 
 ordinating God with man in any of these attri- 
 butes, we prove that all of them in Him are 
 identical with His self-existing nature in a way 
 infinitely perfect, and therefore infinitely exceeding 
 our experience and our comprehension. But the 
 fact that we are unable to comprehend God's infinity 
 is no proof that we can know nothing definite about 
 Him. On the contrary, as we have shown, His 
 very infinitude compels us to predicate of Him 
 whatever created perfection is, by way of abstraction 
 and exclusion of limits, conceivable without in- 
 cluding objective defect or imperfection. Moreover, 
 
io8 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 after having predicated all this, as far as we can, we 
 must confess that all the predicates by which we 
 have tried to describe the infinite Majesty of the 
 Most High, though they express what is truly proper to 
 His Being, nevertheless fall infinitely short of an 
 adequate representation of that Being. 
 
 The final practical conclusion, therefore, to which 
 we are led by reasoning from creatures to their First 
 Cause, is not that of the agnostic who says, " We 
 ought to be silent about the attributes of God," but 
 that of the Psalmist: "Great is the Lord and 
 exceedingly to be praised;" 15 "Magnify the Lord 
 
 with me, and let us extol His name together. " ie 
 / 
 
 J3 Psalm xlvii. 7. ;c Psalm xvxiii. <j. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL RELATION OF GOD TO THE 
 WORLD. REFUTATION OF PANTHEISM. DOCTRINE 
 OF CREATION. 
 
 Introductory Remarks. 
 
 74. OUR inquiries about the First Cause of things 
 have led us to the conclusion that there exists one 
 self-existent, simple, infinitely perfect Being, the 
 personal God of monotheism. We now have to 
 show that this personal God is the First Cause 
 of all that is not God, by creation of it all out of 
 nothing. We will first explain what is meant by 
 creation out of nothing, and then show that the 
 world owes its origin to a Divine act of creation. 
 
 SECTION i. Definition of Creation. 
 
 75. Creation, in the wider sense of the wordy signi- 
 fies a change produced in things already existing, 
 or in the relations between them. Thus we say, that 
 men of genius create works of art ; that the Pope 
 creates Cardinals, that a speech creates a sensation, 
 It is evident that in the production of every such 
 change something is originated which did not exist 
 before ; for if nothing at all resulted but what there 
 
tio OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 was already, there would be no change. On this 
 ground we might be tempted to say that every 
 production is creation out of nothing. However, 
 this is true only in a limited sense, inasmuch as 
 the result of the change was previously nothing and 
 has now become something. It is not true that 
 there was no substratum or subject pre-existing 
 which underwent the change. More strictly speak- 
 ing, the change of a thing is not produced out of 
 nothing, but out of something changeable. 
 
 76. Creation in the strict sense may be defined as 
 follows with St. Thomas : " Creation is a production 
 of a thing according to its whole substance, nothing 
 being presupposed, whether created or increate." * 
 
 In explanation of this definition we may remark : 
 
 (a) Creation is production. Consequently, what 
 is created is not without cause, but is the effect of 
 an existing cause. 
 
 (b) Creation is the production of a thing according 
 to its whole substance. In other words, by creation is 
 originated the whole of a thing existing in itself. 
 The phrase, "according to its whole substance," 
 distinguishes creation from accidental and sub- 
 stantial changes. An accidental change takes place 
 when a thing is modified and yet remains speci- 
 fically the same thing. Thus a child is accidentally 
 changed by growing bigger, by receiving sense- 
 impressions, by moving about, by developing his 
 intellectual faculties, &c. A substantial change 
 
 1 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. 65. 3. c. : " Creatio autem est pro- 
 ductio alicujus rei secundum suam totam substantial!!, nullo prae- 
 supposito, quod sit vel increatum vel ab aliquo creatum." 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. m 
 
 supposes a substance to be specifically changed. 
 As simple immaterial substances cannot change 
 their kinds, only corporeal substances are capable 
 of substantial changes. We have a substantial 
 change in an individual body, when it manifests 
 forces differing not only in degree but in kind from 
 those which it had before. Thus it is probable that 
 every chemical composition involves a substantial 
 change of the elements combined, and it is certain 
 that the change of inanimate matter into a living 
 plant or animal is a substantial one. 
 
 (c) The terms of our definition explained under 
 (a) and (6), constitute its essence ; the rest is added 
 by St. Thomas in order to illustrate the meaning of 
 creation out of nothing more fully by opposing it to 
 certain false theories. 
 
 a. By adding that to the production called 
 creation nothing uncreated is presupposed, St.Thomas 
 opposes the pantheistic error, according to which 
 the world is an emanation from the Divine Sub- 
 stance. 2 By the same addition, creation out of 
 nothing is contrasted with the Platonic notion of 
 an uncreated matter, an error which pervaded also 
 the philosophy of the lonians. 8 
 
 /3. By adding that creation is a production where 
 nothing created is presupposed, it is explicitly marked 
 as something altogether different from the change of 
 existing things. 4 
 
 a Cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. q. 90. art. i. 
 3 Cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. q. 44. art. 2 ; De Potentia, q. ). 
 art. 5. 
 
 * Cf. Contra Gent. li. 17 ; De Potentia, q. 3. art, a. 
 
ii* OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 77. Another scholastic definition of creation taken 
 in the strict sense of the word is the following, not 
 easily expressed in English : Creatio est produdio rei 
 ex nihilo sui el subjecti. We may perhaps paraphrase 
 it thus: "Creation is the production of a thing 
 from a previous non-existence as regards itself, and 
 also as regards any being on which the creative 
 act was exercised." After the explanation we have 
 given of St. Thomas' definition, this other will be 
 sufficiently understood, if attention be paid to these 
 two points: 
 
 (a) That is said to be produced ex nihilo sui, 
 which is really produced. Every effect therefore is 
 a. produdio ex nihilo sui, even if it consists only in the 
 accidental or substantial change of a pre-existing 
 thing. 
 
 (6) That is said to be produced ex nihilo sui et 
 subjecti which is not merely the result of a change, 
 but a whole new being, a whole substance, which 
 exists by the power of an efficient cause, and of 
 which nothing existed before. We have now to 
 prove that the world originated through creation 
 in the sense explained, and we commence by 
 excluding the alternative suppositions. 
 
 SECTION 2. Pantheism. 
 
 78. Thesis X. The world and its component 
 elements are not affections of the Divine Substance and 
 inherent in it, but are altogether distinct from it. Pan- 
 theism, therefore, is repugnant to reason. 
 
 This assertion is directed against the pantheists 
 or monists, who maintain that the assemblage of 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. 
 
 things which we call the world is really the one 
 Divin-e Absolute Being under various aspects; these 
 aspects they are pleased to call sometimes moments, 
 sometimes determinations, sometimes modes. We 
 are not here concerned with the semi-pantheistic 
 theories of emanation, according to which creatures 
 are particles separated from the Divine Substance. 5 
 Our proposition is directed against Pantheism in 
 its perfect form. We shall consider it only in its 
 most general outlines, as it manifests itself in some 
 fundamental theorems common to the well-known 
 pantheistic systems of Spinoza, 6 Fichte, 7 Schelling, 8 
 and Hegel. 9 
 
 These authors, though starting from very different 
 principles, agree with one another in these two 
 assertions : 
 
 I. Properly speaking, there exists only one Being. 
 This one Being is called Substance by Spinoza, the 
 Pure Ego by Fichte, the Absolute by Schelling, 10 the 
 Logical Concept by Hegel. 
 
 II. The one Being evolves itself by a necessity 
 of fate into forms of being, diverse from and opposed 
 to one another, inasmuch as they are so many 
 several determinations under which the First Being 
 manifests itself; and yet at the same time all one 
 and the same, inasmuch as it is the same First 
 
 5 Concerning these theories, see 84 below. 
 
 6 Ethica, Pars I. Prop. vi. 
 
 7 Gmndlinien dcv gesammten Wissenschaftslehn (Leipzig, 1794), 
 pp. 10, seq. 
 
 8 Philosophie der Natur (1803), p. 67. 
 
 9 Er.cyclopddie, Band. i. 9, 21. 
 
 ij Schelling considerably modified his system in his Sater worfcs. 
 
N OF THE EXISTENCE OP GGD 
 
 Being that manifests itself under all these diverse 
 determinations. 
 
 79. Against these assertions we say : 
 
 (a) The attributes of the First Being, demon- 
 strated by us in the preceding theses, compared 
 with our external and internal experience, forbid us 
 to admit that the same being is really common to 
 God and to the things of this world. 
 
 We have seen that the First Being, called God, 
 is one undivided essence, in no way composed of 
 parts, and that He unites all perfections in the 
 identity of His unchangeable existence. On the 
 other hand, external and internal experience bear 
 witness to the fact that the world round about us, 
 and human beings themselves, form not really one 
 undivided substance, but many separate individuals, 
 each complete in its own being, differing from and 
 not seldom opposed one to another in natural or 
 voluntary tendencies. Is it not ridiculous to say 
 that a cat is the same real being with the mouse 
 which she devours, and with the dog that worries 
 her, and that cat and dog alike are the same being 
 with the master who with his whip restores peace 
 between them ? Is it not absurd to maintain that 
 the criminal to be hanged is really the same being 
 with the Judge who pronounces sentence of death 
 against him, and with the executioner who carries 
 out this sentence ? And who can accept the state- 
 ment that the atheist is substantially the same 
 Being with God, whose existence he denies and 
 whose name he blasphemes ? 
 
 Moreover, experience tells us that there is 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WOULD 
 
 nothing in the material world known to man which 
 is not either composed of parts, or a part itself; 
 and that, consequently, nothing is complete and 
 perfect in its simplicity. How then can this world 
 be really one Being with God, of whom we have 
 proved that He is in the highest degree simple ? 
 
 Finally, reason based on experience teaches us 
 that the purely corporeal world lacks altogether the 
 faculties of understanding and free-will, and that 
 these faculties, even in the most gifted of the human 
 race, are in a state of imperfection and perfectibility. 
 It is therefore absolutely impossible that either the 
 corporeal or the spiritual world known to men 
 should be one with God, who, as we have proved, 
 is infinitely perfect, and therefore under all aspects 
 without defect, and incapable of evolving new per- 
 fections or new modes of perfection in His own 
 Being. 
 
 80. (6) The evolution of the Deity, as stated by 
 pantheists, is not only opposed to God's attributes, 
 it also involves a contradiction. There is nothing 
 by which it could be caused but the internal activity 
 of the First Cause. Now an activity, by which the 
 First Cause should produce in itself what it does 
 not already possess, is inconceivable. Such pro- 
 duction would result in effects contained in their 
 total cause neither formally nor eminently : that is to 
 say, neither in the same way in which they exist 
 when produced, nor in a higher way more than 
 equivalent to the existence of them all. The total 
 cause of the determinations of being into which 
 the pantheistic Deity evolves itself, is supposed tc 
 
n6 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 be this Deity itself, without the determinations to 
 be evolved. For these cannot be in that Deity 
 formally, before their evolution takes place, other- 
 wise there would be no evolution. Nor can they 
 be said to exist in it eminently, before they are 
 formally actuated ; because on this supposition the 
 First Being, so far from tending by its evolution 
 to unfold its own essence, as pantheists would have 
 it, would tend rather to corrupt that essence and 
 to make a monster of it. 11 
 
 Consequently, on the pantheistic hypothesis, the 
 First Cause is less perfect before it determines 
 itself than it becomes by such determination : and 
 yet this lower perfection suffices to effect the 
 determination and raise it to a more perfect state. 
 In other words, it is in itself the total cause 
 of successive advancements in perfection, without 
 previously possessing those superadded perfec- 
 tions either formally or eminently. Thus the 
 pantheistic God continually violates the inviolable 
 principle of causality. Either the principle of causa- 
 lity must go or pantheism. 
 
 81. (c) Finally, what becomes of morality in the 
 pantheistic hypothesis ? Is there still room for a 
 distinction between actions really good and really 
 bad ? If pantheism be true, all actions are good. 
 The coward and the hero, the miser and the philan- 
 thropist, the tyrant and the martyr, all are deserving 
 
 11 Indeed, Hegel says: "What kind of an Absolute Being is 
 that which does not contain in itself all that is actual, even evi 
 included ? " (Geschichte der Philosophic, Werke XV. p. 275; cf. Mans^l 
 Limits of Religious Thought, p. 46.) 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD IE; 
 
 of praise ; for they all do what the supreme law, 
 which rules the evolution of the Absolute, inexorably 
 demands : their actions are nothing but a manifes- 
 tation of the pantheistic God as He necessarily must 
 be according to a law of fate inherent in His nature. 12 
 
 SECTION 3. The Contingency of the World. 
 
 Thesis XI. Neither the matter of the universe, 
 nor the human soul, nor anything else except the one 
 simple infinitely perfect God, can be self -existent. There- 
 fore all things except God are contingent. 
 
 82. The first two parts of this proposition are 
 contained in the proposition just established. If 
 nothing in the world known to us is inherent in the 
 Divine substance, then neither matter nor human 
 souls can be inherent in that substance. But outside 
 the Divine substance there can be no self-existent 
 substance, because self-existence is, as we ha^e 
 seen (Th. VII. IX.), restricted necessarily to one 
 simple infinitely perfect substance. Therefore the 
 matter of the universe and human souls can have 
 only conditioned existence, and are contingent sub- 
 stances. 
 
 The same argument proves that nothing outside 
 of God can be self-existent. For if you assume 
 
 12 Spinoza does not seem to shrink from a barefaced acceptance 
 of this necessary inference from his pantheistic system. Thus, for 
 instance, he expresses himself in his Ethics, Part IV. Prop. 59, at the 
 end of the proof: " No action considered in itself is either good or 
 bad." And Part IV. Prop. 45, Schol. 2, he bases upon the moral 
 principle just mentioned this practical maxim : " To enjoy ourselves 
 in so far as this may be done short of satiety or disgust for here 
 excess were no enjoyment is true wisdom." 
 
tt8 OP THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 anything else but God to be self-existent, for 
 instance, if you assume with the Manichaeans a 
 supreme principle of evil, you thereby destroy 
 the unity, simplicity, and infinite goodness of self- 
 existence clearly demanded by reason. 
 
 We need only remark that by " things " we 
 mean realities in some way complete in themselves, 
 endowed with an internal principle of action ; such 
 realities, for instance, as men and every living being 
 that leads its own distinct life. All other realities 
 diverse from the Divine substance are either parts 
 of contingent things or accidental determinations 
 of the same. In this way the human body is a 
 part of the human substance, and the hands and 
 feet of a man are parts of his body, whereas his 
 sensations, thoughts, and volitions are accidental 
 determinations. Since matter is contingent, and 
 since only material substances can consist of parts, 
 it is evident that all parts of substances are con- 
 tingent. That accidental determinations of whatever 
 contingent substances must be contingent, is implied 
 by the very term " accidental," and follows, more- 
 over, from their natural dependence upon contingent 
 substances. 
 
 SECTION 4. The Dependence of all things on God. 
 
 Thesis XII. All things in this world owe their 
 origin either immediately or mediately to an act of Divine 
 power. 
 
 83. According to the preceding proposition, all 
 things in this world are contingent. Consequently 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. ng 
 
 there is no one among them which exists by its own 
 nature. They all demand a cause for their existence. 
 For the present we will not inquire whether this 
 cause could not itself be a contingent substance, 
 say a spirit other than God and distinct from all 
 things comprehended under the term " this world." 
 Whatever power of production may be communi- 
 cable to a contingent being, that power must be 
 derived from the same source whence that con- 
 tingent being itself is derived, namely, from the self- 
 existent First Cause. Consequently, before any 
 further inquiry, we are right in ascribing the origin 
 of all things in this world to the power of that 
 Cause. 
 
 SECTION 5. Proof of an Immediate Influence of God. 
 
 Thesis XIII. At least one s^ibstance distinct from 
 God has been immediately produced by God Himself. 
 
 84. From Thesis XL it is evident that every- 
 thing else save God is contingent. In other words, 
 nothing exists with absolute necessity but God 
 alone ; everything which is not God exists only so 
 far as He by His power originates its existence. 
 But God cannot have originated the existence of 
 things merely possible in themselves, unless at least 
 one of all possible substances that ever came into 
 existence was immediately produced by Him. 
 
 SECTION 6. Proof of Creation. 
 
 Thesis XIV. God's immediate action in the pro- 
 duction of contingent being was not a production out 
 of His own substance ; nor can it be, strictly speaking, 
 
IM Of THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 called change of possible being into actual being, but it 
 is creation of actual being out of nothing. 
 
 85. The first part of this thesis is directed against 
 the semi-pantheistic emanation theories now obso- 
 lete. According to these, creatures are as it were 
 particles emitted from the Divine substance. The 
 absurdity of this opinion is evident ; for God, being 
 simple, as we have proved (Th. VIII.), is absolutely 
 unchangeable. Therefore it is impossible that He 
 should produce new substances out of His own by 
 causing particles to emanate from it. 
 
 The second part of ihe proposition is necessary 
 in order to warn the reader against a miscon- 
 ception easily arising from the way in which 
 we imagine possible things. Of course we cannot 
 imagine them except by forming pictures of exist- 
 ing things in our imagination. We fall into no 
 error by forming to ourselves such pictures, as 
 long as we recognize them to be mere pictures of 
 things which by their own nature are nowhere 
 until God causes them to exist. We must not, 
 however, forget this, and attribute to purely possible 
 things some sort of real existence distinct from 
 God. If we look at pure possibility in the light 
 of the truth already demonstrated, that all being 
 except God alone owes its reality to the Divine 
 action, we see that the interval traversed between 
 possibility and actuality is a purely imaginary in- 
 terval, and that consequently no real change takes 
 place when a possible thing becomes actual. In 
 every real change the thing which changes passes 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD t*t 
 
 from one state of existence to another. The purely 
 possible thing does not exist at all : it has no state 
 of existence. Therefore it cannot really pass from 
 one state of existence to another ; its actuation 
 cannot be called change in the proper sense of the 
 word. 
 
 We shall have other occasions later on for 
 showing that the existence of other substances 
 distinct from the one Divine Substance and created 
 by it implies no limitation of the Infinity of the 
 Divine Substance. It is enough for the present to 
 observe that the infinity of an infinite being is not 
 limited by the existence of other finite beings 
 derived from it and dependent upon it, provided 
 these do not contain, as they cannot contain, 
 any perfection which is not in the Infinite Sub- 
 stance equivalently and " eminently," with absolute 
 unity and simplicity. 
 
 SECTION 7. Possibility and limitation of the world 
 accounted for by the Divine Infinity. 
 
 Thesis XV. From the infinite perfection of God it 
 can be safely inferred that (i) creation is possible, (2) that 
 the successive or simultaneous creation of all possible sub- 
 stances is not possible, (3) that the creation of an infinite 
 substance is impossible. Consequently the actually existing 
 world is not absolutely the best possible world, although it 
 is certainly the relatively best possible world. 
 
 86. (i) We have already explained the meaning of 
 creation out of nothing, and have, moreover, proved 
 the fact of creation. But the way in which creation 
 
r* OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD 
 
 has taken place we never can fully understand ; 
 we have nothing analogous in nature by which to 
 illustrate it ; for all actions within our experience 
 are changes of existing things. However, though 
 'we cannot comprehend creation, we are able to give 
 some explanations which will serve to make belief 
 in creation easier. We have then to bear in mind 
 that God is infinitely perfect (Th. IX.) ; and that 
 His Essence possesses the perfections of all possible 
 creatures in a higher and better way ; and is there- 
 fore, as theologians say, "eminently" equivalent to 
 an indefinite number of possible substances. It 
 follows that seeing His Essence as it is, by His 
 infinite Intellect, He knows by this act of cogni- 
 tion at the same instant all possible things. 
 Since also His Will is infinitely powerful, He can 
 by a mere act of will give existence to whatever 
 possible substance He knows. 
 
 The same truth may be expressed also in the 
 following way. An infinitely powerful Will can by 
 its sole act originate whatever is not intrinsically 
 repugnant. But no possible substance is intrinsi- 
 cally repugnant ; otherwise the concept of it would 
 mean nothing. Therefore, every possible substance 
 can be originated by the sole act of an infinitely 
 powerful Will. Now, as God is infinite, His Will is 
 infinitely powerful. Consequently, by an act of His 
 Will alone, He can call into existence any possible 
 substance, that is, He can create it out of nothing. 18 
 
 13 It is highly gratifying to find that two of the foremost 
 champions of modern thought have nothing to object against the 
 possibility of creation. Mill says : " There is nothing to disprove 
 
(2) 
 
 create 
 
 OP GOD TO THE WORU). 1*3 
 
 Although God by His infinite power can 
 any substance conceivable, yet He cannot 
 
 the creation and government of nature by a sovereign will." (Three 
 Essays on Religion, p. 137.) 
 
 Professor Huxley is more explicit, and as his statement on this 
 subject agrees marvellously with the doctrine of St. Thomas and 
 Catholic philosophers in general, we will give it in full : " Some 
 say that the Hebrew word bara which is translated ' created, ' 
 means ' made out of nothing. 1 I venture to object to that rendering, 
 not on the ground of scholarship, but of common sense. Omni- 
 potence itself can surely no more make something out of nothing 
 than it can make a triangular circle. What is intended by ' made 
 out of nothing,' appears to be ' caused to come into existence, 1 with 
 the implication that nothing of the same kind previously existed. 
 Et is further usually assumed that the heaven and the earth ' 
 \neans the material substance of the universe. Hence the ' Mosaic 
 writer ' is taken to imply that where nothing of a material nature 
 previously existed, this substance appeared. That is perfectly 
 conceivable, and therefore no one can deny that it may have 
 happened. ... It appears to me that the scientific investigator is 
 wholly incompetent to say anything at all about the first origin of 
 the material universe. The whole power of his organon vanishes 
 when he has to step beyond the chain of natural causes and effects. 
 No form of nebular hypothesis that I know of is necessarily con- 
 nected with any view of the origination of the nebular substance." 
 (Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1886, pp. 201, 202.) 
 
 To sum up the Professor's view on creation. He asserts : i. To 
 conceive creation as the change of nothing into something is 
 tantamount to conceiving an absurdity. 2. There is no objection 
 to creation, if you conceive it as the starting into existence of 
 the whole of the material universe by competent power. 3. Natural 
 science has even in our nineteenth century nothing to say against 
 the possibility of creation. The first two of these assertions agree 
 perfectly with the doctrine St. Thomas expounds, Sum. Theol. i. 
 44. 2. and 45. i. The third assertion has the approval of all sound 
 metaphysicians. However, the objection to the translation of bara 
 is not very strong, because the term " to make out of nothing" is 
 according to common parlance equivalent to " to make something in 
 such a way that it exists without having been made out of anything." 
 The reader may compare the phrase in question with phrases iika 
 these : " I see nothing," " He knows nothing," &c. 
 
124 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOfr. 
 
 create all intrinsically possible finite substances so 
 that they all should exist at the same time ; nor can 
 He exhaust the category of possibilities by succes- 
 sive creations. 
 
 The successive creation of all conceivable finite 
 substances would mean that God's power of creating 
 had at length become, or was destined at length 
 to become, exhausted. This is clearly incompatible 
 with His infinity. A like inference proves also 
 the impossibility of simultaneous creation of the 
 entire category of possible substances. When that 
 creative act was complete, God would be in the 
 position of being unable to go on creating. There 
 is also a further impossibility involved in simul- 
 taneous creation of all the possible substances ; for it 
 would involve the existence of an infinite number, 
 (Cf. 66.) 
 
 (3) The creation of an infinite substance is no less 
 inconceivable. To be infinite and to be created are 
 contradictory notions. The first involves the most 
 supreme and entire independence, the other is the 
 most intimate and absolute mode of dependence. 
 
 87. It follows that this world cannot be absolutely 
 the best, if by " absolutely the best " we mean " so 
 perfect that nothing could be more perfect." What- 
 ever God may create is finite, and therefore infinitely 
 distant from God Himself, the one absolutely perfect 
 Being. But it may be asked : Why cannot this, 
 world be absolutely the best possible world in this 
 sense, that no creatures can be more perfect than 
 those which exist in it ? To understand the impos- 
 sibility of such optimism we must go back once 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. 
 
 more to God's infinite wisdom and power. Having 
 infinite knowledge, He cannot devise a creature, 
 so perfect an imitation of His immense perfection, 
 but that possible imitations innumerable and in- 
 definitely more perfect should remain within the 
 scope and view of His Essence. Having infinite 
 power, He never can create a being so perfect 
 that the production of a better one would transcend 
 His power. Among all created beings, therefore, 
 there is to be found none which is absolutely the 
 best possible. 
 
 88. Nevertheless, creation as a whole is relatively 
 the best. For that is relatively best, which is best 
 for the end for which it is meant, so far as it is 
 meant for it. Now as God's wisdom is infinite, He 
 cannot be unaware of whatever means are best 
 suited to the end, which He wills His creatures 
 to aim at in so far as He wills it. Moreover, being 
 infinitely good, He cannot act but in perfect harmony 
 with infinite wisdom. Therefore His creatures must 
 reach their end in the most perfect way so far as He 
 intends it. We add so far as He intends it in view of 
 the necessary distinction between what God wills 
 absolutely and what He wills only conditionally. A 
 creature endowed with freedom of will may not 
 reach its end in that way in which God intends 
 it conditionally, namely, on "the hypothesis of its 
 co-operation with the benevolent intention of its 
 Creator. But it is evident that every creature must 
 reach that end which has been put before it abso- 
 lutely, and to that extent must perfectly conform to 
 the standard fixed by Cod's infinite wisdom. 
 
126 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 89. This doctrine, according to which the world 
 is not absolutely but only relatively the best, may 
 be called Moderate Optimism. It is upheld by St. 
 Thomas 14 and his followers. It is opposed to the 
 Exaggerated Optimism of Leibnitz, 15 of Malebranche, 16 
 and of Rosmini. 17 According to Leibnitz this world 
 is the absolutely best possible ; because if it were 
 not, there would have been no sufficient reason for 
 God to prefer it to the rest. Malebranche believed 
 it to be the very best conceivable ; because God 
 would not have acted in the most perfect way, as it 
 behoves His infinite perfection to act, if He had 
 produced a world less perfect than it might have 
 been. Rosmini thought that no world except the 
 existing one would have been worthy of God ; 
 because in this world alone the greatest good is 
 effected with the least means, and thus it alone is 
 worthy of God's goodness. We shall answer the 
 reasons of these authors later. 18 
 
 Having now explained how far creation is 
 possible to God Himself, we shall pass on to the 
 question whether God alone can create, or whether 
 a creature may possibly be endowed by Him with 
 the power of creating. The solution of this question 
 will enable us to state whether God is the immediate 
 Creator' of all existing things. 
 
 14 Cf. Sum. Theol. i. 25. 6. 
 
 15 Cf. Opp. Leibnitz (Edit. Erdmann), p. 506. 
 
 16 Cf. Malebranche, Traite de la Nature et de la Grace, 2, 51. 
 
 17 Cf. Rosmini, Teodicea, n. 651. 
 
 18 Cf. Appendix VI. pp. 467, seq. 
 
DELATION OP GOD TO 1HE WORLD c*f 
 
 8. Pyoof that God alone can create* 
 
 Thesis XVI. Creation out of nothing involves the 
 exercise of infinite power, Consequently God alone can 
 create out of nothing. 
 
 go. It is evident that there must be a certain 
 harmony between ( the natural perfection of efficient 
 causes and the perfection of their activity. In pro- 
 portion as the natural perfection of their substantial 
 being is greater, must their competence as efficient 
 causes increase ; for action is a manifestation of 
 being, and consequent upon it. Therefore, a being 
 whose nature infinitely transcends the nature of 
 other beings must be able to produce effects in a 
 way infinitely transcending that in which other 
 things produce their effects. Now between the 
 infinite perfection of God and the perfection of any 
 creature whatever, there is an infinite distance. God 
 therefore must be able to produce effects in an 
 infinitely more perfect way than creatures. 
 
 Hereupon we argue thus : If we find in the series 
 of effects one which is out of proportion with all the 
 rest, so that in it an efficiency is manifested with 
 which the efficiency manifested in others cannot be 
 compared that effect is the work of the infinitely 
 powerful God alone. But a substance created out 
 of nothing is such an effect. All other effects are 
 mere changes of substances already created. All 
 other effects are conditioned not only by the influence 
 of their efficient cause, but also by the nature 
 of the subject in which they are produced. This 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 subject was originally a work of creation, wholly 
 dependent upon its creating cause alone. In 
 other words, every effect which is not creation 
 is dependent upon creation for its support, where- 
 as creation is not dependent upon any other 
 effect. Under this aspect creation appears as 
 the primary action to use the words of the great 
 Aquinas and we must therefore conclude that it is 
 feasible to the primary agent alone. 18 Creation is 
 the primary efficient action, inasmuch as some creation 
 precedes every other efficiency ; as also because no 
 other efficiency can be compared with it in excel- 
 lence. Therefore that Being alone, with whose 
 infinite excellence no other being can be compared, 
 is able to create substances out of nothing. 
 
 91. St. Thomas suggests to us another argu- 
 ment. 19 The greater the disproportion between the 
 state before the exercise of efficient causality and the 
 state after it, the greater must be the perfection of 
 the causality exercised. More skill is required to make 
 a statue out of a piece of marble than a tomb- 
 stone, to make a cathedral out of building materials 
 than a factory. To make the letters of the alphabet 
 subservient to the prosaic expression of daily occur- 
 rences is an achievement incomparably easier than 
 
 18 Contra Gent. ii. 21. "Cum enim secundum ordinem agentium 
 sit ordo activorum, eo quod nobilioris agentis nobilior est actio, 
 oportet quod prima actio sit primi agentis propria. Creatio autem 
 est prima actio, eo quod nullam aliam praesupponit et omnes aliae 
 praesupponunt earn. Est igitur creavio propria Dei solius actio, qui 
 est agens primum." 
 
 18 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. 45. art. 5. ad 2. et 3. 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. 129 
 
 to weave them into the tissue of a tragedy like 
 Hamlet. 
 
 This being so, if between the state before the 
 exercise of causality and the state after it there is 
 ever an infinite disproportion, then the causality 
 exercised must be infinitely perfect, and therefore 
 can belong to God alone. Now this is precisely the 
 case in creation. The individual substance created 
 out of nothing is void of all actual existence before 
 the Creator calls it into being. It is nothing by its 
 own nature ; whatever it is, has been produced by 
 the power of the Creator. Now between nothing 
 and any kind of existence there is an infinite dispro- 
 portion. The power, therefore, which creates things 
 out of nothing must be infinite ; it must be the 
 power of God alone. 
 
 92. But here it may be objected : True, the 
 preceding arguments seem to prove that no creature 
 can have a power adequately proportionate to the 
 creation of another creature. This, however, does 
 not show that a creature cannot co-operate with 
 God as His instrument in creation. How will you 
 show that God cannot create one creature by the 
 instrumentality of another ? 
 
 To solve this objection, we must distinguish 
 between instrument in the proper sense, and instru- 
 ment in the wider sense. An instrument, strictly 
 speaking, is only that which produces the very effect 
 in reference to which it is said to be instrumental, 
 under the guidance of a higher cause. In this sense, 
 the brush of the painter is his instrument in the pro- 
 duction of a picture, and the sewing-machine is the 
 J 
 
130 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 instrument of the tailor in the making of a coat. 
 They make the picture and the coat respectively, 
 although under guidance from the human hand. 
 Moreover, it is the part of an instrument to concur 
 in the action of the principal agent by some action 
 proper to itself which disposes something already 
 existing to the effect of the principal agent. Thus 
 the saw cuts, which is an action proper to itself 
 and exerted on some already existing material, 
 and therefore concurs to the production of, say, 
 a circular plate, which is the effect after which 
 the principal agent is striving. Hence only those 
 effects can be wrought with the help of instruments 
 which consist in the gradual change of some subject- 
 matter, disposing it to a purpose. But creation, as 
 we have seen, does not consist in the change of a 
 subject already existing ; it is rather the effecting of a 
 subject by the power of will. Therefore instrumen- 
 tality, properly speaking, cannot come into play, 
 when creation out of nothing is to take place. 20 
 However, if we use the word instrument in a wider 
 sense, to signify a cause which produces an effect, 
 intended by God to be the condition under which 
 He Himself will create a new substance that stands 
 in a certain relation to the effect produced : we may 
 then say that a creature can be the instrumental 
 cause of a new creature. Thus parents may be said 
 to be the instrumental causes of the souls of their 
 children, although these souls are created by God 
 alone, as we shall see in the following section. 21 
 
 w Cf. Sum. Theol. i. 45. 5. c. " Sed hoc esse non potesi. 
 81 Cf. Sum. Theol. i. 118, 2. ad 3m. 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. 131 
 
 SECTION 9. Proof that God is the immediate Author of 
 Mind and Matter. 
 
 Thesis XVII. Every individual human soul, and 
 every element of matter considered in its original state, 
 is an immediate effect of Divine creation. 
 
 93. As we have proved above ( 30 39), the 
 human soul is an immaterial substance, a spirit, 
 although a spirit united to matter. Upon this we 
 argue as follows : If the human soul cannot be 
 evolved out of matter, nor be taken from the sub- 
 stance of a spirit, it owes its existence immediately 
 to creation. But it is evident that a material being 
 cannot be changed into an immaterial being; and 
 it is absolutely impossible that a spirit should be 
 divided. ( 34.) We must then conclude that every 
 human soul comes into existence by creation out 
 of nothing, and as God alone can create things of 
 nothing (Th. XVI.), every human soul is imme- 
 diately created by God Himself. 22 
 
 94. As regards the origin of matter, in whatever 
 state it may have been originally, it is certain that 
 its existence is due to an exercise of Divine Power, 
 for it is not self-existent, but contingent. ( 81, 82.) 
 The question still to be answered in regard to its 
 origin is this : Was matter produced by Almighty 
 God immediately or mediately ? Now it must have 
 been immediately created, because mediate pro- 
 duction ot matter is impossible. For on two 
 suppositions only could it be possible ; first, that 
 God could change a spirit into matter, or secondly, 
 
 ** Cf. Sum. Theol i. 90. 2. et i. 181. 13, 
 
132 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 that He could communicate to a spirit the power 
 of creating matter. But on the face of them, neither 
 of these suppositions can be held : it is incom- 
 patible with the simplicity and characteristic being 
 of a spiritual substance that a spirit should be 
 transformed into matter, and it has been proved 
 already, that the power of creation belongs ex- 
 clusively to God. (Th. XVI. go, seq.) We see, 
 then, that the origin of matter is due to immediate 
 Divine creation. In what state it was created, 
 whether in the state of elementary matter, or of 
 substances compounded of elementary matter, our 
 reason cannot tell. We must be satisfied with know- 
 ing that at least every part of matter considered in 
 the most simple form in which it can exist in other 
 words, every element has been created by God 
 immediately. 23 
 
 Scholion. The doctrine of creation in its relation 
 to the theory of evolution. 
 
 95. From the proof given above it follows that all 
 creatures of the universe are under a certain aspect 
 the immediate handiwork of God. They are all 
 made up of material elements immediately created 
 by Him. It is true, these elements are not now in 
 that state in which they were when they came forth 
 from the abyss of their nothingness. Under the 
 influence of destructive and generative forces put 
 into matter by the Creator, its elementary parts 
 
 28 Sum. TheoL i. 44. 2. et i. 65. 3. et Compendium Theologies, c. 95. 
 "Elementa secundum se tota non sunt ex aliqua materia prsjacenti, 
 quia illud quod prseexisteret haberet aliquam formam . . . oportet 
 igitur etiam ipsa elementa immediate esse producta a Deo.' 
 
THE RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. 133 
 
 circulate through immeasurable space, and form the 
 substratum now of this, now of that, species of in- 
 animate or animate matter. But however great may 
 be the changes which matter thus undergoes, its 
 amount is neither diminished nor increased, its 
 original potentiality for the reception of various 
 principles of force (or forms, as scholastics call 
 them), remains always the same. A part of matter 
 determined to a certain mode of being and action by 
 an internal principle of force constitutes a body, or 
 an individual corporeal substance. Under the influ- 
 ence of created forces, the state of matter in an 
 individual body can be so disturbed that the prin- 
 ciple of force by which it is determined can no 
 longer continue to maintain its existence. Thus the 
 body loses its existence as this or that individual 
 substance, but it never drops out of existence alto- 
 gether. The extinction of one principle of force is 
 accompanied by the production of another, the 
 natural result of a new combination of matter. 
 Each body, then, considered in its basis, is God's 
 work ; whereas the principles of force, or the forms, 
 through which bodies now existing receive their 
 specific character, are due to the destructive and 
 generative activity of created agents, with the single 
 exception of. that principle from which the human 
 body receives its specific determination, namely, the 
 rational soul, the source not only of the intellectual, 
 but also of the sensitive and vegetative, life of man. 
 96. How far observation has justified, or will 
 justify the theory of evolution, we leave it to biolo- 
 gists to decide. From a mere philosophical point 
 
134 OF THE EXISTENCE Of GOD. 
 
 of view we are unable to discover anything in 
 it which would be out of harmony with reason, 
 if only the following principles are kept strictly in 
 view : 
 
 (1) There is no evolution but of matter created 
 by God, through principles of force set to work by 
 Him originally, and working throughout all ages of 
 their operation according to laws determined by His 
 infinite wisdom. 
 
 (2) A lower principle of force is never by itself 
 alone the total cause of the production of a higher 
 one. Consequently the more perfect offspring of an 
 imperfect species of living beings is not due only to 
 the generative force of that species, but other causes 
 must help to produce it. 
 
 (3) A human person is never the effect of evo- 
 lution. 
 
 The generative power of a created agent can pre- 
 dispose matter for the reception of a human soul: 24 
 but the soul being spiritual, God alone can create it, 
 and join it to matter, from which union there results 
 * man. 
 
 These three principles, which are simple corol- 
 laries of the theses proved above, contain the most 
 fundamental truths about Divine creation as the 
 cause of this world. 
 
 We shall now proceed to answer some questions 
 connected with creation, the solution of which will 
 
 34 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. 118. art. 2. ad 4. " Homo generat 
 sibi simile, in quantum per virtutem seminisejus disponitur "materia 
 ad susceptionem talis formae," i.e. of the "rational soul." (Cf. ibid. 
 art. 3. et q. 76, art. i.) 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. 135 
 
 throw still more light upon the total dependence of 
 all things upon God. These questions are : 
 
 1. Is creation the result of a necessary, or of a 
 free volition of God ? 
 
 2. Could God have created without creating 
 from eternity ? 
 
 3. If eternal creation be not necessary, is it at 
 least possible ? 
 
 4. Can a world like ours exist from eternity ? 
 What we have to say upon these questions will 
 
 form the subject-matter of the five following pro- 
 positions : 
 
 SECTION 10. Creation a free act of God's will. 
 
 Thesis XVIII. God has freely chosen to produce 
 creahires. 
 
 97. Victor Cousin 25 says : Dieu s'il est cause peut 
 creer ; et s'il est cause absolue, il ne peut pas ne pas 
 creer " If God is a cause, He can create, and if 
 He is an absolute cause, He must create." 
 
 According to this philosopher, the act of creation 
 is under different aspects both free and necessary. 
 It is free, not because God could determine 
 vvhether He would exercise His creative power or 
 not, but only because there is not any external 
 force constraining Him to the exercise of that 
 power. The necessity of creation, on the other 
 hand, is to be sought in the nature of God Himself; 
 it is this nature which irresistibly impels Him both 
 to desire and to produce creatures. " The creative 
 act is a necessary act, because it results from the 
 
 20 Intyod. & I'Histoire de la Phil. Le?on 5. 
 
136 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 nature of a cause, which must needs act ; and it is 
 free, for it proceeds from the proper, independent, 
 primitive spontaneity of a cause which acts by 
 itself, which determines itself, so that its deter- 
 mination, though necessary, is nevertheless entirely 
 its own, and is not under any influence from with- 
 out." 20 
 
 Against these assertions we maintain that God 
 has created only because He freely willed the 
 existence of creatures, being equally free not to 
 will it had He pleased ; as again to will the existence 
 of creatures other than those actually created had 
 that been His choice. This is the only legitimate 
 inference from the infinitude of the Divine per- 
 fection. Had God been compelled by necessity to 
 create, He must have been so compelled, because 
 His infinitely perfect intellect represented to His 
 infinitely perfect will that creation was a necessity 
 required to supply some deficiency otherwise dis- 
 cernible in His Being. But creation could not have 
 this effect. To infinite perfection nothing further in 
 the way of perfection can be added, and again, to 
 view the same truth in a different light, created per- 
 fection is derived perfection. It is derived from that 
 of God in which it is precontained eminently. 27 
 
 26 " L'acte crdateur est un acte necessaire, puisqu'il resultc de 
 la nature d'une cause, qui ne peut pas ne pas agir; et il est libre, 
 parcequ'il emane de la spontanelte propre, independante, primitive, 
 d'une cause, qui agit d'elle meme, qui se determine elle meme, 
 sans que sa determination necessaire, mais toute sienne, subisse 
 aucune influence du dehors." (T. E. Allaux, La Philosophic de 
 M. Cousin, pp. 19, 20.) 
 
 27 This technical term has been explained already. See pp. 100, 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. 137 
 
 What is here meant will be more easily realized 
 by the reader if he considers the relation of 
 the supreme to the subordinate authorities in the 
 body social. Under the absolute monarch many 
 lower officials are constituted, each endowed with 
 a measure of power and authority derived from 
 his. Now their authority cannot be added to 
 his so as to form a total authority of larger 
 dimensions than t his is by itself. Whatever they 
 have they hold under him, and he possesses it in 
 a higher and more independent manner. Substitute 
 God for the absolute monarch, creatures for the 
 subordinate powers, perfection for authority, and 
 then we have set before us exactly the relation of 
 the Divine perfection to that imparted by creation 
 to creatures. And we see clearly that creation adds 
 nothing to the Divine excellence which it did not 
 already possess. There can, then, be no motive 
 presentable to the perfect will of God necessitating 
 creation. On the other hand, although creation is 
 seen to be an act which does not increase the 
 Divine perfection, it is also seen to be an act 
 good in itself, and therefore, though not necessary, 
 still worthy of election should God so please. For 
 creatures, as being imitations of the Divine per- 
 fection, are worthy of existence and consequently of 
 love. 28 Their existence need not be, but it may 
 be if it please God to choose it. 
 
 28 Cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. 20. 2. c. et ad adm et 4tra. 
 
138 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 SECTION n. Creation not necessarily Eternal. 
 
 Thesis XIX. The decree to create is necessarily 
 eternal, but its effect, or the resulting existence of creatures, 
 is not necessarily eternal. 
 
 98. The way in which an eternal and yet free 
 decree can exist in God is incomprehensible to our 
 limited intellects; nevertheless we can understand 
 the reason why the free decree to create must 
 be eternal. A free choice cannot be reasonably 
 delayed without a sufficient motive. But in God 
 there was no sufficient motive to delay the decree 
 to create. The reason for which free beings 
 reasonably suspend their choice is either the fact 
 that for the present they are not in need of an 
 action, which later may be useful to them, or the 
 consciousness that choosing at once may cause them 
 unforeseen inconveniences. But God could not 
 suspend His decree for either of these reasons. 
 
 He is by His very essence independent of 
 creatures; they never can be useful to Him, nor 
 augment His infinite perfection. Moreover, what- 
 ever motives there may be to create or not to 
 create, these motives are always and fully perceived 
 by His infinite intellect. In the same instant in 
 which He sees them, He sees also the result of 
 whatever line of action He may choose. It is, 
 therefore, inconceivable that He ever should have 
 existed without the decree to create. 
 
 99. As to the second part of our thesis, we do 
 not state therein that God cannot create anything 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO TPIE WORLD. 139 
 
 from eternity ; we say only that it cannot be proved 
 that anything has been created from eternity. Our 
 proof of this statement is as follows : The reason 
 for which God is said to have necessarily created 
 from eternity must lie either in the nature of His 
 essence, or of His free decree, or in the nature of 
 creatures, or in some combination of these motives 
 one with another. 
 
 In God's own essence there cannot possibly be 
 a reason why He must create from eternity if He 
 chooses to create at all, since His essence is quite 
 sufficient for His infinite love of good without the 
 addition of any creatures a fortiori, without the 
 addition of them from eternity. Nor can it be 
 admitted that the existence of creatures must have 
 the same eternity as the Divine decrees by which it 
 is determined. As the power of Divine volition is 
 the only efficient cause of their existence, they must 
 exist with all the determinations and assignments 
 with which God from eternity wills them to exist. 
 Suppose a sovereign to make a decree ordaining 
 that certain authorities shall come into being at 
 certain fixed times, one a week hence, another a 
 year hence, &c., then they would come into being 
 according to their assignments, and not at the date 
 of the decree. Consequently it cannot be inferred 
 from the eternal decree of creation that the existence 
 of creatures is from eternity, unless it be proved that 
 God in His eternal decree has resolved to grant to 
 creatures an existence coeternal with His decree. 
 But this cannot be proved. 
 
 Is there, then, anything in the nature of creatures 
 
140 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 to require that their existence, if realized at all, 
 should be eternal ? None can be given. All creatures 
 are of themselves nothing; their existence or non- 
 existence makes not the least alteration in God's 
 infinitely perfect Being. It depends, therefore, upon 
 the free choice of God to fix the limits of their 
 duration as He pleases. 
 
 Nor does the necessity of eternal creation arise 
 out of the relation of the Divine essence to the 
 creative fiat or to the nature of creatures or to 
 both. 
 
 In the relation of this decree to the Divine 
 essence we find a reason for the eternal existence 
 of the decree itself, but not of the creatures decreed ; 
 in the -relation of the nature of creatures to the 
 Divine essence we have a reason for affirming that 
 God must love creatures if they exist, but no reason 
 for the necessity of their eternal existence. If, how- 
 ever, we turn to the relation existing between the 
 creative fiat and the nature of creatures, we may be 
 tempted to think that here there is really a reason 
 for the necessity of eternal creation. We might 
 seem justified in arguing thus : The total cause of 
 every creature is the free decree of God, which free 
 decree has existed from eternity. But the total 
 cause of an effect cannot exist without the simul- 
 taneous existence of the effect. Every creature, 
 therefore, which really is a creature in the strict 
 sense of the word that is to say, every being 
 immediately produced out of nothing, must have 
 existed from eternity. However, it is not at all 
 evident that in every case without distinction the 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. 
 
 141 
 
 total cause of an effect cannot exist without the 
 simultaneous existence of the effect. It is true that 
 a cause as such bears a necessary relation to an 
 effect. It is also true that a cause from which an 
 effect proceeds, according to a natural law to which 
 the cause is subjected, cannot be in the state 
 sufficient for the production of the effect without 
 producing it at once. But, given an infinite will 
 able by the mere expression of its purpose to call 
 things out of nothing into existence, it is not at all 
 evident that it cannot remain unchangeable, and 
 yet freely determine when the effects shall begin, 
 of which its own infinite power is the only efficient 
 cause. Certainly no one can discover an intrinsic 
 contradiction in this proposition : Although the free 
 decree to create, which is the only efficient cause 
 of the existence of creatures, has existed from all 
 eternity, nevertheless the creatures decreed from 
 eternity have had a beginning, because a beginning 
 has been fixed from eternity by this free decree. 
 
 SECTION 12. On tfa possibility of Eternal Creation. 
 
 Thesis XX. It is not evident that no creature 
 whatsoever can exist from eternity. 
 
 100. The great doctors of the middle ages agreed 
 that eternal creation was not a necessity ; they dif- 
 fered from one another on the less important point 
 whether eternal creation is or is not intrinsically 
 impossible. 
 
 St. Thomas Aquinas considered the controversy 
 hopeless, at least in its most general form, not 
 
143 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 descending to the particular inquiry whether this 
 or that given creature man, for instance could 
 possibly have existed from eternity. 29 We say only 
 that the impossibility of a creature which had no 
 beginning cannot be demonstrated. In order to 
 prove this statement, it will be enough to show 
 that the arguments against the possibility of eternal 
 creation are by no means decisive. The most 
 forcible are the following four, to each of which 
 we will reply 
 
 1 01. First Argument. Every efficient cause 
 must exist before its effect. But if eternal creation 
 is admitted, God, the efficient cause of the being 
 created from eternity, does not exist before His 
 effect. It is, therefore, against reason to admit 
 eternal creation. 
 
 Answer. It is not to be denied that an efficient 
 cause which produces its effect gradually must exist 
 before its effect exists ; whence it follows that the 
 existence of all effects produced by corporeal sub- 
 stances is posterior to that of their causes. It is 
 also to be granted that an efficient cause, which is 
 not by its very existence always ready for the 
 production of an effect, must exist before its effect. 
 But it is in no way evident that cause and effect 
 cannot be simultaneous, when the cause by its mere 
 existence is ever ready to act. Now creation is an 
 instantaneous effect, and God by His unchangeable 
 and infinitely powerful Will is always able to 
 
 29 St. Thomas, Sum. Thcol. la. q. 46. art. 2. To understand 
 St. Thomas properly, the reader must ponder what he here says 
 in answer to the eighth objection. 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. 143 
 
 produce every effect conceivable. The conclusion, 
 then, of this first argument cannot be granted as 
 evident. 
 
 102. Second Argument. Creation is production 
 out of nothing. But a creature which exists from 
 eternity has been always something. Consequently 
 such a creature cannot be said to have been 
 produced out of nothing ; in other words, it cannot 
 really be a creature. 
 
 Answer. The meaning of the phrase, " Creation 
 is production out of nothing," is this: the created 
 being is nothing in itself, but owes its whole 
 existence to the will of its Creator, who has not 
 produced it by the change of any substratum, but 
 has called it into existence by a free act of His 
 omnipotent Will. From this it does not follow 
 that the created being cannot have been called 
 into existence from eternity. If a creature has 
 existed always, it has always been something 
 through the exercise of creative power, but it 
 has never been something in virtue of its own 
 essence. 
 
 103. Third Argument. Every finite being must 
 be under all aspects infinitely distant from the per- 
 fection of God, the one infinite Being. But on the 
 hypothesis of an eternal creation this is not true, 
 because a creature produced from eternity is equal 
 at least in duration to God. 
 
 Answer. We grant the major, but deny the 
 minor of this argument. By the very fact that the 
 duration of a creature is contingent and continually 
 dependent upon God's free-will, it is infinitely less 
 
144 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 perfect than the duration of God, who continues 
 in existence with absolute necessity by virtue of His 
 own essence. 
 
 104. Fourth Argument. Succession from eternity 
 is impossible. But succession belongs to the nature 
 of every creature. Every creature which exists in 
 the moment A can cease to exist in the following 
 moment B. This could not hold if the duration of 
 the creature in the moment B were not really 
 different from its duration in the moment A. But 
 really different durations following one another 
 constitute a succession of durations. 
 
 Answer. We grant that succession from eternity 
 is impossible. We do not deny that succession 
 belongs to the nature of every actually existing 
 creature ; but we say that it is not evident that it 
 must belong to the nature of every possible creature. 
 Though great scholastic philosophers, St. Bona- 
 venture, 30 the Conimbricenses, 31 and others, held 
 that even in the duration of a created spiritual 
 substance there is succession, by reason of the 
 contingency of all created being ; still that position 
 is open to doubt. The full reason why a spirit 
 existing now can presently cease to be is not 
 any tendency to nothingness inherent in the spirit 
 itself, but it is the absolute dependence of the 
 creature upon the power of God, who preserves 
 it in being, and who by withdrawing His preserving 
 influence could, if He pleased, let it fall back into 
 nothingness. We have, therefore, no clear evidence 
 
 80 In 1. 2. dist. d. 2. a. i. q. 3. 
 
 31 In 1. 4. Phys. c. 14. p. 2. Cf. Pesch, Phil. Nat. n. 502. 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. 145 
 
 that in the substance of a spiritual creature there is 
 succession. 
 
 But it may be asked, Is there not necessarily 
 succession in its operations ? Or is any created 
 spirit possible which can operate without change 
 in itself? If that is an impossibility, every created 
 spirit must necessarily have a beginning, for a spirit 
 cannot be wholly without operation. This reason 
 goes a long way to show that the creation of a spirit 
 from eternity, and a fortiori the creation of matter 
 from eternity, is absolutely impossible, because an 
 existence from eternity can hardly be other than a 
 changeless existence ; and we cannot conceive either 
 matter or spirit to have existed from eternity with- 
 out change. We are not inclined to think that such 
 a created existence is possible ; but neither have we 
 a certain reason for saying that it is intrinsically 
 repugnant. We must, then, conclude by saying 
 that the impossibility of eternal creation is not 
 certainly proved. 
 
 SECTION 13. The beginning of this World. 
 
 Thesis XXI. The universe, considered in its chief 
 processes, had a beginning. 
 
 105. Having stated our opinion about the possi- 
 bility of eternal creation in the abstract, another 
 question remains to be answered. Can the par- 
 ticular world in which we live have existed from 
 eternity ? 
 
 The meaning of this question is not whether the 
 innumerable species of creatures which constitute 
 K 
 
146 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 the world known to man can have been created 
 without a beginning. Even the conclusions of 
 natural science indicate that all living beings which 
 people the earth, if considered not in the germ of 
 their species, but in their specific nature itself, had 
 their origin long after the creation of matter. We 
 intend only to ask : Was it intrinsically possible, 
 and consequently in the power of the Almighty, 
 to decree that the chief processes of nature should 
 go on without ever having had any beginning? 
 This question may be resolved into the following 
 three : 
 
 1. Can there have been motion of matter without 
 a beginning of motion ? 
 
 2. Is evolution of vegetable and animal life 
 possible without a beginning of evolution ? 
 
 3. Can the generations of mankind have suc- 
 ceeded one another for all ages without there being 
 any first parents or first children ? 
 
 To each of these questions we answer in the 
 negative. 
 
 106. And first as regards motion of matter. 
 Motion is not an instantaneous act, but involves 
 really different successive phases. There is no 
 motion of matter without continuous changes of 
 position of material particles. The concept of 
 motion and the concept of succession are in- 
 separable from one another. But succession cannot 
 have existed from eternity. In it a " sooner " and 
 a " later " are necessarily involved. Every " later " 
 had evidently a beginning, and consequently every 
 " sooner," which is essentially related to a "later" 
 
RELATION OF GOD TO THE WORLD. 147 
 
 in other words, every " sooner " which con- 
 stitutes a part of succession must have had a 
 beginning. Bearing now in mind that succession 
 is involved in motion so as to be necessarily con- 
 nected with the movements of material particles, 
 we must pronounce it metaphysically impossible 
 that motion of matter should have been without 
 a first start or beginning of motion. 
 
 This conclusion opens the way to the other, 
 that evolution of life, the processes of assimilation 
 and decomposition, of generation and corruption 
 in animate matter, are inconceivable unless they 
 have had a beginning. They all imply succession, 
 and consequently can have had but a limited 
 duration. 
 
 107. Coming now to the human race, it must 
 have had a beginning not only for the reasons just 
 given, but also because the number of human souls 
 that possibly can exist can never be actually infinite. 
 Such a number is intrinsically impossible, as we 
 have shown in our chapter, on infinity. ( 66.) But 
 if mankind had existed from eternity, the number oi 
 human souls that existed at any given moment, il 
 we suppose that none of these naturally incorruptible 
 beings is annihilated by the absolute power of God, 
 would really be actually infinite. Whatever there- 
 fore may be our opinion on the absolute possibility 
 of an eternal creature, there can be no doubt that 
 a universe like ours, in which there is motion 
 and organic life, and in which one generation of 
 men follows another, cannot have existed from 
 
148 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 eternity, considered even in its most fundamental 
 features. 32 
 
 We have treated here the question of the 
 duration of our world only from a metaphysical 
 point of view. So far as the existence in the past 
 of the present state of our solar system, of organic 
 life and of man is concerned, the theories of modern 
 astronomers, of geologists and paleontologists sup- 
 port our conclusions. 
 
 On the other hand, Aristotle opposes them in- 
 asmuch as they rest upon the impossibility of 
 motion without a beginning. The arguments by 
 which he endeavoured to prove that motion must 
 be without a beginning, together with modern 
 arguments in favour of eternal creation, will find 
 their solution in the following chapter. 
 
 82 Our thesis is supported by Cardinal Zigliara,' who arrives at 
 the same conclusions in a way somewhat different. His words are : 
 " Existimo autem mundum uti nunc est, non potuisse ab aeterno 
 creari. . . . Etenim si creatio ista foret possibilis, consequi videtur 
 quod in successione ab aeterno usque ad praesens forent, in facta 
 hypothesi, actu infmitae successiones vel in tempore, vel in motu, 
 vel in generatione, vel saltern in cogitationibus alicujus mentis 
 creatae." (Su^mn Philosophica, Vol. II. pp. 38, 39.) 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 SOLUTION OF DIFFICULTIES AGAINST THE FUNDA- 
 MENTAL TRUTHS OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 SOME of the difficulties urged against the conclu- 
 sions at which we have arrived have already been 
 partially considered. It was indispensable to the 
 course of our argument not to pass them by un- 
 noticed. But it is necessary to examine them more 
 fully in the present chapter. 
 
 SECTION I. Arguments urged by Traditionalists in favour of 
 the opinion, that mly by faith can we be certain of God's 
 existence. 
 
 108. (i) First Traditionalistic Argument. The 
 existence of God is an article of Christian faith. 
 But articles of Christian faith must be believed 
 on the authority of God they cannot be proved 
 by natural reason alone. Consequently the existence 
 of God is indemonstrable. 1 
 
 Answer. The term "article of faith" may be 
 taken both in a wider and in a more restricted 
 sense. In a wider sense, every truth revealed by 
 God is an article of faith, even if it is demonstrable 
 by reason. In a more restricted sense, only those 
 1 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. IE q. 2. art. 2. obj. i. 
 
i 5 o OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 dogmas, which, even after their revelation, cannot 
 be proved by reason alone, are articles of faith. 
 Such dogmas are the Mysteries of the Incarnation, 
 of the Blessed Trinity, and others. Many truths of 
 Natural Theology are articles of faith in the wider 
 sense ; they form part of the revelation made by 
 God to His Church ; but they are not articles of 
 faith, if this term be taken in its more restricted 
 sense. To this class belongs the great fundamental 
 truth of the existence of a Personal God. 
 
 If it be urged that from the solution just given 
 it would follow that God had revealed to us His 
 existence and attributes without any need, we 
 answer with St. Thomas, 2 that the revelation even 
 of those truths concerning God and His perfections 
 which can be discovered by reason alone, is a great 
 benefit to mankind. To say nothing in this place 
 of the supernatural graces attached to it, there are 
 three great wants clearly discernible from which, 
 had not these truths been revealed, the human race 
 as a whole would have suffered. 
 
 First, without this revelation few men would 
 have a proper knowledge of their Creator. Some 
 would not arrive at it on account of their natural 
 incapacity to inquire into recondite truths, and 
 others could not undertake a satisfactory search 
 on account of the multitude of their occupations. 
 Moreover, a large number would shirk the patient 
 consideration and reasoning without which a more 
 accurate knowledge of the First Cause of all things 
 cannot be attained. 
 
 a Contra. Gent. i. c. 4. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 151 
 
 Secondly, if that revelation were not given, the 
 comparatively few, who could and would speculate 
 about Divine things, would take a long time to 
 reach any large or valuable results on account of 
 the difficulty of the speculation. And thus a con- 
 siderable part of human life would be spent in 
 arduous study of Him, whom we are not created to 
 study so much as to know and love and obey from 
 the dawn of reason. 
 
 Finally, on the same hypothesis there would be 
 far more room for erroneous views about God, than 
 there is now, as we may infer from comparing the 
 theories of philosophers with the truths possessed 
 by any child that knows its catechism. 
 
 109. (2) Second Traditionalistic Argument. It is 
 impossible that the contemplation of finite things 
 should lead to any certain knowledge of the Infinite 
 God. 
 
 Answer. It is true that we cannot leap from 
 finite to infinite by one argument. But we can by 
 a chain of arguments. We have to commence by 
 proving that there is a First Cause, and that this 
 First Cause can be but One. After that, it is to be 
 shown that no perfection conceivable is wanting in 
 that Cause which we call God. Thus it appears 
 that one Infinite God really exists, although the 
 notion we have of Him can only be partially positive. 3 
 That is to say, we cannot express the fulness of 
 God's perfection by mere affirmation ; but having 
 affirmed it under a certain aspect, we must signify 
 the rest by excluding all limits from what we have 
 
 s St. Thomas, Sum. TheoL la. q. 2. art. 2. ad 3m. 
 
152 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 affirmed, saying for instance, God is wise without 
 limit, He is infinitely wise, and the rest. 
 
 SECTION 2. Kant's difficulties against the proofs of God's 
 existence. 
 
 no. Kant, in his celebrated work, Kritik der 
 reinen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason}, discusses 
 at length the Ontological Argument, the Argument 
 of the First Cause, and the Argument from Design. 
 He finds fault with each of them, and arrives at the 
 conclusion that speculative reason is unable to come 
 to a satisfactory result in the matter. 
 
 Answer, i. What Kant alleges against the onto- 
 logical proof, we may pass over, as we ourselves do 
 not admit that proof; although we do not approve 
 of all that Kant says in refuting it.* 
 
 2. Against the Argument of the First Cause, 
 Kant has two principal difficulties. First, he con- 
 siders that we are not certain of the universal 
 value of the " Principle of Causality," upon which 
 the proof of the existence of a First, Self-existing 
 Cause entirely turns. 5 The answer to this objec- 
 tion is fully given in our proof. ( 25, 26.) It was 
 there shown that Kant's opinion must lead to the 
 denial of the principle of contradiction itself, and 
 to universal scepticism. But he is armed with 
 another weapon. He says that those who use 
 the Argument of the First Cause really fall into 
 the fallacy of the ontological proof, while appearing 
 
 4 See discussion of Ontological Argument in c. i. 
 6 Kritik der reinen Vernunft, p. 637 (Dritte Auflage). In ths 
 translation by M. Miiller, p. 523. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 153 
 
 to avoid it. They first demonstrate a posteriori a 
 first cause, a self-existing being ; and then from the 
 concept of self-existence they infer the existence of 
 an Infinite Being. This conclusion he deems to be 
 invalid. Were it valid, he says, it would be equally 
 lawful to infer by a converse process the existence 
 of an Infinite Being from its concept and this 
 is the line of the ontological proof. This objection 
 at first sight seems formidable: but in reality its 
 whole force is due to a want of distinction between 
 unlawful and lawful reasoning a priori. It is un- 
 lawful to reason a priori from a concept, the internal 
 truth of which may reasonably be doubted by those 
 whom you would convince. So long as they 
 may reasonably say, we do not know whether an 
 intrinsic contradiction may not be hidden in that 
 concept, your conclusion must remain suspected oi 
 error. But should you argue from the concept of a 
 thing, the existence of which you have already 
 proved, no one can reasonably demur to your 
 conclusions. Now those who defend the Ontological 
 Argument follow the former unlawful line of reason- 
 ing; while the latter, the lawful line, has been 
 observed by us in the development of our Argument 
 of the First Cause. Those who use the ontological 
 proof, begin with the assumption that the concept 
 of an infinitely perfect being is not self-contra- 
 dictory. This they have no right to do, as we 
 showed when discussing their argument. Very 
 different is our mode of reasoning. We first prove 
 a posteriori that an intelligent, self-existing Being 
 6 Ibid. p. 639. Apud M. Muller, ibid. p. 525. 
 
154 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 certainly exists. This established, we have a right 
 to maintain that the concept of self-existence is not 
 self-contradictory; for what must exist, can exist. 
 We are, therefore, entitled to argue from that 
 concept, and to assert as absolutely true everything 
 that is evidently connected with the truth of self- 
 existence, to wit, that a self-existing being is 
 evidently One, Simple, and infinitely Perfect. 
 
 3. The Argument from Design is held in higher 
 respect by Kant. 7 He objects, however, to its 
 conclusiveness for two reasons. 
 
 (a) By itself alone it does not lead us to the 
 knowledge of a Self-existing, Infinite God and 
 Creator, but only to the persuasion that there exists 
 an intelligent Architect of this world. To know 
 something definite about the nature of this Architect, 
 we must fall back upon the unsound ontological 
 proof; for, in trying by means of the Argument of 
 a First Cause to bring the Argument from Design 
 to a full issue, we commit ourselves to the onto- 
 logical proof, inasmuch as we reason a priori from 
 self-existence to Infinity. 
 
 To this we answer : it is true that the Argument 
 from Design does not carry us the whole way. We 
 completed it on the lines of the Argument of the 
 First Cause. 8 But we deny that this mode of com- 
 pleting it can be justly condemned as a falling back 
 upon the ontological proof; and the reasons for 
 this denial we have just given. 
 
 (b) Kant again doubts whether the supposition 
 
 7 Hid. p. 651. Apud M. M tiller, ibid. p. 535. 
 ' C. ii. 46, and throughout the whole of cc. iii. iv. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 155 
 
 underlying the Argument from Design is valid, 
 "that well-ordered effects of nature no less than 
 well-ordered effects of human art, can only have 
 been produced by the pre-arrangement of an 
 intelligent mind. 9 
 
 Regarding this difficulty we remark that the 
 analogy between order in works of nature and order 
 in works of art by itself alone is not an absolutely 
 solid foundation, although, as Kant himself admits, 
 it is very persiiasive. Consequently, to anticipate 
 Kant's objection, we went deeper down, and laid 
 another foundation, which is solid enough. (Cf. 
 4245.) 
 
 SECTION 3. Difficulties of Spencer and Mill against the 
 proof of a First Cause. 
 
 in. (i) Mr. Herbert Spencer 10 grants that regard- 
 ing the origin of the Universe three verbally intel- 
 ligible propositions may be made : the atheistic, 
 the pantheistic, and the theistic, but he maintains 
 that further consideration shows them all three to 
 be inconceivable. The atheist postulates a self- 
 existing actual universe, the pantheist a self-existing 
 potential universe, the theist a self-existing Creator 
 of the universe ; consequently all the three theories 
 rest upon the assumption of self-existence. Self- 
 existence, however, is inconceivable, and accord- 
 ingly none of the three theories can be admitted as 
 a conceivable explanation of the world's origin. 
 
 9 Ibid. p. 654. Apud M. Miiller, Ibid. p. 537. 
 
 10 First Principles, pp. 30 35. 
 
156 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 To prove that self-existence is inconceivable, he 
 argues thus : ll " It is clear that by self-existence 
 we especially mean, an existence independent of 
 any other not produced by any other ; the assertion 
 of self-existence is simply an indirect denial of 
 Creation. In thus excluding the idea of any ante- 
 cedent cause we necessarily exclude the idea of a 
 beginning to admit that there was a time when 
 the existence had not commenced, is to admit that 
 its existence was determined by something, or was 
 caused : which is a contradiction. Self-existence, 
 therefore, necessarily means existence without a 
 beginning ; and to form a conception of self- 
 existence is to form a conception of existence 
 without a beginning. Now by no mental effort 
 can we do this. To conceive existence through 
 infinite past time, implies the conception of infinite 
 past time, which is an impossibility." 
 
 Answer. It is at least consoling to have in this 
 passage a recognition of the old truth that the 
 human mind is forced to admit something self- 
 existing. Mr. Spencer also in another passage 
 says: 12 " We cannot think at all about the impres- 
 sions which the external world produces on us 
 without thinking of them as caused ; and we 
 cannot carry out an inquiry concerning their causa- 
 tion without inevitably committing ourselves to the 
 hypothesis of a First Cause." In these words 
 he himself gives us a clue wherewith to extricate 
 ourselves from the labyrinth of his arguments about 
 self-existence. He confesses in this latter passage 
 
 11 First Principles, p. 31. ia Ibid. p. 37. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 15? 
 
 that we cannot do without self-existence ; and in 
 the very passage which we have quoted above, and 
 in which he has declared self-existence to be impos- 
 sible, he has given a tolerably clear explanation of 
 self-existence ; how then can he uphold his assertion 
 that self-existence is inconceivable ? We cannot 
 explain anything without really conceiving it, unless 
 indeed we try to explain what involves an intrinsic 
 contradiction. Can any intrinsic contradiction be 
 suspected in the notions from which we form the 
 concept of self-existence ? Far from giving any 
 reason for such a suspicion, Mr. Spencer adduces 
 the strongest motives possible for not entertaining 
 it. He states that the human mind cannot explain 
 the most obvious daily experiences without falling 
 back upon a First Cause. This granted, we must 
 either admit the existence of a First Cause, or 
 assert that our minds have an essential tendency 
 to obtrude upon us a notion that is wholly visionary. 
 Mr. Spencer's inability to take in the idea of 
 self-existence seems to arise from the views which 
 he holds erroneous views, we should call them 
 on the human intellect, and on time, and also from 
 his failing to make any distinction between com- 
 prehending a thing thoroughly and conceiving it at 
 all. Were the acts of the human understanding 
 the effects of organic impressions, and were all 
 thinking consequently reduced to the association 
 of pictures in the imagination, the concept of self- 
 existence in that case would be, as Mr. Spencer 
 says, "literally unthinkable," as would also be all 
 other universal and immaterial concepts. We ha v ? 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD 
 
 argued already for the existence of such concepts in 
 expounding the argument of the First Cause. 13 
 
 Mr. Spencer says that the idea of self-existence 
 involves the concept of infinite time. But why? 
 The concept formed by men of a Being uncaused 
 and wholly independent is in reality a concept of 
 self-existence. This concept does not explicitly 
 express the infinite duration of that Being, and is 
 so far forth inadequate ; it is not a comprehensive 
 concept ; God alone comprehends His self-existence 
 and infinite duration. This duration is, however, 
 not infinite time, as Mr. Spencer thinks it should 
 be. In God there is no kind of succession ; and 
 where there is no succession, there is no time. 
 
 Moreover, actually infinite time is self-con- 
 tradictory ; there can be finite actual time, and 
 indefinite possible time, but not actually infinite time. 
 God's duration is eternity, the unchangeable con- 
 tinuance of His self-existing Essence without 
 possible beginning or end. Being eternal in Him- 
 self, He is the source of all existences capable of 
 change, and consequently the real ultimate foun- 
 dation of all possible time, which He comprehends 
 by knowing fully His own eternity. We can have a 
 true concept of indefinite possible time, but not an 
 adequate concept. We conceive indefinite possible 
 time, past or future, when we conceive the pos- 
 sibility of an indefinitely long series of successive 
 changes before or after the present moment. 
 
 13 See also the articles, " An Examination of Mr. Heibcrt 
 Spencer's Psychology," by Professor Mivart, Dublin Review, October 
 1874 till January 1880. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 159 
 
 112. (2) Mill, in his Essays on Religion, objects 
 against the Argument of a First Cause thus : " The 
 Argument for a First Cause admits of being, and 
 is presented as a conclusion from the whole of 
 human experience. Everything that we know (it 
 is argued) had a cause, and owed its existence to 
 that cause. How then can it be but that the world, 
 which is but a name for the aggregate of all that 
 we know, has a cause to which it is indebted for 
 its existence? 
 
 " The fact of experience, however, when correctly 
 expressed, turns out to be, not that everything 
 which we know derives its existence from a cause, 
 but only every event or change. . . . That which 
 in an object begins to exist is that in it which 
 belongs to the changeable element in nature ; the 
 outward form and the properties depending on 
 mechanical or chemical combinations of its com- 
 ponent parts. There is in every object another 
 and a permanent element, viz., the specific ele- 
 mentary substance or substances of which it consists 
 and their inherent properties. These are not known 
 to us as beginning to exist : within the range of 
 human knowledge they had no beginning, and con- 
 sequently no cause ; though they themselves are 
 causes or con-causes of everything that takes place. 
 Experience therefore affords no evidences, not even 
 analogies to justify our extending to the apparently 
 immutable a generalization grounded only on our 
 observation of the changeable." 
 
 Answer. The proof which Mill here puts before 
 14 Pp. 142, 143. 
 
160 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 his readers as the common proof for a First Cause, 
 is certainly not the proof given either by us or by 
 St. Thomas, or any Catholic author of weight and 
 reputation. 
 
 The observations which Mill makes on the proof, 
 as he has stated it, deserve attention. It is true 
 that by mere reasoning from the facts of experience 
 we cannot convince ourselves that the elements of 
 matter are created out of nothing. But we arrive 
 at that conviction, if we begin with facts of 
 experience, and from them reason out the con- 
 clusion, admitted even by Mr. Spencer, that there 
 must be a First Cause of changes, and thence 
 inquire into the nature of this First Cause and its 
 relation to the elements of matter. Such was our 
 mode of reasoning in chapters ii. sect. 2, iii., and iv. 
 
