Chapter IX (6)

When M. Perrin inquired of the natives who reared these monuments, they replied the Gai; and by the Gai they meant some barbarous white men, who came from the land of perpetual snow, who were as tall as three Siamese, and whose fingers and toes, though articulated, were not separate from one another. They rode on horses double the size of those now seen, but bones of which are often found in the earth. Impious men were these Gai; they hunted elephants, and feasted on their flesh; they offered sacrifices of blood to their gods. Chinese merchants informed the general that monuments of the same huge description are to be found in the north and west of China, and that the people there call them "giants' stones." The traveller in Central America is, we know, sometimes amazed to find monstrous blocks evidently hewn by the hands of men, yet hundreds of leagues distant from any calcareous strata. Men in the neighborhood who are learned in other matters are quite at fault when their opinion respecting them is asked. Some will tell you that the nature of the soil is changed from what it was before the conquest, and others that the Incas had means of transport unknown to us. Probably there are quarries of granite under the surface of the savannas; but how the Indians could extract the stone without gunpowder or machinery is a problem we are unable to solve.

Important discoveries are not always due to scientific and discerning men. The earliest accounts of anything new and surprising are likely to be overdrawn; but they are not the less valuable from this circumstance. Their very exaggeration may stimulate inquiry, and thus be an advantage rather than otherwise in the outset. It was a poor Tungusian fisherman who discovered the most perfect specimen of the mammoth near the mouth of the river Lena, nearly seventy years ago, and his sale of the creature's tusks for fifty rubles led to an accurate knowledge of the monster's structure and habits, as well as to a great extension of the trade in ivory derived from mammoths' tusks. General Perrin's testimony appears to us well worthy of attention, in spite of its being highly colored here and there. It may, on the whole, fall far short of the reality, and may lead to the solution of questions of importance in oriental history.

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Original

On the Planting of the Cross.

Dig deep: the tree will surely grow,
And spread its branches far and wide;
No tree had e'er such fruit to show,
Nor with its shade so much to hide.

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{140}

Miscellany.

_The Cathedral Library at Cologne._--In the year 1794, when the French Revolutionary army advanced to the Rhine, the valuable library attached to the Cologne Cathedral was conveyed for safety to Darmstadt. Among its treasures are one hundred and ninety volumes, chiefly in manuscript. A careful catalogue of them was made so far back as 1752, by Harzheim, a learned Jesuit, under the title of "An Historical and Critical Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the Library of the Metropolitan Church of Cologne." This valuable collection dates as far back as Charlemagne. It was commenced by Hildebold, Archbishop of Cologne, and archchancellor of that monarch, in the year 783. It was considerably increased by gifts from Pope Leo the Third to the Emperor Charles in 804. The Archbishops Heribertus, Evergerus, Hanno, and their successors, continued the collection by the purchase of rare manuscripts and copies of ancient parchments. In the year 1568, Hiltorp, in the preface of his work "On Divine Offices," dedicated to Archbishop Salentin, alludes more than once to this rare collection. We might quote many other authorities to authenticate the manuscripts. Jacob Pamelius, in a work published at Cologne in 1577, entitled "The Liturgy of the Latin Church" (who is quoted by Harzheim in his book "The old Codexes of Cologne"), distinctly gives their date and origin. The collection consists of eight parts, namely: 1. Bibles; 2. The Fathers; 3. Ecclesiastical Law; 4. Writers on Sacrifices, Sacraments, Offices of the Church, and Liturgies; 5. Histories; 6. Ascetics; 7. Scholastics; 8. Philosophical, Rhetorical, and Grammatical writers. Some of these manuscripts are richly illuminated, and some set with precious stones. The first codex dates from the ninth century, if not earlier, which is indicated by the capital letters, which are in gold. The seventh codex contains the Gallic, Roman, Hebrew, and Greek Psalmody, as edited by St. Jerome--"a most rare and valuable codex." The twelfth codex, in elegant folio, adorned with many illuminations and annotations of the eighth century, comprises the four Gospels. Codex one hundred and forty-three deserves particular mention. As frontispiece, there is a portrait of Archbishop Evergerus in his episcopal robes. It is richly illuminated and set with jewels. The above quotations, which we have translated from the Latin, in which language the catalogue is written, will suffice to give such of our readers as are bibliophiles some idea of a treasures which will shortly be restored to the shelves of the library attached to the Cologne Cathedral. We may mention another restoration which is on the eve of accomplishment. The celebrated collection of pictures, known as the Dusseldorf collection, will shortly be returned to Prussia, negotiations having already commenced for that purpose. The collection, which comprises some of the finest specimens of the German and Dutch schools, is at present at Munich.--_All the Year Round_.

_On the Movements of the Heart_.--In a recent memoir Dr. Sibson describes his experiments on the movements of the heart, which were made on the ass under the influence of wourali, and on dogs subjected to chloroform. He found that the contraction of the ventricles takes please in every direction toward a region of rest, which in the right ventricle corresponds with the anterior papillary muscle in the left ventricle, with a situation about midway between apex and base. Simultaneously with the universal contraction of the ventricles there is universal distention of both auricles, the pulmonary artery, and the aortae. The total amount of blood contained in the heart and great vessels is the same during both systole and diastole. During the ventricular contraction, however, the distribution of the blood, lessened toward the region of the apex, balances itself by being increased in that of the base, since the auricles and great vessels are enlarged, not only toward the ventricles, but also outward and upward. During ventricular dilatation the reverse takes place.

