The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Catholic World; Vol. IV.; October, 1866, to March, 1867., by E. Rameur This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Catholic World; Vol. IV.; October, 1866, to March, 1867. A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science Author: E. Rameur Release Date: June 25, 2013 [EBook #43032] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CATHOLIC WORLD, OCT 1866-MARCH 1867 *** Produced by Don Kostuch [Transcriber's notes] Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred in the original book. [End transcriber's note.] THE CATHOLIC WORLD. A Monthly Magazine of GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE. VOL. IV. OCTOBER, 1866, TO MARCH, 1867. NEW YORK: LAWRENCE KEHOE, PUBLISHER. 145 Nassau Street. 1867. CONTENTS Aërolites, 536. Andorra, The Republic of, 561. Books, Rise and Progress of, 104. Books and Hymns, Mediaeval, 804. Cervantes y Saavedra, Miguel de, 14. Connecticut, Divorce Legislation in, 101. Cowardice and Courage, 160. Count Julian and His Family, Legend of, 211. Celtic Anthology and Poetic Remains, 389. Charity and Philanthropy, 434. Christmas with the Baron, 446. Conversion, The Philosophy of, 459. Christ is Born, 496. Christmas Story, Little Sunbeam's, 515. Christmas Day, The Little Birds on, 584. Christmas Eve, What Came of a Laugh on, 542. Christmas, Catholic, 565. Catholic Church, How my Aunt Pilcher found the, 667. Christine, 681. Catholic Ceremonial, The, 721. De Vere, Aubrey, 73. Divorce Legislation in Connecticut, 101. Doubt, Victims of, 550. European Events, Recent, 217. French Unity, Founders of, 197. French Watering-Place, A Month at a, 405. Flowers, Sea-Side, 621. Fra Angelico, A Portrait of, 671. Godfrey Family, The, 30, 174, 320, 473, 598, 750. Holy Land, The, 500. Heart of Man, What Most Rejoices the, 559. Lake Dwellings, 398. Labor, The Source of, 593. Limerick, The First Siege of, 708. Miscellany, 138, 281, 424, 570, 853. Montpensier, Mademoiselle de, 360. Monarchy, The Church and, 627. Mediaeval Books and Hymns, 804. Nationalities, Development of, 245. Old Owl, The, 264. Origen at Caesarea, 772. Problems of the Age, 1, 145, 289, 519, 652. Paris, The Musée Retrospectif in, 275. Painting, Missal, 303. Proselytism, Protestant, in Eastern Lands, 342. Pope and the Revolution, The, 577. Parisian Attic, Genius in, 685. Robert; or, The Influence of a Good Mother, 641, 824. Rossetti, Christina G., 839. Ritualism, What I Heard About, in a City Car, 850. Saint Catharine at Florence, 129, Science, Physical and Christian Revelation, 253, 372. Syracuse and AEtna, 701. Swetchine, Madame, 736. The Age, Problems of, 1, 145, 289, 519, 652. The Church, Independence of, 51, The Thatched House, The Mystery of, 65. Traveler's Tales, 111. Tombstone, The Tale of a, 792. Unconvicted; or, Old Thorneley's Heirs, 87, 223. Woman, 417. POETRY A Summer Sorrow, 103. Anniversary, 128. Autumn, 341. Ave Maria Sine Labe Concepts, 415. Barabas and I, 535. Bartimeus, On the Cure of, 771. Christmas Song, A, 433. Christmas Bells, 471. Charity, Christian, 518. Christmas Tree, My, 533. Christmas Dream, A, 549. Delia, 359. Dying Year, The, 499. Deliverance, 541. Deo Opt. Max., 640. Epigram, 457. Home at Last, 263. Herodias, Request of the Daughter of, 626. I Am the Way, 680. "Inconsolabile," 838. Lucifer Matutinus, 110. Light, 803. My Soldier, 100. My Fears, 210. My Two Mites, 423. Our Lord, Apparition of, to His Disciples, 514. One Moment, 651. Pea-Blossom, 404. Poem, 597. Pardon, 620. "Quare Tristis es Anima Mea et Quare Conturbas Me?" 397. Resurrection, The, 72. Silent Grief, 29. Song, 159. Saint Lucy, 172. Summer Days are Gone, 227. Sonnet, 274. St. Peter's Denial, On, 499. The Fairest Fair, 818. The Virgin's Cradle Hymn, 388. The Christmas Tree, 458. The Cry, 748. The Answer, 749. The Test, 846. The Barren Fig-Tree and the Cross, 852. Work-Box, My Aunt's, 666. NEW PUBLICATIONS Allie's See of St. Peter, 139. Alphonso, 144. Church History, Darras, 575. Curious Questions, 428. England, History of, for the Young, 144. First Principles, 288. Frederick the Great and His Court, 575. Holt, Felix, 141. Harkness' Latin Book, 143. International Law, Wheaton's Elements of, 282. King René's Daughter, 859. Jesus, Sufferings of, 576. Jesus Crucified. The School of, 858. Laurentia, a Tale of Japan, 287. Letters, Beethoven's, 574. Lydia, 719. Mormon Prophet and his Harem, The, 144. Moral Evil, Origin of, 432. Men, Light and Life of, 576. Mouthful of Bread, History of a, 720. McAuley, Catherine, Life of, 854. Manual, The French, 858. Philip Earnescliffe, 143. Pastoral Letter of Second Plenary Council, 425. Poems, Alice Carey's, 572. Poems, Buchanan's, 574. Paulists, Sermons of the, 718. Pictorial Histories, Goodrich's, 720. Physiology of Man, The, 859. Rise and Fall, The, 431. See of St. Peter, Allie's, 139. Six Months at White House, Carpenter's, 142, Sunday-school Class-Book, Improved Catholic, 143. Saint Cecilia, Life of, 286. Spanish Papers, Irving's, 286. Shakespeare, Authorship of the Works of, 429. Scientific Subjects, Herschel's Lectures on, 430. Saint Vincent de Paul, Life of, 576. Severne, Robert, 857. The Sham Squire, 288. The Conditioned, Philosophy of, 432. Town, Out of, 860. Vignettes, Miss Parke's, 287. Woman's Work, Essays on, 142. Women, Higher Education of, 575. Welte, Alte und Neue, 576. {1} THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. IV., NO. 19.