 113. (3) Mill brings a second objection against 
 the necessity of searching for a First Cause. He 
 says : 16 " It is thus a necessary part of the fact 
 of causation within the sphere of our experience, 
 that the causes as well as the effects had a beginning 
 in time and were themselves caused. It would 
 seem, therefore, that our experience, instead of 
 furnishing an argument for a First Cause, is re- 
 pugnant to it ; and that the very essence of causa- 
 tion as it exists within the limits of our knowledge, 
 is incompatible with a First Cause." 
 
 Answer. Mill in this passage fails to see a 
 distinction between the circumstances of causation 
 to which our experience witnesses and its essence. 
 The natural causes of which we have experience 
 
 16 Essays on Religion, p. 144. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 161 
 
 have each its own cause ; but the dependence of 
 each cause upon . another preceding it is neither 
 of the essence of causation nor a necessary adjunct 
 of it. The essence of causation consists in the 
 fact that one being is in some way the reason why 
 something else exists. 
 
 Whether the cause which acts is itself caused has 
 nothing to do with the essence of causation ; it is 
 a circumstance accompanying the causation of the 
 beings that come under our experience. But from 
 this it does not follow that every cause must be 
 caused. On the contrary, it can be shown that 
 this hypothesis is against evident first principles. 16 
 
 114. (4) Mill objects to the argument by which 
 from the existence of the human mind we prove 
 the existence of a self-existing intelligent Being. 
 He says: 17 "We are then entitled to ask, Where 
 is the proof that nothing can have caused a mind 
 except another mind ? From what, -except from 
 experience, can we know what can produce what 
 what causes are adequate to what effects ? That 
 nothing can consciously produce mind but mind is 
 self-evident, being involved in the meaning of the 
 words ; but that there cannot be unconscious pro- 
 duction must not be assumed, for it is the very 
 point to be proved. Apart from experience, and 
 arguing on what is called reason, that is, on 
 supposed self-evidence, the notion seems to be 
 that no causes can give rise to products of a more 
 precious or elevated kind than themselves. But this 
 
 1 Cf. Argument of First Cause, c. ii. sect. 2. 
 17 Essays on Religion, p. 152. 
 L 
 
i6a OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 is at variance with the known analogies of nature. 
 How vastly nobler and more precious, for instance, 
 are the higher animals and vegetables than the soil 
 and manure out of which and by the properties of 
 which they are raised up ! The tendency of all 
 recent speculation is towards the opinion that the 
 development of inferior orders of existence into 
 superior, the substitution of greater elaboration and 
 higher organization for lower, is the general rule 
 of nature. Whether it is so or not, there are at 
 least in nature a multitude of facts bearing that 
 character, and this is sufficient for the argument." 
 
 Answer. This objection of Mill rests evidently 
 on two suppositions : i. Only from experience can 
 we know what sort of causes we must assume in 
 order to explain given effects. 2. Experience bears 
 positive evidence that effects are sometimes more 
 perfect than their causes. 
 
 To the first of these suppositions we must reply 
 by distinguishing between the determination of the 
 sort or quality of cause required to produce the 
 effect under consideration, and the identification, 
 from among the number of those possessing the 
 required qualities, of the particular individual, by 
 which the effect has in fact been produced. The 
 latter point can, as a rule, only be determined by 
 experience; but the former can be determined by 
 inference from the nature of the effect, and, in fact, 
 can be determined in no other way. It is only in 
 virtue of a previous inference which gathers from 
 the nature of the effect wrought the necessary 
 qualities and conditions of the agent which pro- 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 163 
 
 duced it, that experience is enabled to detect the 
 actual agent out of the number of others which 
 may happen to fall under observation. Moreover, 
 if study of the effect leads to the conclusion that 
 the adequate cause is one which from the nature 
 of its essential attributes must be the only one 
 of its kind in existence, in that case no further 
 recourse to experience is necessary, and we are 
 entitled at once, on the sole basis of the inference, 
 to identify the actual individual agent. 
 
 To the second of Mr. Mill's fallacious supposi- 
 tions we must give an answer on similar lines. 
 Experience may seem to a superficial observer to 
 bear positive evidence, that effects are sometimes 
 more perfect than their causes : as, for instance, 
 that a mature tree with its foliage and fruit is more 
 perfect than the seed whence it sprang. Never- 
 theless, more solid investigation is aware that it 
 must be guided to its results not by bare observa- 
 tion, but by observation based on the principles 
 of reason. The principle of causality demands 
 that the cause shall always precontain what it 
 communicates to the effect. The seed, so far forth 
 as it is less perfect than the tree that grows out of 
 it, must be the partial not the total cause of the tree, 
 and accordingly observation proceeds to discern 
 what are the other contributing factors out of whose 
 union and co-operation the total cause is composed. 
 In the seed itself is a latent virtue which only reveals 
 itself by a gradual process. In order to the evolution 
 of this latent power, nutritive elements must be sup- 
 plied in due time and manner from without. When 
 
164 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 all these contributory agents are considered, we 
 discover that the principle of causality has in no 
 sense been violated. Each contributor precontains 
 what it communicates, in equal or higher measure 
 than its correlative portion of the effect ; and the 
 assemblage of them all precontains adequately the 
 entirety of the effect. 
 
 Thus our reasoning to the existence of God is 
 quite justified. Throughout we keep in view the 
 principle of causality, and find it leads us safely to 
 the conclusion drawn. Applying it to the assem- 
 blage of visible things which surround us and are 
 stamped with the characteristics of effects, we con- 
 clude that there must be a self-existing Being which 
 is their Cause. This determines the kind of cause 
 postulated. Further study of the idea of self- 
 existence shows that there can only be one self- 
 existent Being; and we are thus, without recourse 
 to experience, enabled to identify our First Cause. 
 The next stage has led us to discern the necessity 
 of creation ; since, on any other hypothesis, we 
 should be having two first causes. And lastly, we 
 were able to argue from the nature of the human 
 mind on the one hand, and analysis of the notion 
 of infinite being on the other, to the conclusion 
 that the human soul must have been created by 
 a free act of divine volition. 
 
 JI5- (5) Mill objects further: 18 "If mind, as mind, 
 presents intuitive evidence of having been created, 
 
 18 Essays on Religion, p. 153. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTPIS. 165 
 
 the creative mind must do the same ; and we are 
 no nearer to the First Cause than before." 
 
 Answer. It is not mind as mind, but the human 
 mind as human mind, that presents evidence of 
 having been created. This human mind manifests 
 itself to us as contingent and finite. From the 
 conclusion, then, that the human mind must have 
 been created, it in no way follows that the creative 
 mind similarly owes its origin to creation. On the 
 contrary, the irrationality of seeking an explanation 
 of the existence of created things in a processus ad 
 infinitum, showing that there must Lea First Cause, 
 shows likewise that the First Cause could not have 
 been created, but must be self-existent. 
 
 SECTION 4. Difficulties of Mill and Langs against the 
 Argument from Design. 
 
 116. (i) Having applied the Argument from Design 
 to the case of the human eye, Mill thus objects to 
 its force: 19 "Creative forethought is not absolutely 
 the only link by which the origin of the wonderful 
 mechanism of the eye may be connected with the 
 fact of sight. There is another connecting link on 
 which attention has been greatly fixed by recent 
 speculations, and the reality of which cannot be 
 called in question, though its adequacy to account 
 for such truly admirable combinations as some of 
 those in nature, is still and will probably long 
 remain problematical. This is the principle of the 
 'survival of the fittest.' ' 
 
 Answer. Only if accepted in its most extreme 
 
 l " Essays on Religion, p. 172. 
 
166 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 form can the Darwinian theory be urged as an 
 objection against the Argument from Design ; 
 whereas, on the other hand, the extreme form of this 
 theory is losing in public favour just because it 
 attributes so much to chance and is absolutely 
 exclusive of finality. If evolution be the true ex- 
 planation of the existing order of the cosmos, and 
 this evolution is due to the gradual working out to 
 their final issues of laws inherent in matter from 
 the commencement, then the question whether this 
 existing order be due to intelligence or not, is not 
 solved, but merely pushed back. In the achieve- 
 ments of human industry, a self-constructing machine 
 would be taken to imply not comparative absence 
 of skill and contrivance in its maker, but a higher 
 exercise of these qualities ; and the same will have 
 to be said of the machine of the cosmos. The 
 more its order is due to an evolution which is the 
 outcome of the action of fixed laws inherent from 
 the first and tending definitely towards the final 
 result, the more striking is the manifestation of 
 intelligence which it bears upon its face. However, 
 the essence of extreme Darwinism lies in this, 
 that it seeks to attribute the course cf evolution 
 ultimately to chance. Accidental varieties spring 
 up among individuals, and out of the vast number 
 of these, those which are advantageous in some 
 line to their possessors, are said to perpetuate 
 themselves in the struggle for existence. They go 
 to form the fittest, and the struggle for existence 
 being severe and consequently destructive, the fittest 
 of those born are naturally the survivors, and sur- 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 167 
 
 viving, transmit their acquired advantages to their 
 offspring, and thereby fix them. 
 
 Such a system, no doubt, is directly opposed 
 to the Argument from Design. If the order of the 
 world can be explained by chance, there is no need 
 to refer its origin to intelligence. But then this 
 hypothesis of origin by chance is just that which 
 has to be rejected as inadmissible, because it offends 
 against the undeniable truth that order presupposes 
 finality in the immediate cause and intelligence at 
 all events in the ultimate cause. It is not necessary, 
 again, to justify this statement, as we have done so 
 already (Cf. 42, seq.), when we dealt with the 
 hypothesis of a fortuitous concourse of atoms. There 
 is, in fact, no essential difference, from a meta- 
 physical point of view, between that ancient theory 
 and the modern theory of Natural Selection when 
 taken in its extreme form. However, it is precisely 
 on the ground that it attributes the magnificent 
 order of nature to sheer chance that this extreme 
 form of Darwinism is going out of favour. 
 
 We may here notice, without associating it 
 with Mr. Mill's name, another prevalent mode of 
 meeting the Argument from Design, which in some 
 respects is the opposite of that just considered. The 
 Argument from Design, it is said, proceeds from the 
 supposition that the cosmos is like Paley's watch, a 
 machine in which the component parts have no 
 natural tendency towards one another, but have 
 their motion and unity impressed upon them from 
 without. In other words, the ordering impulse is 
 here without the machine, and it is just on thij 
 
168 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 account that the inference to the existence of a 
 designing mind is just. But by what right is it 
 assumed that the ordering impulse in nature 
 generally is of this sort ? 
 
 " The thought or design which is at work in the 
 growth and development of organized structures is 
 not a mere mechanical power or cunning acting 
 from without shaping, adjusting, putting together 
 materials prepared to its hand, constructing them 
 according to an ingenious plan after the manner of 
 a maker of machines. Here, on the contrary, the 
 idea or formative power goes with the matter, and 
 constitutes the very indwelling essence of the thing. 
 Instead of coming in as an after-thought, to give 
 to existing materials a new use and purpose not 
 included or presupposed in their own original 
 nature, the idea or design is present from the very 
 beginning, inspiring the first minute atom or cell 
 with the power of the perfect whole that is to be. 
 Nor for the building up and completing of the 
 structure, is there any call for the interposition of 
 external agency. From first to last it is self- 
 formative, self-developing : the life within resists 
 all merely outward interference and subordinates 
 all outward conditions to its own development. In 
 this case, therefore, we do not need to go beyond or 
 outside of the thing itself in seeking for the explana- 
 tion of it. The thought or reason that explains it is 
 within the thing itself, nay, is its very self: so that 
 to perceive or know the thing at all is to perceive or 
 know the reason and ground of its existence."' 20 
 
 20 Caird's Introductions to the Philosophy of Religion, pp. 146, 147. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 169 
 
 If we find this to be so in the organisms around 
 us, may we not extend the same idea to the whole 
 finite world and regard its order and the finality of 
 its movements as throughout proceeding from a 
 directing force which is immanent within it rather 
 than from one outside it like the God of Paley ? 
 
 This objection is easily answered. It is of no 
 consequence, in the first instance, whether the 
 directing principle which imparts finality to the 
 movements of the cosmos be external or internal to 
 it, except, indeed, in so far as the internal principle 
 of vital movement and growth in organisms supplies 
 us with evidence of a much more elaborate and far- 
 reaching finality than we find in the mechanical 
 achievements of human industry. But as long as 
 there is finality, there must be intelligence. For 
 finality involves an operation of the future on the 
 present, determining the cou/se and direction which 
 the present movements are to take in order that 
 they may reach the future goal, and operation of the 
 future on the present is inconceivable except in so 
 far as the future is apprehended by an intelligence 
 which can set the physical forces in corresponding 
 motion and prescribe to them their lines of move- 
 ment. 21 
 
 Thus it matters not, in the first instance, where 
 we place the thought whence the design and finality 
 of the cosmos proceeds, whether within it as an 
 immanent principle, or without it as a God distinct 
 from it and transcending it. Ultimately, however, 
 the hypothesis of thought immanent in the cosmos, 
 
 ^ Cf. 4345, where tbe full proof of this statement is given 
 
170 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 of an anima mundi in fact, is excluded. For the 
 argument of the First Cause leads us to a First 
 Intelligence which is self -existent, and the analysis of 
 the idea of self-existence causes us to perceive that 
 the First Intelligence must be a Pure and Infinite 
 Spirit, whereas the cosmos is finite and material. 
 Only on the hypothesis that cosmical monism or 
 pantheism was irrefutable, would an objection like 
 that just remarked upon, be really strong. We 
 have, however, given ample proof to show the 
 futility of pantheism and any other form of 
 monism. (Cf. c. iv. sect. 2). And if the reader bears 
 still in mind what we have said there, he cannot 
 fail to see that every appeal to immanent teleology 
 against an intelligent Designer is as futile as Mill's 
 appeal to the "survival of the fittest." Indeed it is 
 still more obviously opposed to reason than that 
 appeal, inasmuch as its foundation is more directly 
 repugnant to the attributes of a self-existing Being. 
 
 117. (2) Mill thinks that design and omnipotence 
 are incompatible. " It is not too much to say," he 
 maintains, 22 " that every indication of design in the 
 cosmos is so much evidence against the omnipotence 
 of the Designer. For what is meant by design ? 
 Contrivance : the adaptation of means to an end. 
 But the necessity for contrivance the need of 
 employing means is a consequence of the limita- 
 tion of power. Who would have recourse to means, 
 if to attain his end his mere word was sufficient ? 
 The very idea of means implies that the means have 
 an efficacy, which the direct action of the Being 
 83 L.c. pp. 176, 177. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 171 
 
 who employs them has not. Otherwise they are 
 not means, but an incumbrance. A man does not 
 use machinery to move his arms. If he did, it 
 could only be when paralysis had deprived him of 
 the power of moving them by volition. But if the 
 employment of contrivance is in itself a sign of 
 limited power, how much more so is the careful and 
 skilful choice of contrivances ? Can any wisdom be 
 shown in the selection of means, when the means 
 have no efficacy but what is given them by the will 
 of Him who employs them and when His will could 
 have bestowed the same efficacy on other means? 
 . . . No one purpose imposes necessary limitations 
 on another in the case of a Being not restricted by 
 conditions of possibility." 
 
 Answer. By this way of arguing Mill proves 
 nothing more clearly than that he has a wrong 
 notion of omnipotence. Omnipotence is not an 
 ability to effect things which are intrinsically im- 
 possible, but it is the power to effect whatever is 
 intrinsically possible. -A power to produce what is 
 intrinsically impossible, for instance a philosopher 
 without a reasonable soul, would be a power for 
 non-sense in the strictest meaning of the word ; it 
 would be no power at all. Mill thinks that an 
 omnipotent Being is not " restricted by conditions 
 of possibility." This is true enough if it merely 
 means that God can do or make everything which 
 is not intrinsically impossible ; but it is not true, as 
 Mill suggests, that an omnipotent Being can by His 
 free-will make the intrinsically impossible become 
 intrinsically possible. Now it is intrinsically irnpos 
 
172 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 sible for all means to suffice for all ends indiscrimi- 
 nately. If God will, for instance, that the sun's 
 action on the earth should be precisely what it is 
 now, and in accordance with the same physical 
 laws as now obtain, He could not possibly accom- 
 plish this end by putting the earth where Jupiter is 
 and Jupiter where the earth is. If He willed that 
 the innumerable species of living beings that people 
 the earth should live on nourishment naturally suited 
 to their organisms, He could not reach this end by 
 providing food for only a few of them. Finally, if 
 He willed that men should merit their final happi- 
 ness by faith, obedience, and patience, He could not 
 remove all difficulties and sufferings from their path 
 through life. 
 
 If these considerations are borne in mind, it 
 becomes clear that in selecting certain means 
 rather "than others as being necessary or appro- 
 priate to the accomplishment of certain ends, God 
 displays no want of power. The necessity or appro- 
 priateness of the means for the ends is determined 
 by the laws of intrinsic possibility. 
 
 However, Mr. Mill's objection is not yet fully 
 answered. Why, he may still urge, require any 
 means at all ? Why, if God is omnipotent, can He 
 not create, for instance, full-grown living beings 
 at once, by a mere exercise of will ? The question 
 seems specious enough, but it proceeds from failure 
 to see that the freedom of God is not less infinite 
 than His omnipotence. Of course, an omnipotent 
 God could create straight off all the trees in the 
 world in a state of maturity, and could maintain 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 173 
 
 them in the perfection of their nature without the 
 agency of nutritive elements and processes. But 
 He may also prefer a system such as that in actual 
 existence, in which results are worked out gradually 
 by an evolutionary process, various agents com- 
 bining and co-operating according to their natures 
 and properties. Surely the present age, which is 
 so much in love with evolution, ought not to deny 
 that this latter is in itself an attractive system :' 
 one, therefore, which may reasonably be selected 
 by a God desirous to manifest the excellences of 
 His creative power in a high degree. As an 
 absolutely best world is intrinsically impossible 
 (Th. XV.), the manifestation of God's omnipotence 
 in the world can in no system be exhaustive. 
 Precisely because Omnipotence is infinite power, 
 its effects cannot reflect it adequately. How far 
 it shall be manifested, depends entirely upon God's 
 free choice. God can choose no system in which 
 the dictates of infinite wisdom and goodness would 
 be violated. But among the indefinite number of 
 systems that may be in harmony with the require- 
 ments of absolute wisdom and goodness, there is 
 none of which the preference was not entirely open 
 to the freedom of the Creator. The answer, then, 
 to the question, Why require any means at all ? is 
 briefly this : Because God in His infinite freedom 
 has chosen a universe consisting of beings which 
 cannot manifest His power, wisdom, and goodness 
 in that degree which He freely intends without the 
 adaptation of means to ends in such excellency and 
 such profusion as our experience witnesses. 
 
174 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 118. (3) Lange 23 argues against design from the 
 great waste of living germs recurring constantly in 
 nature. " It cannot possibly be doubted that nature 
 proceeds in a way which has no resemblance with 
 human adaptation of means to ends ; nay, that its 
 most essential modus operand 'i, judged by the standard 
 of human understanding, is such as can only be 
 compared with the blindest chance. . . . From 
 the pollen of the plant to the fertilized seed-corn, 
 from the seed-corn to the germinating plant, from 
 the latter to the mature plant which again bears 
 seed, we see a constant repetition of a mechanism 
 which preserves life so far as it is preserved in the 
 present order of things, only by the generation of 
 thousands of beings to destroy them immediately, 
 and by availing itself of fortuitous coincidences of 
 favourable conditions. The destruction of living 
 germs, the failure of what has begun, is the rule ; 
 the ' connatural ' (naturgemasse) development is a 
 special case among thousands ; it is the exception, 
 and this exception is made by that nature which the 
 purblind teleologist admires for its self-preservation 
 brought about by adapting means to ends. . . . 
 What we call chance in the preservation of species, 
 is of course no chance in regard of the universal 
 laws of nature, the grand machinery of which calls 
 forth all those effects ; but it is chance in the strictest 
 sense of the word, if we take this term as an expres- 
 sion of what is opposed to the results obtained by 
 an Intelligence calculating in a similar way to men." 
 Similar lamentations about nature's " clumsiness " 
 
 ** GeschitJite <?es Materialismus (ate Auflage), Vol. II. pp. 246, 247. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 175 
 
 and " cruelty " occur repeatedly in Mill's Essays on 
 Religion. 2 * 
 
 Answer. We have to acknowledge that the elo- 
 quent writer of the History of Materialism does not 
 advocate blind chance quite so openly as the 
 Epicureans of old. According to him, the preser- 
 vation of the actually existing world of animals and 
 plants is due to the grand machinery of the laws of 
 nature. Be it so. Where, then, shall we search for 
 the origin of these laws ? Proximately, of course, they 
 are founded on definite combinations of the forces 
 of diverse natural beings. But those combinations 
 themselves whence did they proceed ? To this we 
 have given a full answer. (Cf. 43, seq.) After all, 
 therefore, even if we allow for argument's sake that 
 apparent failures result from the collision of various 
 natural laws as Lange evidently supposes it must 
 nevertheless be admitted that these laws are designed 
 by an intelligent Mind. 
 
 But, it may be asked next : Is it reasonable to 
 believe that this Mind is infinitely perfect ? If so, 
 whence so many failures in nature's working? 
 Should not a Creator of infinite perfection have 
 taken care that every one of His creatures reached 
 the end for which it was intended ? This evidently 
 is not the case in the present order of things ; for 
 what can be the end intended by the production of 
 living germs but that they shall grow and bear seed. 
 Instead of that, the greater part of them is wasted. 
 Does not this one fact alone suffice to justify fully 
 Lange's inference that nature is not subject to the 
 24 Pp. 28, 29, 30. 35, 36, &c. 
 
176 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 government of a directing Mind in any way similar 
 to human minds? The answer to this question is not 
 too difficult. Before we can reasonably pronounce 
 that there are failures in nature, we must first be 
 certain that nature's ends go no farther than we 
 suppose them to go. The weak point in Lange's 
 argument lies precisely in his taking for granted 
 that living germs are good for nothing unless 
 they become full-grown living beings. This, how- 
 ever, is evidently not the case, and Lange himself 
 practically denies it as often as he eats a piece 
 of bread or an egg. Who will say that all the 
 germs of life that are destroyed to furnish a savant's 
 breakfast-table, are wasted ? As we have demonstrated 
 in chapter iii., God is infinitely perfect, consequently, 
 infinitely good and wise. The object of His creation 
 must be worthy of His goodness and wisdom. From 
 this it follows, as we shall see in the treatise on 
 Divine Providence, that the absolutely last end of all 
 creation is the manifestation of God's goodness to 
 His rational creatures, and the relatively last end the 
 happiness of the rational creatures themselves. The 
 rest of the creation must serve as means to attain 
 the last end, which cannot be immediately reached 
 but by the knowledge and love of God, whereof only 
 rational creatures are capable. Experience proves 
 that the inferior creation is useful for man in various 
 ways, and that many of these ways, formerly un- 
 known, are revealed in the course of time. It is, 
 therefore, unreasonable to say that creatures are 
 useless because we cannot find out how far they are 
 useful. After it has been demonstrated clearly that 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 177 
 
 an infinite Mind is the Author of the universe, we 
 cannot without rashness scrutinize the ways by 
 which that one infinite Mind of God leads His 
 creatures to their respective destinies. It is enough 
 for us that we can prove that there is an infinitely 
 good God, who guides His creatures to those par- 
 ticular ends which He conditionally intends, as often 
 as the conditions are put, and that in any case He 
 guides them to those ends which He absolutely 
 intends, making all things contribute to the last 
 general end of creation. 
 
 Lange's objection appeared quite lately in a new 
 form. " I am not saying," says Mr. Mallock, 25 "that 
 the theory of evolution has disproved the existence 
 of a designer, but that it has destroyed the traditional 
 evidence that the designer is good, or indeed that he 
 is even wise and skilful. How it has done this can 
 be explained briefly as follows. Suppose we were 
 told of a certain marksman that every one of his 
 rifle-shots, no matter at what distance, invariably 
 hit the target in the very centre of the bull's-eye, 
 we should say that this was evidence of unrivalled 
 skill. Supposing, however, we were to discover 
 subsequently that for every shot that hit the bull's- 
 eye he had fired a thousand that hit the rim of the 
 target, and fifty thousand that hit the neighbouring 
 haystacks, instead of thinking him skilful for having 
 hit the bull's-eye occasionally, we should be inclined 
 to think him skilful if he contrived always to miss 
 it. Now the old idea of creation was that every- 
 thing was created suitable to the conditions of its 
 
 25 Portnightly Review, November, 1890, p. 766. 
 M 
 
178 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 existence ; in other words, the bull's-eye was hit 
 each time. The scientific theory is the precise 
 opposite that most things were created unsuited 
 to the conditions of their existence ; and those only 
 have survived which happened accidentally to suit 
 them. In other words, for each time the bull's-eye 
 is hit, it is missed thousands of times ; and as the 
 God we are assuming is, ex hypothesi, firing eternally, 
 the fact of his hitting the target is no proof of his 
 having aimed at it. If the discoveries of science 
 amount to anything, they amount to this that the 
 successes of nature are the sittings of innumerable 
 failures; and if there is any force in the argument, 
 that the successes show skill, there is equal force in 
 the argument that the failures show want of it. ... 
 I am granting that the existence of a designer is 
 not only not disproved by science, but proved by it. 
 The one thing on which I am here insisting is that 
 science does not indeed disprove that the designer 
 is good and wise, but assuredly does destroy every 
 proof that he is." 
 
 Answer. We beg our reader not to mistake the 
 proper meaning of this difficulty. Mr. Mallock is 
 far from upholding the cause of agnosticism. All 
 he contends for is that, in the face of modern 
 scientific discoveries, God's goodness and wisdom 
 cannot be proved by reason, although they can be 
 certified by faith. 
 
 For the present we are only concerned about the 
 wisdom of the Designer of Nature. By what argu- 
 ments does our objector think that science has 
 destroyed tha evidence for it? He refers us to the 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 179 
 
 theory of eternal evolution. Science, he considers, 
 has made it certain that evolution has been an 
 eternal process in nature, and upon this assumption 
 his argument is manifestly based. Is, then, this 
 basis solid? If "eternal" evolution is to mean 
 evolution without beginning, it is certain that no 
 cautious thinker would venture to maintain that it 
 has been established with any degree of probability 
 on the grounds of scientific facts. Moreover, we 
 have had occasion to prove that eternal evolution in 
 this sense is intrinsically repugnant (pp. 146, 147). 
 Perhaps by eternal evolution Mr. Mallock only 
 means evolution throughout countless ages. Even 
 if thus explained, can evolution be taken for more 
 than what Mr. Huxley takes it for viz., "a 
 workable hypothesis " ? Whether the true answer 
 be negative or affirmative, we will at all events start 
 from the assumption that evolution existed and 
 went on through unmeasurable geological periods, 
 after the manner in which Darwinians conceive it. 
 On this assumption, if with a view to consider the 
 tenability of the hypothesis, we suppose the laws of 
 evolution to have been instituted by a Personal 
 God, the comparison he makes between a marksman 
 and the arranger of the universe is intelligible 
 enough. As the marksman aims at the target in 
 such a way as to hit, if possible, the bull's-eye, so 
 God, in laying down the laws of evolution for inani- 
 mate and animate things, has a certain aim ; and if 
 He is to be taken as wise in any considerable degree, 
 He must reach His aim not only in some cases, but 
 at least in most cases ; He must reach it in each 
 
i Ho OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 case not only approximately, but with precision. 
 Otherwise He would be like a marksman who 
 misses the target a far greater number of times 
 than he hits it, and who when hitting it strikes only 
 the rim, not the bull's-eye. 
 
 But now if we are to judge from the appearance 
 of nature whether God docs hit the bull's-eye to 
 this extent, we must first be certain what is the 
 bull's-eye at which He is aiming when He lays 
 down and maintains laws of evolution for matter 
 and life. Mr. Mallock seems to think that according 
 to our doctrine God has intended that every living 
 being should be in complete harmony with its sur- 
 roundings, and should always be placed in such 
 conditions as would foster and not hinder its con- 
 natural development. It is quite true that if this 
 had been the object of the Creator, scientific facts 
 might be said to have destroyed all our evidence 
 for His wisdom, and laid us open to the attacks of 
 agnosticism. But the advocates of the design 
 argument have never imagined that the Divine 
 intention in framing this world was to disregard 
 the inherent tendencies to corruption, and to secure 
 to each form of organic life the completion of its 
 natural development and the fulness of comfort 
 and enjoyment. This has not even been supposed 
 of man, the highest among living organisms. If 
 indeed man's life as a whole to the inclusion of 
 the life to come were meant, we should have to 
 speak differently. But as far as that portion of 
 his life is concerned which is led here below, it 
 was acknowledged many thousand years ago by one 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 181 
 
 whose theism is beyond suspicion that, " Man born 
 of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with 
 many miseries." 26 And the very Founder of Chris- 
 tianity deemed the conditions of life so inadequate 
 to assure absolute happiness and development that 
 among the reasons for which He wished His dis- 
 ciples not to be over-anxious for the future, we find 
 this, " Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof." 27 
 
 Under the heading " Divine Providence " we 
 shall show that God has created the world for the 
 manifestation of His goodness to rational creatures, 
 and for the happiness of the latter, who alone are 
 capable of true happiness. Consequently, in so far 
 as evolution with the restrictions laid down above 
 (pp. 133, 134) may be admissible, this is the final 
 goal towards which its whole course must be 
 directed. And the final goal must be reached only 
 and precisely in that degree of perfection which the 
 Creator intends. 
 
 We conclude, then, by saying that the target at 
 which the Designer of Nature is aiming is not the 
 prosperity of corporeal life, and the bull's-eye in 
 the target is not the perfect adaptation of each 
 individual life to its surroundings. The true target 
 is God's glory and the final happiness of those 
 rational creatures who obey the voice of their con- 
 science, and the bull's-eye in the target is precisely 
 that degree of God's glory and man's final happiness 
 which the Creator in the light of His infinite know- 
 ledge has fixed absolutely. It will be hard for the 
 .champions of natural science to show either that 
 M jfoj> jyy. j.. 27 St, Matt. vi. 34. 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 the end of creation thus explained is asserted with- 
 out sufficient evidence or to prove that it will not 
 be reached finally. 
 
 SECTION 5. Darwin's reasons for doubting the existence 
 of God. 
 
 ng. As appears from the Life and Letters of 
 Charles Darwin, edited by his son Francis, 28 that 
 great observer of Nature never denied the existence 
 of God. The arguments brought forward to prove 
 that there is a God, seemed to him sometimes quite 
 overwhelming ; and in such moments he was forced 
 to be a complete theist. Yet, after he had lost 
 his faith in the Gospels, he lost also the habitual 
 conviction, formerly so strong in him, that the 
 universe is ruled by a wise God. His attitude 
 towards monotheism became that of a non-aggres- 
 sive agnostic. Most of the reasons by which he 
 tried to justify his position, are closely connected 
 with his biological theory of evolution. On account 
 cyf the great influence which this theory exercises 
 over many minds, we think it well to give these 
 reasons in full with Darwin's own words and to 
 test their force carefully. 
 
 The value of the Argument from Design is called 
 in question by Darwin chiefly for three reasons, 
 each of which we will state in Darwin's own 
 words. 
 
 (a) In his autobiography, written in 1876, he 
 says : 29 " The old argument from design in nature, 
 a * Vol. I. viii. " Religion." 2y Ibid. p. 309. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS 183 
 
 as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so 
 conclusive, fails, now that the law of Natural Selec- 
 tion has been discovered. We can no longer argue 
 that, for instance, the beautiful hinge of a bivalve 
 shell must have been made by an intelligent being, 
 like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to 
 be no more design in the variability of organic 
 beings, and in the action of Natural Selection, than 
 in the course which the wind blows. I have discussed 
 this subject at the end of my book on the Variation 
 of Domesticated Animals and Plants; and the argu- 
 ment there given has never, as far as I can see, been 
 answered." 
 
 The argument to which we are referred in this 
 passage is as follows : 30 " Are we to believe that the 
 forms are preordained of the broken fragments of 
 rock which tumble from a precipice and are fitted 
 together by man to build his houses ? If not, why 
 should we believe that the variations of domestic 
 animals or plants are preordained for the sake of 
 the breeder ? But if we give up the principle in one 
 case, ... no shadow of reason can be assigned 
 for the belief that variations . . . which have been 
 the groundwork through Natural Selection of the 
 formation of the most perfectly adapted anhnals 
 in the world, man included, were intentionally and 
 specially guided." 
 
 The doubt expressed in the preceding lines is 
 dwelt upon also in a letter to Miss Julia Wedgwood 
 (written July n, iSSi). 33 He owns in this letter 
 
 30 The Variation of Animals and Plants, Vol. II. p. 431. 
 11 Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. I. p. 314. 
 
i8 4 Ob THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 that "the mind refuses to look at this universe 
 being what it is, without having been designed." 
 Yet he finds it too difficult to believe that all vari- 
 ations of organic structures should have been 
 designed, for instance, "each variation in the rock 
 pigeon." It seemed to him that to care about such 
 trifles was scarcely worthy of a Being who is the 
 Maker of a universe. " Do you consider that the 
 successive variations in the size of the crop of the 
 pouter pigeon which man has accumulated to please 
 his caprice have been due to "the creative and 
 sustaining powers of Brahma ? " In the sense that 
 an omnipotent and omniscient Deity must order and 
 know everything, this must be admitted ; yet in 
 honest truth, I can hardly admit it. It seems 
 preposterous that a maker of a universe should 
 care about the crop of a pigeon solely to please 
 man's silly fancies. But if you agree with me in 
 thinking such an interposition of the Deity uncalled 
 for, I can see no reason whatever for believing in 
 such interpositions in the case of natural beings," 
 &c. 
 
 In the same sense Darwin expresses himself in 
 a letter to Dr. Gray : 32 " An innocent and good man 
 stands under a tree and is killed by a flash of light- 
 ning. Do you believe (and I really should like to 
 hear) that God designedly killed this man? Many 
 or most persons do believe this ; I can't and don't. 
 If you believe so, do you believe when a swallow 
 snaps up a gnat that God designed that that par- 
 ticular swallow should snap up that particular gnat 
 
 3n Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol. I. pp. 314, 315. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 185 
 
 at that particular instant ? I believe that a man 
 and a gnat are in the same predicament. If the 
 death of neither man nor gnat are designed, I see 
 no good reason to believe that their first birth or 
 production should be necessarily designed." 
 
 We may put Darwin's argument in concise form 
 as follows : If some adaptations of certain antece- 
 dents to certain consequents are explained by design 
 of the Creator, all must be explained so, however 
 trifling they may appear. But not all can reason- 
 ably be explained so ; for instance, it cannot be 
 reasonably referred to creative design that pieces of 
 rock tumbling from a precipice are found fit for 
 building houses, or that man turns rock pigeons 
 artificially into fantail pigeons, or that a flash oi 
 lightning kills an innocent man, or that a swallov/ 
 snaps up a gnat. There is consequently no sufficient 
 reason for admitting design at all. 
 
 What shall we answer to this ? At first sight it 
 might seem reasonable to doubt whether it is neces- 
 sary to admit design everywhere in nature, if you 
 admit it anywhere. There is indeed no immediate 
 appearance of intrinsic contradiction in the idea 
 of a universe in which only the more important 
 operations should be guided by design. 33 Consider- 
 
 33 In a letter to Asa Gray, dated November 26, 1860, the great 
 biologist himself inclines to take this view. He writes : "I am 
 inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with 
 the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we 
 may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel 
 most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human 
 intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. 
 Let each man hope and believe what he can." (Life and Letters 
 Vol. II. p. 312.) 
 
1 86 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 ing, however, that the first Designer of the world 
 is self- existent and infinitely perfect, He must 
 know from eternity not only in general, but in 
 detail, all conditionally future results of any plan 
 possible. Moreover, His infinite wisdom neces- 
 sarily prevents any event from happening, the 
 occurrence of which would in no way serve His 
 plan. From this it follows that every effect in 
 the universe has been designed by God, inasmuch 
 as He has foreseen it, and has from eternity 
 decreed not to prevent its happening, but to 
 make its occurrence serve the end of all creation. 84 
 Granting then Darwin's assertion that we cannot 
 be consistent with ourselves, unless we admit 
 that all effects in nature have been foreseen and 
 preordained, we deny altogether that there is 
 anything repugnant to reason in this admission. 
 Reason forbids us indeed to admit that each par- 
 ticular event has been designed by a particular act 
 of the Divine mind distinct from the act by which 
 the whole of the universe was planned. Such an 
 assumption would clash with God's simplicity and 
 infinite perfection. But there is nothing intrinsically 
 repugnant in the statement that God by one act of 
 His infinite intellect foresaw all events, and by one 
 act of His infinite will subordinated each of them 
 to a particular good purpose. On the contrary, this 
 cannot be denied without denying what is logically 
 connected with God's infinite perfection, as will 
 appear in our treatises on Divine knowledge and 
 providence. 
 
 34 Cf. the solution of Lange's difficulty, 118. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 187 
 
 120. (6) .Another doubt against the conclusive- 
 ness of the design argument arose in Darwin's 
 mind from the consideration of the so-called 
 "rudimentary organs" in man. He thus expresses 
 it in a letter to Asa Gray (December n, iSGi): 86 
 " With regard to Design I feel more inclined to 
 show a white flag than to fire my usual long-range 
 shot. I like to try and ask you a puzzling question, 
 but when you return the compliment I have great 
 doubts whether it is a fair way of arguing. If any- 
 thing is designed, certainly man must be: one's 
 ' inner consciousness ' (though a false guide) tells 
 one so ; yet I cannot admit that man's rudimentary 
 mammae . . . were designed." 
 
 The difficulty in conceiving " rudimentary " 
 organs as designed, expressed in the above passage, 
 has often been repeated by Darwinists. It rests 
 upon their not seeing the particular purpose those 
 organs should serve. But from the fact, that 
 the immediate object of an effect in nature cannot 
 be discovered by us, it certainly does not follow that 
 such an effect was not designed for some imme- 
 diate object. As we have remarked already, when 
 solving Lange's difficulty, there are many things apt 
 to further the attainment not only of one but of 
 several particular ends. Granting then for argu- 
 ment's sake, that a "rudimentary" organ may be 
 useless to the organism in which it is found, this 
 in no way justifies the inference that it is altogether 
 useless ; or that it is out of harmony with the final 
 end an infinite Creator must intend by decreeing the. 
 
 85 Life and Letters, Vol. II. p. 383, 
 
T.S8 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 existence of the universe. We have touched upon 
 this final end above ( 118). We have explained 
 there that God creates in order to manifest His 
 perfection to His intellectual creatures. But does 
 it follow from this that each fact in nature must be 
 understood by man ? No one can reasonably deny 
 the possibility of the existence of intellectual creatures 
 whose minds are far more penetrating than the 
 mind of man. Supposing then that there exists 
 a world of created spirits, is it not very probable 
 that they see perfectly the rationale of the rudi- 
 mentary organs, and recognize in them a vestige 
 of supreme wisdom ? And even apart from this, 
 the puzzle caused by the discovery of "rudimen- 
 tary " organs seems to resemble much the amaze- 
 ment naturally arising from the sight of any com- 
 plicated arrangements of which we only know 
 the final outcome. For instance, a man of common 
 sense who knows no more about the mechanism of 
 a watch than that by turning the key properly, it 
 can be made to measure time, enters the shop of a 
 watchmaker well furnished with all sorts of instru- 
 ments and materials. What the particular purpose 
 maybe which each of them answers in the construc- 
 tion of watches, his ignorance prevents his knowing ; 
 but it does not hinder him from the exercise of a 
 reasonable belief that there is none among them all 
 that is useless for the work of the watchmaker. Thus 
 he knows the common remote end of all the things he 
 sees, without understanding anything about the 
 particular proximate end through which each must 
 pass in order to reach the common; remote end. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 189 
 
 What such a man knows about the instruments 
 he is looking at and what he does not know, seems 
 to illustrate well both the knowledge we are able to 
 attain about natural events and the ignorance in 
 which we must remain. By logical reasoning based 
 upon undeniable premisses, the certain conclusion 
 can be arrived at that the whole universe is under 
 the sway of one supreme infinitely wise Lord, that 
 He penetrates with one act of His infinite Mind 
 the essences and actions and mutual relations of all 
 things, that He intends them all for a final end 
 worthy of His Infinite Wisdom, and that He cannot 
 fail to direct them rightly to this end. On the 
 other hand, comparatively little can be known by 
 man about the proximate object of particular things 
 and events, although he may be sure that in some 
 way or other they must lead up to the attainment 
 of the final end. Even when he does catch a 
 glimpse of the usefulness of things in particular, he 
 never can grasp it fully, because he never comprehends 
 the nature of any natural being, nor does he com- 
 prehend its relations to other beings, although he 
 may know a great deal about both. Consequently, 
 no solid doubt as to the wise guidance of nature 
 can be based upon our not seeing the "why and 
 wherefore" of things in particular. It is abun 
 dantly sufficient that the " why and wherefore * 
 in general can be proved evidently. 
 
 Moreover, in the particular case of rudimentary 
 structures, is it so certain that we can form to 
 ourselves no conception at all of some possibilities 
 of their utility ? Mr. Mivart suggests that they may 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE 02' 
 
 perhaps be useful in aiding the physiological balance 
 of the organism. His whole passage may be 
 appropriately quoted. 
 
 "As to rudimentary structures we may content 
 ourselves with asking, in the words of Buffon, ' Why 
 is it to be considered so necessary that every part 
 in an individual should be useful to the other parts 
 and to the whole animal ? Should it not be enough 
 that they do not injure each other, nor stand in the 
 way of each other's fair development ? Moreover, 
 such rudimentary structures may have a certain 
 utility, may aid the physiological balance of the 
 organism after all ! It cannot yet be shown to be 
 so, but neither qari it be shown that it is not so. 
 They are parts of a great whole, which to be 
 adequately understood must be surveyed in its 
 entirety. But any one of us can as little judge the 
 scope of the whole universe, as a fly perched on a 
 pinnacle of York Minster, can perceive the plan, 
 pressures, and bearings of the stones of that glorious 
 pile." 36 
 
 Buffon's suggestion that it is sufficient if a 
 rudimentary structure is not harmful to the indi- 
 vidual, might perhaps seem open to the reply that 
 if the world were designed by God, we ought to 
 find not mere harmlessness but positive utility in 
 each one, even the minutest of its parts. We are 
 of the same opinion. But from that alone it does 
 not follow that Mr. Mivart was wrong in supporting 
 to a certain extent BuiT">n's view. To say that a 
 part of an animal is not positively useful to that 
 
 86 On Truth, pp. 478, 479. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 151 
 
 individual animal, to its vegetative and sensitive 
 operations, is assuredly not the same as to say that 
 it is of no use. The whole animal with all its parts 
 is to be considered not only as an individual being, 
 but also in relation to the whole species ; and the 
 usefulness of each part is not only to be estimated 
 from its appropriateness to physiological functions, 
 but also from its value as contributing to the ex- 
 ternal expression of that idea of the Creator of 
 which each organic type is a realization. It is 
 from this standpoint that the celebrated physio- 
 logist Carpenter quotes with approval the following 
 words of Mr. Paget : '.' These rudimental organs 
 certainly do not serve, in a lower degree, the same 
 purposes as are served by the homologous parts 
 which are completely developed in other species or 
 in the other sex. To say they are useless is con- 
 trary to all we know of the absolute perfection and 
 all-pervading purposes of creation ; to say they 
 exist merely for the sake of conformity to a general 
 type of structure is surely unphilosophical, for the 
 law of Unity of organic types is, in larger instances, 
 not observed, except when its observance contributes 
 to the advantage of the individual. No : all these 
 rudimental organs must, as they grow, be as ex- 
 cretions, serving a definite purpose in the economy 
 by removing their appropriate materials from the 
 blood, thus leaving it fitter for the nutrition of other 
 parts, or adjusting the balance which might other- 
 wise be disturbed by the formation of some other 
 part. Thus they minister to the self-interest of the 
 individual ; while, as if for the sake of wonder, 
 
THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 beauty, and perfect order, they are conformed with 
 the great law of Unity of organic types, and concur 
 with the universal plan observed. in the construction 
 of organic beings." 37 
 
 121. (c) A third difficulty of Darwin against the 
 Argument from Design arose from the consideration 
 of the vast amount of suffering in sentient beings. 
 It seemed to him that a benevolent Creator could 
 hardly have predestined His creatures to so much 
 misery, whereas Natural Selection might sufficiently 
 account for it. He says : 38 " That there is much 
 suffering in the world no one disputes. Some have 
 attempted to explain this with reference to man by 
 imagining that it serves for his moral improvement. 
 But the number of men in this world is as nothing 
 compared with that of all other sentient beings, and 
 they often suffer greatly without any moral improve- 
 ment. This very old argument from the existence 
 of suffering against the existence of an intelligent 
 First Cause seems to me a strong one, whereas . . . 
 the presence of much suffering agrees well with the 
 view that all organic beings have been developed 
 through variation and Natural Selection." The way 
 in which he thinks to explain the sufferings of men 
 and animals by Natural Selection he thus sums 
 up : " Such suffering is quite compatible with 
 Natural Selection, which is not perfect in its 
 action, but tends only to render each species as 
 successful as possible in the battle for life with 
 
 37 Paget, Lectures on Surgical Pathologv, p. 31 ; quoted by Carpenter, 
 Human Physi^ogv, p. 281. 
 
 31J Life and Letters, Vol. II. p. 311. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 193 
 
 other species in wonderfully complex and changing 
 circumstances." 
 
 A particular sort of suffering which caused 
 Darwin to have misgivings in regard of design is 
 mentioned by him in a letter to Asa Gray. 39 " I 
 cannot persuade myself," he says, " that a beneficent 
 and omnipotent God would have designedly created 
 the ichneumonidae with the express intention of 
 their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, 
 or that a cat should play with mice. Not believing 
 this, I see no necessity in the belief that the eye 
 was expressly designed." In the same letter, how- 
 ever, he admits that such suffering proves nothing 
 conclusively against an omniscient Creator. 
 
 We answer to all this: An omnipotent and 
 benevolent Creator cannot design sufferings merely 
 for suffering's sake; He cannot find His delight in 
 the sufferings of His creatures. But there is no 
 argument to prove that He cannot will physical 
 sufferings as a means for the bringing about of a 
 real good connected with the final end of creation. 
 It is not necessary that each suffering of a sentient 
 being should have been proximately designed with 
 a view to man's moral improvement. It may imme- 
 diately have regard to something else, and may 
 mediately serve the bringing about of a state of 
 things of which man finally can make use for his 
 moral improvement. In any case it will serve to 
 reveal either to man or to other intellectual creatures 
 higher than man the wonderful ways of God's 
 wisdom. That there is no Divine attribute with 
 
 39 Life and Letters, Vol. I. p. 311. 
 
 N 
 
194 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 which the sufferings and moral disorders of this 
 world can rightly be said to clash, we shall prove 
 conclusively in the treatise on Divine Providence. 
 " But," a Darwinian may object here, " after all it 
 has not been shown that Darwin was wrong, when 
 he thought that the sufferings which make life so 
 bitter, are far more satisfactorily explained by the 
 hypothesis of Natural Selection than by j;hat of 
 design." A sufficient answer to this objection is 
 obvious enough. Whatever truth there may be in 
 the theory of Natural Selection, certainly such 
 process of selection could not begin before the 
 existence of living organisms capable of struggling 
 for the maintenance of their lives. But it has already 
 ( 45, 46) been demonstrated that Natural Selec- 
 tion, even if it be a true cause of the habits and 
 interests of living beings, cannot be their ultimate 
 cause. Intelligence must even then be inferred to 
 lie behind and to have established the evolutionary 
 system in which Natural Selection plays so 
 prominent a part. Granting then, for argument's 
 sake, that Natural Selection can account for the 
 prevalence of happiness with the addition of an un- 
 avoidable measure of suffering, as Darwin believed, 40 
 it certainly is not the chief cause either of happiness 
 or of suffering, but is only instrumental in working 
 out the plan conceived by the First Intelligent 
 Cause, as Darwin himself once rightly conjectured, 
 when he wrote to Dr. Asa Gray as follows : " I can 
 see no reason why a man or other animal, may not 
 have been aboriginally produced by other laws, ;md 
 ** &i/e and Letters, Vol. I. p. 310. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 195 
 
 that all these laws may have been expressly designed 
 by an omniscient Creator, who foresaw every future 
 event and consequence." 41 
 
 122. Against the proof of theism drawn from 
 the common belief of mankind, Darwin makes this 
 remark: "This argument would be a valid one if 
 all men of all races had the same inward conviction 
 of the existence of God ; but we know that this is 
 very far from being the case." 42 
 
 There is no point in this objection unless the 
 argument, which it attacks, takes this form : " All 
 men have always believed in one God. But this 
 belief would never have spread so universally if 
 there were not really one God. Consequently we 
 must be certain about the existence of God." 
 
 Of course such an argument is open to the 
 objection made by Darwin. But this is not the 
 argument we have given above. (Cf. c. ii. 49.) 
 We argue thus: There has always existed in the 
 majority of men a persistent belief in a Nature of 
 some kind or other, superior to the material world 
 and to man ; a belief against the reasonableness of 
 which, considered in its universal character, nothing 
 can be said ; a belief, moreover, the origin whereof 
 can only be satisfactorily explained by taking the 
 belief to be well-grounded and true. Consequently, 
 it must be admitted that there exists a Nature, 
 superior to the material world and to man. 
 
 Any doubts that might arise against the sound- 
 
 41 Darwin to Asa Gray, May 22, 1862. Lift and Letters, Vol. U 
 p. 312. 
 
 < 3 Life and Letters, VpJ. I. p. 313.. 
 
io6 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 ness of this argument have already been solved in 
 the passage quoted above. (C. ii. 49.) In that 
 place attention was also called to the inability of 
 the moral proof to stand by itself alone as an 
 unassailable foundation of monotheism. Neverthe- 
 less, its value must not be under-rated. Although, 
 without support from the argument of a First 
 Cause it cannot convince us of the existence of 
 One, Infinite God ; yet it is strong enough to satisfy 
 every reasonable thinker that atheism and agnos- 
 ticism are not congenial to human reason, and 
 must, therefore, be abandoned by every one who 
 would not come into the predicament in which 
 Darwin confessed himself to be 43 in "a hopeless 
 muddle." 
 
 123. We come next to Darwin's difficulty against 
 the argument of a First Cause. He thus expresses 
 it in his autobiography : 44 " Another source of 
 conviction in the existence of God, connected with 
 the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me 
 as having much more weight. This follows from 
 the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of 
 conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, 
 including man, with his capacity of looking far 
 forwards and far into futurity, as the result of 
 blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting 
 I feel impelled to look to a First Cause having an 
 
 48 Darwin wrote to Asa Gray, Nov. 26, 1860: "I grieve to say 
 that I cannot honestly go as far as you do about design. I am 
 conscious that I am in an utterly hopeless muddle. . . . Again I 
 say I am and shall ever remain in a hopeless muddle." (Life and 
 Letters, Vol. II. p. 353.) 
 
 * Life and Letters, Vol. I. pp. 311, 312. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 197 
 
 intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that 
 of man, and I deserve to be called a theist. This 
 conclusion was strong in my mind about the time, 
 as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin 
 of Species, and it is since that time that it has very 
 gradually, with many fluctuations, become weaker. 
 But then arises the doubt, Can the mind of man, 
 which has, as I fully believe, been developed from 
 a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest 
 animals, be trusted when it draws such grand 
 conclusions ? I cannot pretend to throw the least 
 light on such abstruse problems. The mystery of 
 the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and 
 I for one must be content to remain an agnostic." 
 In this passage Darwin confesses that the premisses 
 which lead to the conclusion of a first Intelligent 
 Cause are undeniable, and that the connection of 
 that conclusion with its premisses is so close that 
 the human mind cannot help seeing it. Such a 
 conclusion is, according to all sound logicians, the 
 enunciation of an objective truth. And yet Darwin 
 stops short of being satisfied. And why? Have 
 his careful biological observations led to the dis- 
 covery of any fact incompatible with the existence 
 of God ? Assuredly not. 45 The only reason alleged 
 by Darwin for the abandonment of his previous con- 
 
 45 Even Professor Huxley acknowledges this: "The doctrine 
 of Evolution is neither anti-theistic nor theistic. It simply has no 
 more to do with theism than the first book of Euclid has. . . . 
 There is a great deal of talk and not a little lamentation about the 
 so-called religious difficulties which physical science has created. 
 In theological science, as a matter of fact, it has created none. Not 
 a solitary problem presents itself to the philosophical theist at the 
 
198 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 victions is that a mind developed from that of the 
 mind of the lowest animals is not competent to form 
 an opinion on so grand a problem. This kind of 
 false humility which refuses to accept the con- 
 clusions of logic and the evidence of reason because, 
 forsooth, we are developed as Darwin imagines 
 from the amoeba, does not need refuting. Even if 
 our minds had the origin which he ascribes to them, 
 it would- be worth nothing as an argument. A mind 
 derived through generation from brutes would be 
 utterly unable to draw any conclusion at all. The 
 soul of a brute is a substantial principle " entirely 
 immersed in matter," altogether without power of 
 reasoning. 46 Between an imaginary soul developed 
 from the soul of an amoeba and the real soul of 
 man there is an infinite difference. Man's soul, as 
 we have seen, is a spiritual being, the origin of 
 which is due to immediate Divine creation. (Th. 
 XVII.) Considering this truth, Darwin's objection 
 simply disappears. 
 
 As we have already shown, no natural law can 
 be reasonably explained without reference to a first 
 Intelligent Cause. If, therefore, progressive de- 
 velopment and Natural Selection are laws of nature, 
 they must, like other laws, imply belief in an " all 
 originating, all fore-ordaining, all regulative intelli- 
 gence to determine the rise and the course and the 
 
 present day which has not existed from the time that philosophers 
 began to think out the logical grounds and the logical consequences 
 of theism." (Life and Letters, Vol. II. pp. 202, 203, in c. v. written 
 by Huxley.) 
 
 46 Mivart, Nature and Thought, p. 226; Maher, Psychology, pp 
 550554- 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH 5. 199 
 
 goal of life as of all finite things." 47 It is, therefore, 
 quite natural that men who are both acquainted 
 with the results of scientific inquiry and grounded 
 in solid philosophical principles prove to be among 
 the first champions of monotheism. And why is 
 Darwin not among them ? Because he believes 
 fully in the development of the human mind from 
 what he calls the " mind of the lowest animals." 
 Is, then, this belief grounded on fact ? Not at all. 
 A consideration of the facts to which our own con- 
 sciousness continually bears witness has led us to 
 the evident conclusion that the mind of man is a 
 spiritual substance. ( 31 37, incl.) In this con- 
 clusion we are supported not only by the most 
 subtle philosophers of all ages, but also by one of 
 the most prominent and thoughtful biologists of our 
 own time. " The soul," writes Professor St. George 
 Mivart, " though existing amongst a constant suc- 
 cession of changing conditions, can think of an 
 eternal unchanging absolute. The soul knows itself 
 as looking before and after, and as that which both 
 thinks and endures persisting thus for years, or, in 
 other words, as a spiritual substance. Above all, 
 the soul can appreciate right and wrong, and now 
 and then freely choose its motive, and so dominate 
 and control the chain of physical causation by its 
 free-will. All these considerations show that its 
 nature is far more widely removed from that of the 
 active principle of the ape than is the latter from 
 a magnet. And as the soul or active principle of 
 an ape differs from the activity of a magnet by a 
 
 47 Flint, Theism, p. 209. 
 
200 OF THE EXISTENCE Of GOD. 
 
 difference of kind, so the soul of a man differs yet. 
 more in kind from that of an ape." 48 Dr. Carpenter, 
 also another distinguished biologist, tells us that 
 the enunciations, " I am," " I ought," " I can," " I 
 will," are " firm foundation-stones on which we can 
 base our attempt to climb into a higher sphere of 
 existence." 49 He considers the human will as 
 "something essentially different from the general 
 resultant of an automatic activity of the mind " 
 as " a self-determining power ; " 50 and consequently 
 that " the death of the body is but the commence- 
 ment of a new life of the soul." 61 
 
 Darwin's doubts prove nothing more clearly 
 than that the entertainer of them had a right 
 appreciation of his capacity for philosophy when 
 he wrote, " I have had no practice in abstract 
 reasoning, and I may be all astray." 52 Our attention 
 will now be occupied with the arguments of men 
 who pushed their power of abstract reasoning to 
 such lengths as to construct the whole universe 
 a priori. These are our modern pantheists, leader 
 and chief of whom is Spinoza. 
 
 SECTION 6. Spinoza's proof that God is the only substance, 
 and that everything else is a mode of God. 
 
 124. According to the pantheistic theory, ex- 
 pounded in Spinoza's Ethics, there is only one 
 
 48 Nature and Thought, p. 266. 
 
 48 Mental Physiology, p. 376. 50 Ibid. p. 392. 
 
 61 Human Physiology, p. 1120, 888. 
 
 M Letter to Asa Gray in Life and Letters, Vol. I. p. 315. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 201 
 
 substance, unproduced and infinite God. 53 Besides 
 God, no substance can exist or be conceived to 
 exist : consequently, whatever is, is in God ; it is a 
 mode or affection of the Divine Nature. 54 God is 
 not the transient or external cause of all things, but 
 their immanent cause; 55 they are all determined by 
 the necessity of the Divine Nature to exist and to act 
 in a certain definite manner. 56 Hence it follows 
 that so-called freedom of will is a chimera, 57 and that 
 things could have been produced by God in no other 
 way or order than as they have been produced. 58 
 
 These are the leading tenets of the thirty-six 
 propositions, in which Spinoza, in the first part of 
 his Ethics, explains his views about the primary 
 cause of all things. From the general refutation 
 of pantheism given above (Th. X. 78), it is evident 
 that these propositions contradict external and 
 internal experience, and contain a virtual denial of 
 the first principles both of speculative and of 
 practical reason. Yet they are worked out with a 
 show of exactness which has captivated while it has 
 imposed upon many minds. It becomes, therefore, 
 worth while to deal with -them in sCme measure. We 
 shall, however, confine ourselves to the one under- 
 lying fallacy on which the entire system is based. 
 This is his misuse of his ambiguous definition of 
 substance, which we shall examine briefly, and then 
 pass on to the principles by which the German 
 pantheists Fichte and Hegel, in spite of the un- 
 
 63 Ethics, Part I. Prop. vi. vii. viii. xi. M Ibid. Prop. xiv. sv. 
 55 Prop, xviii. M Prop. xxix. 
 
 87 Prop, xxxii. w Prop, xxxiii. 
 
aoa OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 popularity of their systems, have led the way to 
 more modern forms of monism. 
 
 Spinoza rests his proof that God is the only 
 possible substance on the proposition that one sub- 
 stance cannot be produced by another substance, 59 
 which is a virtual assertion of pantheism. This 
 proposition is proved by a series of previous pro- 
 positions, 60 all of which are based on the definition 
 of substance with which he starts. Substance is 
 defined by Spinoza as "that which is in itself and 
 is conceived by itself alone, that is to say, that of 
 which the concept can be formed without involving 
 any other concept." 61 
 
 This definition is patently ambiguous, and in 
 order to make sure whether Spinoza's sixth pro- 
 position is really implicitly contained in it, we must 
 inquire into the different ways in which the defi- 
 nition may be understood. Its meaning depends 
 upon the interpretation of the phrase, " that which 
 is in itself and is conceived by itself." This may 
 signify (i) a complete individual, physical being, 
 as distinguished from its natural properties and 
 accidental modifications ; it may also signify (2) a 
 self-existing being, a being under all aspects inde- 
 pendent of any other being, whether as an under- 
 lying subject in which it inheres, or as a cause 
 from which it proceeds. On the first interpre- 
 tation, Spinoza's definition of substance is almost 
 identical with the scholastic definition ; on the 
 
 59 Prop. vi. n Prop. i. v. incl. 
 
 61 " Per substantiam intelligo id quod in se est et per se concipitur, 
 h.e. id cujus conceptus non indiget conceptu alterius rei, a quc 
 formari debeat." 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 203 
 
 second, his definition is not applicable to any but 
 the first Being, the Divine Essence, and as this 
 Essence cannot be multiplied, Spinoza's Prop, vi., 
 "One substance cannot produce another substance," 
 follows from it, and this involves Pantheism. Yet 
 the absurdity of pantheistic monism (Th. X.) proves 
 fully that nobody can interpret substance in the 
 second meaning of Spinoza's definition without 
 committing himself to sheer nonsense. Now as to 
 the steps of reasoning by which Spinoza reaches his 
 famous Prop, vi., it will be enough to remark on the 
 first. His Prop. i. runs thus : " Substance is prior 
 in nature to its affections." 62 In proof of it he says 
 nothing but that it follows from his definitions of 
 substance and of mode. We have said enough about 
 the former. The latter is as follows : " By mode I 
 understand an affection of substance or that which 
 is in something else by which also it is appre- 
 hended." 63 This may signify a substantial principle 
 imparting to the whole its specific character, or a 
 natural property really distinct from the being of 
 which it is predicated, or an accidental modification 
 of a being. Thus the soul of a dog is in the matter 
 of its body as a specifying principle (forma substan- 
 tialis) : the faculty of understanding, considered in its 
 operations, is in the human soul as a natural property 
 really distinct from the soul ; and the derangement 
 of mind is in the lunatic as an accidental modification. 
 If, then, we take Spinoza's definition of substance 
 
 82 " Substantia prior est natura suis affectibus." 
 
 83 " Per modum intelligo substantiae affect iones sive id quod in 
 alio est, per quod etiam concipitur." 
 
OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 in the first of the two senses given above, and his 
 definition of mode in the first of the three senses 
 just explained, his first proposition is false. It is not 
 true, for instance, that a dog is prior in nature to 
 the specifying principle called his soul. Taking the 
 same interpretation of the definition of substance 
 along with the second and third interpretations of 
 the definition of mode, we find the first proposition 
 to be evidently true; for it is undeniable that 
 natural properties and accidental modifications of 
 a particular being cannot be conceived, except as 
 following the existence of that being. In so far as 
 they do not follow its existence in the order of time, 
 they at least follow it in the order of nature, that is 
 to say, their existence cannot be conceived but on 
 the supposition that the being exists of which they 
 are predicated. Finally, if we take Spinoza's defini- 
 tion of substance in the second sense given above, 
 and his definition of mode in any of the three senses 
 explained by us, it appears at once that his first 
 proposition is altogether false. We have proved 
 that God is physically and metaphysically simple. 
 He is therefore not a substance like matter, which 
 can be raised to diverse substantial degrees by the 
 reception of diverse specifying principles. Nor are 
 there in Him natural properties to be conceived as 
 something under certain aspects really distinct from 
 His essence, and following that essence, in the 
 way that an act of our understanding is really 
 distinct from and follows the essence of the soul. 
 Much less can God be the subject of merely 
 accidental modifications. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 205 
 
 But in what sense does Spinoza take his two 
 definitions? Explicitly he does not tell us. Yet 
 in the arguments by which he supports his following 
 propositions 64 there is not any force, unless substance 
 be taken in the second sense; and, as he declares 
 creatures to be affections or modes of the One 
 infinite substance, 65 mode is taken in the third sense 
 explained by us. Hence it is evident that in 
 Spinoza's very first proposition there are hidden 
 two false suppositions, the one that substance is 
 synonymous with self-existence, the other that self- 
 existence is changeable. The first of these two 
 assumptions we have refuted in Th. X., the other 
 will explicitly be refuted in Th. XXII. 66 
 
 SECTION 7. Remarks on the theories of Fichte, Hegd % 
 and others. 
 
 125. According to Fichte the Ego is the embodi- 
 ment of all reality. All individual things, to the 
 existence of which consciousness and experience 
 testify, are nothing but different aspects of the 
 infinite reality of the Ego, bound by fatal necessity 
 to oppose itself to itself. Whatever therefore man 
 perceives is properly speaking in himself, inasmuch 
 as his own being is one reality with the many-sided 
 infinite Ego. 
 
 The foundation upon which this pantheistic 
 idealism rests is the belief that knowledge of 
 existences separate from that of the person knowing 
 transcends the bounds of possibility. 
 
 * 4 Prop. ii. vi. 65 Prop. xiv. xv. 
 
 66 See also Appendix II. pp. 449, seq. 
 
206 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 " Whatever you are looking at as outside your- 
 self," says Fichte, "is always your own self; 
 whatever you are conscious of in it, you are really 
 contemplating yourself." 66 This opinion grew upon 
 him by reading the first edition of Kant's Criticism 
 of Pure Reason. Following out logically what Kant 
 had said about the impossibility of giving a satis- 
 factory account of the objectivity of our knowledge 
 by speculative reason, Fichte did away with the 
 object, and thus converted the world into a necessary 
 illusion of the One Infinite Subject. The general 
 refutation of pantheism given by us above ( 78 
 81, inclus.) suffices abundantly to show how utterly 
 Fichte's system is opposed to sound reason. And 
 we may add that those who like Fichte consider 
 the entire world to be but a series of interesting 
 games played by consciousness with its subjective 
 phenomena, are quite unreasonable in challenging 
 their opponents to point out a bridge by which they 
 may pass from real subject to real object. Either 
 they believe that they have opponents or they do 
 not. If they do not, why ask the question ? If 
 they do, therein is the acknowledgment that in 
 their own cognitive faculties they possess a bridge 
 which is sufficiently safe. 67 
 
 126. In a quarrel between the followers of Fichte 
 and those of Hegel, the latter may claim for their 
 master the distinction of greater dialectical skill, 
 but it will be impossible to show that the Hegelian 
 
 ** Fichte, Die Bestimnnmg des Menschen, p. 228. 
 87 The idealism contained in Fichte's system has found a fuller 
 *fntation in tho treatise of this series entitled First Principles 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 207 
 
 system considered in its essence is more in harmony 
 with reason than that of Fichte. 
 
 Hegel calls the Divine Essence the Idea, and 
 explains it so as in reality to signify by the term the 
 abstract concept of being. Thought and Being are 
 one in his system. If he had said this of the 
 Divine Nature distinct from and above the world, 
 he would have been perfectly right. God is at 
 once Infinite Being and Infinite Thought. What 
 is thus true of God, Hegel affirms of the Idea 
 of Being, under which our mind conceives what- 
 ever is and can be. This Idea of Being, as Hegel 
 regards it, is something infinite, something gene- 
 rating within itself by natural evolution all finite 
 things, opposed as they are to one another, and 
 persevering in its own reality as the unity of these 
 opposites. 68 
 
 The basis of this theory is the fiction, that not 
 the singular, but the universal is properly real. 
 Hence it follows that as there is one concept which 
 expresses the most universal object, i.e., Being as 
 such, that concept must be the foundation of all 
 reality, so much so, that all existing things are but 
 determinations of abstract Being, evolving itself 
 into finite beings opposed to one another. This 
 fiction has its origin in the confusion of the real 
 order of things with the ideal order ; in other words, 
 in the confusion of the beings conceived by us with 
 our way of conceiving them. Though our external 
 and internal experience bears witness that there are 
 many finite beings altogether distinct from one 
 Cf. Encyclopddit, Band. i. 7982. 
 
ao8 CF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 another, and though by reasoning we arrive at the 
 knowledge of one Infinite Being, really existing 
 apart from all finite beings, yet with our intellect 
 we can abstract from all the differences between 
 Finite and Infinite, and from all the differences 
 between various finite beings, and come to consider 
 whatever is, simply in so far as it is not nothing. 
 
 Thus we form one indeterminate concept of 
 Being, applicable to all beings, however vast the 
 difference between them. But from this abstraction 
 producing the concept of universal Being, it does not 
 follow that there is in reality one universal Being, 
 of which all particular beings are modes or deter- 
 minations. On the grounds which moved Hegel 
 to maintain that all being is properly one being, we 
 should have just as much right to say that all 
 Englishmen are properly one Englishman, and that 
 the English race dies out as often as an Englishman 
 breathes his last, and nevertheless lives on as 
 precisely the same Englishman in another shape. 
 
 127. The system of Schopenhauer, who takes the 
 world to be the evolution of an underlying "will," 
 and that of Hartmann, who makes the "unconscious " 
 answerable for the multitude of creatures, exhibit 
 the self-evolution of the First Cause in a form more 
 offensive not only to Christian but also to human 
 sentiment. 
 
 Another form of monistic error is the materialistic 
 evolutionism according to which "material and 
 mental groupings have gradually advanced from 
 the simple to the complex, until the extraordinary 
 complexity of the human brain and human thought 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 209 
 
 processes have been reached." 69 Such hypotheses 
 spring from erroneous opinions on the nature of 
 intellect and causality, and they suppose the possi- 
 bility of eternal succession. These subjects have 
 been sufficiently dealt with, partly in the present 
 volume and partly in other of the series. 
 
 The adherents of these various systems like 
 to be called " monists," and they are wont to 
 apply the name of God to their One Reality, into 
 which they profess to resolve all existence. But 
 the true name for them is " atheists," and we must 
 protest against the practice of giving to the name 
 of God a meaning distinct from that which it has 
 hitherto borne, and even opposite to it in all that 
 gives to the idea of God its special value as the 
 basis of moral conduct and obligation. 
 
 SECTION 8. Aristotle's reasons for the necessity of eternal 
 motion. Similar modern arguments from the writings of 
 Kant and Cousin. 
 
 128. Aristotle was a monotheist, but he did not 
 understand the dependence of the universe upon the 
 free-will of its Creator, and therefore fell into the 
 error of advocating the necessity of eternal motion. 
 By motion he means not only local change, but 
 every change in bodies, and it is his opinion that God, 
 the self-existent immoveable mover of all things, if 
 He caused the existence of a universe in motion, 
 must have caused it from eternity. In support of 
 
 69 Nature, October 28, 1886. In a review of Sidgwick's Outlines 
 if Ethics, byC. LL. M. 
 
 
 
210 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 this position, Aristotle brings forward three argu- 
 ments, of which the second and third are repeated 
 in another form by Kant and Cousin. 
 
 129. His first argument is this : 70 Before a body 
 can be changed, it must exist. But it cannot come 
 into existence except in virtue of a change, and 
 this change supposes another change, and so on to 
 infinity in the past. Consequently matter has been 
 changing from eternity. 
 
 Answer. Granting the major of the argument, 
 we deny the minor. A changeable body can 
 originate by creation out of nothing, a mode of 
 origin which does not contain a process of change, 
 as proved above. (Cf. Th. XIV. 84.) 
 
 130. Second Argument of Aristotle. Where time 
 is, motion is. But time had no beginning ; for 
 every moment of time is the end of past and the 
 beginning of future time. Consequently there was 
 no first moment. 
 
 Answer. Again we have no objection to the 
 major, but we must deny the minor. The truth 
 underlying the statement made in the minor is this, 
 that there must always have been duration. But 
 there is a great difference between duration in 
 general, and that special form of duration called 
 time. Duration is a general term simply denoting 
 persistency of existence. Time is a particular kind 
 of duration of which the characteristic is succession ; 
 
 70 \y e g{ ve h ere Aristotle's reasons in a compendious form. See 
 the text in Aristotle's Physics, Lib. VIII. cc. i. vi. and St. Thomas 
 in his commentary in Lib. VIII. Physicorum, Lect. 2, especially from 
 n. 10 to the end, and Lect. 13, n. 8 towards the end. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 211 
 
 a new phase of being ever succeeding in the place 
 of another which ceases to be. Time, therefore, 
 supposes things liable to change. So far as it 
 signifies the common measure of the durations of 
 transitory existences and actions in our globe, it 
 is in reality nothing else but the continual rotation 
 of the earth round its axis, which by the observing 
 mind of mankind has been divided into its natural 
 parts, each consisting of one day and one night, 
 of which all our artificial divisions of time are 
 either parts or multiples. From this it is evident 
 that time must have had a beginning no less 
 than succession, as we have shown above, (p. 146.) 
 The only duration which must have been without 
 beginning is the unceasing existence of the one 
 infinite Godhead. 
 
 Bearing this in mind, we can meet the turn by 
 which Aristotle tries to strengthen his second argu- 
 ment. He says : If there was a beginning of time, 
 then there was no time before the first moment of 
 time. But this cannot be allowed ; for he who 
 says " before" indicates time past. It is therefore 
 impossible that time had a beginning. 
 