{141}

_The Physics of a Meteorite_.-In a recent note in the proceedings of the Royal Society, the Rev. Samuel Haughton, of Trinity College, Dublin, gives a very graphic account of the fall of an aërolite. The fire-ball was seen by two peasants, who have given the following written statement of their observations; and since the facts described by these ignorant men correspond exactly with the facts theoretically believed to present themselves, we think the description of the highest interest. It is headed, The Statement of Eye-witnesses, and runs as follows: "I, John Johnson, of the parish of Clonoulty, near Cashel, Tipperary, was walking across my potato-garden at the back of my house, in company with Michael Falvy and William Furlong, on August 12, 1865, at 7 P.M., when I heard a clap, like the shot out of a cannon, very quick and not like thunder; this was followed by a buzzing noise, which continued for about a quarter of an hour, when it came over our heads, and, looking up, we saw an object falling down in a slanting direction; we were frightened at the speed, which was so great that we could scarcely notice it; but after it fell we proceeded to look for it, and found it at a distance of forty yards, half buried in the ground, where it had struck the top of a potato-drill. We were some time looking for it (a longer time than that during which we heard the noise). On taking up the stone we found it warm (milk warm), but not enough to be inconvenient. The next day it was given up to Lord Hawarden."--_Popular Science Review_.

_The Earth and Moon in Collision_.--Mr. James Croll, who some time since asserted that, owing to peculiar solar and lunar action, the above extraordinary condition will eventually take place, has just published a paper reasserting the truth of his proposition. The theory was opposed by the astronomer royal and Professor William Thomson, who showed that, owing to the position of the tidal wave, the moon is drawn not exactly in the direction of the earth's centre of gravity, but a little to the east of that centre, and that in consequence of this she is made to recede from the earth. Her orbit is enlarged and her angular motion diminished. This argument does not, in Mr. Croll's opinion, affect his view. The conditions described by Professor Thomson and the astronomer royal do not in the least degree prevent the consumption of the _vis viva_ of the earth's motion round the common centre of gravity, although to a certain extent, at least, it must prevent this consumption from diminishing the moon's distance, and increasing her angular motion. But as this consumption of _vis viva_ will go on through indefinite ages, if the present order of things remains unchanged, the earth and the moon must therefore ultimately come together.--_Ibid_.

[Transcribers note: The moon is _receding_ from the earth at about 4
cm. per year, based on _lunar laser ranging_ (2015).]

_Sanskrit Library_.--Prof. Goldstücker lately communicated to a scientific meeting at London the intelligence he had received from Lahore of the existence in that city of a most extensive Sanskrit Library in the possession of Pandit Radha Kishen. From an examination of the catalogue that had been sent to him, he was able to state that that library contained a great many rare and valuable works, some of which had hitherto been supposed to be lost. He had also been promised catalogues of similar collections of Sanskrit MS. in other parts or India, of the contents of which he would keep the Society informed as they came to hand. The paper read was by Prof. Max Müller, "On the Hymns of the Gaupàyanas, and the Legend of King Asamâti." After some remarks on the proper use to be made of Sanskrit MSS., in general, and on the principles of criticism by which the writer was guided in his edition of Sàyana's Commentary on the Rig-veda, he proceeded to show by an example the characters of the three classes of MSS. he had made use of, and the manner in which the growth of legends was favored by the traditional interpretation of the Vedic Hymns. He had selected for this purpose the four hymns of the Gaupâyanas (Mandala x., 57-60), and the Legend of King Asamâti quoted by Sàyana in explanation of them; and then related the latter, according to the various forms in which it has been handed down to us, from the simple account given in the Tàndya Brahmana and Katyàyana's Sarvânukrama, to the more expanded one in the Satyâyanaka Brahmana, the Brehaddevatà and the Nitiananjarî. He then gives a double translation of the hymns in question--one in strict conformity to Sàyana's interpretation, and another in accordance with his own principles of translation--the latter as a specimen of what he intends to give in his forthcoming translation of the whole of the Rig-veda. {142} The writer concluded with a _resumé_ of the different points of interest which these hymns, though by no means fair specimens of the best religious poetry of the Brahmans, present; the healing powers of the hands, the constant dwelling on divinities which govern the life of man, and the clear conception of a soul as separate from the body--of a soul after death going to Yama Vanasvata, the ruler of the departed, or hovering about heaven or earth ready to be called back to a new life.--_Ibid_

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Original

New Publications.

A Conversation on Union Among Christians;
The Gospels Door of Mercy;
What Shall I do to Become a Christian?
The Church and Children;
A Voice In The Night, Or Lessons of the Sick Room;
The Gospel Church;
Who is Jesus Christ?