—OCTOBER, 1866. ORIGINAL. PROBLEMS OF THE AGE. VII. THE DOGMA OF CREATION—THE PRINCIPLE, ARCHETYPE, AND END OF THE CREATIVE ACT. The next article of the creed is, "Creatorem coeli et terrae:" Creator of heaven and earth. The mystery of the Trinity exhausts the idea of the activity of God within his own interior being, or ad intra. The dogma of creation expresses the idea of the activity of God without his own interior being, or ad extra. It is an explication of the primitive idea of reason which presents simultaneously to intelligence the absolute and the contingent in their necessary relation of the dependence of the contingent upon the absolute. Being an explication of the rational idea, it is rationally demonstrable, and does not, therefore, belong to the super-intelligible part of the revelation, or that which is believed simply on the veracity of God. That portion of the dogma of creation which is super-intelligible, or revealed truth in the highest sense, relates to the supernatural end to which the creation is determined by the decree of God. Nevertheless, although the idea of creation, once proposed, is demonstrable on purely rational principles, it is fairly and fully proposed to reason under an adequate and explicit conception adequately expressed, only by divine revelation. Wherever this adequate formula of revelation has been lost, the conception has been lost with it, and not even the highest philosophy has restored it. Plato's conception of the formation of the universe went no higher than the impression of divine ideas upon matter eternally self existent. In all philosophy which is not regulated by the principles of revelation, the ideas of necessary being and contingent existence and of the relation between them are more or less confused, and the dogma of creation is corrupted. The pure, theistic conception gives at once the pure conception of creation. Not that the idea of creation can be immediately perceived in the idea of God, which has been shown to be impossible; but that it can be perceived in the idea of God by the medium of the knowledge of finite existences given to the intellect together with the knowledge of infinite being, in the {2} primitive intuition. When the idea of infinite being is fully explicated and demonstrated in the perfect conception of God, the existence of real entities which are not God, and therefore not included in necessary being, being known, the relation of these things extrinsic to the being of God, to the being of God itself, becomes evident in the idea of God. It is evident that they have no necessary self-existence either out of the divine being or in the divine being, and therefore have been brought out of nonentity into entity by the act of God. This creative act of God is that by which he reduces possibility to actuality. It is evident that this possibility of creation, or creability of finite existences extrinsic to the divine essence, is necessary and eternal. For God could not think of doing that which he does not think as possible, and his thoughts are eternal. The thought or idea of creation is therefore eternal in the divine mind. It is a divine and eternal archetype or ideal, which the externised, concrete reality copies and represents. The divine essence is the complete and adequate object of the divine contemplation. It is, therefore, in his own essence that God must have beheld the eternal possibility of creation and the ground or reason of creability. It is the divine essence itself, therefore, which contains the archetype or ideal of a possible creation. As an archetype, it must contain that which is equivalent to finite essences, capable of being brought into concrete, actual existence by the divine power, and multiplied to an indefinite extent God's eternal knowledge of the possibility of creation is, therefore, his knowledge of his own essence, as an archetype of existences which he is capable of enduing with reality extrinsic to the reality of his own being, by his omnipotent power. The eternal possibility of creation, therefore, exists necessarily in the being and omnipotence of God. It is the imitability of the divine essence as archetype by finite essences, which are its real and extrinsic similitudes, and which are extrinsecated by an act of the divine will. The ideal or archetype of creation is evidently as necessary, as eternal, as unchangeable, as God himself. God cannot create except according to this archetype, and in creating must necessarily copy himself, to give extrinsic existence to something which is a concrete expression of the divine ideal in his own intelligence. This ideal which creation copies being, therefore, eternal in the divine intelligence, and the interior activity of the divine intelligence, or its interior ideal life, being inexplicable except in the relation of the three persons in God, creation is likewise inexplicable, except in relation to the distinct persons of the Trinity. The Son, or Word, proceeds from the contemplation of his own divine essence by the Father, who thus reproduces the perfect and coequal image of himself. In this act of contemplation, the knowledge of the archetype of creation, or of the creability of essences resembling the divine essence, is necessarily included. The expressed ideal or archetype of all possible existences is therefore in the Word, as the personal image of the Father, and he contains in himself, in an eminent and equivalent manner, infinite similitudes or images capable of being reduced to act, and made to reflect himself in a countless variety of ways. The Son thus communicates with the Father in creative omnipotence. The spiration of the Holy Spirit, from the Father and the Son, consummating the act of contemplation by which the Son is generated in love, and thus completing the interior, intelligent, or spiritual life of God within himself, is perfectly correlated to the eternal generation of the Son. The complete essence of God is communicated by the Father and the Son to the Holy Spirit, and with it creative omnipotence as necessarily included in it. The object of volition in God is identical with the object of intelligence. The essence of God as being the archetype of a possible creation, {3} that is, the ideal of creation, or the idea which creation copies, being included in the term of the divine intelligence, or in the Word, is also included in the term of the divine love, or the Holy Spirit. The ideal of creation is therefore included in the object of the eternal, intelligent, living contemplation in which the three persons of the blessed Trinity are united. The power of illimitable creation according to the divine archetype is a necessary and eternal predicate of his divine being, which he contemplates with complacency. The idea of creation is therefore as eternal as God; it is coeval with