 The answer is this : You can only say " before 
 the first moment of time," if you mean to use the 
 phrase in reference to an imaginary backward pro- 
 longation of it, devised by the mind as an aid to 
 language : or else it denotes only the eternal dura- 
 tion, the unchangeable persistency in existence of 
 the Divine Being. Ordinarily speaking, the first of 
 these alternatives is that which is actually present 
 to the mind of the speaker who uses the expression 
 
tia OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 " before the first moment of time," or " before the 
 first moment of the existence of created things 
 liable to changes." 
 
 Similar to that of Aristotle is the following 
 reasoning of Kant : " Let us assume that it (the 
 world) had a beginning. Then as beginning is an 
 existence which is preceded by a time in which 
 the thing is not, it would follow that antecedently 
 there was a time in which the world was not, that 
 is, an empty time. In an empty time, however, 
 it is impossible that anything should have its 
 beginning, because of such a time no part possesses 
 any condition of existence or non-existence to dis- 
 tinguish it from another." 71 We answer, that empty 
 time is no time. There was no real time before 
 the beginning of the world. God alone existed, 
 and made the beginning of time by creating the 
 world. But God's duration is unchangeable eternity. 
 Therefore the beginning of the world was preceded 
 by eternity, not by time, 
 
 131. Third Argument of Aristotle. The origin ol 
 all motion is ultimately due to God, the first abso- 
 lutely unchangeable cause. But the first absolutely 
 unchangeable cause cannot produce motion except 
 from eternity to eternity : for otherwise He would 
 undergo change Himself. It is therefore impossible 
 that motion if existent should ever have had a 
 commencement. 
 
 Answer. The proposition that a cause which 
 continues unchanged cannot have an effect now, 
 unless it has had the same effect before and will 
 
 71 Cf. Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, by M. Muller, Vol. II. p. 369. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 213 
 
 have it afterwards, holds good only on the suppo- 
 sition that the cause produces its effect by natural 
 necessity. It is in no way applicable to God, who 
 calls His creatures into existence by an eternal 
 free decree of His will, and by the same decree 
 determines the limits of their existence and motion, 
 both in time and manner. We have already 
 suggested as a help to realize this compatibility 
 of the creative exercise of Divine free-will with the 
 non-eternity of the effects, the analogy of the 
 relation of the exercise of the human free-will to 
 its effects in the moral order. The decrees of 
 the sovereign, though all made together, come into 
 effect at various times, some sooner, others later. 
 There is no need of any contemporaneousness 
 between the commencement of the effects and the 
 determinations of sovereign will by which they are 
 caused. We do not propose this illustration as an 
 argument, but rather as an analogy which enables 
 the mind to conceive to itself under some concrete 
 form the mode of action which we are led by due 
 course of reasoning to attribute to the Divine 
 exercise of free-will. From this illustration we are 
 entitled to gather at least this much, that, if the 
 Divine will is able to produce physical realities of 
 itself, by its sheer exercise, and if the decree of 
 that will persists unchangeable, as it was conceived 
 from eternity, then no further difficulty arises from 
 the non-contemporaneousness of the commence- 
 ment of the effect with a corresponding com- 
 mencement of the Divine decree which is its cause. 73 
 Cf. pp. 138, seq. 
 
214 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 That the Divine will is thus effective, we prove from 
 the infinity of the Divine Nature. 
 
 With the argument of Aristotle may be compared 
 the assertion of Victor Cousin, that God is the 
 one absolute and infinite substance, and as such 
 is essentially a cause. Consequently, argues this 
 author, He cannot abstain from producing effects. 73 
 
 To this our reply is, that God is essentially a 
 cause only inasmuch as by virtue of His essence 
 He can cause, but not as though His essence 
 determined Him irresistibly to create finite things. 
 As we have proved in the fourth chapter, God 
 chose freely from eternity the act of creation, being 
 able not to choose it. And as He has chosen the 
 act itself, so He has freely fixed the moment of the 
 beginning of His creatures. 
 
 SECTION 9. ManseVs arguments for the doctrine that all 
 our attempts to form to ourselves the idea of God involve 
 us in contradiction. 
 
 132. Among the defenders of the groundwork 
 of Christian faith against atheism in England 
 some twenty or thirty years ago, not the least 
 conspicuous was Dean Mansel. His Limits of 
 Religious Thought went though several editions. 
 There is a great deal of valuable matter in the 
 work, entitling the author to be regarded as one 
 who has in some respects done good service. Yet 
 it is to be regretted that some passages betray a 
 want of sound principles, and contain statements 
 
 78 Cf. Cousin, Cours de 1828, Le9on v. p. 26. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 215 
 
 which in the hands of an acute adversary can serve 
 as weapons for attacking the very cause they are 
 meant to uphold. They have been taken advantage 
 of by Mr. Herbert Spencer in his advocacy of 
 agnosticism. 
 
 Mansel's work consists of eight lectures. In 
 the second of these he tries to prove that when we 
 compare the attributes of God one with another, 
 though each of them seems to be brought home to 
 us by lawful reasoning, yet our intellect cannot help 
 seeing contradictions between them. At the same 
 time he is of opinion that man has sufficient grounds 
 for ignoring these contradictions, and for supposing 
 that they are not objective but only subjective, owing 
 to the weakness and ineptitude of our minds for 
 dealing with a Being so immense as God. This is 
 the escape by which he saves his religious con- 
 victions, as he declares in the third lecture. 
 
 His final conclusion he states as follows: "It 
 is our duty, then, to think of God as personal ; and 
 it is our duty to believe that He is infinite. It 
 is true that we cannot reconcile these two repre- 
 sentations with each other ; as our conception of 
 personality involves attributes apparently contra- 
 dictory to the notion of infinity. But it does not 
 follow that this contradiction exists anywhere but 
 in our own minds ; it does not follow that it implies 
 any impossibility in the absolute nature of God. 
 The apparent contradiction, in this case, as in those 
 previously noticed, is the necessary consequence of 
 an attempt on the part of the human thinker to 
 transcend the boundaries of his own conscious- 
 
216 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 ness." 74 Mr. Herbert Spencer, after giving in his 
 second and fourth chapters on the Unknowable long 
 extracts from Mansel's argument, refers in his fifth 
 chapter to Mansel's conclusion in the following 
 terms: "That this is not the conclusion here 
 adopted, needs hardly be said. If there be any 
 meaning in the foregoing arguments, duty requires 
 us neither to affirm nor deny personality. Our 
 duty is to submit ourselves with all humility to 
 the established limits of our intelligence, and not 
 perversely to rebel against them. Let those, who 
 can, believe that there is eternal war set 'between 
 our intellectual faculties and our moral obligations. 
 I, for one, admit no such radical vice in the consti- 
 tution of things." 75 
 
 The "eternal war" and the "radical vice," of 
 which Mr. Spencer speaks here, are certainly to be 
 deprecated by any reasonable man. But is either 
 the one or the other a necessary consequence of 
 true monotheism ? Let us judge for ourselves by 
 examination of the extracts from Mansel to which 
 Mr. Spencer appeals. 
 
 133. Mansel thus reasons about the metaphysical 
 idea of the Infinite : " The metaphysical representa- 
 tions of the Deity, as absolute and infinite, must 
 necessarily, as the profoundest metaphysicians have 
 acknowledged, amount to nothing less than the sum 
 of all reality. 'What kind of an absolute B.eing 
 is that,' says Hegel, * which does not contain in 
 itself all that is actual, even evil included ? ' We 
 
 74 Limits of Religious Thought (Third Edition), p. 89. 
 n First Principles, p. 108. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 217 
 
 may repudiate the conclusion with indignation ; but 
 the reasoning is unassailable. If the Absolute and 
 Infinite is an object of human conception at all, 
 this, and none other, is the conception required. 
 That which is conceived as absolute and infinite 
 must be conceived as containing within itself the 
 sum, not only of all actual, but of all possible modes 
 of being. For if any actual mode can be denied of 
 it, it is related to that mode, and limited by it ; and 
 if any possible mode can be denied of it, it is capable 
 of becoming more than it now is, and such a capa- 
 bility is a limitation." 76 Mr. Spencer seems to 
 suppose that against this explanation of the notion 
 of the Infinite nothing can be said; yet there is 
 everything to be said against it. It is not true 
 that the Absolute and Infinite Being must contain 
 whatever is actual, and whatever mode of .being is 
 possible. In so far as that which is actual contains 
 an imperfection, and a fortiori in so far as it contains 
 a privation, it cannot possibly be conceived as 
 belonging to the Infinite: for the Infinite is an 
 embodiment of all perfections without admixture 
 of imperfection. Created perfections exist in God, 
 as we have explained, not formally with their limi- 
 tations, but eminently as in one undivided unchange- 
 able Essence. If the perfections of creatures are 
 in God without limit, they are in Him certainly 
 without the presence of any evil whatsoever, for 
 evil is more opposed to perfection than mere limita- 
 tion ; it is a privation of the perfection that is due 
 to a being. To say with Mansel that the exclusion 
 
 76 Limits of Religious Thought (Third Edition), p. 46. 
 
2i8 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 of any possible mode of existence from the Infinite 
 would be to put a limit to its nature, is against 
 reason. There is no possible mode of created 
 existence without limit, because, as we have proved, 
 only one Being unlimited in perfection is possible. 
 Consequently, not merely one or another possible 
 modes of created existence, but all possible modes 
 of created existence, must, as such, be alien to the 
 Divine Being. Nevertheless, as we have shown in 
 treating of the Infinity of God, whilst the modes 
 with which created perfections exist cannot be in 
 God, the reality expressed by the abstract concept 
 of each perfection is in the most proper' sense of 
 the word included in His simple and infinite Essence. 
 Creatures are distinct from this Essence, but put 
 no limit to it, because their nature is infinitely 
 below the Divine Nature. Created beauty does not 
 suffer in any way from its being represented by 
 artists, now in stone, now in metal, now on canvas ; 
 because all these representations are only imperfect 
 imitations of the original. How, then, should God 
 cease to be infinite by being distinguished from a 
 multitude of creatures, each of which is only a very 
 imperfect copy of His simple Being, though it may 
 excel among its fellow-creatures ? 
 
 134. Another argument of Mansel against the in- 
 telligibility of the First Cause is based upon a com- 
 parison of the idea of Cause with that of the Absolute. 
 Both must be predicated of God, and yet they seem 
 to exclude one another. "A Cause," says he, " cannot, 
 as such, be absolute : the Absolute cannot, as such, 
 be a cause. The cause, as such, exists only in 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 219 
 
 relation to its effect : the cause is a cause of the 
 effect ; the effect is an effect of the cause. On the 
 other hand, the conception of the Absolute implies 
 a possible existence out of all relation. We attempt 
 to escape from this apparent contradiction, by intro- 
 ducing the idea of succession in time. The Absolute 
 exists first by itself, and afterwards becomes a 
 Cause. But here we are checked by the third 
 conception, that of the Infinite. How can the 
 Infinite become that which it was not from the 
 first ? If causation is a possible mode of existence, 
 that which exists without causing is not infinite; 
 that which becomes a cause has passed beyond its 
 former limits." 77 
 
 To the first part of this argument, we concede 
 that a cause cannot be absolute, if it causes under 
 the pressure of necessity ; for in this case the 
 existence of the cause is dependent on the existence 
 of its effect, inasmuch as it requires it as its essential 
 complement. Nor can it be absolute and infinite, 
 if it does not produce an effect without undergoing 
 internal change. But there is no reason for saying 
 that the nature of a Being cannot be an absolute 
 and infinite cause, if its causation is both free and 
 conducted without any internal change. The possi- 
 bility of such a way of causation is, as we have 
 already urged, not only not opposed to the Divine 
 attributes of Absoluteness and Infinity, but is a 
 necessary consequence of them. God being absolute 
 and infinite, must be infinitely powerful, infinitely 
 free in His volition regarding the existence of 
 
 77 Limits of Religious Thought (Third Edition), p. 47. 
 
220 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 creatures, and at the same time immutable. His 
 causation is consequently a free act of His will, 
 which, on account of its infinity, is capable of such 
 an act without being changed. Such causation 
 is incomprehensible, but it is not inconceivable. We 
 know perfectly what we mean by asserting it, and 
 we see clear reasons for asserting it, though on 
 account of our finite nature we cannot fathom the 
 manner in which it exists. 
 
 135. The proposition, that our mind sees con- 
 tradiction between God as a Cause and God as 
 Absolute, is argued by Mansel also in another way. 
 Supposing rightly that creation must be thought of 
 as an effect of God's free volition, he says : " Volition 
 is only possible in a conscious being. But con- 
 sciousness again is only conceivable as a relation. 
 There must be a conscious subject and an object 
 of which he is conscious. The subject is a subject 
 to the object ; the object is an object to the subject ; 
 and neither can exist by itself as the absolute. This 
 difficulty, again, may be for the. moment evaded, 
 by distinguishing between the Absolute as related 
 to another and the Absolute as related to itself. 
 The Absolute, it may be said, may possibly be 
 conscious, provided it is only conscious of itself. 
 But this alternative is, in ultimate analysis, no less 
 self-destructive than the other. For the object of 
 consciousness, whether a mode of the subject's 
 existence or not, is either created in and by the acit 
 of consciousness, or has an existence independent 
 of it. In the former case, the object depends upon 
 the subject, and the subject alone is the true 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 221 
 
 absolute. In the latter case, the subject depends 
 upon the object, and the object alone is the true 
 absolute. Or if we attempt a third hypothesis, and 
 maintain that each exists independently of the 
 other, we have no absolute at all, but only a pair 
 of relatives ; for co-existence, whether in conscious- 
 ness or not, is itself a relation." 78 
 
 This whole argument is based upon a wrong 
 hypothesis regarding the nature of knowledge. 
 Mansel, like many modern authors, labours under 
 the false impression that knowledge essentially 
 supposes a plurality of terms ; and that consequently 
 no knowledge is possible, unless there exist a subject 
 knowing and an object known, really distinct from 
 one another. This is true of sense perception only ; 
 it cannot be applied to intellectual self-consciousness. 
 If you apply it to the latter, you never can explain 
 how a man knows that he exists and thinks and 
 wills. An intellectual being is spiritual, and of such 
 a nature that it cannot know anything different 
 from itself without knowing itself as the knowing 
 principle. In so far, therefore, as we apprehend 
 ourselves as thinking principles in all acts of our 
 intelligence, we are at the same time subject and 
 object of our knowledge. Now God, the Absolute, 
 Infinite, unchangeable Being, does not only know 
 that He knows, but He is essentially a Being knowing 
 Himself. There is no real difference between His 
 Essence and the act of His self-consciousness. 
 
 In answer, therefore, to Mansel's difficulty, we 
 deny that his three hypotheses to explain the 
 78 Limits of Religious Thought (Third Edition), pp. 48, 49. 
 
222 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 self-consciousness of the Absolute exhaust the pos- 
 sibilities of the case. He has left out precisely 
 that alternative against which no solid reason can 
 be brought forward, and which is an evident con- 
 sequence of the infinity of God. God does not 
 know Himself by creating a mode of existence in 
 His Essence, or by having such a mode really 
 distinct from His Essence in Himself. He knows 
 Himself in virtue of His Essence alone, which is 
 both infinite Being and infinite Thought, the one 
 not really distinct from the other. 
 
 136. In the simplicity of God, Mansel finds 
 another source of apparent contradiction in the 
 Divine attributes. "The almost unanimous voice 
 of Philosophy," he says, " in pronouncing that the 
 Absolute is both one and simple, must be accepted 
 as the voice of reason also, so far as reason has any 
 voice in the matter. But this absolute unity, as 
 indifferent and containing no attributes, can neither 
 be distinguished from the multiplicity of finite 
 beings by any characteristic feature, nor be identified 
 with them in their multiplicity." 79 
 
 This argument proceeds from a wrong con- 
 ception of God's simplicity. God is not one and 
 simple in this sense, that He is an indeterminate 
 substratum underlying all existences ; but He is 
 one and simple inasmuch as His Essence in virtue 
 of its self- existence contains without division and 
 composition, equivalently and supereminently, all 
 conceivable perfections. 
 
 137. Not less unsound than the preceding argu- 
 
 79 Limits of Religious Thought (Third Edition), p. 50. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 223 
 
 ments are those by which Mansel labours to show 
 a contradiction between other Divine attributes. 
 " How," says he, " can Infinite Power be able to do 
 all things, and yet Infinite Goodness be unable to 
 do evil ? " This difficulty falls to the ground when 
 we consider that omnipotence does not mean infinite 
 liability to defects, but infinite power of calling into 
 being any conceivable reality, not in the omnipotent 
 Being itself, but distinct from and dependent upon 
 it. He who commits sin allows himself to be over- 
 come by wrong motives of action. The malice of 
 sin does not consist in the production of a physical 
 effect, but in the voluntary neglect of a rule of 
 conduct which reason prescribes as inviolable. The 
 question, therefore, " How can God be omnipotent 
 if He cannot sin ? " betrays either a wrong notion 
 of omnipotence or a wrong notion of sin. 
 
 Hansel's next question is : " How can Infinite 
 Justice exact the utmost penalty for every sin, and 
 yet Infinite Mercy pardon the sinner?" We may 
 allow this question to stand over till we come to 
 treat of the Divine will. A right conception of justice 
 and mercy in God will put an end to the difficulty. 
 
 Our author proceeds : " How can Infinite Wisdom 
 know all that is to come, and yet Infinite Freedom 
 be at liberty to do and to forbear ? " 
 
 To this we reply: God's free decrees are as 
 eternal as His knowledge of the future. Whatever 
 He freely does or forbears to do in time, that He 
 does or forbears to do, not in consequence of a new 
 decree, but in harmony with His eternal decrees. 
 
 The rest of Hansel's reasonings are virtually 
 
224 OP THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 solved by the preceding answers. The most im- 
 portant among them is the old difficulty against 
 God's perfection drawn from the existence of evil. 
 This difficulty deserves a special treatment, which 
 it will receive in our disquisition on Divine Provi- 
 dence. 
 
 138. After having dwelt in his second lecture on 
 the contradictions contained in the idea of God, 
 Mansel in the third tries to explain their origin. 
 As a believer in Christian revelation, he endeavours 
 to show that they are a necessary consequence of 
 the limitations of our human understanding, and 
 ought not, therefore, to be assumed to have objective 
 validity. If, however, it is possible that the con- 
 tradictions may not really exist, it is worth inquiring 
 whether we can find any grounds for believing that 
 they do or do not. From the position thus taken 
 up he passes afterwards to the conclusion that the 
 belief in God, as He is revealed to us by Christ and 
 His Apostles, may, in spite of all contradictions 
 enumerated before, find a reasonable foundation 
 in the positive evidences by which it recommends 
 itself to the needs of our nature. Following this 
 line of argument, he has drawn down on himself 
 a storm of agnostic criticism, against which his 
 idealistic theory of knowledge leaves him no defence. 
 
 The argument by which this theory is supported, 
 and which consequently is the second chief proof 
 of the impossibility of conceiving the Infinite and 
 Absolute, rests upon the relativity of human know- 
 ledge. " To have consciousness of the Absolute as 
 such," says Mansel, " we must know that an object, 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 225 
 
 which is given in relation to our consciousness, is 
 identical with one which exists in its own nature, 
 out of all relation to consciousness. But to know 
 this identity we must be able to compare the two 
 together; and such a comparison is itself a con- 
 tradiction. We are, in fact, required to compare 
 that of which we are conscious with that of which 
 we are not conscious ; the comparison itself being 
 an act of consciousness, and only possible through 
 the consciousness of both its objects. It is thus 
 manifest that, even if we could be conscious of the 
 absolute, we could not possibly know that it is the 
 absolute ; and, as we can be conscious of an object 
 as such only by knowing it to be what it is, this is 
 equivalent to an admission that we cannot be con- 
 scious of the absolute at all. As an object of 
 consciousness, everything is necessarily relative ; 
 and what a thing may be out of consciousness no 
 mode of consciousness can tell us." 80 
 
 This argument proves too much. We might 
 conclude from it that Mansel could not be con- 
 scious of the paper on which he was writing his 
 lectures, of the audience before whom he delivered 
 them, and of the existence of atheists, of whose 
 impiety he complains. All these things were known 
 to him only as related to his consciousness ; and his 
 consciousness being in its real existence limited to 
 his individual soul, he could not possibly know 
 whether beyond his consciousness there was any 
 paper to write on, or any- persons to talk to, or 
 any adversaries to fight against. All may have 
 
 80 Limii' of Rcli$on< Thought (Third Edition) pp. 74, 75. 
 P 
 
226 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 been a part-creation of consciousness deceiving 
 itself with idle phantoms. But this conclusion is 
 revolting to common sense, and leads to universal 
 scepticism. 
 
 139. A third reason why Mansel thinks it im- 
 possible for man to form a positive idea of God is 
 expressed thus : " It is impossible that man, so long 
 as he exists in time, should contemplate an object in 
 whose existence there is no time. For the thought 
 by which he contemplates it must be one of his 
 mental states; it must have a beginning and an 
 end : it must occupy a certain portion of duration 
 as a fact of human consciousness. There is, there- 
 fore, no manner of resemblance or community of 
 nature between the representative thought and that 
 which it is supposed to represent ; for the one cannot 
 exist out of time, and the other cannot exist in 'it." 81 
 If Mansel merely meant to say that a temporal being 
 could not have a comprehensive knowledge of an 
 eternal being, this is manifest from the diversity of 
 nature between the two. 82 But he means more than 
 this ; he means that a temporal being can form no 
 distinct trustworthy notion whatever of an eternal 
 being. We can reply that our proofs do not lead 
 up to a comprehension of the eternity of God, but 
 they make us sure of the existence of God as an 
 eternal Being, inasmuch as we have a clear and 
 distinct, though inadequate, concept of this Being 
 as an Infinite Substance, existing without beginning 
 
 a Limits of Religious Thought (Third Edition), p. Si. 
 82 St. Thomas, Sum. Tkeol. i. 12. 4. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 227 
 
 and without end, and without any change in the 
 way of its existence. 
 
 140. A similar answer must be given to the last 
 reason by which Mansel endeavours to prove the 
 purely negative character of our idea of God. He 
 says rightly that we can conceive the various mental 
 attributes of God only as existing in a personal 
 being. " But," he continues, " personality, as we 
 conceive it, is essentially a limitation and relation. 
 Our own personality is presented to us as relative 
 and limited, and it is from that presentation that all 
 our representative notions of personality are derived. 
 Personality is presented to us as a relation between 
 the conscious self and the various modes of his 
 consciousness. There is no personality in abstract 
 thought without a thinker; there is no thinker* 
 unless he exercises some mode of thought. Person- 
 ality is also a limitation ; for the thought and the 
 thinker are distinguished from and limit each other; 
 and the several modes of thought are distinguished 
 each from each by limitation likewise. If I am 
 any one of my own thoughts, I live and die with 
 each successive moment of my consciousness. If 1 
 am not any one of my own thoughts, I am limited by 
 that very difference, and each thought as different 
 from another is limited also. This too has been 
 clearly seen by philosophical theologians ; and 
 accordingly, they have maintained that in God 
 there is no distinction between the subject of con- 
 sciousness and its modes, nor between one mode 
 and another. 'God,' says St. Augustine, 'is not 
 a Spirit as regards substance, and good as regards 
 
228 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 quality; but both as regards substance. The justice 
 of God is one with His goodness and with His 
 blessedness ; and all are one with His spirituality.' 
 But this assertion, if it be literally true (and we have 
 no means of judging), annihilates personality itself 
 in the only form in which we can conceive it. We 
 cannot transcend our own personality, as we cannot 
 transcend our own relation to time ; and to speak of 
 an Absolute and Infinite Person, is simply to use 
 language which, however true it may be in a super- 
 human sense, denotes an object inconceivable under 
 the conditions of human thought." 83 
 
 In this passage Mansel himself carries us so far 
 on the way as this, that if there be no distinction in 
 God between the conscious self and the modes of 
 consciousness, as again between the modes of con- 
 sciousness among themselves, there is no foundation 
 for conceiving of His Nature as in this particular 
 respect implicated in relations and limitations. 
 And although he says here that we have no means 
 of judging whether this absence of internal dis- 
 tinctions really exists in God, he has previously 
 remarked with much justice, in words already 
 quoted, that " the unanimous voice of Philosophy, 
 in pronouncing that the absolute is both one and 
 simple, must be accepted as the voice of reason 
 also, so far as reason has any voice in the matter." 
 Nor can the qualification in the last clause be 
 allowed to explain away the force of this admission. 
 If reason is to have a voice in creating the contra- 
 dictions, she has certainly a claim to be heard when 
 
 83 Mansel's Limits of Religious Thought, pp. 84, 85. 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 229 
 
 she represents that the contradictions are not really 
 of her creating, but arise from a misconception of 
 the true nature of her utterances. 
 
 There remains then but one outstanding point in 
 Mr. Hansel's passage to be considered. Do we by 
 identifying in God the conscious self and the modes 
 of consciousness, "annihilate personality in the 
 only sense in which we can conceive it " ? This 
 depends on the sense in which we do conceive it. 
 Speaking in the name of Catholic Philosophy and 
 repeating the utterance of all true thought and 
 self-introspection, we understand by personality 
 the " subsistence of a rational nature." Let us 
 explain this technical term. Subsistence is what 
 characterizes the existence of a natural whole 
 as distinguished from the existence characteristic 
 of the component parts of a natural whole. The 
 arm of a man exists not in itself, but in the man, as 
 a part in the whole ; so also does the body, and so 
 again does the soul, though here one has to speak 
 more carefully, the soul being able to exist apart 
 and exercise by itself the principal functions of the 
 whole. On the other hand, the man exists in him- 
 self and in nothing else as in a containing whole ; 
 that is, in a containing natural whole, for of course 
 things can be taken together as component parts of a 
 system of aggregates like the universe. For anything 
 to subsist then is to exist in itself and not as a natural 
 part of something else. Personality we have defined 
 to be subsistence of a rational nature. That is to 
 say, when the being which subsists has a rational 
 nature and therewith consciousness, we call it r. 
 
2 3 o OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 person, and its subsistence personality. Accordingly, 
 when we say that God is a personal God, we mean 
 that He exists in Himself and not as a part of some 
 whole, and that He possesses Mind and Conscious- 
 ness. This is the only concept of Personality we 
 can consent to deal with, when we claim it for 
 God. We cannot accept the description given by 
 Dr. Mansel, that personality is merely a " relation 
 between the conscious self and the modes of his 
 consciousness." 
 
 Do we, then, virtually deny the personality of 
 God in the only form in which we can conceive it, 
 when we deny of Him relation and limitation by 
 asserting that the perfections which we represent 
 to ourselves by distinct concepts as His attributes 
 and modes are objectively in Him as a single and 
 absolutely simple reality ? Clearly not. It is true, 
 we do not attribute to Him the perfections which 
 we find in ourselves as existing in Him in the 
 same " formal " manner as they are in us, just 
 because in us they are characterized by attendant 
 imperfections and limitations. We take the per- 
 fections found in ourselves as a nucleus ; we divest 
 it of its accompanying imperfections and limitations 
 by an act of negation ; we then enlarge the measure 
 of the perfection to infinity by affirming that not 
 only those limits are excluded from it which are 
 inseparable from human perfection, but all limits 
 whatsoever. In this way out of the original nucleus 
 furnished by direct observation we form to ourselves 
 by affirmation and negation a composite concept, 
 and then led by just inference we proceed to take 
 
DIFFICULTIES AGAINST FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS. 231 
 
 this a's a valid and valuable though inadequate 
 representation of the Divine Nature under some one 
 or other of its aspects. This doctrine has already 
 been propounded. But no apology is needed for the 
 repetition, since the failure to bear it in mind lies 
 at the root of the imagined contradictions which 
 form the unsolved problem of Dr. ManseFs philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 Let us now apply the doctrine explained to the 
 point immediately under consideration. Although 
 personality is not consciousness, yet, as we have 
 stated, it implies consciousness as an attribute of the 
 person, and it is the nature of consciousness which 
 Mansel considers to involve an essential relation 
 and limitation. That there is any real relation and 
 consequent mutual limitation between the subject 
 and object of consciousness inasmuch as intellectual 
 consciousness comes under consideration we have 
 denied even in regard to our own created conscious- 
 ness, maintaining on the contrary that in conscious- 
 ness the subject and object are essentially one. But 
 there is in man the distinction, with its admitted con- 
 sequences of relation and mutual limitation, between 
 the self-conscious subject and the modes of his 
 consciousness, and again between the latter among 
 themselves. This distinction appears, therefore, in 
 the original concept which we form to ourselves of 
 consciousness. It appears then, however, only as 
 incidental, not as the central and direct element 
 in the concept. This central element, therefore, we 
 can take as a nucleus, since in itself it is pure 
 perfection. We then by negation and affirmation 
 
232 OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 represent to ourselves a consciousness which is 
 realized not by the passage of the subject from the 
 potential into the actual state, but is ever actual : 
 a consciousness which embraces in its vision the 
 entire being of the subject ; a consciousness which 
 is not realized by even an abiding act distinct from 
 the conscious subject itself, but is realized inasmuch 
 as the subject is in virtue of its infinity Infinite 
 Consciousness as well as Infinite Being. 
 
 Thus, then, we arrive at an inadequate indeed, 
 but nevertheless a distinct and true, idea of God, 
 an idea not purely negative, but negative-positive. 
 And thus, for all the apparent contradictions in the 
 monotheistic idea of God, which Mr. Spencer has 
 drawn from Hansel's famous work, it remains true 
 that " we adore that which we know." 84 
 
 * St. John iv. 22, 
 
NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 141. THE origin of the universe, though neither an 
 object of immediate intuition nor of pure a priori 
 demonstration, is nevertheless knowable ; and that, 
 not on authority only, but also by reason. 
 
 From the causality of things surrounding us, 
 from the thoughts and volitions of our own mind, 
 from the orderly arrangements visible everywhere 
 in Nature, from the universal belief of mankind in 
 some sort of Deity, and finally from the logical 
 consequences of atheism and agnosticism, we arrive 
 by lawful reasoning at the conclusion that the 
 universe is not an effect of the forces of matter, 
 nor of the evolution of some Unknowable being, but 
 has started into existence at the will of a self-existing 
 Mind, through the power of a personal God, whose 
 Essence is one, simple, infinite, and who is the 
 cause of all finite things, not by self-evolution, as 
 pantheists would have it, but by creation out of 
 
234 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 nothing. His decree to create was a free act, and 
 had no beginning; but there is nothing to prove 
 that the effect of that decree must have been without 
 beginning. On the contrary, creation from eternity 
 is hardly admissible, even if its absolute impossi- 
 bility is not demonstrable. Moreover, as regards 
 the existence of the universe known to us, we have 
 in its changes and generations an evident proof of 
 its limited duration, and in this its limited duration 
 an additional argument for its dependence upon the 
 good pleasure of the one, infinite, personal God. 
 
 These are, in short, the conclusions proved and 
 defended in the previous book. We now pass on to 
 the further arid fuller investigation of the nature of 
 the attributes of God. The basis on which through- 
 out we shall have to build is the doctrine of the 
 Divine Infinity, which itself rests on the doctrine of 
 the Divine Unity and Simplicity. In carrying it out 
 we shall be guided by the three canons of Divine 
 attributes laid down already. ( 70 72 inclus.) 
 
 According to these canons those names of created 
 perfections must be predicated of God, the meaning 
 of which by abstraction and total denial of limits 
 can be conceived without their implying any imper- 
 fection. They cannot indeed be predicated of God 
 and of creatures univocally, but they can analogically, 
 as we have explained in the place just referred to. 
 We have also seen that names of created perfections 
 which necessarily connote imperfection, cannot be 
 predicated of God save in a metaphorical sense. 
 
 142. It may be interesting to note how these 
 canons were expressed by the ancient writer who 
 
PROL EG OMEN A . 235 
 
 goes under the name of St. Dionysius the Areopagite. 
 Among his works there is one, De Divinis Nomi- 
 nibus, held in high esteem during the middle ages, 
 and explained by St. Thomas. 
 
 In this book the attributes of God are said to be 
 established in three ways, which are named, the way 
 of removal, the way of affirmation, the way of eminence. 
 
 (1) The way of removal we may call also the way 
 of negation. By this way what are termed the 
 negative Divine attributes are found. We " remove " 
 from God in thought any name of created perfection, 
 the meaning of which cannot be conceived in the 
 abstract without connoting a defect. Thus we say, 
 by the way of removal, that God is incorporeal, i.e., 
 cannot be formally extended according to three 
 dimensions ; that He is simple, i.e., not composed of 
 parts ; that He is immutable, i.e.. cannot pass from 
 one state of existence to another. These negative 
 attributes, whilst explicitly denying certain imper- 
 fections of created beings to exist in God, affirm 
 thereby implicitly the opposite perfections to be in 
 Him. 
 
 (2) The way of affirmation. By this is predicated 
 of God whatever created perfection can be conceived 
 in the abstract without connotation of imperfection. 
 Thus we state that God is powerful, wise, truthful, 
 benevolent, &c. Power, wisdom, veracity, bene- 
 volence, are perfections conceivable without neces- 
 sarily connoting a defect* In affirming them of 
 God we must however be on our guard not to apply 
 to Him the limitations encompassing their abstract 
 meaning, in so far as the latter is verified in 
 
236 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 creatures. The expedient open to us in order to 
 guard ourselves against this error is called, 
 
 (3) The way of eminence. We have recourse to 
 this way when we affirm positive attributes of God 
 in such sort as to deny at the same time that the 
 perfection affirmed is limited in Him. Thus we say 
 by way of eminence that God's wisdom, power, 
 goodness, benevolence, are boundless or infinite. 
 
 143. We have also to bear in mind the mutual 
 relations of the attributes among themselves before 
 we can thoroughly grasp the explanation to be given 
 of them. In treating of the Divine simplicity ( 61 
 64 inclus.) we have seen that God is not only physi- 
 cally simple but also metaphysically, which means 
 that no two concepts can be formed of His Essence 
 without the one overlapping the other. Consequently, 
 as the physical simplicity of God forbids us to admit 
 accidental perfections in Him ( 61), the significa- 
 tions of any two Divine attributes must implicitly 
 cover one another. From this it does not, however, 
 follow that the names of different attributes of God 
 convey the same knowledge to our mind. The term, 
 "Divine Mercy," differs explicitly in its meaning 
 from that of " Divine Justice." We say, therefore, 
 that both attributes (and the same holds good of 
 any two Divine attributes taken together), are 
 distinct from one another metaphysically, though 
 they do not combine in metaphysical composition. 
 They express the idea of One Incomprehensible 
 God inadequately under different aspects. For this 
 reason St. Thomas well says that the names of God 
 are not " synonymous." " Though the names given 
 
PROLEGOMENA. 237 
 
 to God signify the same thing, yet they signify it 
 under many different mental aspects, and conse- 
 quently are not synonymous," for " those words are 
 said to be synonymous which signify one and the 
 same thing from the same point of view." l 
 
 144. We now proceed to treat of the Divine 
 attributes in particular, developing more fully what 
 has been established in the first book. 
 
 In the second chapter of that book we proved 
 that there exists a self-existent, intelligent Being, 
 righty called a personal God ; and in the third 
 chapter we demonstrated that unity, simplicity, and 
 infinity are proper to Him. These fundamental 
 truths are the basis upon which our further specula- 
 tions on the Divine attributes must rest. Having 
 established that God is infinitely perfect, we see at 
 once that we are to deny of Him whatever attribute 
 necessarily involves an imperfection, and to affirm 
 whatever attribute can be conceived without conno- 
 tation of a defect. Consequently, the Divine attri- 
 butes are partly negative, partly positive. We shall 
 treat in the three first chapters respectively of God's 
 immutability, eternity, immensity ; in the next three, 
 of His infinite knowledge, His infinitely perfect will, 
 and His infinite power. After this we shall add a 
 special chapter on the metaphysical essence of God. 
 Since the chapters on the knowledge and will of 
 God are of higher importance than the rest, we 
 shall treat of them at greater length. 
 
 1 St. Thomas, Sum. Thcol. i. 13, 4. " Nomina Deo attributa, licet 
 significant unam rem, tamen quia significant earn sub rationibus 
 multis et diversis non sunt synonyma." . . . "Nomina synonyrna 
 dicuntur quae significant unum secundum unam rationum " 
 
CHAPTER L 
 
 THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 
 
 Thesis XXII. The Divine Being is absolutely 
 immutable. 
 
 145. Change is a passing from one state of being 
 to another. If a thing passes from one species 
 to another, it is said to be substantially changed. 
 Thus, according to the scholastic view, oxygen and 
 hydrogen change substantially when transformed 
 into water. Food is changed substantially by 
 assimilation into a living body. If the specific 
 being of the thing is not affected, the change is 
 called accidental. Instances of accidental change 
 are mechanical motion in a body ; in a living being, 
 growth and sensation ; in a human mind, a new set 
 of thoughts and volitions. 
 
 God is not liable to any of these changes. This 
 truth some scholastic authors express by saying 
 that God is physically immutable. They distinguish 
 between physical and moral mutability, understand- 
 ing by the former a liability to change of physical 
 being, by the latter a liability to change of will. 
 Thus men are morally mutable, because they can 
 form new resolutions, and abandon those previously 
 
THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 
 
 adopted. In human beings such a moral change 
 cannot go on without a physical change accom- 
 panying it ; but it is not immediately evident that 
 every moral change of God would also be a physical 
 change. The infinite Being is adequately sufficient 
 to choose and not to choose from eternity, as we 
 have explained in the chapter on creation. Why, 
 then, should He not be able to choose at one time 
 one thing, at another another, without change in 
 His Being ? Why must He be not only physically, 
 but also morally unchangeable ? This question we 
 shall treat of in the chapter on the perfection of 
 God's will. For the present we are only concerned 
 about proving that the Being of God cannot be 
 changed in any way. 
 
 146. In proof of this we appeal first to God's 
 simplicity. 
 
 By every change a thing must either lose or 
 acquire some quality or affection of its being. On 
 the former supposition, it must consist of at least 
 two really distinct realities before it changes ; other- 
 wise it would lose nothing. On the latter, it is 
 composed of at least two distinct realities after the 
 change. In neither case can it be a necessarily 
 simple Being. But, as we have shown (Th. VIII. 
 61, seq.), God is necessarily simple to the exclu- 
 sion of all real and even of all virtual composition.. 
 Consequently He must be absolutely unchangeable. 
 
 The same conclusion may be drawn from the 
 infinite perfection of God. As has been proved 
 above (Th. IX. 65, seq.), God is infinitely 
 perfect. But evidently He could not be so if He 
 
240 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 were liable to any change ; for by this He must 
 either become more or less good. If we take the 
 first alternative, and suppose Him to be bettered 
 by the change, He could not have been infinite 
 before it. The other alternative is still more 
 obviously untenable. If He became less good by 
 the change, His infinity would evidently cease 
 to be. 
 
 147. It is, indeed, very difficult to see how the 
 immutability of God thus proved can be consistent 
 with His supreme freedom of choice, but we shall 
 treat of this subject in the chapter on the Divine 
 will. Here we shall merely call attention to the 
 difficulties which arise from the fact of creation 
 and the revealed mystery of the Incarnation. 
 
 (i) Difficulty. God of His own free choice created 
 the world out of nothing. He was not necessitated 
 to create it, and if He had not done so, He would 
 not be the Creator. Consequently the attribute 
 Creator has been added to His Being. But it could 
 not be added without causing a change. Therefore 
 God has undergone a change. 
 
 Answer. To solve this difficulty, we are to explain 
 what is meant by the statement, God created the world. 
 It means that God by an eternal free decree resolved 
 to produce the world out of nothing, and fixed the 
 moments of its commencement and the term of its 
 duration. He then in harmony with that decree 
 originated it by His infinite power. Both the 
 decree of creation and the power by which it was 
 executed are truly in God, but not as entities really 
 distinct from His Essence. His Essence is infinite, 
 
THE IMMUTABILITY OF GOD. 241 
 
 and in virtue of its infinity is sufficient for forming 
 and executing any decree without internal change. 
 From this it follows that the attribute Creator is not 
 an intrinsic denomination signifying some intrinsic 
 affection or state accruing to the Essence of God, 
 but an extrinsic denomination, signifying the depen- 
 dence of the world on God as regards its origin. 
 
 The same must be said of the attributes, 
 Preserver of all things, Ruler of the universe, and the 
 like. They are extrinsic denominations signifying 
 different respects under which creatures depend 
 upon God's will and power. 
 
 The difficulty, then, is solved by denying the 
 statement that the attribute of Creator has been 
 added to the Being of God. The truth is, that by 
 creation God has produced things outside Himself, 
 and from this production, by which in Himself He 
 is in nothing changed, God is extrinsically denomi- 
 nated the Creator. 
 
 (2) Difficulty. Any difficulty drawn from the 
 mystery of the Incarnation, strictly speaking, has 
 no place in a philosophical treatise. Still it is con- 
 venient to give it a place, as it is one likely to occur 
 to the minds of readers. The Son of God, who is 
 really one Being with the Divine Essence, became 
 Man at a definite moment of time. Since that 
 moment He has had not only a Divine Nature, but 
 also a Human one. But it would seem that the 
 union of a Human Nature with a Divine Person 
 could not be accomplished without a change in 
 the latter. 
 
 The answer to the difficulty is that the infinite 
 
 
242 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 God does not need any self-adaptation for any work 
 which He pleases to perform. Consequently the 
 Son of God needed not to adapt Himself for the 
 assumption of a human nature. Without change of 
 Himself, He was able to assume humanity at any 
 moment, on the supposition that a human nature 
 existed in such a state as to be fit for assumption 
 by the Divine Person. Consequently the mystery 
 of the Incarnation neither denotes nor connotes 
 any change in the Son of God ; but it denotes the 
 creation of a particular human nature supernaturally 
 raised to union with the Second Person of the 
 Blessed Trinity, and it connotes the absence of 
 human personality in that nature, on account of 
 its being taken up into the personality of the Son. 
 It was not, so to speak, the Divinity moving towards 
 the Humanity, but the Humanity moving towards 
 the Divinity. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 
 
 Thesis XXIII. God is eternal in the strict sense oj 
 the word. 
 
 148. The word " eternal " taken in a wider sense 
 signifies endless existence, though that existence 
 may have a beginning, and may run through various 
 successive phases. Thus, the life of men after the 
 day of the general resurrection will be eternal, 
 though not without successive mental acts and 
 bodily movements. It is called eternal simply 
 because it will never cease. 
 
 In its strict sense the word eternity implies an 
 existence which is essentially without beginning and 
 without end, and without any successive phases of 
 being. We beg the reader not to overlook in this 
 definition the word essentially. If we imagine a spirit 
 created by God from eternity, and preserved by His 
 infinite power for ever without any internal change, 
 the existence of such a spirit would be indeed 
 without beginning and end, and without successive 
 phases of being, but it would not be eternal in the 
 strict sense of the word. And why not ? Because 
 the essence of that spirit would have no existence of 
 
2 44 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 itself, but would be indebted for its existence and 
 its boundless duration to the free choice of the 
 omnipotent God. 
 
 From the definition of eternity just given it is 
 evident that the term, if predicable at all in its strict 
 sense, is predicable of God alone. No creature can 
 be essentially without beginning and end and internal 
 succession. Not essentially without beginning, for 
 there is no reason why any creature must be created 
 from eternity. Not essentially without end, for God 
 may withdraw from the creature His preserving 
 power. Not essentially without internal succession, 
 for at least the infinite power of God can cause in it 
 a new phase of existence. 
 
 149. Is then God Himself eternal in the strict 
 sense of the word ? Yes; because as the First Cause, 
 and the only source of all possible being, He must 
 exist with absolute necessity, and therefore can have 
 no beginning. Absolute necessity of existence must 
 be identical with His essence, on account of His 
 simplicity, which we have proved to be not only 
 physical but metaphysical (Th. VIII. 61, seq.); and 
 therefore it is impossible that He should cease to 
 be. His existence is unchangeable (Th. XXII.) ; 
 therefore it cannot contain any different successive 
 phases or modes of being. 
 
 Boethius, who flourished about A.D. 500, in his 
 work, De Consolatione Philosophic?, thus defines 
 eternity: 1 "Eternity is a simultaneously full and 
 perfect possession of interminable life." What in 
 
 1 "^Eternitas est interminabilis vitae tola simul et perfects 
 possessio." (V. Prosa vi.) 
 
THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 245 
 
 our definition was implied by the terms " existence 
 essentially without beginning and without end," is 
 expressed by Boethius more explicitly in the phrase, 
 " possession of interminable life." Indeed, as eternity 
 proper belongs to God alone, it is identified with the 
 highest life conceivable, the self-activity of infinite 
 Intellectual Will. This life is "interminable," or 
 boundless, because it endures of absolute necessity. 
 It is " simultaneously possessed " in its fulness and 
 perfection, because, being infinite, it is neither 
 capable of development nor liable to defect. As it 
 is now, so it has been always in the past, and will 
 be always in the future. Coexisting with all assign- 
 able moments of time, the eternal God is above any 
 of our measures of the contingent duration of created 
 being. In Him, therefore, is neither present, nor 
 past, nor future. As Boethius expresses it, Nunc 
 fluens facit tempus, nunc stans facit aternitatem " The 
 passing now makes time, the standing now makes 
 eternity." 2 In other words, the duration proper to 
 the eternal Being must be conceived as one ever- 
 lasting state, whereas the duration of temporal 
 being is liable to a succession of states really distinct 
 from one another. 
 
 150. Between temporal and eternal duration 
 there is a duration intermediate, which, for the 
 sake of distinction, is called by the scholastics, 
 ceviternal duration, or czvum. It is the duration 
 of created spirits. Both time and czvum are 
 contingent durations, dependent upon the free- 
 will of the one eternal Being. But while time is 
 2 DC Trin. c. iv. 
 
246 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 made up of successive states or phases of being, 
 tevum does not imply any succession. A created 
 spirit may be annihilated, but the specific spiritual 
 being proper to it cannot be changed ; conse- 
 quently there is no succession in it, as regards 
 its substantial perfection. Nevertheless, spirits are 
 not quite above time, or succession of states in their 
 existence ; for, though the specific perfection of 
 their substantial being is unalterable, they can still 
 pass from one thought and volition to another, and 
 the Creator may cause in them now one, now 
 another accidental perfection. Their essential being 
 is above time, but they are liable to accidental modi- 
 fication of temporary duration. The duration, called 
 time, belongs most properly to matter, which changes 
 as well in its substantial as its accidental perfection. 
 
 St. Thomas expresses the difference between time, 
 cevum, and eternity briefly in this way : " Time has 
 an ' earlier ' and a ' later ' ; cvoum has no ' earlier ' 
 and ' later ' in itself, but both can be connected with 
 it ; eternity has neither an ' earlier ' nor a * later,' 
 nor can they be connected with it.'' 3 
 
 In other words : Time is made up of a series of 
 changes in a substantial stratum, or in the accidental 
 state of a complete substance ; JEvum is not itself a 
 series of either substantial or accidental changes, 
 but in the finite incorruptible substance, of which it 
 is the duration, there may be accidental changes ; 
 
 3 "Tempus habet prius et posterius; aevum autem non habet in 
 se prius et posterius, sed ei conjungi possunt ; aeternitas autem non 
 habet prius neque posterius, neque ea compatitur." (St. Thomas, 
 Sum. Theol. la. q. 10. art. 5. in corp.) 
 
THE ETERNITY OF GOD. 247 
 
 Eternity is the duration of a Being above all change, 
 whether substantial or accidental. As the duration 
 called eternity is nothing really distinct from the 
 Eternal God Himself, we are right in saying that all 
 and each of the successive events which happen in 
 this world are coexistent with the whole of eternity 
 considered in itself. But none of them is coexistent 
 with the whole of eternity in so far as eternity is con- 
 sidered in its relation of coexistence with preceding or 
 following events, for the simple reason that each 
 temporary event is a passing reality, whilst eternity 
 is, so to speak, a standing reality, the everlasting 
 Being whose Essence is Existence, abiding always 
 the same with absolute necessity. The works of His 
 hands are the heavens. They shall perish, but He 
 shall continue; and they shall all grow old as a 
 garment, and as a vesture shall He change them, 
 and they shall be changed ; but He is the self-same. 4 
 
 151. Hence we gather the solution of difficulties 
 against the eternity of God, such as the following : 
 
 Two things, the duration of which wholly coin- 
 cides with the whole duration of a third thing, must 
 coexist with one another. But the Deluge and the 
 Franco-German War are two things, the duration of 
 which according to the exposition given, wholly 
 coincide with the whole duration of God. Conse- 
 quently, whilst the Germans were fighting against 
 the French, the earth was covered with the waters 
 of the Deluge. 
 
 This difficulty, though commonly urged, need not 
 detain us long, after the explanations given of the 
 
 4 Cf. Heb. i. 1012. 
 
248 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 strict contents of the meaning of time as distinguished 
 from duration. Both in God and in created things 
 there is duration, for duration in itself is pure 
 perfection. But the Divine duration, since it is a 
 changeless persistency in existence, does not in 
 itself offer any means of distinguishing before and 
 after. When, however, substances are created whose 
 being is liable to successive phases of existence, they, 
 at each period of their existence, coexist with God, 
 they last, whilst the entire being of God is persisting. 
 But this clearly does not cause them all to be con- 
 temporaneous with one another, since although 
 coexisting with the entire being of God, they are 
 not coexistent with the entire duration of God. 
 
 The same difficulty and the same solution will 
 present themselves when we compare the Divine 
 immensity with the localization of bodies. Since 
 God is everywhere, and everywhere whole and entire, 
 wheresoever any extended substance is placed it is 
 in the same place with the whole of God : but it 
 would be absurd to conclude therefore that all 
 bodies are coincident in point of place. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE IMMENSITY OF GOD. 
 
 Thesis XXIV. God is immense. 
 
 152. The word " immense," explained according 
 to its etymology, signifies a state of things not 
 capable of measurement, or of reference to another 
 thing taken as a rule or standard. Things of this 
 world are measured chiefly under one of three 
 aspects, either according to their extension in space, 
 called simply extension ; or according to their exten- 
 sion in time, called duration ; or according to their 
 extension in being, called perfection. Under none of 
 these aspects is God measurable. In so far as no 
 created perfection can be applied as a measure to His 
 infinite perfection, we call Him infinite; in so far as 
 His duration is beyond the measure of any created 
 duration, we call Him eternal; and in so far as He 
 is so present to all things in space, that His presence 
 cannot be measured either by parts of space or by 
 the whole of it, we assign to Him the attribute of 
 immensity. 
 
 In virtue then of this perfection God exists 
 everywhere in space, without consisting of parts 
 corresponding to parts of space, and without being 
 
THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES, 
 
 limited to any extension of space. To understand 
 more fully what this means, the reader must bear 
 in mind what space properly is, and in what different 
 ways things can be conceived to exist in space. 
 
 As time is not a particular enduring reality 
 existing in itself, but an object of thought, which is 
 formed by collecting mentally and reckoning together 
 the successive states of changeable things ; so 
 space is not a thing having its own individual being 
 different from the corporeal beings which are said 
 to exist in it, but it is an object of thought, formed 
 by thinking about the extension of bodies under a 
 peculiar aspect, namely, by thinking of the relation 
 of distance between their surfaces, which distance 
 involves three dimensions, and may therefore be 
 called volume. Representing to ourselves the 
 volume between the surfaces of one or several 
 particular bodies, we form the idea of a space, or 
 place within the world ; and thinking of the volume 
 between the extreme surfaces of the whole material 
 world, we conceive the whole of actual space. 
 Space, therefore, is only actual in so far as extended 
 bodies exist. 
 
 Beyond the corporeal world there is, however, 
 infinite possible space, inasmuch as by the power 
 of God the extension of the world can become 
 larger, and exceed any assignable limit. 
 
 The whole of actual space coincides with the 
 whole of the corporeal world, considered as included 
 within the extreme surfaces of the extreme bodies. 
 Each particular body has its own particular space, 
 which means that it is extended according to three 
 
THE IMMENSITY OF GOD. 251 
 
 dimensions between the surfaces surrounding it. 
 In so far as it is included in its own surfaces it is 
 sometimes said to have an internal space or place ; 
 whilst the surfaces of other bodies surrounding it 
 are called its external space or place. 
 
 153. We have next to consider and discriminate 
 the way in which things can exist in space. A thing 
 is said by the scholastics to exist circumscriptively 
 in space, if it be divisible into parts corresponding 
 to the parts of the surfaces surrounding it. As 
 only bodies are thus divisible, they alone can exist 
 in space circumscriptively. 1 
 
 A thing is said to exist in space definitely, if its 
 presence be limited to a certain part of space, and 
 its whole substance be everywhere within the bounds 
 of that part of space. Thus the human soul is said 
 to exist definitely in the body, because its existence 
 is conterminous with the body in such a way, that 
 its whole substance exists whole in the whole body 
 and whole in every part of it, 2 and on the other 
 hand is found nowhere outside of the body. A 
 thing which exists in space circumscriptively is said 
 to be formally extended. The definite existence of 
 an indivisible substance in space is called virtual 
 extension. 
 
 By the immensity of God we understand a mode 
 of existence in corporeal things or space, which is 
 neither circumscriptive nor definite. It is not 
 circumscriptive, because in God there are no parts 
 
 1 St. Thomas is wont to speak of this circumscriptive existence 
 in space as esse in loco. 
 
 2 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. 76. art. 8. 
 
252 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 assignable corresponding to the parts of space. 
 And it is not definite, because there is no space real 
 or possible where He does not exist in His entirety, 
 or in other words, because no limit of possible 
 space can be given beyond which He would not be 
 present to created things, if the world were extended 
 thus far by His power. 
 
 154. Is then the way of existence we are speaking 
 of really proper to God ? That He must exist without 
 having parts corresponding to the parts of space, 
 is evident from His simplicity. But how shall we 
 prove that His essence must extend its presence to 
 every possible space that may be created, and is 
 not confined to any fixed limits of corporeal magni- 
 tude ? 
 
 For our first argument again as ever we may 
 appeal to the infinity of God. On account of this 
 attribute we have to predicate of Him whatever 
 perfection can be conceived without connotation of 
 defect. But the perfection of being indivisibly and 
 unlimitedly present to any possible created being, 
 and of surpassing by an extension which we may 
 call infinitely virtual, the formal extension of every 
 conceivable corporeal magnitude is evidently a per- 
 fection without defect. Consequently it is in God, 
 that is to say, He is immense. 
 
 A slightly different way of arriving at the same 
 conclusion is opened by the consideration that the 
 creative power of God is infinite. God can create 
 any number of worlds outside the present, and God 
 alone can do it. If, therefore, He will create them, 
 He must create them by the immediate application 
 
THE IMMENSITY OF GOD. 253 
 
 of His own power. 3 Now it is inconceivable that 
 any efficient cause should immediately apply its 
 power there, where it is not by its substance. Con- 
 sequently the Divine substance is such that it would 
 be present to any possible world supposing that 
 world to start into existence. This presence would 
 not be anything new in God : or He would not be 
 immutable. Therefore we must say that the Divine 
 substance has an existence eminently equivalent to 
 any possible extension whatever of corporeal worlds, 
 i.e., that God is really immense. 4 
 
 It is gratifying to see this great truth accurately 
 stated by Newton in Scholion Generate, added to the 
 third book of his Principia, where he says : " God 
 is present everywhere, not only by His power, but 
 also by His substance ; for power cannot subsist 
 without substance." 5 
 
 155. To express more fully how God is in all His 
 creatures, scholastic philosophers are wont to say 
 that He is in each of them " by essence, presence, 
 and power." St. Thomas 6 illustrates the meaning 
 of this phrase by some instances taken from human 
 life. "A king is said to be in his whole kingdom 
 by his power, though he is not present everywhere. 
 A thing is said to be by its presence in all things 
 which are in view of it, as all things that are 
 exposed in a room are present to a visitor, who 
 nevertheless is not in substance in every part of 
 
 Cf. Bk. I. c. iv. Th. XVI. 90. 
 
 4 St. Thomas, Sum. TheoL la. q. 8. art. i. 
 
 5 " Deus omnipraesens est non per virtutem solam sed etiam per 
 substantiam ; nam virtus sine substantia subsistere nequit." 
 
 St. Thomas, Sum. TheoL la. q. 8. art. 3. in corp. 
 
254 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 the room. Finally, a thing is said to be according 
 to its substance or essence in that place in which its 
 substance actually is to be found." 
 
 St. Thomas proceeds to apply this doctrine to 
 three forms of error not at all too antiquated to 
 deserve mention in our day. The first found an 
 eloquent advocate in John Stuart Mill, 7 the second 
 was partly at least adopted by some of the deists 
 of last century; 8 and the third is, to say the least, 
 not opposed with enough decision by some Christian 
 authors who have written on the subject. 9 
 
 These are St. Thomas's explanations : " There 
 have been some, to wit, the Manicheans, who 
 have said that spiritual and incorporeal things 
 were subject to the Divine power, but visible and 
 corporeal things to the power of a contrary principle. 
 Against these then we must say that God is in all 
 things by His power. 
 
 " There were others who believed indeed that all 
 things were subject to the Divine power; yet did 
 not extend Divine Providence to the things here 
 below. Their mind is well expressed in the words 
 of Scripture : ' He walks about the poles of Heaven 
 and does not consider our things.' 10 Against these 
 we must say that God is in all things by His 
 presence. Again, there were others who granted 
 
 7 Essays on Religion, p. 116. 
 
 8 Thomas Chubb (1679 1747) taught that since creation God 
 has never acted immediately upon His creatures, and does not 
 care whether man lives well or badly. Viscount Bolingbroke 
 (1672 1751) held that God did not care for men as individuals. 
 
 9 Crombie, Natural Theology, i. p. 64, disapproves of Newton's 
 saying that God is everywhere by His substance. 
 
 10 Job xxii. 14. 
 
THE IMMENSITY OF GOD. 255 
 
 that in some way all things are under the sway of 
 Divine Providence, but at the same time made 
 the assertion that not all things were immediately 
 created by God. According to them He created 
 immediately only the first creatures, and these 
 created the rest. Against them we must maintain 
 that God is everywhere by His essence. 
 
 "Thus then He is in all things by His power, 
 in that all depend upon Him, and by His presence, 
 inasmuch as all things are ' naked and open to 
 His eyes;' 11 He is in all by His essence, because 
 He is with all as the cause of their existence." 
 
 In order to prevent any misunderstanding of the 
 phrase, " God is in creatures by His essence," 
 St. Thomas presently remarks that it does not 
 mean that His essence is an ingredient of created 
 essences, but only that His substance is with them 
 all as the cause of their existence. 
 
 And, in the same place, he tells us that the 
 being of God in creatures by His essence signifies 
 a closer proximity than His being in them by His 
 presence. It signifies His being, not at a distance 
 from His creatures, as one who sees them from 
 afar, but at their side, sustaining them by His power. 
 Or, to quote the words of the Saint : " God is in all 
 things so as to surround them on all sides with His 
 Being;" 12 and, "Nothing is distant from God, as 
 though He had it not in Himself." 13 
 
 11 Cf. Hebrews iv. 13. 
 
 12 "Deus est in rebus sicut continens res." (St. Thomas, Sum. 
 Theol. la. q. 8. art. i. ad 2.) 
 
 18 " Nihil est distans ab eo quasi in se illud Deus non habeat." 
 (Ibid, ad 3.) 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 
 
 156. THE Divine attributes of which we have thus 
 far treated do not explicitly suggest to us anything 
 about the action of God. We come now to others 
 which represent Him in His Divine activity. 
 
 The first of them is the Wisdom of God, which 
 we shall consider under five sections. 
 
 (1) The perfection of the Divine Intellect con- 
 trasted with the defects of the human. 
 
 (2) The knowledge of God completely determined 
 by His Essence. 
 
 (3) The objects of Divine Thought. 
 
 (4) The way in which God knows the free act* 
 of rational creatures. 
 
 (5) The knowledge of God distinguished accord 
 ing to the diversity of its objects. 
 
 SECTION I. The perfection of the Divine Intellect contrasted 
 with the defects of the human. 
 
 Thesis XXV. The knowledge of God is not capable 
 of progressive improvement; but whatever a human 
 intellect can understand by compounding together different 
 ideas in affirmative and negative judgments and by the 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 257 
 
 processes of inductive or deductive reasoning, is grasped 
 " eminently " and with absolute perfection by one simple 
 
 unchangeable act of the Divine Intellect. 
 
 157. This proposition, being intimately connected 
 with the doctrine of the intellectual nature and 
 infinite perfection of God as proved in the First 
 Book, needs rather explanation than demonstration. 
 
 We say, then, first that there is no progressive 
 development about the Divine knowledge, no gradual 
 growth of information. The various things of this 
 world which fall under the experience of a child, 
 are in the beginning represented by his mind under 
 very general and confused ideas. Only in the course 
 of time does he become aware of their particular 
 properties, and is able to form judgments affirmative 
 or negative concerning them. Years pass by before 
 he properly begins to reason, whether by the ascent 
 of induction from particular facts to general prin- 
 ciples, or by the descent of deduction applying 
 universal truths to individual cases. What the 
 reader has here to notice is that this method of 
 procedure involves the multiplication of ideas in 
 the human mind. Ideas are formed in vast numbers 
 of the various objects of consideration. Judgments, 
 another kind of idea, and reasonings, which are 
 still another kind, have to be formed in vast numbers 
 so as to arrange and classify these innumerable 
 ideas according to the exigencies of the objective 
 order. Yet to the end man remains ignorant of the 
 greater portion even of those truths which are 
 accessible to human understanding. The more facts 
 
258 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 he tries to master, the less attention can he devote 
 to each. If we consider even the whole treasure 
 of human knowledge, stored up through countless 
 generations, by multitudinous mental acts of innu- 
 merable men, how imperfect is it all! How are 
 the greatest geniuses baffled by unsolved problems ! 
 How many centuries shall mankind still wait for 
 philosophy and science to be complete? But in 
 vain do we wait for such a consummation. The 
 human mind is unable to acquire a comprehensive 
 knowledge of even one of the innumerable species 
 of creatures that surround us. And as regards 
 spiritual things, man left to his natural faculties 
 will never proceed beyond an analogous conception 
 of their nature. 1 
 
 With the Divine mind there is none of all these 
 shortcomings. The Divine knowledge is infinitely 
 perfect in its embrace of every conceivable object 
 of thought, and it is infinitely perfect from the first, 
 or rather from eternity. And this infinite perfection 
 of knowledge is attained not by any succession of 
 ideas, not by any compounding of predicates with 
 subjects, nor again by any passage from premisses 
 to conclusions. It is attained by one all-embracing 
 act of intuition. And this one act what else 
 can it be but the Divine Essence itself? If 
 it were anything really distinct from it, God's 
 essence would neither be simple, nor infinite, nor 
 immutable nor eternal, as we have proved it to be. 
 We must then conclude with St. Thomas, " It must 
 be affirmed that God's knowledge is His sub- 
 
 1 St. Thomas. Sum Thsol. la. q. 88. art. j. 2. 3. 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 259 
 
 stance." 2 He, the infinite Being, is unchangeable, 
 infinite, actual Thought. 
 
 SECTION 2. God's Knowledge completely determined ly His 
 Essence. 
 
 Thesis XXVI. The Divine Mind does not need 
 any determination from without to enable it to know all 
 truth. God's mere Essence is determination sufficient 
 for Him to comprehend whatever there is to know. Hence 
 His Essence is the "species intelligibilis " by which He 
 understands all things different from Himself as well 
 in general as in particular. 
 
 158. The mind of man is in communication with 
 that which it knows ; nay, it possesses it in a certain 
 way within itself. This truth is implied by the 
 terminology of common language, as when people 
 say: "I have grasped it; I comprehend it," in 
 order to signify that they have understood some- 
 thing. As often as the object understood is not one 
 and the same with the mind by which it is under- 
 stood, the union between the two cannot be such 
 that the actual reality of the thing known shall be 
 in the knowing mind, but a representation only will 
 be present there. This representation is a certain 
 property or quality in the mind, in virtue of which 
 it is determined to know a certain object. 
 
 Intelligible species is the name by which scholastic 
 philosophers call this mental representation, whereby 
 the human mind is determined to grasp and under- 
 
 9 " Est necesse dicere quod intelligere Dei est ejus substantia ' 
 (St. Thomas. Sum. Theol. la. 14. 4. c.) 
 
260 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 stand the object. As is explained in the Psychology 
 of this series, there is a special spiritual power of 
 the human soul called by scholastics intellectus agens. 
 By this are formed the intelligible species that afford 
 a direct mental intuition of material things, after 
 they have been perceived by sense. Before sense- 
 perception and the action of the intellectus agens 
 following it, the human understanding is quasi tabula 
 rasa, a blank tablet on which nothing has as yet 
 been written. Stimulated by sensitive representa- 
 tions, the soul may form intelligible species of 
 countless material objects, and ascend by steps from 
 the cognition of things sensible to that of things 
 spiritual; but considered in its essence alone, the 
 soul is not determined and adapted to the know- 
 ledge of anything whatsoever. It needs intelligible 
 species. 
 
 159. Now the question arises, Is there in God 
 anything corresponding to the " intelligible species " 
 determining the Divine mind to the possession of 
 an intellectual representation of the object : and if 
 so, how are we to explain it ? Some among the 
 scholastic philosophers were inclined to believe that 
 the term in question is not predicable of God in 
 its proper sense. St. Thomas, however, and others 
 are of a contrary opinion ; and we go with them. 
 It is true that in the concrete an intelligible species 
 of the human mind is not a pure perfection, but has 
 a very limited and imperfect being. Yet this does 
 not prevent us from affirming it of God, if only in 
 the abstract it can be conceived without connotation 
 of defect. And it can be so conceived by fixing our 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. *6l 
 
 attention on this feature alone, that an intelligible 
 species is a perfection by which the mind is adapted 
 to know something different from its own being. 
 Doing so, we conceive neither beginning nor multi- 
 plicity, nor change, nor limitation, and thus do not 
 connote any defect mixed up with its perfection. At 
 the same time the perfection thus conceived is not 
 denoted by any other term accurately except " intel- 
 ligible species " or its synonyms. Consequently we 
 must predicate this term in its proper meaning 
 of God. Let us now hear what St. Thomas 
 has to say on this subject. 3 " As God can have 
 no potentiality for further perfection, but is pure 
 actuality, there cannot be in Him any difference 
 between intellect and intellectual representation. 
 Consequently He is neither without an intelligible 
 species, as our intellect, before it understands 
 something actually; nor is His intelligible species 
 different from the substance of the Divine Intellect, 
 as is the case with our intellect when it has actual 
 understanding. On the contrary, the intelligible 
 species (of God) is the Divine Intellect itself." 
 This comes to the same thing as saying that the 
 Essence of God is the intelligible species of His 
 Intellect ; for we have seen in the preceding thesis 
 
 8 "Cum igitur Deus nihil potentialitatis habeat, sed sit actus 
 purus, oportet quod in eo intellectus et intellectum sint idem 
 omnibus modis; ita scilicet ut neque careat specie intelligibili, 
 sicut intellectus noster cum intelligit in potentia; neque species 
 intelligibilis sit aliud a substantia intellectus divini, sicut accidit in 
 intellectu nostro, cum est actu intelligens ; sed ipsa species intelli- 
 gibilis est ipse intellectus divinus." (St. Thomas, Sum.Theol. la.q. 14. 
 art. 2. in corp.) 
 
262 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 that His Essence is His Intellect. Let us set 
 forth the same truth in other words, so far forth 
 as it applies to the knowledge God has of the 
 actual world. Since all things else save God are 
 so many adumbrations of Himself which He has 
 called into existence, His Essence bears to each 
 and all of them the character of a pattern in which 
 whatever perfection they have has its archetype 
 and its perfect representation. He needs, therefore, 
 no other determination by which to know them 
 adequately. To compare great things with small, 
 He beholds them all adequately in His Essence 
 as the architect beholds the building he has set up 
 in the plan which he has in his own mind and 
 which he has faithfully copied. The Divine Essence 
 exceeds indeed all creatures infinitely by its own 
 Infinite Being; nevertheless, it expresses all and 
 each of them distinctly, in so far as its Infinite 
 Being is identical with Infinite Thought, and God's 
 creative power realizes accurately His conceptions 
 of creatures chosen for creation. 
 
 SECTION 3. The objects of Divine Thought. 
 
 Thesis XXVII. God has not only a comprehensive 
 knowledge of Himself and of the essence of each possible 
 thing and each possible event; but He sees also from 
 eternity all His creatures, before they exist, knowing 
 adequately whatever is knowable about their existence 
 and activity, so much so that He foreknows distinctly 
 all future free acts of His rational creatures, even those 
 which are only conditionally future. 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 263 
 
 160. The general reason why God must know 
 all things knowable is again the truth repeatedly 
 mentioned in the two preceding sections, that His 
 Intellect is infinitely perfect. This reason alone 
 suffices to convince us that He knows with absolute 
 perfection all those things which are at least imper- 
 fectly knowable to us. But in order to show how it 
 follows that He knows things of which we know 
 nothing, some further explanations are wanting ; for 
 it must be shown that there do exist objective truths 
 perfectly hidden from created intellect, which are evident 
 to the uncreated mind. Thus it appears that the 
 proof of the subjective infinity of the Divine Intel- 
 lect given above, does not supersede a detailed 
 exposition of the objects of His knowledge. Even 
 as regards those truths, the Divine knowledge of 
 which can be inferred from human knowledge, it is 
 not superfluous to explain carefully their relation 
 to the mind of God. The effect of this explana- 
 tion will be that we shall be struck more forcibly 
 by the infinite wisdom of our Creator, and filled 
 with deeper admiration of His Majesty. At the 
 same time it will enable us to solve more clearly 
 the difficulties raised against the knowledge of 
 God. 
 
 161. First, then, we affirm that God knows Him- 
 self by a comprehensive knowledge, that is to say, by 
 a knowledge which comprises absolutely every point 
 knowable about Him, whether as He is in Himself 
 or as He is in relation to other things. This much 
 will hardly be disputed. The Divine intellect must 
 evidently know with comprehensive knowledge what- 
 
THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 ever object of knowledge is intimately present to it. 
 But the Divine Essence is intimately present to the 
 Divine intellect so much so that it is even identical 
 with it. 
 
 Now every finite perfection possible and actual 
 pre-exists eminently in God ; so that when anything 
 comes to be created, its actually existing essence is 
 necessarily an imperfect imitation of the infinite 
 Essence of God. Consequently the Essence of God 
 is necessarily imitable by creatures, though its actual 
 imitations are due to the free act of Divine creation. 
 This being so, God in comprehending Himself must 
 know all the different ways in which His Being is 
 susceptible of imperfect imitation by finite beings. 
 Such a knowledge involves an actual comprehension 
 of the essences of all possible creatures, with all the 
 perfections they may acquire, and all the defects 
 and privations conceivable in them. Consequently 
 it implies a knowledge of their faculties, their possible 
 acts, their relations to one another and to their 
 Creator, and all manner of combinations, states, 
 and alterations incident to them. Briefly, God 
 seeing Himself has an adequate, knowledge of all 
 possible creatures and of all possible events. With 
 one act of comprehensive intelligence He so repre- 
 sents the whole of them that each is known to Him 
 fully and distinctly. Consequently, whatever God 
 now knows as actual for any given period of time, 
 He would know it as distinctly as He knows it now, 
 even if He had never created. The difference would 
 be that then He would judge the same things to be 
 not actual which now He judges to be actual, and 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 265 
 
 thus distinguishes from the indefinite multitude of 
 purely possible things and events. Indeed that He 
 cannot fail to make this distinction is readily under- 
 stood, if we consider the dependence of all creatures 
 and all the incidents of created existence upon the 
 decrees and power of the Creator. Whatever exists 
 and whatever happens cannot exist or happen, unless 
 God has decreed that it should exist or happen, or, 
 as regards moral evil, that He would not prevent 
 its existing or happening. 
 
 As we shall prove later on, God does not form 
 new decrees in the course of time, but His decrees 
 are eternal, and are now what they were from 
 eternity. Consequently from eternity He foresaw 
 whatever actually exists or happens in the course 
 of time. Otherwise how could He have decreed it? 
 Therefore all actual creatures past, present, and 
 future, all their actions and all circumstances of 
 their existence, were present to the mind of God 
 from eternity. He foreknew them all without any 
 exception, even the free actions of His rational 
 creatures. 
 
 162. To prove this still better we will abstract 
 here from the immutability of the Divine decrees. We 
 will also distinguish the existence of creatures and 
 events, according as they are independent of or in 
 any way dependent upon free choice on the part of 
 men. 
 