Tracts Nos. 13-19;
Catholic Publication Society,
145 Nassau St., New-York

The number of Tracts issued and distributed by the Catholic Publication Society through direct sales and the aid of auxiliary societies is so great that its noble and zealous project must, by this time, have become a subject of interest to every Catholic in the country. It is hardly one year since the first steps were taken to establish it, and already over _half a million_ Tracts have been distributed through the length and breadth of the land. This distribution goes on increasing; that made in the month of February alone amounted to _seventy-five thousand_. Large orders are constantly coming in for the books and tracts issued by the Society from the Rt. Rev. Bishops, the Rev. Clergy, and zealous laymen of every condition of life.

Encouraged by these marks of universal approbation, and accredited with the high sanction of our late Plenary Council, the Society will enter upon its work this spring, upon a scale commensurate with the increasing demands made upon it for its publications and the magnitude of its enterprise. A Publication House will be obtained, supplied with its own types and presses and bindery, which will enable it to conduct its operations with greater rapidity, and furnish its publications at the lowest possible cost. Not a few have expressed themselves surprised at its present unparalleled success, and are anxious to know by what means so much has been accomplished in so short a time.

For the information of the readers of the CATHOLIC WORLD, who, we are sure, are all deeply interested in the work, it may be stated that a good fund was contributed by a number of wealthy gentlemen, principally in New York, that enabled it to begin its work, and which has been increased by the proceeds of lectures delivered in the diocese of Boston, Albany, and New-York, the aid of auxiliary societies, and the sales of tracts and books.

It cannot be denied that within even the last five years, our holy religion has made great advances in the spiritual care of its own children, in the multiplication of churches, the foundation of seminaries for the priesthood, the greater interest shown in the working of Sunday schools and religious associations of both sexes, as well as in the numerous conversions that have been made from the different denominations of Protestants, and in the earnest consideration of the claims of the Catholic Church manifested by the people of our country, of whom so many have hitherto been either indifferent to, or ignorant of it.

The Catholic Publication Society being by its very character a ready arm for the diffusion of Catholic truth, must therefore commend itself to the warmest sympathies and generous co-operation of every Catholic who rejoices to see his holy faith spreading abroad and winning a multitude of souls to a knowledge of Christian truth and the practice of Christian virtues. In fact, the Society owes its existence to the ardently cherished wish of a large class for such an organization, which found an almost simultaneous expression. {143} Letters of encouragement and inquiry are being constantly received from the venerable bishops and clergy, heads of literary and benevolent associations, superintendents of Sunday-schools, and from different individuals in the humblest walks of life. The news of the enterprise has even penetrated to some of the most distant parts of the world; as is shown by a letter of sympathy containing an offer of inter-communion sent to the Society by a zealous priest in Bombay, India, who had started a Publication Society in that far-off city.

It may not be judged out of place to repeat here the article of the constitution referring to the conditions of membership. It will show any of our readers who desire to become copartners in this great work, and thereby secure for themselves the blessing of having aided in the "instruction of many unto salvation," how they may practically bring that aid to bear upon the realization of their pious desires.

"Any person paying, at one time, one hundred dollars into the treasury of
the Society, may by request, become a 'Patron,' and shall be entitled to
receive three dollars' worth of the Society's publications annually.

"Any person paying fifty dollars at one time may become a Life Member,
and shall be entitled to receive two dollars' worth of the Society's
publications annually.

"Any person paying thirty dollars may become a member for five years, and
shall be entitled to receive one dollar's worth of the Society's
publications for five years.

"Persons paying five dollars at one time shall be members for one year,
and be entitled to receive of the Society's publications to the value of
half a dollar."

It is plain, however, that while many will be found to associate themselves as members of the General Society, in order to carry on the work in other places, auxiliary societies should be formed which receive all the publications at cost price. It is to the rapid formation of these auxiliary associations that those many zealous friends of the work should turn their attention. The same object will also be gained by making it one of the labors of Societies of St. Vincent de Paul, guilds, confraternities, sodalities, and the like.

We have seen many communications in which inquiries have been made in reference to the publication of illustrated tracts and Sunday-school books, and the establishment of a cheap and attractive Sunday-school paper. The Society has all these objects in contemplation, and will proceed to their execution as soon as the Publication House is in operation.

We would suggest, therefore, that each and every one who has this matter at heart, will make personal efforts to aid the Society in the establishment of the Publication House, by sending at once their own names as members with as many more as they can procure, and take measures to found at least one auxiliary society for home distribution in the community where they reside.

Our people have shown the greatest interest in the diffusion of Catholic literature, and are ever ready to make heroic sacrifices, if necessary, for any work of charity; and in the present aspect of affairs it must be evident that one of the most urgent calls upon our Christian zeal and love is that of bringing instruction home to the thousands who need it, and who, experience has proved, receive it gladly. One little thought we cannot refrain from expressing, suggested by a remark made in our hearing, that it will be for us and our children, when time shall show us and them the happy fruits of this truly Apostolic work, a most consoling reflection that we were among those who first encouraged and aided it, and bade it "God speed" as it started upon its high and glorious mission.

L'echo De La France.
Revue étrangère de Science et de Littérature.
Montreal: Louis Ricard, Directeur.

By the Canadian public and the French-speaking portion of our population of the States, this well-edited eclectic has, we are glad to know, received a hearty welcome and a liberal support. It purposes to afford its readers a choice selection of articles culled from the best European magazines and reviews, chiefly those of France, and it certainly has accomplished its task hitherto with much ability. It is not to everyone we would care to confide the duty of choosing our literary repast from the current literature of the day; and, to anyone at all acquainted with the French periodicals, it must be evident that it would require a caterer, who is himself possessed of high intellectual culture, to make from their pages a judicious and worthy selection of articles suited to the varied tastes of the American literary public. {144} The "Echo de la Franco" is happily conducted by a gentleman upon whose judgment and taste in this matter we can confidently rely, if we may judge from the numbers already issued.

We have only to add that it has our best wishes, and we recommend it especially to the notice of the readers of the CATHOLIC WORLD who are acquainted with the French language.

Practical Hints On The Art Of Illumination.
By Alice Donlevy.
New-York: A. D. F. Randolph. 1867.

Together with this useful and elegant publication we have received a set of plates, designed by the same author, to illustrate the poem of Miss Rossetti, called "Consider."

The work is intended, as we are told in its preface, to instruct those who wish to study illumination; to assist those who, having commenced, find many stumbling-blocks in the way, and require aid in the minutiae of the art; to furnish those who can paint, yet are unable to design with outlines, to illuminate, etc. This beautiful art is fast becoming with our young people a favorite recreation, and, with not a few, a remunerative study. To such as desire to engage in its pursuit, whether for pleasure or profit, we heartily recommend this volume as one calculated to give them much desirable information on the subject.

Three Phases of Christian Love,
By Lady Herbert. L. Kehoe. 1867.

We have received advanced sheets of this volume, which is to be presented to the public in a few days. It is not our purpose to speak of it at length in this place, but reserve it for a more extended and appreciative review which we hope to give of it in the future pages of the CATHOLIC WORLD.

It is a remarkable book; the purity and beauty of its style fitly according with the saintly biographies which the distinguished authoress has so happily chosen to illustrate the three phases of a Christian woman's life and love. We have given as the life of St. Monica as the mother; of Victorine de Galard Terraube, a young French lady of rank, as the maiden; and of the Venerable Mère Devos, superior of the Sisters of Charity, as the religious. It is a book we would wish to see placed in the hands of every woman in our country; for, whatever be her position in society, or whichsoever state of life she may have chosen, she will find in it an example of high Christian and womanly perfection, the view of which must claim her homage, and in turn exalt and refine her own character.

Mr. Kehoe, in republishing Bentley's superb English edition, offers us a volume of equal beauty and finish. As a publication it must claim the attention of every connoisseur and lover of first-class books.

Lauretta and the Fables,
Compiled by the author of Philip Hartley, etc.

Alice; or, The Rose of the Black Forest.
By the author of Grace Morton, etc.

Three Petitions. A tale of Poland and
Trevor Hall. A Christmas story.

Conrad and Gertrude: the Little Wanderers.
Peter F. Cunningham, Catholic Bookseller, Philadelphia.

These four 16mo volumes form a very acceptable addition to our list of Catholic tales for children. Their appearance is creditable to the publisher. We hope those who have ability and leisure will furnish a larger number of such stories for Sunday-school libraries.

Books Received.

From Leypoldt & Holt. New-York.

The Journal of Maurice de Guérin,
with an essay by Matthew Arnold,
and a memoir by Sainte-Beuve. Edited by
G. S. Trebutien. Translated by Edward Thornton
Fisher. 1 vol. 12mo., pp. 153. Price $1.25.

Easy German Reading after a New System, by George Storme.
Revised by Edward A. Open. 1 vol. l2mo, pp.206. Price $1.

From P. F. Cunningham. Philadelphia.

Conrad and Gertrude;
The Three Petitions, a Tale of Poland;
Alice, or the Rose of the Black Forest;
Lauretta and the Fables.
4 vols. of the Young Catholics Library,
pp. 143, 141, 124, 126
Price 50 cents each.

From D. Appleton, New-York.

The Merchant of Berlin;
an Historical Novel L. Mühlbach.
Translated from the German by Amory Coflin, M.D.
pp. 394. Price $2.

Berlin and San Souci; or, Frederick the Great
and Friends. An Historical
Romance. By L. Mühlbach. Translated from
the German by Mrs. Chapman and her daughters.
pp. 391. Price $2.

From J. J. O'Connor & Co., Newark.

The exclusion of Protestant Worship from the City of Rome.
By the Rev. George H, Doane, pastor of St. Patrick's
Cathedral, Newark, N.J. Pamphlets. Price 20 cents.

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{145}

The Catholic World.

Vol. V., No. 26.--May, 1867.

Original.

An Old Quarrel.

Those of our readers who have studied with the care their importance demands the papers on the "Problems of the Age" which have appeared in this magazine, can not have failed to perceive that the great questions now in discussion between Catholics and non-Catholics lie, for the most part, in the field of philosophy, and require for their solution a broader and profounder philosophy than any which obtains general currency outside of the church. We think, also, that no one can read and understand them without finding the elements or fundamental principles of a really Catholic philosophy, which, while it rests on scientific truth for its basis, enables us to see the innate correspondence or harmony of reason and faith, science and revelation, and nature and grace--the principles of a philosophy, too, that is no modern invention or new-fangled theory which is brought forward to meet a present emergency, but in substance the very philosophy that has always been held by the great fathers and doctors of the church, and professed in Catholic schools and seminaries.

Yet there is one point which the writer necessarily touches upon and demonstrates as far as necessary to his purpose, which was theological rather than purely philosophical, that, without interfering in the least with his argument, already complete, may admit of a more special treatment and further development. We refer to the objectivity and reality of ideas. The reader acquainted with the history of philosophy in the middle ages will perceive at once that the question of the reality of ideas asserted by the writer takes up the subject-matter of the old quarrel of the nominalists, conceptualists, and realists, provoked by the Proslogium of St. Anselm, archbishop of Canterbury, in the eleventh century, really one of the profoundest thinkers, greatest theologians, and ingenious philosophers of any age.

St. Anselm wished to render an account to himself of his faith, and to know and understand the reasons for believing in God. He did not doubt the existence of God; he indeed held that God cannot be thought not to be; he did not seek to know the arguments which prove that God is, that he might believe, but that he might the better know and understand what he already believed. {146} Thus he says: "Necque enim quero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam. Nam et hoc credo quia nisi credidero, non intelligam." We believe that we may understand, and we cannot understand unless we believe--a great truth which modern speculators do not recognize. They reverse the process, and seek to know that they may believe, and hold that the first step to knowledge is to doubt or to deny.

In his Monologium, St. Anselm had proved that God is, and determined his attributes by way of induction from the ideas in the human mind, but it would seem not wholly to his satisfaction, or, at least, that in writing that work he discovered, or thought he discovered, a briefer and more conclusive, method of demonstrating that God is. He had already proved by psychological analysis, in the way Cousin and others have since done, that the human mind thinks most perfect being, a greater than which cannot be thought. This he had done in his Monologium. In his Proslogium he starts with this idea, that of _ens perfectissimum_, which is, in fact, the idea of God. "The fool says in his heart there is no God;" not because he has no idea of God, not because he does not think most perfect being, a greater than which cannot be thought, but because he does not understand that, if he thinks it, such being really is. It is greater and more perfect to be _in re_ than it is to be only _in intellectu_, and therefore the most perfect being existing only in the mind is not a greater than which cannot be thought, for I can think most perfect existing _in re_. Moreover, if most perfect being does not exist _in re_, my thought is greater and more perfect than reality, and consequently I can rise above God, and judge him, _quod valde est absurdum_.

Leibnitz somewhere remarks that this argument is conclusive, if we first prove that most perfect being is possible; but Leibnitz should have remembered that the argument _ab esse ad posse_ is always valid, and that God is both his own possibility and reality. Cousin accepts the argument, and says St. Anselm robbed Descartes of the glory of having produced it. But it is evident to every philosophical student that the validity of the argument, if valid it is, depends on the fact that ideas are objective and real, that is, depends on the identity of the ideal and the real.

Roscelinus, or Rosceline, did not concede this, and pronounced the argument of St. Anselm worthless. Confounding, it would seem, ideas with universals, he denied their reality, and maintained that they are mere words without anything either in the mind or out of it to respond to them, and thus founded Nominalism, substantially what is now called materialism. He rejects the universals and the categories of the peripatetics, and recognizes only individual existences and words, which words, when not the names of individual things, are void of meaning. Hence he denied the whole ideal or intelligible world, and admitted only sensibles. Hobbes and Locke were nominalists, and so is the author of Mill's Logic. Mr. Herbert Spencer is a nominalist, but is better described as an atomist of the school of Leucippus and Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius. We know very little of Rosceline, except that he lived in the eleventh century, was born in Brittany, the native land of Abelard and Descartes, and incurred, for some of his speculations concerning the Trinity, the censures of the church. None of his writings have come down to us, and we know his doctrine only from the representations of others.

Guillaume de Champeaux, in the following century, who professed philosophy for a time at St. Victor, and was subsequently Archbishop of Paris, is the founder, in the middle ages, of what is called Realism, and which counts among its disciples Duns Scotus and William of Occam. {147} He is said to have maintained the exact opposite of Rosceline's doctrine, and to have held that ideas, or universals, as they then said, are not empty words, but entities, existing _a parte rei_. He held, if we may believe Abelard, that not only genera and species, but such abstractions as whiteness, soundness, squareness, etc., are real entities. But from a passage cited from his writings by Abelard, from which Abelard infers he had changed his doctrine, Cousin, in his Philosophie Scholastique, argues that this must have been an exaggeration and that Guillaume only held that such so-called universals as are really genera and species have an entitative existence. This is most probably the fact; and instead, then, of being driven to change his doctrine from what it was at first, as Abelard boasts, it is most likely that he never held any other doctrine. However this may be, his doctrine, as represented by Abelard, is that which the old realists are generally supposed to have maintained.

Abelard follows Guillaume de Champeaux, with whom he was for the earlier part of his career a contemporary. Confounding, as it would seem, ideas with universals, and universals with abstractions, he denied alike Rosceline's doctrine that they are mere words, and Guillaume de Champeaux's doctrine that they are entities or existences _a parte rei_, and maintained that they are conceptions, really existing _in mente_, but not _in re_. Hence his philosophy is called Conceptualism. He would seem to have held that universals are formed by the mind operating on the concrete objects presented by experience, not, as since maintained by Kant, that they are necessary forms of the understanding. Thus, _humanitas_, humanity, is formed by the mind from the concrete man, or _homo_. There is no humanity _in re_; there are only individual men. In the word humanity the mind expresses the qualities which it observes to be common to all men, without paying attention to any particular man. The idea humanity, then, is simply the abstraction or generalization of these qualities. Abelard, it would appear from this, makes what we call the race a property or quality of individuals, which, of course, excludes the idea of generation. There is, as far as we can see, no essential difference between the conceptualism of Abelard and the nominalism of Rosceline; for, by denying the existence _in re_ of genera and species, and making them only conceptions, it recognizes as really existing only individuals or particulars.

St. Thomas Aquinas, than whom no higher authority in philosophy can be named, and from whose conclusions few who understand them will be disposed to dissent, differs from each of these schools, and maintains that universals are conceptions existing _in mente cum fundamento in re_, or conceptions with a basis in reality, which is true of all abstractions; for the mind can form no conceptions except from objects presented by experience. I could form no conception of whiteness if I had no experience of white things, or of roundness if I had seen nothing round. I imagine a golden mountain, but only on condition that gold and mountain are to me objects of experience. This is certain, and accords with the peripatetic maxim, _Nihil est in intellectu, quod prius non fuerit in sensu_, which Leibnitz would amend by adding, _nisi ipse intellectus_, an amendment which, perhaps, contains in germ the whole Kantian philosophy.

But St. Thomas, as we shall see further on, does not confound ideal with universals, nor does he hold genera and species to be simply the abstraction or generalization of the qualities of individuals or particulars. Genera and species are real, or there could be no generation. But the genus or species does not exist apart from its individualization, or as a separate entity. There are no individuals without the race, and no race without individuals. Thus the whole race was individualized in Adam, so that in his sin all men sinned. {148} But as genera and species, the only real universals, do not exist apart from their particulars, and are distinctly possessed or apprehended only as disengaged from their particulars, which is done only by a mental operation, St. Thomas might say they exist _in mente cum fundamento in re_, without asserting them to be real only as properties or qualities of particulars.

Plato is commonly held to be the father of the ideal philosophy or ideal realism. We know very little of the philosophy that prevailed before him, and cannot say how much of the Platonic philosophy is original with him, or how much of it he took from his predecessors, but he is its originator as far as our knowledge extends. It is from him that we have the word _idea_, and his whole philosophy is said to be in his doctrine of ideas; but what his doctrine of ideas really was is a question. He seems when treating the question, What is it necessary to know in order to have real science? to understand by idea _causa essentialis_, or the thing itself, or what in anything is real, stable, and permanent, in distinction from the sensible, the phenomenal, the variable, and the transitory. The real existence of things is their ideas, and ideas are in the Logos or divine mind. These ideas God impresses on an eternally existing matter, as the seal upon wax, and so impressed they constitute particulars. Aristotle accuses Plato of placing the ideas _extra Deum_, and making them objects of the divine contemplation, but the accusation is not easily sustained; and we think all that Plato does is to represent the ideas as _extra Deum_ only as the idea or design of a picture or a temple in the mind of the artist is distinguishable from the artist himself. But in God all ideas must be eternal, and therefore really his essence, as is maintained by St. Thomas. If this is really Plato's doctrine, it is dualism inasmuch as it asserts the eternity of matter, and pantheism inasmuch as the ideas, the reality of things, are identical with the divine mind, and therefore with God himself. On this doctrine, what is that soul the immortality of which Plato so strenuously maintains? Is it the divine idea, or the copy of the idea on matter?

When treating the question, How we know? Plato seems to understand by ideas not the ideas in the divine mind, but their copies impressed on matter, as the seal on wax. According to him, all knowing is by similitude, and as the idea leaves its exact image or form on matter, so by studying that image or copy we arrive at an exact knowledge of the idea or archetype in the divine mind. This is plain enough; but who are _we_ who study and know? Are we the archetypal idea, or are we its image or copy impressed on matter? Here is the difficulty we find in understanding Plato's doctrine of ideas. According to him all reality is in the idea, and what is not idea is phenomenal, unsubstantial, variable, and evanescent. The impress or copy on matter is not the idea itself, and is no more the thing itself than the reflection I see in a mirror is myself. Plato speaks of the soul as imprisoned in matter, and ascribes all evil to the intractableness of matter. Hence he originates or justifies that false asceticism which treats matter as impure or unclean, and makes the proper discipline of the soul consist in despising and maltreating the body, and in seeking deliverance from it, as if our bodies were not destined to rise again, and, reunited to the soul, to live forever. The real source of Manichaeism is in the Platonic philosophy. We confess that we are not able to make out from Plato a complete, coherent, and self-consistent doctrine of ideas. St. Thomas corrects Plato, and makes ideas the archetypes, exemplars, or models in the divine mind, and identical with the essence of God, after which God creates or may create existences. He holds the idea, as idea, to be _causa exemplaris_, not _causa essentialis_, and thus escapes both pantheism and dualism, and all tendency to either.

{149}

Aristotle, a much more systematic genius, and, in my judgment, a much profounder philosopher than Plato, rejects Plato's doctrine of ideas, and substitutes for them substantial forms, which in his philosophy mean real existences distinct from God; and which are not merely phenomenal, like Plato's copies on wax. True, he, as Plato, recognizes an eternal matter, and makes all existences consist of matter and form. But the matter is purely passive; and, as nothing, according to his philosophy, exists, save in so far as active, it is really nothing, exists only _in potentia ad formam_, and can only mean the ability of God to place existences after the models eternal in his own mind. His philosophy is, at any rate, more easily reconciled with Christian theology than is Plato's.

Yet Aristotle and the schoolmen after him adopt Plato's doctrine that we know by similitude, or by ideas in the sense of images, or representations, interposed between the mind and the object, or thing existing _a parte rei_. They suppose these images, or intelligible species, form a sort of intermediary world, called the _mundus logicus_, distinguished from the _mundus physicus_, or real world, which they are not, but which they image or represent to the understanding. Hence the categories or praedicaments are neither forms of the subject nor forms of the object, but the forms or laws of logic or this intermediary world. Hence has arisen the question whether our knowledge has any objective validity, that is, whether there is any objective reality that responds to the idea. Perhaps it is in this doctrine, misunderstood, that we are to seek the origin of scepticism, which always originates in the speculations of philosophers, never in the plain sense of the people, who never want, when they know, any proof that they know.

This Platonic and peripatetic doctrine, that ideas are not the reality, but, as Locke says, that "with which the understanding is immediately conversant," has been vigorously assailed by the Scottish school, which denies intermediary ideas, and maintains that we perceive directly and immediately things themselves. Still the old doctrine obtains to a very considerable extent, and respectable schools teach that ideas, if not precisely images, are nevertheless representative, and that the idea is the first object of mental apprehension. Balmes never treats ideas as the object existing _in re_, but as its representation to the mind. Hence the importance attached to the question of certainty, or the objective validity of our knowledge, around which Balmes says turn all the questions of philosophy; that is, the great labor of philosophers is to prove that in knowing we know something, or that to know is to know. This is really the _pons asinorum_ of modern philosophy as it was of ancient philosophy: How know I that knowing is knowing, or that in knowing I know? The question as asked is unanswerable and absurd, for I have only to know with which to prove that I know, and he who knows knows that he knows. I know that I know says no more than I know.

The quarrel has arisen from confounding ideas, universals, genera and species, and abstractions or generalizations, and treating them all as if pertaining to the same category. These three things are different, and cannot be scientifically treated as if they were the same; yet nominalists, realists, and conceptualists recognize no differences among them, nor do the Platonists. These hold all the essential qualities, properties, or attributes of things to be ideas, objective and real. Hippias visits Athens, and proposes during his stay in the city to give the eager Athenians a discourse, or, as they say nowadays, a lecture, on beautiful things. Socrates is delighted to hear it, and assures Hippias that he will be one of his audience; but as he is slow of understanding, and has a friend who will be sure to question him very closely, he begs Hippias to answer beforehand a few of the questions this friend is certain to ask. Hippias consents. {150} You propose to discourse on beautiful things, but tell me, if you please, what are beautiful things? Hippias mentions several things, and finally answers, a handsome girl. But that is not what my friend wants to know. Tell me, by what are beautiful things beautiful? Hippias does not quite understand. Socrates explains. All just things, are they not just by participation of justice? Agreed. And all wise things by participation of wisdom? It cannot be denied. And all beautiful things by participation of beauty? So it seems. Now tell me, dear Hippias, what is beauty, that which is so not by participation but in itself, and by participation of which all beautiful things are beautiful? Hippias, of course, is puzzled, and neither he nor Socrates answers the question.

But we get here a clue to Plato's doctrine, the doctrine of the methexis, to use his own term. He would seem to teach that whatever particular thing exists, it does so by the methexis, or participation of the idea. The idea is that which makes the thing what it is, _causa essentialis_. Thus, a man is man by participation of the man-idea, or the ideal man, humanity; a horse is a horse by participation of the horse-idea, or ideal horse; a cow is a cow by participation of the cow-idea, ideal cow, or _bovisty_; and so of a sheep, a weazel, an eagle, a heron, a robin, a swallow, a wren, an oak, a pine, a juniper. To know any particular thing is to know its idea or ideal, and to know its idea or ideal is to have true science, for it is science of that in the thing which is real, stable, invariable, and permanent. This doctrine is very true when by ideas we understand genera and species, but not, as we have already seen, and as both Rosceline and Abelard prove, when we take as ideas the abstract qualities of things. Man is man by participation of humanity; but is a thing white by participation of whiteness, round by participation of roundness, hard by participation of hardness, beautiful by participation of beauty, or just by participation of justice, wise by participation of wisdom? What is whiteness, roundness, hardness, beauty, justice, or wisdom in the abstract, or abstracted from their respective concretes? Mere conceptions, as said Abelard, or, rather, empty words, as said Rosceline. When Plato calls these ideas, and calls them real, he confounds ideas with genera and species, and asserts what is manifestly untenable.

Genera and species are not abstractions; they are real, though subsisting never apart from individuals. Their reality is evinced by the process called generation, by which every kind generates its like. The race continues itself, and does not die with the individual. Men die, humanity survives. It is all very well to say with Plato individuals are mimetic, and exist as individuals by participation of the idea, if we assume ideas are genera and species, and created after the models or archetypes in the divine mind; but it will not do to say so when we identify ideas with the divine mind, that is, with God himself: We then make genera and species ideas in God, and since ideas in God are God, we identify them with the divine essence--a doctrine which the Holy See has recently condemned, and which would deny all reality distinguishable from God, and make all existences merely phenomenal, and reduce all the categories, as Cousin does, to being and phenomenon, which is pure pantheism. The _ideae exemplares_, or archetypes of genera and species, after which God creates them, are in the divine mind, but the genera and species, the real universals, are creatures, and as much so as individuals or particulars themselves. They are creatures by the direct creation of God, without the intervention of the plastic soul asserted by Plato, accepted by Cudworth, and, in his posthumous essay on the Methexis and Mimesis, even by Gioberti. {151} God creates all living creatures in genera and species, as the Scripture plainly hints when it says: "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the green herb, and such as may seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after its _kind_, which may have seed in itself upon the earth." Not only in the vegetable but also in the animal world, each living creature brings forth its kind--a fact without which generation would be unintelligible, and which our scientific men who dream of the formation of species by natural selection, and are laboring hard to prove that man has been developed from the tadpole or monkey, would do well to remember.

Genera and species are real, and so far, if we call them ideas, ideas or universals are real, as Plato and the old realists asserted. But when we understand by ideas or universals the simple abstractions or generalizations of the essential qualities or attributes of things, as whiteness, redness, roundness, hardness, beauty, justice, goodness, they are real only in their concretes or subject. Objects may be really white, red, hard, heavy; things may be really beautiful; actions may be really just, wise, and good; but what we call beauty, justice, wisdom, goodness, can exist only as attributes or qualities of being, and are real only in their concretes. They can be reflected by creatures, but have no reality as abstractions. Abstractions, as St. Thomas says, have a foundation in reality, because they are formed by the mind by way of abstraction from objects presented by experience, and experience can present only that which is real; but as abstractions they are nullities, as Rosceline rightly held.

It is necessary, then, to distinguish between genera and species and abstractions, and it would save much confusion to drop the name of ideas as applied to them, and even as applied to the intermediary world supposed to be inserted between the object and subject, as that world is commonly represented. This intermediary world, we think, has been successfully assailed by the Scottish school as ordinarily understood; but we do not think that the scholastics meant by it what is commonly supposed. These intermediary ideas, or intelligible species, seem to me in St. Thomas to perform in intellectual apprehension the office performed by light in external vision, and to be very defensible. They are not the understanding itself, but they are, if we may be allowed the expression, the light of the understanding. St. Thomas holds that we know by similitude. But God, he says, is the similitude of all things, _Deus est similitudo omnium rerum_. Now say, with him and all great theologians, that God, who is light itself, is the light of the understanding, the light of reason, the true light that lighteth every man coming into this world, and the whole difficulty is solved, and the scholastics and the philosophy so long taught in our Catholic schools and seminaries are freed at once from the censures so freely bestowed on them by the Scottish school and others. We suspect that we shall find seldom any reason to dissent from the scholastic philosophy as represented by St. Thomas, when once we really understand it, and adjust it to our own habits of thought and expression.

Supposing this interpretation to be admissible, the Scottish school, after all, must modify its doctrine that we know things directly and immediately; for as in external things light is necessary as the medium of vision, why should not an intelligible light be necessary as the medium of the intellectual apprehension of intelligibles? Now, as this light has in it the similitude of the things apprehensible by it, and is for that same reason light to our understanding, it may, as Plato held, very properly be expressed by the word _idea_, which means likeness, image, or representation. The error of Plato would not then be in holding that we know only _per ideam_ or _per similitudinem_, but in confounding creator and creature, and recognizing nothing except the idea either to know or to be known. On this interpretation, the light may be identical with the object, or it may not be. Being is its own light, and is intelligible _per se_; objects distinguishable from being are not, and are intelligible only in the light of being, or a light distinguishable from themselves. {152} As being in its full sense is God, we may say with Malebranche that we see all things in God, but must add, _and by the light of God_, or _in Deo et per Deum_.

Assuming ideas as the light by which we see to be the real doctrine of the scholastics, we can readily understand the relation of ideas to the peripatetic categories or praedicaments, or forms under which all objects are and must be apprehended, and thus connect the old quarrel of the philosophers with their present quarrel. The categories, according to the Platonists, are ideas; according to the peripatetics, they are the forms of the _mundus logicus_, which, as we have seen, they distinguish from the _mundus physicus_. The Scottish school having demolished this _mundus logicus_, by exploding the doctrine of intermediary ideas which compose it, if we take that world as formal, and fail to identify it with the divine light, the question comes up, Are the categories or self-evident truths which precede all experience, and without which no fact of experience is possible, really objective, or only subjective? The question is, if we duly consider it, Is the light by which we see or know on the side of the subject or on that of the object? Or, in other words, are things intelligible because we know them, or do we know them because they are intelligible? Thus stated, the question seems to be no question at all; but it is made a very serious question, and on the answer to it depends the validity or invalidity of St. Anselm's argument.