him, and the object of the ineffable communications of the divine persons with each other from eternity. God has always been pleased with this idea, as the artist delights himself in the ideal of beauty, to which he feels himself capable of giving outward form and expression in sculpture, painting, or architecture. The decree of God to reduce this possibility of creation to act, or the creative purpose, is likewise eternal; since all divine acts are in eternity, and there is no process of deliberation or progress from equilibrium to determination possible in the unchangeable God. God is actus purissimus, most pure act, and there is in him nothing potential or reducible to act which is not in act from eternity; since in him there is no past or future, and no succession, but tota, simul ac perfecta possessio vitae interminabilss, a complete, simultaneous, and perfect possession of interminable life. The necessity of his own self-existent being does not determine him to the creative act, but merely to the exercise of supreme omnipotence in choosing freely between the contemplation of creation in its ideal archetype alone, and of creation in its ideal archetype determined to outward actual expression. The inward life of God is necessary, and the interior act of beatific contemplation is of the essence of the divine being. Nothing beyond this, or outside of the interior essence of God, can be necessary, and the creation cannot therefore be necessary, or it would be included in the idea of God, and be identical with the essence of God. God does not create, therefore, by necessity of nature, but by voluntary choice. It is the only exercise of voluntary choice possible to him. It is a choice, however, which though free is determined from eternity. He might have eternally chosen the contrary, that is, to leave the possible creation unactualized in its ideal archetype. He did eternally choose, however, to create. The learned expositor of St. Thomas, F. Billuart, says that the purpose to create is communicated by the Father to the Word, concomitantly with the intelligence of the divine essence by which he is generated. [Footnote 1] Creation is no afterthought, no capricious or sportive play of omnipotence, like the jeu d'esprit which a poet throws off from a sudden impulse of fancy. The creative purpose has been the theme of the mysterious communications of the three persons of the blessed Trinity, from all eternity. In God, purpose and act, consultation and decree, are one. The decree of creation and the creative act are identical. The creative act, therefore, a parte Dei, is eternal. It is an illusion of the imagination to conceive of time as having existed before creation. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." That beginning was the first moment of time, which St. Thomas says God created when he created the universe. Time is a mere relation of finite entities to each other and to infinite being, arising from their limitation. The procession of created existences is necessarily in time, and could not have begun ab aeterno without a series actually infinite, which is impossible. Nevertheless, the first instant of created time had no created time behind it, and no series of instants behind it, intervening between it and eternity, but touched immediately on eternity. [Footnote 1: Tract. De Trin. Diss. V. Art III. ] {4} The procession of created existences from God is a finite similitude of the procession of the Son and Holy Spirit from the Father. Creation is an expression of that archetype in finite form which is expressed in the infinite image of the Word. He is "the splendor of the glory, and the express image of the substance" [Footnote 2] of the Father; and creation is a reflection of this splendor, a reduplication in miniature of this image. It is an act of the same infinite intelligence by which the infinite Word is generated. For although finite itself, it is the similitude of an infinite archetype which only infinite intelligence can possess within itself. It is also an act of the same infinite love whose spiration is the Holy Spirit. The sanctity of the divine nature consists in the perfect conformity of intelligence and volition. Volition is love, a complacency in good. Love must therefore concur with intelligence in every divine act, that it may be holy. The Holy Spirit, or impersonated love, must concur with the Father and the Son, as principle and medium, to consummate or bring to its final end the creative act. Creation is therefore essentially an act of love; proceeding from intelligence and ordained for beatitude; proceeding from God as first cause, and returning to him as final cause. [Footnote 3] [Footnote 2: Heb. i. 3.] [Footnote 3: Final cause is the same as ultimate end. It is the cause or reason of the determination of God to create.] The final cause of creation must be God, just as necessarily as its first cause must be God. The creative decree being eternal, all that constitutes its perfection, including its end and consummation, must be eternal, and must therefore be in God. He is the principle and consummation of his own act ad intra, and of his act ad extra, which imitates it perfectly. God creates, because he freely chooses to please himself by conferring the good of existence through the creative act on subjects distinct from himself. The adequate object of this volition of God is himself as the author of created good, or the term of the relation which created existences have to him as their creator. The possession of good by the creature is inseparable in the volition of God from the complacency which he has in the exercise of the power of bestowing good by creation. Although he is necessarily his own final end in creating, yet this does not prevent creation from being an act of pure and free love, but on the contrary makes it to be so; because it is as infinite love that God is the end of his creative act. A charitable man, who confers good upon another, is moved by a principle of love in himself, which causes him to take delight in the happiness of his fellow-creatures. This movement originates in himself, and