 As regards the former, the perfect knowledge of 
 them is included in the comprehensive cognition 
 which God has of Himself and all possible things. 
 Knowing Himself and all possible things, He knows 
 
266 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 which of these according to His will must become 
 actual, and what facts will be necessarily connected 
 with their creation. Thus He knows the history 
 of His creatures, so far as it depends upon His 
 decrees and His creative power alone. 
 
 Of His knowledge of the rest of their history, 
 there can be no doubt, if only we are able to 
 demonstrate that He foresees the free volitions of 
 His rational creatures. Everything except free 
 volitions runs its course according to certain laws 
 pre-established by God. The efficacy of created 
 freedom with regard to these laws does not extend 
 beyond initiating by free choice either of two alter- 
 natives. The natural consequences of the alternative 
 thus initiated are to be set down to the freedom of 
 the creature only inasmuch as they were implicitly 
 contained in the act of choice. If a man yields to 
 a propensity for liquor and becomes a drunkard, the 
 consequences which drunkenness carries with it for 
 his health, his mental faculties, his fortune, his good 
 name, and the future of his offspring, c., are not 
 controllable by his free-will. He is, however, answer- 
 able for them, not because they are wished by him, 
 but because he did not prevent the cause by which 
 they are produced, when he was free and obliged 
 to prevent it. Let us take another instance. A 
 sinner who feels moved by the inspiration of Divine 
 grace to blot out his sins by due penance, is free 
 to follow the lead of grace or to neglect it. On 
 the supposition that he follows it, he will receive 
 a full pardon for his sins, according to a law of the 
 supernatural order pre-established by God ; if he 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 367 
 
 resists grace up to his death, he will die in his sin, 
 and according to another supernatural law never 
 reach his last end. 
 
 These explanations presupposed, it is evident 
 that an eternal knowledge of all free volitions of 
 rational creatures would enable God to foresee 
 everything from eternity. No one can deny that 
 God has a knowledge of free volitions, at least at 
 the time when they are actually elicited. Such a 
 denial would be an impugning of the Divine intellect, 
 representing it as falling short of understanding all 
 objective truth, that is to say, as being limited. 
 God therefore, whose intellect has no limits, compre- 
 hends all volitions elicited by His creatures at the 
 moment when they are elicited. But if He knows 
 them, each in its turn, when they become actual, 
 He must have known them from all eternity ; other- 
 wise His knowledge would have grown, He would 
 have learned something which He did not know 
 before, an hypothesis manifestly incompatible with 
 His infinite intellect. It follows, then, that He fore- 
 knows from eternity whatever happens in the course 
 of time, even the free actions of His rational 
 creatures. 
 
 163. But how shall we prove that God must know 
 from eternity what a free creature would do, if it 
 were placed in this or that situation, in which it 
 really never will be placed ? How could He fore- 
 know from eternity that the inhabitants of Tyre and 
 Sidon would have done penance, if amongst them 
 Christ had wrought those miracles against which 
 the citizens of Capharnaum, of Corozain, and Beth- 
 
268 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 saida hardened their hearts ? * How could He fore- 
 know the detailed course of action which Napoleon 
 III. would have taken, if he had conquered the 
 Germans at Sedan, and made the German monarch 
 his prisoner ? 
 
 Without entering upon the " How " which in this 
 as in many other cases is an insoluble mystery to us, 
 we can prove evidently that the knowledge of God 
 must extend even to those hypothetical cases. 
 
 God certainly knows the possible lines of action 
 open to a free creature, who finds himself with the 
 full use of his freedom in a certain situation, in 
 which he is able to attend to and consequently to 
 choose, among a limited number of possible alterna- 
 tives. Of each of these possible ways of action open 
 to the person so circumstanced, two propositions 
 can be formed, contradictorily opposed to each 
 other. A type of the one is this : Put in the situation 
 C, Peter will choose the alternative A. A type of the 
 other is this : Put in the situation C, Peter will not 
 choose the alternative A. Every one knows from his 
 own experience how limited is the number of alterna- 
 tives to which he really can attend under given 
 circumstances, and which really move him, although 
 they do not force him. We grant much, if we say 
 that sometimes ten alternatives together may be 
 open to a man. But whether it be ten or any other 
 number n, of each there can be formed two propo- 
 sitions of the type given above. If we have, then, 
 n alternatives, we get n pairs of propositions contra- 
 dictorily opposed to each other. In every pair there 
 
 4 Cf. St. Matt. xi. 2023. 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 269 
 
 must be a true and a false proposition ; for we know 
 from Logic that two propositions contradictorily 
 opposed to each other, never can be both true or 
 both false, but one must be true, the other false. 
 But God, from whom no objective truth can be 
 hidden, must know which is the true one and 
 which the false one. Knowing this, He knows 
 thereby the course which any free creature really 
 would take under any given condition. 
 
 The belief in this truth is beautifully expressed in 
 the Collect which the Catholic Church makes use of 
 on the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost : " O God, 
 whose Providence in its arrangements is never 
 deceived, we humbly ask of Thee to take away 
 all hurtful things, and to grant whatever will 
 be useful for us." 5 Every Christian knows that 
 "hurtful" and "useful" in the language of the 
 Church, are spoken of with reference to our last 
 end, our future beatitude. Now, whether in view of 
 this any set of circumstances, in which we may be 
 put, will prove hurtful or useful, depends, under 
 Divine grace, upon the use of our own freedom. If, 
 then, the Church beseeches God to take away all 
 hurtful things and to grant whatever will be useful 
 to us, she evidently supposes that He knows under 
 what conditions we shall make a good or excellent 
 use of our freedom, and under what others we shall 
 use it less well, or even abuse the same to our ruin. 
 We must now answer one or two objections. 
 
 6 " Deus, cujus providentia in sui dispositione non fallitur: to 
 supplices exoramus, ut noxia cuncta submoveas et omnia nobis 
 profutura concedas." 
 
270 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 164. (i) Mr. Herbert Spencer says in his Principles 
 of Psychology : 6 " A thing cannot at the same time be 
 both subject and object of thought." But evidently 
 on the supposition that God comprehends Himself, 
 He is at the same time both subject and object of 
 thought. Consequently, in attributing to God a 
 comprehensive self-consciousness, we have put our- 
 selves in opposition to the conclusions of psycho- 
 logical science. 
 
 Answer. We have had already occasion to make 
 some reference to this author. That the subject 
 and object of thought cannot be identical, is a 
 proposition which Mr. Spencer does not support 
 by any argument, nor can any be given unless we 
 admit the materialistic hypothesis and reduce all 
 activity to the pulling and pushing of material 
 particles. On the other hand, Mr. Spencer's 
 assertion is in glaring contradiction to the evidence 
 of consciousness, and incompatible with moral 
 freedom. Who doubts that at the moment when 
 he has knowledge of anything he knows himself 
 to be knowing ? Were it otherwise, how could he 
 know afterwards that he knew the thing before, 
 though meanwhile he may have forgotten it ? 
 Again, how can I be morally free and answerable 
 for my actions, unless at the moment when an 
 eligible object is presented to my intellect, my 
 conscience tells me whether I am right or wrong 
 in choosing it ? Yet if my conscience tells me 
 this at the moment, it follows that I myself am at 
 the same time subject and object of my thought. 
 
 8 Principles of Psychology, i. p. 148. 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 
 
 We must then dismiss as false this piece of 
 Spencdrian psychology even in its application to the 
 human soul. Much less can it be admitted in regard 
 to God, who comprises eminently in the simplicity 
 of His Essence whatever is conceivable as an intel- 
 lectual perfection, not however possessing it by any 
 act really distinct from His Essence. 
 
 165. (2) We have stated that God sees all possible 
 things by comprehending His Essence as imitable. 
 But among other possible things evils are to be 
 found, and accordingly we are compelled in con- 
 sistency to affirm that God knows evil as well as 
 good, inasmuch as He comprehends the imitability 
 of His Essence. This, however, seems to involve 
 us in the Hegelian absurdity of supposing the 
 Infinite to contain in itself everything, evil not 
 excepted. 
 
 Answer. This objection rests upon the wrong 
 supposition that evil is a thing existing in itself, 
 and consequently knowable in itself. The truth is 
 that evil consists in the absence of some perfection 
 due to a substance. The want of a physical perfec- 
 tion which the nature of the substance concerned 
 requires is a physical evil ; and the want of moral 
 rectitude in the will of a rational creature is a 
 moral evil. Neither physical nor moral evil can 
 be in God. Nevertheless God knows all possible 
 physical and moral evils by knowing, in virtue of 
 the comprehension of His own Essence, all possible 
 finite essences. For the perfect knowledge of these 
 involves a knowledge of all their natural require- 
 ments. and so far as rational creatures are con 
 
THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 cerned, their moral obligations. It involves also an 
 adequate knowledge of all possible actions of free 
 creatures, and of the relation of those actions to 
 the requirements of their nature, physical and 
 moral. Consequently it carries with it a compre- 
 hensive understanding of all the ways in which the 
 activity of creatures can come into collision either 
 with the integrity of their own natural being or that 
 of their fellow-creatures. Thus all possible physical 
 evils are known. And inasmuch as an adequate 
 knowledge of all possible rational creatures, of their 
 faculties and of the relation of those faculties to 
 their last end, is inconceivable without an insight 
 into all the possible abuses of their free-will, by 
 which they can miss the narrow path of duty, God 
 cannot fail to know all those possible abuses : which 
 is equivalent to His knowing all possible moral 
 evils. 
 
 166. (3) Against the foreknowledge which God 
 has of our free actions, there is the obvious difficulty 
 which has been raised repeatedly in various forms. If 
 God foreknows from eternity what men deliberately 
 are doing now and will do in future, their actions 
 must necessarily be in harmony with the cognition 
 that God has of them. If men could act otherwise 
 than as God foresees, they would be able to make 
 the infallible knowledge of God fallible, which is 
 absurd. They act therefore of necessity as God has 
 foreseen that they will act. But actions which of 
 necessity agree with the judgment God has formed 
 of them from eternity, cannot be free actions. Con- 
 sequently, admitting Divine prescience of free human 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 373 
 
 actions, we must deny the freedom of the human 
 will. 
 
 Answer. The apparent strength of this difficulty 
 gives way as soon as a distinction is made between 
 the necessity of affirming an action as future, and 
 the necessity of affirming the same action, not only 
 as future, but also as necessary. He who admits 
 that God foreknows the future actions of men is 
 logically compelled to allow that these actions will 
 certainly take place, but Logic by no means con- 
 strains him to affirm that they will be performed as 
 necessary and not as free actions. The foreknow- 
 ledge of God is a truth from which we must logically 
 infer that the event foreseen by Him will happen 
 precisely as He has foreseen it. But does it follow 
 that He cannot foresee events, unless they are the 
 outcome of natural necessity and not of free choice ? 
 True, if God's foresight did not reach farther than 
 to the causes of free actions, and consequently could 
 foresee them only by comprehending the nature of 
 His free creatures and all the impelling motives 
 which precede their resolutions, He never could be 
 absolutely and adequately certain about their par- 
 ticular free acts. Whatever object may be put before 
 a rational creature that enjoys the full use of its 
 faculties, it remains at liberty to choose or not to 
 choose until the choice is made. However, the know- 
 ledge of the Infinite Mind extends beyond causes; 
 it has a direct vision also of actions and effects ; 
 it expresses all objective truth to whatever time it 
 may belong. Of the two propositions, "The free 
 creature A under the circumstance B, in which the 
 S 
 
274 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 action C will be possible to it, will, by the exercise 
 of its freedom, perform this action," and again, 
 "The free creature A under the circumstance B, in 
 which the action C will be possible to it, will, by the 
 exercise of its freedom, not perform this action," the 
 one must be necessarily true, the other necessarily 
 false. That which expresses really what A, under 
 the circumstance JB, will do as regards the action C, 
 is formally true, because it is really the expression 
 of an objective future fact. Consequently the Infinite 
 Intellect of God must represent it as future. More- 
 over, that proposition, inasmuch as ex hypothesi it 
 is the enunciation of a choice both really future 
 and really free, expresses a fact which is out of 
 all necessary connection with any preceding fact. 
 Therefore God knows it as it is, out of any such 
 necessary connection. His knowing it as it will 
 happen before it actually happens does not change 
 the nature of the fact itself. 
 
 God necessarily foresees from eternity what men 
 will do in the course of time, but His foresight does 
 not force them to act the one way or the other. If 
 the drunkard had chosen otherwise, God, without 
 any change in Himself, would have seen a free act 
 of abstinence where He now sees a free act of 
 intemperance. Nevertheless, if the creature chooses 
 now, for instance, to write rather than to read, God 
 has foreseen this choice from eternity, because He 
 represents objective truth as it is or will be under 
 any given circumstance. 
 
 Tourists who are walking through an Alpine 
 valley may be seen easily by one who is at the top 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 275 
 
 of a mountain bordering on it. Whilst they are 
 walking there, it cannot be true that they are not 
 doing so, though it depends upon their free choice 
 to walk or not to walk. Consequently their passing 
 by cannot be hidden from the spectator within the 
 range of whose eyesight they are coming. And if 
 he were able to see with his eyes future events as 
 clearly as he can see those that happen at a short 
 distance, he would see the excursionists coming 
 before they were actually on the way. Yet his 
 foresight would not be the reason of their coming ; 
 it would be nothing but an anticipated announce- 
 ment of a future event. 
 
 In a similar way God looks, as it were, from the 
 summit of His Eternity down upon the course of 
 future times, and sees the free actions of His 
 rational creatures. Their future resolutions are 
 expressed by His infinite mind exactly as they will 
 come about ; consequently, not as natural con- 
 sequences of habitual or actual impulses, but as 
 self-determinations, as events which will come to 
 pass at the bidding of rational creatures, making 
 use of that power of accepting or rejecting any 
 particular good which He Himself will grant them. 
 This is well expressed by St. Thomas : " God is 
 altogether outside the order of time. He is stand- 
 ing, as it were, upon the high citadel of unalterable 
 eternity. Before Him is spread out the whole 
 course of time, which He takes in by one simple 
 intuition. Consequently, by one act of vision, He 
 sees everything that happens in the course of time ; 
 and each fact He sees as it is in itself, not as some- 
 
276 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 thing that is to be present to His gaze in the future, 
 and is for the present involved in the sequence of 
 causes on which it depends ; at the same time He 
 does also see that sequence of causes. He sees 
 every event in a manner altogether proper to an 
 eternal being. Each fact, to whatever period of 
 *ime it belongs, He sees even as the human eye 
 sees Socrates seated. The sitting itself, not its 
 :ause, is seen by the eye. But from the fact of 
 a man seeing Socrates seated, it must not be 
 Inferred that the sitting is an effect flowing from 
 its cause necessarily. On the other hand, the 
 human eye sees most truly and infallibly Socrates 
 seated whilst he really is seated, because every- 
 thing, as it is in itself, is a fixed and determined 
 fact. Thus, then, we must admit that God knows 
 with absolute certainty and infallibility whatever 
 happens at any time. Nevertheless temporary 
 events do not happen of necessity, but are the 
 effects of causes that might have acted other- 
 wise," 7 
 
 7 " Deus est omnino extra ordinem temporis, quasi in arce aeter- 
 nitatis constitutus, quae est tota simul, cui subjacet totus temporis 
 decursus secundum unum et simplicem ejus intuitum. Et ideo uno 
 intuitu videt omnia, quae aguntur secundum temporis decursum et 
 unumquodque secundum quod est in seipso existens non quasi sibi 
 futurum quantum ad ejus intuitum, prout est in solo ordine suarum 
 causarum, quamvis et ipsum ordinem causarum videat ; sed omnino 
 aeternaliter sic videt unumquodque eorum quae sunt in unoquoque 
 tempore, sicut oculus humanus videt Socratem sedere in seipso, non 
 in causa sua. Ex hoc autem quod homo videt Socratem sedere 
 non tollitur ejus contingentia quae respicit ordinem causae ad 
 eftectum ; tamen verissime et infallibiliter videt oculus hominis 
 Socratem sedere dum sedet, quia unumquodque prout est in seipso, 
 jam determinatum est. Sic igitur relinquitur, quod Deus certissime 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 277 
 
 We may now state the difficulties in their usual 
 form with compendious answers, applying the 
 doctrine just expounded. 
 
 (a) An act which God foresees will necessarily 
 take place. But an act which necessarily takes 
 )lace cannot be a free act. 
 
 Answer. There is a fallacy in the use of the word 
 'necessarily." In the minor it denotes the physical 
 necessity under which a certain class of causes 
 produce their effects. When there is this necessity, 
 of course, by force of terms, freedom is excluded. 
 In the major the necessity denoted is logical 
 necessity ; the Divine mind being infinitely perfect, 
 necessarily sees the truth wherever and however 
 it is, past, present, or future. It is impossible for 
 the thing to be without God foreseeing it, and by 
 necessary consequence the Divine foreknowledge 
 is an. infallible evidence of what it will be. 
 
 (b) An act the omission of which is impossible 
 cannot be a free act. But the omission of an act 
 which God foresees is impossible. Thus such an 
 act cannot be free. 
 
 Answer. Again the same fallacy. The omission 
 of such an act is logically impossible, but not on 
 this account physically impossible. The act and 
 its omission cannot both exist. The one is neces- 
 sarily exclusive of the other. And in that sense, if 
 the act is really future, its omission is impossible, 
 but in no other sense is it impossible ; and in no 
 
 et infallibiliter cognoscat omnia quse fiunt in tempore, et tamen ea 
 quae in tempore eveniunt non sunt vel fiunt ex necessitate, sed con- 
 tingenter." (In Perihermeneias Aristotelis, Lib. I. Lect. 14.) 
 
278 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 other sense is any necessity on the part of the event 
 the basis of the infallibility of the Divine fore- 
 knowledge. 
 
 (c) That act is necessary and not free which 
 necessarily follows upon something else that does 
 not rest with the free choice of the agent. But an 
 act foreseen by God follows necessarily upon the 
 Divine foreknowledge, which foreknowledge does 
 not rest with the free choice of the agent. 
 
 Answer. The major is correct, if the necessary 
 following upon " something else " is because that 
 something is a necessarily acting cause, but not if 
 the " something else " is only a necessarily truthful 
 spectator or seer. 
 
 (d) If God were to foresee the free actions of 
 creatures His foreknowledge would be dependent 
 on their choice, for it would depend upon their 
 choice whether* it should be framed in this- way 
 rather than in that. But it is absurd to make an 
 attribute of the Infinite God dependent on the 
 action of His creatures. 
 
 Answer. The alleged dependence can only be 
 called dependence in a broad and mitigated sense. 
 True dependence is the relation by which the effect 
 is bound to its physical cause, not that by which 
 truthful knowledge is necessitated to conform itself 
 to its object. The former, so far forth as it is 
 dependence, is an imperfection. It is a perfection 
 indeed to possess being, but an imperfection to have 
 it in dependence on the causality of an external 
 agent, and the greater the dependence the greater 
 the imperfection. The latter is pure perfection, and 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 27$ 
 
 the iuller the conformity with the object, the greater 
 the perfection. 
 
 SECTION 4. The manner in which God knows the free acts of 
 His rational creatures. 
 
 Thesis XXVIII. I. Whereas God infallibly knows 
 what any given rational creature would do if left to 
 exercise its freedom under given circumstances and in 
 regard of a given object, this infallible knowledge must 
 not be traced to any Divine decree predetermining the 
 creature to act in that way. 
 
 2. Nor must it be traced to the adequate compre- 
 hension which God has of the nature of the creature, 
 and of all the influences which under the circumstances 
 would bear upon its free-will previously to its actual 
 choice. 
 
 3. The true reason why God has a distinct intuition 
 of conditionally future free actions is because His infinite 
 intellect must represent those truths which pre-exist in 
 their causes contingently only, no less than other truths 
 which follow from their causes by natural neces- 
 sity. 
 
 4. Hence the infallibility of the Divine foreknowledge 
 of free acts, as not merely conditionally future, but really 
 future, is to be explained thus : Knowing what use the 
 creature would make of its freedom under certain cir- 
 cumstances, God has decreed to allow those circumstances 
 to come about. Thus He knows the free act as absolutely 
 future, because knowing it as conditionally future, He 
 further knows that He has decreed to realize the con- 
 dition. 
 
jdo THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 167. In the preceding section we have proved 
 that God knows not only all that is possible, but 
 also whatever either is actually existing, or will be 
 actually existing, or would be actually existing under 
 certain circumstances. We have seen that even 
 the future free acts of rational creatures, whether 
 they be absolutely or only conditionally future, are 
 objects of the Divine Intellect. 
 
 Now the question arises : In what relation do 
 the objects known by God as distinct from Himself 
 stand to the knowledge He has of His essence and 
 His free-will ? The answer to this question is easy 
 enough, so long as we confine our consideration to 
 things and events' purely possible, and to those 
 actual things and events which depend upon His 
 will alone, so that the free-will of rational creatures 
 does not interfere with them. If God did not know 
 whatever is possible, He could not have a compre- 
 hensive knowledge of His essence ; and again, if He 
 were unable to discern the natural effects of the 
 causality of creatures who owe their existence to His 
 decrees alone, He would have an imperfect know- 
 ledge of what He decreed. So far there is no 
 special difficulty about the explanation of the Divine 
 knowledge. The difficulty begins with the free voli- 
 tions of rational creatures. Much labour has been 
 spent upon this question by Catholic philosophers, 
 especially since the latter half of the sixteenth 
 century. In the three first parts of the thesis we 
 are concerned about the explanation of the know- 
 ledge which God has of free actions as conditionally 
 future, and in the fourth about the explanation of 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 281 
 
 His knowledge, inasmuch as it represents free 
 actions as really or absolutely future. 
 
 1 68. We say then in the first place that the know- 
 ledge God has of the conditionally future existence 
 of free actions cannot be explained by saying that 
 He knows them by reason of His decree to pre- 
 determine creatures under certain circumstances to 
 the performance of them. By this assertion, we 
 express our disagreement from an opinion which 
 has every claim to our respect on account of the 
 renown of its author and of the many illustrious 
 and learned theologians who have adopted it. 
 Bannez, who was the first who taught explicitly 
 the opinion we reject, was the founder of a distin- 
 guished school of theology. The predetermina- 
 tion which they allege is called physical premotion. 
 According to the explanation given of this pre- 
 motion by those who follow Bannez, it influences 
 the free-will previously to the self-determination of 
 the latter, and in such a way that by the very nature 
 of its influence the free-will is infallibly drawn tc 
 the predetermined choice, which, nevertheless, is 
 genuinely free. This explanation supposes God's 
 knowledge of the conditionally future free act to 
 be contained in the comprehensive knowledge which 
 He has of His decree of physical premotion. 
 
 The defence of free-will in this hypothesis 
 becomes extremely difficult. " Predetermination," 
 writes Cardinal Pecci, " includes a determination 
 which precedes human deliberation. But a deter- 
 mination made by the Divine will must be fulfilled. 
 Consequently necessity precedes human delibera- 
 
28a THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 tion. Such deliberation can no longer be free."* 
 The solutions that are offered of this difficulty seem 
 to us by no means clear. 9 And we shall argue 
 later (in Bk. III.), that the reasonings upon 
 which the assertion of a physical predetermination 
 of free acts is based are not more convincing. 
 
 169. The earliest opponent of Bannez was 
 Molina. The explanation of the way in which free 
 acts are knowable to God, is found by Molina in 
 what he calls the supercomprchension which the Divine 
 intellect has of the free creature. 10 By this super- 
 comprehension he understands the adequate know- 
 ledge of the nature and faculties of the free created 
 being, and of all the attracting and repelling 
 impulses to which it will be subjected previously 
 to its choice. That there is a knowledge of all 
 this cannot be denied ; but it does not appear how 
 we can thereby explain the knowledge God has of 
 the free choice itself. As it seems repugnant to the 
 nature of free acts that they should be foreseen in 
 the comprehension of predetermining decrees, so 
 neither does it harmonize with their nature that God 
 should know them from eternity by supercompre- 
 hending the created beings from whom the free acts 
 proceed. Nothing that is seen by God as preceding 
 the free act, can imply an infallible knowledge of the 
 free act itself. Neither the nature of the creature nor 
 
 8 Lehrs des heiligen Thomas iiber den Einfluss Gottes auf die Hand- 
 lungcn der vernilnftigen Geschopfe, &c. (Translated from the Italian by 
 G. Triller, D.D.), Part II. 16, pp. 39, 40. 
 
 Cf. Zigliara, Summa Phil. ii. p. 391, at the bottom of the page. 
 
 10 Molina in Part I. Divi Thoma, q. 14. a. 13. d. 15. p. 217. 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 28$ 
 
 its faculties, nor any attractive or repellent motives 
 brought to bear upon its free-will, can prevent this 
 will from choosing or refusing a given object. Con- 
 sequently an infallible cognition of its choice is in 
 no way implied in the cognition of anything pre- 
 ceding it. But the knowledge God has of the con- 
 ditionally future choice must be infallible. There- 
 fore it cannot be based upon a supercomprehension 
 of the creature in the sense of Molina. Molina had 
 the merit of pointing out that a Divine knowledge 
 of free acts must be admitted independently of 
 predetermining decrees. But the positive explana- 
 tion he gives of this knowledge only takes us from 
 Scylla into Charybdis. On these grounds those who- 
 are called Molinists, as following Molina in the rejec- 
 tion of predetermining decrees, commonly do not 
 follow him in admitting what he substitutes in their 
 stead. They might, in fact, more properly be called 
 Suarezians, for Suarez is the great representative 
 of the teaching they defend, and which we shall 
 advocate in the third and fourth part of our thesis. 
 
 170. We maintain in the third place that God 
 sees the conditionally future free actions of creatures, 
 because they are objective truths and His infinite 
 intellect sees all objective truth. If a truth is prede- 
 termined in its cause, God sees it by comprehending 
 that cause. But if it has no predetermining cause, 
 as a free act really has not, God sees it nevertheless. 
 But He sees it as something which is, or will be, or 
 would be, caused in fact, though it is in no necessary 
 connection, but only in a contingent connection with 
 its causes. Saying this we do not commit ourselves 
 
284 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 to the statement that God foresees a conditionally 
 future free action as an event out of all connection 
 with His decrees. On the contrary, we hold most 
 firmly with Suarez that a conditionally future use 
 of freedom supposes a Divine decree to grant the 
 use of freedom, which decree by the scholastics of 
 the three last centuries is commonly called "the 
 decree of immediate Divine concurrence." But this 
 decree is a decree not to predetermine the creature 
 to the acceptance or rejection of a certain object, 
 but simply to render it perfectly able as well to 
 reject as to accept. Thus the free choice of the 
 creature, inasmuch as it is the act of choosing 
 between two alternatives, depends upon God; but 
 inasmuch as this act of choosing is a self-deter- 
 mination of the creature to accept rather than to 
 reject, it depends upon the creature. We shall say 
 more on this subject in the Third Book. 
 
 171. Hence it is readily inferred that God fore- 
 knows those free actions that will in fact be future, 
 in. that He comprehends His actual decrees. These 
 decrees are formed in the light of the knowledge 
 which He has of the conditionally future. For 
 instance, God knows that a man, whom we will call 
 Peter, under such and such circumstances would 
 give an alms to a poor man, if He granted him 
 the actual use of his freedom of will as regards this 
 object. In the light of this knowledge He decrees 
 either not to grant Peter the requisite use of his 
 freedom or to grant it. If the decree is not to grant 
 it, He will see the omission of the free act of alms- 
 giving as really future and its performance only as 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 285 
 
 conditionally future. But if He decrees to grant it, 
 He will see the omission as conditionally future 
 and the performance as really future. In other 
 words : The free act, which will be really future,. 
 God knows as really future, because He knows it 
 as conditionally future, and He further knows that 
 He has decreed to realize the circumstances under 
 which it will be really future. This is just what we 
 have stated in the fourth part of our thesis. 
 
 SECTION 5. The Divisions of the Divine Knowledge. 
 
 172. Though the Divine knowledge is one 
 undivided act, not really distinct from the Divine 
 Essence, we may nevertheless divide it according 
 to the diversity of the objects to which it extends. 
 Such a division is useful, inasmuch as it is based 
 upon the different relations of the objects of Divine 
 knowledge to God Himself, and thus recalls to us 
 in few words what we have explained fully in the 
 preceding section. . 
 
 First, then, if we take the whole body of truths 
 which God knows concerning Himself and concern- 
 ing finite things, His knowledge may be said to be 
 partly necessary, partly free. It is necessary, inas- 
 much as on no supposition could it have been in 
 any other relation to its objects than it is now ; it 
 is free, inasmuch as things are now known as actual, 
 which might not have been known as actual under 
 a different use of the freedom of the Creator and of 
 His creatures. Therefore God has a necessary know- 
 ledge of Himself, and of all finite things and actions 
 
.286 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 in so far as they are purely possible. And by a free 
 knowledge He knows His own decrees, and what- 
 ever in consequence of the exercise of His own free- 
 dom or that of His rational creatures has been 
 actual, is actual, will be actual, or would be actual 
 under certain circumstances, considered precisely in 
 its past t present, future, absolute, or conditional actu- 
 ality. 
 
 At first sight it might seem that such a division 
 is inconsistent with God's immutability. Yet it is 
 not so. In saying that the knowledge which God 
 has of His own decrees and of existences outside 
 Himself might have stood otherwise towards its 
 objects than it does stand, we do not say that His 
 act of knowledge could have changed internally, or 
 that the range of His knowledge could have extended 
 further or less far : we state only that He now sees 
 things as actual which He might have seen as 
 merely possible. If God had created neither matter 
 nor spirit, He would nevertheless have distinctly 
 seen material bodies with all their vicissitudes and 
 all finite spiritual beings with all their actions and 
 states ; yet all these things He would have seen as 
 purely possible, whereas He sees now as actual at 
 one time or another the things which He has 
 decreed from eternity to bring into existence, to- 
 gether with their necessary and free actions and the 
 results of both. Yet in no case is His knowledge 
 determined from without : He has it in virtue of 
 His unchangeable essence. Nor would His know- 
 ledge of the exercise of created freedom be less, 
 strictly speaking, than it now is, even though He 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. 287 
 
 had created no rational creature. The only differ- 
 ence would be that the actions, which now His 
 Intellect represents as really future free actions, 
 would in that case have been represented as con- 
 ditionally future. And the reason of this difference 
 would be the absence of the free decree to create 
 rational creatures and to provide the circumstances 
 under which they use their freedom as they use it 
 in the present order of things. 
 
 173. There is another division of Divine knowledge 
 which has regard only to things distinct from God. 
 These are said to be known by God partly through the 
 scientist, visionis (knowledge of vision), partly through 
 the scientia simplicis intelligent^ (knowledge of simple 
 intelligence). The nature of this distinction is clearly 
 explained in the following words of St. Thomas: 
 " A difference must be marked as regards things 
 which are not now actually existing. Some of 
 them, although they are not existing now, yet have 
 existed or will exist, and all these are said to be 
 known by God through the knowledge of vision. For 
 since God's understanding which is His being, is 
 measured by eternity, and eternity is something 
 which, unchangeable in itself, embraces all time, 
 it follows that the intuitive vision of God, as it is 
 at the present moment, takes in all time and all 
 things that are at any time whatever, and He 
 sees all this as distinctly as if it were really 
 present. But there are other things which are in 
 the power of God or of creatures, but which 
 never exist, nor will exist, nor have existed, and of 
 these we do not say that God has a knowledge of 
 
288 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 vision, but only that He knows them through the 
 knowledge of simple intelligence" n 
 
 From this passage of the Angelic Doctor it 
 appears that, according to his terminology, the 
 knowledge of vision comprises whatever is actual 
 outside God at whatever time, whereas to the 
 knowledge of simple intelligence everything is relegated 
 which, though never actual, is in the power either 
 of God alone or of creatures under God. Of con- 
 ditionally future free actions, St. Thomas did not 
 treat ex professo. These actions cannot be said to 
 be merely possible, and yet they are never actual, 
 if the circumstances under which they will happen 
 are never realized. Hence the question arises: 
 Are they seen by the knowledge of vision or by the 
 knowledge of simple intelligence ? We might refer 
 them to the knowledge of simple intelligence, by saying 
 that to it belongs whatever is seen as possible, and 
 yet not actual, whether not actual simply (purely 
 possible), or not actual except under certain con- 
 ditions (conditionally future). We might also refer 
 conditionally future free actions to the knowledge 
 of vision by saying that to it belongs whatever is 
 at any time either really or conditionally actual. 
 
 11 " Horum quae actu non sunt est attendenda quaedam diversitas. 
 Quaedam enim licet non sint mine in actu, tamen vel fuerunt, vel 
 erunt, et omnia ista dicitur Deus scire scientia visionis. Quia cum 
 intelligere Dei, quod est ejus esse, asternitate mensuretur, quae sine 
 successione existens totum tempus comprehendit, praesens intuitus 
 Dei fertur in totum tempus. et in omnia quae sunt in quocumque 
 tempore, sicut in subjecta sibi praesentialiter. Quaedam vero sunt, 
 quas sunt in potentia Dei vel creaturae, quas tamen nee sunt, nee 
 erunt, neque fuerunt, et respectu horuni non dicitur habere scientiam 
 visionis. sed simplicis intelligent^." (St. Thomas, Sum. Tkeol. i. 14.) 
 
THE DIVINE INTELLECT. agg 
 
 Those Catholic philosophers who reject the notion 
 of physical predetermination, say commonly that con- 
 ditionally future free actions are seen by what they 
 call scientia media (middle knowledge), as having for 
 its object something neither purely possible nor 
 really actual, but between the two. We ourselves 
 hold strongly to what is meant by the term scientia 
 media, without insisting upon the necessity of retain- 
 ^qg this term ac such. We conclude then by denning 
 *he scientia media as the knowledge that God has of 
 the conditionally future existence of the free actions of 
 His rational creatures, without having decreed physi- 
 cally to predetermine the said creatures to the said 
 actions. 
 
CHAPTER V, 
 
 THE DIVINE WILL. 
 
 Introductory. 
 
 174. IN every being on this earth we find a natural 
 tendency to follow a certain way of action that 
 suits its nature, and to avoid other ways out of 
 harmony with or altogether repugnant to its nature. 
 Thus every element of matter has a certain chemical 
 affinity and atomicity, which it satisfies in all com- 
 binations as well as circumstances will allow. Every 
 plant works upon the nourishment which it takes 
 up from the soil in such a way as serves its specific 
 evolution. The instinct of animals leads them with 
 astonishing accuracy to the food they stand in need 
 of, to arrangements for their future offspring, and to 
 avoidance of danger. 
 
 In man, the head of the visible creation, there 
 is not only a longing for things that suit the physical 
 organism, as in brute animals, but an insatiable 
 appetite for truth. 
 
 That which in one way or another is in harmony 
 with the nature of a thing is called its good. The 
 tendency of a thing to obtain what suits its nature 
 is in scholastic language called its natural appetite 
 (appetitus naturalis), although this appetite is not 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 291 
 
 always a desire or craving in the strict sense of the 
 word, but often only a natural tendency in some 
 sense analogical to a desire or craving. Where 
 this natural appetite is directed by knowledge, its 
 scholastic name is elicited appetite (appetitus 
 elicitus), because it is roused to action (elicited) 
 by the knowledge of good. Of elicited appetite 
 there are two varieties which essentially differ 
 from one another organic or sensitive appetite 
 (appetitus organicus vel sensitivus), which is an 
 inclination to good as apprehended by mere sense- 
 perception, and spiritual or rational appetite (appe- 
 titus spiritualis vel rationalis), which tends towards 
 good as presented by intellectual knowledge. This 
 rational appetite is what is commonly called will. 
 175. It is evident that in God there can be no 
 merely natural appetite or appetite without know- 
 ledge, nor any sensitive appetite or appetite following 
 organic perception; for He is essentially Intellect, 
 and therefore cannot be without knowledge ; He is 
 also essentially simple, and therefore without the 
 composition of material parts involved in sense-per- 
 ception. He is the most pure Spirit in which being 
 and knowledge are really one. The question then 
 arises, Shall we predicate " will " of Him ? The 
 answer to this depends upon whether "will" 
 denotes a pure perfection or not. If it does, God 
 must be infinite Will. But there can be no doubt 
 that "will" in its abstract meaning signifies nothing 
 but perfection. It is love for good consequent 
 upon knowledge of it. We cannot conceive that 
 intellectual being as other than imperfect which 
 
THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 should know good and yet not approve it as good. 
 Some love of good is inherent in every intellectual 
 nature. Intellect is by its very nature directed 
 towards truth. Truth, therefore, is the good of 
 intellect, being in harmony with its essence. From 
 this it follows that there is no act of intellect which 
 does not carry with it an act of will. And as God 
 is infinite Intellect, so also He must be infinite 
 Will. 1 
 
 The truth that God is endowed with will, not 
 merely metaphorically, but in the strict sense of the 
 word, may also be indirectly shown from the fact 
 of creation. Creation is production out of nothing, 
 and such production is inconceivable, unless it be 
 conceived as the effect of infinitely powerful volition. 
 Thus the Psalmist expresses it, comprising the 
 whole history of the origin of the universe within 
 the compass of these few words : Ipse dixit et facia 
 sunt : ipse mandavit et creata sunt " He spoke, and 
 they were made ; He commanded, and they were 
 created." 2 
 
 It will now be our duty to explain the truths 
 which by the light of natural reason can be ascer- 
 tained concerning the Divine will. 
 
 Our investigation will fall into three branches; 
 we shall have to consider the necessity and freedom 
 of the Divine will, its holiness and other moral 
 attributes, and, lastly, its quality as supreme life 
 and beatitude. 
 
 1 Cf. St. Thomas, Contra Genies t i. c. 72, " Ex hoc enim quod 
 Dens est intelligens, sequitur quod est volens," &c. 
 
 2 Psalm cxlviii. 4. 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 293 
 
 SECTION i. Necessity and freedom of the Will of God. 
 
 Thesis XXIX. God loves Himself with absolute 
 necessity, infinitely, and for the sake of His own good- 
 ness. His love towards creatures is an outcome (or out- 
 pouring) of the love which He bears to His own Being. 
 He loves them with a love not absolutely necessary, but 
 generous and free ; and His decrees about them are at 
 once free and irrevocable. 
 
 176. Self-respect is not self-conceit, and there is 
 a well-ordered love of self, quite a distinct thing from 
 selfishness. The self-conceited man, over-estimating 
 his own importance, assumes a position of superiority 
 or authority not due to him. The selfish man cares 
 for nothing but his own satisfaction and enjoyment. 
 But the man who is possessed by a noble self- 
 respect will not stoop to anything incompatible 
 either with his dignity as a man or with the post 
 assigned to him by Providence. A well-ordered 
 love of self leads a man to utilize all his faculties 
 and all his surroundings for the perfection of that 
 in himself which is noblest in human nature. 
 
 177. Now ascending from the image of God to its 
 original, we see at once that in Him there can be 
 no self-conceit nor selfishness. It is impossible that 
 He should over-esteem His own being or His 
 authority, for He is infinitely perfect and the only 
 Lord of all. Neither can there be in Him an 
 inordinate and exaggerated seeking after His own 
 advantage. In His essence He finds the source 
 and fulness of everything grand and excellent, 
 loveable and enjoyable. He finds it there estab- 
 
294 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 lished on the immoveable rock of His eternity, not 
 liable to decay from within nor open to aggression 
 from without. Consequently, care for Himself in 
 the proper sense of the word, care for His own 
 aggrandisement or for the increase of His own 
 happiness, is as inconceivable in God as the loss 
 of His existence. And as all selfishness is the 
 outcome of such care, nothing is more remote from 
 the Creator of all things than selfishness. Yet 
 well-ordered esteem and love of self belong to Him 
 in an infinite degree. If He did not value His 
 nature in proportion to its goodness, if He did not 
 esteem and love Himself in proportion as He is 
 worthy of esteem and love, He would be wanting 
 in knowledge of or due affection for good. His 
 nature is infinitely good, and therefore infinitely 
 worthy of esteem and love. Hence God has neces- 
 sarily an infinite esteem and love of Himself for 
 His own goodness. 
 
 178. From this it follows that His love for 
 creatures is an outcome (or outpouring) of His love 
 for Himself. It is necessarily so, for no creature is 
 loveable of itself. All its goodness is based upon 
 the being that it has, and that being is a free 
 creation of God. The creature, then, is indebted 
 to the Creator for whatever it possesses worthy of 
 esteem and love. Again, the grounds on which 
 rests the creature's claim for love consist either 
 in its natural perfection or (in the case of a rational 
 creature) in its moral goodness. Its natural per- 
 fection is the handiwork of the Creator; and its 
 moral goodness, though in a certain sense due to 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 295 
 
 the exercise of the creature's own freedom, is 
 worked out after the ideal set before the creature's 
 mind by the natural or supernatural law of God, 
 manifested in the voice of conscience or through 
 the teaching of revelation. In any case, God sees 
 no perfection in any creature which is not derived 
 from Himself, the source of all good. Now a 
 created rational being, however enlightened about 
 this dependence of creatures upon their Creator, 
 may wilfully withdraw its understanding from 
 paying attention to the fact. Hence men who 
 have learned much about God sometimes do not 
 rise to His love, but make a creature the centre 
 of their affections. No such inordination can pos- 
 sibly exist in God, whose intellect and will are 
 infinitely perfect. Hence all the love He bears to 
 creatures must be based upon His love towards 
 Himself. This truth is compatible with another, 
 of which we shall say more in the Third Book, that 
 He loves His rational creatures in a certain sense 
 for their own sake, inasmuch as He wills their 
 happiness on condition that they co-operate with 
 His benevolent intentions. 
 
 179. As the Divine mind cannot abstract from 
 the natural relation in which each finite nature stands 
 to its infinite prototype, and as the Divine will can 
 never be displeased with His own production, God 
 necessarily loves everything He has created, and is 
 pleased with its natural goodness. How far this 
 love must lead Him to take care of the well-being 
 of His creatures, we shall see later on. For the 
 present we wish to show that the love of God for 
 
296 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 creatures, though necessary in a certain sense on 
 the supposition of their existence, nevertheless is 
 to be called a free and not a necessary love. God 
 being infinite has no need of any creature, nor 
 would He be less good if He had created none. 
 He has given existence to finite beings because He 
 freely willed so to do. He willed to give them a 
 share in His goodness, though He knew that He 
 might be infinitely happy by Himself alone. This 
 has been proved in Book I. Thesis XVIII. 97. 
 Hence it follows that the love God bears to creatures 
 does not suppose any attraction or loveableness 
 belonging to them independently of the exercise of 
 Divine freedom. On the contrary, if they possess 
 anything to attract God to love them, it is due to 
 His free decree of creation. But for this decree 
 all creatures would have been eternal nothingness, 
 unworthy of being loved. In the free volition by 
 which God chose to produce beings different from 
 Himself, there is included the free decree of all the 
 natural and supernatural good that creatures ever 
 enjoy. Consequently, all and each of them are 
 indebted to their Creator for everything good they 
 are and have. We may justly put to every creature 
 St. Paul's question : " What hast thou that thou 
 hast not received ? " 8 
 
 180. Having thus proved that the love God bears 
 to His handiwork is an overflow of pure generosity, 
 and not a constraining natural affection, we are still 
 to show that His decrees regarding creatures are 
 at once free and irrevocable. In saying that the 
 
 * i Cor. iv. 7. 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 397 
 
 * 
 
 decrees by which God rules the fate of His 
 creatures are free, we by no means wish to imply 
 that they are not referred to any standard whatsoever. 
 Certainly they are. The standard to which they 
 are necessarily referred is the infinite wisdom and 
 righteousness of the Creator. It is impossible that 
 He should decree anything about His handiwork 
 that would appear unwise or unjust in the light of 
 the eternal truth of His understanding. But of the 
 many ways by which He may lead the creature 
 without acting against wisdom or justice or any 
 other of His Divine perfections, He chooses one 
 way or another according to His good pleasure 
 without any necessity from within or without. 
 Such necessity would betoken either dependence 
 upon the good of creatures or want of supreme 
 power over their, defects inconceivable in the 
 infinite and absolute Lord of all things. 
 
 181. The exercise of Divine freedom we are 
 speaking of, is necessarily an eternal act. God 
 could not delay any decree without a wise reason. 
 But no such reason could exist for Him. A 
 resolution cannot be reasonably put off to a later 
 date, if he who is to approve or reject it, knows 
 already beforehand which side he will take. God 
 knows this of necessity. Consequently He cannot 
 delay His resolve : such delay in Him would be 
 setting Himself against His own wisdom. Nor can 
 He retract the course once settled by His eternal 
 decrees. They are irrevocable. A decree cannot 
 be repealed without a motive, nor wisely repealed 
 without a reasonable motive. But for God there 
 
THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 can be no reasonable motive ever to recall what He 
 has once decreed. A reasonable revocation of a 
 decree is always based upon a better knowledge or 
 a fuller consideration of the matter and circum- 
 stances. Neither the one nor the other is con- 
 ceivable in God, whose essence is identical with 
 infinitely perfect intuition of all truth. Hence in 
 God there is properly speaking but one free decree 
 abiding for ever. This one decree, however, is 
 equivalent to an innumerable multitude of decrees, 
 which according to our way of thinking are con- 
 tained in it. It is formed in the light of infinitely 
 perfect knowledge of all possible contingencies. 
 Consequently in it God has also regard to the 
 free volitions of His rational creatures. It abides 
 in the Divine will, not only in this sense that it 
 never is retracted ; but it is an eternally-lasting, 
 never-changing, actual determination of that will. 
 In other words, what God has decreed from eternity, 
 that He approves now and wills now actually, and 
 that He will approve actually throughout the future. 
 
 182. Against this doctrine the following objection 
 is often made. 
 
 If my fate has been settled once for all, why 
 should I trouble myself about the performance of 
 religious and moral duties, since no performance of 
 mine can move God to arrange anything for me 
 better than that which He has already decreed ? 
 
 Those who raise this difficulty forget that the 
 decrees of God are not formed without regard for 
 human freedom. God does not settle the fate of a 
 reasonable creature without paying attention to the 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 299 
 
 way in which that creature will use the freedom of 
 its will. As His decrees cannot violate justice, He 
 certainly has not decreed that the faithful obser- 
 vance of the moral law which He has stamped upon 
 your heart, should lead you to final misery. On the 
 other hand, if you reason rightly, you must conclude 
 from the common consent of mankind ; from the 
 desire of happiness craving for fulfilment in the 
 breast of every man, and never perfectly satisfied 
 in this life ; and finally, from the necessity of a 
 sufficient sanction of the moral law, that there is 
 another life to follow beyond the grave. As your 
 soul is spiritual and incorruptible, you have reason 
 to believe that this future life will last for ever. A 
 little reflection shows you, moreover, that it would 
 be absurd for an infinitely just and holy God to have 
 decreed that it should not make any difference 
 throughout all eternity, whether a man tad finished 
 his time of probation here on earth in a state of 
 rebellion against his Creator, or in humble sub- 
 mission to His will. Consequently, even if you 
 were not favoured with the light of Christian reve- 
 lation, under the guidance of reason alone you 
 might know enough about the nature of the eternal 
 decrees of God to become convinced that the only 
 safe course a man can take is to comply as accu- 
 rately as possible with the law of God, manifested by 
 the voice of his conscience, and to bear in his heart 
 and to express by his whole external behaviour those 
 feelings of reverence, of trust and love, which it 
 behoves a reasonable creature to entertain with 
 regard to a Creator of infinite power, wisdom, and 
 
300 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 goodness. As God from eternity would not but 
 decree to lead every rational creature who freely 
 and perseveringly obeys the voice of conscience, to 
 final happiness, so He decrees it now at this very 
 moment, whilst you are anxious about your final 
 fate ; for His decrees are now, as they were from 
 eternity. From this undeniable truth it follows 
 evidently that it depends upon your free co-operation 
 with the benevolent intentions of your Creator, whether 
 eternal happiness or final misery will be your lot. If 
 against this conclusion the objection suggests itself: 
 How can I be free, if God foreknows my future 
 actions, we beg the reader to ponder again what was 
 said in answer to this objection, 166. Although 
 Philosophy, as such, does not rest on the teach- 
 ing of revelation, it is as well here to remember 
 that Christians have that other source of know- 
 ledge to confirm them in their philosophical belief 
 that they possess a true liberty, upon the right 
 exercise of which their future depends. According 
 to the Christian doctrine, it is an eternal decree 
 of God that every one shall receive his reward 
 according to his works, that God will render "to 
 them indeed who, according to patience in good 
 works, seek glory and honour and incorruption, 
 eternal life : " but also that there shall come 
 "tribulation and anguish upon every man that 
 worketh evil." 4 According to the same doctrine, 
 it has been decreed by God that every prayer made 
 with confidence for really " good gifts " shall be 
 heard, that Heaven shall rejoice over the con- 
 
 4 Romans ii. 7, 9. 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 301 
 
 version of a sinner, that the ministers of Christ 
 shall have power to forgive all sins, however 
 grievous and numerous : that after death judgment 
 shall follow, and the wicked shall be condemned to 
 everlasting punishment and the just be rewarded 
 with never-ceasing glory. 6 
 
 Whether, then, we consider the eternal decrees 
 of God from the standpoint of reason or from the 
 standpoint of Christian faith, they in no way favour 
 indolence and indifference. To him who does not 
 allow himself to hold as true every vagary of thought 
 that can suggest itself, but takes suggestions for 
 what they really are, the very irrevocability of these 
 decrees, far from offering an excuse for idleness or 
 bad morals, will rather be the strongest stimulus to 
 guard against sin and to practise diligently prayer 
 and good works. Such a one knows that, according 
 to the unchangeable will of God, it depends upon 
 the use of his moral freedom during life, whether 
 after death that misery is to befall him which is 
 the unavoidable doom of those who end their days 
 in obstinate wickedness, or whether he shall have 
 a share in the happiness held out by unfailing 
 promises to those who die in loving submission to 
 the laws of their Creator. 
 
 183. Still another difficulty concerning the eternal 
 decrees of God is to be discussed here. How can 
 God, being immutable, have any free volition at 
 all ? If He cannot change, His will remains always 
 in the same state in which it is by virtue of His 
 
 5 Cf. St. Luke xi. 5 13, xv.'io; St. John xx. 23; Heb. ix. 27; 
 St. Matt. xxv. 46. 
 
302 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 essence. How then can He will anything but with 
 absolute necessity ? 
 
 To this difficulty we may answer in the first 
 place that a puzzling how is never a solid reason for 
 doubting an evident that. We have proved that 
 God is both immutable in Himself and free in His 
 decrees. Nay, a denial of Divine freedom would 
 lead us logically to a denial of our own moral 
 liberty, indeed to a denial of virtue and truth itself. 
 
 However, we further submit the following con- 
 siderations. 
 
 Volition is an immanent action in the strictest 
 sense of the word. What we express when we say, 
 " I will this or that," is not a change either in our- 
 selves or outside ourselves, but an actual state of our 
 mind bearing a definite relation to a certain object, 
 a relation the nature of which can only be under- 
 stood by him who knows from self-consciousness 
 what it is to will. Thus the most competent philo- 
 sophers, from St. Thomas down to those of our own 
 age, 6 are of opinion that the action of volition con- 
 sidered in its essence does not imply any change added 
 to the actuality prerequired in the subject in order 
 that volition may become possible. This holds good 
 of all volitions of all rational beings whatsoever. It 
 is true that in us men there is no volition without 
 change going before and coming after. We cannot 
 will anything without actual knowledge of the object 
 willed. This actual knowledge is not included in 
 
 6 Cf, St. Thomas, disp. D- f Dentate, q. 8. a. 6. ; Suarez, Metaph. 
 disp. 48, sect. 2. n. 2. et sect. 4. n. 14. " Dico quarto;" Kleutgen, 
 PhiL.Schol. n. 21 ; Lahousse, Theol. Nat. n, 209, p. 173. 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 303 
 
 our essence, but is acquired through a series of 
 changes. Again, in consequence of our volition of 
 any object, our mind is necessarily modified by being, 
 as it were, bent upon that object to say nothing of 
 the accompanying changes in the nervous system. 
 However, these changes do not touch the essence of 
 volition. They do not prove that volition precisely 
 as volition adds anything to the internal state in 
 which a reasonable being exists when it is perfectly 
 able to decide whether it wills or refuses a certain 
 object. If I am now perfectly able to accept or to 
 reject the object A with my free-will, the act of self- 
 determination proceeds in one direction or the other 
 without any further physical change. If it did not, 
 there would be no truth in the saying that I am now 
 perfectly able to embrace either of the two alterna- 
 tives. Nevertheless, my self-determination, as it 
 proceeds, does carry a physical change >rith it ; yet 
 not because it is self-determination or free volition, 
 but because it is free volition having a place in a 
 being essentially changeable, and unable to perse- 
 vere in its self-determination without undergoing 
 some modification of its beirg. 
 
 Let us now apply these observations to the solu- 
 tion of our difficulty. God is infinite. By virtue 
 of His essence He possesses whatever actuality is 
 required for any volition compatible with His per- 
 fection. As we have explained, volition does not 
 imply change essentially. Consequently, God can 
 will any object without any real modification of His 
 being. 
 
 Does it follow from this that whatever He wills 
 
304 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 He wills with absolute necessity ? By no means. 
 It follows only that the internal act of His will, 
 which is really identical with His essence, can with- 
 out change either involve, or not involve, that rela- 
 tion to an object which we ca.ll choosing and willing. 
 Whether God wills the object with absolute neces- 
 sity or not, depends therefore only upon this, 
 whether He understands it to be on every suppo- 
 sition loveable for its own sake. But apart from His 
 decree to create, no finite being is loveable in itself. 
 The conclusion is that without any internal change, 
 God can will or not will any finite existence : conse- 
 quently all finite beings are indebted for their exist- 
 ence to the free choice of His eternal unchangeable 
 will. To express this shortly in scholastic ter- 
 minology : 
 
 The will of God in its relation to creatures is 
 absolutely necessary in its entity (i.e., in its internal 
 actual state), but not in its term (i.e., it does not 
 necessarily bear to creatures that relation which we 
 call volition). 
 
 SECTION 2. Holiness and other moral attributes of the 
 Divine Will. 
 
 Thesis XXX. On account of the infinite rectitude 
 of His will, God is to be called perfectly and abso- 
 lutely holy, benevolent, and merciful, just, faithful, and 
 true in His threats and promises. 
 
 184. The word "holy," as used of creatures, has 
 a wider and a more restricted sense. In the wider 
 signification it means "being removed and distin- 
 
THE DIVINE WILL, 35 
 
 guishcd from other things, or persons, by a sort of 
 special dedication to the Divinity." In this sense 
 we speak of churches as holy places ; we call altar- 
 plate and priestly vestments holy things ; we say 
 that bishops, priests, and others specially conse- 
 crated to God, are to be revered as holy persons : 
 and we give the visible Head of the Church the title 
 of " Holy Father," and " Your Holiness." 
 
 The word " holy " predicated thus does not 
 denote any distinction in the line of morality. Pope 
 Alexander VI., in that he was the representative of 
 the Divine Founder of the Church, had so far forth 
 as much right to the title of Holy Father as 
 St. Peter himself; although in point of moral excel- 
 lence Peter as far surpassed the common standard 
 of human virtue as Alexander fell short of it. 
 
 In a more restricted sense, holiness is predi- 
 cated of men alone, to signify perfection, of moral 
 character ; in other words, perfect agreement of the 
 free volitions and actions of a man with the moral 
 law. The moral law itself is the eternal law of God, 
 prescribing the line of action to be followed by 
 rational creatures in the pursuit of their last end. 
 The moral character of a, man is perfect, if he does 
 his duty with unfailing integrity. His duty as a 
 reasonable being is to use his freedom reasonably. 
 One of the first demands of reason in him is that 
 he should submit freely to the will of his Creator 
 as soon as he knows it. Doing so, he renders his 
 actions in complete accordance with the dictates of 
 infinite wisdom ; for as God's will is really one with 
 His infinite intellect, it is impossible that Goc| 
 V 
 
3 06 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 should impose any duty upon us otherwise than in 
 absolute harmony with His supreme reason. Hence 
 we may define a holy man to be a man who uses his 
 free-will constantly in such a way as to comply with the 
 rule of action that infinite wisdom has laid down for him 
 from eternity. 
 
 185. This definition, derived as it is from the 
 common acceptation of the word, enables us to see 
 that the attribute " holy," taken in its stricter sense, 
 may be predicated of God. His free-will is not only 
 united with His infinite wisdom, but in its subjective 
 aspect is identical with it. It is, therefore, absolutely 
 impossible that any free volition of God, any decree 
 of His, any Divine action, or ordination, regarding 
 creatures, should be different from what it ought to 
 be according to the judgment of infinite wisdom. 
 Independently of any other being, in virtue of His 
 essence, God has an infinitely perfect knowledge of 
 the way in which it behoves Him to use His free- 
 dom of will. Out of the purest love to His own 
 infinite goodness (which is the spring and source of 
 whatever is good), He wills and works according to 
 that knowledge. Hence He is perfectly and abso- 
 lutely holy, Holiness itself, 
 
 186. This holiness is the standard by which we 
 must judge of the rest of God's moral attributes. 
 The first of these attributes is the love and bene- 
 volence God bears towards His creatures. He loves 
 all inasmuch as He wills they should all have some 
 natural good. But in a stricter sense of the word 
 God is said to love His rational creatures. Towards 
 them He has a love of benevolence or friendship. Oq 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 307 
 
 the other hand, strictly speaking, we cannot say 
 that He is benevolent to irrational creatures ; the 
 reason whereof is simply this, that benevolence is 
 either joy over, or a wish for, another's happiness ; 
 and only rational beings are capable of happiness. 
 Love of friendship towards irrational creatures can 
 only be based upon a misapprehension of their true 
 nature. In view of the traces of the Divine good- 
 ness which they exhibit, and the generic similarity 
 which they bear to the inferior part of our nature, 
 we may call them our friends, or even, with the 
 pious exaggeration of St. Francis, our brothers and 
 sisters ; we may be much opposed to reckless 
 hurting of their sentient organism. All this accords 
 perfectly with reason. But as soon as we begin to 
 represent them to ourselves as self-conscious, as 
 reflecting upon their state, and consequently, as 
 capable of happiness and misery in the pjoper sense 
 of the words as persons, and not as things only 
 our behaviour becomes unreasonable, and borders 
 on morbid sentimentality. It would be blasphemy 
 to suppose such a violation of reason in God. In 
 conclusion, as regards the benevolence of God 
 towards His rational creatures, we know from 
 reason alone that that benevolence is ample enough 
 perfectly to satisfy the demands of infinite wisdom. 
 From Revelation we are certain that God on His 
 part is ready to make each of His rational creatures 
 in a certain sense infinitely happy in a future life, 
 and that only abuse of freedom on their own part can 
 thwart and frustrate the benevolent intention of 
 their Creator. 
 
3 o8 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 187. Light is thrown upon the benevolence of 
 God by another of His moral attributes closely 
 connected with it Divine mercy. Mercy, as it is a 
 virtue, and not blind feeling, consists in the efficacious 
 will to remove the misery of others to the extent approved 
 of by rightly enlightened reason. In men the practice 
 of this virtue is frequently attended with a sort of 
 tender emotion caused in our sensitive organism by 
 the sight or imagination of misery. And just as 
 benevolence is not seldom misapplied by us, so we 
 may also err in the exercise of mercy. In those 
 who are called to govern others, for instance, mercy 
 may degenerate into a vice, if they allow themselves 
 to be drawn away from preventing public danger by 
 compassion for individual criminals, who experience 
 pain and hardship if laws against crime are laid 
 down and enforced. 
 
 Not a shadow of these and similar defects, which 
 disfigure human mercy, can exist in the absolutely 
 perfect mercy of God. In it there is nothing of 
 blind emotion. It is purely spiritual, and the rule 
 of its application is benevolent wisdom. For this 
 reason the mercy of God must manifest itself here 
 on earth in nothing so much as providing means by 
 which men may deliver themselves from moral misery. 
 In fact, as men alone of all visible creatures are 
 able to attain happiness, so men alone can fall into 
 that state which is properly termed misery. It is 
 shown in Ethics that the final happiness of man 
 must consist in union with God by perfect know- 
 ledge and love, a union to be expected in a future 
 life. According to Christian revelation, this happy 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 309 
 
 possession of God will be a supernatural one, an 
 immediate intuition and fruition of the infinite 
 beauty and goodness of our Creator, carrying with 
 it a complete and never failing satisfaction of all 
 our longings and desires without the least admixture 
 of satiety or disgust. 
 
 From this it must be inferred that man is to be 
 called substantially happy, in this mortal life, so 
 long as he is on the right path to his future union 
 with God, and really miserable, so soon as he 
 goes astray from it. Here, then, there arises the 
 question : Which is the true way to that union ? 
 Reason answers clearly : Compliance with the law 
 of God in the ^tse of moral freedom. Christianity 
 stamps this judgment of human reason with the 
 seal of Divine authority ; and assures us, moreover, 
 that nothing is able to endanger man's final happi- 
 ness but a deliberate breach of the law oi God. 
 
 This being so, God cannot show His mercy in 
 this world more splendidly than by leading men to 
 the knowledge of Himself and to the observance 
 of His law, and offering to those who transgress it 
 a remedy against the evil consequences of their 
 transgression. 
 
 188. Different from but not opposed to the effects 
 of Divine mercy are the manifestations of another 
 moral attribute of God His justice. By this term 
 we do not signify commutative justice, or that moral 
 disposition which inclines us to render to others what 
 they have a right to ask. This virtue cannot belong 
 to God, who is the First Cause of all rightful claims, 
 and against whom, strictly speaking, no one can 
 
co THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 have a right, as He is the only Lord of all. How- 
 ever, besides that kind of justice there is another 
 kind, called by writers on Ethics distributive justice. 
 This term denotes a virtue proper to rulers of a com- 
 munity, a virtue which consists in a constant will to 
 treat every subject according to his dignity and merits. 
 Such a will is a moral excellence which does not 
 connote any imperfection, and therefore cannot be 
 wanting in God, whose absolute dominion extends 
 over the whole of creation. Being possessed of 
 infinite knowledge, He thoroughly comprehends the 
 natural and supernatural dignity of each of His 
 rational creatures, and estimates exactly its merits 
 or demerits. Knowing, moreover, how many ways 
 of treatment there are applicable to a concrete case 
 without violation of wisdom, He is free to choose 
 between those ; but He cannot choose any way for- 
 bidden by His wisdom. 
 
 These few statements embrace almost every- 
 thing that can be said on the subject of Divine 
 justice a priori. To determine accurately the way 
 in which creatures are to be dealt with in harmony 
 with their natural dignity and merit, is the work 
 of God alone, whose judgments man has not to 
 criticize, but in all humility to accept. Created 
 reason rightly used cannot be opposed to the reason 
 that is uncreated. 
 
 189. From the identity of this uncreated reason 
 with the will of God we argue that He possesses 
 two other moral attributes, veracity and fidelity. 
 God is truthful, that is to say, He never can utter 
 falsehood, nor approve of any such utterance on the 
 
THE DIVINE WILL, 3 H 
 
 part of His creatures. The reason is obvious. He 
 is essentially infinite Intellect and infinitely righteous 
 Will. Under the former aspect His essence is the 
 expression of all objective truths in such a perfect 
 way that He is constantly conscious of each of them; 
 under the latter aspect He loves Himself necessarily 
 as an infinitely complete representation of truth. 
 His dealing with creatures must be in conformity 
 with this love which is essential to Him. But an 
 utterance made with the intention of leading into 
 error would evidently be opposed to this essential 
 love of truth. Such an intention would necessarily 
 be involved in any false utterance coming from 
 God : for Infinite Wisdom cannot tell an untruth 
 by mistake. It follows then from God's very nature 
 that His every utterance must be true. 
 
 But can God ever approve of a lie told by one 
 of His rational creatures ? To solve the question, 
 we have only to weigh the fact that lying is directly 
 in conflict with the natural desire for truth proper 
 to rational beings. The good of a creature endowed 
 with intellect is truth. Its final happiness is in the 
 possession of God, the Infinite Truth. The pre- 
 paration to be made for this happiness must be 
 the direction of the creature's free-will towards 
 God by the way of true knowledge and true love. 
 For these reasons man feels himself instinctively 
 repelled by the suggestion of deliberate insincerity. 
 The child's first lie is told with remorse and con- 
 fusion and sense of moral disorder. How could 
 it be otherwise ? The intention to tell a falsehood 
 is a stain on the natural image of Eternal Truth 
 
jla THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 stamped upon the human heart. God Himself has 
 an infinite detestation of uttering what is false, and 
 necessarily wills that His rational creatures should 
 in all free acts conform their will to His will, and 
 consequently to the exigencies of their nature. It is 
 therefore altogether inconceivable that God should 
 ever approve of the deliberate spreading of falsehood. 
 Every deliberate lie must be condemned by Him 
 as something intrinsically bad : and all the more 
 condemned, the more it tends to draw men away 
 from God the Truth. Before all others therefore 
 those liars must be held in special abhorrence by 
 God who under the false pretence of Divine authori- 
 zation try to lead others into error as regards 
 religion and morals. Their endeavours cannot 
 possibly be favoured by evident marks of Divine 
 approval, as are true prophecies and true miracles. 
 No false religion can be supported by such marks. 
 
 God's veracity is the light which guides the 
 Christian safely along the narrow paths- of faith. 
 Another moral attribute of God, His fidelity, 
 guarantees the attainment of the goal of happiness 
 to which living faith leads. 
 
 " God is faithful," writes St. Paul. 7 To prove 
 this, we need but to consider the veracity along 
 with the physical and moral immutability of God. 
 Being truthful, He does not reveal that He will 
 punish or bless, without at the time of the reve- 
 lation intending to award punishment or blessing, 
 either absolutely or under certain conditions. This 
 intention, in virtue of His physical and moral 
 7 i Cor. i. 9, and x. 13. 
 
THE DIV1ME WILL. 313 
 
 immutability, remains unchangeable. Consequently, 
 when the time arrives to which" the threat or 
 promise is attached, and the condition fulfilled 
 under which it was uttered, He is as determined 
 to keep His word as He was when He first uttered 
 it. As we shall see in the next chapter, He is also 
 omnipotent. Therefore nothing can prevent Him 
 from doing what He wills. Consequently, He is 
 faithful. He will never be mocked by the sinner 
 who despises His warnings, nor will He ever dis- 
 appoint the just man who relies upon His promises. 
 Note. Difficulties against the moral attributes 
 of God w T ill be solved in the chapter on Providence. 
 
 SECTION 3. The Will of God as supreme Lift and 
 Beatitude. 
 
 Thesis XXXI. God, lives an infinitely perfect 
 intellectual life, and enjoys an infinite beatitude; con- 
 sequently sadness, anger, and repentance are not to be 
 predicated of Him except in a metaphorical sense. 
 
 190. There are three principal kinds of life in 
 this world: vegetative, sensitive, and intellectual. 
 Vegetative life is carried on by the processes of 
 nutrition, growth, and reproduction. 
 
 Sensitive life manifests itself in organic percep- 
 tion, imagination, organic instinct and craving, and 
 in locomotion. 
 
 Intellectual life consists in acts of understanding 
 and will. 
 
 As is proved in Psychology, plants have only 
 vegetative life, brutes vegetative and sensitive but 
 
314 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 not intellectual life, whilst man unites in himself 
 all three lives. God cannot have vegetative and 
 sensitive life, for these involve a material organism, 
 and God is a pure Spirit. But He must have 
 intellectual life, which does not involve any essential 
 dependence on matter, and is a pure perfection. 
 His life is therefore -essentially intellectual ; and as 
 His intellect and volition are infinitely perfect, He 
 must be said to live an infinitely perfect life. 
 
 191. Even without the light of Revelation we 
 can understand that the life of God must be 
 infinitely blissful, a state of supreme beatitude. 
 Beatitude is defined in scholastic language as the 
 bonum perfectum intellectually natures, i.e., the fulness 
 of everything really desirable to a rational being. 
 Such a being has a natural longing for truth. Con- 
 sequently, beatitude must attend the full possession 
 of truth. This full possession is to be found in 
 God, and in God alone. From this it follows that 
 beatitude is greater in proportion as the union with 
 God through knowledge and love increases. But 
 God comprehends Himself with absolutely perfect 
 knowledge, and has an infinite love for His own 
 infinite goodness. He is therefore infinitely happy 
 in virtue of His infinitely perfect life. 
 
 As He is unchangeable, so His beatitude can 
 undergo no change. Neither the material universe, 
 with its countless beauties and wonders showing forth 
 everywhere traces of God's power, wisdom, and 
 bounty, nor the world of created spirits, reflecting in 
 legions of incorruptible beings the image of the Divine 
 Majesty, nor the blessed in Heaven, praising their 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 315 
 
 Creator day and night, nor the just on earth serving 
 Him under trials and temptations, can augment His 
 beatitude in the least. Nor does the rebellion of 
 Lucifer and his wicked band, the indifference and 
 ingratitude of mortals, the never-ceasing obstinacy 
 of the damned in Hell, mar in any way the happiness 
 of Him whose essence is the centre and the only 
 source of all happiness. He is the Lord who 
 embraces His servants with a care and love in- 
 finitely more pure and generous than that of the 
 tenderest mother, but without anxiety and sorrow. 
 His Justice sentences the impenitent to everlasting 
 misery, but without anger and excitement, and without 
 wishing them evil as evil, out of love to the order 
 demanded by His infinite Wisdom. " He was," to 
 use the words of Cardinal Newman, " from eternity 
 ever in action, though ever at rest ; ever surely in 
 rest and peace, profound and ineffable ; yet with 
 a living present mind, self-possessed, and all-con- 
 scious, comprehending Himself and sustaining the 
 comprehension. He rested ever, but He rested in 
 Himself; His own resource, His own end, His 
 own contemplation, His own blessedness." 8 
 
 192. It is then evident that no affection of will 
 implying want of perfect peace and serenity of mind 
 is compatible with the infinitely blissful state proper 
 to the Divine Existence. Sadness, therefore, espe- 
 cially that sort of sadness called envy, which finds 
 a reason for grief in the prosperity of others, and 
 which by the heathens of old was attributed to their 
 false gods, is altogether alien to the Divine Nature, 
 
 8 Discourses addressed to Mixed Congregations, p. 289. (Seventh Edit.) 
 
316 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 It follows from this also that anger and repentance, 
 which have their root in some sadness, cannot be 
 predicated of God properly. 
 
 Notwithstanding all this, there is a deep truth 
 in the Scriptural expressions by which on certain 
 occasions sadness, anger, and repentance are attri- 
 buted to God. But they must be explained as 
 metaphors, as Catholic Doctors have always explained 
 them. 9 
 
 God is said to be angry, because He decrees to 
 inflict penalties on sinners ; and thus deals with 
 them as a king on earth might deal with a subject 
 who had provoked his anger. But while the earthly 
 potentate may be really angry, and act out of 
 passion, God is neither liable to the passion of 
 anger, nor can He inflict punishment for the sole 
 object of causing pain. He does not punish save 
 for justice' sake, and that in absolute calmness. 
 Infinite, therefore, is the difference between what 
 is metaphorically called the anger of God, and what 
 is really the anger of man. The one resembles the 
 other, not in its essence, but in its effects. 
 
 The same holds good of repentance, attributed 
 to God metaphorically, and existing in man really. 
 Repentance taken in its proper meaning is essen- 
 tially sorrow and dissatisfaction arising from the con- 
 sciousness of having done something evil, or omitted 
 something good which should have been done. Such 
 sorrow cannot be genuine, unless it includes the 
 wish and resolution to undo the past mistake as 
 much as possible. This purpose of following another 
 9 Cf. St. Thomas, Contra Gentes, i. 89, and 91. " Sciendum tamen." 
 
THE DIVINE WILL. 317 
 
 line of action for the time to come is marked by 
 special firmness and determination in the case of 
 true repentance. For this reason the term " repent- 
 ance " is a very apt metaphorical expression, to 
 signify that God in virtue of His eternal decrees 
 will henceforth either withdraw certain blessings 
 and inflict certain penalties on account of the sins 
 of men, or will cease to punish and pour out 
 favours in consideration for sinners being sincerely 
 converted to Him. In the former sense repentance 
 is attributed to God in the Book of Genesis: 10 "It 
 repented Him that He had made man." This 
 phrase means that God foreseeing the spread of 
 vice among the contemporaries of Noe, had decreed 
 from eternity to destroy them off the face of the 
 earth. The same term is used also to denote God's 
 eternal decree to stay the infliction of penalties, 
 on condition of true conversion. Thus God orders 
 the Prophet Jeremias to speak to the cities of Juda, 
 all the words which He had commanded him : " If 
 so be they will hearken and be converted every one 
 from his evil way, that I may repent Me of the evil 
 that I think to do unto them for the wickedness 
 of their doings." 11 
 
 There are in Scripture other terms applied to 
 God which signify disgust and sadness at the doings 
 of others. This language metaphorically denotes 
 the extreme hatred that the Divine will bears to 
 sin, especially to those sins which are committed 
 after the reception of special favours, or which imply 
 want of faith and confidence in the word of God, 
 
 19 Genesis vi. 6. u Jeremias xxvi. 3. 
 
3i8 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 Thus we read in reference to the ingratitude of the 
 chosen people : " In those days the Lord began to 
 be weary of Israel." 12 The want of faith in the 
 unbelieving King Achaz, the representative of the 
 house of David, calls down the reproach : " O house 
 of David, is it a small thing for you to be grievous 
 to men, that you are grievous to n.,y God also ? " ls 
 
 So long as men remain sensitive-rational beings 
 they will continue thus to express spiritual truths 
 in metaphorical language. And the more they con- 
 template the infinite perfection of the Creator of 
 matter and spirit, and the more their heart is set 
 on fire with love for " the First Author of beauty," 14 
 the more impressively will they speak of Him in 
 language rich with imagery. Those who at once 
 suspect anthropomorphism when they hear the lan- 
 guage of metaphor used of the First Cause, are as 
 unreasonable as he would be who should accuse 
 men of anthropomorphizing nature when they seek 
 a shelter against the rage of a snowstorm, protect 
 the sensitiveness of a delicate instrument, disport 
 themselves in the smiling meadows, or watch the 
 sun sinking to his couch. 
 
 ** 4 Kings x. 32. 13 Isaias vii. 15, 
 
 ** Cf. Wisdom xiii. 3. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD. 
 
 Thesis XXXII. God is able by the infinite efficacy 
 of His will to effect whatever is not intrinsically im- 
 possible ; wherefore Pie is all-powerful or omnipotent. 
 
 193. Power is ability to effect. In created agents 
 there is no ability to effect anything beyond changes 
 in things that are already existing in virtue of God's 
 creative act, as we have proved in Book I. Even 
 this power of producing changes in already existing 
 things is in many ways imperfect, as creatures 
 possess it. In inanimate matter, plants and dumb 
 animals, the power is exercised without the agent 
 being able to control it. The magnet has no choice, 
 but must communicate vis mysterious power to the 
 iron that comes near it ; the oak-tree of necessity 
 pushes it? roots beneath the earth to obtain nourish- 
 ment ; nor can the dog help running to the food 
 that tempts his appetite, or turning against another 
 animal which has provoked his anger. It is evident 
 that such blind power is essentially defective, and 
 therefore altogether inconceivable in God. 
 
 Let us now turn to the consideration of the 
 power of man. In him, as in the lower animals, 
 
320 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES 
 
 there are material forces, vital power, sensitive 
 perception, animal instinct, and the faculty of loco- 
 motion. But in him there is, besides all this, 
 intellect and free-will; and in virtue of the intel- 
 lectual life sustained by these two faculties, he has 
 the power of 'producing an effect freely chosen. He 
 alone therefore among all beings of the visible world 
 has a power which can properly be predicated of 
 God. No production of any effect can be a mani- 
 festation of pure perfection, unless it be controlled 
 by free-will. Yet not all production thus controlled, 
 when considered in the concrete, is pure perfection. 
 It is enough to glance at the exercise of man's 
 power in order to see the truth of this statement. 
 Man has the power of choice and of carrying out 
 what he has chosen, only on certain conditions 
 independent of his free-will. There is, moreover, 
 in him a real distinction between the faculty of 
 choosing and the faculty of carrying out the effect 
 chosen. The former resides in his will, the latter 
 in the faculties subject to the rule of his will. If he 
 chooses something for which these faculties are 
 unfit, his faculty of choice is not borne out by the 
 faculty of execution, as in the case of a paralytic 
 resolving to walk. In this case choice is not only 
 distinct from execution, but is altogether divorced 
 from it. Choice thus void of efficiency is not power. 
 That power alone is absolute perfection which 
 essentially involves at once the faculty of choosing 
 and the faculty of carrying out the choice : and this 
 is the exclusive privilege of the power of God. God 
 is essentially Free-will in His relation to everything 
 
THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD. 32* 
 
 distinct from His own unchangeable essence. What- 
 ever He chooses to effect, that He carries out by 
 the efficacy of His will. " Power," says St. Thomas, 
 " is not attributed to God as something really 
 different from His knowledge and will, but as 
 something expressed by a different idea ; as power 
 means the principle which carries out the command 
 of the will and the advice of the intellect. These 
 three (viz., intellect, will, power), coincide with one 
 another in God." l 
 
 194. The power of God, being absolutely perfect 
 and really one with His intellect and will, and con- 
 sequently with the simple, infinite, Divine essence, 
 must be infinite ; that is to say, it must suffice of 
 itself to produce whatever is not intrinsically im- 
 possible. Hence it follows that God can, by His 
 will alone, produce things out of nothing. This 
 truth we have proved in Book I., by showing that 
 no other hypothesis than that of creation car 
 account for the origin of matter and mind, in 
 accordance with the nature of God and of material 
 and spiritual things. The explanation just now 
 given of God's power, and of its identity with His 
 will, is calculated not only to bear out the fact of 
 creation, but also to show how the possibility of 
 creation is necessarily attached to the essence 
 of God. 
 
 3 " Potentia non ponitur in Deo ut aliquid differens ab scientia 
 et voluntate secundum rem sed solum secundum rationem, in 
 quantum scilicet potentia importat rationem principii exequentis 
 id quod voluntas imperat et ad quod scientia dirigit ; quae tria r 
 Deo secundum idem conveniunt." (St. Thomas. Sum. Theol. la. q. 25 
 Art. i. ad 4.) 
 
 V 
 
5 22 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 It further follows that the range of Divine power 
 infinitely surpasses its actual productions. These 
 are regulated by irrevocable eternal decrees. Once 
 such decrees are made by Him, God can apply His 
 power only in agreement with their import. 
 
 Therefore we have to distinguish between the 
 absolute and the regulated power of God (potentia Dei 
 absoluta et ordinata). By His absolute power He 
 can do everything which is not intrinsically re- 
 pugnant. By His power, however, as ruled by His 
 decrees, or by His regulated power, He cannot 
 carry out anything but that which He has decreed". 
 Thus, for instance, God has the absolute power 
 to preserve man altogether from death : but He 
 cannot do so in the present order, because He 
 has decreed otherwise. To express this techni- 
 cally, scholastics say : God can preserve man from 
 death, potentia absoluta; He cannot do so potentia 
 ordinata. 
 
 195. Against the omnipotence of God thus ex- 
 plained the following difficulties are often raised. 
 
 (i) God cannot commit a sin. But the com- 
 mission of a sin is something intrinsically possible. 
 Therefore God cannot do everything intrinsically 
 possible. 
 
 Answer. In answering this difficulty we have first 
 to remark that the essence of sin does not consist 
 in the production of an effect, but in the opposition 
 of free-will to the eternal law of God. If a sin 
 carries an effect with it, as in the case of blasphemy, 
 theft, murder, and other crimes, such an effect is 
 sinful only inasmuch as it is brought about by the 
 
THE OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD. 323 
 
 abuse cf moral freedom to the neglect of the Divine 
 law. Sin therefore is intrinsically possible only in 
 a being whose will can neglect the law of God, and 
 whose faculties can be used in opposition to that 
 law*. 
 
 But the will of God cannot be opposed to the 
 law of God, because that law considered under its 
 subjective aspect is really identical with the act of 
 the Divine will. Nor can any Divine faculty be 
 used in opposition to the Divine law, because none 
 is really distinct from its source, the unchangeable 
 Divine essence. Although, therefore, sin in a 
 created being is intrinsically possible, yet the pro- 
 position, " God can sin," is intrinsically contra- 
 dictory. Nor can it be said that this intrinsic 
 repugnance between the nature of God and the 
 nature of sin implies any defect of power in God. 
 It would do so indeed, if sin considered precisely as 
 sin consisted in the production of something really 
 distinct from the free self-determination of the will to 
 neglect a line of thinking, judging, desiring, acting, 
 sufficiently manifested by the voice of conscience as 
 prescribed by the Creator. The perfection under- 
 lying the action of self-determination is the faculty 
 of free-will ; and this faculty, of course, is in God 
 formally and eminently. The action of self-determi- 
 nation itself, as we have repeatedly remarked, is 
 not a production of any reality distinct from the 
 free choice of the will, but it is the will itself, 
 inasmuch as it approves, or rejects, or neglects an 
 object presented by the understanding as eligible. 
 When a being endowed with free-will and capable 
 
3 2 4 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 of sinning, enjoys the use of its freedom, it does not 
 want more power to commit sin than to abstain 
 from sin, but its power in that state suffices for 
 either of the two alternatives. On the other hand, 
 the ability to commit sin involves liability to be 
 overcome by false, unreasonable motives, and this 
 liability is rather weakness and imperfection than 
 power and perfection. Consequently, if God could 
 commit sin, he would not possess more active 
 physical power, but would be exposed to moral 
 weakness. 
 
 (2) God can produce no other God. But if His 
 power were infinite, He should be able to do so ; 
 because infinite power must suffice for the produc- 
 tion of an infinite Being. 
 
 Answer. As we have seen in Book I., it is re- 
 pugnant to the nature of a self-existing being that 
 it should exist in several separate individuals. 
 
 Hence another God is something intrinsically 
 impossible. Infinite power, precisely because it is 
 infinite, cannot be fully manifested, whether in a 
 particular effect or in a series of effects ; it is essen- 
 tially inexhaustible power. 
 
 For this reason it also excludes the possibility 
 not only of another God, but even of an absolutely 
 best world or best creature, as we have explained in 
 Book I. chap, iv. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD. 
 
 Thesis XXXIII. The metaphysical essence of God, 
 or that Divine attribute by which the human intellect 
 must principally distinguish Him from all created beings, 
 is the attribute of self -existence. In other words, God is 
 best defined by saying that He is the self-existing Being, 
 or "He who is." Consequently, the transcendental 
 attributes, "Truth" "Goodness," "Beauty," belong most 
 properly to God, who is to be called the first and supreme 
 Truth, the first and supreme Goodness, the first and 
 supreme Beauty. 
 
 196. The essence of a created thing is that in 
 virtue of which it is what it is (id quo res est id quod 
 est) 9 or that which constitutes its inmost being, and 
 without which it could not possibly be what it is 
 said to be. Using the term in a wider sense, we 
 apply it not only to natural substances, but also 
 to artificial things, to accidental determinations of 
 substances, and even to defects. Thus we speak of 
 the essence of a machine, of the essence of colour, 
 of the essence of a disease, of sin, &c. But primarily 
 the word " essence " is used of natural substances. 
 
 Under this aspect of the meaning of " essence " 
 
326 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 a distinction is to be drawn between the essence of 
 a thing as existing and as conceived by a human 
 intellect. 
 
 There are in the order of existence as many 
 essences as there are different substances ; for each 
 particular substance has its peculiar being, and is 
 in virtue thereof one particular substance and no 
 other. As St. Thomas expresses it : Esse proprinm 
 cujuslibet rei est tantum unum "The proper being 
 of each thing is only one." 1 
 
 If a particular individual thing could be con- 
 ceived by us adequately and according to its proper 
 being, our knowledge of its essence would be 
 complete ; in other words, we should have grasped 
 what some among modern scholastics call the 
 physical essence of the thing. 2 
 
 But no substance is fully known by us according 
 to the inmost constitution of its being. Conse- 
 quently of none do we know exactly its physical 
 essence. Such distinction as we are able to draw 
 between one individual thing and another, is based 
 upon a difference of accidental determinations, or 
 individual marks (notce individuantes) . Thus we tell 
 one man from another by his figure, gait, size, 
 countenance, voice, &c. 
 
 The essence of created things as conceived by us 
 does not contain all, but only some of the realities 
 of which its physical essence is made up, to wit, 
 
 1 Contra Gentes, i. c. 42. 
 
 2 Cf. Grand-Claude, Breviarium Philosophic, ii. n. 355. What 
 here is called physical essence corresponds in natural substances to 
 the esse of St. Thomas as distinguished from essentia. 
 
THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD. 327 
 
 such as are found in other things of a similar, 
 though not really the same, physical essence. 
 
 Conceiving for instance the essence of an indi- 
 vidual man as a sensitive rational being, I conceive 
 it in no way adequately as it is existing, but only 
 inadequately according to those notes which I 
 conceive as obtaining in all individual men. These 
 individuals differ from one another precisely in virtue 
 of their different physical essences, whilst at the same 
 time they resemble one another on account of 
 the similarity of those essences. The notes which 
 form the basis of such a resemblance constitute 
 the metaphysical essence of each member of the 
 group. 
 
 The metaphysical essence is consequently an 
 inadequate mental expression of the physical essence 
 of a thing. That expression may be of various 
 shades of perfection. It may express orly the remote 
 genus to which a thing belongs, or its proximate 
 genus only, or its proximate genus together with the 
 specific difference, by which the lowest species of 
 which it is a rhember, differs from other species. 
 Thus I express the metaphysical essence of my 
 friend very inadequately by saying that he is a 
 substance, more to the point by giving him the name 
 of living being, still better by affirming that he is an 
 animal, and best of all by declaring that he is a 
 rational animal. 
 
 What we have said about physical and meta- 
 physical essence, is based upon the doctrine laid 
 down by logicians that the universal as such has 
 no existence* but exists only inasmuch as it is 
 
328 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 realized in particular things resembling one another. 
 Hence it is readily understood that the metaphysical 
 essence of a created thing is a true but imperfect 
 mental delineation of the physical essence ; and that 
 consequently the distinction between metaphysical 
 and physical essence, in so far as both are verified in 
 one individual thing, is not a distinction existing as 
 such objectively, but in thought only. Yet as it is 
 based upon the objective similarity of physical 
 essences, it is not a mere fiction, but founded on a 
 real fact. 
 
 The limitations of the human intellect prevent 
 our having any more accurate conception of the 
 essence of a created being than is obtained by 
 putting together those notes which constitute its 
 lowest species. We say accordingly that we know 
 the essence of a thing, when we are able to express 
 the realities intelligible in each member of its lowest 
 species. For the same reason the definition of a 
 thing is supposed sufficiently to express its essence, 
 when it gives a good account of its specific nature, 
 as is done by indicating the proximate genus and 
 the specific difference of that nature. Here then 
 the old principle of St. Thomas is verified, that 
 our way of speaking imitates the inadequacy of our 
 conceptions. Although the metaphysical essence of 
 a thing expresses its real physical essence but very 
 imperfectly, yet it is simply called "essence." 
 "Essence or nature," says St. Thomas, "comprises 
 only those notes of a thing which fall under the 
 definition of a species, as for instance humanity 
 comprises only those notes which are contained 
 
THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD. 329 
 
 in the definition of man; for by these man is 
 man." 3 
 
 " Essence is properly that which is signified by 
 a definition. But a definition comprises only the 
 constituents of a species, not those of an indi- 
 vidual." 4 
 
 "The essence of each thing is that which is 
 signified by its definition." 5 
 
 197. These remarks about "essence" may suffice 
 to explain the sense in which Catholic philosophers 
 speak of the Divine Essence. Sometimes they use 
 the term to express what would correspond to the 
 physical essence of creatures. We meet for instance 
 with passages like the following: "Although tho 
 existence of God and some of His attributes aro 
 knowable, yet His Essence cannot be known by 
 us, so long as we are in this life." In such phrases 
 " Essence " means the Being of God as it is in itself* 
 Thus considered, it is hidden from our direct and 
 immediate intuition. Our natural knowledge about 
 it is altogether inferential, analogical, and inade- 
 quate. And, indeed, so it must be. Experience 
 testifies that we are unable to grasp adequately the 
 physical essence of even the meanest of creatures. 
 How then shall we fathom that of the Creator ? 
 
 3 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. qy 3. art. 3. in corp. "Essenti? 
 vel natura comprehendit ilia tantum quae cadunt in dennitione 
 speciei ; sicut humanitas comprehendit in se ea quae cadunt in 
 dennitione hominis; his enim homo est homo." 
 
 4 " Essentia proprie est id quod significatur per defmitionem. 
 Definitio autem complectitur speciei principia, non autem principia 
 individualia." (St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. 29. 2. ad 3.) 
 
 5 "Essentia enim uniuscuj usque rei est illud quod significat 
 definitio ejus." (Compendium Theol. c. x.) 
 
330 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 The question then arises: Is there among the 
 attributes of God any one attribute that may 
 rightly be called His metaphysical Essence ? This 
 attribute, if such there be, must distinguish God 
 from all species of finite beings after the manner 
 in which the metaphysical essence of creatures 
 of a certain species distinguishes them from those 
 of another species of the same proximate genus. 
 And as the metaphysical essence of a creature is 
 for our intellect the root of its specific properties, 
 so the metaphysical essence of God should furnish 
 a foundation for our mind to construct thereupon 
 in systematic order the rest of the Divine attri- 
 butes. 
 
 To this question different answers have been 
 given by different schoolmen. Scotus thought that 
 the attribute of infinity was aptly called the Essence 
 of God ; Billuart held that the Divine intelligence, 
 inasmuch as it is self-existing, deserved that name. 
 
 Neither of these two opinions satisfies the expla- 
 nation of metaphysical essence given above. To 
 human reason, unaided by revelation, infinity is not 
 the root of all the attributes of God ; for we cannot 
 understand why God must be infinite, before we 
 have understood that He is self-existent and one. 6 
 Nor again is the attribute of intelligence, con- 
 sidered as self-existent, the starting-point from 
 which our intellect proceeds in order to establish 
 the rest of the Divine attributes. Moreover, this 
 attribute of intelligence contains more than is 
 necessary to distinguish God from all creatures. 
 
 Cf. Bk. I. p. loo- 
 
THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD. 331 
 
 For this purpose it is not requisite to affirm that 
 He is a self-existent Intelligence; it is enough to 
 say that He is self-existent ; for a self-existent being 
 must be infinitely intelligent, as our previous argu- 
 ments have shown. 
 
 It is then in the attribute of self-existence alone 
 that we find these properties which make a Divine 
 attribute correspond to what we call in creatures 
 metaphysical essence. In this attribute there is ex- 
 pressed as well that which is (analogically) common 
 to God and to creatures, as also that by which He 
 is distinguished from them all. God exists really 
 and creatures exist really. God has His proper being f 
 or, rather is it, and so has every creature its proper 
 being. Inasmuch therefore as " being," conceived 
 in the highest possible abstraction, means nothing 
 more than opposition to nothingness, we say truly : 
 God is and the creature is. Yet the Divine being 
 and the created being differ infinitely from one 
 another in that the former is independent, the latter 
 dependent; the former uncaused, the latter caused; 
 the former has all things of itself, the latter has 
 absolutely nothing of itself, but is itself an effect 
 produced out of nothing according to a preconceived 
 idea derived from the Divine essence. This infinite 
 difference is indicated by saying, that God not only 
 is, but is of Himself, in virtue of His own essence ; 
 in a word, He is self-existent. From this concept 
 of self-existence we have unfolded the unity and 
 infinity of God and established rules for determi- 
 ning whether any given created perfection is to be 
 affirmed or denied of the Creator and in what 
 
332 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 sense. 7 Following these rules we found the chief 
 negative and positive attributes of God, as ex- 
 pounded in the six previous chapters of this Book. 
 
 Self-existence is consequently, for a logically 
 reasoning human intellect, not merely a distinctive 
 excellence of the Divinity, it is the one fundamental 
 excellence from which all others are to be explained. 
 Therefore it deserves the name of Divine Essence. 
 
 198. The only objection worthy of consideration 
 against this view is this, that self-existence does 
 not sufficiently mark off the one true God from the 
 fictitious deity of pantheists and the uncreated 
 atoms of materialists. It would seem that mono- 
 theists, pantheists, and materialists agree with one 
 another perfectly in that they suppose a self-existent 
 source of all being. Monotheists believe in a self- 
 existent personal and infinite God, who created all 
 things other than Himself out of nothing by His 
 omnipotent will. Pantheists, at least our modern 
 Spinozists and Hegelians, assume a self-existent 
 substance or idea developing into various spiritual 
 and material things as so many modes or determi- 
 nations of its proper being. Materialists imagine 
 self-existent atoms driven by inexplicable laws to 
 evolve out of their innermost potentiality life and 
 sense and reason. 
 
 If then self-existence is predicated both of 
 fictitious first causes and of the one true First 
 Cause, how can we say that it expresses the essence 
 of God? 
 
 To understand fully the answer to this question, 
 
 7 See the rules laid down in Bk. I. pp. 101, seq. 
 
THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD. 333 
 
 the reader must bear in mind what has been proved 
 in Book I. chap. iv. against the pantheistic and 
 materialistic hypothesis. It has been shown there 8 
 that both the self-existent and self-evolving deity 
 of pantheists, and the self-existent atoms assumed 
 by materialists, are intrinsically absurd. Now defi- 
 nitions are not made to distinguish the thing 
 defined from intrinsic absurdities, but to point out 
 its difference from realities. The definition of God 
 must therefore contain that by which God is clearly 
 and primarily distinguished from all real things that 
 are not God. And from all these He is clearly and 
 primarily distinguished by the definition : God is the 
 self-existent being. If, therefore, according to the 
 common way of speaking, the essence of a thing is 
 the import of its definition, self-existence must be 
 the essence of God. 
 
 The truth underlying the difficulty which we 
 have solved amounts to this, that the phrase, God is 
 the self-existing being, is not a definition, which in an 
 age like our own should be put forward without 
 proper explanation. Yet this does not prevent it 
 from being a good definition in itself. All definitions 
 need explaining according to the circumstances of 
 those to whom they are propounded. 
 
 199. Comparing the definition given with the name 
 under which God revealed Himself to Moses : " / 
 am who am. . . . Thus shalt thou say to the children 
 of Israel : He who is hath sent me to you ; " 9 we 
 see that the phrase, He who is, is identical in meaning 
 with the self-existent being. The term, " self-existent 
 
 8 Bk. I. c. iv. 78, seq. and 93, seq. 9 Exodus iii. 14 
 
334 THE DIVINE ATfRIBUTES. 
 
 being," denotes that actual essence which alone is in- 
 capable of being rightly conceived otherwise than as 
 existing in itself. Every other actual essence can be 
 conceived as not existing in itself, as a mere term 
 of the Divine intellect, a purely possible imitation 
 of the Divine essence. But this is exactly what is 
 meant by the Scriptural phrase, " He who is." God 
 is accurately denned to be the self-existent being, ipsum 
 esse in se subsistens, 19 and He is equally well denned, 
 He who is, Qui est. 
 
 For the appropriateness of this name revealed 
 by God Himself, St. Thomas 1] gives three reasons. 
 
 (1) This name suggests to us that God is -not 
 a being made according to a preconceived eternal 
 idea, but a necessarily existing essence. 
 
 (2) This name, as it is of the widest universality, 
 does not, like other names, such as Mighty, Wise, 
 Just, connote a certain class or classes of beings. 
 Consequently, when used with emphasis as the 
 proper name of the Divine Being, it suggests to us 
 that that Being is not limited in His perfection to 
 the reality conceivable in one or more genera of 
 finite things, but unites in Himself eminently what- 
 ever outside Himself can be conceived as being, in 
 opposition to privation or defect. 13 
 
 10 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. 4. art. ii. in corp. 
 
 11 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. 13. art. xi. in corp. 
 
 12 " Primum quidem propter sui significationem. Non enim sig- 
 nificat formam aliquam sed ipsum esse," &c. 
 
 13 " Secundo propter ejus universalitatem. . . . Quolibet eaim 
 alio nomine determinatur aliquis modus substantiae rei ; sed hoc 
 nomen Qui est nullum modum essendi determinat, sed se habet 
 indeterminate ad omnes, et ideo nominat ipsum pelagus substantiae 
 infinitum." 
 
THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD, 333 
 
 (3) The name He who is, as it contains the 
 substantive verb to be in the present tense, connotes 
 the essence of God to be unalterable eternity, an 
 unchangeable standing "now" in the midst of tran- 
 sitory created existences. 14 
 
 200. The metaphysical essence of God naturally 
 suggests His three transcendental attributes : Truth, 
 Goodness, Beauty. We call them transcendental, 
 because they transcend all the genera and classi- 
 fication of substances inasmuch as they are not 
 properties of a certain class or classes of substances, 
 but are, to a certain extent, verified in every creature. 
 They express the perfection of all being whatsoever, 
 as bearing certain relations to intellect and will. 16 
 
 Every being, in so far as it is conceivable as a 
 positive reality, is true; in so far as its perfection 
 is matter of approval or desire to a rational will, 
 it is good; and in so far as its perfection involves an 
 excellence which the intellect cannot contemplate 
 without the will, if duly disposed, being moved to 
 a certain complacency and delight, it is beautiful. 
 
 As then God unites in His self-existent essence 
 all conceivable perfections, He must stand in such a 
 relation to every intellect and will as to deserve in a 
 
 14 "Tertio vero ex ejus consignificatione. . . . Significat enimesse 
 in praesenti ; et hoc maxime proprie de Deo dicitur, cujus esse non 
 novit praeteritum vel futurum." 
 
 15 This is the original meaning of the word " transcendental," 
 as it was employed for centuries by scholastic philosophers. Since 
 Kant it has been employed with another meaning in quite a 
 different connection. According to Kant, the transcendental is 
 what surpasses our experience. 
 
 16 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol, la. q. 5. art. 4. ad i. 
 
336 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 most proper sense the denominations of Truth, 
 Goodness, Beauty. A short explanation and proof 
 of this will aptly conclude this chapter. 
 
 201. (i) Truth. We must distinguish objective 
 truth, intellectual truth, moral truth. A thing is 
 objectively or essentially true, in so far as it deserves 
 the name of tiling, and is not a mere chimera. 
 Every conceivable possible or actual substance is 
 consequently objectively true. Besides this properly 
 transcendental meaning of truth, there are two 
 other senses in which truth is found only in 
 rational beings. A rational being apprehending 
 and judging a thing in harmony with its possible 
 or actual existence, and not confounding the one 
 with the other, has formal or intellectual truth ; its 
 intellect is formally or intellectually true. Intellectual 
 or formal truth is the conformity of the knowing 
 intellect with the object known (adaequatio intellectus 
 cum re). 
 
 A rational being when it addresses itself to 
 other minds by speech or equivalent modes of ex- 
 pression, is said to be truthful or not according as it 
 manifests or not what it takes to be objective truth. 
 This sort of truth or truthfulness is generally called 
 moral truth. The speaker is under a moral obli- 
 gation to be truthful in this manner. 
 
 In each of these three meanings truth is proper 
 to God without limit. He is infinitely perfect objective 
 Truth ; for He is not only a really conceivable Being, 
 but He is the only Being the acknowledgment of 
 whom explains all realities, as He is the principle 
 of all possible being and the First Cause of all 
 
THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD. 337 
 
 actual being outside Himself. Being possessed of 
 an infinite intellect, which is really identical with 
 His essence, He is the first intellectual Truth, not 
 liable either to the shadows of ignorance or to the 
 depravations of error. Moreover it has been proved 
 in our exposition of His moral attributes that His 
 veracity and faithfulness are absolutely perfect. 
 Each revelation He makes is therefore morally true ; 
 and as the manifestation of infinitely perfect wisdom, 
 altogether infallible. 
 
 202. (2) Goodness is distinguished as absolute 
 and relative. Absolute goodness is the perfection 
 of a being, in so far as it cannot be considered 
 in itself without eliciting the approval of a rational 
 and righteous will. Relative goodness is the per- 
 fection of a being, considered in its aptitude to 
 satisfy the natural tendencies of other beings. 
 
 From these definitions it appears easily, that God 
 is supreme goodness both absolute and relative. He 
 is supreme absolute goodness by virtue of His infinitely 
 perfect essence, which contains without any defect 
 everything worthy of approval and love. He is 
 supreme relative goodness, for, as we shall see in 
 Book III., no creature can reach the goal of its 
 existence unless it be preserved and directed by 
 Him, who alone is the First Cause of its goodness ; 
 and, as we see in Ethics, no rational being can find 
 the happiness for which it has been made, save 
 through union with Him by perfect knowledge and 
 love. Nay, just as being, when taken as a necessary 
 attribute, cannot be predicated except of God, so 
 goodness is predicable with absolute necessity of God 
 w 
 
333 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 alone. In this sense our Saviour said, " None is 
 good but God alone." 17 
 
 St. Thomas gives a fuller explanation of this 
 truth in the following words : " God alone is good 
 by His essence. For the goodness of everything is 
 based upon its perfection. Now there is a three- 
 fold perfection of a thing to be distinguished. The 
 first is that which constitutes its existence. To this 
 a second perfection is added, in that the thing 
 existing receives some accidental qualities necessary 
 for its perfect operation. Its third perfection con- 
 sists in attaining something outside itself as the end 
 of its existence. . . But of these three perfections 
 none belongs to any creature in virtue of its essence. 
 God alone possesses them in this way. Indeed of 
 Him alone can it be said that His essence is His 
 existence ; He alone cannot receive accidental quali- 
 ties, but possesses as identical with His essence 
 what is predicated of others accidentally for 
 instance, power, wisdom, &c. He also has no end 
 to reach, but is Himself the end of all things. It 
 is consequently evident that God alone is essentially 
 perfect in every respect, which is tantamount to 
 saying that He alone is good in virtue of His 
 essence." 18 
 
 17 St. Luke xviii. 19. 
 
 18 " Solus Deus est bonus per suam essentiara. Unumquodque 
 enim dicitur bonum secundum quod est perfectum. Perfectio 
 autem alicujus rei triplex est. Prima quidem, secundum quod in 
 suo esse constituitur ; secunda vero, prout ei aliqua accidentia 
 superadduntur ad suam perfectam operationem necessaria ; tertia 
 vero perfectio alicujus est per hoc quod aliquid aliud attingit sicut 
 tinem. . . . Heec autem triplex perfectio nulli creato competit 
 
THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD. 339 
 
 In the following article the Angelic Doctor ex- 
 plains thus the relation of God's goodness to that 
 of creatures : " Everything is said to be good in 
 virtue of the Divine goodness, inasmuch as this is 
 the prototype, the first efficient cause and last end 
 of whatever is good. Nevertheless everything is 
 good in itself, in so far as it is a sort of copy of 
 the Divine Being, from the resemblance to which 
 it is formally denominated good. Thus under one 
 aspect there is one goodness of all, under another 
 aspect there are, if we may say so, many good- 
 nesses." 19 
 
 Note. Goodness in a more limited sense signifies 
 reasonable benevolence. That this must be pre- 
 dicated of God in regard to His rational creatures 
 we have proved when treating of the moral attri- 
 butes. 20 
 
 2 3- (3) Beauty is the inseparable companion of 
 perfect goodness. By the beautiful we mean that 
 which, when intellectually perceived, excites by its 
 
 secundum suam essentiara, sed soli Deo, cujus solius essentia est 
 suum esse, et cui non adveniunt aliqua accidentia ; sed quse de aliis 
 dicuntur accidentaliter, sibi conveniunt essentialiter, ut esse poten- 
 tem, sapientem, et alia hujusmodi ; ipse etiam ad nihil aliud 
 ordinatur sicut ad finem, sed ipse est ultimus finis omnium rerum. 
 Unde manifestum est quod solus Deus habet omnimodam perfec- 
 tionem secundum suam essentiam ; et ideo ipse solus est bonus per 
 suam essentiam." (St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. i. q. 6. a. 3. 
 
 19 " Unumquodque dicitur bonum bonitate divina, sicut primo 
 principio exemplari, effectivo et finali totius bonitatis. Nihilominus 
 tamen unumquodque dicitur bonum similitudine divinae bonitatis 
 sibi inhaerente, quse est formaliter sua bonitas, denominans ipsum. 
 Et sic est bonitas una omnium, et etiam multae bonitates." (Ibid. 
 a. 4. c. fin.) 
 
 20 Cf. Bk. II. c. v. sect. 2, 186. 
 
THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 mere contemplation feelings of satisfaction and 
 delight in the well-disposed will. This idea is 
 happily expressed in the old saying, Fulcrum est 
 splendor veri " Beauty is the lustre of truth." 
 
 The description given applies equally to a beau- 
 tiful edifice, a beautiful statue, a beautiful sermon, 
 a beautiful saying, beautiful music, and to a beau- 
 tiful idea, a beautiful way of acting, a beautiful 
 character, a beautiful soul. 21 As our intellect in 
 this life can have no direct intuition but of sensible 
 things, it is impossible for mortal men to con- 
 template beauty intuitively unless it appears under 
 sensible forms. Yet its essence is in no way 
 sensible, but purely intellectual. The most essential 
 note of beauty in corporeal things is proportion of 
 parts to a whole and to one another. Now pro- 
 portion as such is evidently an object not of sense- 
 perception, but of intellectual apprehension, whether 
 it exists in the region of colour or of sound or of 
 ideas, in the harmony of the animal body, limb with 
 limb, or in the fitness of moral action to the rational 
 nature of the doer. It follows from this that a 
 brute beast, although it may have an attraction for 
 bright colour, has no true taste for beauty ; and that 
 the ability of a man to judge of its presence or 
 absence increases with the power of his intellect 
 to strike a comparison between phenomenal appear- 
 ance and ideal type. Pulchra dicuntur qua visa. 
 placent, 22 says St. Thomas. "Things beautiful are 
 
 21 Cf. Goethe's Aus den Bekenntnissen einer sclwnen Seele. 
 
 22 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. 5. art. 4. ad i. From the 
 context it appears clearly that it is not the intention of the Angelic 
 
THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD 341 
 
 those of which the mental intuition causes delight." 
 The more comprehensive the mental intuition of 
 the beautiful, the greater is the spiritual delight 
 produced by it. Things of which we can have no 
 direct intuition are to be judged beautiful if it can 
 be shown that on the supposition of immediate con- 
 templation spiritual satisfaction would naturally 
 arise. This being so, God must be infinitely 
 beautiful. In the section on Divine Life 23 we 
 draw the conclusion that the comprehensive know- 
 ledge which God has of this His perfection neces- 
 sarily involves in Him a state of infinite happiness. 
 How much more must this infinite perfection of 
 the Creator suffice to make finite minds happy 
 if they are allowed to behold it. As God is 
 the final end of man, even the knowledge of Him 
 as He is reflected in the mirror of creatures 
 would, as is proved in Ethics, become so perfect in 
 our final state as to cause in us a perfect natural 
 happiness, supposing us not to have been raised to 
 a supernatural state, nor ever to have forfeited the 
 attainment of our last end by sin not pardoned. 
 Indeed, .the millions of infants who die without 
 baptism every year will rejoice throughout eternity 
 over the Divine beauty as it is reflected in creation. 
 Yet their knowledge of God and the happiness 
 resulting from it cannot be compared with what 
 Christian faith leads us to live and to long for. By 
 
 Doctor to confine the province of the beautiful to things visible by 
 the eyes of the body. He says expressly, " Fulcrum et bonum in 
 subjecto quidem sunt idem . . . sed rations differunt." 
 23 Bk. II. c. v. sect. 3, 191. 
 
342 THE DIVINE ATTRIBUTES. 
 
 this faith we are certain that all those who believe 
 in the Word made Flesh with that living faith which 
 works through charity are children of God by 
 adoption. As such they are destined to see God 
 face to face, and to find a torrent of delight in the 
 vision of His eternal and unchangeable beauty. The 
 hope of coming to the enjoyment of this beauty of 
 beauties has guided and strengthened the Apostles 
 and martyrs of all ages in the midst of persecutions 
 and torments. They reckoned with St. Paul " that 
 the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be com- 
 pared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed 
 in us," 24 when we shall see " the Blessed and only 
 Mighty, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who 
 only hath immortality, and inhabiteth light in- 
 accessible " 25 to the intuition of mortals. The same 
 hope forms even at the end of our materialistic 
 nineteenth century an inexhaustible source of con- 
 solation for millions of Christians, who experience 
 in the practice of Christianity the fulfilment of the 
 Divine promise : " He shall know of the doctrine 
 whether it be of God." 26 It is they who truly can 
 rejoice in the thought of their Creator even here on 
 earth, whilst His essence is not seen by them. If 
 all around seems dark, in Him they find light. If 
 everything else be lost, in Him they recover it 
 abundantly. " Wearied with the never-ceasing din 
 of the world, wearied with the monotonous bustle of 
 commerce and of trade, wearied with the hollow 
 pretensions, the duplicity, the jealousies of political 
 
 24 Romans viii. 18. 2S i Tim. vi. 15, 16. 
 
 26 St. John vii. 17. 
 
THE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF GOD. 343 
 
 parties, wearied yet more with the trivialities of 
 social intercourse, and with the solemn littlenesses 
 of individual self-assertion as it jostles its way among 
 the crowd to gain its own wretched hillock what a 
 joy and consolation to pass by contemplation (if 
 only for an hour) into the bosom of our ever-tranquil 
 God." 27 It was during an hour of this rablimest 
 of all contemplations that St. Augustine exclaimed : 
 " Too late I loved Thee, O Thou, Beauty of ancient 
 days, yet ever new ! too late I loved Thee." ** 
 
 97 Harper, Sermon on Spiritual Life, p. I , 
 
 28 " Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tarn antiqua et tarn nova, sero te 
 amavi." (St. Aug. Cow/, x. 27.) 
 
NATURAL THEOLOGY. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 PROLEGOMENA. 
 
 CONNECTION OF THIS BOOK WITH THE TWO 
 PRECEDING. 
 
 204. IN Book I. we showed that the visible universe 
 ctnd the minds of men are indebted for their origin 
 to one personal infinitely perfect God, who created 
 matter and mind by the potency of a sheer exercise 
 of volition. Thus the Christian idea of God is 
 justified before the tribunal of reason under a two- 
 fold aspect ; for it became evident that logical 
 reasoning from the deliverance of our senses and 
 consciousness leads to the acknowledgment of what 
 Christian monotheists believe both about the funda- 
 mental attributes of God and about His fundamental 
 relation to this world as Creator of all things. 
 
 A fuller explanation and defence of the truths 
 implicitly contained in the most fundamental attri- 
 
PROLEGOMENA . 345 
 
 butes of God (His self-existence, unity, simplicity, 
 infinity), formed the subject-matter of Book II. 
 During the course of it we saw first that the infinite 
 Divine Being is placed above all internal changes 
 by His immutability, above all limits of duration by 
 His eternity, beyond all boundaries of space by His 
 immensity. From these three negative attributes 
 we passed on to the consideration of the intellect 
 and the will of God, those two positive attributes 
 which constitute the Divine life. It appeared clearly 
 that the Creator with an all-comprehensive intel- 
 lectual grasp comprehends both the infinite depths of 
 His Divinity, and the innumerable multitude of finite 
 beings, possibilities that shall never turn to actual- 
 ities, and also the whole of past, present, and future 
 existences, including even the future free volitions 
 of rational creatures. Next it was proved that God, 
 knowing that He is infinitely perfect, must love 
 Himself with absolute necessity, whilst He is free 
 to grant or not to grant existence to things distinct 
 from His essence. It was then shown that the 
 exercise of Divine freedom must be one eternal 
 irrevocable choice, and reasons were given for the 
 compatibility of such a choice with the unchange- 
 able state of the Divine Nature. Having after that 
 expounded the holiness of God and the chief moral 
 attributes comprised in it (benevolence, mercy, justice, 
 veracity, and fidelity), we concluded the treatise on 
 the intellectual life of God by demonstrating that 
 He not only lives in the most proper sense of the 
 word, but lives also an infinitely happy life. 
 
 From the consideration of the internal perfection 
 
346 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 of the Divine will we next proceeded to weigh its 
 relation to possible finite beings, and arrived at the 
 conclusion that under this aspect Divine volition 
 implies infinite power, or omnipotence. The par- 
 ticular attributes of God thus established were in 
 the last chapter of Book II. compared with one 
 another; and it was found that the most funda- 
 mental of them all for the purposes of human 
 thought, is the attribute of self-existence ; that this 
 attribute therefore deserves the appellation of 
 " Divine Essence ; " and that the name most appro- 
 priate to the Creator in opposition to His creatures 
 is that revealed by Himself, " Jahveh," or " He who 
 is." The fulness of being implicitly signified by this 
 name led to the final conclusion, that God stands 
 in such a relation to every competent and well- 
 disposed intellect and will as to be, in the most 
 proper sense of the term, supreme truth, supreme 
 goodness, supreme beauty. 
 
 The reader sees from this short recapitulation 
 that the whole of Book II. aims at bringing out 
 logically and distinctly the import of the first funda- 
 mental truth established in Book I. viz., that 
 *' there exists a personal God, one, simple, infinitely 
 perfect Being." It remains now to draw the logical 
 consequences from the second fundamental dogma 
 proved in Book I. viz., that " God is the Creator 
 of the universe." 
 
 205. The first question suggested by the great 
 fact of creation is this : How far do existing creatures 
 continue to be dependent on God both as regards 
 the continuance of their being and the exercise of 
 
PROLEGOMENA. 347 
 
 their activity ? It will appear from the answers 
 to be given to this question that under a certain 
 aspect God continually preserves all finite beings 
 and operates immediately in all their operations. 
 These answers call forth at once another query: 
 What is the final goal prefixed by the Creator to 
 the existence and actions of creatures ? Is the 
 activity He exerts in their regard such as to deserve 
 the name of Divine providence and government ? 
 How shall we reconcile the affirmation of Divine 
 providence and government with the evils of this 
 world, and with what Christians believe about the 
 eternal punishment of the wicked in the life to 
 come ? Moreover, it is an historical fact that mono- 
 theistic nations of ancient and modern times have 
 believed and are believing still, not only in a Divine 
 government through the means of natural laws, but 
 also in a supernatural interference by special Divine 
 revelations confirmed by prophecies and miracles. 
 What is the judgment of right reason on such a 
 belief? 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 
 SECTION I. The Divine conservation of creatures. 
 
 Thesis XXXIV. Even after it has been created, 
 created being cannot continue to exist without continuous 
 action on the part of God to preserve it in existence. 
 This Divine action is called " conservation." 
 
 206. We may begin by considering how far our 
 created being can be affected in regard to its con- 
 tinuance in existence by other created beings. To 
 preserve a thing is to be in some way or other the 
 cause of its not ceasing to be what it is. In this sense 
 we speak of preserving health, life, good name, inno- 
 cence, virtue, peace, and so on. Now, as we have 
 proved in Book I., the being of matter as matter, 
 and the individual being of each created spirit, 
 human souls included, must be attributed to imme- 
 diate Divine creation out of nothing. From this 
 it follows that there is something in every creature 
 which lies altogether beyond the domain of created 
 causality, whether to destroy or to continue its 
 existence. For the substance in question is either 
 a purely corporeal thing of a lower or higher order 
 (a piece of inanimate matter, a plant, a dumb 
 animal), or it is a man, or it is a spirit. In the first 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 349. 
 
 case the basis of its individual being is matter, as 
 matter; in the second case matter joined to spirit: 
 in the third case spirit alone. Now the production 
 of matter and spirit is production out of nothing, 
 and production out of nothing, as has been pre- 
 viously shown, requires infinite and therefore Divine 
 power. Such an effect manifestly cannot owe its 
 continuance in existence to the action of any 
 creature. The power of every creature and of all 
 creatures together is finite, and finite power is 
 unable to destroy what has its existence in virtue 
 of infinite power. Therefore no creature and no 
 multitudes of creatures can destroy even the smallest 
 piece of matter, or the most degraded of human 
 souls. If they cannot destroy the being of these 
 things, evidently the preservation of such things 
 cannot be ascribed to them. 
 
 Hence the preserving influence of creature upon 
 creature is limited to the substantial species of 
 material things, and to the accidental states of 
 substances both material and spiritual. For instance, 
 a sportsman may for a time preserve his dog as a dog 
 by taking care of its health, he may also destroy 
 it by a pistol-shot; but the matter of which the 
 dog is made up cannot be destroyed either by him 
 or by any other creature; it is, so far as created 
 power of destruction goes, absolutely indestructible. 
 An artisan may preserve by practice his acquired 
 skill in his art ; yet it does not belong to him to 
 preserve the internal foundation of that skill, his 
 own spiritual soul, and the elementary matter of 
 which his organism is formed. 
 
350 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 In their own sphere creatures may preserve a 
 thing either directly or indirectly. Direct preserva- 
 tion is an influence without the continuation ot 
 which the thing 'upon which it is exercised can no 
 longer last. Thus through the action of a source 
 of light upon the organ of vision of sensitive beings, 
 colours are directly preserved as actually visible ; 
 for they exist under this aspect only so long as that 
 action lasts. For a blind man the phenomenon of 
 colour exists only potentially, nor can the quality 
 denoted by the term "colour" pass from potential 
 to actual visibility in a room perfectly dark. 
 
 A thing is preserved indirectly, in that the causes 
 are warded off which would effect its destruction. 
 An example of indirect preservation would be the 
 rescue of a man from drowning. 
 
 207. No created being then can preserve in exist- 
 ence either directly or indirectly the underlying 
 entity of any other created being. And now the 
 question arises : Does God preserve all things ? 
 And in what sense ? The answer given in our 
 thesis is : God preserves all things directly. 
 
 That He does not preserve ail individual things 
 indirectly is evident both from experience and reason. 
 In mankind and in the other living beings of this 
 world, a continual corruption and generation of 
 specific existence is witnessed. And reason tells us 
 that human souls and pure spirits are incorruptible 
 substances, consequently not liable to the influence 
 of dissolving causes, and therefore, in so far as their 
 specific being is concerned, not capable of indirect 
 preservation. 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 351 
 
 But we say that He preserves all things directly, 
 and that without direct Divine preservation no 
 created being can continue in existence. As St. 
 Thomas says : " The existence of all creatures 
 depends upon God in such a way that they could 
 not last even for a moment, but would return into 
 nothing, if the influence of Divine power did not 
 keep them in being." x 
 
 And why so ? For the following reasons : Since 
 every created being consists ultimately either of 
 matter or of spirit or is a combination of the two, 
 and neither matter nor spirit can have their 
 origin except in an immediate Divine act, viz., that 
 of creation, it follows that the very basis of the 
 being of each created substance depends for its 
 origin exclusively on the power of God. Such a 
 dependence is manifestly an essential one. It is 
 like the dependence of the daylight on the sun, not 
 like that of the offspring on its parent. But an 
 essential dependence must last so long as the depen- 
 dent object retains its own proper essence. Thus we 
 arrive at the conclusion that every created essence 
 depends upon the power of God so long as its 
 existence lasts ; in other words, that each creature, 
 so long as it exists, is directly preserved by God. 
 
 The same inference may be drawn from this 
 consideration : Every creature depends upon the 
 free volition of God for the existence of its inmost 
 
 1 "Dependet enim esse cujuslibet creaturae a Deo, ita quod nee 
 ad momentum subsistere possent, sed in nihilum redigerentur, nisi 
 operatione divinae virtutis conservarentur in esse." (St. Thomas, 
 Sum. Theol. la. q. 104. art. i. 
 
352 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 being, in that God is free to grant or not to grant 
 existence to finite things. But God can withdraw 
 what depends upon His free-will, a withdrawal not 
 to be conceived as the making of any reality, but 
 only as a subtraction of preservation. 
 
 Hence God preserves all creatures continually 
 and directly by not ceasing to act upon them as the 
 cause of their being. 
 
 The last italicized phrase is meant to prevent a 
 wrong conception of Divine preservation. It would 
 be false and childish to conceive it with Bayle as a 
 reiterated creation, postulated by the continual sink- 
 ing back of creatures into nothingness, from which 
 abyss they must be saved by the continual causation 
 of their being through Divine power. If this opinion 
 were true, there would be properly no preservation 
 at all, but only renewal by Divine creation of inter- 
 rupted existences. The relation in which Divine 
 preservation stands to creation may be shortly put 
 in this way : Creation is the omnipotent free volition 
 of God conceived as causing the starting into exist- 
 ence of finite beings; preservation is the same 
 omnipotent free volition of God conceived as causing 
 the continuance of the existences already produced. 
 It is therefore right to say: By preservation the 
 creature receives nothing which it has not already 
 got by creation. It would, however, be wrong and 
 false to assert : Creatures are indebted to God 
 immediately indeed for the first beginning of their 
 existence ; yet its continuation depends only medi- 
 ately upon the Creator. This statement is to be 
 rejected, for created beings are all under some 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 353 
 
 aspect continually and immediately dependent upon 
 God alone. For the rest it is true that under other 
 aspects, explained above, creatures preserve crea- 
 tures, but only on the supposition that the basis of 
 their own being, the very root of their " esse," 
 and likewise the basis of the things which they are 
 said to preserve, be kept in existence immediately 
 by Divine power alone. 2 
 
 208. These explanations will throw light upon the 
 following difficulties : 
 
 (i) Angels and human souls are incorruptible 
 beings, and consequently cannot lose their exist- 
 ence as individuals of a certain species. But such 
 incorruptible beings do not need preservation. 
 Consequently angels and human souls need na 
 preservation, and the doctrine that God directly 
 preserves all creatures is false. 
 
 Answer. In this argument incorruptibility of 
 individual existence is taken for absolute necessity. 
 It is true that human souls and angels cannot be 
 dissolved into component parts, and thus give rise 
 to individual existences of other species. But 
 nevertheless their existence is an effect of free 
 Divine volition, and therefore is contingent, and, 
 absolutely speaking, might cease to be. Faith 
 supported by reason makes us infallibly sure that 
 God will never annihilate either angels or men, 
 and we have also good reason for thinking with 
 St. Thomas that He will not annihilate the elemen- 
 tary matter which forms the basis of all corporeal 
 
 1 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. 104. art. 2. " Utrum Deua imme- 
 diate omnem creaturam oonservet." 
 
354 1'HE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 beings. 3 Yet we have proved above that He could 
 do so by withdrawal of His preservation, if He 
 willed. To express this in the technical terms 
 already explained in the chapter on Divine Power : 
 God can annihilate them potentia absoluta, not, how- 
 ever, potentia ordinata. Hence without His preserva- 
 tion they would be nothing. 
 
 (2) The Creator should be able to produce effects 
 superior in stability to tiiose of creatures. But if 
 no effect of God's power can last without being 
 preserved by God, His productions are inferior to 
 those of His creatures : for many productions of 
 creatures, monuments of art for instance, last for 
 centuries without any continuous action of the 
 causes that produced them. 
 
 Answer. The. apparent strength of this difficulty 
 rests upon its attributing to the causality of creatures 
 what really is due to the power of the Creator. All 
 effects of creatures are modifications or transforma- 
 tions of subjects that owe their existence to Divine 
 creation. After the active influence of a created 
 cause has ceased, its effect continues only on the 
 condition that the subject in which it exists has a 
 natural aptitude for its retention. A chemical com- 
 pound artificially produced is more or less stable in 
 proportion as it satisfies the affinities of the elements. 
 A machine, the maker of which has violated the 
 
 3 Cf. St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. 104. art. 4. The holy Doctor 
 teaches in this article that God could annihilate creatures by over- 
 ruling their natural aptitude to persevere in existence. But this 
 would be a sort of miracle, not adapted to the spread of the 
 knowledge and love of God, and therefore not to be expected. 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 355 
 
 laws imposed upon him by the attractive and resist- 
 ing forces of its materials, is sure soon to get out of 
 working order. The impress of a seal, which lasts 
 in wax, is lost upon water. In a word, the durability 
 of effects produced by creatures is altogether depen- 
 dent upon the nature of the created subject in which 
 they are produced. This subject itself has no other 
 subject for its support, and therefore would be 
 nothing, if the free Divine volition that produced 
 it out of nothing, withdrew its omnipotent influence. 
 Consequently the assumption that on the hypothesis 
 of Divine preservation created causes would produce 
 effects superior in stability to those produced by the 
 Creator, is false for two reasons : first, because all 
 stability of effects of creatures is due, not to the 
 efficiency of the creature, but to the subjects pro- 
 duced by the Creator; and secondly, there is no 
 parity between these subjects and the effects of 
 created causes, as the former are productions out 
 of nothing, the latter changes of pre-existing created 
 things. 
 
 SECTION 2. Simultaneous concurrence of God in the 
 actions of creatures. 
 
 Thesis XXXV. God concurs simultaneously in the 
 actions of finite beings. 
 
 209. Hitherto we have treated of the continual 
 direct action of God whereby He sustains creatures in 
 their existence. Now we are to consider His opera- 
 tion regarding their activity. This subject is known 
 in the schools of Catholic Philosophy under the 
 
358 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD 
 
 name of concursus divinus, or Divine concurrence. 
 Instead of " concursus " the Angelic Doctor uses 
 constantly other terms. He denotes the Divine 
 co-operation with the actions of finite beings by 
 the general term " operation " (operatic) ; and he 
 specifies it by saying that God moves creatures 
 to action (Deus movet res ad opcrandum), by which 
 he means that this motion to action is exercised 
 inasmuch as God directs, as it were, the active 
 principles and forces of created natures, to their 
 operation (quasi applicando formas et virtutes rerum ad 
 operationem), and that, inasmuch as the created 
 activity being thus influenced by Divine motion, 
 all things act in virtue of the Divine power, so much 
 so that He is the cause of all the actions of every 
 agent (secundum hoc omnia agunt in virtute ipsius Dei; 
 et ita ipse est causa omnium agentium)* 
 
 It is difficult to say which of the two modes of 
 expression is better. Whether we use the modern 
 term " concursus " or whether we follow the termi- 
 nology of St. Thomas, and say that God's influence 
 upon the activity of creatures is a sort of motion 
 or application exercised upon their faculties, that 
 He operates in their operation, and that creatures 
 act in virtue of Divine power : all these technical 
 .terms may be easily misunderstood unless accu- 
 rately explained. Misunderstanding of terms is here 
 the more to be guarded against, because there is 
 something in the dependence of finite activities 
 upon the action of God, which has become a 
 
 4 Cf. St. Thomas, Sum Theol. la. q. 105. art. 3. 4. 5 ; la. 2ae. 
 q. *o. art. i. and 4.; De Poientia, iii. a. 7; Contra Gent. iii. 67 70, 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 357 
 
 subject of controversy among Catholic philosophers, 
 although they agree with one another up to a certain 
 point. That all actions of creatures, simultaneously 
 with their dependence upon created causes, have 
 also a certain dependence upon the action of the 
 Creator, nobody denies. The difference of opinion 
 is about the nature of the dependence. 
 
 To the best of our ability we shall first put 
 before the reader the doctrine held by ourselves on 
 this subject, and afterwards the controversy about 
 the necessity of what is called physical premotion 
 or predetermination. 
 
 210. Let us begin by distinguishing various Divine 
 operations or concurrences regarding the activity 
 of creatures. 
 
 (a) Natural and supernatural concurrence. 
 By the concurrence which is merely natural God 
 helps creatures to act and work in harmony with 
 their natural faculties; whilst by supernatural con- 
 currence He elevates them to a way of acting to 
 which their nature with its faculties is inadequately 
 proportioned, although it may be raised to the same 
 by a special Divine operation. Thus God concurs 
 naturally with material things, in that they act in 
 agreement with the chemical, mechanical, and bio- 
 logical laws which rule the energies of their nature. 
 He concurs also naturally with the spiritual faculties 
 of man, intellect and will, as often as their opera- 
 tion is proportioned to the psychological laws 
 inherent in the human soul. But He concurs 
 supernaturally with the forces of His creatures, 
 when He makes use of them as ministerial or 
 
358 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 instrumental causes for the extraordinary Divine 
 operation known by the name of miracle, which we 
 shall consider in chapter iii. We may remark also 
 by the way though this is a truth which lies beyond 
 the cognizance of reason and is only guaranteed 
 by revelation that God exercises a supernatural 
 concurrence in those actions which, according to 
 Christian revelation, are performed under, the in- 
 fluence of His actual grace, which consists in super- 
 natural illumination of the intellect, and comfort, 
 encouragement, and strength of the will. Thus a 
 good preparation for and devout reception of the 
 sacraments of the Church, an effectual prayer, in fine 
 every action by which a reasonable creature positively 
 prepares itself for final union with God (and a 
 fortiori, every good work meriting reward in Heaven) 
 requires a supernatural concurrence of the Divinity. 
 
 (b) Mediate and immediate concurrence. 
 
 By mediate concurrence God prepares the crea- 
 ture for a certain action : by immediate concurrence 
 He causes it to act really either with necessity or 
 with freedom according to its nature. In mediate 
 concurrence several stages are discernible, which 
 we may best illustrate with reference to a particular 
 free action, say an alms bestowed by a charitable 
 person on a man in need who has offended him. 
 To this action God has concurred mediately (a) by 
 creating that man, (/3) by preserving him, (y) by 
 helping him to acquire the habit of kindness and 
 generosity, (B) by directing through supernatural 
 or natural causes his attention to the reasons for 
 which he should practise charity precisely just now. 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 359 
 
 The last sort of mediate concurrence is called 
 moral concurrence, and thus we arrive at a third 
 distinction : 
 
 (c) Moral and physical concurrence. 
 
 Moral concurrence is only possible with regard 
 to free acts. It consists in the suggestion of motives 
 to good actions, and in making such actions appear 
 desirable. Thus by moral concurrence God draws 
 the will, but He does not force it. We may dis- 
 tinguish a natural moral concurrence, exercised 
 through the medium of rational creatures, and a 
 supernatural exercised immediately by God Himself. 
 
 By natural moral concurrence God causes those 
 influences of created beings, for instance of parents, 
 teachers, good friends, upon our intellect and will, 
 which incline us naturally to choose what is right 
 and to reject what is wrong. But incomparably 
 more excellent is the supernatural moral concur- 
 rence, known to Christians under the name of 
 Divine illuminations and inspirations, by which the 
 Holy Ghost moves our souls to saving actions, in 
 such a way that it depends upon the free-will of 
 man whether he chooses to follow his Heavenly 
 Guide or "to kick against the goad." 
 
 In contrast with this moral concurrence, God's 
 immediate influence upon the creature in the 
 moment of its action, and precisely upon its faculties 
 considered as acting, is called physical concurrence. 
 
 To signify that all capabilities of creatures for 
 action must be reduced to Divine creation and 
 preservation, and that the exercise of these capa- 
 bilities can never take place but with dependence 
 
360 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 upon Divine volition, scholastics say that God 
 concurs with His creatures in action as the tirst 
 cause, whilst the creatures are second causes. 
 
 211. To prove the existence of a supernatural 
 concurrence of God belongs to apologetic and 
 dogmatic Theology. We shall show its possibility 
 and harmony with reason in chap. iii. when treating 
 of miracles. As regards natural concurrence, it is 
 enough to prove that every action of every creature 
 depends immediately upon God. From this it will 
 follow that all the influences by which one creature 
 impels another to action must be considered as 
 a mediate Divine concurrence; which concurrence 
 will be moral, if the influence exerted proceeds 
 immediately from a rational creature and consists in 
 the suggestion of motives to a good action. 
 
 But what of suggestion to evil ? Why cannot 
 the harangue of a disloyal demagogue exciting 
 people to rebellion against their lawful sovereign 
 be held as a suggestion made to them under mediate 
 moral concurrence on the part of God ? 
 
 In order to give to questions like this a satis- 
 factory answer, we have to weigh carefully the 
 relation of God to moral evil. We shall do this in 
 chapter ii., and from the explanations given there 
 it will become evident that God neither intends sin, 
 nor approves of sin, nor helps to sin, nor in sus- 
 taining the natural activity of creatures, does any- 
 thing which He should omit in order to prevent sin. 
 
 These explanations presupposed, we may answer 
 in short to the question proposed, no man is rightly 
 held responsible for suggestions to evil which in 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 361 
 
 some way arise out of his action as out of their 
 mediate cause unless he either intends to bring 
 about the suggestion by his way of acting, or shows 
 his approval of the suggestion, or does not hinder 
 it, although he not only could but also should do so. 
 Now, no one of these conditions is realized in God 
 when He concurs with rational creatures in their 
 suggestions to evil. Therefore He cannot be said 
 mediately to suggest it. 
 
 212. As appears from what we have said, our 
 task of proving the existence of Divine concurrence 
 philosophically, reduces itself to the demonstration 
 of an immediate or physical influence of the Creator 
 upon the action of His creature. When we speak 
 of an immediate influence we do not mean to say 
 that the action of the creature depends under all 
 aspects immediately upon God. This assertion would 
 be a virtual denial of created activity, and par- 
 ticularly of that activity known under the name of 
 free volition. 
 
 In order that the reader may understand under 
 what aspect we argue the action of a creature to 
 depend mediately upon God, and under what aspect 
 we say it depends immediately upon God and the 
 acting creature together, we must recall some truths 
 regarding action already touched upon in Book II., 
 when we were occupied in showing the harmony of 
 Divine freedom with Divine immutability, and again 
 when we treated of the life of God. 
 
 What we do assert is that, although under one 
 aspect the action of a creature is truly its own action 
 depending on its own activity, under another aspect 
 
362 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 it is at the same time dependent upon God, and 
 this not only mediately but immediately. In other 
 words, the creature in action depends upon a causal 
 exercise of the omnipotent Divine Will, not only 
 for the existence and preservation of its nature and 
 faculties, but also for the actual exercise of those 
 faculties ; so much so that it can use none of them 
 unless the Creator in the very moment when the 
 faculty is used, supports it with the efficacy of His 
 Divine power. To this power the creature owes 
 not only its faculties as applicable for action, but 
 also as applied to act. 
 
 If the former of these two different ways of 
 dependence existed without the latter, Divine con- 
 currence would only be mediate. It then could be 
 likened to what a watchmaker does for his watches. 
 His concurrence with the continual motion of the 
 watch is manifestly only mediate. Whether he 
 wakes or sleeps, whether he thinks of the watch 
 or not, the watch goes for as long as the laws of 
 mechanics and dynamics will allow. But neither can 
 the watch go, nor the watchmaker work in its con- 
 struction, nor any creature do anything whatsoever, 
 unless in the very moment in which the action 
 takes place God wills that the faculty from which 
 it flows be really exercised. 
 
 213. This it is what we mean by immediate 
 Divine concurrence. But no sooner is the position 
 stated than we feel obliged to guard it against 
 misunderstanding. We said just now that God 
 by the power of His will, is a true cause of every 
 action at the very moment when it proceeds from 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 363 
 
 the faculty of His creature. Above we said, and 
 every Christian believes, that God cannot approve 
 of sin. How are these two statements compatible ? 
 The answer involves a fuller explanation of our 
 position. 
 
 In every action that proceeds from a morally 
 free faculty two characteristics are to be distin- 
 guished. The first is the use of liberty or the act 
 of choosing. This act considered precisely as such 
 is not due to the exercise of created freedom, but 
 it is that very exercise itself, and follows necessarily 
 from the free nature of the creature, so long as God 
 wills that that nature shall have its proper play and 
 field of action. The free creature is not free to 
 exercise its freedom or not to exercise it, it is only 
 free to exercise it with regard to any particular 
 object proposed as eligible, either accepting or not 
 caring to accept that object. It is then clear that 
 the free act of the creature, in that it is an exercise 
 of freedom, can depend immediately both upon God 
 a*nd the creature, and can nevertheless depend 
 immediately upon the creature alone, in that it is 
 rather acceptance than neglect of a particular 
 object. God willing the exercise of freedom at the 
 moment when it is exercised, implicitly wills that 
 there be a choice made by the creature. This 
 choice is not a change, but an immanent act of the 
 will, consisting in what we may call the fixing or 
 clamping of one or other of two alternatives, namely, 
 the refusal or the acceptance of this object, this 
 thought, this desire, this deed, this word, here and 
 now eligible to me. By the fact that God grants 
 
364 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 trie actual use of freedom, He grants the action ol 
 choice without determining its issue. So St. Thomas 
 teaches expressly when he says : "The act, as deter- 
 mined to be this or that, is from no other agent than 
 from the will itself." 6 
 
 These explanations will enable the reader to 
 understand how far the free volition of a rational 
 creature is due immediately both to God and to 
 the creature, how far it is immediately due to the 
 creature alone, how far that which is the creature's 
 own doing is approved of by God, and how far it is 
 disapproved of by His will without being prevented 
 by His power. 
 
 Inasmuch as free volition is the use of a faculty 
 natural to rational creatures, or, as scholastics are 
 wont to say, an actus physicus, it is the immediate 
 effect both of God willing the use of the free-will, 
 and of the creature having this use actually under 
 God, as a natural result of its faculty of freedom. 
 Inasmuch, however, as the use of freedom with 
 regard to a certain object, say an alluring imagina- 
 tion, is acceptance and not refusal or vice versa, it 
 is a self-determination immediately due to the 
 creature alone. If the acceptance or refusal the 
 free creature makes is in harmony with the moral 
 law laid down by the Creator, it is approved of by 
 Him. If it is against that law, He disapproves of 
 it, and cannot be said to will it, unless by this 
 phrase be signified that He wills not to impede it. 
 In other words, at the moment of the free choice 
 
 6 " Quod determinate exeat in hunc actum vel in ilium, non esl 
 ab alio agente sed ab ipsa voluntate." (Sent. II. d. 39. q. i. a. i.) 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 365 
 
 He wills positively that His creature shall have the 
 actual use of freedom ; and willing this, He leaves 
 it to the creature to determine whether this use 
 shall be such or such with regard to the object in 
 question, whether eventually it shall be virtuous or 
 sinful. The creature determines this, not by pro- 
 ducing a reality independently of God this would 
 be absurd but simply by immanent volition or 
 nolition, neither of which means production, in the 
 sense of the effecting of a new physical actuality. 
 Both volition and nolition are only productions in 
 the sense of causing a definite relation of will to a 
 certain object apt to be chosen, and at a moment in 
 which the will has sufficient actuality for choosing. 
 The will itself atone causes immediately this its 
 relation to the object; in other words, it alone is 
 the proximate cause of its free self-determination, 
 but only in virtue of an actuality, upon the bringing 
 about of which God as Prime Cause has immediate 
 influence. (Cf. pp. 266 and 302.) 
 
 Thus it remains true that there is no actual 
 being in the creature independent of God, at the 
 same time the free action of the creature, considered 
 precisely as self-determination to one alternative out of 
 two or more, depends immediately upon the creature 
 alone as a consequence of moral freedom. 
 
 Having cleared away the danger of misunder- 
 standing as regards the immediate concurrence of 
 God to all operations of creatures, we may now 
 proceed to prove that there is such concurrence. 
 
 214. In the preceding section on Divine preserva- 
 tion it was shown that no created being can Iai4 
 
366 THE 4CTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 even for a moment without being kept in existence 
 by the continuation of the same omnipotent Divine 
 volition that caused it to be. As Father Faber has 
 beautifully said : " The home of the creature is the 
 hand of the Creator." From it there is no escape, 
 so long as the creature exists. The pen may drop 
 from the hand of the writer, it does not lose thereby 
 its existence, though it be no longer applied to the 
 work of writing ; but the creature is so absolutely 
 under the sway of Divine omnipotence, as to have 
 no being at all apart therefrom. Now the omni- 
 potence which preserves the creature is not a blind 
 force. No, God knows from eternity the nature of 
 every creature that He preserves, from the tiniest 
 piece of matter up to the loftiest spirit. Decreeing 
 its existence and its preservation, He foresees what 
 will naturally follow, if He chooses to preserve the 
 creature in a state harmonizing with its nature. He 
 sees that such a state is impossible without actual 
 operation on the part of the creature. Moreover, 
 He ' comprehends perfectly the relation between 
 nature and action, and thus He foresees that under 
 certain conditions of existence a certain natural 
 action of the creature will either be inseparably 
 connected with its existence or not. In the former 
 case 6 He knows that decreeing its existence implies 
 
 6 We put this case only hypothetically. We do not state that 
 there is really any individual action of a finite being, not only 
 continually and connaturally, but inseparably connected with its 
 existence, though perhaps the self-consciousness of an angel may 
 be such an action. See St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. 56. art. i. in 
 corp. etc. ad 3. 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 367 
 
 decreeing its action ; in the latter case He sees 
 that it depends upon Him to prevent, if He will, the 
 natural outpouring of the activity of the creature, 
 at the same time that He preserves ' the creature 
 in being. In either case He cannot decree the 
 existence of a creature for a certain moment, 
 together with the existence of the natural condi- 
 tions prerequired for action, and the existence of 
 its unchecked natural activity, without decreeing 
 thereby the actual use of the faculties of the 
 creature, or in other words the action itself considered 
 precisely as actual exercise of created activity. 
 
 Let us now call to mind what we have proved 
 in Book II., that the decrees of God stand un- 
 changeable, and that His Will is by itself infinite 
 power. In virtue then of the same omnipotent 
 volition by which God from eternity has decreed 
 the existence of the unchecked activity of the 
 creature, He causes that activity at the moment 
 when the creature operates, not as a Divine 
 operation, but as an operation natural to a finite 
 faculty. Therefore we say that He causes it 
 simultaneously with the creature as the primary 
 cause, whilst the creature is the secondary cause 
 of the same. Seeing and willing beforehand any 
 given natural operation of any creature, He forms 
 what we call technically the decree of simultaneous 
 concurrence with the action. When the creature 
 comes to exercise this activity, God sees what this 
 exercise means, and wills at the same time that it 
 shall take place. This is His simultaneous con- 
 currence with the creature to its action, in so far 
 
363 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 precisely as that action is an outcome of the natural 
 being which the creature possesses at tbe time. 
 
 Evidently, therefore, there is no action of any 
 creature independent of the Divine Will, or that 
 would take place at all, if that Supreme Will did not 
 intend the action efficaciously and simultaneously, 
 inasmuch as it is an exercise of a natural faculty. 
 
 The efficacious intention of the Divine Will 
 which influences the created agent is not directed 
 merely to the existence of the agent with its faculties 
 and habits, but to its existence precisely as acting in 
 harmony with its natural exigency of action. In other 
 words, the action of the creature is not only 
 mediately dependent upon Divine volition, but imme- 
 diately, because not only in its source, but in its 
 own reality, it is foreseen and decreed by God from 
 eternity; and as it has been decreed, so it is 
 willed and produced in time by God as the first 
 cause and by the creature as the second cause. 
 Thus one of the schoolmen, Durandus, who will 
 only admit a mediate concurrence of God to the 
 actions of creatures, does not express the full truth. 
 On the other hand, the Divine concurrence is 
 mediate in this sense, that between God (who 
 efficaciously wills the action of the creature, not as 
 His action, but as the action of a finite being) and 
 the actual action of a created faculty, there exists 
 really the creature with its faculty as proximate 
 cause of the same action which is attributed to 
 God as its First Cause. He is its First Cause, in 
 that the creature owes the actual exercise of its 
 faculty to the fact that God, at the very moment 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE, 369 
 
 when the faculty acts, intends (what indeed He 
 has intended from eternity) that it shall net only 
 have a potential or habitual fitness for actual 
 application, but shall really proceed to that actual 
 application. St. Thomas expresses this truth in 
 the words: Omnia agunt in virtute ipsius Dei, et ita 
 ipse est causa omnium actionum agentiwn " Every 
 being that acts is in the exercise of its action 
 dependent upon an influence proceeding from God 
 Himself, and thus He is the cause of all actions of 
 active beings." 
 
 215. Against the doctrine of immediate Divine 
 concurrence thus explained and proved, two diffi- 
 culties occur. 
 
 (i) If the action of the creature is also God's 
 action, it would seem that nothing remains for 
 the creature to do. For God does wh it He does 
 sufficiently well, and consequently we may reason 
 thus : If God concurs in the operation of the 
 creature, this operation is sufficiently explained by 
 His causality alone. But what is sufficiently ex- 
 plained by one causality, is not to be attributed to 
 another. Therefore what is called the action of 
 the creature is properly not attributable to it, but 
 to God, which is equivalent to saying that the 
 creature does not act at all. 
 
 Answer. God could, of course, produce without 
 the intervention of any created agent the same 
 physical effecis which He enables them to produce 
 by His concurrence with their activity. He could 
 
 7 St. Thomas, Sum, Theol, la. q. 105. art. 5. in corp. ; De Potentia 
 q 3 art. 7. 
 V 
 
370 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 for instance thus make a steam-engine, but in that 
 case the steam-engine would not have been the 
 work of man, whereas this latter is what, on the 
 supposition of creation, God wills, and what is in 
 itself a worthy object of Divine volition. If, 
 however, He chooses to have created agents, He 
 must " concur " with them in their activity in such 
 a way as not to suppress the application of it, but 
 rather to grant this application by the nature of 
 His concurrence. 
 