returns back to himself, being consummated in the pure happiness which the exercise of love produces. Yet the possession of good by another is the real object which elicits the act of love, and it is therefore pure, disinterested charity. Love makes the good as given, and the good as received, one identical object, and unites the giver and receiver in one good. Selfishness is inordinate self-love, or a love of others merely so far as they serve as instruments of our own pleasure and advantage, and not as themselves subjects of happiness. But the just love of self and of others is identical in principle, proceeding from the amor entis, or love of being. The benignant father, prelate, or sovereign, the generous benefactor of his fellow-men, is not less disinterested in his acts on account of the pure happiness which comes back to himself, filling his heart with the purest happiness of which it is capable. Thus in God; his complacency in his creative act, or sovereign pleasure in creating, is the purest and most perfect love to the creature. That which he delights in as creator is the bestowal of existence, which participates in the infinite good of his own being. {5} The mode and degree in which existences participate in this infinite good which God distributes from the plenitude of his own being, specificates and determines their relation to him as final cause, and constitutes the ultimate term to which their creation is directed. This ultimate term or final end of creation as a whole, includes the ends for which each part taken singly is intended, and the common end to which these minor and less principal ends are all subordinated in the universal creative design. The end of a particular portion of the creation, taken singly, is attained, when it makes the final and complete explication of that similitude to the divine perfections which constitutes it in its own particular grade of existence. The end of the universe of existences is attained, when they collectively reach the maximum of excellence which God proposed to himself in creating. That is, when the similitude of the perfections of God is expressed in the universe in that variety of distinct grades, and raised to that altitude in the series of possible states of existence, which God prefixed in the beginning as the ultimate term of the creative act. Whatever the maximum of created good may be, whatever may be the predetermined limits of the universe of existence, whatever may be the highest point of elevation to which it is destined, it is evident that the accomplishment of the creative act brings the creation back to God as final cause. It has its final end in God, wherever that finality may have been fixed by the eternal will of God. This is very plain and obvious. But it leads into one of the most abstruse and, at the same time, one of the most unavoidable questions of philosophy, that which relates to the end of creation metaphysically final. What is the end of creation, or the relation of the universe of created existences to the final cause, which is metaphysically final? How far ought the actual end of created existences to coincide, or does it really coincide with the end metaphysically final? VIII. THE END OF CREATION METAPHYSICALLY FINAL—THE ASCENDING SERIES OF GRADES IN EXISTENCE—THE SUMMIT OF THIS SERIES IS A NATURE HYPOSTATICALLY UNITED TO THE DIVINE NATURE OF THE WORD—THE INCARNATION, THE CREATIVE ACT CARRIED TO THE APEX OF POSSIBILITY—THE SUPERNATURAL END TO WHICH THE UNIVERSE IS DESTINED COMPLETED IN THE INCARNATION. By the end of creation metaphysically final, is meant a relation of the universe to God as final cause which is final in the divine idea, or the one which God beholds in his own infinite intelligence as the ultimatum to which his omnipotence can carry the creative act. It is a relation which brings the creature to the closest union and similitude to the creator in the good of being which the nature of the infinite and of the finite will admit. We have already established the doctrine that God is by nature free to create or not to create, and eternally determines himself to creation by his own sovereign will to confer the pure boon of existence. We have also established, that since God determines himself from eternity to create, he necessarily creates in accordance with his own nature or essence, in accordance with the eternal archetype and idea reflected in the person of the Word; and for his own glory, or for an end in himself to which the creature is related, and which he must attain if he accomplishes his destiny. But we must inquire further, whether in determining himself to create according to the archetype contained in his own essence, he necessarily carries out this idea to the most perfect and complete actualization in the real universe? That is, does he necessarily create for an end metaphysically final, and carry the creative act to its apex, or the summit of possibility? Or is there any degree of existence or {6} grade of resemblance and relation to God as archetype which must be supposed in order to conceive of an end accomplished by creation which is worthy of the divine wisdom and goodness? Or, on the contrary, is it just as free to God to determine any limit, however low, as the term of creation, as it is to abstain from creating? For instance, can we suppose it consistent with the divine wisdom to create only a grain of sand? On the one hand, it may be said that creation being a free act, the creation of a grain of sand does not take away the liberty of the divine will to abstain from creating anything else. On the other hand, God, as being in his very essence the infinite wisdom, must have an adequate end in view, even in creating a grain of sand. It may be said that the creation of a grain of sand is truly an infinite act, and that a grain of sand represents the omnipotence of God as truly as the universe itself. Yet, it is difficult to see any reason why Almighty God should make such a representation merely for his own contemplation. For the same reason, it is equally difficult to suppose any adequate motive for the creation of a merely material