 (2) The statement that there exists no action of 
 any creature, unless supported by an efficacious 
 Divine volition which has for its term that very 
 action, implies that even sinful actions are effica- 
 ciously willed by God, which is absurd, as being 
 in evident contradiction with the Divine holiness. 
 
 Answer. All that the said statement implies is 
 that God wills to grant the actual use of freedom 
 with regard to the objects by which creatures are 
 tempted to sin; not that He efficaciously draws 
 them into sin or helps to sin as sin. 
 
 SECTION 3. Controverted question about physical premotion 
 and predetermination. 
 
 Thesis XXXVI. The theory of physical predeter- 
 mination in the sense in which it is understood in the 
 Catholic schools is not supported by any cogent reasons, 
 and it makes the explanation and defence of moral 
 freedom unnecessarily difficult. 
 
 216. Whilst all Catholic philosophers and theo- 
 logians assert unanimously that every action of 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 371 
 
 creatures depends simultaneously upon God, they 
 differ in their explanation of the nature of that 
 simultaneous dependence. The doctrine enunciated 
 in the thesis is that of Molina. The opposite doctrine 
 is generally called Thomism, on the plea that it is 
 that of St. Thomas, although we are by no means 
 prepared to admit that the Saint is rightly interpreted 
 by those who impute to him this sense. 8 It is neces- 
 sary to give an outline of this famous controversy, 
 because it appertains to a question concerning which 
 some conclusions must be reached in any treatise 
 on Natural Theology which aims at being complete. 
 We must be understood, however, in advocating 
 our own conclusions, to speak with all becoming 
 deference of the views of our opponents, many of 
 whom bear names worthy of the highest honour 
 among Catholic philosophers. 
 
 What, then, is meant by physical predeter- 
 mination ? It does not signify Divine "premotion" 
 in general that is to say, any sort of Divine moral 
 or physical help towards action which precedes the 
 action, but it denotes quite a particular sort of Divine 
 premotion. As we shall explain below, Divine pre- 
 motion in general cannot be denied by any Catholic. 
 Not only does God premove His creatures morally, 
 He premoves them also physically. At least He 
 exercises such an influence upon them as may 
 rightly go by this name. But physical predeter- 
 mination, as upheld by its advocates, is a transitory 
 impulse to action produced immediately by God 
 in the faculty of a creature as often as the latter 
 is to act, an impulse so perfectly adapted to the 
 
 8 Cf. Appendix I. pp. 439, seq. 
 
373 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 nature of the agent that a certain particular action 
 will infallibly result. And so far is this said to be 
 the case that God, as the adherents of this doctrine 
 explain, knows the future action of a creature by 
 knowing the premotion that He has decreed for it. 
 Nevertheless, while maintaining thus much, they are 
 far from denying the moral freedom of rational 
 beings. 
 
 According to them the physical predetermi- 
 nation, which draws the free-will of a man to a 
 particular choice, causes this choice -infallibly, but 
 not necessarily. Our self-determination, they say, is 
 both the certain result of Divine predetermina- 
 tion and the outcome of the use of moral freedom 
 granted by that very predetermination. God pre- 
 determining the creature does not lead it to a 
 necessary, but to a free self-determination, and at 
 the same time He leads it infallibly to that choice 
 to which His predetermination, taken together with 
 the disposition of the creature that receives it, 
 naturally tends. Nevertheless God does not pre- 
 determine any one to a sin. True, His predeter- 
 mination causes the free choice which is sinful, but 
 He does not cause it as sinful. Its sinfulness is 
 caused by the bad disposition of the created \vill 
 in which the Divine predetermination is received. 8 
 
 If we object to this that it is exceedingly difficult 
 to understand how a creature thus predetermined 
 can possibly have the actual use of its freedom, our 
 opponents do not deny that there is some mystery 
 
 See Goudin in Philosophia, Pars IV. q. 4 (Edit. Parisiensis, 
 1851), pp. 224 283, especially pp. 228 239 and pp. 264 267. 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 373 
 
 m this. But they refer us to the incomprehensibility 
 of Divine causation at once most sweet and most 
 efficacious. Its sweetness manifests itself in this, 
 that the predetermining Divine premotion causes 
 the creature to act, not anyhow, but only in such a 
 manner as is in keeping with its nature. Therefore 
 in an irrational creature God causes a necessary 
 action, but in the rational will of angels and men 
 He causes free actions, as often as the use of 
 freedom is due to their nature. 
 
 217. But why insist upon this predetermination ? 
 Why refuse the doctrine stated in the thesis ? 
 Chiefly, they reply, for these reasons : 
 
 (1) Without physical predetermination the supreme 
 dominion of God over His creatures and the infal- 
 libility of His Providence cannot be sufficiently 
 explained. The Molinists, who teach o^ly a simul- 
 taneous concurrence, and do not admit that God 
 premoves free creatures otherwise than morally, by 
 showing them certain actions in a pleasing or dis- 
 pleasing light, make the Creator a simple co-operator 
 with His creatures nay, in a certain sense they 
 subordinate His action to the action of the creature; 
 for, if God does not predetermine the action of the 
 free creature, then the free creature must predeter- 
 mine the Divine concurrence, as the latter in itself 
 does not tend to this or to that free volition. How, 
 then, can it remain true that God is the first free 
 cause ? 9 
 
 (2) As Catholic Philosophy has for its guiding 
 
 8 Goudin, Ibid. pp. 263, 264, J ix. ' Probatur ultimo pr'aemotio ex 
 inconvenientibus. " 
 
374 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 star Catholic Theology, a philosophical opinion 
 which agrees less well with the teachings of the 
 Fathers of the Church and with common Catholic 
 doctrine should not be favoured, although the 
 Church has not condemned it. But the teaching 
 of the Molinists on Divine concurrence does not 
 well agree with the doctrine of St. Augustine, who 
 teaches expressly : Deus de voluntatibus hominum, 
 quod vult cum vult facit 10 " God makes of the wills 
 of men what He wills, when He wills it." And 
 does not the Church represent to us the special 
 benefit of efficacious grace as a physical predeter- 
 mination when she directs her priests to pray : Ut 
 Deus nostras etiam rebelles compelled propitius ad se 
 voluntates; ut convertat nos, &c. "That God may 
 compel our wills, even when they are rebellious, to 
 Himself; that He may convert us," &c. n 
 
 218. We hope the summary given here of the 
 view of our opponents is a fair one. Let us, then, 
 now give our answer, which will be done best by 
 following the tenor of our thesis. 
 
 First of all, we admit that God in more than 
 one sense premoves all His creatures to action, 
 inasmuch as premotion designates a direction to a 
 certain kind of activity, and the actuation of created 
 faculties in harmony with the eternal decrees of 
 Providence. Is not the very fact of creation and 
 
 10 De Correptione et Gratia, c. xiv. Cf. Prov. xxi. : Sicut divisions 
 aquarum, ita cor regis in manu Domini est, quocumque vohierit, inclinabit 
 illud " As the divisions of waters, so the heart of the King is in the 
 hand of the Lord ; whithersoever He will He shall turn it." 
 
 11 Cf. Goudin, Ibid. pp. 245, 246. 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 375 
 
 preservation a sort of Divine premotion? No 
 creature can perform any other species of action 
 than that for which it has faculties from the 
 Creator ; and on the supposition of its preservation, 
 it needs must act in harmony with the natural 
 tendency of its faculties so far as natural' actions 
 are concerned. If we turn to those which are 
 supernatural, the creature can perform none of them 
 save in agreement with the supernatural powers 
 added to its nature by the Creator. All this is true 
 premotion, and no Molinist denies aught of it. 
 
 Nay, as appears from our exposition in sect. 2, 
 Molinists do not shrink from saying with St.Thomas 
 Deus est causa nobis non solum voluntatis sed etiam 
 volendi " God causes in us not only our faculty of 
 will, but even our actual volition." And again : 
 Deus est causa omnis actionis " God is the cause of 
 every action." 12 
 
 But all these phrases are easily explained with- 
 out physical predetermination. God's concurrence 
 at the moment of our free volition consists in our 
 opinion precisely in this, that His power grants us 
 not only the faculty of choosing, but the actual 
 exercise of free choice. By His causality our will 
 is impelled to the desire of good in general, when- 
 ever our intellect represents any particular good 
 either real or apparent ; but He causes this desire 
 in such a way that we ourselves alone determine 
 whether we will accept or reject this or that par- 
 ticular thing which seems good to us. 
 
 The issue of our choice is from eternity known 
 
 18 Contra Gent. 1. 3. c. 89. 
 
376 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 to Him, simply because it is one of the objective 
 future truths, all of which must be present to the 
 intuition of His eternal infinitely perfect intellect. 
 This knowledge, inasmuch as it represents the action 
 of the creature conditioned by the decree of simul- 
 taneous concurrence under any given circumstances, 
 we have called in Book II. scientia media. 13 The 
 simultaneous concurrence of God with acts of 
 free-will coincides with the causation of the actual 
 longing for good in general, which longing is in- 
 cluded in every volition of a particular good, as the 
 genus in the individual, or as " animal " is included 
 in " Peter." 
 
 It is not therefore true that in the Molinist 
 system God does not cause the creature's action, 
 especially not the actual volition of free creatures. 
 All that can be said is that, according to Molinists, 
 God does not cause free action under such an aspect 
 as to make it imperative on the creature by its very 
 nature. 
 
 219. We return to the objections of the ad- 
 herents of physical predetermination. 
 
 Their first objection was that with the negation 
 of a predetermining premotion the guidance of 
 created activity, essentially belonging to the supreme 
 Lord of all things, is denied to Him. From the 
 explanations already given it appears that this objec- 
 tion lacks weight. It was started in the Thomist 
 schools on the occasion of Molina's celebrated 
 
 13 We here beg the reader to remember that in the positive expla- 
 nation of the scientia media we do not stand by Molina, but against 
 him with Suarez. (Cf. pp. 282, seq.) 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 377 
 
 but perhaps not very dignified comparison of the 
 simultaneous concurrence of God with creatures, 
 to two men towing a boat or carrying a burden. 
 Molina's aim was to show that creatures, espe- 
 cially rational creatures, exercising their natural 
 activity, are in their own order really principal 
 causes of those effects to which their faculties are 
 proportioned, 
 
 Let us show this in a concrete instance. God 
 concurs with the action of the writer, He concurs 
 also with the action of the pen. Is not the writer 
 then a principal cause in the order of secondary 
 causes, and the pen an instrument ? True, com- 
 pared with God the First Cause, the writer himself 
 may be likened to an instrument, in so far as in the 
 exercise of his activity he depends altogether upon 
 the supporting power of His Greater. Yet He 
 certainly cannot be said to receive from God an 
 impulse for action perfectly like that given by a 
 writer to his pen. To say that would be to deny 
 human freedom. It is idle, therefore, to appeal 
 with Gouclin 14 and others to this illustration of 
 Molina, as a proof that Molinists conceive the 
 Divine concurrence as a sort of help collateral 
 and co-ordinate with the operation of the creature. 
 Nor can it be shown that our doctrine is opposed to 
 St. Thomas on the ground that he rejected the same 
 illustration which Molina used. His rejection was 
 based upon the well-grounded anticipation that it 
 might easily be misunderstood. Molina made use 
 of it because he thought that his meaning would ^e 
 
 14 Philosophic Pars. IV. p. 232. 
 
378 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 sufficiently gathered from the context. But if you 
 will have it to mean that God causes one part of 
 the action and the creature another part, just as 
 two men towing a boat cause each a part only of 
 the total motion, the illustration does not hold. 
 And thus St. Thomas took it. If, however, you 
 apply it to free creatures, to indicate that the action 
 of a creature really depends upon two causes, 
 neither of which is physically predetermined, the 
 illustration cannot be considered as a mark of a 
 false conception of Divine concurrence. 
 
 That in this sense it was not rejected by the 
 Angelic Doctor, is to us quite evident. 
 
 220. And now as to the objection that in our 
 system the creature must predetermine the con- 
 currence of God, because that concurrence is in 
 itself indifferent. This difficulty would have force, 
 if we affirmed the simultaneous concurrence of 
 God without asserting at the same time the scientia 
 media. By this knowledge God foresees from eter- 
 nity which choice any rational creature under given 
 definite circumstances would make on the hypothesis 
 that He on His part decreed simultaneously to 
 concur with it in the actual exercise of its freedom. 
 
 In the light then of this knowledge God freely 
 decrees from eternity to grant the use of freedom 
 requisite for the creature to act and make its 
 choice. He comprehends also from eternity the 
 alternatives that are open to the choice of the 
 created free being. Moreover, by virtue of the 
 scientia media, He foresees the choice, in so far as it 
 depends proximately upon the creature alone, or in 
 
DIVINE PRESERVATION AND CONCURRENCE. 379. 
 
 other words, is an actual preference of one alter- 
 native to the other, based upon the actuality 
 necessary for choosing, which actuality is granted 
 by the free decree of the Creator. 
 
 Nor can it be said that Molinism mars Christian 
 humility and leads men to neglect to pray for 
 efficacious graces for the performance of saving 
 and meritorious actions. Molinists teach that 
 every salutary and, a fortiori, every meritorious 
 action we perform is due to a premoving, though 
 not predetermining grace of the Almighty, which 
 by the scientia media He foresaw that we would use. 
 He could have granted another grace perfectly 
 sufficient for the performance of the good work, 
 but one which He knew we would freely despise. 
 Why did He give us the one rather than the other ? 
 Because He loved us with a special love. 
 
 A Molinist then has the strongest motives to ask 
 for those graces of which God foresees he will make 
 a good use. Such a prayer would be equivalent to 
 that of Holy Church : Converte nos Deus salutaris 
 noster " Convert us, God our Saviour." Nostras 
 etiam rebellcs compelle ad te voluntates " Compel to 
 Thee our rebellious wills." 
 
 It would seem, therefore, that there is nothing in 
 the supreme dominion of God and the Catholic 
 doctrine of efficacious grace to make us shrink from 
 Molinism. 
 
 Let us see now whether the harmony between 
 human freedom and Divine concurrence be indeed 
 as apparent on the theory of physical predetermi- 
 nation as upon that of scientia media and simul- 
 
380 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 taneous concurrence. Let us take a concrete 
 instance, and imagine a human being making the 
 first free choice in his life, and that a choice 
 deliberately sinful. How this could come about in 
 the system we defend is clear enough. In the 
 moment of choice the free creature owes to God 
 the actual use of freedom. But the determination 
 to the one alternative rather than to the other, 
 included in that use of freedom, is, according to 
 Molinists, not predetermined but only foreseen in 
 the case of a sinful choice. In the case of a good 
 choice, it may have been absolutely intended, but was 
 not physically predetermined. How does the same 
 choice come about in the system of the Thomists ? 
 Whether it be a good or a bad one, it is physically 
 predetermined. And yet they say, and must say, 
 that God does not predetermine a man to sin 
 as sin. Whence then, we ask, does the first sin 
 a man commits take its rise ? We ask about the 
 first, in order to preclude at once the evasion, 
 that a man by his sin might have deserved to 
 receive a predetermination to a choice that would 
 infallibly be sinful, although it would always be 
 sinful through the man's own fault. Such a solution 
 of the difficulty we are proposing is in itself very 
 obscure, and certainly not applicable to the first 
 sin. If it be true that the sinful choice must in- 
 fallibly follow from the combination of the physical 
 predetermination with the disposition of the will 
 that receives it, at the moment when it receives it, 
 the reality of the use of freedom under such a pre- 
 determination is indeed an insoluble mystery. 
 
CHAPTER II, 
 
 DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND ITS RELATION TO 
 
 EXISTING EVIL. 
 
 SECTION I. The existence of Divine Providence, 
 
 Thesis XXXVII. All things created are under the 
 sway of Divine Providence, and none of them can frus- 
 trate the final end absolutely intended by the Creator, or 
 move towards it in a way and under circumstances not 
 foreseen by His intellect, or not freely either approved 
 or at least tolerated by His most holy will. The final 
 end of creatures consists in the first place in a certain 
 degree of manifestation of the Divine perfections in the 
 created likenesses of God, and in the second place in the 
 perfect union of rational creatures with their Creator by 
 knowledge and love. This is technically expressed by 
 saying that the end of creation is God's external glory 
 both objective and formal and the happiness of rational 
 creatures. 
 
 221. Providence as well as prudence (which is its 
 doublet), considered in its etymological meaning, 
 is equivalent to foresight. This etymological signifi- 
 cation of the word coincides pretty well with the 
 real import of what we call prudence in a man and 
 providence in God. We say that a man is prudent 
 
382 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 when the whole tenor of his life justifies the suppo- 
 sition that in his undertakings he has a definite object 
 in view, and uses constantly the means fit for the 
 attainment of his purpose. In a similar sense we 
 attribute providence to God ; for this predicate is 
 given to Him in order to imply that He has settled 
 from eternity the final goal toward which the whole 
 of His creation and each particular creature is to 
 be directed, that He has ordained the means by 
 which the end shall be reached, and that He rules 
 in the course of ages all events so perfectly as that 
 nothing shall occur to bar His final and absolute 
 intention. 
 
 It was this idea of Providence that suggested 
 to the deep Christian philosopher, Boethius, the 
 following definition of it, which was adopted by 
 St. Thomas: " Providence is the all-regulating and 
 stable plan of God, the supreme Ruler of the 
 universe." 1 
 
 To be more explicit, we may give the definition 
 another form and say : " Providence is God the 
 supreme Lord of the universe Himself, inasmuch 
 as He directs all things to an end fixed by Him, in 
 harmony with His eternal plan. 
 
 The verification of this definition supposes the 
 existence of two Divine operations with regard to 
 creatures : 
 
 (i) The assignment of an end to all things and 
 of ways by which they shall reach it. 
 
 1 "Providentia est ipsa divina ratio in summo omnium principe 
 constituta, quae cuncta disponit." (St. Thomas, Sum. TheoL la. q. 22. 
 art. i.) 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 383 
 
 (2) Actual direction of all things to that end. 
 
 222. Can it be proved that Providence thus ex- 
 plained really exists ? Or shall we say with the 
 artisan-philosopher Chubb and other more recent 
 deists, that the existence of a Creator cannot be 
 denied, but that His influence upon this world does 
 not extend beyond laying the foundation of it, which 
 being laid all things go on as best they can without 
 their author watching their course or interfering in 
 any way ? Against this deistic position we enunciate 
 our thesis in its several parts. 
 
 First we say that God has prefixed a final end 
 to everything created, and that He allows nothing 
 to frustrate that end or move towards it otherwise 
 than as He foresees and either approves or at least 
 tolerates. 
 
 We call attention to the phrase, approves or at 
 least tolerates. Why do we not say simply : What- 
 ever happens is God's will ? Because this expression 
 might be taken to mean that even the sins com- 
 mitted by rational creatures are willed by God, at 
 least as means to an end. This of course would be 
 inconsistent with God's holiness. Although He 
 can tolerate sin, and can turn the misery following 
 it into an occasion of good, He never can approve 
 of or wish for sin in order to reach His end. We 
 express this in scholastic terms shortly by saying 
 that God wills sin, not positively but permissively. 
 The term permissively does not imply that God gives 
 permission to sin, but means only that for good 
 reasons He does not hinder those sins which rational 
 creatures commit through the abuse of their free- 
 
384 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 will. Having thus made clear the meaning of our 
 statement, we may proceed to prove its truth. 
 
 It has been demonstrated in Books I. and II. that 
 the one self-existing personal God has created all 
 things, and that He is infinitely wise and powerful. 
 Moreover, we have shown in chapter i. of this Book 
 that the being of each creature depends continually 
 upon Him for its existence, and that no action of 
 a creature can come about except under His con- 
 currence. Now it is evident that an infinitely wise 
 and good Being cannot act without intending a 
 good end, nor in His actions lose sight of that end. 
 It is also evident that all effects of Divine action 
 are decreed from eternity. It follows that the 
 origin, the duration, the various phases of existence 
 and action of each particular creature were from 
 eternity willed by God, either positively or per- 
 missively, with a view to a certain end. Moreover, 
 it follows that the influence which He continually 
 exercises upon the activity of creatures is in 
 harmony with His eternal plan, and involves the 
 continual intention of the end. 
 
 As we have seen in Book II., God is really 
 identical with an intellect of Infinite Wisdom and 
 a will of Infinite Goodness. By His Infinite Wisdom 
 He understands from eternity the end to be reached 
 by creation, and the various ways in which by His 
 omnipotence He might reach it. His will of infinite 
 goodness embraces the end He has in view and 
 fixes by irrevocable decree the ways in which it 
 shall be reached. Abiding in Himself by His 
 absolutely perfect essence, He watches and directs 
 
PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 385 
 
 in the course of time the exercise of every faculty 
 of His creatures. He watches and directs it without 
 any toil or labour, paying equal attention to the 
 whole and to the minutest details. As by one 
 eternal glance of His infinite understanding He 
 comprehends the dimensions of space, and calculates 
 the distances and orbits of the heavenly bodies, 
 and by one omnipotent volition keeps the whole 
 machinery of the universe in motion, with a con- 
 tinual regard to the final goal it is to reach ; so by 
 the same eternal all-penetrating intuition does He 
 read the most secret thoughts of every mind, 
 observe the most minute oscillations of every 
 organic cell, and count the most insignificant vibra- 
 tions of every atom of matter, ruling by His omni- 
 potent will all things so that there is no thought of 
 any mind, no oscillation of any cell, no vibration 
 of any atom, which is not in some way or other duly 
 subordinated to the end He intends. 
 
 223. And this end wherein does it consist ? 
 Evidently it must be an external manifestation of 
 His internal perfection ; not a manifestation in the 
 pantheistic sense, as though God evolved Himself, 
 as it were, into the visible and invisible universe, 
 but a manifestation by the production of finite 
 created likenesses of the infinite Divine essence. 
 That the end of the world created can be nothing 
 else is evident from a truth demonstrated in Book II. 
 We showed there that God loves Himself with 
 absolute necessity, and cannot love anything else 
 but with reference to His own infinite goodness. 
 Now the external manifestation of the Divine per- 
 z 
 
386 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 fection through created likenesses is called ifi 
 scholastic language, God's external glory, just as His 
 internal perfection as known to Himself alone is 
 called His internal glory. Moreover, scholastics dis* 
 tinguish between external objective and external formal 
 glory. By the external objective glory of God they 
 mean created things in so far as they are adapted by 
 their very existence and activity to bear witness to 
 the Divine perfection, on the supposition that some- 
 where in creation there are intelligent beings, whc 
 can intellectually perceive them and form a judg- 
 ment on their nature. The external formal glory 
 of God is the acknowledgment of His perfection 
 produced in the minds of intellectual creatures by 
 the contemplation of His works. 
 
 Supposing these definitions, it is so evident that 
 the Creator of the world intends His external 
 objective and formal glory, that without such an 
 intention we cannot even conceive creation to be 
 possible. For it is repugnant to reason that a finite 
 being should exist, the nature of which is not a 
 copy, however imperfect, of the essence of the 
 One infinite Being; consequently God, producing 
 creatures, intends the production of likenesses of 
 His own essence, as so many mirrors in which His 
 infinite goodness is reflected under some aspect or 
 other. If He did not intend this, He would be 
 acting without any knowledge or intention at all 
 a supposition absolutely alien to His wisdom. But 
 if He intends it, His intention is directed to what 
 we have defined as His external objective glory. 
 Moreover, as He cannot love anything but with 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 387 
 
 reference to His own goodness, so He must will 
 that the activities of created intellects and wills 
 shall be related to that goodness according to their 
 natures. But they cannot be related to it rightly 
 save by the acknowledgment that God is what He 
 is, the supreme Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. To 
 this acknowledgment all rational creatures must 
 finally arrive. If they are not impeded in the right 
 use of their reason, they will arrive at it in the 
 course of this life, unless through their own fault 
 they prefer darkness to light. If it be impossible 
 for them to know God before they leave this life, 
 as in the case of the innumerable multitudes of 
 children who die before the use of reason, at their 
 entrance into the next life the Creator will manifest 
 Himself to their immortal souls, draw them to His 
 love, and thereby make them happy. Not indeed 
 with the supernatural beatitude of which we learn 
 from revelation, but with an enduring natural 
 happiness. 
 
 Those who wilfully shut their mind against the 
 knowledge of their Creator, at all events will be 
 undeceived in the moment when they depart from 
 this life. As so many other delusions vanish when 
 death puts an end to our earthly existence, so before 
 all others that delusion of delusions will disappear, 
 which makes man believe that there is no personal 
 God who rules the world. 
 
 The Monotheist and the Agnostic will then agree 
 perfectly in the recognition of that God, whose 
 eternal power and divinity St. Paul 2 declares to 
 
 3 Rom. i. 20. 
 
388 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 be clearly visible in His works. They will both 
 recognize their God, but with very different feelings. 
 The one will then be forced to acknowledge Him 
 as infinitely good, albeit he still refuses to love 
 Him ; the other, if indeed he perseveres till the end 
 of his days in acknowledging his Creator both in 
 theory and practice according to the lights received, 
 will know and love Him, and thus reach what is 
 called in our thesis, the secondary end of creation, 
 the beatitude for which rational creatures are des- 
 tined. This secondary end God does not intend 
 absolutely, but conditionally. He says as it were 
 to every rational creature with reference to eternal 
 salvation or final misery : " I have set before you 
 life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose there- 
 fore life." 3 If man, by either expressly denying 
 or practically ignoring his dependence upon God, 
 obstinately refuses to choose life, it is not so much 
 his Creator that condemns him, as his own malice, 
 which changes him from a vessel of Divine mercy 
 into a victim of Divine justice. God has implanted 
 in the heart of man a nature longing for perfect 
 happiness. In vain does man strive to quench his 
 thirst for happiness with the perishable goods of this 
 world. He possesses them only for a short while, 
 and whilst he is enjoying them, the better part of 
 his being does not cease to crave instinctively for 
 the fulness of truth and goodness and beauty, which 
 is to be found nowhere but in God alone. Now if 
 the nature of man is thus naturally driven towards 
 God as the source of its beatitude, it follows evi- 
 
 * Deut. xxx IQ. 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 389 
 
 dently that it is the intention of our Maker to cause 
 our happiness by perfect knowledge and love of 
 Himself, at least on the condition that we co-operate 
 with His benevolent designs. 
 
 No human being, however wretched he may be, 
 is excluded by God from final, happiness, unless 
 through his own fault he makes himself unworthy 
 of it, by persevering in a state of rebellion up to 
 his last breath. St. Paul's words are in harmony 
 with our rational inference when he says that " God 
 will have all men to be saved."* How could it be 
 otherwise ? 
 
 224. Here, no doubt, many a reader is tempted to 
 say : "All well and good ; but I am at a loss to see 
 how you can affirm that even the uncivilized savage 
 is under the influence of the Divine Mght, which 
 you say, guides every human being to his last end 
 who does not deliberately turn away from it ? To 
 this grave difficulty which in theology meets with a 
 deal of attention, we may be content to give a com- 
 pendious answer in a philosophical treatise. It is 
 clearly God's arrangement that men should depend 
 largely upon one another for their instruction and 
 progress in knowledge of all kinds, religious know- 
 ledge included. The necessary consequence of this 
 is that through the neglect and malice of some who 
 should be the natural teachers and leaders of their 
 fellow-men, the latter should suffer. But God can 
 rectify the evil. 
 
 225. But what about the secondary end of the 
 irrational creation ? Shall we say that the elements, 
 
 4 i Tim. ii. 4. 
 
390 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 plants, and dumb animals are destined also to 
 glorify God formally by knowledge and love, and 
 thus to become happy through Him ? Evidently 
 this would be absurd. Even the highest among 
 irrational creatures, the dumb animals, are unable 
 to form a rational judgment on anything, to have 
 a rational desire of anything, to reflect upon happi- 
 ness, to wish for happiness, or to grieve for its 
 absence. Their knowledge is but a reaction of their 
 sensitive organism upon impressions produced in 
 them by material things. Their cravings are blind 
 emotions, resulting from the combination of the 
 innate instinct proper to their species, with impres- 
 sions made upon them. It is impossible that such 
 beings should know and love God, or be happy 
 in Him. Shall we then say that their end is not 
 to glorify God formally, but only objectively, to be 
 realizations of Divine thoughts, to be, as it were, 
 books written by infinite wisdom ? This is true as 
 far as it goes, and there are those who think that 
 it was in no sense necessary for God to go further 
 and place a crown on His creation by the creation 
 of rational creatures. But at all events, the objective 
 praise which they render Him would have far less 
 meaning, if there were no beings who could read 
 the Divine ideas expressed in their existence. Those 
 beings are the rational souls of men ; and in a far 
 higher degree, the pure spirits called angels. It is 
 to them and through them that the heavens tell the 
 glory of God, and the firmament announces the 
 works of His hands. Yet we cannot say that 
 the material world below men is properly meant for 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 391 
 
 the use of angels. These do not need to be roused 
 by sensible impressions to the evolution of their 
 intellects. Being altogether independent of matter, 
 they are endowed with innate ideas, and therefore 
 able to know and love God, without going first 
 through a process of intellectual development aided 
 by material impressions. Only those rational beings 
 who are compounds of matter and spirit, stand in 
 need of such helps. Man, therefore, must be the 
 favoured creature, for whose utility the Divine 
 Majesty has created the visible universe that sur- 
 rounds us. And indeed everywhere we find irra- 
 tional creatures supplying the wants of human 
 nature. They serve mankind partly by providing 
 nourishment, clothing, shelter, and other bodily 
 conveniences ; partly by stirring up their intellects 
 and wills to the pursuit of arts and sciences, and 
 by leading them through the knowledge of creatures 
 to that of the Creator; and last but not least, by 
 affording opportunities for the practice of moral 
 virtues, patience especially, and resignation to the 
 inscrutable ways of their Creator. 
 
 226. From the doctrine of Providence thus proved 
 and explained, two important corollaries are to be 
 drawn. The first is this : God does not intend the 
 final well-being of any individual living creature of 
 this world except man. And man himself is to be 
 perfectly happy, not here on earth, but hereafter. 
 
 It is therefore quite intelligible, that God should 
 allow millions of irrational creatures to be sacrificed 
 for the sake of man, to serve his eternal welfare 
 remotely or proximately. No less reconcilable is it 
 
392 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 with Divine Providence, that under certain con* 
 ditions mortal men should be wasted by contagious 
 diseases, emaciated by famine, or fall in the flower 
 of their age on the battlefield. In a word : God 
 cares more for one immortal soul that does not resist 
 Him, than for the whole of the material universe. 
 
 God must rule His creatures with a wise regard 
 for their natural dignity, according as that is greater 
 or less. Now the human soul stands by its nature 
 in an infinitely nearer relation to God than the most 
 perfect of dumb animals. It is an image of the 
 Creator, whilst every other living creature of this 
 world exhibits only some trace of His Majesty. It 
 owes its origin immediately to His creative power ; 
 whilst a dumb animal is a living erection made by 
 secondary causes on the groundwork laid by God 
 in the creation of matter and life. The rational soul 
 alone is able and destined to know and love God, and 
 thus to be personally happy, whilst everything else is 
 made to reveal the Creator to His rational creatures, 
 and to promote their eternal welfare during a short 
 period of time, till that day shall come of which 
 St. Peter says, that on it " the heavens shall pass 
 away with great violence, and the elements shall 
 be melted with heat, and the earth and the works 
 in it shall be burnt up." 5 
 
 The other corollary we are to derive from the 
 great truth of Divine Providence may be thus for- 
 mulated : Every man, however low' his social posi- 
 tion, ought to be treated with reverence by his 
 fellow-man, as a personal being destined for an 
 
 5 2 St. Peter iii. 10. 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 393 
 
 eternal exaltation and happiness infinitely greater 
 than all the aims of temporal ambition. On the 
 other hand, dumb animals must be left in their 
 own sphere, and be treated as things, not cared for 
 as persons, not accepted as subjects of right against 
 whom injustice can be committed, but as living 
 instruments which man may utilize in every reasonable 
 way. 
 
 SECTION 2. The relation of Providence to existing evil. 
 
 Thesis XXXVIIL Neither from the evils which 
 exist in this world, nor from those which, according to 
 Divine revelation, await the wicked in the life to come, 
 can any lawful inference derogatory to Divine Providence 
 be drawn. 
 
 227. One of the most harassing questions which 
 have ever wearied the brains of philosophers, and 
 stimulated the zeal of Christian apologists, is as to 
 the possibility of such an enormous amount of evil 
 in a world created by an infinitely good God, and 
 continually under the sway of His Providence. 
 
 Absolutely speaking, this difficulty against the 
 moral attributes of the Creator is sufficiently solved 
 by an appeal to the arguments by which we have 
 proved to demonstration the existence of one 
 personal, infinitely perfect, and infinitely wise God. 
 These arguments are built on evident premisses, 
 according to the rules of sound Logic. The oppo- 
 nent of the doctrine proved has first to show a want 
 of internal soundness in our arguments before he 
 can hope to destroy them by difficulties. No 
 
394 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 puzzling doubt, however great, can overthrow evi- 
 dent conclusions. A man charged with a crime, 
 who has manifestly proved his alibi, cannot possibly 
 be the perpetrator, although from accidental circum- 
 stances grave suspicions may have arisen against 
 him. In a similar way, when once it has been 
 evidently proved that God exists, and is infinitely 
 good ; the evils of this world cannot be attributed 
 to the absence of a wise and benevolent Providence, 
 even if the existence of those evils remain to a large 
 extent a riddle to us. A man who waited to render 
 homage to his Creator till he had solved all the 
 problems, to the solution of which his curiosity 
 might urge him, would act far more absurdly than 
 a child who refused to honour and obey his parents 
 till they had justified to his mind all the details of 
 their housekeeping. The distance between a child's 
 mental capacity and that of his parents is, after all, 
 finite : but God's mind is infinitely above ours. 
 
 228. Yet this answer, though substantially ade- 
 quate, it is clearly desirable to supplement by a 
 detailed account of the relation in which evil stands 
 to the infinitely good will of God. Such an account 
 we must now endeavour to render, and before all 
 things it is necessary to fix accurately the sense of 
 the term evil. Some modern philosophers take evil 
 to be any absence of good in a thing. They distin- 
 guish, consequently, three sorts of evils, meta- 
 physical, physical, and moral. Metaphysical evil is 
 understood by them to be the absence of a certain 
 perfection in a being, the nature of which is incom- 
 patible with such a perfection. Thus, for instance, 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 395 
 
 the absence of feeling in a stone, the absence of 
 reason in a dumb animal, and the absence of 
 learning in an infant, are in this view metaphysical 
 evils. By physical evil they mean a defect which 
 mars the natural integrity of a being, or interferes 
 with a proper development of its activity. Thus, 
 under the category of physical evil come, bodily 
 diseases of whatever kind, mental imbecility, liability 
 to great fits of passion preceding the use of free-will, 
 want, destruction of property by drought or inunda- 
 tions, violent death, &c. Under the term of moral 
 evil they comprise the deviation of the free-will from 
 the moral law, and the actions proceeding from a 
 will thus gone astray, as lying, theft, murder. In 
 order that such volitions and actions may be 
 considered as moral evils in the strict sense of 
 the word, their source must be a will deliberately 
 malicious. Otherwise, we have only what moralists 
 call material sin, not formal. 
 
 In this explanation of evils nothing seems to be 
 objectionable but that the term evil is taken in a 
 wider sense than its usual application allows. Men 
 commonly, do not call every imperfection an evil, 
 especially where the imperfection is the mere 
 absence of a perfection not due to a thing. Every- 
 thing is good, inasmuch as its state of existence 
 harmonizes perfectly with its nature. A nature of 
 a lower order is in itself less good than a nature 
 of a higher order. Yet the essence of that lower 
 nature does not involve what is properly called evil. 
 The word evil signifies not the mere absence of a 
 perfection, but its absence in a being to which under 
 
396 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 a certain aspect it is due. Therefore, only physical 
 and moral evils are evils in the strict sense of the 
 word. 
 
 229. What are called metaphysical evils cannot 
 possibly militate against the infinite goodness of 
 the Creator. To abolish them would mean to 
 annihilate all creatures.. A created being, either 
 infinitely perfect, or at least so perfect that none 
 more perfect could be created, is a contradiction 
 in terms. The hypothesis of an infinitely perfect 
 creature would involve the existence of two infinite 
 beings, disproved in the First Book. The hypothesis 
 of a creature so perfect that none more perfect 
 could be, would amount to an implicit denial of 
 the infinite power of the Creator. We have already 
 shown in Book I. that an absolutely perfect world 
 is impossible. The world of an infinitely good 
 God can only be relatively perfect, that is to say, 
 perfectly adapted to its end as intended by the 
 Creator. In Section i of this Book, we have seen 
 that God intends by creation the manifestation of 
 His goodness, or His external glory, and the beati- 
 tude of rational creatures. Neither the one nor 
 the other can be intended in an infinite degree. 
 In other words, God can neither intend that any 
 particular creature, or any multitude of creatures, 
 should adequately represent His unbounded perfec- 
 tion ; nor can He intend that any purely finite 
 creature should enjoy a happiness of infinite inten- 
 sity. He must, therefore, intend both the primary 
 and the secondary end of creation to be realized 
 within certain limits. Now, every finite degree of 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 397 
 
 external glory of God falls infinitely short of an 
 adequate expression of the infinite Divine goodness. 
 Comparing, therefore, finite degrees of external 
 manifestation with the adequate expression of the 
 Divinity, we may say that the difference between, 
 i, 100, and 1,000,000 degrees vanishes. Which of 
 these degrees shall God intend in creation ? Surely, 
 whichever He pleases. The selection depends en- 
 tirely on His free-will. He does not need any 
 creature. He may, therefore, choose among the 
 indefinite multitude of possible beings without violat- 
 ing any of His perfections ; yet so that He shall 
 always attain His own glory, both objective and 
 formal; subordinate the course of things perfectly 
 to the end He has in view, and conduct to final 
 happiness those rational creatures who obey the 
 voice of their conscience. With these restrictions, 
 we affirm that no amount of imperfection in created 
 natures can be adduced as an exception against the 
 statement of the monotheist : "An infinitely good 
 and wise God rules this world." 
 
 230. Supposing, then, that God creates a world 
 filled with creatures of a nature under many aspects 
 very imperfect an hypothesis doubtless verified in 
 this world of ours, the possibility of moral evil, and 
 the natural necessity of physical evil, is sufficiently 
 explained. Man has a free-will. By his very nature 
 he is such that he can commit sin. Again, both 
 man and the rest of the living creatures of this 
 world, in consequence of their imperfect nature, 
 must be liable to many physical sufferings, unless 
 God is continually to work miracles for their 
 
398 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 deliverance. Does, then, the infinite goodness of 
 God require that by supernatural interference He 
 should prevent all physical and moral evils ? The 
 answer is evidently to be given in the negative. 
 
 231. First, as regards physical evils, God cannot, 
 indeed, intend them for their own sake. He cannot 
 delight in the misery and sufferings of His creatures. 
 But there is no reason whatever to prove that He 
 may not allow these evils, with the intention to 
 compensate them by some good occasioned thereby. 
 Nay, He may even intend them as means to an end. 
 It is not necessary that He should lay open to our 
 view the particular final cause of every disease 
 and every misfortune ; it is enough for us to know 
 that He is infinitely good, infinitely wise and just. 
 Knowing thus much, we are certain of two truths 
 which must satisfy every reasonable thinker. The 
 first is, that an infinitely good, and wise, and just 
 God must draw some good out of every evil He 
 allows, and cannot allow any without a reason 
 worthy of His infinite wisdom. The second may 
 be formulated thus. A human mind, though able 
 to get a true knowledge of God amply sufficient 
 to guide the man on his way to his last end, is 
 manifestly unfit to comprehend the eternal counsels 
 of the Almighty. Add to this, that in many cases 
 experience and history show to the faithful Christian 
 distinctly, how in the hand of Providence physical 
 evils become instruments of great boons in the 
 moral order. Poverty and sickness teach man most 
 forcibly his nothingness, and open his mind to the 
 consolations of religion. The blood of the martyrs 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 399 
 
 became the fertile seed of Christianity, whilst the 
 ignominious death of Christ our Saviour enhanced 
 the glory of His Resurrection, brought out the 
 Divine origin of His Church, and opened to fallen 
 mankind the road that leads to the Heavenly City, 
 where "God shall wipe away all tears from their 
 eyes ; and death shall be no more, nor mourning, 
 nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more." 6 
 
 None can understand this fully, unless he believes 
 that God became Man, that as Man He died upon 
 the Cross, and afterwards ascended glorious into 
 Heaven. The belief in these truths makes it easily 
 conceivable that through many tribulations we must 
 enter into the Kingdom of God. An acquaintance 
 with the life and doctrines of Christ and His 
 Apostles goes far to reconcile the believer in 
 Christianity with the hard lot of the poor, and the 
 promiscuous distribution of temporal goods, and of 
 merely natural mental gifts among just and unjust. 
 A Christian knows that there is another life, in 
 which both the unbridled sensuality and supercilious 
 cruelty of Dives and the patient resignation and 
 heroic suffering of Lazarus will be duly rewarded. 
 And reflecting how vastly the natural endowments 
 of Lucifer surpass the most splendid human genius, 
 he no longer wonders at beholding at times among 
 men the spectacle of great abilities thrown away in 
 a bad cause. 
 
 232. But this reflection involves another difficulty 
 far greater than that drawn from mere physical evils. 
 God foresaw from eternity the fall of Lucifer and 
 
 6 Apoc xxi. 4. 
 
400 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 the evil angels. He foresaw all the sins of man. 
 Why did He not hinder them ? 
 
 Let us first see in what relation God stands to 
 moral evil. Moral evil in the strict sense of the 
 word consists in a free turning away of the created 
 will from the law laid down by God. God neces- 
 sarily loves His own goodness and everything else in 
 relation to it. He can, therefore, never approve of 
 a created free being deliberately ignoring its true 
 position to Him. But sin manifestly involves a 
 deliberate refusal of the creature to stand to God 
 in that attitude of subject to ruler, which is the 
 proper posture of a creature before its Creator. No 
 sin, therefore, can be pleasing to God. He manifests 
 His disapproval of it to every man who commits sin, 
 and that in the very moment when he is about to 
 commit it. For sin in the strict sense of the word is 
 not committed without disobedience to the voice of 
 conscience, which re-echoes the will of the Supreme 
 Lawgiver. But it is one thing to disapprove of sin, 
 and quite another thing not to impede it. God does 
 not impede sin ; although, absolutely speaking, this 
 was possible for Him. Yet we must not forget that 
 He is infinitely free as well as infinitely powerful. He 
 can, therefore, tolerate sin, if this toleration is not 
 opposed to His Divine perfections. But it is not 
 opposed to any one of them ; as will easily appear 
 on comparing it with those perfections which at first 
 sight it would seem to violate, namely, His wisdom, 
 His holiness, His justice, and His mercy. 
 
 233. First, then, it may be argued as an objection, 
 that God does not attain the end Fie intends by 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL, 401 
 
 tolerating sin ; for the sinner does not glorify God 
 as he ought to do, and forfeits his own happiness, 
 if he dies in the state of grievous sin. We reply 
 that the end which God intends is His own glory, 
 and that on such terms as to leave it to the choice 
 of the free creature to become throughout eternity 
 a living monument of His beatifying love or of His 
 rigorous justice. As regards the happiness of the 
 free creature, He intends that happiness only on 
 condition that the creature prepares for the same 
 before the time of probation expires with the close 
 of this earthly life. 
 
 234. But is the toleration of sin compatible with 
 the sanctity of God? No sin can be committed, 
 unless God concurs to the sinful action. But in 
 doing so He seems to approve of sin ; for there is 
 nothing which could necessitate Him to lend the 
 sinner His aid. In answer to this difficulty, let us 
 repeat briefly the solution already given in the 
 chapter on Divine concurrence, (pp. 364 seq. and 
 370.) We there showed that God does not concur 
 in the sin itself, nor does He encourage the sinner 
 to abuse his free-will. The concurrence of God, 
 which the sinner abuses, consists in this, that God 
 grants him the use of the moral freedom that 
 belongs to his nature. To do so He has reasons 
 worthy of His infinite wisdom, although incompre- 
 hensible to human minds. 
 
 235. But scarcely is this answer given, when 
 another difficulty arises : God puts one man in 
 circumstances in which it is very easy to avoid sin, 
 and He places another in positions which make sin* 
 
 AA 
 
4<>a THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THfS WORLD. 
 
 apparently, unavoidable. Is such an unequal treat- 
 ment of two creatures of the same human nature 
 not against Divine justice ? Is it not acceptance of 
 persons ? Compare the case of a well trained child 
 of good Christian parents with that of a youth who 
 grows up in the surroundings of vice and impiety. 
 
 We answer in the first place that God's justice 
 does not oblige Him to treat creatures of the same 
 nature exactly in the same way. The justice of 
 God is not commutative, but distributive. It is not 
 manifested by paying to creatures what they have 
 any right to ask of Him, but in granting them what 
 He cannot refuse to their nature and their merits 
 without denying His own goodness, wisdom, and 
 benevolence. If then He grants thus much to all 
 men, the objection against His justice ceases, 
 although He may make the grant to one in a 
 sufficient, to another in an abundant degree. 
 Certainly nobody can prove that poor, ignorant, 
 and badly educated people fall into or are punished 
 by God for really grievous sins, the avoidance of 
 which was not made morally possible for them, 
 either naturally or supernaturally by special internal 
 graces. Their acts often do not involve that malice 
 which prompts better-endowed minds to similar 
 excesses. Ignorance frequently excuses them from 
 grievous guilt, when they do things objectively very 
 serious. From reason and revelation we must con- 
 clude that no man is ever necessitated to violate the 
 law of God culpably, and that every sin imputable 
 to man is caused only by abuse of freedom against 
 the voice of conscience. Add to this, that through- 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 403 
 
 out the Old and New Testament God calls Himself 
 with a sort of preference the protector of the poor ; 
 and indicates that their human frailties will be 
 judged with great mercy. For what else is the 
 meaning of these passages of Scripture : " He 
 that despiseth the poor reproacheth his Maker ; " 7 
 " He that hath mercy on the poor lendeth to 
 the Lord;" 8 "He" (the Messiah) shall judge the 
 poor of the people and He shall save the children 
 of the poor ; " " He shall spare the poor and needy 
 and He shall save the souls of the poor ; " 9 " He " 
 (the Messiah) " shall judge the poor with justice ; " 10 
 " To him that is little, mercy shall be granted ; 
 but the mighty shall be mightily tormented," &C.; 11 
 "The prayer out of the mouth of the poor shall 
 reach the ears of God;" 12 "The Lord will not 
 accept any person against a poor man;" 13 and 
 the poverty of the Word Incarnate, His perpetual 
 companion during life, what else does it signify 
 than that the poor are dear to God ? If they are 
 dear to Him, it is impossible that any one of them 
 should perish finally unless by his own grievous 
 fault. What we have said of poor and uninstructed 
 . men may be applied to all those who without their 
 own fault are in great danger of sin. Experience 
 proves that they are often protected in quite an 
 astonishing way, if they use those precautions which 
 Providence has placed within their reach. 
 
 236. But how is it consonant with the mercy of 
 
 r Prov. xvii. 5. 8 Prov. xix. 17. fl Psalm Ixxi. 4, 13. 
 
 w Isaias xi. 4. u Wisdom vi. 7. 12 Ecclus. xxi. 6. 
 
 13 Ecclus. xxxv. 16. 
 
404 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 God, to grant the sinner moral freedom, when He 
 foresees that the wretched man will abuse it and ruin 
 himself? A father surely should not hand his son 
 a loaded pistol, at a time when the latter shows 
 himself overcome by disgust of life and ready to 
 get rid of it at the first convenient opportunity. 
 Really, however, there is an infinite disparity 
 between the two cases. The father is bound by 
 human and Divine law to follow another line of 
 action. He is the head of a family and not the 
 ruler of the universe. It is not with him to draw 
 out the fundamental laws of his domestic govern- 
 ment. Through the voice of his conscience he is 
 informed of the will of his Maker. And his con- 
 science tells him that he does grievous wrong by 
 thus occasioning the death of his son without any 
 sufficient reason. No motive can be made out for 
 putting the temptation in his way but wanton 
 cruelty and desire of the suicide of his charge. 
 God, on the contrary, in granting moral freedom 
 does not intend that the sinner shall abuse it. By 
 warning him through the voice of conscience He 
 manifests clearly that He wishes him to turn away 
 from the temptation. His foreseeing that the free 
 creature will go wrong could only obscure His 
 mercy, if it were not easily understood that He 
 has quite sufficient reason for allowing the use of 
 freedom, although this use becomes mischievous 
 through the fault of the creature. 
 
 We may insist upon the natural harmony between 
 a free creature and the use of freedom ; we may 
 Sail attention to the truth that God can and will 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 405 
 
 elicit good from evil, that He is free to grant or 
 not to grant those special privileges of grace by 
 which He preserves saints at times, that sufficient 
 grace to avoid formal sin is offered to every one. 
 Considerations like these suffice to show that the 
 argument raised against the mercy of God from the 
 existence of moral evil is unsound, although they 
 do not unveil the mystery of Divine wisdom that 
 shrouds from our view the reasons for which, in 
 psrticular cases, moral evils are not prevented. We 
 are only allowed to see some of the Divine artifices 
 by which our incomprehensible Creator raises upon 
 the spiritual ruin caused by sin, the most splendid 
 edifices of virtue and true greatness, or causes the 
 malice of the wicked to be one of the many rungs 
 in the ladder by which His faithful servants ascend 
 to the height of Divine charity and intimate union 
 with God. Thus the fallen Peter becomes the 
 immoveable Rock of the Church, the strength of his 
 brethren, the model of pastors, the undaunted hero 
 whom nothing can separate from his crucified 
 Master. On the other hand, the rage of unbelievers 
 causes St. Stephen to practise heroic charity, makes 
 St. Lawrence exult upon the gridiron, and peoples 
 Heaven with an innumerable multitude of martyrs. 
 
 237. " Yet," continues our objector, " according 
 to Christian belief, eternal punishment is the lot of 
 him who dies in grievous sin. Why should this be ? 
 W T hy should those who refuse grace up to death 
 lose for ever all chance of salvation ? " 
 
 Before answering, let us formulate one principle. 
 It is this : What Infinite Wisdom deems just must 
 
406 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 a priori be approved by a finite understanding. But 
 we have proved the First Cause of all things to be 
 infinitely perfect and wise, and may we not reason- 
 ably expect that among the arrangements of Infinite 
 Wisdom there will be many beyond the grasp of our 
 limited faculties ? However, let us see what human 
 reason makes of the arguments of our opponent. 
 
 First, then, it is alleged that according to justice 
 there must be proportion between the magnitude 
 of a crime and the punishment inflicted for it, and 
 that this does not seem to be the case if a grievous 
 sin committed in the twinkling of an eye is to be 
 expiated by never-ending torments. 
 
 This reasoning rests manifestly on the wrong 
 supposition that the magnitude of crime is to be 
 measured by the time required for its perpetration. 
 If this were the case, the boy who plays truant 
 for half a day would be a far greater criminal than 
 the ruffian who in half an hour commits a dozen 
 murders. Common sense does not take this view 
 of the matter. Whilst committing the boy to the 
 cane, it delivers the murderer to the gallows. Every 
 one agrees that by the crimes committed within the 
 space of thirty minutes, the murderer has forfeited 
 twelve times over all the benefits which he might 
 have enjoyed in human society on earth for forty 
 or fifty years. It is evident then that time cannot 
 be the standard by which punishment is to be deter- 
 mined. Not the duration of a bad deed, but its 
 internal wickedness, must be the measure of the 
 expiation due to it. But its wickedness increases 
 in proportion as the obligation is sacred which is 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL 407 
 
 deliberately violated. Now it is evident that no- 
 obligation of man towards man can stand com- 
 parison for a moment with the obligation of man. 
 to obey God. The right of God to the obedience 
 of His reasonable creature is absolute and infinite. 
 No right can be more strict ; and every other right 
 is based upon it. A wilful violation, therefore, of 
 this right implies a malice which opposes itself to 
 the foundation of all orders. It is, in comparison 
 with social disorders, considered as violations of 
 merely human rights, an infinite moral disorder. 
 Hence it is justly punished with an infinite penalty. 
 But a finite creature cannot suffer a penalty infinite 
 in intensity. The duration, therefore, of the penalty 
 must be infinite. This must be insisted upon all 
 the more emphatically, because the soul of a man 
 who dies in mortal sin leaves this worM in a state 
 of opposition to its Creator. The distortion of the 
 human understanding and will, caused by a deliberate 
 refusal to acknowledge God as Supreme Master, 
 cannot be repaired when the time of preparation 
 for man's last end has passed. Death puts a term 
 to that time. Consequently, the free-will of man 
 remains for ever in the same relation to God in 
 which it is in the moment of the separation of soul 
 and body. The will of one, therefore, who dies 
 impenitent, after having committed grievous sin, 
 remains for ever averted from God, refusing to 
 embrace lovingly the only Being in which the 
 created spirit can find his beatitude. Happiness 
 is incompatible with such a state. On the contrary, 
 it must be a state of the deepest dissatisfaction and 
 
4 o8 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 misery; for it is impossible that a rational and 
 spiritual nature should ever find rest and peace 
 unless it be united with God, the source of all 
 goodness, and beauty, and truth. The misery of 
 the dying, impenitent sinner lasts then as long as 
 the perversity of his will. His will is incorrigible ; 
 hence his misery must be irremediable. 
 
 Accordingly, there is perfect harmony between 
 Divine justice and the most essential feature of 
 eternal punishment as proposed by Catholic doc- 
 trine. Catholic theologians agree that Hell would 
 cease to be Hell, if the damned could only enjoy 
 the Beatific Vision of God. Whatever may be the 
 nature of the fire of Hell and its effects upon the 
 damned, it is certain that the pain which it causes 
 is nothing in comparison with the distress and 
 despair produced by the consciousness of having 
 for ever forfeited access to the only true source of 
 peace and happiness. It is, however, a connatural 
 consequence of this greatest of all penalties, that 
 the damned should suffer positively through the 
 intervention of creatures. He who has refused to 
 make use of creatures as instruments in the service 
 of his Creator, is justly punished by experiencing 
 pain through their influence. Hence our reason 
 sees how congruous it is that, according to the law 
 of God, rebellion against Him should be punished 
 in the next world through the instrumentality of 
 a real, material being, bearing some similarity to 
 earthly fire. The "fire" of the sun has remotely 
 a share in all the benefits God grants us through 
 His creatures for our salvation. A contempt of 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 409 
 
 those benefits is appropriately avenged by a sub- 
 stance similar to that by the aid of which the benefits 
 were conferred, that is, by fire. 
 
 In what way this will be done is irrelevant to 
 our discussion here. Readers may consult St. 
 Thomas. 14 
 
 238. Let us now turn to the objection against 
 Divine mercy based upon the same doctrine of eternal 
 punishment. "Whatever may be the demands of 
 justice ! " exclaims the unbeliever, " infinite mercy 
 requires the final extinction of all punishment, all 
 the more so because eternal punishment is useless, 
 and consequently its infliction real cruelty ! " 
 
 Let us judge of the relation between mercy and 
 punishment, not according to blind sentiment, but 
 in the light of reason. First as regards the infinity 
 of Divine mercy. To place limitations to the 
 Divine mercy as it is in itself, one must show that 
 that mercy somehow falls short of the standard 
 required by Infinite Wisdom. But how shall the 
 infidel show this ? Not certainly by pointing out 
 that the effects of God's mercy are limited. In fact 
 it seems intrinsically repugnant that creatures should 
 act according to their nature, and yet evil be removed 
 from them without any limit. To answer, however, 
 more positively we may solve the difficulty thus. As 
 Divine Mercy is infinitely perfect because it is in 
 perfect harmony with Infinite Wisdom, so Divine 
 Justice is infinitely perfect for the same reason. Con- 
 sequently, a priori, there is no ground why, in the 
 
 14 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. 30.; Suppl. q.7o. a. 3. "Et ideo dicen- 
 dum ; " and Ibid. q. 97. art. 5. 
 
4 io THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 relation of God towards His reasonable creatures, 
 either one or other of these two attributes should be 
 manifested exclusively. It would appear more proper 
 that both should shine forth in their effects. Of 
 course, God owes it to His own goodness that the 
 joint glorification of these two attributes should be 
 in harmony with the final happiness of all reasonable 
 creatures, on the supposition that none of them 
 refuse to fulfil the conditions laid down for the 
 attainment of that happiness. But if some submit 
 to their Creator, and others rebel against Him, it 
 behoves the dignity of God to make a final irre- 
 vocable distinction between loyal subjects and 
 obstinate rebels. This distinction may be made 
 in such a way that the everlasting punishment of 
 the wicked shall itself be a manifestation both of 
 justice and of mercy, of justice in point of duration, 
 and of mercy in point of intensity. According to 
 St. Thomas, this is what is actually done. He 
 says: "In the damnation of the reprobate, mercy 
 manifests itself, not by putting a stop to the penalty 
 inflicted, but by alleviating it somewhat, so as to 
 exact less than what is really due." 15 
 
 239. From this discussion on Providence, in 
 respect of the permission of evil and the infliction of 
 eternal punishment, it is, we hope, evident that the 
 Christian philosopher, after having proved on philo- 
 sophical grounds the existence and attributes of 
 God, may face boldly any difficulty by which adver- 
 
 15 "In damnatione reproborum apparet misericordia non quidem 
 totaliter relaxans sed aliqualiter allevians dum punit citra con- 
 dignum." (St. Thomas, Sum. Tlieol. la. q. 21. art. 4. ad i.) 
 
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND EXISTING EVIL. 411 
 
 saries try to undermine his conclusions. ' To do more 
 than dispel the fallacies with which unbelief opposes 
 the evidences of reason and the testimonies of 
 Christianity in favour of an infinitely wise and good 
 Providence, is a task neither necessary nor possible. 
 It is not necessary; because after the truth of 
 Divine Providence has been established, man knows 
 enough for taking a proper view of life. Under 
 such a Providence as Natural Theology discloses to 
 our reason, and Christian revelation proposes to 
 our faith, life is certainly worth living, in obedi- 
 ence to the voice of conscience and in opposition 
 to the impulse of blind passion. All the duties 
 imposed upon us by the voice of conscience can be 
 fulfilled without investigation of the -secret counsels 
 and hidden ways of the Supreme Being. No need 
 to lose time in such investigations. When once 
 we clearly understand that we are essentially 
 servants of an infinitely good Master, it behoves 
 us to pay Him adoration, confidence, and love, 
 and to be anxious rather about a complete know- 
 ledge of the duty of the creature to its Creator 
 than about the ways by which the Creator guides 
 His creature. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 
 
 SECTION i. Miracles conceivable and possible. 
 
 Thesis XXXIX. Miracles, as believed in by 
 Christian monotheists, involve nothing self-contradictory 
 or absolutely impossible, nor are they in any way opposed 
 to the existence of physical law. Consequently, they are 
 intrinsically and extrinsically possible, and by no means 
 effects unworthy of a wise Governor of the Universe. 
 
 240. In the present section we are only con- 
 cerned with the possibility of miracles ; in the next 
 we shall discuss whether they come within the range 
 of human knowledge. Our thesis says, first that 
 miracles are not self-contradictory, or that the 
 proper notion of a miracle does not involve any 
 union of mutually inconsistent ideas. 
 
 To prove this it will be necessary to inquire 
 what is meant by " a miracle." In a wider sense, 
 we call "a miracle" anything astonishing. Thus, 
 we may speak of " miracles of beauty," " of learn- 
 ing," " of virtue." And we may call any effect of 
 an unknown cause " a miracle." But the Christian, 
 theological sense of the word miracle is far more 
 restricted, and very definite. In this sense no event 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 413 
 
 is called a miracle, unless it be due to quite a special 
 interference of God. Yet not even every such event 
 is a miracle. Something must be added, as will 
 appear from the two following definitions of miracle, 
 the first of which is given by St. Thomas, the second 
 adopted by modern theologians. 
 
 241. According to St. Thomas, " miracles are 
 effects wrought by the power of God alone in things 
 which have a natural tendency to a contrary effect, 
 or to a contrary way of producing it." 1 
 
 In explanation of this definition we have to make 
 the following remarks : 
 
 (a) St. Thomas requires for the existence of a 
 miracle that the effect in question should be attri- 
 butable exclusively to Divine power. It appears from 
 the context of his doctrine that he means to say : 
 The principal cause of a miracle is God alone ; a 
 creature can only be instrumental in its operation, 
 either by disposing the matter in which, by virtue of 
 the Divine volition alone, the miracle is produced, 
 or by obtaining miracles from God through prayers 
 or good works, or by commanding in the name of 
 God that a miracle shall take place. Such a 
 command supposes a special Divine inspiration, 
 through which the person who works the miracle 
 is made sure that his command will be efficacious. 2 
 
 To some readers the objection may occur : You 
 say, God alone is the principal cause of a miracle. 
 
 1 " Ilia quae sola virtute divina fiunt in illis rebus, in quibus est 
 naturalis ordo ad contrarium effectum vel ad contrarium modum 
 faciendi, dicuntur proprie miracula " (De Potentia, q. 6. DeMiraculis, 
 art. 2. in corp.). 
 
 2 Cf. St. Thomas, ibid. a. 4. 
 
4 i4 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLb. 
 
 But God is the principal cause of every positive 
 effect. Therefore, according to your explanation, 
 every positive effect is a miracle ? The answer to 
 this objection is that God is the principal cause 
 of a miracle, not merely in the sense of prime cause, 
 but inasmuch as principal cause denotes a cause en- 
 dowed with natural faculties proportioned to a certain 
 effect, and is thus opposed to instrumental cause, 
 which by itself alone has no perfect natural aptitude 
 for the effect in which it is said to be instrumental, 
 but is raised to that aptitude by a special impulse 
 and direction proceeding from the principal cause. 
 Thus, in the action of painting, God is the prime 
 cause ; the artist is the principal cause ; and his brush 
 and pallet are the instrumental causes of the picture. 
 The action of painting is, therefore, a human action 
 depending upon ordinary Divine concurrence ; but 
 it is not a Divine action. Though God be the prime 
 cause, human faculties are proportioned to such an 
 action, and therefore the painter is the principal 
 cause of it. But a miracle is an effect which, con- 
 sidered in the concrete with all its circumstances, is 
 manifestly proportioned to the Divine power alone. 
 Elias prayed, and the wet wood caught fire miracu- 
 lously, not because the natural conditions pre- 
 required for this effect were present, but because 
 God willed it so on account of the prayer of the 
 Prophet. The man born blind, who washed himself 
 in the pool of Siloe by the command of our Lord, 
 was cured, not -because the washing was propor- 
 tioned to the cure, but because the Incarnate Son 
 f God willed it so on condition of this act of 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 415 
 
 obedience. The man born blind was to a certain 
 extent the principal cause of his going to the pool 
 and washing himself there ; but the Son of God was 
 not only the prime t but also the sole principal and 
 proper cause of the miracle. 3 (b) By the additional 
 words, "in things which have a natural tendency to 
 a contrary effect, or to a contrary way of producing 
 it," St. Thomas implies that the effect of a miracle 
 is either something which in the ordinary course of 
 nature never happens, or something which in the 
 ordinary course of nature does not happen in this 
 way. Of the first kind is the raising of a dead man 
 to life again, of the second kind the cure of a very 
 serious disease by a simple command. 
 
 242. After having given his definition, the 
 Angelic Doctor, by way of further explanation, 
 indicates two series of facts, which at first sight 
 would seem to be miracles, but are not miracles 
 in the sense in which Catholic theologians use the 
 term. 
 
 The first series is formed by the hidden effects 
 of nature (ea quce natura facit nobis tamen vel alicui 
 ccculta). There are natural effects, the natural cause 
 of which is unknown. That cause may be either 
 some hidden force or forces of nature acting by 
 themselves, or it may be forces of nature applied by 
 the natural faculties of man in an artificial way, or 
 it may be forces of nature utilized by pure spirits, 
 supposing they act only with their natural faculties. 
 All these effects are wonderful and marvellous, but 
 not miracles. 
 
 3 Cf . 3 King--, xviii. 3039 1 St. John is. 
 
4 i6 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 The second series is made up of actions which 
 are Divine, but occur regularly in the ordinary 
 natural or supernatural course of things (ea qua 
 Deus facit nee aliter nata sunt fieri nisi a Deo). Such 
 actions are : (i) The creation of each individual 
 human soul, which takes place through purely 
 Divine power as often as the substratum of a 
 human body has been duly prepared by natural 
 causes. As we have shown in Book I., no human 
 soul can come into existence otherwise than through 
 immediate Divine creation. But this creation follows 
 a certain rule, laid down by God from eternity to be 
 followed regularly; and moreover it follows a rule 
 which must be observed, if God wills mankind to 
 continue to exist in agreement with the exigencies 
 of their nature. The creation of a human soul, then, 
 though a purely Divine action, is neither a miracle 
 nor a supernatural action in the strict sense of the 
 word. It is not a miracle, because it is in harmony 
 with the ordinary course of things : it is not a 
 supernatural action, because it is necessary for 
 the completion of human nature. Also the first 
 creation of pure spirits and of matter, though 
 most marvellous, does not come under the cate- 
 gory of miracles, because by that creation the very 
 foundation of created nature was laid. Christians 
 believe also in other actions, transcending not only 
 the faculties of creatures, but even the exigen- 
 cies grounded on their nature and their faculties ;. 
 and therefore strictly supernatural actions, yet not 
 miracles. Such actions are the infusion or increase 
 of sanctifying grace through the sacraments of the 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 417 
 
 Church, and through acts of perfect contrition. 
 Such are also all illuminations and inspirations of 
 the Holy Ghost, by which men are prepared and 
 helped to the performance of saving and meritorious 
 works. These actions are not miracles, because 
 they follow the ordinary course of constant super- 
 natural influence of God upon rational creatures, in 
 accordance with the general direction of His Provi- 
 dence in the present order of things towards a 
 supernatural beatitude. 
 
 The conversion of St. Paul no doubt was pre- 
 ceded and accompanied by miracles in the strict 
 sense of the word. The conversion itself may be 
 rightly called a miracle of grace ; but it was not 
 a miracle in the ordinary sense, because it was not 
 a supernatural and extraordinary change produced 
 by God in Saul as in a Hving, corporeal being; 
 but the change was made in his spiritual faculties. 
 Miracles, as understood by St. Thomas and Catholic 
 theologians, are extraordinary Divine operations in 
 nature, that is to say, in the sphere of sensible 
 corporeal things. 
 
 243. To express this clearly, modern theologians 
 define a miracle to be a sensible, unusual, Divine, 
 and supernatural work.* (a) A miracle is defined " a 
 sensible work," because the definition does not 
 extend beyond those extraordinary supernatural 
 
 4 " Opus sensibile, divinitus factum, insolitum, supernaturale." 
 (Cf. T. Pesch, Instil. Phil. Nat. p. 711.) Whilst agreeing in the 
 substance, different modern representatives of Catholic Theology 
 and Philosophy vary in the form of the definition. To our mind 
 the form adopted I.e. recommends itself for great precision. 
 
 BB 
 
418 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 facts which imply changes perceptible through the 
 senses. 
 
 (6) A miracle is denned " an unusual work," 
 because it is opposed to the ordinary course of 
 nature, or to the ordinary way in which corporeal 
 things under similar circumstances act and react on 
 one another. The mere frequency of a miracle in 
 comparatively few spots of the globe does not take 
 away its character of being "an unusual work." 
 To use the words of St. Thomas : " If daily some 
 blind man were made to see, this would nevertheless 
 be a miracle, because opposed to the ordinary course 
 of nature." 5 
 
 (c) A miracle is called " a Divine work," because 
 it is due to a special positive agency of God. The 
 co-operation of even the holiest and most wonderful 
 of the saints in the miracles which they are said to 
 work, does not extend beyond acting as impetrators, 
 or as instrumental and ministerial causes, as ex- 
 plained above. 
 
 (d) A miracle is called not only a Divine, but 
 also a supernatural work, because it is not one of 
 those Divine works which complete the natural 
 existence of corporeal things, man included. To 
 these works belong the first creation of the world 
 and the continual creation of individual souls. 
 
 Note. In the language of Scripture miracles are 
 often called signs, prodigies, virtues. The word sign 
 refers to the intention God has in working miracles. 
 He wills thereby to speak to man in a sensible way. 
 The name prodigy points to the wonder excited in 
 
 5 Sent. ii. dist. 18. q. i. art. 3. id z~ 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 419 
 
 human minds by the sight of miracles; whilst the 
 word virtues implies that they are manifestations of 
 power, supreme and Divine. 
 
 244. Against the definition of miracles just ex- 
 plained, a difficulty may be raised from a division 
 of miracles very common in Catholic schools, and 
 mentioned repeatedly by St. Thomas. Miracles are 
 divided into miracles above nature, beside nature, and 
 against nature (miracula 'supra naturam, prceter 
 naturam, contra naturam). Above nature are those 
 miracles which are worked in material subjects, in 
 which in the ordinary course of nature similar effects 
 never occur. Thus, it never happens naturally, 
 that a dead and decomposing body rises to life 
 again. Therefore, the resurrection of Lazarus was 
 a miracle above nature. 6 
 
 Beside nature are those miracles that occur in 
 material subjects, in which through the forces of 
 nature, either left to themselves or artificially 
 applied, similar effects do occur. Here an effect 
 is known to be miraculous by its occurring at a 
 prophesied time, or simply upon the word of a 
 thaumaturgus, and that in cases in which similar 
 effects could not have been obtained through natural 
 forces otherwise than gradually and with no certainty 
 about the success. Thus, the fact that in Egypt, 
 upon the word of Moses, all the first-born of men 
 and beasts died in one night, whilst the Israelites 
 were spared, was a miracle beside nature. Such a 
 miracle also was the sudden withering of the hand 
 of Jeroboam, when he stretched it out against the 
 
 6 Cf. St. John xi. 43, 44. 
 
420 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 Prophet of God ; and the blindness of the sorcerer 
 Elymas, caused upon the prediction of St. Paul. 7 
 
 Against nature are the miracles which happen in 
 material subjects that naturally tend to a contrary 
 effect, and are not prevented from producing their 
 effect by any natural cause. Thus, the preservation 
 of the three companions of Daniel was a miracle 
 against nature ; also the going back of the shadow 
 upon the sun-dial of Achaz. 8 
 
 This is the division of miracles which is sub- 
 stantially to be found in St. Thomas. 9 The term 
 "nature," which is taken as the standard of this 
 division, means the whole of corporeal substances 
 and their forces acting under ordinary Divine 
 concurrence, either by themselves alone, or under 
 some artificial direction of rational creatures. We 
 must note that the miracles which are said to be 
 against nature, are in no way against the essence or 
 against the final end of natural substances, but only 
 against the course of action these substances would 
 take, if God had not from eternity decreed for 
 special reasons to interfere with it. 
 
 But how to combine the division with the defi- 
 nition ? The definition says, that every miracle is 
 supernatural, or above nature. In the division, on the 
 contrary, only one class of miracles is marked as 
 being above nature. The solution is to be found in 
 the fact that in the definition the miraculous effect 
 
 7 Cf. Exodus xi. xii. ; 3 Kings xiii. ; Acts xiii. 8 12. 
 
 8 Cf. Daniel iii. 21 24 ; 4 Kings xx. 
 
 9 St. Thomas, Sent. ii. dist. 18. q. i. art. 3. solutio; De Potentin. 
 q. 6. art. 2. ad 3111. 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 421 
 
 is considered as it exists in the concrete, with all its 
 circumstances, knowable to a diligent observer. 
 When thus viewed, every real miracle must be 
 pronounced to be supernatural, or a Divine effect. 
 But a miraculous effect, though manifestly Divine 
 when viewed adequately, may be taken into con- 
 sideration inadequately and the question asked : 
 How does this effect stand to the efficiency of 
 mere natural forces, abstraction being made from 
 all particular circumstances ? This consideration 
 leads to the result that some miracles are above 
 nature, others beside nature, others against nature. 
 Therefore, the definition is not opposed to the 
 division ; because in the definition the miraculous 
 effect is viewed as happening under all the peculiar 
 circumstances under which it does happen : whilst 
 the division of miracles is made by comparing the' 
 effect with the forces of nature, abstracting from 
 concrete circumstances. And thus far of the defini- 
 tion and division of miracles. 
 
 245. That miracles are conceivable and not 
 intrinsically absurd, is easily shown. They are by 
 hypothesis extraordinary effects of Divine power in 
 corporeal things, beyond the powers of creatures. 
 There is certainly nothing in this concept approach- 
 ing to self-contradiction. The power of creatures is 
 finite. It is, therefore, conceivable that God should 
 work in created things in a way impossible to 
 creatures ; and that not in the ordinary way, which 
 the continuation of created existences and activities 
 implies, but in a manner quite extraordinary. Again, 
 as we have seen, God is infinitely powerful and free. 
 
422 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 If He is infinitely powerful, He certainly can produce 
 effects in corporeal things, which no created activity 
 left to itself could produce under the circumstances. 
 And if He is infinitely free, He cannot be said to 
 have been necessitated from eternity so to order the 
 course of created activities as to leave no room for 
 His own immediate interference further than was 
 altogether necessary for the continuance of the world. 
 Miracles are consequently conceivable as works of 
 God's absolute power. 
 
 246. It remains to be considered whether they 
 can be combined with the eternal decrees of God. 
 God, it may be urged, cannot contradict Himself. 
 Now, universal experience leads to the conclusion 
 that the material substances of the universe follow 
 natural laws, or certain uniform ways of action, so 
 that under the same circumstances the same effects 
 occur. These natural laws must have been decreed 
 by God from eternity. If so, what room remains 
 for extraordinary interference ? Some such train of 
 reasoning seems to have been in Dr. Carpenter's 
 mind, when he penned the following lines : " In 
 regard to the Physical Universe then, it might be 
 better to substitute for the phrase, ' Government by 
 Laws,' ' Government according to Laws ' : meaning 
 thereby the direct exertion of the Divine Will or 
 operation of the First Cause, in the forces of Nature, 
 according to certain constant uniformities which are 
 simply unchangeable, because having been origi- 
 nally the expression of Infinite Wisdom any change 
 would be for the worse." 10 
 
 Physiology, p. 706. 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 423 
 
 There is much truth in these words, but not 
 the whole truth. God's decrees are indeed irre- 
 vocable, and the course of nature is at least gener- 
 ally uniform. Were it otherwise, mankind would 
 be held in a state of perpetual suspense by the 
 unavoidable and insoluble question : What will 
 happen next ? There would be no stimulus to labour 
 where no fruit could be counted on; and human 
 life, if possible at all, would be in a condition of 
 abject misery. 
 
 But the one concession, that God governs the 
 world according to natural laws, does not involve 
 the other, that in every particular case the general 
 law is applied. There are exceptions made in human 
 legislation, where it is foreseen that a general enact- 
 ment would bear too hard upon a particular case. 
 So the Creator may foresee from eternity that in 
 this case and that an exception to the general course 
 of nature will serve His purpose better than the 
 maintenance of the uniformity ; and He may decree 
 that exception accordingly from all eternity. Let 
 us suppose, at least for argument's sake, that it is 
 God's eternal design 'to raise some of His rational 
 creatures to a union with Himself in knowledge and 
 love, far more intimate than any that their nature 
 could lay claim to. This being so, God could no 
 doubt decree to communicate His benevolent designs 
 to particular chosen legates, and to commission them 
 with the promulgation of those designs to mankind. 
 In order now to give these His legates an incon- 
 testable authority, He could decree to make known 
 to them what they could not possibly know by 
 
424 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 natural means, namely, the future free actions of 
 men with all their particular circumstances. Such 
 a decree itself would be a decree to interfere with 
 the psychological law of the natural dependence of 
 the human mind upon ideas gathered from experi- 
 ence or elaborated by reason. It would be a 
 suspension of a psychological law for a higher end 
 and in a particular case only. There is nothing 
 repugnant in all this. If, then, God can thus inter 
 fere with a psychological law on behalf of a Prophet 
 whom He sends, why should He be unable to give 
 His Prophet still more authority, by decreeing that 
 in particular cases a prayer, a command, a touch, 
 or even a mere volition of that Prophet should be 
 followed by an extraordinary effect in a corporeal 
 thing ? There is again nothing unworthy of God in 
 this supposition. No decrees are repealed, but from 
 eternity the rule and the exception from the rule are 
 settled with one act of Divine volition in the light of 
 infinite knowledge and with an intention not to help 
 nature to that for which as a work of God it is competent 
 by its natural forces, but to raise it to a higher level out 
 of pure generous love. 
 
 247. Once we understand that God is infinite 
 intellect and will, and acts by mere volition according to 
 eternal decrees, we can have no difficulty in solving 
 modern arguments against the possibility of miracles. 
 Almost all are variations of those of Spinoza. 11 This 
 author starts from the supposition that God must 
 from eternity will everything He knows, a supposi- 
 tion disproved by us in Book II., where we treated 
 
 11 Tract. Theol. Polit. c. 6. 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 425 
 
 of the free-will of God. (Cf. pp. 295, seq.) We showed 
 there that God wills nothing with absolute neces- 
 sity but His own existence. Arguing in particular 
 against those miracles which the scholastics called 
 against nature, Spinoza says 12 that such miracles 
 would involve either the absence of general laws of 
 nature, or the supposition that God could act against 
 the laws of His own nature. This difficulty is done 
 away with by what we have shown in Book I., that 
 the self-evolving God of Spinozism exists only in 
 the imagination of pantheists. The phrase, " against 
 nature," means, as we have seen, no more than this, 
 that the natural tendency to action proper to a 
 corporeal being in a particular case remains poten- 
 tial, instead of becoming actual, as it would have 
 become had not God decreed to make this case an 
 exception to the general rule. 
 
 " But," continues Spinoza, " if miracles are. 
 strictly speaking, all above nature, then you must 
 admit a break in the necessary and immutable 
 course of nature ; which is absurd. It would follow 
 also that the principles of reason are violable ; 
 for after all they are but laws of nature. In that 
 case we are unable to trust them, unable to prove 
 the existence of God ; and thus miracles, far from 
 being a help to the knowledge of God, prove a 
 total impediment to that knowledge." 
 
 This argument confounds in the first place the 
 
 course of nature as decreed by the Divine mind 
 
 from eternity with the course of nature as it 
 
 commonly occurs in human experience. Under 
 
 12 Loc. cit. 
 
426 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 the former respect it is absolutely immutable, not 
 under the latter ; and this suffices for the possibility 
 of miracles, as has been shown in the proof of our 
 thesis. If in a particular case the common rule is 
 not followed, if, for instance, water changes miracu- 
 lously into wine, it does not follow that equally 
 well in another particular case two and two might 
 become five, and thus a principle of reason be 
 violated. If Spinoza had studied St. Thomas, he 
 would have found the solution of his difficulty. 18 
 St. Thomas says, that if we speak of an action 
 against principles of nature (or more accurately, 
 against the natural tendency of physical forces), 
 we imply thereby that such an action surpasses 
 created agencies, from which it does not follow 
 that the Almighty Creator cannot effect it, sup- 
 posing it to be in keeping with His justice and 
 wisdom. But the principles of reason are not 
 tendencies of physical forces, but enunciations of 
 
 )2 De Potentia, q. 6. art. i. obj. n As this passage is one of the 
 many in which Aquinas anticipated modern difficulties, we will 
 give it in full. The obj. n runs thus: "Sicuti ratio humana a 
 Deo est, ita et natura. Sed contra principia rationis Deus facere 
 non potest, sicut quod genus de specie non prasdicetur, vel quod 
 latus quadrati sit commensurabile diametro. Ergo nee contra 
 principia naturae Deus facere potest." His answer is: "Ad un- 
 decimum dicendum, quod logicus et mathematicus considerant 
 tantum res secundum principia formalia ; unde nihil est impossibile 
 in logicis et mathematicis, nisi quod est contra rei formalem 
 rationem. Et hujusmodi impossibile in se contradictionem claudit, 
 et sic est per se impossibile. Talia autem impossibilia Deus facere 
 non potest. Naturalis (i.e. the physicist and biologist) autem 
 applicat ad determinatam materiam ; unde reputat impossibile 
 etiam id quod est huic impossibile. Nihil autem prohibet Deum 
 posse facere quae sunt inferioribus agentibus impossibilia." 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 427 
 
 inviolable truths, which cannot be set aside by any 
 rational being without the ruin of all certainty, 
 much less be over-ruled by God, Who is the First 
 Truth and the Source of all truth. 
 
 Spinoza's difficulty regarding the perturbation 
 of order by miracles has been repeated by Voltaire, 
 Strauss, and others, and seems to be a chief 
 stumbling-block for many, because they forget the 
 distinction between order as conceived by God and 
 order as manifested in the uniformity of nature. 
 Order under the first aspect reigns everywhere ; 
 order under the second aspect is the normal thing, 
 but there are exceptions for wise reasons. Such 
 exceptions are no more perturbations of the laws 
 of nature than in human society privileges modify- 
 ing the tenor of a general, civil, or cr'minal law, 
 granted by the lawgiver at the same time he 
 establishes the law, and granted with wise limita- 
 tions, can be called abrogations of the law itself. 
 
 SECTION 2. Miracles can be known as suck. 
 
 Thesis XL. By careful inquiry the extraordinary 
 Divine operations called miracles can be sufficiently dis- 
 tinguished from the wonders of nature and art, and from 
 the operations of created spirits. 
 
 248. Affirming in our thesis that miracles are 
 knowable, we do not maintain that every particular 
 miracle is sufficiently open to all inquirers. All we 
 hold is, that those in whose favour God works 
 miracles, and to whom He wishes thereby to 
 manifest Himself in an extraordinary way, cannot 
 
428 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 fail to discover Him as the Author of those effects. 
 Our argument is simply this. God never works 
 miracles but for an end worthy of Himself. He 
 works them in order to draw men nearer to Him- 
 self by extraordinary manifestations of His Divine 
 attributes, of His power, wisdom, benevolence, 
 mercy, justice. His miracles are intended to be 
 a solid comfort to men of good-will, and an earnest 
 and terrifying warning to those who revolt against 
 the voice of their conscience. They are, as it were, 
 a Divine speech, expressed, not by Divine words, 
 but by Divine deeds. Now, is it possible that God 
 should thus address men without offering them 
 sufficient means to ascertain that He has spoken ? 
 To suppose this would involve the denial either of 
 God's power or of God's wisdom. The supposition 
 in fact amounts to this, either that God cannot 
 make Himself known as the Author of these special 
 works, or that He does not care to do so. Take 
 the first alternative, and you deny God's power; 
 take the second, and you deny His wisdom. In 
 both cases you think of the Creator in a way 
 altogether incompatible with His perfection. Men 
 are able to stamp their works with such indisputable 
 signs of their individuality as that nobody, on 
 sufficient inquiry, can see any reason for suspend- 
 ing his judgment as to their origin. And should the 
 Creator be powerless to manifest Himself by equally 
 clear evidences ? Men of common sense do not 
 annoy their fellow-men with ambiguous communi- 
 cations, the proper meaning and origin of which 
 nobody can discover ; and shall the infinitely wise 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 429 
 
 God speak the language of signs and wonders in 
 such a way that no amount of reasonable inquiry 
 can throw light upon the real speaker? Such 
 suppositions cannot be entertained for a moment. 
 But to acknowledge them as absurd is equivalent 
 to the statement that miracles are really knowable 
 if duly inquired into. 
 
 249. This last-mentioned condition must be 
 added. Otherwise we may take for miraculous what 
 are really no more than hidden effects of nature, 
 artificial tricks of men, or operations of created 
 spirits, surpassing men in their acuteness of intellect 
 and in their power of applying the forces of nature 
 to ends of their own. The first and second of these 
 cases is possible, and has happened often enough. 
 The third case is of course put down as impossible 
 by materialists, extreme evolutionists, and agnostics. 
 If there are any other thinkers, not in this class, 
 who still do not believe in rational beings higher 
 than man, and yet infinitely distant from the 
 Creator, then, we must say, their stand-point is 
 not conformable to reason and history, and is 
 besides opposed to a fundamental truth of Christi- 
 anity. Reason a priori finds it far more probable 
 that between the one infinite spirit and human souls 
 not purely spiritual, there should exist created pure 
 spirits, than that they should not exist. History 
 testifies that the belief in such spirits among civi- 
 lized nations is as old as mankind. The history of 
 magnetism and spiritualism countenances this sup- 
 position, that some purely spiritual creatures do 
 at times make their influence sensibly felt in this 
 
430 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 world. Such is the judgment of many Catholic 
 theologians, who have studied the history of spiri- 
 tualism with great attention. 14 
 
 250. It appears then that created rational beings 
 higher than man, or at least other than human, in- 
 fluence this visible world. Shall we then call their 
 influence miraculous ? According to the definition of 
 a miracle we cannot do so, unless they act not by 
 mere natural power but as instruments of God. 
 Now St. Thomas, speaking from the stand-point of 
 Christian Revelation, and consequently taking for 
 granted that there are good spirits (holy angels) and 
 evil spirits (demons or devils), lays it down as an 
 evident corollary of revealed doctrine that God, 
 whilst using good angels as moral instruments 
 for miraculous effects, never grants to evil spirits 
 greater power than they have by nature, but 
 
 14 Not long ago the Spectator wrote as follows : " He [the writer] 
 would assert that no one who has studied what are now called 
 euphemistically the phenomena of hypnotism, and the various states 
 of distinct personal consciousness which the French physicians elicit 
 in their hypnotic patients, should doubt that the old doctrine of 
 one spirit over-riding another in the same organism is as good an 
 explanation of the facts as any other which can be suggested ; 
 indeed, a great deal better, in his opinion he speaks only of himself 
 than Mr. Myers' theory of different strata of consciousness. . . . 
 Though the writer speaks only for himself in saying what he does, 
 the present generation has, in his opinion, ample and absolute 
 evidence, if it will only bear patiently with fools and knaves and 
 impostors of all kinds in seeking it, that alien intelligences not acting 
 through any human body and sometimes intelligences of a very 
 mean order do produce definite physical effects on this world, 
 and do sometimes induce aberrations of mind in men and women 
 which rise to a point of virtual insanity." (Spectator, Feb. 9, 1889, 
 " Professor Huxley and Agnosticism," p. 195.) 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 431 
 
 on the contrary, often restrains their natural 
 energy. 15 
 
 Whatever such spirits do, is done, as the Angelic 
 Doctor says, "by skilfully utilizing through motion 
 the potential energies latent in nature " adhibendo 
 corporalia semina per motum localem. 16 This they do 
 with an incredible velocity, and an insight into 
 possible combination of natural forces of which man 
 can form no idea. 
 
 251. Thus for a due inquiry into miracles, we 
 need a double series of criteria ; the first to guard 
 us against taking for miracles mere natural effects, 
 caused by physical forces left to themselves or 
 artificially applied by men ; whilst the second helps 
 us to distinguish miracles from the effects of evil 
 spirits. As the good angels never go about to 
 deceive men by their artifices, we do not want a 
 series of criteria to mark off their natural opera- 
 tions from true miracles. 
 
 Before the application of these criteria, the 
 historical truth of the fact itself must first be tested. 
 Inquiry must be made as to " Who reports the 
 fact ? " " Could such a witness know the truth, 
 
 15 Cf. Sum. Theol. i. q. no. art. 3. et art. 4. and De Potentia, q. 6. 
 art. 3. art. 4. art. 5. In the last place he says distinctly: " Sicut 
 Angeli boni per gratiam aliquid possunt ultra naturalem virtutem, 
 ita Angeli mali minus possunt ex divina providentia eos repri- 
 mente, quam possint secundum naturalem virtutem. . . . Cum 
 operatio miraculosa sit quoddam divinum testimonium indicativum 
 divinse virtutis et veritatis ; si daemonibus quo: am est tota voluntas 
 d malum, aliqua potestas daretur faciendi miracula, Deus falsitatis 
 eorum testis existeret ; quod divinam bonitatem non decet." 
 16 St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. no. art. 4. ad 3. 
 
432 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 or is it likely that he was deceived ? " " Is the 
 veracity of the witness above suspicion ? " If the 
 answer to these three questions is favourable, we 
 are morally certain of the existence of the fact, as 
 reported by one or more immediate or mediate 
 witnesses, according to the ordinary rules of testi- 
 mony. 17 When this certainty has been reached, the 
 criteria of the miraculous character of the fact 
 come into application. 
 
 252. (i) Criteria by which we may judge whether 
 a well attested fact apparently miraculous, is or is 
 not to be assigned to hidden physical causes, eithef 
 left to themselves or applied by men. 
 
 (a) An effect, which of its very nature is out of 
 proportion to the efficacy of physical forces how- 
 ever combined by human ingenuity, must be due 
 to a cause transcending physical nature and the will 
 of man. Such an effect would be the raising to life 
 again of a human body dead and buried and in a 
 state of decomposition. 
 
 (b) If an effect be within the competence of 
 physical and human causes under certain condi- 
 tions, but not under the conditions present in this 
 particular well attested instance, such an effect 
 must be attributed to an agency above that of 
 nature and man. The sudden cure of leprosy or 
 blindness by a mere form of words would be such 
 an effect. 
 
 (c) As often as a well attested effect is produced 
 after physicaj means have been applied, which 
 according to the judgment of experts are not quite 
 
 17 See the First Principles of this series, c. vii. 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 433, 
 
 out of proportion to the production of the effect, yet 
 not likely to produce it, we are not sufficiently 
 warranted to put the effect down to a superhuman 
 cause. Of this sort are cures of certain nervous 
 diseases by such influences upon the imagination as 
 naturally cause considerable shocks to the system, 
 and might thus have remedied the disorder. 
 
 253. (2) Criteria by which miracles are distin- 
 guished from wonders worked by evil spirits. 
 
 Note. For the application of these criteria it is 
 supposed that those of the first series have been 
 applied, and that there is no longer any doubt about 
 the superhuman character of the effect. 
 
 (a) A well attested effect of such a nature that it 
 could not have been produced by any physical forces 
 however well arranged must be Divine. By certain 
 material unseen influences, guided by created spirits, 
 diseases may be cured ; and even hidden things may 
 be revealed. But it seems inconceivable that any 
 such influence should bring back the soul of a dead 
 man to a body already in a state of decay. 
 
 (6) However marvellous and well attested an 
 effect may be, yet if by its very nature it tends to 
 discredit beliefs, which can be proved to rest upon 
 a Divine foundation, and to have been confirmed by 
 real prophecies and true miracles, it is certainly not 
 Divine, but attributable only to fallen spirits opposed 
 to God. Such were the effects produced through 
 the instrumentality of Simon Magus, 18 of Elymas, 19 
 of Apollonius of Tyana, 20 and of various so-called 
 
 18 Acts viii. g. Acts xiii. 8. 
 
 ao Lactantius, Instit. Div. v. c. 3. 
 CC 
 
434 T HE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 idols. 21 We have been warned beforehand that 
 "many false prophets shall arise and shall seduce 
 many," 22 and that a time shall come "when that 
 wicked one shall be revealed . . . whose coming is 
 according to the working of Satan in all power and 
 signs and lying wonders." 23 
 
 (c) Superhuman effects which contain anything 
 manifestly unworthy of the Creator, cannot in 
 reason be put down to Divine influence. Therefore 
 St. Thomas, attributing certain magic arts of the 
 middle ages to superhuman influences, brings this 
 argument among others to show that evil spirits 
 are concerned in them. " To favour things which 
 are contrary to virtue is not the work of a good 
 spirit, but these arts favour such things ; for they 
 result in adultery, theft, murder, and other evil 
 deeds Therefore," &c. 24 
 
 (d) If neither the nature of a superhuman effect, 
 nor the human person who is instrumental in pro- 
 ducing it, nor the object for the attainment of which 
 it is produced, nor the circumstances under which 
 it occurs, show anything to excite reasonable sus- 
 picion of demoniac influence, the effect must be 
 considered as a Divine work. A fortiori must it be 
 
 21 See St. Augustine, De Civit. Dei, Bk. XXII. cc 9, 10. Cf. also 
 Euseb. Eccles. Hist. iv. c. 3, a passage quoted from the Christian 
 apologist, Quadratus. Cf. the excellent work, System der gottlichen 
 Thaten des Christenthums, by Professor Dr. F. X. Dieringer. 
 
 23 St. Matt. xxiv. ii. 23 2 Thess. ii. 8, 9. 
 
 24 Prsestare enira patrocinium aliquibus quse sunt contraria 
 virtuti non est alicujus intellectus bene dispositi. Hoc autem fit ex 
 "hujusmodi artibus; fiunt enim plerumque adulteria, furta, homicidia, 
 ct alia hujusmodi maleficia procurantur. . . . Non est ergo," etc, 
 <St. Thomas, Contra Gent. iii. c. 106.) 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE. 435 
 
 considered such, if with increasing inquiry, made 
 with a humble and sincere desire to know the truth, 
 evidences from all sides concur to prove that God 
 alone can be the author of the wonder in question. 25 
 
 Objections against the knowableness of miracles, 
 as distinguished from the possibility of them, may 
 be reduced to the two following, the first of which 
 is Hume's celebrated argument as restated by Mill, 
 the second has frequently been brought forward by 
 various unbelievers. 
 
 254. (i) Mill, repeating Hume's argument, 28 
 reasons thus : " The evidence of miracles consists 
 of testimony. The ground of our reliance on tes- 
 timony is our experience, that certain conditions 
 being supposed, testimony is generally veracious. 
 But the same experience tells us that even under the 
 best conditions testimony is frequently either inten- 
 tionally or unintentionally false. When therefore 
 the fact to which testimony is produced is one, 
 the happening of which would be more at variance 
 with experience than the falsehood of testimony, 
 we ought not to believe it. And this rule all prudent 
 persons observe in the conduct of life. Those who 
 do not are sure to suffer for their credulity. 
 
 " Now a miracle (the argument goes on) is in the 
 highest possible degree contradictory to experience ; 
 
 25 " Non pertinet ad providentiam Dei, non permittere falsa 
 signa quee ad probationem et profectum electorum prosunt ; sed 
 pertiriet ad providentiam Dei, dare auxilium ac modum quo possint 
 dijudicari et cognosci, quia non est divinae bonitatis et sapientiae 
 ut permittat hominem tentari ultra id quod potest." (Cf. Suarez, DC 
 Mysteriis mix Christi, d. 31, sect. 2.) 
 
 36 Essays on Religion, pp. 219, seq. 
 
436 THE ACTION OF GOD UPON THIS WORLD. 
 
 for if it were not contradictory to experience, it 
 would not be a miracle. The very reason for its 
 being regarded as a miracle is, that it is a breach 
 of the law of nature, that is, of an otherwise in- 
 variable and inviolable uniformity in the succession 
 of natural events. There is therefore the very 
 strongest reason for disbelieving it that experience 
 can give for disbelieving anything. But the men- 
 dacity or error of witnesses, even though numerous 
 and of fair character, is quite within the bounds of 
 common experience. That supposition, therefore,, 
 ought to be preferred." 
 
 Answer. This sort of reasoning manifestly begs 
 the question. It is said that it is an invariable 
 experience that miracles never occur; therefore 
 they never occur. But that is just the question, 
 whether the experience against miracles is really 
 invariable ? According to most trustworthy sources 
 of historical knowledge there never has been such 
 an invariable experience. Nor is this unbroken 
 uniformity demonstrable a priori by any argument 
 available to show that God cannot work miracles* 
 We have proved that He can. Therefore the asser- 
 tion of invariable uniformity is not borne out either 
 by testimony or theory. 
 
 Nor can the interruption of the uniformity of the 
 course of nature in comparatively few cases, and 
 those settled from eternity by infinite Wisdom, 
 reasonably be called a breach of law. As well call 
 every limitation included in the tenor of a law a 
 breach of the same. 
 
 Then it is said that witnesses are never free 
 
POSSIBILITY OF A SUPERNATURAL PROVIDENCE, 437 
 
 from the suspicion of mendacity. Foolish and un- 
 reasonable suspicion, granted. But can we reasonably 
 suspect all witnesses, however numerous and however 
 fair their character may be, even when they attest 
 their experiences on oath, as is done in the processes 
 of beatifications and canonizations in the Catholic 
 Church ? 
 
 255. The second objection may be thus stated 
 in its general form : " Even the best attested facts 
 alleged as miraculous may be clue to some hidden 
 physical causes of which we do not know ; for who 
 can know all the forces of nature ? " 
 
 Answer. Of course we cannot be certain that 
 the event is miraculous, before reasonable inquiry 
 has been made, what has been done in the case, 
 and what has not been done. But such an inquiry 
 may surely show that no physical forces, competent 
 to that effect, have been applied, though they may 
 exist in nature. For instance, a man who suffers 
 from a disease, say a malignant tumour, pronounced 
 fatal by several good physicians, is cured on a 
 sudden and perfectly by addressing a short prayer 
 to God through the intercession of a Saint. It is 
 absolutely certain that his cure is a Divine effect. 
 If he will not be satisfied about this, he might as 
 well doubt whether his thirst to-day is quenched 
 by the liquid that he drinks to-.day. 
 
 Thus not only the natural Providence of God, 
 in which every monotheist believes, but also His 
 supernatural Providence, the great consolation and 
 strength of the Christian during life and at the hour 
 of death, stands perfectly in conformity with reason. 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 ST. THOMAS AND PREMOTION. 
 
 WHEN treating of physical predetermination, 1 we 
 remarked that we were by no means prepared to 
 admit that St. Thomas is rightly interpreted .by 
 those who find it laid down in his works, and we 
 now submit our reasons for taking him to sanction 
 the Molinists rather than the so-called Thomist 
 teaching. Our object in doing so is to satisfy those 
 of our readers who are specially interested in the 
 views of the great Doctor. In order to prove our 
 point we have only to refer to his doctrine on the 
 way in which God moves the human will, on the 
 nature of moral freedom, on the origin of free voli- 
 tions and on the Divine foresight of these volitions. 
 A. And first, as regards the Divine motion by 
 which human wills are influenced, the Angelic 
 Doctor discusses this subject under the heading, 
 " Utrum voluntas moveatur a Deo solo sicut ab 
 exteriori principle." 2 
 
 1 Natural Theology, p. 371. 
 
 2 St.Thomas, Sum. Theol. IE. 235. q. 9. a. 6. ad 3m. " Deus movet 
 voluntatem hominis, sicut universalis motor, ad universale objectum 
 voluntatis, quod est bonum ; et sine hac universal! motione homo 
 non potest aliquid velle ; sed homo per rationem determinat se ad 
 volendum hoc vel illud, quod est vere bonum vel apparens bonum. 
 Sed tamen interdum specialiter Deus movet aliquos ad aliquid 
 determinate volendum, quod est bonum, sicut in his quos movet per 
 gratiam." 
 
440 APPENDIX I. 
 
 There he teaches that the human will is moved 
 from without, and that the external principle by 
 which it is moved, is no other than God, and this 
 for two reasons : first, because He is the Creator of 
 the rational soul ; and secondly, because He is the 
 universal good. 
 
 Against this doctrine he puts the following 
 objection : " God does not cause anything but what 
 is good, according to Gen. i. 31, ' God saw all the 
 things that He had made, and they were very good.' 
 Therefore, if the human will were moved only by 
 God, it never would be moved to anything bad ; and 
 yet, as St. Augustine says, ' it is the will that sins 
 and it is the will that acts rightly.' " 
 
 In answer to this difficulty St. Thomas says : 
 " God moves the will of man as universal mover to 
 the universal object of the will, which is good taken 
 in general ; and without this universal motion man 
 cannot will anything ; but man determines himself 
 under application of his reason to the volition of 
 this or that thing, which is really or apparently 
 good. Nevertheless, sometimes God moves some 
 to a determinate particular volition of something 
 good. This is the case with those whom He moves 
 by His grace." Comparing these clear words of 
 Aquinas with the expositions of those who defend 
 physical predetermination, we are struck by a con- 
 siderable difference. 
 
 On the one hand St. Thomas teaches that God 
 commonly does not cause the acts of the human will 
 except in so far as they involve a craving for some- 
 thing good. The determination, which particular 
 
ST. THOMAS AND PREMOTION. 441 
 
 good shall be chosen to satisfy that craving, is, 
 according to him, not due to God but to man, who 
 by a free consent to a particular practical judgment 
 of his reason, moves his will, now to this, now to 
 that object. 
 
 Those on the contrary who maintain physical 
 predetermination, tell us that the motions of the 
 human will towards precisely those particular goods 
 which we choose, are predetermined by God, and 
 therefore come about infallibly. Again, St. Thomas 
 teaches indeed that God sometimes premoves men to 
 some particular good, but the holy Doctor does not 
 specify how this is done. He leaves it therefore 
 open to us to explain that motion, as we have 
 explained it, in solving the Thomistic difficulty 
 drawn from the nature of efficacious grace. (Cf. 
 
 P- 379-) 
 
 B. If we now turn to the idea of freedom as 
 explained by St. Thomas, we find him again opposed 
 to the predeterminists. 
 
 Contra Gentes, iii. c. 112. St. Thomas is ex- 
 plaining the different relations of rational and 
 irrational creatures to Divine Providence. God, 
 he says, governs rational creatures for their own 
 sake, the irrational for the sake of the rational. 
 His first reason for this doctrine is the existence 
 of freedom of will in the rational, and the absence 
 of it in the irrational world. In what then consists 
 that freedom ? These are his own words : " Free 
 is that being which can rule its own action ; for 
 free is he who is the cause of himself; whereas 
 that which by a sort of necessity is driven to action, 
 
APPENDIX I. 
 
 is in a state incompatible with freedom." 8 As regards 
 this passage, we know very well that the adherents 
 of physical predetermination say explicitly that the 
 predetermined creature really rules its own action 
 under God, and that the predetermining motion of 
 God by no means necessitates the creature to a 
 certain action, but only draws it to the same 
 infallibly. Let all this pass, however difficult it 
 may be to understand. But we beg leave to ask 
 one question : In what sense does St. Thomas say 
 that the free being is the cause of himself? We 
 all know that he does not mean to imply that man, 
 on account of his freedom of will, must have in 
 himself the principle of his existence. Nor can his 
 saying be explained in this sense, that the free 
 rational creature causes its own action independently 
 of God ; for he teaches expressly that God operates 
 in all operations of His creatures. Is it then his 
 meaning that the free creature causes its action 
 in dependence upon God ? No, because thus under- 
 stood, he would say nothing of the free creature 
 that would be at all peculiar to a free creature as 
 such. All creatures depend upon the Creator in 
 their actions. There remains, then, only this in- 
 terpretation, that the free creature, whilst dependent 
 upon God for action, depends proximately upon 
 itself alone as regards its determination to this or 
 that action. This interpretation thoroughly agrees 
 with another saying of the Angelic Doctor : " It is 
 
 3 " Quod dominium sui actus habet, liberum est in agendo; liber 
 enim est qui sui causa est ; quod autem quadam necessitate ab alio 
 agitur ad operandum, servituti subjectum est." 
 
ST. THOMAS AND PREMOTION. 44} 
 
 peculiar to the rational nature that it tends to an 
 end in such a way as to move and lead itself there- 
 unto, whilst an irrational creature must tend to it 
 as moved and led by another." 4 Who this other 
 is, St. Thomas says clearly immediately before, in 
 the words : " The whole of irrational nature stands 
 to God in the relation of an instrument to its 
 principal cause." 5 The inference to be drawn from 
 this is, manifestly, that rational creatures, acting as 
 rational creatures, that is to say, using their freedom of 
 will, are not set in action by God as instruments 
 by their principal causes. On the contrary, he 
 represents them as principal causes of their own 
 self-determination, on the supposition that they 
 actually enjoy the use of freedom. 
 
 C. If we now ask the Angelic Doctor to explain 
 himself more fully, and name the agency that carries 
 the free-will to one alternative rather than another, 
 he answers quite frankly that it is none other than 
 the free-will itself. The passage to which we refer is 
 Sent. ii. d. 39, q. i. art. i. in corp. St. Thomas teaches 
 there that the human will, through man's own fault,, 
 may fall into sin. He adds that in the will we must 
 distinguish between the faculty and the act. "The 
 will as a faculty," he says, " is not from ourselves, 
 but from God, and therefore cannot be sin in us, 
 but the act of that faculty may be sin, because it is 
 
 4 "Proprium est naturae rationalis, ut tendat in finem, quasi 
 se agens vel ducens ad finem, naturae vero irrationalis, quasi ab 
 alio acta vel ducta." (Sum. Theol. la. 28s. q. i. a. 2. in corp.) 
 
 5 "Tota irrationalis natura comparatur ad Deum sicut instru- 
 raentum ad agens principale." (Ibia.) 
 
.444 APPENDIX I. 
 
 from us." 6 He wishes, however, to make us under- 
 stand that the act of which he here speaks is not the 
 actual use of freedom as such (this no doubt is also 
 from God), but the actual use of freedom inasmuch 
 as it means the actual preference of one alternative 
 before another, when the creature is actually free to choose 
 either. To leave not a shadow of doubt regarding 
 this his real meaning, he adds expressly, "That the 
 will embraces this or that determinate particular 
 action, is not owing to any agency other than the 
 will itself." 7 
 
 It would seem that this passage of St. Thomas is 
 not only implicitly but explicitly opposed to physical 
 predetermination. For the predeterminists maintain 
 that each particular determination of the free-will 
 is predetermined by God, and that the knowledge 
 God has of the infallible future existence of the 
 free acts of men is involved in the knowledge of the 
 decree by which He has settled the exercise of 
 His predetermining influence upon human wills. 
 
 D. In the latter part of this statement we find 
 another contradiction between so-called Thomism 
 and St. Thomas. Aquinas teaches that the reason 
 why God knows future free actions is this, that they 
 in themselves are present to Divine intuition, not only 
 in their causes. " Further, events considered in their 
 individual future existence, can only be known by 
 God, to whom they are present even then, when in 
 
 8 " Voluntas potentise, cum a nobis non sit, sed a Deo, in nobis 
 non potest esse peccatum, sed actus ejus qui a nobis est." 
 
 " " Quod determinate exeat in hunc actum vel in ilium, non est 
 ab alio determinante, sed ab ipsa voluntate." 
 
ST. THOMAS AND PREMOTION. 445 
 
 the course of things they are still future, inasmuch 
 as His eternal intuition extends itself by one act 
 over the whole course of time." 8 Of course this 
 must in the first place be true of those future events 
 which do not follow necessarily from their causes ; 
 consequently, of free actions. These actions are 
 in the most proper sense of the word contingent 
 effects, and therefore it is certain that, according 
 to St. Thomas, future free actions of. creatures are 
 known by God directly, not in the decrees by 
 which they are caused. 
 
 Nay, he goes so far as to exclude the possibility 
 of the latter knowledge, when he says : " A con- 
 tingent event may be considered inasmuch as it has 
 pre-existence in its cause ; and thus it is considered 
 as something both future and not determined as yet 
 to one definite issue (because a cause which acts 
 not necessarily may turn to this or to that of two 
 alternatives opposite to each other) ; and under this 
 aspect a contingent event cannot be known for 
 certain by any knowledge whatsoever." 9 
 
 Then the Angelic Doctor goes on to say that 
 God knows nevertheless future contingent events, 
 because not only their causes, but their future par- 
 
 8 ' In se ipsis quidem futura cognosci non possunt nisi a Deo, 
 cuj etiam sunt prsesentia, dum in cursu rerum sunt futura, io 
 quantum ejus aeternus intuitus simul fertur supra totum temporis 
 cursum." (St. Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. 86. art. 4. in corp.) 
 
 9 " Potest considerari contingens ut est in sua causa; et sic 
 consideratur ut futurum, et ut contingens nondum determinatum 
 ad unum (quia causa contingens se habet ad opposita) ; et sic con- 
 tingens non subditur per certitudinem alicui cognition!. " (St. Thomas, 
 Sum. Theol. la. q. 14 art. 13. in corp.) 
 
446 APPENDIX L 
 
 ticular existences are open to His eternal intuition. 
 The reader will remember that this doctrine coincides 
 with the teaching of the Suarezian Molinists given 
 by us in Book II., who advocate the sdentia media, 
 which is nothing else than an immediate intuition 
 of the conditionally future existence of free actions. 
 St. Thomas certainly does not seem to hold that the 
 future free actions of rational creatures are known 
 by God in His predetermining decrees, as in the 
 real and infallibly operating causes of those actions. 
 
 E. Among all the passages which Thomists love 
 to quote from St. Thomas in favour of predeter- 
 mining premotion, there is none which really proves 
 physical predetermination to be his doctrine, although 
 there are many which prove premotion in general, 
 and even in particular, inasmuch as it can be con- 
 ceived without physical predetermining influence. 
 We are the last persons to deny that this sort of 
 premotion, which we have explained and approved 
 (p. 374, 218), was before the mind of St.Thomas, 
 when he compared the operation of God in created 
 agencies to the motion by which an artist applies 
 his instrument to cut something. 10 The truths really 
 contained in this simile may be stated thus : 
 
 i. As the natural aptitude of an instrument for 
 cutting is without effect unless it is applied by the 
 artist to some material, so the natural faculties 
 existing in creatures to produce changes in other 
 creatures are of no avail, unless God by His Provi- 
 dence brings them mediately or immediately into 
 
 10 St.Thomas, Sum. Theol. la. q. 105. art. 5. in corp. et ad 3; 
 De Potentia, q. 3. art. 7. in corp. " Sciendum namque," et ad 7. 
 
ST. THOMAS AND PREMOTION. 447 
 
 relation with matter to act upon. What is, for 
 instance, the best orator without an audience, the 
 best master without pupils ? 
 
 2. As the artist can freely drop the instrument, 
 and thus put a stop to its cutting, so God by His 
 absolute power could, save for His free decree to 
 act otherwise, efface any creature from the order of 
 existing things, and thus abolish its activity. He 
 can also make creatures cease to act without sub- 
 tracting their preservation, simply by not willing 
 that they shall be in a state fit for certain actions. 
 Thus, for instance, He destroyed the influence of 
 Elymas by striking him on a sudden with blindness. 11 
 
 3. As the action of the instrument is directed 
 by the artist's intellect and will to the end that he 
 intends, so every action of creatures is turned by 
 Divine Providence into a means to the last end of 
 all creation, the external manifestation of God's 
 perfections. 
 
 We should have good hope of harmony between 
 Molinists and Thomists, if Molinists would bring 
 their true doctrine regarding premotion more ex- 
 plicitly to the front, and if Thomists would dis- 
 tinguish carefully between premotion to free action 
 in general, and prerootion to this or that particular 
 free election ; and again between the Divine know- 
 ledge of a particular future free action, as possible 
 to the will under a certain condition, and the Divine 
 knowledge of the same action, as infallibly to come 
 about under that condition. It is true, in order 
 that a free volition under a given condition may be 
 
 u Acts xiii. ii. 
 
448 APPENDIX L 
 
 really and adequately possible to us, God must have 
 decreed from eternity to concur with us by granting 
 us the actual use of freedom. But the decree to 
 grant this actual use is not a decree to influence the 
 free-will in such a way that by the physical nature of 
 the said influence our free choice in one direction 
 is predetermined. On the contrary, according to 
 reason and to St. Thomas's teaching, it is a decree, 
 physically thus to influence the free-will (naturally 
 or supernaturally) that in virtue of its actual physical 
 state it must exercise its freedom, that is to say, must 
 accept, or omit to accept, any object proposed by 
 the understanding as eligible. 
 
SPINOZA'S ETHICS. 449 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 
 EXAMINATION OF PROPOSITIONS I. VI. IN SPINOZA'S 
 ETHICS. 
 
 THE pantheistic system of Spinoza, embodied in 
 his Ethics, is worked out with so much simulation 
 of mathematical exactness, that to some authors, 
 particularly to the German philosopher, Frederick 
 H. Jacobi, it appeared to be theoretically irrefutable, 
 We have already argued the absurdity of the tw$ 
 fundamental dogmas of Spinoza's monism. 1 More- 
 over, we have set forth the ambiguity of two of his 
 most important definitions, and pointed out the 
 paralogism introduced by their use in the very first 
 step of his reasoning. 2 This, however, we could 
 not do without referring to the connection between 
 the first six propositions of the Ethics. In order 
 now to enable our reader to see this connection, 
 and to judge for himself as to the safety of the 
 road cut by Spinoza to his famous Proposition VI., 
 " One substance cannot be produced by another 
 substance," we will examine thoroughly into the 
 first six propositions of his Ethics. 
 
 Let us begin by singling out of the eight defini- 
 tions and seven axioms with which the Ethics open, 
 those which form the groundwork of the proposi- 
 tions we are concerned about. They are Definitions 
 
 1 Natural Theology, Th. X. pp. 112, seq. 
 2 Loc. cit. Bk. ft. c. v. sect. 6, pp. 200, seq. 
 
 DD 
 
450 APPENDIX 11. 
 
 III., IV., V., and Axioms I., IV., V. Our comment 
 on these fundamental principles will show that all 
 of them are more or less ambiguous, and may 
 therefore be applied in a true or in a false sense. 
 
 As regards Definitions III. and V. in particular, 
 we shall sum up here what we have said on them at 
 greater length in Bk. I. c. v. sect. 6. 
 
 Definition III. " By substance I mean that 
 which is in itself and is conceived by itself." 
 (Per siibstantiam intelligo id quod in se est, et per se 
 concipitur.} 
 
 Comment. This definition may signify either 
 (i) A substance is a natural whole, a complete indi- 
 vidual being, in opposition to parts, properties, or 
 modifications of such a being ; or (2) a substance is 
 a self-existing being. 
 
 In the first sense the definition is true, in the 
 second arbitrary and- false. ( 79.) 
 
 Definition IV. " By attribute I understand that 
 which the understanding apprehends in substance 
 as constituting its essence." (Per attributum intelligo 
 id quod intellectus de substantia percipit tanquam ejns 
 essentiam constituens.) 
 
 Comment. The definition does not cover all 
 attributes, but only the attributes of God, the one 
 self-existing Being. Of course the Divine attributes 
 are identical with the simple Divine essence. Each 
 of them may therefore be said to constitute that 
 essence, although self-existence is said to do so with 
 most propriety. 3 Of the attributes of creatures we 
 cannot say this. Some of them complete one another 
 * Cf. Bk. ir. c. vii. 
 
SPINOZA'S ETHICS. 451 
 
 to constitute an essence (e.g., animality and ration- 
 ality in man) ; others are conceived as flowing from 
 the essence of a being (e.g., understanding arid free- 
 will) ; others again are accidental modifications added 
 to substance (e.g., learning in man). 
 
 We have then to choose between two alterna- 
 tives. Either we must pronounce Spinoza's defini- 
 tion of "substance" to be taken in the second, 
 false sense explained above, or we must reject his 
 definition of attribute as altogether inadequate. 
 
 Definition V. " By mode I mean the affections of 
 a substance, or that which is in something else, by 
 which also it is apprehended." (Per modum intelligo 
 substantice affectiones. sive id quod in olio est, per quod 
 etiam concipitur.} 
 
 Comment. This definition allows of three inter- 
 pretations : (i) A mode is that which gives to any- 
 thing its specific character (e.g., the principle of life 
 to a dog). (2) A mode is a property accompanying a 
 being, so to speak, by its acts (e.g., understanding, 
 moral freedom). (3) A mode is an accidental modi- 
 fication (e.g., skill). 
 
 Only in its second or third interpretation does 
 Spinoza's definition of "mode" harmonize sufficiently 
 with common parlance ; perfectly in the third alone. 
 
 And now as to the three axioms : 
 
 Axiom I. is thus worded: "All that is, is either 
 in itself or in something else." (Omnia, qua sunt, vcl 
 in se, vel in alio sunt.} 
 
 Comment. According to the different meanings 
 that may be attached to the phrase, " in itself," this 
 axiom signifies either, (i) everything is either a 
 
452 APPENDIX II. 
 
 subject or a determination of a subject, which 
 determination may be substantial or accidental 
 (a substantial or accidental form) ; or (2) every- 
 thing is either self-existent or inherent in self-exist- 
 ence. 
 
 In the first sense the axiom is true, in the 
 second intrinsically contradictory, because in self- 
 existence there can be no inherent determinations 
 really distinct from it. (Th. VIII. and Th. XXII.) 
 
 Axiom IV. " Knowledge of an effect depends 
 on knowledge of a cause, and involves the same." 
 (Effectus cognitio a cognitione causes dependet, et eandem 
 involvit.) 
 
 Comment. This means either (i) an effect as an 
 effect cannot be known without the conception of a 
 cause ; or (2) a thing which is an effect cannot be 
 known, unless it be conceived together with its 
 cause. 
 
 In the first sense the axiom expresses a self- 
 evident truism ; in the second it is manifestly false. 
 A child knows his home, his parents and relations, 
 his toys, &c., before he in any way reflects upon the 
 causes of these things. And accurate self-intro- 
 spection will convince any one that his first concep- 
 tion of things is an apprehension of their existence 
 and of some of their attributes (extension, colour, 
 &c.), involving no notion of cause. 
 
 Axiom V. "Things that have nothing in common 
 one with another cannot be understood through one 
 another, or the conception of one does not involve 
 the conception of the other." (Qua zikil commune 
 cum se invicem habent, etiam per se invicem i^-elligi 
 
SPINOZA'S ETHICS. 453 
 
 non possunt, sive conceptus unius alterius conceptmn non 
 involvit.) 
 
 Comment. This axiom may be explained in two 
 ways : (i) Things really diverse cannot be explained 
 by means of one another, unless under some aspect 
 they are conceivable by a common idea. (2) Things 
 really diverse can under no aspect be conceived by a 
 common idea, because they have really nothing in 
 common. 
 
 The first sense is true, the second false, involv- 
 ing, as it does, the absurd position of nominalism, 
 that there are no universal ideas based upon the 
 objective similarity of diverse essences. 
 
 Now let us see how Spinoza proves his first six 
 propositions by the help of the ambiguous principles 
 just explained. We give a translation both of his 
 propositions and of his demonstrations, omitting 
 nothing ; and add our respective comments to each. 
 
 Proposition I. " Substance is prior in nature to 
 its affections." (Substantia prior est natura mis 
 affectibus.) 
 
 Demonstration. " This is comprised in Definitions 
 III. and IV." 
 
 Comment. We have already fully commented on 
 this first step of Spinoza's reasonings. (Bk. I. c. v. 
 sect. 6.) Therefore it will suffice to remark here 
 shortly that Proposition I. is true, if you take 
 Definition III. in the first, and Definition V. in 
 the second or third sense explained above. In other 
 words, if you suppose that substance signifies any 
 natural whole, and mode either a natural property or 
 an accidental modification of such a whole, Propo- 
 
454 APPENDIX 11. 
 
 sition I. cannot be denied. If you, however, take 
 Definition III. in the second and false sense to 
 mean a self-existing being, and Definition V. in 
 any of the three meanings compatible with its 
 ambiguity, Spinoza's Proposition I. means that "a 
 self-existent being is prior in nature either to its 
 specific determination or to its natural properties, 
 or to its accidental modifications," an assertion 
 which involves the absurdity that self-existence is a 
 changeable subject. (Cf. Th. XXII.) In Spinoza's 
 system there is no room for Proposition I. but in its 
 second false sense, as will appear from the following : 
 
 Proposition II. " Two substances having dif- 
 ferent attributes have nothing in common with one 
 another." (Du<z substanticz diversa attributa habentes, 
 nihil inter se commune habent.) 
 
 Demonstration. "This too appears from Defini- 
 tion III.; for each must be comprised in itself and 
 conceived by itself; or, the conception of the one 
 does not involve the conception of the other." 
 
 Comment. If to signify any being complete in itself 
 as a natural whole Definition III. is taken in its first 
 (true) meaning, Proposition II. is false, because 
 diverse natural wholes, of however different attri- 
 butes, may nevertheless, under one or other aspect, 
 resemble one another, and on account of this simi- 
 larity have the same attribute in common, inasmuch 
 as its import is realized in each of them. Thus, 
 for instance, a man and his dog have the same 
 attribute, " animality," in common. Of either of 
 them I say, with perfect truth, " This substance is 
 an animal." And I say also rightly^ " The substance 
 
SPINOZA'S ETHICS. 455 
 
 which is really identical with the animal dog is other 
 than that which is really identical with the animal 
 man." If, however, Spinoza's Definition III. is 
 taken in its second (false) meaning, so as to make 
 substance identical with self -existence, there is no 
 raison d'etre for Proposition II. ; because self-exist- 
 ence can only be one substance. (Th. VII.) 
 
 Proposition III. " Of things that have nothing 
 in common, one cannot be the cause of another." 
 (Qua res nihil commune inter se habent, earum una 
 alterim causa esse non potest.) 
 
 Demonstration. " If the things have nothing in 
 common, neither can they (by Axiom V.) be under- 
 stood one from the other, and so (by Axiom IV.) 
 they cannot be causes of one another : q.e.d." 
 
 Comment. If the phrase, " to have something in 
 common," is applied in a sense quite usual, so as to 
 mean, "to have the same predicate," Proposition 
 III. is based on a false supposition, because there 
 are no things which would not have at least the 
 predicate " being " in common. 
 
 If, however, the phrase, "to have nothing in 
 common," shall mean "to exist as diverse realities," 
 Proposition III. is false, and the proof given by 
 Spinoza does not really support it, unless each of 
 the two ambiguous Axioms V. and IV. be taken in 
 its second false meaning, pointed out above, indeed, 
 Spinoza's conclusion would only follow if it be 
 supposed that Axiom V., "Things that have nothing 
 in common one with another cannot be understood 
 through one another," is true if you take it to mean, 
 " Diverse things under no aspect can be conceived 
 
456 APPENDIX II. 
 
 by a common idea ; " and that the truth enunciated 
 by Axiom IV., " Knowledge of an effect depends or 
 knowledge of a cause, and involves the same," is no 
 other but this manifest falsehood, " The idea of an 
 effect, however the latter may be viewed, involves 
 necessarily the idea of its cause." 
 
 Proposition IV. " Two or more different things 
 are distinguished from each other either by diversity 
 of the attributes of substances, or by diversity in 
 the affections of these same substances." (Ducz aut 
 plures res distinctce vel inter se distinguuntur ex diver- 
 sitate attributorum substantiarum, vel ex diversitate 
 earundem affectionum.) 
 
 Demonstration. " All that is, is either in itself or 
 in something else (by Axiom I.), that is to say, 
 there is nothing out of or beyond the understanding 
 except substances and their affections (by Defini- 
 tions III. and V.). There is consequently nothing 
 out of the understanding by which individual things 
 can be distinguished from each other except sub- 
 stances, or and this comes to the same thing 
 their attributes and affections (by Definition IV.)" 
 
 Comment. Different things are in the first place 
 distinguished from one another by their different 
 substantial being, and secondarily by their attributes 
 and affections. In commenting upon Definition IV. 
 we have given reasons to show that there is a 
 difference between the substantial being of created 
 things, or what we may call their physical essence, 
 and the attributes of that essence. Moreover, while 
 the essential attribute remains the same, the affec- 
 tions of an individual thing may vary indefinitely. 
 
SPINOZA'S ETHICS. 457 
 
 The same man of whom I have to predicate con- 
 stantly moral responsibility may attach his heart 
 now to money, now to pleasure, now to virtue, &c. 
 
 It appears then that Proposition IV. is alto- 
 gether false, and based upon a false application of 
 the inadequate Definition IV. In order to be in 
 harmony with truth. Proposition IV. must be thus 
 worded : " Two or more different things are dis- 
 tinguished from each other by their different undi- 
 vided substantial being; from this primary difference 
 there follows a difference in their attributes, and in 
 their affections, or accidental modifications, if they 
 are capable of any such." The restriction, " if 
 they," &c., is added with reference to the Divine 
 substance, which is immutable. 
 
 Proposition V. "In the order of existence there 
 cannot be two or more substances of the same 
 nature or attribute." (In rerum natura non possunt 
 dari dues aut plures subsiantice ejusdem nature sive 
 attributi.) 
 
 Demonstration. " Did several distinct substances 
 exist, they would be distinguished from each other 
 either by diversity of attributes or by diversity of 
 affections [modes] (as appears by the proposition 
 immediately preceding) ; if by diversity of attri- 
 butes only, it were then conceded that there is but 
 one substance of the same attribute ; if by diversity 
 of affections, then inasmuch as substance is prior 
 in nature to its affections (by Proposition I.), if 
 we set aside its affections, and consider the sub- 
 stance in itself, which is to consider it truly (by 
 Definitions III. and V.), the substance in that case 
 
45 APPENDIX 1L 
 
 could not be conceived as distinct from anything 
 else; so that, as stated in the preceding proposition, 
 there cannot be several substances, but one sub- 
 stance only." 
 
 Comment. First of all, Spinoza appeals in vain 
 to his Proposition IV. as a firm basis of that under 
 consideration ; for we have shown above that 
 Proposition IV. is false, and based upon false 
 reasoning. 
 
 In development of his proof of the present 
 proposition, Spinoza adds another piece of false 
 information by telling us that, setting aside affec- 
 tions of substances, and considering them " in 
 themselves, or truly," there is no longer any distinc- 
 tion of substances. This false statement he bases 
 upon Definition III. and Definition V. Yet it does 
 not follow from these definitions, unless we take 
 Definition III. in its second, false sense, so as to 
 define substance to be self -existence. 
 
 We see then that Proposition V., which has 
 been sometimes termed the Argumentum Achilleum 
 of Spinoza, deserves that name in that it is really 
 vulnerable, like Achilles, if only you strike at the 
 vulnerable spot. 
 
 The truth underlying Proposition V. amounts to 
 this, that two different substances cannot have the 
 same physical attribute in common. But nobody 
 wishes to signify this, when he says that two sub- 
 stantial beings, say Peter and Paul, have the attri- 
 bute " rationality " in common. The meaning is 
 that, as regards the import of this attribute, they 
 resemble each other perfectly, and that there is 
 
SPINOZA'S ETHICS. 459 
 
 consequently in their different physical substantiality 
 a real foundation for a logical identity of attribute. 
 
 Proposition VI. " One substance cannot be pro- 
 duced by another substance." (Una substantia non 
 potest produci ab alia substantia.) 
 
 Demonstration. " In the preceding proposition 
 we have seen that there cannot in the order of 
 existence be two substances of the same attribute, 
 or that have anything in common (by Proposition 
 II.) ; and so (by Proposition III.) one cannot be 
 the cause of, or be produced by another : q.e.d." 
 
 To the demonstration Spinoza adds bv way of 
 corollary, " Substance cannot be produced by any- 
 thing else." And in order to make th's corollary, 
 which on the hypothesis that Proposition VI. was 
 really proved, is evident enough, still more plau- 
 sible, he supports it by the reductio ad absurdum in 
 this manner : " If substance could be produced by 
 something else, the knowledge of substance would 
 have to depend on a knowledge of its cause (by 
 Axiom IV.), in which case it would not be sub- 
 stance (by Definition III.)." 
 
 Comment. As appears clearly from the demon- 
 stration of Proposition VI., it rests entirely on 
 Proposition V., Proposition II., and Proposition 
 III., all of them ambiguous, and only applicable 
 to support Proposition VI., if they are taken in a 
 sense manifestly false, and sophistically supposed by 
 Spinoza as really proved. 
 
 For the demonstration of this Proposition VI. 
 to hold, we must assume that (a) there cannot be 
 several substances of the same logical Attribute, 
 
460 APPENDIX II. 
 
 grounded on their physical similarity (false sense of 
 Proposition V.) ; (b) two substances having physically 
 different attributes, have nothing logically in common, 
 based upon real physical similarity (false sense of Pro- 
 position II.) ; (c) things that have nothing physically 
 in common (or that are, considered in their physical 
 existence, not one thing, but many things), cannot be 
 cause and effect (false sense of Proposition III.). 
 
 Only, I say, by assuming all these false interpre- 
 tations of ambiguously worded propositions, can 
 any connection be made out between the premisses 
 and the conclusion of the demonstration by which 
 Spinoza proves Proposition VI. Consequently this 
 proposition, which is the whole foundation of his 
 pantheistic monism, must be pronounced to be a 
 miserable sophism. 
 
 The same verdict must be given on the accessory 
 proof contained in the corollary. A simple appeal 
 to Axiom IV. and Definition III., so Spinoza 
 thinks, is enough to show that " substance cannot 
 be produced by anything else." Indeed, if you 
 interpret Axiom' IV. to mean that an effect under no 
 aspect is conceivable without the conception im- 
 plying the conception of its cause ; and if you take 
 Definition III. to imply that " substance " is 
 synonymous with " self-existence," the conclusion 
 in due course runs that no effect can be a substance, 
 and that consequently there is only One substance 
 effecting changes in itself. But such a process of 
 reasoning, taken for what it is really worth, evinces 
 no more than that from two absurd premisses there 
 follows as usual an equally absurd conclusion. 
 
IMMEDIATE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD. 461 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 IMMEDIATE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD IN THE 
 PATRISTIC WRITINGS. 
 
 SEVERAL distinguished scholars of our own century 
 have been of opinion that in the writings of the 
 early defenders of the Christian faith, particularly 
 in those of St. Justin, Clement of Alexandria, 
 Tertullian, and St. Augustine, passages were found 
 which showed that their authors, in opposition to 
 scholasticism, believed in an immediate natural 
 knowledge of God. Thorough information on this 
 subject is given by Kleutgen, Philosophic Scholastiqut 
 (translated from the German), nn. 427 489. He 
 shows that the meaning of the sayings alleged in 
 no way disagrees with the common teaching of the 
 schoolmen. 
 
 The passages to which our opponents appeal, 
 may aptly be divided into two classes, inasmuch 
 as in some of them the knowledge of God is spoken 
 of as belonging to human nature, whilst in others man 
 is said to know truth in God, the First, Unchangeable 
 Truth. 
 
 Careful examination shows, however, that the 
 first class of passages do not imply any belief in 
 an innate idea of God, or any direct intuition of 
 Him in His relation to finite beings. They are 
 only designed to express strongly that human 
 
462 APPENDIX III. 
 
 reason, connatitrally developed and applied, cannot 
 fail to arrive at the knowledge of the Creator. 
 
 As regards the other statements, which affirm 
 that we know truth in God, their real import is 
 that the natural light of our reason, by which we 
 perceive truth, is in its existence and activity a sort 
 of faint copy of God, the self-existing Infinite Truth, 
 and caused by Him. We say in common parlance 
 that we see things of this world in the light of the 
 sun. By this phrase we imply indeed a dependence 
 of our actual vision of things round about us upon 
 the influence of the sun. Yet we do not imply 
 a gazing at the sun as the reason why we are able to 
 see things. In a similar way, St. Augustine says in 
 answer to the question, Where we see the truth of 
 our affirmations ? that we see it neither in ourselves 
 nor in other men, but in God, the Unchangeable 
 Truth. 1 By this assertion he impresses upon us 
 the dependence of our ability for discerning truth 
 upon Divine creation and concurrence ; but he can 
 in no way be said to advocate an immediate con- 
 sciousness of God, as is well shown by Kleutgen, 
 loc. cit. n. .172, seq. 
 
 ' Confess. Lib XII. c. 25 
 
THE IDEA OF INDETERMINATE BE1XG. 463 
 
 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 ST. THOMAS AND THE IDEA OF INDETERMINATE 
 BEING. 
 
 A DISTINGUISHED student of Rosmini's philosophy 
 called some years ago our attention to these words 
 of St. Thomas : " Anima semper intelligit se et 
 Deum indeterminate." 1 He found in them a sup- 
 port of Rosmini's hypothesis that we a r 'fr born 
 with a dim perception of God as being. (Cf. p. 14.) 
 Assuredly an interpretation like this would upset 
 the whole of St. Thomas's psychology as contained 
 in his commentaries on Aristotle's De Anima, and 
 in Sum. Theol. i. qq. 75 89. 
 
 But what does St. Thomas mean by those 
 words ? Considering the whole context in which 
 they occur, and comparing it with the doctrine of 
 Aquinas on the Intellectus agens, especially with the 
 remarkable assertion, " Intellectus agens est agens 
 tantum et nulla modo patiens" 2 and with the more 
 explicit teaching laid down in ii. Sent. dist. 17. 
 q, 2. a. i. "Et ideo remotis omnibus prczdictis 
 erroribus," we have arrived at the following inter- 
 pretation, which the reader may kindly consider 
 and examine : In virtue of its spiritual nature and 
 of the spontaneous activity of the intellectus agens 
 
 1 In i. Sent. dist. 3. q. 4. a. 5. 
 9 Sum. Theol. la. aa. q. 50. a. 5. ad a. 
 
464 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 flowing from it, the soul possesses habitually ail 
 needful capacity for being awakened to self-con- 
 sciousness and for ascending by degrees to the 
 knowledge of its Creator. So far forth we may say, 
 then, that the soul always knows its own existence 
 and God indeterminately ; that is to say, such is the 
 natural sympathy between the organic faculty called 
 imagination) and the spiritual faculty called intellectus 
 agens, that immediately upon due determination of 
 the imaginative faculty, the soul will arrive in the 
 first place at the intellectual perception of material 
 things ; concomitantly, in the second place, at self- 
 consciousness, inasmuch as it knows its own know- 
 ing; and finally, in virtue of its natural tendency 
 to investigate the causes of things perceived, by 
 degrees it will arrive at the knowledge of the First 
 Cause, or God. 3 
 
 3 Cf. St. Thomas, Qq. Disp. Dt Veritate, q. z. a. 8. et Sum. TUsol. 
 q. 68. a. i. et a. 3. 
 
THF UNITY AND INFINITY OF GOD, 465 
 
 APPENDIX V. 
 
 THE LOGICAL CONNECTION BETWEEN THE SELF- 
 EXISTENCE, UNITY, AND INFINITY OF GOD. 
 
 IN Book i. (n. 60) we have shown that God, because 
 of His self-existence, is necessarily One undivided 
 Being, and thence we have inferred that this One 
 self-existent Being must be infinite, (n. 68.) The 
 same conclusion, viz., that God is One and Infinite, 
 may be reached in an inverse order by evincing 
 first that self-existence involves Infinity, and then 
 arguing from the Infinity of the self-existent to its 
 Unity. To bring out the absolutely necessary 
 connection of Infinity with Self-existence, we may 
 choose one or other of the following two methods 
 of proof: 
 
 (i) A self-existent nature is manifestly incapable 
 either of development or of diminution of its actual 
 perfection. For as it is uncaused being, the manner of 
 its existence must be as constant as its unchangeable 
 essence. Consequently, whatever perfection can be 
 conceived as compatible with its essence, must actually 
 and for ever be contained in that essence. Otherwise, 
 we should be bound to conceive in it a perfection as 
 possible which at the same time was absolutely not 
 realizable, and consequently intrinsically contradictory. 
 
 This much granted, it is evident that the concept of 
 self-existence, expressing as it does absolute positive 
 
 EE 
 
466 APPENDIX 
 
 being, is not opposed to any perfection whatever, for 
 every perfection is positive being. It follows then that 
 every perfection is actually contained in a self-existing 
 Nature, in other words, such a nature is infinitely 
 perfect. 
 
 (2) It has been proved (n. 29, seq.) that the soul of 
 man has for its First Cause a self-existent intelligent 
 Being. Now the human soul is naturally adapted to 
 the knowledge of Truth and the love of Goodness, and 
 may be improved indefinitely in both these perfections. 
 Consequently its First self-existent Cause cannot lack 
 either of them. Neither can it possess them as 
 perfections capable of improvement. To admit this 
 would be tantamount to granting that its way of exist- 
 ence was not due to its essence alone a concession 
 that destroys the very notion of Self-existence. Hence 
 it is evident that the capability of indefinite improve- 
 ment in the knowledge of Truth and the love of Good- 
 ness innate in the human mind has its ultimate sufficient 
 reason in a self-existent Mind which knows all Truth, 
 and loves all Goodness, without being determined 
 thereto by any influence from without. But actual 
 and unbounded knowledge of objective Truth, and 
 unbounded love of objective Goodness cannot belong 
 co the Nature of Self-existence, unless the latter coin- 
 cides with the real source of all objective Truth and 
 Goodness, and consequently is infinitely perfect. 
 
 Having thus shown that Self-existence involves 
 Infinity, it is easy to convince ourselves that Infinity 
 cannot belong to more than One Self-existent Being, 
 for if there were several such beings, none of them 
 would be the source of all reality, because none of 
 them would possess the actual perfection by which 
 the rest differed from it. Consequently none of them 
 would unite in itself all conceivable perfections. 
 
ON THE OPTIMISM OF ST. THOMAS. 467 
 
 APPENDIX VL 
 
 ON THE OPTIMISM OF ST. THOMAS. 
 
 IN Bk. I. Th. XV. we laid down the tenet that 
 Creation is not only good, but even very good, nay, 
 in a certain sense, best, inasmuch as in all its 
 departments there is a perfect adaptation of means 
 to such ends as are absolutely intended by the 
 Creator. 
 
 Let us in this place test briefly the reasons 
 which have led three distinguished monotheistic 
 philosophers, Leibnitz, Malebranche, and Rosmini, 
 to maintain that our world is not only the best of 
 worlds, in the sense just explained, but the very 
 best world possible. 
 
 (A) Leibnitz argues thus : " If among all possible 
 worlds there were not one which is best, God would 
 not have created any of them. . . . There is an 
 infinity of possible worlds, and of these God must 
 have chosen the best, because He does nothing but 
 in agreement with His supreme Reason." 1 
 
 Answer. We agree with the assumption that 
 there is an infinity of possible worlds, that is to 
 say, an indefinite number of possible systems of 
 
 1 " S'il n'y avait pas le meilleur (optimum) parmi tous les 
 mondes possibles, Dieu n'en avait produit aucun . . . il y a une 
 infinite de mondes possibles, dont il faut que Dieu ait choisi le 
 meilleur, puisqu'il ne fait rien sans agir suivant la supreme Raison." 
 XOpp. Edit. Erdmann, p. 506.) 
 
468 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 finite things, or, as we are accustomed to say, of 
 possible universes. But from this it in no way 
 follows that God must have chosen the very best 
 of them for creation. In fact, as no universe is 
 rightly called possible, unless it can be produced 
 by Omnipotence under the guidance of Infinite 
 Wisdom, it follows from the assumption of an 
 infinity of possible worlds that there are in the 
 Divine Mind worlds without number, ecich of them 
 good enough for creation. Consequently there is 
 neither any possible world which, when created, 
 would not be relatively the best, nor is there any 
 which ought to be called the very best of all. If 
 there were any world really possible which would 
 not be relatively best, infinite Wisdom would fall 
 short of its absolute aims. On the other hand, if 
 there were any world absolutely best, Infinite Power, 
 i.e., power not exhaustible, would be exhausted by 
 its creation. 
 
 (B) Malebranche's reason for exaggerated opti- 
 mism is equally weak. He thought that any world 
 not the very best possible was incompatible with 
 the end of creation, inasmuch as this end is the 
 external glory of God, or, what comes to the same 
 thing, the manifestation of His goodness, and the 
 making that goodness to be acknowledged by 
 rational creatures in the highest degree possible. 
 Besides, it seemed to him that infinitely perfect 
 Wisdom necessarily produces a work so perfect as 
 that none can be more perfect. 2 
 
 1 Cf. Recherche de la Verite, Lib. IV. c. i. ; Tralte de la Nature et de* 
 la Grace, 2, 51. 
 
ON THE OPTIMISM OF ST. THOMAS. 469 
 
 Answer. Although God owes it to His own per- 
 fection to aim at the manifestation of His goodness 
 in His works, and thus seek what is commonly 
 called His external glory, yet we should be wrong 
 in asserting that He must seek that glory in the 
 highest degree possible. To say so is to put 
 bounds to God's supreme freedom, and to ignore 
 His omnipotence, which cannot be limited to any 
 degree of created perfection. Malebranche seems 
 to have overlooked the fact that an adequate mani- 
 festation of God's power and wisdom is intrinsically 
 impossible ; whilst for an inadequate showing forth 
 of both of them there suffices the creation and 
 perfect adaptation to ends of any system into which 
 rational creatures enter. 
 
 (C) Rosmini considered this world to be the 
 only one in harmony with the goodness of God, 
 inasmuch as in it the greatest good was produced 
 by the smallest means. 3 
 
 Answer. This assertion seems to extol the wisdom 
 of God, while really it depreciates it. Must not 
 Infinite Wisdom be capable of arranging systems 
 of creatures for the manifestation of God's good- 
 ness in endless many ways ? Of course we do not 
 mean to say that there is an actually infinite number 
 of possible worlds, but we contend that the multitude 
 of possible worlds transcends any given number. Out 
 of such an endless multitude, which cannot be 
 
 3 "Alia dimanda: perche (Iddio) voile creare questo mondo, 
 anziche un altro, dee respondersi : perche questo mondo era degno 
 della somma bonta come quello che col minimo mezzo produceva il 
 niazzimo bene, e percio fu il solo possibile." (Teodicea, n. 651.) 
 
470 APPENDIX VI. 
 
 gathered together in the form of a number, God 
 chooses freely a particular universe. Yet this 
 choice is not exercised by successive comparison 
 of the terms at choice. Such a comparison, as 
 Rosmini says rightly, would be impossible. Rather, 
 the Divine choice is made upon a comprehensive 
 view of the Divine Essence, involving a clear insight 
 into all possibilities of finite essences and their 
 combinations, inasmuch as the Divine Essence is 
 the prototype of an endless multitude of contingent 
 beings. 4 
 
 The moderate optimism advocated by us against 
 Leibnitz, Malebranche, and Rosmini, is in perfect 
 harmony with the doctrine of St. Thomas, as the 
 reader may see for himself by reading Sum. Theol. 
 q. 25. a. 5. and a. 6. Very clear is also the following 
 
 4 "Medium illud quo Deus cognoscit, scilicet essentia sua, est 
 infinitorum similitude quse ipsum imitari possunt." (St. Thomas, 
 Qq. Disp. De Veritate, q. 2. a. 9.) Cf. the deep explanation given by 
 St. Thomas throughout the whole of Sum. Theol. la. q. 14. a. 12.: 
 " Utrum Deus possit cognoscere infinita." Upon many disputes 
 about this subject great light is thrown by the following saying of 
 St. Augustine : Quamvis infinitovum numents nullus sit numenis, non est 
 tamen incomprehensibilis ei cujus scientice non est numenis " Although 
 an infinite multitude cannot be gathered in any number, yet it is 
 not beyond the comprehension of Him whose knowledge is not 
 limited to things that can be summed up in numbers." (De Civitate 
 Dei, Lib. XII. c. 18.) Mark, however, the difference between 
 "infinite "or "indefinite multitude," and " actually infinite multi- 
 tude of actually existing things." The former is incomprehensible 
 to us, but really comprehended by God ; the latter is intrinsically 
 contradictory, as may be seen, pp. 55 and 98, seq., where we deny 
 the possibility of an actually infinite multitude of things and events, 
 either having existed successively, or now existing simultaneously. 
 But whilst such a multitude is impossible, multitudes ever increasing 
 and never complete are not only possible but actual in the minds of 
 rational creatures, as St. Thomas, loc cit. rightly remarks. 
 
ON THE OPTIMISM OF ST. THOMAS. 471 
 
 statement of his : " God necessarily wills His own 
 goodness, and therefore naturally intends its mani- 
 festation by the production of creatures. Yet the 
 things actually created do not stand in such a 
 correspondence to His goodness, as though without 
 them the Divine goodness could not be manifested. 
 For as it is manifested by the things that are and 
 by the present order of the world, so it might be 
 manifested by other creatures and by another 
 arrangement of creatures. From this it follows 
 that, without contradicting His goodness, justice,, 
 and wisdom, God could create other things than 
 those created." 5 No less pronounced is this remark 
 of the Angel of the School : " Over and above the 
 things created, God can create things of quite 
 different qualities, new species, new genera of 
 creatures, in fine, other worlds ; and no Creation 
 can exhaust the power of the Creator." 6 
 
 5 " Finis naturalis divinae voluntatis est ejus bonitas, quam non 
 velle non potest. Sed fini huic non commensurantur creaturae ita, 
 quod sine his divina bonitas manifestari non possit ; quod Deus 
 intendit ex creaturis. Sicut enim manifestatur divina bonitas per 
 has res quae nunc sunt et per hunc rerum ordinem ; ita potest 
 manifestari per alias creaturas et alio modo ordinatas. Et ideo 
 divina voluntas, absque praejudicio bonitatis, justitiae et sapientiae, 
 potest se extendere in alia quam quae fecit." (Qq. Disp. De Potentia, 
 q. i. a. 5.) 
 
 6 " Super omnia quae Deus fecit, adhuc possit alia dissimilia 
 facere, et novas species et nova genera et alios mundos ; nee unquaro 
 id quod factum est, facientis.virtutem adaequare potest." (Qq. Disp. 
 De Veritate, q. xx. a. 4. i " In utraque.") 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ACTION of God upon this world 
 344 seqq. ; of creatures influenced 
 by God 355 seqq. 
 