universe, however extensive. The wisdom and power of God are manifested, but manifested to himself alone. The very end of such a manifestation appears to be to manifest the attributes of God to intelligent minds capable of apprehending it. Suppose the material universe filled with sentient creatures, and, although its end is thus partially fulfilled, by the enjoyment which they are capable of receiving from it, its adaptation to the manifestation of the divine attributes to intelligence is still apparently without an object. The sentient creation itself manifests the wisdom and goodness of God in such a way that it seems to require an intelligent nature to apprehend it, in order that God may be glorified in his works, and that the love which is the essential consummating principle of the creative act may be reflected back from the creation to the creator, and thus furnish an adequate term of the divine complacency. This complacency of God in himself as creator, as we have seen, is complacency in the communication of good, or pure, disinterested love delighting in the distribution of its own infinite plenitude. The material creation can only be the recipient of this love in transitu or as the instrument and means of conveying it to a subject capable of apprehending it. The sentient creation can only be the recipient of it as its most imperfect term, and as an end most inadequate to the means employed. The wisdom and goodness of God in the creative act cannot therefore be made intelligible to us, except as we consider it as including the creation of intelligent natures, capable of sharing in the intelligent life of God. As soon as the mind makes this point, it is able to perceive an adequate motive for the creation, for it apprehends a good in the finite order resembling the infinite good which is necessary and uncreated. It is approaching to a finality, for it apprehends that the rational nature is that nature in which the finality must be situated, or in which the ultimate relation of the universe to the final cause must exist. In other words, it apprehends that God has created a universe, including all generic grades of existence explicated into a vast extent and variety of subordinate genera and species multiplied in a countless number of individuals, all subordinate to a common order, and culminating in intelligent life. It apprehends the correspondence of the actual creation to its ideal archetype, or the realization in act of the highest possible nature which omnipotence can create after the resemblance of his own essence impersonated in the Word, and of every inferior nature necessary to the constitution of a universe, or a world of composite order and harmony comprising all the essential forms of existence whose infinite equivalent is in the divine idea. {7} It is evidently befitting the wisdom and grandeur of Almighty God, that the created universe should represent to created intelligence an adequate and universal similitude of his being and perfections; that its vast extent and variety, the multiplicity of distinct existences which it contains, its complicated relations and harmonies, the sublimity and beauty of its forms, the superabundance of its sentient life and enjoyment, the excellence and perfection of its intelligent creatures, should be adapted to overwhelm the mind with admiration of the might and majesty, the wisdom and glory, the goodness and love of the Creator; that, as far as possible, the procession of the divine persons within the essence of God should be copied in the procession of created existences; that the ineffable object of the divine contemplation, or the Word going forth from the infinite intelligence of the Father and returning to him in the Holy Spirit, should be represented in created similitudes by the communication of being, life, and intelligence, in every possible grade, and the completion of these in the most sublime manner of union to God of which finite nature is capable. This consummation of the creative act is worthy of the wisdom of God; for it is the most perfect act of the divine intelligence ad extra, or extrinsic to the actus purissimus by which the Word is generated in the unity of his eternal being, which is possible. It is worthy of the goodness of God; for it is the most perfect act of love ad extra, or extrinsic to the actus purissimus of the spiration of the Holy Spirit, consummating the interior life of God in eternal, self-sufficing beatitude, which omnipotence can produce. Let us now analyse the composite order of the universe, and examine its component parts singly, in reference to the final end to which this order is determined. We will then proceed to examine more closely the mode by which the end of the universe is attained in the rational nature, and the relation of this rational nature to the end metaphysically final. Theologians distinguish in the divine nature esse, vivere, and intelligere, or being, life, and intelligence, as constituting the archetype of the inanimate, animated, and rational orders of creation respectively. The inanimate order, composed of the aggregate of material substances, imitates the divine esse, considered as concrete and real imply; prescinding the idea of vital movement. It imitates the divine being in the lowest and most imperfect manner. The good that is in it can only be apprehended and made to contribute to the happiness of conscious existence when a higher order of existence is created. God loves it only as an artist loves an aqueduct, a building, or a statue, as the medium of contributing to the well-being or pleasure of his creatures. Its hidden essence is impervious to our intelligence. The utmost that we can distinctly conceive of its nature is that it is a vis activa, an active force, producing sensible effects or phenomena. This appears to be the opinion which is more common and gaining ground both among physical and metaphysical philosophers. [Footnote 4] By active force is meant a simple, indivisible substance, which exists in perpetual activity. It is material substance, because its activity is blind, unconscious, and wholly mechanical, producing by physical necessity sensible effects, such as extension, resistance, etc. Though not manifest to intelligence in its hidden nature and operation, it is apprehensible by the intelligence through the effects which it operates, as something intelligible. Its sensible {8} phenomena are not illusions, or mere subjective forms of the sensibility, but are objectively real. Nevertheless, our conception of them must be corrected and sublimated by pure reason, in order to correspond to the reality or substance which stands under them. Our imaginary conceptions [Footnote 5] represent only the complex of phenomena presented to the senses. They represent matter as composite, because it is only through composition, or the interaction of distinct material substances upon each other, that the effects and phenomena are produced which the senses present to the imagination. The substance, or active force which stands under them, is concluded by a judgment of the reason. Reason cannot arrest itself at the composite as something ultimate. The common, crude conception of extended bulk as the ultimate material reality, is like the child's conception of the surface of the earth as the floor of the universe having nothing below it, and of the sky as its roof; or like the Indian conception of an elephant supporting the world, who stands himself on the back of a tortoise, who is on the absolute mud lying at the bottom of all things. It is the essential operation of reason to penetrate to the altissima causa, or deepest cause of things, and not to stop at anything as its term which implies something else as the reason or principle of its existence. It cannot therefore stop at anything short of the altissima causa, in the order of material second causes, any more than it can stop short of the cause of all causes, or the absolute first cause. That which is ultimate in the composite must be simple and indivisible in itself, and divided from everything else, or it cannot be an original and primary component. For, however far the analysis of a composite may be carried, it may be carried further, unless it has been analysed to its simple constituent parts which are not themselves composite, and therefore simple. It is of no avail to take refuge in the notion of the infinite divisibility of matter. For, apart from the absurdity of the infinite series contained in this notion, one of these infinitesimal entities could certainly be divided from all others by the power of God and made intelligible to the human understanding. And the very question under discussion is, What is the intelligible essence of this ultimate entity? [Footnote 4: The philosophical works of Leibnitz may be consulted for a thorough exposition of this doctrine. Also the Philosophical Manuals of F. Rothenflue, S.J., and the Abbé Branchereau of the Society of St. Sulpice. The philosophical articles of Dr. Brownson in his Review contain some incidental arguments of great value on the same topic. P. Dalgairns of the London Oratory, also treats, with the ability and clearness which characterize all his writings, of this subject, at considerable length, in his work on the Holy Communion.] [Footnote 5: By "imaginary conceptions" is not meant fanciful, unreal conceptions, but conceptions of the imaginative as and intellectual facility which reflects the real.] Another proof that material substance is something intelligible and not something sensible, is, that it has a relation to spiritual substance, and therefore something cognate to spirit in its essence. The Abbé Branchereau defines relation: "Proprietatem qua duo aut plura entia ita se habeat ad invicem, ut unius conceptus conceptum alterius includat aut supponat." "A property by which two or more entities are so constituted in reference to one another, that the conception of one includes or suppose the conception of the other." [Footnote 6] [Footnote 6: Praelect. Philos. De Relat. Entis. Num. 108, 8.] The conception of spirit must contain the equivalent of the conception of matter, and the conception of matter must contain something the equivalent of which is contained in spirit. Else, they must be related as total opposites, which leads to the absurd conclusion that in the essence of God, which is the equivalent of all finite essences, total opposites and contradictions are contained. The same is affirmed by F. Billuart after the scholastic principles of the Thomists. "Supremum autem naturae inferioris attingitur a natura superiori." "The summit of the inferior nature is touched by the superior nature." [Footnote 7] Everything copies the essence of God and exists by its participation in his being. There is no reason therefore for any other distinction in creatures except the distinction of gradation in a series, or the distinction of a more or less intense grade of participation in being. God cannot create anything totally {9} dissimilar to himself, because the sole archetype imitable in the creative act, whose similitude is externised in creation, is himself. All things therefore being similar to his essence are similar to the essence of one another, each to each, each grade in the ascending series containing the equivalent of all below it. [Footnote 7: De Augelis. Diss. II. Art. I.] The material creation represents the real being of God, as distinguishable in thought from his life and intelligence, in an express and distinct manner. The being of God is the archetype of the material creation, and contains a reason why the material order was necessary to perfect the universe. All geometrical principles are intuitively seen by the reason to be eternal truths. As eternal and necessary they are included in the object of the divine contemplation. The complete and adequate object of the divine contemplation is the divine essence. It is therefore in his own essence that God sees these necessary geometrical truths, not as we see them, but as identical with the truth of his own being in some way above our human understanding. These eternal geometrical principles are the principles which lie at the basis of the structure of the material universe, which therefore represents something in the divine essence not immediately and distinctly represented by the spiritual world. Without pretending to define precisely what the material universe represents as equivalently and eminently contained in the divine essence, we are only uttering a truism when we affirm that what man in his present state principally apprehends through it, is the idea of the immensity of the divine being. The material universe, which has a quasi infinitude to our feeble and limited imagination, is an image of God as possessing boundless infinitude, and including an immeasurable ocean of perfections. It is only when the mind becomes so overwhelmed with the magnitude of the creation as to forget its relation to the creator, that its judgment is erroneous. And the error of judgment does not consist in appreciating the material universe too highly, but in appreciating it too little, that is, in not appreciating its highest relation to the spiritual order, with which it is cognate in its essence. The physical, visible world is not to be despised. It is no illusion, no temporary phase of reality, no perishable substance, but real, indestructible, and of endless duration. Its essence and its relation to the final cause are incomprehensible. Its essence is, however, so far intelligible that we can understand it to be a real entity, bearing a similitude to the divine nature, endued with active force as a physical second cause, through which wonderful phenomena are produced in which the divine perfections are manifested. Its end is also intelligible as subordinated to the higher grades of existence and to the grand composite order of the universe. The next grade of existence is that which represents the vivere of the divine essence, or presents an animated and living similitude of the life of God. The distinct type of this grade is in the animal world, but it is connected with the inanimate creation by an intermediate link, namely, that which is constituted by the world of vegetative life. This world of vegetative life represents the principle of life in an inchoate form, and ministers to the higher life of sentient existences, by furnishing them with the sustenance and food of their physical life, and contributing to their enjoyment by the beauty of its forms. Thus far, the creation is merely good as means to an end, or as the substratum of that order of existence which is capable of apprehending and enjoying good. In the sentient creation, existence becomes a good in itself, or a good capable of terminating the divine will. The countless multitudes of sentient creatures are created that they may enjoy life, and attain their particular end in this enjoyment. Nevertheless this {10} particular end is a minor and less principal end in reference to the general end of the created universe. To this more general end the sentient order contributes, by increasing the beauty and perfection of the whole, and ministering to the happiness of the higher, intelligent order. This third and highest grade of existence represents the divine intelligere. It includes all rational natures, or intelligent spirits, created after the similitude of that in the divine essence which is the highest archetype imitable in finite existences. According to the regular series of gradation, man comes next in order above the animal world, and should be first considered. There is a particular reason, however, which will appear hereafter, for considering the angels first. The angels represent most perfectly the order of pure intelligence as distinct from the irrational creation. By their nature they are at the summit of existence, and participate in the most immediate and elevated mode which can be connatural to any created essence, in the divine perfections. The perfection of the universe requires that it should contain a grade of existence imitating that which is highest in the essence of God so far as it is an archetype of a possible creation. There is nothing conceivable in the divine essence higher than its intelligence or pure spirituality. The divine life is consummated in the most pure act of intelligent spirit, which is the procession of the Word and Holy Spirit from the Father. This divine procession within the divine essence being the archetype of the procession of created existences without it, the latter ought to imitate the former by producing that which represents the intelligent act of God as closely as possible. This intelligent act of God being consummated in love, or complacency in that infinite good which is the object of intelligence, creation, which imitates and represents it, ought to contain existences which are the recipients of love and are capable of its exercise in the highest possible manner which can be essential to a created nature. The creative act would therefore be most imperfect and incomplete if it stopped short with the material or even the sentient creation. Supposing that God determines to carry out his creative act by creating a universe or a world in which the potential is actualized in a universal manner by representing the esse, vivere, and intelligere of the divine essence in every generic mode, this universe must evidently contain intelligent spirits. Intelligent spirit alone can apprehend the image of God in creation, apprehend itself as made in the image of God, apprehend the infinite attributes of God by the intuition of reason, and become fully conscious of the good of existence, capable of enjoying it, and of returning to the creator an act of love, worship, and glorification, for his great boon of goodness conferred in creation. Creation is an overflow of the plenitude of good in the divine being proceeding from the complacency of God in the communication of this good. This communication can be made in a manner which appears to our reason in any way adequate to terminate the divine complacency, only by the communication of intelligence. The type of intelligent nature is most perfectly actualized in the angels, whose essence and operation are purely spiritual, so far as created, finite nature and operation can be purely spiritual. Whatever is intelligible or conceivable of finite, intellectual activity as connatural, or intrinsically included in the essence of created spirit, is to be attributed to them. The notion of any composition of nature in the angels, or hypostatic union of their pure, spiritual substance with another material substance distinct from it, is wholly gratuitous. It destroys the distinctive type of the angelic nature and the specific difference between it and human nature. It has no foundation in reason except the baseless supposition that a distinct {11} corporeal organization is necessary to the exercise of created intelligence. Nor has it any solid support from tradition or extrinsic authority. Some of the fathers are cited as maintaining it. Their language is, however, for the most part explained by the best theologians as indicating not the union of the angelic spirit to a distinct subtle corporeity, but the existence of something analogous to matter in the angelic spirit itself. The angels are called corporeal existences, because their essence is extrinsic to the divine essence, and extrinsecation attains its extreme limit in matter; also because their potentiality is not completely reduced to act, and their operation is limited by time and space. This appears to be also the notion advocated by Leibnitz, and the exposition of the nature of material substance given above, in accordance with his philosophy, removes all difficulty from the subject. The conception of the angelic essence as completely free from all composition with a distinct material substance, is also at least more evidently in harmony with the decree Firmiter of the Fourth Council of Lateran, than any other. "Firmiter credimus et simpliciter confitemur, quod unus est solus verus Deus aeternus. . . . . qui sua omnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis, utramque de nihilo condidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam; ac deinde humanam quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore constitutam." "We firmly believe and confess with simplicity, that there is one only true eternal God . . . . who by his own almighty power simultaneously from the beginning of time made out of nothing both parts of the creation, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelical and the mundane: and afterwards the human creature, as it were of a nature in common with both, constituted from spirit and body." Nevertheless, by the principle of the Thomist philosophy above cited, that the lowest point of any nature touches the highest of the nature beneath it, there may be something even in the spiritual operation of the angels cognate to material operation, and coming within the sphere of the sensible. We will venture to give a little sample of scholastic theology on this head from Billuart. "It may be said with reason that the angels operate two things in the celestial empyrean. The first is the illumination by which the intrinsic splendor of the empyrean is perfected, according to St. Thomas and various testimonies of Holy Scripture in which certain places are said to have been sensibly illuminated by the angels. For although an angel cannot immediately produce alterative qualities, as heat or cold, he can produce light, because light is a celestial quality and the highest of corporeal qualities, and the summit of the inferior nature is touched by the superior nature. "In the second place, the angels operate on the empyrean heaven, so that it may more perfectly and efficaciously communicate a suitable perpetuity and stability to all inferior things. For as the supreme angels who are permanently stationed there have an influence over the intermediate and lowest angels who are sent forth, although they themselves are not sent forth, so the empyrean heaven, although it is itself motionless, communicates to those things which are in motion the requisite stability and permanence in their being. And that this may be done more efficaciously and permanently the angels aid by their operation in it. For, the whole universe is one in unity of order; and this unity of order consists in that by a certain arrangement corporeal things are regulated by those which are spiritual, and inferior bodies by the superior; therefore, as this order demands that the empyrean spheres influence the inferior ones, it demands also that the angels influence the empyrean sphere." [Footnote 8] [Footnote 8: De Angelis. Diss. IL Art. I.] {12} Whatever may be thought of this as philosophy, it is certainly brilliantly poetical, as is the whole treatise of the learned Dominican from which it is extracted. The physical theory of the universe maintained by the scholastics was a magnificent conception, although it has been supplanted by a sounder scientific hypothesis. There appears to be no reason, however, for rejecting the notion of angelic influence over the movement of the universe. The modern hypothesis of a central point of revolution for the universe being substituted for the ancient one of the empyrean, the entire scholastic theory of the influence of the angels upon the exterior order of the universe may remain untouched in its intrinsic probability. The consideration of man has been reserved, because, although he is inferior to the angels in intelligence, he sums up in himself the three grades of existence, and therefore the consideration of the three as distinct ought to precede the consideration of their composition in the complex human nature. The human nature includes in itself the material, vegetative, animal, and intelligent natures, which represent respectively the divine esse, vivere, and intelligere. For this reason man is called a microcosm or universe in miniature. In certain special perfections of the material, sentient, and intelligent natures, he is inferior to each; but the combination of all gives him a peculiar excellence and completeness, and qualifies him to stand in the most immediate relation to the final cause of the universe, or to the consummation of its end. What this end is, we must now more closely examine. It is plain at first sight that this end must be...