 AGNOSTICISM opposed to the voice 
 of mankind 66 seqq.; religious 
 consequences 76 seqq. ; moral 
 consequences 81 seqq. 
 
 ANGER, how far predicable of 
 God 316. 
 
 ANIMAL progenitors not the cause 
 of the human soul 44, 131, 198 
 seqq. ; dumb animals intended 
 foi man's use 390 seqq. 
 
 ANSELM'S (ST.) famous proof 24 
 seqq. ; objected against by Gaunilo 
 26; answer of the Saint 27 ; criti- 
 cism of the argument 27 seqq. 
 
 ANTHROPOMORPHISM, how to be 
 avoided 101 seqq. ; misrepre- 
 sented by Spencer 106 seqq. 
 
 APPETITE, natural and elicited 290 
 seq.; sensitive and rational 291 ; 
 rational in God 291 seqq. 
 
 ARISTOTLE on the cognition of 
 immaterial things 17 ; on design 
 in nature 47 ; on eternal motion 
 209 seqq. 
 
 ATHEISM, theoretical and practical 
 76 ; dogmatic and sceptical ib. 
 
 ATTRIBUTES of God 85 seqq. ; fully 
 discussed 233 seqq. 
 
 AUGUSTINE (ST.) on the Beauty 
 of God 343 ; on the power of 
 His will 374 ; on man's know- 
 ledge depending upon God 462 ; 
 on God's knowledge of an infinite 
 multitude 470, 
 
 BACON on God reveale in the 
 
 world 47. 
 BANNEZ'S view of premotion J&i, 
 
 371 seqq. 
 BAYLE'S false hypotheses on the 
 
 origin of religion 68 seqq.; on 
 
 conservation 352. 
 BEATITUDE of God 314 seqq.; 
 
 human intended by God 386 
 
 seqq. 
 BEAUTY described 339 seqq.; its 
 
 essence not sensible 340 ; God 
 
 supreme Beauty 341 seqq. 
 BEGINNING of the world possible 
 
 138 seqq.; of its chief processes 
 
 145 seqq. 
 
 BENEVOLENCE of God 306 seqq. 
 BEST, absolutely best creature im- 
 possible 124 seq. 467 seq.; this 
 
 world relatively best 125. 
 BILLUART on the essence of God 
 
 330. 
 BOETHIUS on Eternity 244; on 
 
 Providence 382. 
 BONALD on the origin of belief in 
 
 God 11. 
 BONAVENTURE (ST.) on succession 
 
 in spirits 144. 
 BUFFON on wisdom manifested in 
 
 organisms 190. 
 BRUTES not the progenitors of man, 
 
 as man 44, 131, 198. 
 
 CAIRD on formative power 168. 
 
 CANONS for the proper use of 
 Divine names 101 seqq. ; ex- 
 pressed in another form 234 seqc, 
 
474 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 CARPENTER on design in plants 49 ; 
 on rudimentary organs 191 ; on 
 the nature of man's soul 200; on 
 natural laws 422. 
 
 CAUSALITY advocated for all con- 
 tingent existence 33 seqq.; prin 
 ciple of violated by Materialists 
 39 seqq.; and by Pantheists 115 
 seqq. 
 
 CHANCE, strictly speaking, im- 
 possible 54, 381 seqq. 
 
 CHANGE not denoted by Creation 
 120 ; nor by volition either 302 ; 
 absolutely impossible in God 238 
 seqq. 
 
 CICERO on design in nature 47; on 
 universality of religion 74. 
 
 CIRCUMSCRIPTIVE existence 251 ; 
 impossible in God 251 seqq. 
 
 CLARKE (R. F.) on immateriality 
 of thought 37 ; on objectivity of 
 universals 87. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION of creatures with 
 God impossible 96 seqq., 101 
 seqq. 
 
 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA on 
 universality of religion 64. 
 
 CONCURRENCE OF GOD in the 
 actions of creatures 355 seqq.; 
 paraphrased by St. Thomas 356 ; 
 natural and supernatural 357 
 seq. ; mediate and immediate 
 358 seq.; moral and physical 
 359 ; not favouring moral evil 
 360 seqq.; immediate concur- 
 rence fully explained 361 ; proved 
 365 seqq. ; objected against 369 
 seqq.; whether it involves physi- 
 cal premotion 370 seqq. 439 
 seqq. See PREDETERMINATION. 
 
 CONIMBRICENSES on succession in 
 spirits 144. 
 
 CONSERVATION exercised by crea- 
 tures 348 seqq. ; direct and indi- 
 rect 350; of all creatures by God 
 350 seqq. ; misunderstood by 
 Bayle352; objected against 353. 
 
 CONTINGENCY of the world 117 
 seqq. 
 
 COUSIN (VICTOR) on Creation 
 136, 214. 
 
 CREATION defined and explained 
 109 seiiq.; real 119 seqq.; ac- 
 counted for 122 seqq.; objections 
 against its conceivableness 216 
 seqq. ; removal of a difficulty from 
 the Infinity of God 137 ; possible 
 to God alone 127 seqq.; free 135, 
 295 seqq., 301 seqq. ; eternal 
 creation not necessary 138 seqq.; 
 objections against this statement 
 209 seqq. ; whether eternal crea- 
 tion possible 141 seqq. 
 
 DARWIN (Charles) agnostic 182; 
 his objections to the arguments 
 for God's existence 182 seqq. 
 
 DARWINIANISM, how far com- 
 patible with belief in creation 
 132 seqq. 
 
 DECREES OF GOD, free 296 ; 
 eternal and irrevocable 297 
 seqq.; objected against 298 seqq. 
 
 DEFINITIVE existence in space 25 1 ; 
 not predicable of God 252. 
 
 DEPENDENCE OF CREATURES 
 UPON GOD for their origin 118 
 seqq.; for their preservation 348 
 seqq. ; for their action 355 seqq. ; 
 for their guidance 381 seqq. 
 
 DES CARTES'S ontological prooi 
 25 ; criticized 28 seq. 
 
 DESIGN- ARGUMENT 46 seqq.; ob- 
 jected against 154 seq. 165 seqq. 
 182 seqq. 
 
 DIERINGER on miracles 434. 
 
 DISGUST, in what meaning attri- 
 buted to God 317. 
 
 DISTINCTION in God without com- 
 position 98. 
 
 DIVISION of Divine knowledge 
 285 seqq. 
 
 DURANDUS on Divine concurrence 
 368. 
 
 EFFECTS reduced to a First Cause 
 34 seqq. 
 
 EMOTIONS metaphorically attri- 
 buted to God 315 seqq. 
 
 END, primary, of the whole of 
 creation 385 seqq.; secondary of 
 
INDEX 
 
 475 
 
 rational creatures 386 seqq.; of 
 irrational creatures 389 seqq. 
 
 " ESSE IN LOCO," what it means in 
 the language of St. Thomas 251. 
 
 ESSENCE of creatures 325 ; physical 
 326 ; metaphysical 327 ; physical 
 of God 329; metaphysical of God 
 330 seqq. ; creatures composed of 
 essence and existence 95 ; God 
 not ib. 
 
 ETERNAL creation not demonstra- 
 ble 138 seqq.; whether possible 
 141 seqq.; motion and evolution 
 impossible 146 seqq.; man des- 
 tined for eternal happiness 387 
 seqq.; eternal punishment com- 
 patible with God's attributes 405 
 seqq. 
 
 ETERNITY explained 243 ; predi- 
 cable of God 244 ; Boethius' 
 definition 244 seq. ; distinguished 
 from time and avum 246 seq.; 
 objection 247 seqq. 
 
 EVIL existing no proof against 
 God's goodness 393 seqq. ; three 
 kinds of evil 394 ; metaphysical 
 in any possible world 396 ; phy- 
 sical intended as means 398 ; 
 moral hated by God 400 ; tole- 
 rated without prejudice of any 
 Divine attribute 401 seqq. 
 
 EVOLUTION cannot account for the 
 origin of man as man 35 seqq.; 
 how far admissible 132 seqq. ; had 
 a beginning 146 seqq. 
 
 EXAMINATION of the basis of 
 Spinozism 449 seqq. 
 
 EXISTENCE considered* in its actu- 
 ality not multiplied 91 ; of God 
 not immediately known 12 seqq.; 
 not proved a priori 24 seqq.; 
 proved a posteriori 32 seqq. See 
 GOD. 
 
 FEAR not the cause of the univer- 
 sality of religion 69 seqq. 
 
 FICHTE'S (J. G.) fundamental 
 dogmas about God 113 seqq. ; 
 his idealistic basis 206. 
 
 FIDELITY a moral attribute of God 
 312 seqq. 
 
 FLINT on design in nature 198 seq. 
 
 FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD 265 
 seqq. ; objections against His 
 foreknowledge of our free actions 
 272 seqq. ; explanation of this 
 foreknowledge 279 seqq. 
 
 FRAUD not the cause of univer- 
 sality of religion 69 seqq. 
 
 FREE-WILL in man 42 seqq. ; its 
 influence upon natural laws 266 ; 
 its agreement with Divine fore- 
 sight 272 seqq. ; with Divine 
 concurrence 375 seqq. ; 440 seqq. ; 
 free-will of God 135 seqq. ; 296 
 seqq.; objected against 301 seqq. 
 
 GAUNILO objecting to the argu- 
 ment of St. Anselm 26 seq. 
 
 GERARD (J.) on Clodd's Story of 
 Creation 50. 
 
 GIOBERTI on immediate conscious- 
 ness of God 13 i.eq. 
 
 GLORY OF GOD the end of the 
 world 386 seqq. 
 
 GOD'S existence differently upheld 
 by different philosophers 8 seqq.; 
 not immediately knowable 12 
 seqq. ; not demonstrable from the 
 idea of God 24 seqq. ; how to be 
 proved 30 seqq. ; argument from 
 First Cause 32 seqq. ; from design 
 46 seqq. ; moral 62 seqq. ; ob- 
 jected against by Traditionalists 
 149 seqq. ; by Kant 152 seqq. ; 
 by Spencer 155 seqq. ; by Mill 
 159 seqq. ; by Lange 174 seqq. ; 
 by Mallock 177 seqq. ; by Dar- 
 win 182 seqq. ; by Spinoza 200 
 seqq. , 459 seq. ; by Fichte 205 
 seq. ; by Hegel 207 seq. ; by 
 Mansel (utilized by Spencer) 214 
 seqq. ; God's Unity 85 seqq. ; 
 Infinity 98 seqq ; relation to the 
 world for its origin 109 seqq. ; 
 immutability 238 seqq. ; eternity 
 243 seqq. ; immensity 249 seqq. ; 
 intellect and knowledge 256 seqq. 
 (See FOREKNOWLEDGE) ; will 
 and decrees 290 seqq. ; omnipo- 
 tence 319 seqq. ; metaphysical 
 essence 325 seqq. (See ESSENCE, 
 TRANSCENDENTAL, TRUTH, 
 
476 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 GOODNESS, BEAUTY) ; action 
 
 upon this world 344 seq. 
 GOODNESS explained 337 ; God 
 
 supreme Goodness 337 seq. 
 GOUDIN on Divine Concurrence 
 
 372 seqq. 
 GRAND-CLAUDE on physical and 
 
 metaphysical essence 326. 
 
 HAMILTON on belief in God 12. 
 HARPER on contemplation of God 
 
 342 seq. 
 
 HARTMANN'S Unconscious 208. 
 HEGEL'S fundamental dogmas 
 
 about God 113; basis of his 
 
 system 207 seq. 
 HELLWALD on universality of 
 
 religion 66. 
 "HE WHO is," the most proper 
 
 name of God 333 seq. 
 HOLINESS explained 304 seqq. ; of 
 
 God 306 seqq. 
 HUME'S difficulty against miracles 
 
 repeated by Mill 435 seqq. 
 HUXLEY on chance-theories 54; 
 
 on teleology in relation to the 
 
 mechanical views of nature 56 
 
 seq. ; on the bearing of science 
 
 upon theological difficulties 67 ; 
 
 on the possibility of cieation 123. 
 
 IDEA, sense idea 37 ; intellectual 
 kiea ib. ; the latter not accounted 
 for by organic impressions 38 
 seqq. 
 
 IGNORANCE of physical causes not 
 the foundation of persistent belief 
 in God 68 seqq.; whether opposed 
 to the recognition of miracles 
 432 seqq., 437. 
 
 IMMENSITY of God 249 seqq. 
 
 IMMUTABILITY of God 238 seqq. ; 
 objected against 240 seqq. ; 301 
 seqq. ; of Divine decrees 296 
 seqq. ; objected against 298 seqq. 
 
 INFINITY, in what sense predi- 
 cated of number and space 98 
 seqq. ; of God 100 seqq. 
 
 INFLUENCE of God upon the 
 origin of matter and mind 117 
 seqq. ; upon the preservation of 
 
 creatures 348 seqq. ; upon their 
 action 355 seqq. ; supernatural 
 influence through miracles 421 
 seqq. See CREATION, CONSER- 
 VATION, CONCURRENCE, PRE- 
 DETERMINATION, PROVIDENCE, 
 MIRACLES. 
 
 INSTRUMENT, whether possible in 
 creation 129 seq. ; in what sense 
 all actions of creatures are actions 
 of instruments 377, 446 seq. 
 
 INTELLECT, a spiritual faculty 38 
 seqq. ; Divine 256 seqq. 
 
 JACOBI (F. H.) on knowledge cf 
 God ii ; on Spinozism 449. 
 
 JANET on final causes 62. 
 
 JUSTICE of God 309 seq. ; com- 
 patible with existing evil 402 
 seq. ; with eternal punishment 
 406 seqq. 
 
 KANT on belief in God 10 seq. ; 
 on the principle of causality 32 ; 
 on the impressiveness of the 
 design-argument 50 seqq. ; on the 
 strength of the proofs for God's 
 existence 152 seqq. ; on the be- 
 ginning of the world 212. 
 
 KLEUTGEN on the ontological 
 argument 29 ; on immanent ac- 
 tivity 302 ; on Patristic theology 
 in its relation to ontologism 461. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE falsely explained on 
 materialistic grounds 38 seqq. ; 
 also on idealistic 205 seqq. ; 224 
 seqq. ; Divine knowledge 256 
 seqq. Ste FOREKNOWLEDGE. 
 
 LAHOUSSE on self-determination 
 
 302. 
 LANGE'S objection against design 
 
 in nature 174 seqq. 
 LEIBNITZ'S ontological proof 25 ; 
 
 criticized 28 seq. ; on design in 
 
 nature 47 seq. ; his optimism 
 
 467 seq. 
 
 LEPIDI on Ontologism 24. 
 LIBERATORS on Ontologism 24. 
 LIFE in living creatures 313 seq. ; 
 
 Divine 314 seqq. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 477 
 
 LUBBOCK on irreligious tribes, 
 refuted 64 seqq. 
 
 MAHER on the nature of the soul 
 and free-will 37 ; on brutes 198. 
 
 MALEBRANCHE, ontologist 13 ; 
 optimist 468 seq. 
 
 MALLOCK on design in nature's 
 working, &c., 177 seqq. 
 
 MANSEL on belief in God 12 ; on 
 contradictions in the idea of God 
 214 seqq. 
 
 MATTER cannot evolve a human 
 soul 38 seqq. ; depends for its 
 origin upon God 118 ; lias been 
 created immediately 131 seqq. ; 
 not necessarily from eternity 
 138 seqq. ; did not move from 
 eternity 145 seqq., 209 seqq. 
 
 MERCY of God 308 seq. ; com- 
 patible with eternal punishment 
 409 seqq. 
 
 METAPHORICAL language of God 
 suggestive of real truth 105 seqq. ; 
 unreasonably suspected of an- 
 thropomorphism 318. 
 
 METAPHYSICAL simplicity of God 
 94 seqq. ; essence of God 325 
 seqq. ; evil 394, 396. 
 
 MAX MULLER on Deus, Theos, 
 Deva i. 
 
 MILL (J. H.) on creation by intel- 
 ligence 48, 122 seq. ; his in- 
 ference from Conservation of 
 Energy 55 ; on unity in nature 
 89 ; against the proof of a First 
 Cause 159 seqq. ; against the 
 design-argument 165 seqq. 
 
 MIND, immaterial 38 seqq.; created 
 out of nothing 131. 
 
 MIRACLES according to the defi- 
 nition of St. Thomas 412 seqq. ; 
 modern definition 41 7 seqq. ; divi- 
 sion 419 ; objection against this 
 division 420 seq. ; possibility of 
 miracles 421 seqq. ; objections 
 against their possibility 424 seqq. ; 
 miracles knowable 427 seqq. ; 
 Criteria 432 seqq. ; objection of 
 Plume 435 seqq. ; another objec- 
 tion 437. 
 
 MIVART on design in nature 49 ; 
 on nature's end 58 ; on breaks 
 of continuity in nature 59 ; on 
 Spencer's psychology 158 ; on 
 rudimentary organs 190 ; on the 
 difference between man and 
 brute 199. 
 
 MOLINA on supercomprehension 
 of free acts 282 ; his merit and 
 mistake 283 seq. ; his illustration 
 of Divine concurrence 376 seqq. 
 
 MOLINIST teaching on Divine 
 foresight 279 seqq. ; modified by 
 Suarez 283 seqq. ; on Divine con- 
 currence 355 seqq. ; on Divine 
 premotion 374 seqq. ; in agree- 
 ment with St. Thomas 439 seqq. 
 
 MONISM, materialistic refuted 38 
 seqq. ; pantheistic 112 seqq. 200 
 seqq. 205 seqq. 449 seqq. 
 
 MORAL proof of God's existence 
 62 seqq. ; objected against by 
 Darwin 195 seq. ; attributes of 
 God 304 seqq. 
 
 MORALITY injured by agnosticism 
 Si seqq. ; by Pantheism 116 seq. 
 
 NEGATIVE-POSITIVE character of 
 
 our idea of God 19 ; 230 seqq. 
 NEWMAN (Cardinal) on implicit 
 
 and explicit reason 72 seq. ; on 
 
 the Divine life 315. 
 NEWTON on design in nature 48 ; 
 
 on the presence of God 253. 
 
 OMNIPOTENCE of God 319 seqq.; 
 
 objected against by Mill 170 
 
 seqq. ; other objections 322 seqq. 
 ONTOLOGICAL arguments discussed 
 
 24 seqq. 
 
 ONTOLOGISM refuted 12 seqq. 
 OPTIMISM, how far true 124 seq. ; 
 
 exaggerated 467 seqq. ; opinion 
 
 of St. Thomas 470 seq. 
 ORDER of the world originated by 
 
 intelligence 46 seq. 
 ORIGIN of the world 1 18 seqq. See 
 
 CREATION. 
 
 PAGET on rudimentary organs- 
 191. 
 
478 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 PALEY commented upon by Darwin 
 182 seqq. 
 
 PANTHEISM, modern in general 
 112 seqq. ; of Spinoza 200 seqq. 
 449 seqq. ; of Fichte 205 seqq. ; 
 of Hegel 207 seq. 
 
 PECCI (Card.) on predetermination 
 281 seq. 
 
 PERSONALITY of God proved 35 
 seqq. ; predicable without anthro- 
 pomorphism 227 seqq. 
 
 PESCH (Ch.) on the notion of God 
 among heathens 90. 
 
 PESCH (T.) on succession in spirits 
 144; on the definition of miracles 
 417. 
 
 PESCHEL (Oskar) on universality 
 of religion 65. 
 
 PHYSICAL proof of God's existence 
 46 seqq. (see DESIGN); premotion 
 (see PREDETERMINATION and 
 PREMOTION.) 
 
 PLATO on design in nature 47. 
 
 PLUTARCH on universality of 
 religion 63. 
 
 POSSIBLE things why known by 
 God 264. 
 
 POWER of God 319 seqq. 
 
 PREDETERMINATION, physical pr. 
 how understood by Bannez and 
 his followers 281 ; how opposed 
 by Molina 282 ; by Suarezian 
 Molinists 283 seq.; reasons for 
 it 373 seq. ; these reasons not 
 cogent 374 seqq. ; reasons against 
 it 379 seq. ; doctrine of St. 
 Thomas 439 seqq. 
 
 PREMOTION, how far admissible 
 374 seqq. 446 seqq. 
 
 PROVIDENCE explained 381 seqq. ; 
 proved 383 seqq. ; its relation to 
 evil 393 seqq. 
 
 RELATIVITY of knowledge inter- 
 preted by Mansel 224 seqq. 
 
 REPENTANCE, in what sense pre- 
 dicable of God 316 seq. 
 
 RiCKABY (John) on scepticism 33 ; 
 on idealism 206 ; on belief in 
 human testimony 432. 
 
 ROSKOFF (Gustav) on universality 
 
 of religion 65. 
 ROSMINI on God apprehended as 
 
 being 14 ; on the perfection of 
 
 this world 469 seqq. 
 RUDIMENTARY organs, whether 
 
 opposed to design 187 seqq. 
 RULE (Martin) on the argument 
 
 of St. Anselm 29. 
 
 SANCTIFYING GRACE, why not a 
 miraculous effect 416 seq. 
 
 SCHELLING'S dogmas on the Ab- 
 solute 113 seqq. 
 
 SCHOPENHAUER^ World-will 2O8. 
 
 SCIENTIA MEDIA explained 279 
 seqq. ; named and defined 289. 
 
 SCIENTIA SIMPLICIS INTELLI- 
 GENTLY 288. 
 
 SCIENTIA VISIONIS 288. 
 
 SCOTUS on the essence of God 
 330. 
 
 SELF-CONCEIT impossible in God 
 
 293. 
 
 SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS an imma- 
 terial act 41 ; in God infinitely 
 perfect 263 seq.; objection of 
 Spencer 270 seq. 
 
 SELF-DETERMINATION in general. 
 302 seq. ; of God 303 seq. ; 
 of man, God concurring 364 
 seqq. 
 
 SELF-ESTEEM in God 294. 
 
 SELF-EXISTENCE proved 32 seqq. ; 
 only one 85 seqq. ; objected 
 against by Spencer 155 seqq. ; 
 by Mill 159 seqq. 
 
 SELFISHNESS in God impossible 
 
 293- 
 SELF-LOVE infinite and necessary 
 
 in God 294. 
 SIEMENS (Sir William) on design 
 
 in nature 50. 
 SIMPLICITY distinguished from 
 
 unity 92 ; physical of God 93 ; 
 
 metaphysical 94 seqq. 
 SPACE, whether infinite 99 ; its 
 
 nature explained 250. 
 SPECIES (intelligible) of the Divine 
 
 Intellect 260 seqq. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 479 
 
 SPENCER on the nature of intel- 
 lectual ideas 39 ; on the impos- 
 sibility to classify the Infinite 
 96 seqq. ; on anthropomorphism 
 lo6seqq. ; on the impossibility to 
 conceive self-existence 155 seqq.; 
 on Mansel's reasonings 216 ; on 
 the impossibility of self-con- 
 sciousness 270. 
 
 SPINOZA'S fundamental errors 113 
 seqq. ; his proof of one substance 
 200 seqq. ; his objections against 
 miracles 425 seqq. ; examination 
 of his first six propositions 449 
 seqq. 
 
 SPIRITS (Angels) whether they can 
 work miracles 429 seqq. 
 
 SPIRITUALITY of the human soul 
 35 seqq. 
 
 STOCKL on Ontologism 24 ; on 
 Anaxagoras 47 ; on Bacon 47. 
 
 STRAUSS against miracles 427. 
 
 SUAREZ on Divine foreknowledge 
 283 seqq. ; on immanent action 
 302 ; on miracles 435. 
 
 SUBSTANCE according to Spinoza 
 200 seqq. ; one self-existing 85 
 seqq. ; many contingent substances 
 possible 264; also actual 112 
 seqq. 
 
 SUFFERINGS, how explained by 
 Darwin 192 seq. ; objected 
 against Darwin 193 seq. ; their 
 relation to Providence 398 seq. 
 
 THEOLOGY etymologically ex- 
 plained I ; natural defined 2 ; 
 dogmatic explained 2 seq. ; re- 
 lation of the one to the other 3 
 seq. ; importance of natural 5 
 seq. 
 
 THOMAS AQUINAS (St.) on know- 
 ledge of immaterial things 17 ; 
 on the eternity of universal ideas 
 23 ; on the argument of St. 
 Anselm 29 ; on the proof from 
 design 47 ; on the objectivity of 
 a universal nature 86 ; on com- 
 munity of Divine and human 
 nature 87 ; on the oneness of 
 self-existence 91 ; on infinite 
 
 number 99 ; on infinite dimen- 
 sions ib.; on the import of 
 Divine names 104, 106, 237 ; 
 on the meaning of Creation 1 10, 
 in ; why Creation possible to 
 God alone 128 ; what it is that 
 makes creatures loveable 137 ; 
 against Traditionalism 149 seq. ; 
 on intuition of God 226 ; on the 
 difference between time, eevum, 
 eternity 246 ; on the way in which 
 the soul is in the body 251 ; on 
 God's immensity 253, 255 ; on 
 the identity of Divine Thought 
 and Substance 259, "6 1 ; on 
 Divine foreknowledge 276 ; on 
 the connection between Divine 
 Intellect and Will 292 ; on im- 
 manent action 302 ; on passions 
 as predicated of God 316; on 
 Divine power 32 :c ; on " Essence " 
 329; on the nan,e "He who is" 
 334 seq. ; on goodness 338 seq. ; 
 on beauty 340; on Divine con- 
 servation 351, 353 seq. ; on 
 Divine concurrence 356, 439 
 seq. ; on free-will 441 seq. ; on 
 self-consciousness of Angels 366 ; 
 on Divine Providence 382 ; on 
 Hell-fire 409 ; on God's mercy as 
 shown in Hell 410 ; on miracles 
 413, 418, 420, 426, 431 ; on 
 magic arts 434 ; on indeter- 
 minate knowledge of self and 
 God 463 seq. ; on optimism 
 470 seq. 
 
 THOMSON (Sir William) on Design 
 50. 
 
 TRADITIONALISTS on the know- 
 ledge of God 1 1 ; against the 
 demonstrability 149 seqq. 
 
 TRANSCENDENTAL attributes of 
 God 335 seqq. 
 
 TRINITY compared as Dogma with 
 God's unity 86 seqq. ; with His 
 simplicity 98. 
 
 TRUTH, meaning and divisions 
 336; God supreme Truth 336 
 seq. 
 
 TYLOR on universality of religion 
 6=;. 
 
4 8o 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 UBAGHS, ontologist 14, 18 seq 
 ~~NITY of God 85 seqq. ; how 
 nected with Infinity 100, 465 
 
 UNIVERSALS misconceived by on- 
 tolo^ists 23 ; by Hegel 207. 
 
 UNIVERSE (The) depends upon 
 God for its origin 118 seqq. ; for 
 its preservation 348 seqq. ; for 
 the constancy of its energy 355 
 seqq. ; for its end 383 seqq. 
 
 VERACITY of God 310 seqq. 
 VOLTAIRE against miracles 427. 
 
 WALLACE (A. R.) on the nature 
 of the human soul 44 seq. ; on 
 
 the existence of a world of spirit 
 
 49- 
 
 WILL free in man 42 seqq. ; Divine 
 existing 290 seq. ; necessity and 
 freedom of the Divine 290 seqq.; 
 objected against 301 seqq. ; 
 decrees of the Divine irrevocable 
 297 seq. ; objected against 298 
 seqq. ; holiness of the Divine 
 304 seq. ; object of the Divine 
 in Creation 385 seqq. 
 
 WORLD not absolutely best 124, 
 467 seqq.; relatively best 125. 
 
 ZIGLIARA (Card.) on Ontologism 
 24 ; on the beginning of this 
 world 148; on freedom under 
 physical prernotion 2&Z* 
 
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 Sir M. E. Grant Duff's Diaries Leo XIII. The Genius of Cardinal Wiseman John 
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12 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS 
 
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 LIFE OF THE VISCOUNTESS DE BONNAULT 
 
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BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 13 
 
 The Westminster Version of the Sacred Scriptures* 
 
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14 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS 
 
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16 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS 
 
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BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 17 
 
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18 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS 
 
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BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 19 
 
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20 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS 
 
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BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 21 
 
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22 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS 
 
 Cardinal Newman's Works. 
 
 i. SERMONS. 
 PAROCHIAL AND PLAIN SERMONS. Edited by 
 
 the Rev. W. J. COPELAND, B.D. 8 vols. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each. 
 
 The first six volumes are reprinted frrm the six volumes of Parochial Sermons. 
 first published in 1834, 1835, 1836, 1838, 1840, and 1842 respectively; the seventh and 
 eighth formed the fifth volume of Plain Sermons by Contributors to the Tracts 
 for the Times, originally published in 1843. 
 
 The fame of these sermons has been celebrated by Froude, Principal Shairp, James 
 Mozley, Dean Church, and others. "The Tracts," writes the last-named in his Oxford 
 Movement, "were not the most powerful instruments in drawing sympathy to the 
 movement. None but those who heard them can adequately estimate the effect of Mr. 
 Newman's four o'clock sermons at St. Mary's. The world knows them . . . but it hardly 
 realizes that without these sermons the movement might never have gone on. . . . While 
 men were reading and talking about the Tracts, they were hearing the sermons; and in 
 the sermons they heard the living meaning, and reason, and bearing of the Tracts. 
 . . . The sermons created a moral atmosphere, in which men judged the questions in 
 debate." The Parochial Sermons fell out of print between 1845 and 1868, at which 
 latter date they were republished by Newman's former curate at St. Mary's, Mr. 
 Copeland. The success of this re-issue was a striking testimony to the degree to 
 which Newman had recovered his popularity and prestige by the Apologia. He recorded 
 in his private journal that in six months 3500 copies of the first volume were sold. 
 
 Ward's Life of Newman, vol. ii. p. 241. 
 
 SELECTION, ADAPTED TO THE SEASONS OF 
 
 THE ECCLESIASTICAL YEAR, from the "Parochial and Plain 
 Sermons". Edited by the Rev. W. J. COPELAND, B.D. Crown 
 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 This volume consisting of fifty-four sermons was first published in 1878. 
 
 CONTENTS: Advent: Self-denial the Test of Religious Earnestness Divine Calls 
 The Ventures of Faith Watching. Christmas Day : Religious Joy. New Year's Sunday : 
 The Lapse of Time Epiphany: Remembrance of Past Mercies Equanimity The 
 Immortality of the Soul Christian Manhood Sincerity and Hypocrisy Christian 
 Sympathy. Septuagesima : Present Blessings. Sexagesima : Endurance, the Christian's 
 Portion. Quinquagesima : Love, the One Thing Needful. Lent ; The Individuality of 
 the Soul Life, the Season of Repentance Bodily Suffering Tears of Christ at the Grave 
 of Lazarus Christ's Privations, a Meditation for Christians The Cross of Christ the 
 Measure of the World. Good Fridav : The Crucifixion. Easter Day : Keeping Fast and 
 Festival. Easter Tide: Witnesses of the Resurrection A Particular Providence as 
 revealed in the Gospel Christ Manifested in Remembrance The Invisible World 
 Waiting for Christ. Ascension: Warfare the Condition of Victory. Sunday after Ascen- 
 sion : Rising with Christ. Whitsun Day : The Weapons of Saints. Trinity Sunday : The 
 Mysteriousness of Our Present Being. Sundays after Trinity : Holiness Necessary for 
 Future Blessedness The Religious Use of Excited Feelings The Self-wise Inquirer- 
 Scripture a Record of Human Sorrow The Danger of Riches Obedience without Love, 
 as instanced in the Character of Balaam Moral Consequences of Single Sins The 
 Greatness and Littleness of Human Life Moral Effects of Communion with God The 
 Thought of God the Stay of the Soul The Power of the Will The Gospel Palaces- 
 Religion a Weariness to the Natural Man The World our Enemy The Praise of Men- 
 Religion Pleasant to the Religious Mental Prayer Curiosity a Temptation to Sin- 
 Miracles no Remedy for Unbelief Jeremiah, a Lesson for the Disappointed The Shep- 
 herd of our Souls Doing Glory to God in Pursuits of the World. 
 
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 23 
 
 Cardinal Newman's Works continued. 
 SERMONS BEARING UPON SUBJECTS OF THE 
 
 DAY. Edited by the Rev. W. J. COPELAND, B.D. Crown 8vo. 
 3s. 6d. 
 
 This volume was first published in 1843, and republished by Mr. Copeland in 1869. 
 
 This collection contains the celebrated sermons " Wisdom and Innocence," and " The 
 Parting of Friends ". Mr. Copeland appended to it very important chronological lists, 
 giving the dates at which the sermons contained in it and the eight volumes of Parochial 
 and Plain Sermons were first delivered. 
 
 CONTENTS. The Work of the Christian Saintliness not Forfeited by the Penitent 
 Our Lord's Last Supper and His First Dangers to the Penitent The Three Offices of 
 Christ Faith and Experience Faith unto the World The Church and the World- 
 Indulgence in Religious Privileges Connection between Personal and Public Improve- 
 ment Christian Nobleness Joshua a Type of Christ and His Followers Elisha a Type 
 of Christ and His Followers The Christian Church a Continuation of the Jewish The 
 Principles of Continuity between the Jewish and Christian Churches The Christian 
 Church an Imperial Power Sanctity the Token of the Christian Empire Condition of 
 the Members of the Christian Empire The Apostolic Christian Wisdom and Innocence 
 Invisible Presence of Christ Outward and Inward Notes of the Church Grounds for 
 Steadfastness in our Religious Profession Elijah the Prophet of the Latter Days- 
 Feasting in Captivity The Parting of Friends. 
 
 FIFTEEN SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, between 1826 and 1843. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 The first edition of these sermons was published in 1843 ; the second in 1844. The 
 original title was " Sermons, chiefly on the Theory of Religious Belief, Preached," etc. 
 The third edition was published in 1870, with (i) anew Preface, in which the author ex- 
 plains, inter alia, the sense in which he had used the term " Reason" in the sermons ; 
 and (2) notes " to draw attention to certain faults which are to be found in them, either of 
 thought or language, and, as tar as poss/ble, to set these right ". This preface and the 
 notes are of great value to students of the Grammar of Assent. Among the sermons con- 
 tained in this volume is the celebrated one delivered in 1843 on " The Theory of Develop- 
 ments in Religious Doctrine ". 
 
 CONTENTS. The Philosophical Temper, first enjoined by the Gospel The Influence 
 of Natural and Revealed Religion respectively Evangelical Sanctity the Perfection of 
 Natural Virtue The Usurpations of Reason Personal Influence, the Means of Pro- 
 pagating the Iruth On Justice as a Principle of Divine Governance Contest between 
 Faith and Sight Human Responsibility, as independent of Circumstances Wilfulness, 
 the Sin of Saul Faith and Reason, contrasted as Habits of Mind The Nature of Faith 
 in Relation to Reason Love, the Safeguard of Faith against Superstition Implicit and 
 Explicit Reason Wisdom, as contrasted with Faith and with Bigotry The Theory of 
 Developments in Religious Doctrine. 
 
 DISCOURSES TO MIXED CONGREGATIONS. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 First published in 1849. 
 
 " These sermons have a definite tone and genius of their own . . . and though they 
 have not to me quite the delicate charm of the reserve, and I might almost say the shy pas- 
 sion, of his Oxford sermons, they represent the full-blown blossom of his genius, while 
 the former shows it only in the bud. . . . The extraordinary wealth of detail with which 
 Newman conceives and realises the various sins and miseries of the human lot has, per- 
 haps, never been illustrated in all his writings with so much force as in the wonderful 
 sixteenth sermon on ' The Mental Sufferings of our Lord in His Passion,' " etc. 
 
 The late Mr. R. H. HUTTON. 
 
 CONTENTS. The Salvation of the Hearer the Motive of the Preacher Neglect of 
 Divine Calls and Warnings Men, not Angels, the Priests of the Gospel Purity and 
 Love Saintliness the Standard of Christian Principle God's Will the End of Life- 
 Perseverance in Grace Nature and Grace Illuminating Grace Faith and Private 
 Judgment Faith and Doubt Prospects of the Catholic Missioner Mysteries of Nature 
 and of Grace The Mystery of Divine Condescension The Infinitude of the Divine Attri- 
 butes Mental Sufferings of our Lord in His Passion The Glories of Mary for the Sake 
 of Her Son On the Fitness of the Glories of Mary. 
 
24 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS 
 
 Cardinal Newman's Works continued. 
 
 SERMONS PREACHED ON VARIOUS OCCA- 
 SIONS. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 This volume, which was first published in 1857, consists of eight sermons preached 
 before the Catholic University of Ireland in 1856-1857, and seven sermons delivered on 
 different occasions between 1850 and 1872. Among the latter are the celebrated " Second 
 Spring " and " The Pope and the Revolution " preached 1850-1872 at St. Chad's, the 
 Oratory, Oscott, and Farm, Street, London, with Notes. 
 
 CONTENTS. Intellect the Instrument of Religious Training The Religion of the 
 Pharisee The Religion of Mankind Waiting for Christ The Secret Power of Divine 
 Grace Dispositions for Faith Omnipotence in Bonds St. Paul's Characteristic Gift 
 St. Paul's Gift of Sympathy Christ upon the Waters The Second Spring Order, the 
 Witness and Instrument of Unity The Mission of St. Philip Neri The Tree beside the 
 Waters In the World but not of the World The Pope and the Revolution Notes. 
 
 2. TREATISES. 
 
 LECTURES ON THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICA- 
 TION. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 These Lectures were first published in 1838. They were reprinted in 1874 with an 
 " Advertisement to the Third Edition " and some additional notes. 
 
 CONTENTS. Faith considered as the Instrumental Cause of Justification Love con- 
 sidered as the Formal Cause of Justification Primary Sense of the term "Justification " 
 Secondary Senses of the term "Justification" Misuse of the term" Just" or " Righteous" 
 The Gift of Righteousness The Characteristics of the Gift of Righteousness Right- 
 eousness viewed as a Gift and as a Quality Righteousness the Fruit of our Lord's 
 Resurrection The Office of Justifying Faith The Nature of Justifying Faith Faith 
 viewed relatively to Rites and Works On Preaching the Gospel Appendix On the 
 Formal Cause of Justification. 
 
 AN ESSAY ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRIS- 
 TIAN DOCTRINE. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 " In this New Edition of the Essay, first published in 1845, various important altera- 
 tions have been made in the arrangement of its separate parts, and some, not indeed in 
 its matter, but in its text." Preface to Third Edition, 1878. 
 
 THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY DEFINED AND 
 
 ILLUSTRATED. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 I. In Nine Discourses delivered to the Catholics of Dublin. 
 
 II. In Occasional Lectures and Essays addressed to the members of the Catholic 
 University. 
 
 Part I. was first published in 1852 under the title of Discourses on the Scope and 
 Nature of University Education, etc. 
 
 CONTENTS. I. Introductory II. Theology a Branch of Knowledge III. Bearing of 
 Theology on other Knowledge IV. Bearing of other Knowledge on Theology V. Know- 
 ledge its own End VI. Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning VII. Knowledge 
 viewed in Relation to Professional Skill VIII. Knowledge viewed in Relation to Religious 
 Duty IX. Duties of the Church towards Knowledge. 
 
 Part II. was first published in 1859 under the title of Lectures and Essays on Uni- 
 versity Subjects. 
 
 CONTENTS. I. Christianity and Letters II. Literature III. Catholic Literature in the 
 English Tongue IV. Elementary Studies V. A Form of Infidelity of the Day VI. 
 University Preaching VII. Christianity and Physical Science VIII. Christianity and 
 Scientific Investigation IX. Discipline of Mind X. Christianity and Medical Science. 
 
 %* Part I. is also issued separately as follows : 
 UNIVERSITY TEACHING CONSIDERED IN NINE DIS- 
 COURSES. With a Preface by the Rev. JOHN NORRIS. Fcp. 
 8vo. Cloth, Gilt Top, 2s. net. Leather, 3s. net. 
 
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 25 
 
 Cardinal Newman's Works continued. 
 AN ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 First published in 1870, with Notes at the end of the volume added to the later editions. 
 
 AN INDEXED SYNOPSIS OF CARDINAL NEW- 
 MAN'S " AN ESSAY IN AID OF A GRAMMAR OF ASSENT ". 
 By the Rev. JOHN J. TOOHEY, S.J. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 3. HISTORICAL. 
 
 HISTORICAL SKETCHES. Three vols. Crown 8vo. 
 
 3s. 6d. each. 
 
 VOL. I. The Turks in their Relation to Europe Marcus Tullius Cicero Apollonius 
 of Tyana Primitive Christianity. 
 
 The Essay on " The Turks in their Relation to Europe " was first published under the 
 title of Lectures on the History of the Turks by the Author of Loss and Gain, in 1854. As 
 is well known, Newman took what was then the unpopular side. The Czar was " attack- 
 ing an infamous power, the enemy of God and Man ". " Many things are possible ; one 
 is inconceivable that the Turks should, as an existing nation, accept of modern civilisa- 
 tion ; and in default of it, that they should be able to stand their ground amid the 
 encroachments of Russia, the interested and contemptuous patronage of Europe, and 
 the hatred of their subject populations." 
 
 Personal and Literary Character of Cicero. First published in 1824. 
 Apollonius of Tyana. First published in 1826. 
 Primitive Christianity. 
 
 I. What does St. Ambrose say about it 'II. What says Vincent of Lerins? III. What 
 says the History of Apollinaris ? IV. What say Jovinian and his companions? V. What 
 say the Apostolical Canons ? 
 
 This series formed part of the original Church of the Fathers as it appeared in the 
 British Magazine of 1833-36, and as it was published in 1840. " They were removed 
 from subsequent Catholic editions, except the chapter on Apollinaris, as containing 
 polemical matter, which had no interest for Catholic readers. Now [1872] they are 
 republished under a separate title." 
 
 VOL. II. The Church of the Fathers St. Chrysostom Theodoret Mission of St. 
 Benedict Benedictine Schools. 
 The Church of the Fathers. 
 
 I. Trials of Basil II. Labours of Basil III. Basil and Gregory IV. Rise and Fall of 
 Gregory V. Antony in Conflict VI. Antony in Calm VII. Augustine and the Vandals 
 VIII. Conversion of Augustine IX. Demetrias X. Martin and Maximus. 
 St. Chrysostom. Reprinted from the Rambler, 1859-60. 
 Trials of Theodoret. First published in 1873. 
 The Mission of St. Benedict. From the Atlantis, 1858. 
 The Benedictine Schools. From the A tlantis, 1859. 
 
 VOL. III. Rise and Progress of Universities (originally published as " Office and 
 Work of Universities") Northmen and Normans in England and Ireland Mediaeval 
 Oxford Convocation of Canterbury. 
 Rise and Progress of Universities. 
 
 The following illustrations of the idea of a University originally appeared in 1854 in 
 the columns of the Dublin Catholic University Gazette. In 1856 they were published in 
 one volume under the title of The Office and Work of Universities, etc. 
 Northmen and Normans in England and Ireland. From the Rambler of 1859. 
 Mediaeval Oxford. From the British Critic of 1838. 
 
 The Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. From the British Magazine of 
 1834-35- 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE FATHERS. Reprinted from "Historical 
 Sketches". Vol. II. With a Preface by the Rev. JOHN NORRIS. 
 Fcp. 8vo. Cloth, Gilt Too. 2i. net. Leather. 3s. net. 
 
26 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS 
 
 Cardinal Newman's Works continued. 
 
 4. ESSAYS. 
 TWO ESSAYS ON MIRACLES. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. I. The Miracles of Scripture compared with those reported elsewhere as 
 regards their nature, credibility, and evidence II. The Miracles of Early Ecclesiastical 
 History compared with those of Scripture as regards their nature, credibility, and evidence. 
 
 The former of these Essays was written for the Encyclopedia Metropolitana, 1825- 
 26; the latter in 1842-43 as Preface to a Translation of a portion of Fleury's Ecclesi- 
 astical History. They were republished in 1870 with some additional notes. 
 
 DISCUSSIONS AND ARGUMENTS. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 i. How to accomplish it. 2. The Antichrist of the Fathers. 3. Scripture and the 
 
 Creed. 4. Tamworth Reading-room. 5. Who's to Blame ? 6. An Internal Argument for 
 
 Christianity. 
 
 How to Accomplish It originally appeared in the British Magazine of 1830 under the title 
 of "Home Thoughts Abroad". "The discussion on this Paper is carried on by two 
 speculative Anglicans, who aim at giving vitality to their church, the one by uniting 
 it to the Holy See, the other by developing a nineteenth century Anglo-Catholicism. 
 The narrator sides on the whole with the latter of these." 
 
 The Patristical Idea of Antichrist. This was the Eighty-third Number of the Tracts 
 for the Times, published'in 1838. 
 
 Holy Scripture in Its Relation to the Catholic Creed. This was the Eighty-fifth 
 Number of the Tracts for the Times. 
 
 The Tamworth Reading Room. A series of seven letters, signed " Catholicus," first 
 printed in the Times during February, 1841, and published as a pamphlet. They were 
 provoked by addresses delivered by Lord Brougham at Glasgow and Sir Robert Peel 
 at the opening of a Library and Reading Room at Tamworth, in which those distin- 
 guished statesmen exalted secular knowledge into the great instrument of moral 
 improvement. They ran as follows : (i) Secular Knowledge in contrast with Religion. 
 (2) Secular Knowledge not the principle of Moral Improvement. (3) Not a direct means 
 of Moral Improvement. (4) 'Not the antecedent of Moral Improvement. (5) Not a 
 principle of social unity. (6) Not a principle of action. (7) But without personal 
 religion a temptation to unbelief. 
 
 Who's to Blame? A series of letters addressed to the Catholic Standard in 1855. There 
 was at that time a great deal of blame attributed to the Government on account of its 
 management of the Crimean War. Newman threw the blame on the British constitu- 
 tion, or rather on those who clamoured for a foreign war, for the conduct of which 
 this constitution is singularly ill-adapted. The letters are a valuable study of the 
 genius of the Anglo-Saxon race and the British constitution. 
 
 An Internal Argument for Christianity. A review, originally published in the Month 
 of June, 1866, of Ecce Homo. 
 
 ESSAYS, CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL. Two vols., 
 
 with Notes. Crown 8vo. 7s. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. I. Poetry with reference to Aristotle's Poetics. With Note 
 II. The Introduction of Rationalistic Principles into Revealed Religion. With Note III 
 Apostolical Tradition. With Note IV. The Fall of la Mennais. With Note V. 
 Palmer's View of Faith and Unity. With Note VI. The Theology of St. Ignatius. With 
 Note VII. Prospects of the Anglican Church. With Note VIII. The Anglo-American 
 Church. With Note IX. Selina Countess of Huntingdon. With Note. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. X. The Catholicity of the Anglican Church. With Note- 
 XL The Protestant View of Antichrist. With Note XII. Milman's View of Christianity. 
 With Note XIII. The Reformation of the Eleventh Century. With Note XIV. Private 
 Judgment. With Note XV. John Davison. With Note XVI. John Keble. With Note. 
 The first Essay was written in 1828 for the London Review ; the second in 1835 for the 
 Tracts for the Times ; the last in 1846 for the Dublin Review ; the rest for the British 
 Critic between 1837 and 1842. The original title of VII. was Home Thoughts Abroad. 
 The " Notes " were written when the Essays were republished in 1871. 
 
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 27 
 
 Cardinal Newman's Works continued. 
 
 5. PATRISTIC. 
 THE ARIANS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 First published in 1833. Republished, with an Appendix containing over seventy 
 pages of additional matter, in 1871. 
 
 CONTENTS OF APPENDIX. I. The Syrian School of Theology II. The Early Doctrine 
 of the Divine Genesis III. The Confessions at Sirmium IV. The Early use of iisia and 
 hypostasis V. Orthodoxy of the Faithful during Arianism VI. Chronology of the Councils 
 VII. Omissions in the Text of the Third Edition (1871). 
 
 (5) is a long extract from the article published in the Rambler of 1859, " On con- 
 sulting the Faithful on Matters of Doctrine". In the fourth (1876) and subsequent 
 editions of the Arians the author appended to the extract an explanation of a passage 
 in the original article which had been seriously misunderstood in some quarters. 
 
 SELECT TREATISES OF ST. ATHANASIUS IN 
 
 CONTROVERSY WITH THE ARIANS. Freely Translated. 
 Two vols. Crown 8vo. 7s. 
 
 First published in 1881. The first volume contains the " Treatises " ; the second the 
 notes alphabetically arranged so as to form a kind of iheological lexicon to St. 
 Athanasius's writings. 
 
 In 1842 Newman contributed to the Oxford Library of the Fathers two volumes 
 entitled Select Treatises of St. Athanasius in Controversy with the A rians. This work was 
 described by the late Canon Bright as ranking " among the richest treasures of English 
 Patristic literature" ; by the late Canon Liddon as " the most important contribution to the 
 Library " ; and in later prospectuses of the Library, after Newman's connection with it 
 had ceased, as " the most important work published since Bishop Bull ". The present 
 edition differs from that of the Oxford Library in four important points, viz. : (i) the 
 freedom of the translation ; (2) the arrangement of the notes ; (3) the omission of the 
 fourth " Discourse against the Arians " ; (4) the omission of some lengthy Dissertations. 
 A Latin version of these last is included in Tracts : Theological and Ecclesiastical. 
 
 TRACTS : THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. I. Dissertatiunculae Quatuor Critico-Theologicae [Rome 1847] II. On the 
 Text of the Epistles of St. Ignatius [1870] III. Causes of the Rise and Success of Arianism 
 [1872] IV. The Heresy of Apollinaris V. St. Cyril's Formula MIA 4>Y2I2 2E2APK11- 
 MENH. (Atlantis, 1858) VI. The Ordo de Tempore in the Breviary. (Atlantis, 1870) 
 VII. History of the Text of the Douay Version of Scripture. (Rambler, 1859). 
 
 6. POLEMICAL. 
 THE VIA MEDIA OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 
 
 Illustrated in Lectures, Letters and Tracts written between 1830 and 1841. 
 Two vols. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. each. 
 
 This collection was first published in 1877. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. The Prophetical Office of the Church, etc., originally published in 
 1837, reprinted with Notes and a Preface. 
 
 The Preface, which extends to about ninety pages, is one of Newman's most im- 
 portant polemical writings. His adversary is his former self. In his " Essay on 
 Development," he dealt with one of the two great charges he used to bring against the 
 Catholic Church ; in this Preface he deals with the other. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. I. Suggestions in behalf of the Church Missionary Society, 1830 
 II. Via Media, 1834 (being Nos. 38 and 40 of Tracts for the Times) III. Restoration of 
 Suffragan Bishops, 1835 IV. On the Mode of Conducting the Controversy with Rome (being 
 No. 71 of Tracts for the Times) V. Letter to a Magazine in behalf of Dr. Pusey's Tracts 
 on Holy Baptism, 1837 VI. Letter to the Margaret Professor of Divinity on Mr. R. H. 
 Froude's Statements on the Holy Eucharist, 1838 VII. Remarks on Certain Passages in the 
 Thirty-nine Articles, 1841 (being No. 90 of Tracts for the Times) VIII. Documentary 
 Matter consequent upon the foregoing Remarks on the Thirty-nine Articles IX. Letter to 
 Dr. Jelf in Explanation of the Remarks, 1841 X. Letter to the Bishop of Oxford on the 
 same Subject, 1841 XI. Retractation of Anti-Catholic Statements, 1843-45 
 
 * x * No. VII. in this Volume is the famous Tract 90 of Tracts for the Times, the 
 whole with new Notes. 
 
28 MESSRS. LONGMANS' LIST OF WORKS 
 
 Cardinal Newman's Works continued. 
 CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES FELT BY ANGLICANS 
 
 IN CATHOLIC TEACHING CONSIDERED. Two vols. Crown 
 8vo. 3s. 6d. each. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. Twelve Lectures addressed in 1850 to the party of the Religious 
 Movement of 1833. 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. II. I. Letter addressed to Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., on Occasion of 
 his Eirenicon of 1864 II. A Letter addressed to the Duke of Norfolk, on Occasion of Mr. 
 Gladstone's Expostulation of 1874. 
 
 LECTURES ON THE PRESENT POSITION OF 
 
 CATHpLICS IN ENGLAND. Addresses to the Brothers of the 
 Oratory in the Summer of 1851. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA, being a History of his 
 
 Religious Opinions. 
 
 First published in 1864. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Pocket Edition. Fcp. 8vo. Cloth, 2s. 6d. net. Leather, 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 Popular Edition. 8vo. Paper covers, 6d. net. 
 
 The " Pocket " Edition and the " Popular" Edition of this book contain a letter, hitherto 
 unpublished, written by Cardinal Newman to Canon Flanagan in 1857, which may be said 
 to contain in embryo the " Apologia " itself. 
 
 7. LITERARY. 
 
 LOSS AND GAIN : The Story of a Convert. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 First published in 1848. 
 
 " Of his experience as a Catholic, Loss and Gain, published in 1848, was the first 
 fruit . . . the book has been a great favourite with me, almost ever since its first publi- 
 cation, partly for the admirable fidelity with which it sketches young men's thoughts 
 and difficulties, partly for its happy irony, partly for its perfect representation of the 
 academical life and tone at Oxford. ... In the course of the story there are many 
 happy sketches of Oxford society, such as, for example, the sketch of the evangelical 
 pietism which Mr. Freeborn pours forth at Bateman's breakfast, or the sketch of the Rev. 
 Dr. Brownside's prim and pompous Broad Church University sermon. . . . Again, there 
 is one very impressive passage not taken from Oxford life, in which Newman makes . . . 
 [one of his characters] insist on the vast difference between the Protestant and Roman 
 Catholic conception of worship." R. H. HUTTON'S Cardinal Newman. 
 
 CALLISTA : A Tale of the Third Century. Cr. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 First published in 1855, with postscripts of 1856, 1881, 1888. 
 
 " It is an attempt to imagine and express, from a Catholic point of view, the feelings 
 and mutual relations of Christians and heathens at the period to which it belongs." 
 
 Author's Preface. 
 
 VERSES ON VARIOUS OCCASIONS. 
 
 Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Pocket Edition. Fcp. 8vo. Gilt top, Cloth, 2s. net. Leather, 3s. net. 
 
 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS. 
 
 I6mo. Paper covers, 6d. Cloth, Is. net. 
 
 With Introduction and Notes by MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, D.D., 
 LL.D. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. Is. 6d. 
 
 Presentation Edition, with an Introduction specially written for this Edition by 
 E. B(L). With Photogravure Portrait of Cardinal Newman, and 5 other 
 Illustrations. Large Crown 8vo. Cream cloth, with gilt top, 3s. net. 
 
 LITERARY SELECTIONS FROM NEWMAN. With 
 
 Introduction and Notes by A SISTER OF NOTRE DAME. 
 Crown 8vo. Is. 6d. (Longmans' Class-Books of English Literature.) 
 
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 29 
 
 Cardinal Newman's Works continued. 
 
 8. DEVOTIONAL. 
 MEDITATIONS AND DEVOTIONS. 
 
 Oblong crown 8vo. 5s. net. 
 
 CONTENTS. Prefatory Notice by the Rev. W. P. Neville. Part I. Meditations for the 
 Month of May. Novena of St. Philip. Part II. The Stations of the Cross. Meditations 
 and Intercessions for Good Friday. Litanies, etc. Part III. Meditations on Christian 
 Doctrine. Conclusion. 
 
 In Parts as follows. Fcap. 8vo. Cloth, I s. net each. Limp leather, 2s. net each. 
 
 Part I. THE MONTH OF MAY. 
 
 Part II. STATIONS OF THE CROSS. 
 
 Part III. MEDITATIONS ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 
 
 Three Parts in One Volume. Cloth, 3s. 6d. net. 
 
 9. BIOGRAPHIES. 
 
 THE LIFE OF JOHN HENRY CARDINAL 
 
 NEWMAN. Based on his Private Journals and Correspondence. By 
 
 WILFRID WARD. 
 
 With 1 5 Portraits and Illustrations (2 Photogravures). 2 Vols. 8vo. 36s. net. 
 With 2 Portraits. 2 vols. 8vo. 12s. 6d. net. 
 
 LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE OF JOHN 
 
 HENRY NEWMAN DURING HIS LIFE IN THE ENGLISH 
 CHURCH. With a brief Autobiography. Edited, at Cardinal Newman's 
 request, by ANNE MOZLEY. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 7s. 
 
 " Materials for the present work were placed in the Editor's hands towards the close of 
 1884. The selection from them was made, and the papers returned to Cardinal Newman 
 in the summer of 1887." Editor's Note. 
 
 " It has ever been a hobby of mine, though perhaps it is a truism, that the true life of a 
 man is in his letters. . . . Not only '"or the interest of a biography, but lor arriving at 
 the inside of things, the publication of letters is the true method. Biographers varnish, 
 they assign motives, they conjecture feelings, they interpret Lord Burleigh's nods; but 
 contemporary letters are facts." Dr. Newman to his sister, Mrs. John Mozley, May 18, 
 1863. 
 
 10. POSTHUMOUS. 
 ADDRESSES TO CARDINAL NEWMAN, WITH 
 
 HIS REPLIES, 1879-81. Edited by the Rev. W. P. NEVILLE (Cong. 
 Oral.). With Portrait Group. Oblong crown 8vo. 6s. net. 
 
 NEWMAN MEMORIAL SERMONS: Preached at the 
 
 Opening of the Newman Memorial Church, The Oratory, Birmingham, 
 8th and 12th December, 1909. By Rev. Fr. JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J., 
 B.Sc. (Oxon.), and Very Rev. Canon McINTYRE, Professor of Scripture 
 at St. Mary's College, Oscott. 8vo. Paper covers, Is. net. 
 
 SERMON NOTES, 1849-78. Edited by the FATHERS 
 
 OF THE BIRMINGHAM ORATORY. With Portrait. Crown 8vo. 
 
 5s. net. 
 
 Cardinal Newman left behind him two MS. volumes filled with notes or memoranda 
 of Sermons and Catechetical Instructions delivered by him during the years 1847 to 
 
 Besides their utility to priests and teachers, it is hoped that the notes will appeal to 
 all lovers of Newman's writings. So characteristic of him are they, in spite of their 
 brevity, that their authorship would beat once recognised even if they appeared without 
 his name. Those of an earlier date are specially interesting. They introduce the 
 reader to Newman in the first days of his Catholic life, settling down to the ordinary 
 duties of an English priest, and instructing a " Mixed Congregation " in the rudiments 
 of Catholic Doctrine. 
 
 INDEX TO THE WORKS OF CARDINAL NEWMAN. 
 
 By the Rev. JOSEPH RICKABY, S.J., B.Sc. (Oxon.). Crown 8vo. 
 6s. net. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 A dvenfures of King James II. of England 9 
 
 Antony (C. M.) In St. Dominic's Country 12 
 
 Arundell (Lord) Papers 6 
 
 Ayscough (J.) Gracechurch 18 
 
 Levia Pondera 14 
 
 Balfour (Mrs. Reginald) The Life and 
 
 Legend of the Lady Saint Clare ... 12 
 
 Barnes (A. S.) Early Church in the Light 
 
 of the Monuments 3 
 
 Barrett (E. Boyd) Motive Force and 
 
 Motivation-Tracks ... ... ... 4 
 
 Barry (W.) The Tradition of Scripture ... 3 
 
 Batiffol (P.) Credibility of the Gospel ... 4 
 
 - History of the Roman Breviary 4 
 Primitive Catholicism ... 4 
 
 Bennett (A. H.) Through an Anglican 
 
 Sisterhood to Rome u 
 
 Benson (R. H.) Child's Rule of Life ... 17 
 
 Christ in the Church ... 15 
 
 Confessions of a Convert 10 
 
 Cost of a Crown 17 
 
 Friendship of Christ ... 15 
 
 Maid of Orleans 17 
 
 Mystery Play 17 
 
 Non-Catholic Denomina- 
 tions 3 
 
 Old Testament Rhymes ... 17 
 
 Paradoxes of Catholicism 15 
 
 Spiritual Letters 15 
 
 Upper Room 17 
 
 Vexilla Regis 15 
 
 Boedder (B.) Natural Theology 2 
 
 Bosch (Mrs. H.) Bible Stories told to 
 
 " Toddles " 17 
 
 Bougaud (Mgr.) History of St. Vincent 
 
 de Paul 12 
 
 Brown (S. J.) A Guide to Books on 
 
 Ireland 14 
 
 A Reader's Guide to Irish 
 Fiction -,. 18 
 
 Browne (H.) Handbook of Greek Composi- 
 tion 21 
 
 Homeric Study 21 
 
 Latin Composi- 
 
 tion 21 
 
 Burton (E. H.) Life dnd Times of Bishop 
 
 Challoner 7 
 
 and Myers (E.) New Psal- 
 ter and its Use 3 
 
 and Pollen (J. H.) Lives 
 
 of the English Martyrs n 
 
 Camm (B.) Lives of the English Martyrs n 
 
 Catholic Church from Within 6 
 
 Cecilia (Madame) Spiritual Gleanings for 
 
 Marian Sodalists 16 
 
 Challoner. Life and Times of Bishop , 7 
 
 Page 
 Chapman (J.) Bishop Gore and Catholic 
 
 Claims 5 
 
 Christ, Life of, for Children 17 
 
 Clarke (R. F.) Logic 2 
 
 Class-Teaching (The) of English Com- 
 position 20 
 
 Coffey (P.) Ontology 4 
 
 The Science of Logic 4 
 
 Concannon (Mrs. T.) A Garden of Girls 12 
 
 Cronin (M.) The Science of Ethics ... 5 
 
 Curious Case of Lady Purbeck 9 
 
 Cuthbert(Fr.)Lt/o/5/. Francis of A ssisi 12 
 Romanticism of St. Francis 12 
 
 De Bonnault d'Houet, Life of Viscountess, 
 
 by Fr. Stanislaus 12 
 
 Delehaye (H.) The Legends of the Saints 3 
 
 De Montalembert (Count) Life of St. 
 
 Elizabeth of Hungary 12 
 
 Devas (C. S.) Political Economy 2 
 
 Key to the World's Progress 5 
 
 Devas (R.) Dominican Revival in the 
 
 Nineteenth Century 7 
 
 De Vere (Aubrey), Memoir of, by Wilfrid 
 
 Ward ii 
 
 Dewe (J. A.) Psychology of Politics and 
 
 History 6 
 
 De Wulf(M.) History of Medieval Philo- 
 sophy 4 
 
 Scholasticism, Old and New 4 
 
 Dobree (L. E.) Stories on the Rosary ... 17 
 
 Drane (A. T.) History of St. Catherine of 
 
 Siena n 
 
 Memoir (Mother Francis 
 
 Raphael) 11 
 
 Dubray (C. A.) Introductory Philosophy 21 
 
 Emery (S. L.) The Inner Life of the Soul 16 
 
 English (E.) Sermons and Homilies ... 15 
 
 Falklands 9 
 
 First Duke and Duchess of Newcastle-on- 
 
 Tyne ... ... ... ... ... 9 
 
 Fortescue (A.) The Mass 3 
 
 Fouard (Abb<) St. John and the Close of 
 
 the Apostolic Age 2 
 
 St. Paul and his Missions 2 
 
 St. Peter 2 
 
 The Christ the Son of God 2 
 
 L ast Years of St. Paul 2 
 
 Fountain of Life (The) 21 
 
 Francis (M. E.) Dorset Dear 18 
 
 Fiander's Wtdow ... 18 
 
 Manor Farm ... . 18 
 
 Gerard (J.) The Old Kiddle and the 
 Newest Answer 5 
 
 Grammar Lessons, by the Principal of 
 
 St. Mary's Hall, Liverpool ... 20 
 
INDEX. 
 
 31 
 
 Graves (A. P.) Welsh Poetry 
 
 Guilday (P.) English Catholic Refugees 7 
 
 Healy (T. M.) Stolen Waters 
 
 Hedley (J. C.) Holy Eucharist 
 
 Hoyt (F. D.) Catherine Sidney 18 
 
 Hughes (T.) History of the Society of 
 
 Jesus in North America 
 
 Hunter (S. J.) Outlines of Dogmatic 
 
 Theology ' 
 
 Index to The Month ... 6 
 
 Joppen (C.) Historical Atlas of India ... 
 Jorgensen (J.) Lourdes ......... 
 
 --- St. Francis of Assist 
 Joyce (G. H.) Principles of Logic 
 Joyce (P. W.) Ancient Irish Music 
 -- Child's History of Ireland 
 ---- English as we Speak it in 
 
 Ireland 
 
 Grammar of the Irish 
 
 Language 20 
 
 Handbook of School 
 
 Management 21 
 
 History of Ireland for 
 
 Australian Catholic Schools 20 
 
 Irish Peasant Songs ... 16 
 
 Old Celtic Romances 
 
 -Old Irish Folk Music 
 -Origin and History 
 
 of 
 
 Irish Names of Places 
 
 Outlines of the History of 
 
 Ireland ............... 20 
 
 ---- Reading Book in Irish 
 
 History ............... 20 
 
 -- Short History of Ireland 8 
 -- Smaller Social History 
 
 of Ancient Ireland 
 
 -- Social History of Ireland 
 
 ---- Story of Irish Civilisation 
 
 Wonders of Ireland ... 
 
 Joyce (R. D.) Ballads of Irish Chivalry 
 
 Kane (R.) From Fetters to Freedom ... 
 
 Good Friday to Easter Sunday 
 
 Plain Gold Ring 
 
 Sermon of the Sea 
 
 Lives of the English Martyrs u 
 
 Lockington (W. J.) Bodily Health and 
 Spiritual Vigour ... ... ... 5 
 
 Maher (M.) Psychology 2 
 
 Mann (J. E. F ), Sievers (N. J.) and Cox 
 
 (R. W. T.) Real Democracy 6 
 
 Marshal Turenne 9 
 
 Martindale (C. C.) In God's Nursery ... 14 
 
 Waters of Twilight ... 14 
 
 Page 
 Maturin (B. W.) Laws of the Spiritual 
 
 Life 15 
 
 p r i ce O f u n ity ... 6 
 
 Self-Knowledge and 
 
 Self-Discipline ........... , 15 
 
 Maxwell-Scott (Hon. Mrs.) Life of the 
 
 Marquise de la Rochejaquelein ... n 
 Montalembert (Count de) St. Elizabeth 
 
 of Hungary ............ 12 
 
 Month .................. 6 
 
 Moyes (].) Aspects of Anglicanism ... 6 
 Mulhall (M. M.) Beginnings, or Glimpses 
 
 of Vanished Civilizations ...... 7 
 
 Nesbitt (M.) Our Lady in the Church ... 16 
 Newman (Cardinal) Addresses to, 1879-81 29 
 
 - Apologia pro Vita 
 $ua ............ 10,28 
 
 ----- Arians of the Fourth 
 
 Century .............. 27 
 
 --- Callista, an Histori- 
 
 cal Tale ............... 28 
 
 Church of the Fathers 25 
 Critical and Histori- 
 
 cal Essays ............ 26 
 
 D evelopment of 
 
 Christian Doctrine ......... 24 
 
 Difficulties of Angli- 
 
 cans ............... 28 
 
 Discourses to Mixed 
 
 Congregations ............ 23 
 
 Discussions and 
 
 Arguments ............ 26 
 
 Dream of Gerontius 21,28 
 
 Essays on Miracles 26 
 
 Grammar of Assent 25 
 
 Historical Sketches 25 
 
 Idea of a University 24 
 
 - Index to Works ... 29 
 
 Justification ...... 24 
 
 Letters and Corre- 
 
 spondence 29 
 
 - Life, by Wilfrid 
 Ward 10.29 
 
 Literary Selections 21, 28 
 
 Loss and Gain ... 28 
 
 Meditations and De- 
 
 29 
 
 votions 
 
 Memorial Sermons... 29 
 
 Oxford University 
 
 Sermons ... ... ... ... ,. 23 
 
 Parochial Sermons... 22 
 
 Present Position of 
 
 Catholics 2 8 
 
 Select Treatises of St. 
 27 
 
 A thanasius 
 
32 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Page 
 
 Newman (Cardinal) Selections from Ser- 
 mons 22 
 
 Sermon Notes ... 29 
 
 Sermons on Subjects 
 
 of the Day 23 
 
 Sermons Preached on 
 
 Various Occasions 24 
 
 Theological Tracts 27 
 
 University Teaching 24 
 
 Verses on Various 
 
 Occasions 28 
 
 Via Media ... ... 27 
 
 O'Brien (Mrs. William) Unseen Friends n, 14 
 O'Malley (A.) and Walsh (J. J.) Pastoral 
 
 Medicine ............... 5 
 
 O'Neill (G.) Five Centuries of English 
 
 Poetry ............... 21 
 
 Phelan (M. J.) Straight Path ....... 6 
 
 Plater (C.) Priest and Social A ction ... 3 
 
 Policy and Paint ............ 9 
 
 Pryings among Private Papers ...... 9 
 
 Quick and Dead 
 
 Rickaby (John) First Principles of Know- 
 ledge ............... 
 
 ---- General Metaphysics ... 
 
 Index to Cardinal New- 
 
 man's Works ............ 29 
 
 Rickaby (Joseph) Moral Philosophy ... z 
 --- and Mclntyre (Canon) 
 
 Newman Memorial Sermons ...... 29 
 
 Rochester and other Literary Rakes ... 9 
 
 Roche (W.) Child's Prayers to Jesus ... 17 
 
 - The House and Table of God 17 
 Rockliff (E.) An Experiment in History 
 
 Teaching ............... 20 
 
 Rose (V.I Studies on the Gospels ...... 5 
 
 Rosmini (A.) Theodicy ........ 5 
 
 Russell (M.) Among the Blessed ...... 15 
 
 At Home with God ...... 15 
 
 ---- The Three Sisters of Lord 
 
 Russell of Kill ow en ......... u 
 
 Ruville (A. Von) Back to Holy Church 10 
 Ryder (I.) Essays ......... 10, 14 
 
 Scannell (T.) The Priest's Studies 
 
 Sheehan (P. A.) Blindness of Dr. Gray 19 
 
 --- Early Essays and Lec- 
 
 tures 
 
 -Glenanaar 
 
 Graves at Kilmorna ._ 
 
 Intellectuals 19 
 
 Lisheen 19 
 
 " Lost A ngel of a Ruined 
 
 Paradise" 19 
 
 No. 13. 5.000 iii/ 1 5. A.U.P. 
 
 Page 
 
 Sheehan (P. A.) Luke Delmege 19 
 
 Miriam Lucas 19 
 
 Parerga ig 
 
 Qrteen's Fillet ig 
 
 Stockl (A.) Handbook of the History of 
 
 Philosophy ... ... ... ... A 
 
 STONYHURST PHILOSOPHICAL 
 
 SERIES 2 
 
 Stuart (J. E.) The Education of Catholic 
 
 Girls' 21 
 
 Terry (R. R.) Old Rhymes with New Tunes 17 
 
 Thesaurus Fidelium ... ... ... 16 
 
 Thurston (H.) Lent and Holy Week ... 6 
 
 Tierney (R. H.) Teacher and Teaching... 21 
 Toohey (J. J.) Synopsis of Newman's 
 
 " Grammar of Assent" 25 
 
 Vassall-Phillips (O. R.) Seven Books of 
 
 Optatus 7 
 
 Vaughan (J. S.) Happiness and Beauty... 14 
 
 Vices in Virtues 9 
 
 Vonier (Dom Anscar) Personality of 
 
 Christ ... 5 
 
 Walker (L. J.) Theories of Knowledge ... z 
 Ward (B.) Dawn of the Catholic Revival 
 
 in England 7 
 
 Eve of Catholic Emancipation 7 
 
 Sequel to Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion 7 
 
 Ward (J.) William Pardow of the Com- 
 pany of Jesus 12 
 
 Ward (Wilfrid) A ubrey de Vere, a Memoir n 
 
 Essays on Men and 
 
 Matters 10 
 
 Life of Cardinal New- 
 man 10, 29 
 
 Life of Cardinal Wise- 
 man 10 
 
 Ten Personal Studies ... 10 
 
 William G. Ward and 
 
 the Catholic Revival 10 
 
 Ward (Mrs. Wilfrid) Great Possessions ... 18 
 
 Job Secretary ... 18 
 
 + Light Behind ... 18 
 
 One Poor Scruple 18 
 
 Out of Due Time... 18 
 
 WESTMINSTER LIBRARY 3 
 
 WESTMINSTER VERSION OF THE 
 
 SACRED SCRIPTURES 13 
 
 Wiseman (Cardinal) Life, by Wilfrid Ward 10 
 Wyatt-Davies (E.) History of England 
 
 for Catholic Schools 20 
 
 Outlines of British 
 
 History 20 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY