Chapter VIII (4)

FREE SUNDAY AND DAY SCHOOLS, their regulation and amelioration, might be one of the objects. In large cities like New York, Baltimore, Boston, and Philadelphia, where Catholics are, many of them, wealthy and instructed, the teachers of parochial or Sunday schools are often highly capable of conducting their establishments. The large cities afford so many opportunities of study and improvement that every one can learn. But in the poor country districts, how is it? The teachers are isolated. They need more system. There is no central point to which they may look for light. The rural clergy in remote districts are often suffering from want of some large and powerful organization which could assist them in their labors, either for the improvement of their schools, their choirs, etc., or for the counteracting of Protestant propagandism.

The influence which has been exercised on education in Belgium by the Catholic congresses is well known. The labors of the German Catholic congresses is not so public. The Nineteenth General Assembly of the Catholic associations of Germany took place at Bamberg, in Bavaria, during the interval between the 31st of August and the 3d of September, A.D. 1868. These German congresses, like those of Belgium, are composed of laymen as well as ecclesiastics. They exclude all political questions from their sessions. {225} Their only aim is to sustain and support the Catholic cause. In the three first meetings, one at Mayence, in 1848, under the presidency of the Chevalier Buss; the other at Breslau, presided over by M. Lieber, while the city was in a state of siege, in 1849; and in the third, held at Ratisbon in 1850, the members organized a unity of action among the societies of St. Vincent de Paul, established schools and reading-rooms in the interest of Catholic literature, and watched over the religious wants of the Germans in Paris and throughout the rest of France. The Congress of Ratisbon, presided over by Count Joseph de Stolberg, founded the Society of St. Boniface, which has since then realized the sum of $700,000, and by this means established one hundred and ten missions and one hundred and fifty schools for the poor German Catholics living in Protestant countries.

Münster, in Westphalia, had a Congress in 1852. The president was the Baron of Andlau. In it was discussed the method which the Catholic associations could take to promote Christian education and to found a Catholic university. These deliberations were continued the following year at the Vienna Congress, where Dr. Zell presided. In 1856, at another Congress, in which Count O'Donnel was president, the foundation of children's asylums was discussed. Salzburg was proposed as the seat of the Catholic university. The Salzburg Congress, in 1857, was specially occupied with this project, and with the means of developing the power of the Catholic press, founding Catholic publication societies, and giving pecuniary aid to the Catholics of the East. At Freyburg, in 1859, the Congress, presided over by the Count de Brandis, treated of the Catholic press and religious music. The Thirteenth Congress at Munich, in 1861, founded the literary review known as the _Litterarischer Handweiser_, edited by Hulskam and Rump, at Münster.

The Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, in the following year, took up again the question of the establishment of a Catholic university. A committee was appointed to found it; but the government opposed them. This rather excited than diminished the zeal of the persevering German Catholics. Professor Moeller, of Louvain, on this occasion said: "_The word impossible is not Christian._" There was not one of those congresses that did not oppose the secularization of education; not one of them that did not materially and morally aid the cause of Christian doctrine.

In these German congresses we have a good model to imitate. Isolated attempts to obtain public support for our own schools will rarely if ever succeed. There must be union; a union of the Catholic brain, intelligence, and wealth, not only in one state, but all over the country.

Our CATHOLIC REFORMATORIES is another object worthy the attention of a Catholic congress. No one can exaggerate the importance of these institutions. That of New York, supported and maintained by our good and zealous archbishop, has produced incalculable benefits in our city already. A Catholic congress would strengthen the hands of our zealous prelate; would increase the efficiency of the institution; would encourage the Catholics of other cities, where they are not already established, to found similar establishments for the orphaned or homeless children who swarm in our country. How many of the poor sons and daughters of our Catholic emigrants are lost for ever to faith and virtue in our cities! {226} Will not their blood cry out on the last day against their fellow-Christians, who have the wealth and the intelligence, but not the zeal, to save them from a life of crime and ignominy?

The ST. VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETIES could also profit by union of action among the different conferences throughout the country. In the South, especially, the war has multiplied widows and orphans. The poor there have not the same advantages as in the North. Some of the dioceses were poor before the war. They are now all very poor. The bishops and priests are trying to build up what the sword or the cannon destroyed. It is true there are regular assemblies of the different conferences; but they need a stronger impulse from without to make them flourish as they should and as they are needed.

Then there is the question of RELIGIOUS MUSIC, [Footnote 106] which none of the European congresses ever omit in their deliberations.

[Footnote 106: Professor Jacovacci, of the Propaganda
College, in a recent circular to the bishops, urges this
point on the next General Council.]

We are not disposed to find fault; but every one knows that the music of our churches is frequently anything but rubrical or ecclesiastical. We are in favor of the best music; the very best, whether it be figured or plain chant; but let it be at least CHURCH music, not rehashed operas. We know that many of the pastors are unable to procure singers who are competent to render Catholic music as it should be in our churches. We need a Catholic training-school of music. A Catholic conservatory might easily be formed in New York. It is no exaggeration to say that the best of the foreign musicians in the United States are Catholics, whether they be remarkable for their skill with instruments or for the culture of their voices. There is besides much native talent, which only needs the opportunity to become distinguished. Let there be founded a national Catholic conservatory of music, with prizes and exhibitions; let the members of it see that their efforts will be even pecuniarily and profitably remunerated, and we venture to predict that in a short time America will stand as high as her European sisters in religious music. Toward the close of the last Malines Congress, a multitude of Belgian Catholic amateurs gave an oratorio on the _Last Judgment_, which was magnificent. A Catholic conservatory of music in New York could give similar entertainments, as an appropriate termination to our Catholic congresses, and be able thereby to pay all its expenses, and have even much left with which to remunerate its members.

LIBRARIES, READING-ROOMS, and the PRESS could also be discussed. Nothing will do more good in a community than a supply of good reading matter. We have already discussed the method of founding family and Sunday-school libraries in the pages of this magazine. A Catholic congress would encourage those who wished to found them; would bring out the energies of many of the laity and clergy who only seek a good opportunity to display them. In this respect we might learn a lesson from many of the Protestant sects. Whatever we may think of the real zeal of Protestants, however much we may condemn their external show of piety, their confounding Christian charity with philanthropism, we must admire the energy which they manifest in the cause of education. No church of theirs but has its Bible class, its well-organized Sunday-school, its Sunday-school library, its young men's association, reading-room, and newspaper. {227} No doubt these are but the accidentals of Christianity; but they help very much in propagating or sustaining the essentials.

It is certain that our CATHOLIC PRESS does not receive all the support which it deserves. We have Catholic newspapers, which could be rendered much more useful and efficient were they better patronized; and as for our magazine, our readers must judge whether we do not endeavor our utmost to satisfy their intellectual wants. In Europe, every petty, poor Catholic community is willing to support a journal. We often find many reviews flourishing in countries far less wealthy and populous than our own. Ought not the five millions of Catholics of the United States to give THE CATHOLIC WORLD a subscription list of at least fifty thousand? And if they do not, what is the reason? Is it because they are poor? No, but because there is no central point from which the current of electricity can be sent leaping through the brain and heart of our population. Let us have a congress for these purposes also.

Then there is the project of a CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY. Every day we read of wealthy gentlemen leaving donations of thousands of dollars to educational establishments belonging to the state or to religious denominations other than Catholic. In Europe this is also a common custom. We have read of Mr. Peabody's donation to Yale College. Girard, an infidel, founded the institution in Philadelphia which bears his name. Our Catholic millionaires of New York and other cities, we are sure, only need to be asked to show their generosity in the founding of a Catholic university. Several of the petty German states have theirs. Even impoverished Ireland has had the courage to originate one. Will not rich America follow her example? What is wanting? Not the money; not the patronage; not the ability to conduct it; but simply that there is no united, powerful body of Catholics to undertake it. Give us a congress, and we can have this union; a congress of the brain, good sense, and faith of the American church.

Are we to have a school of CATHOLIC ARTISTS in this country? Shall we do anything to promote the Catholic arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture? What style of church ornament shall we keep? Shall we cultivate the taste of our clergy in these matters? After what fashion shall our churches be built? Will we make no effort to unite the Catholic architects and artists of the country to consult, compare their experiences, and improve their taste and talent by mutual contact? They individually desire to be brought together. There is no true artist who does not wish for an opportunity to be appreciated; and where can so just an appreciation of an artist's work be had as in a Catholic congress of American Catholic talent which would influence even the remotest parts of our vast country?

Our priests all feel the want more or less of a central point to which they can look with safety for _proper vestments, altar furniture_, and _altar wine_, It may be suspected without rashness that many of the merchants who sell wines for the altar are not always reliable. In many cases the wine is adulterated. In such a state of uncertainty, would it not be well to have a "Bureau of Safety" established? Would it not be well to have some authorized and reliable agents who could transport to this country, cheaply and safely, some of the treasures of Europe--vestments, chalices, pictures, and the like--instead of obliging every priest to depend on his own individual knowledge, or leave him at the mercy of some purely mercantile monopoly? {228} If there were a Catholic congress, all this state of disorder could be remedied, if not in one year, at least in two or three. There are zealous Catholics enough in the country to devote a portion of their time to the general interests of religion.

The condition of CATHOLIC PRISONERS in jails or penitentiaries could form not the least important object of a Catholic assembly. There are many unfortunate members of our church in the prisons on the neighboring islands of New York who are in the best dispositions to profit by spiritual consolation, yet they have no books, save the few which the devoted chaplain may give them when charity affords him the necessary funds. The prisoners in more remote districts are worse off. Does it not stir up the fire of zeal in the heart of a Catholic to know that he can save a soul, reclaim the vicious, and give consolation to a poor wretch who may have unfortunately forgotten the sanctity prescribed by his religion? Would not a supply of good books be a godsend to Catholic prisoners? Would it not tend to reform them, to beguile their weary hours, and sanctify them? Now, a Catholic congress could establish a permanent committee, to see that the prisons of the country were supplied with Catholic literature. If we want to convert the United States, we must be in earnest about our work. We must take every method that our means will enable us to use and our piety suggest. Let Catholic doctrines percolate through the veins of society not only by preaching in our churches, but by spreading Catholic tracts, Catholic newspapers, Catholic books in the city, in the country, in the work-house, even in the jail and penitentiary. Let our religion be like its Founder, "going about everywhere doing good:" "_pertransiit benefaciendo._"

Although centralization, in a political point of view, when carried to excess, is injurious to liberty, too much individualism is equally pernicious, for it entails too much responsibility. A Catholic congress would not destroy individual zeal, but only concentrate it. A Catholic congress could coerce no man's will. It would only be an index to show men what they could do; to ask them to be unanimous and to pull together.

The details of the congress could be arranged at its meeting. The constitution and by-laws of the Malines congresses, or of those which succeeded so admirably in Germany, could be adopted with slight modifications. The approbation of the Holy Father would be given to it as to those in Europe. Our venerable archbishops and bishops would sanction it. The prelate in whose diocese it would assemble might preside at its deliberations or appoint a substitute. Committees would be appointed, some permanent, others transitory.

In the interest of the laity, then, we ask for a Catholic congress. We ask for it in the interest of the clergy also, who are anxious to keep up their own tone of respectability, and at the same time influence by unanimity the great work of the conversion of the whole United States to Catholicity.

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Translated From Le Correspondant.

The Present Disputes in Philosophy and Science.

By Dr. Chauffaid, of The Imperial Academy Of Medicine.

I.

Philosophy or rather philosophical discussions are being renewed. On the one hand, materialism rages like a tempest over the regions of science; menacing our scientific, intellectual, and moral past and future with destruction. On the other side, we behold noble efforts, beautiful works, and eloquent protestations, on the part of reason and liberty, in favor of the dignity of human nature against the debasing tenets of positivism. We know what shall be the result of this struggle. Materialistic doctrines and hypotheses can never conquer the best aspirations and real glory of humanity. But if final triumph is certain, when will it take place? Immediately, or only after a passing victory of the great philosophical error of the day? This is a serious question; for a temporary victory by materialism would be a fatal sign of our time, and humiliate our race beyond anything that can be imagined. The philosophical discussions, therefore, which have been raised around us are not a mere useless noise; but they are the most important subject for our consideration, bearing with them great destinies--those of science, and perhaps of national life.

To appreciate the true character of the materialistic movement which is stirring every layer of society, and whose action the learned and the ignorant equally feel, we must examine all the remote and proximate, latent and manifest, causes which influence the currents, the ebb and flow of materialism. It would be well to determine how actual materialism has its exclusive origin and its new sources in the bowels of modern science; what new support it has met with in recent scientific discoveries, and what are the value and bearing of those discoveries.

In beholding the tumult which the partisans of the experimental method in philosophy create, the enthusiasm which they show, and the passionate defence of their theory, one would suppose they had made a new conquest of the human mind, and made some astounding discovery. Yet we know what the exact value of the experimental method is. Why, then, so much nervous excitement over it? Yet the excitement is probably only artificial; still it has an aim. The experimental method is clamorously extolled for the purpose of covering with its authority sophisms destructive of all philosophy and of all science. This method is a great flag under which all causes that are not science are sheltered. M. Caro, in his excellent book, _Materialism and Science_, has endeavored to dispel all confusion on this subject, and to re-establish facts and the truth. Positivism--which must not be confounded with positive science--tries to unite its destiny with that of the experimental method; calling itself the necessary fruit of the latter, the systematized result of a method which subjects all visible nature to man. Positivism concludes from the premises that it has the same certainty as the experimental method.

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M. Caro, with a strong hand, upsets all such pretensions. He demonstrates that, if positivism has skilfully stolen the name and some of the processes of positive science, the experimental school, to which the positive sciences owe so much, owes nothing to positivism. Taking for guide, in the study of the experimental method, one of the _savants_ who understands it best, and who, after practising it successfully, has exposed its precepts with incomparable authority, M. Caro proves that this method is not bound by the tyranny of positivism. "Nothing is less evident to my eyes," he writes, "than the agreement of M. Cl. Bernard's manner of thinking with certain essential principles of positivism. His independence is clearly manifested especially in regard to two points: Firstly, in opposition to the spirit of the positive doctrine, he gives place to the idea _a priori_ in the constitution of science. Secondly, contrary to one of the most decided dogmas of the positivist school, he leaves a great many open questions, and thus allows his readers to revert to metaphysical conceptions for their solution."

In the thought of M. Cl. Bernard, the _a priori_ element loses all absolute sense and becomes a purely relative and accidental fact. It has no longer any of those eternal forms of the understanding, of those necessary conceptions through the aid of which the human mind sees and judges the things of nature, contingent facts, and phenomena which happen before our eyes. It is not that power, obscure yet admirable reflection of the divine power, which enables us to apprehend the immutable relations of things, and establishes science by compelling us, by an irresistible attraction, to seek in their cause the reason of phenomena. No; M. Cl. Bernard does not rise directly to that alliance of the infinite and finite, of cause and effect, which takes place in the active depths of the human mind. To this great experimentalist the idea _a priori_ is revealed only in face of experience; it is an instinct, a sudden illumination which strikes and seizes the mind, when the senses act and perceive, as impassible and mute witnesses. "Its apparition is entirely spontaneous and individual. It is a particular sentiment, a _quid proprium_, which constitutes the originality, the invention, and genius of every man. It happens that a fact--that an observation--remains for a long time before the eyes of a _savant_ without inspiring him with anything, when suddenly a ray of light flashes on him. The new idea appears then with the rapidity of lightning, as a sort of sudden revelation." This flash, this ray of light, is well known to medical tradition, and often called tact, sense, and medical skill. These expressions will exist notwithstanding the denials of a narrow science, which thinks to ennoble itself by suppressing art. There are physicians who, in face of the obscure manifestations of a disease, perceive, with a rapid and sure intuition, the hidden relations of the malady, its nature buried in the living depths of the organization, its future tendencies and probable solutions. This intuition has nothing mysterious in it, and is not the play of a capricious fancy; it is the flash of light, the new idea, the sudden revelation, of which M. Cl. Bernard, the learned _savant_ and most severe of experimentalists, writes. This, then, is what M. Cl. Bernard calls the idea _a priori;_ certainly he does not pretend nor think that he is writing metaphysics. {231} Nevertheless, when we attentively consider it, is not this idea _a priori_ a species of prolongation or consequence of the necessary ideas, the true ideas _a priori_, of the human mind? Is not the idea _a priori_ a perception of a cause through its effects; at one time the perception of a contingent and particular cause; and again the perception of a cause in itself--of the supreme, necessary, and infinite cause? Does not M. Cl. Bernard himself seem to admit metaphysical conceptions, when, after considering the spontaneity of the intellect under a general aspect, he writes as follows, "It may be said that we have in the mind the intuition or sentiment of the laws of nature, but we do not know their form"?

The experimental school has not, however, determined this point of doctrine; it has so confusedly felt and expressed it that the positivist school could not avoid refuting those rather vague aspirations, and admit, without denying its own principles, those soarings of the understanding in presence of facts. But the experimental school, of which M. Cl. Bernard is the interpreter, puts itself in opposition to positivism. He allows those high truths which cannot be demonstrated by sensible phenomena to have some place in science. He tells us that true science suppresses nothing, but always seeks and considers, without being troubled, those things which it does not understand. "Deny those things," says M. Cl. Bernard, "and you do not suppress them; you shut your eyes and imagine that there is no light." Positivism could not be more formally condemned by positive science.

Will it be pretended that, although the experimental school accepts the order of metaphysical truths, it rejects, them disdainfully when there is question of the natural sciences; and that thus rejected by science they cannot be counted among the serious knowledge of humanity? Nothing could be more unjust than such a condemnation; for nothing proves that there is not another knowledge besides that of experience. M. Cl. Bernard discovers, even in the order of biological truths, capital truths which are not at all experimental, susceptible of a _real determinism_, to use the expression of which he is so fond. When he tries to define life by using a word which expresses exactly the idea, he calls it _creation_. In every living germ he admits a _creating idea_, which is developed by organization, and is derived neither from chemistry nor physical nature. In fine, the experimental school, such as tradition presents it to us and its ablest expounders teach it, must not be confounded with _positivism_, which tries to steal its name and flag.

The experimental school, healthy and fruitful, gives to metaphysical truths their legitimate influence, their superior and imperishable sight, and does not suppress them by a violent and arbitrary decision. Especially, it does not resolve difficulties by denying all other causes and activity than what is purely material. The experimental school is not fatally materialism.

Materialism is the legitimate consequence of positivism. The positivist sect, at the beginning of its career, pretended to take hold of materialism with a superb indifference and dogmatic insolence, in presence of those eternal problems which, to the honor of humanity, have always puzzled and tormented it. But it is easy to show that most of the definitions and teaching of positivist philosophy correspond with the materialist dogmas, from which positivism pretended to hold itself aloof. {232} How could it be otherwise? Those supreme questions and their answers are not isolated facts, distinct from our particular knowledge, regarding the things of this world. They penetrate necessarily into all our cognitions; become incarnate and visible under the form of all the particular existences which we analyze. We cannot give the character of one of those existences, without this definite character implying a corresponding solution of the primary truths, which were supposed to be entirely forgotten. All the special science of positivism is identical with materialistic interpretation; and one would have wished that the human mind had not tried to ascend from these special sciences to general and primary science and explain it like them. Was this possible? No; and hence illusion is no longer possible. Positivism has logically terminated in materialism.

To demonstrate this inevitable fusion, M. Caro examines one of the absolute precepts of positivism, namely, the subjection of psychology to cerebral physiology. He proves that this subjection is only an indirect method of resolving both psychology and cerebral physiology by materialism. Stuart Mill has been rejected by the positivists for not having followed the founder of the positivist school, resumed in the principle that there is no psychology outside of biology. "Psychology, we are told," writes M. Caro, "is identical with biology; faculties, consciousness which observes them, attention which analyzes them, and, thanks to memory, classes them; all these are in the dependence of the organs on each other. This dependence is called by a very expressive word: the affective and intellectual faculties become, in positivist language, the _cerebral faculties_. The rest follows. We are assured that there is identity between those two relations: the intellectual and moral manifestations are to the nervous substance what weight is to matter, that is to say, an irreducible phenomenon, which in the actual state of our knowledge is its own explanation. 'Just as the physician observes that matter is heavy, so the physiologist proves that the nervous substance thinks, without either of them being able to explain why the one is heavy and the other thinks.'" [Footnote 107]

[Footnote 107: M. Littré, préface au livre intitulé
_Matérialisme et Spiritualisme_.]

"Let it be so," continues M. Caro; "yet which of the materialists has ever pretended to explain why the nervous substance thinks? They merely attest the existence of the fact. The real question is to know if it is the nervous substance which thinks, and if it can think. To affirm that it thinks is to close the question. I take as witness M. Moleschott, whose teaching is not doubtful, and which has been published with applause. What does he say in a discourse recently delivered at Zurich? 'The identification of spirit and matter is not an explanation; it is a fact, neither more nor less simple, more nor less mysterious, than any other fact; it is a fact like weight. No one assuredly pretends to explain gravitation by means of distinctions between it and matter.' Is there, I ask, an appreciable difference on this question between the language of the present chief of the positivists and that of the most decided positivists?"

A journal, devoted to the defence and propagation of scientific materialism, _La Pensée Nouvelle_, proclaimed the same doctrine: "The positivist school is a sect which proceeds from materialism; it has no value or aim except through materialism."

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II.

Materialism absorbs, therefore, the positivist school. It tries to resolve the important questions regarding the origin and end of man. It does not proscribe metaphysics on the pretence that it wishes to know the eternal unknown, and approach the inaccessible. It admits neither unknown nor inaccessible. It substitutes for the primary causes of metaphysics, considered as pure chimeras, other causes the reality of which it pretends to prove. This is a bold but frank attitude, and preferable in every respect to the constrained position of positivism.

How has materialism tried to solve the questions it proposes? It cannot appeal to pure reason or to the revealing faculties of the human understanding, affirming or denying God as primary cause of existences, and the soul as secondary cause of the human person. Where would be the authority of materialism if its process of demonstration, if its methods were not separated from the process and methods of traditional spiritualism? The latter cannot be conquered on its own ground; it would always find there the height of its moral inspirations, and the power of its demonstrations. Materialism has felt this, and pretends to repudiate both the methods and the doctrines of the old metaphysics. Instead of asking the understanding for imaginary means of demonstration, it proclaims its adherence to infallible experience, its belief in the senses alone, and the analysis of sensations. Just like positivism, it calls itself the immediate production of the experimental method, and attributes to itself the certitude which belongs to the positive and experimental sciences. The old doubt should thus be dissipated, and man would enjoy the full brightness of this universe, whose secrets would no longer be redoubtable, and whose eternal and necessary laws would be opposed to all idea of a higher origin, and government regulated by any exterior will.

But let us leave aside for a moment the examination of those sad illusions and past solutions and the part which experience has in them. Let us consider at first, from the stand-point of method alone, those problems of origin which materialism pretends to resolve. How are those problems capable of being solved by the experimental method? Such is the true question, and it is this one the study of which completes the beautiful book of M. Caro. "We shall not be opposed," says the eloquent author of the _Idée de Dieu_, "by any unprejudiced _savant_, when we assert that, in the actual state of science, no positivist dogma authorizes conclusions like those of materialism on the problem of the origin and ends of beings, on that of substances and causes; that to give exact knowledge on these points is contrary to the idea of experimental science; that this science gives us the actual, the present, the fact, not the beginning of things; at most, the immediate _how_, the proximate conditions of beings, and never their remote causes; finally, that from the moment materialism becomes an express and doctrinal negation of metaphysics, it becomes itself another metaphysics; it falls immediately under the control of pure reason, which may be freely used to criticise its hypotheses, as it uses them itself to establish them and bind them together."

This _a priori_ dogmatism imposes itself as a necessity on materialism, and destroys the experimental character which it loves. {234} The learned, devoted to the worship of positive science, are obliged to admit this, and M. Caro cites, on this point, the precious admission of an illustrious _savant_, M. Virchow, whom the materialists claim as one of themselves. "No one, after all," says M. Virchow, "knows what was before what is. ... Science has nothing but the world which exists. ... Materialism is a tendency to explain all that exists, or has been created, by the properties of matter. Materialism goes beyond experience; it makes itself a system. But systems are more the result of speculation than of experience. They prove in us a certain want of perfection which speculation alone can satisfy; for all knowledge which is the result of experience is incomplete and defective."

It is not a metaphysician who speaks thus; it is a _savant_, who, in Germany, ranks at the head of experimental biology, who leans to materialism, and admits, nevertheless, that materialism has no other root than an undemonstrable _a priori_; consequently M. Caro has the right with ironical good sense to draw these conclusions: "Until materialism leaves that vicious circle which logic traces around its fundamental conception; until it succeeds in proving experimentally that that which is has always been as it is in the actual form of the recognized order of phenomena; so long as it cannot strip those questions of their essentially transcendental character, and subject its negative solutions to a verification of which the idea alone is contradictory; until then--and we have good reason to think that period far distant--materialism will keep the common condition of every demonstration that cannot be verified. It may reason, after a fashion, on the impossibility of conceiving a beginning to the system of things, to the existence of matter and its properties, but it will prove nothing experimentally, which is, according to its principles, the only way of proving anything; it will speculate, which is very humiliating for those who despise speculation; it will recommence a system of metaphysics, which is the greatest disgrace for those who profess to despise metaphysics. We are continually reproached with the _a priori_ character of our solutions concerning first causes. Materialism must necessarily accept its share of the blame, no matter how full it may be of illusions regarding its scientific bearing and value, no matter how intoxicated with the conquest of positive science with which it essays in vain to identify its fortune and right."

We have just seen, with M. Caro, whether materialism can call itself the faithful representation and direct product of the experimental method. M. Janet, in one of those little volumes, _Le Matérialisme Contemporain_, destined to a happy popularity, and in which high reason and good science are made clear and simple to convince better, shows us what is the value of the solutions proposed, even nowadays, by materialism. The two works of MM. Caro and Janet thus complete each other: the one discusses the question of methods, and judges materialism in face of its own work, and systematic development; the other asks it, after its labors, whither the method it has used has led it, and interrogates it on those questions of origin and end which it treats and so boldly resolves.

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III.

Materialism has two grand problems to solve: matter and life. No one would hesitate to say that the first of these is within its scope, and the solution easy for it. What should be better able to teach us what matter is than a system which recognizes nothing but matter? Has matter in itself the reason of its existence, the reason especially of the motion which impels and moves it, causes all its changes, and what seems now to be the only origin of all its properties and of all its manifestations? M. Janet, in a chapter particularly original, _La Matière et le Mouvement_, demonstrates that matter cannot present the conditions of absolute existence which are necessary to it if we admit nothing above it. Materialism, instead of arriving at a substantial and freed matter, has nothing ever before it but an intangible unknown. To find nothing for basis of its affirmations but the unknown, and pretend on this basis to build a philosophical belief, seat the destinies of humanity on the unknown, is an outrage on reason and good sense. What a chimerical enterprise! "What would signify, I ask," writes M. Janet, "the pretensions of materialism in a system in which one would be obliged to confess that matter is reduced to a principle absolutely unknown? Is it not the same to say that matter is the principle of all things, in this hypothesis; and to assert that _x_, that is, any unknown quantity, is the principle of all things? It would be as if one should say, 'I do not know what is the principle of things.' What a luminous materialism this is!" But let us leave pure matter aside; although it touches and bounds us on every side, it does not seem to contain the peculiar secret of our origins and destinies. Let us go further and interrogate materialism regarding life and living beings, among which we are counted, and the study of which penetrates so deeply into our own life.

Materialism pretends to explain the mysterious origin and first appearance of life; and imagines that it can establish by experience the conditions and cause of the formation of simple and rudimentary organizations. The theory of spontaneous generation answers these experimental conditions, and is the proximate and sufficient cause of the existence of life. Having obtained those primary organic forms, materialism explains the immense multiplicity of living species by the gradual transformation of the rudimentary organic forms, produced by spontaneous generation; a transformation effected by natural conditions. Spontaneous generation is consequently a primary thesis of materialism.

"We see," says Lucretius, "living worms come out of fetid matter when, having been moistened by the rain, it has reached a sufficient degree of putrefaction. The elements put in motion and into new relations produce animals." The whole theory and all the errors of spontaneous generation are contained in these phrases.

The progress of the natural sciences gradually extinguished the belief in spontaneous generation. In proportion as science studied this pretended generation it disappeared, and ancestral generation became evident. M. Pouchet has reawakened the discussion of the question by transporting it into the study of those lives of only an instant in duration, which the immense multitude of animalcula presents. Those lives, still so little known and so hard to observe in their rapid evolution, offered a favorable field for confusion, premature assertion, and arbitrary systems. To affirm their spontaneous generation, or demonstrate their generation by germs detached from infinitely small organizations in their complete development, was a task equally obscure and apparently impenetrable to experimentation. {236} The one theory was opposed to all the known laws of life, while the other was in conformity with those laws. It seemed, therefore, that unless demonstrated by all the force of evidence, the spontaneous generation of animalcula should find no legitimate place in science. But not only was evidence always wanting, but thanks to the wonderful ability displayed by M. Pasteur; thanks to the beauty, precision, clearness, and variety of the experiments performed by him; thanks to the penetrating sagacity with which he has exposed the defects of the contrary experiments of M. Pouchet and M. Jolly, all the evidence is in favor of ancestral generation; and the Academy of Science, so prudent and ordinarily so reserved in its judgments, has not hesitated to pronounce openly in this sense. Let us hear the eminent M. Cl. Bernard, judging spontaneous generation; even that which, not daring to maintain the complete generation of the being, sought refuge in the spontaneous generation of the ovulum or germ, which being evolved produced the entire being:

"That generation," says M. Cl. Bernard, "which governs the organic creation of living beings has been justly regarded as the most mysterious function of physiology. It has been always observed that there is a filiation among living beings, and that the greatest number of them proceed visibly from parents. Nevertheless there are cases in which this filiation has not been apparent, and then some have admitted _spontaneous generation_, that is, production without parentage. This question, already very old, has been investigated in recent times and subjected to new study. In France, many _savants_ have rejected the theory of spontaneous generation, particularly M. Pouchet, who defended the theory of spontaneous ovulation. M. Pouchet wished to prove that there was no spontaneous generation of the adult being, but of its egg or germ. This view seems to me altogether inadmissible even as a hypothesis. I consider, in fact, that the egg represents a sort of organic formula, which resumes the evolutive conditions of a being determined by the fact that it proceeds from the egg. The egg is egg only because it possesses a virtuality which has been given to it by one or several anterior evolutions, the remembrance of which it in some sort preserves. It is this original direction, which is only a parentage more or less remote, which I regard as being incapable of spontaneous manifestation. We must have necessarily a hereditary influence. I cannot conceive that a cell formed spontaneously and without ancestry can have an evolution, since it has had no prior state. Whatever may be thought of the hypothesis, the experiment on which the proofs of spontaneous generation rested were for the most part defective. M. Pasteur has the merit of having cleared up the problem of spontaneous generation, by reducing the experiments to their just value and arranging them according to science. He has proved that the air was the vehicle of a multitude of germs of living beings, and he has shown that it was necessary before all to reduce the argument to precise and well-formed observations.

"In order to express my thought on the subject of spontaneous generation, I have only to repeat here what I have already said in a report which I have had to make on this question; that is to say, that in proportion as our means of investigation become more perfect, it will be found that the cases of supposed spontaneous generation must be necessarily classed with the cases of ordinary physiological generation. This is what the works of M. Balbiani and of MM. Coste and Gerbe have recently proved in reference to the infusory animalcula."

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These latter works, especially those of M. Balbiani, [Footnote 108] completely overturn the basis of the doctrine of spontaneous generation. Those infusory animalcula which were supposed to be produced by a silent self-formation are really produced by sexual generation, and those germs floating in the atmosphere are real eggs, the laying of which M. Balbiani discovered.

[Footnote 108: Balbiani "Sur l'Existence d'une
Reproduction sexuelle chez les Infusoires."]

Nevertheless, spontaneous generation has still some decided partisans. Some, like Messrs. Pouchet and Jolly, still believe the theory as _savants_. The observations which they trusted in affirming spontaneous generation or ovulation still preserve their value for them. It is not easy to give up one's ideas and works. The children of our mind are often dearer to us than the offspring of our blood. It requires a species of heroism for a _savant_ to immolate what he has conceived with labor, protected and defended against all assailers. But besides these illusions and attachments which may be respected, interested passion arose and transformed into aggression and violent quarrel the peaceful discussions of science. _The Origin of Life_, [Footnote 109] such is the title of a recent publication on spontaneous generation; such is the problem which those who nowadays maintain a cause scientifically lost pretend to resolve.

[Footnote 109: L'Origine de la Vie: Histoire de la Question
des Générations spontanées. Par le docteur George Pennetier,
avec une préface par le docteur Pouchet.]

The origin of life! Observe the general meaning of the terms; there is question of life in itself, of the essence of all living beings. Human life is a particular case of this general problem; the solution of both is the same. Behind the animalcula and their spontaneous apparition is man. The higher origin, the high aspirations, the predestined end of which man thought he had the right to feel proud--all these vanish like vain dreams and puffs of pride in presence of the origin of primary life through the energy of matter alone. It alone is the true creator, the only cause, and it alone contains our end; beyond it there is nothing; science shows it, at least that science which places spontaneous generation at the top of its conceptions. The importance of the consequences explains the reason why the partisans of materialism have been so ardent in defence of their principles. If a simple problem of chemistry had no more proofs in its favor than the theory of spontaneous generation, no _savant_ worthy of the name would have maintained it or founded on so fragile a basis a multitude of scientific deductions. But there was question of the order and constitution of the world, of the reason, of the being of every creature, and hence the proofs seemed good and sufficient to a materialism which calls itself scientific and experimental. An aggressive polemic represented even as enemies of progress, as retrograde spirits, all those who rejected errors to which too easy a popularity had been given.

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IV.

Spontaneous generation gave materialism a point of departure at once rash and weak; bold if one looked behind, almost miserable if one looked ahead! What efforts to draw out of some rudimentary animalcula the regular development of the whole animal kingdom, man included--that being who thinks and wills, who is conscious of its acts and liberty, who possesses the notion of good and evil, who aspires after the true and the beautiful, who feels himself as cause and admits other causes in nature! How can the abyss which separates those two extremities of living creation be bridged? What omnipotence will be able to produce from these infusoria the prodigious number, the infinite variety of those animated beings, all those living species which, no matter how profoundly or how far the world may be investigated, are almost like each other, as it were immutable in their precipitate succession, stationary even in motion!

The same science which affirmed spontaneous generation has not balked before this enterprise, and it has pretended to prove the hidden mechanism which, from the egg spontaneously laid, produces the fearful immensity of animate forms! There have been found naturalists, eminent _savants_ in other respects and possessing great authority, like Lamarck and Darwin, who have imagined that they discovered the laws of the transformation of species.

M. Paul Janet, in the book which we cited above, has made a sharp and searching criticism of the theories of Lamarck and Darwin. He asks, in the first place, in what the hypothesis of a plan and of a design of nature, otherwise called the doctrine of final causes, would be contrary to the spirit of science. We must not undertake phenomenal analysis with the premeditated design of finding the phenomena conformable to an object decreed in advance; this preconceived object should never take the place of reason and be the explanation of the facts observed; such a manner of proceeding is hardly scientific, and leads fatally to arbitrary and erroneous conceptions. But does it follow that the facts observed and analyzed in themselves should not, by their collection and connection, express to the human intelligence a superior design, a progressive and ascending harmony, which are its final reason and vivifying spirit? To refuse in advance every final cause is an error similar to that of imagining it altogether and before the observation of the phenomena. Flourens has well said: "We must proceed not from the final causes to the facts, but from the facts to the final causes." These are the fruitful principles, and this is true natural philosophy.

"The naturalists," says M. Janet, "imagine that they have destroyed final causes in nature when they have proved that certain effects result necessarily from certain given causes. The discovery of efficient causes appears to them a decisive argument against the existence of final causes. We must not say, according to them, "that the bird has wings _for the purpose_ of flying, but that it flies because it has wings." But in what, pray, are these two propositions contradictory? Supposing that the bird has wings to fly, must not its flight be the result of the structure of its wings? And from the fact that the flight is a result, we have not the right to conclude that it is not an end. In order, then, that your materialists should recognize an aim and a choice, must there be in nature effects without a cause, or effects disproportioned to their causes? Final causes are not miracles; to obtain a certain end the author of things must choose secondary causes precisely adapted to the intended effect. {239} Consequently, what is there astonishing in the fact that in the study of those causes you should be able to deduce mechanically from them their effects? The contrary would be impossible and absurd. Thus, explain to us as much as you please that, a wing being given, the bird must fly; that does not at all prove that the wings were not given to it for the purpose of flying. In good faith we ask, If the author of nature willed that birds should fly, what could he do better than give them wings for that object?

The demonstration of the reality of final causes, and of a decreed and premeditated plan in nature, furnishes a primary and powerful refutation of the systems which pretend to explain the successive formation of organized beings by the sole action of natural forces, acting fatally, petrifying, modifying, transforming living matter in an unconscious and blind manner. Lamarck and Darwin, as we have said, are the two naturalists who have substituted most successfully a fatal, necessary, and in some sort mechanical plan, instead of a premeditated plan, realized by an intelligent and spontaneous cause. Lamarck appealed especially to the action of means, habit, and want. The combined action of those agents sufficed to him to conclude from the rudimentary cell to man himself.

The action of means, exterior conditions, can modify the form and the functions of living beings; this is a fact of which the domestication of animals offers the most striking examples. But does it follow that because we can modify certain animal and vegetable species, we can therefore create their species? Can we imagine the possibility of modifications so active and powerful that they arrive at the most complex creations, at the construction of the great organs of animal life, and of those organs of the senses, so diverse and so marvellously adapted to their functions? "For instance," says M. Janet, "certain animals breathe through their lungs, and others by the bronchial tubes, and these two kinds of organs are perfectly adapted to the two means of air and water. How can we conceive that these two means should be able to produce so complicated and so suitable organizations? Is there a single fact among all those proved by science which could justify so great an extension of the action of means? If it is said that by _means_ we must not understand merely the element in which the animal lives, but every kind of exterior circumstance, then, I ask, let the materialists determine what is precisely the circumstance which has caused such an organ to take the form of the lung, and such another to take the form of the bronchia; what is the precise cause which has created the heart--that hydraulic machine so powerful and so easy, and whose movements are so industriously combined to receive the blood which comes from all the organs to the heart and send it back through the veins; what is the cause, finally, which binds all these organs together and makes the living being, according to the expression of Cuvier, "a closed system, all of whose parts concur to a common action by a reciprocal reaction?" What will it be if we pass to the organs of sense; to the most marvellous of them, the eye of man or that of the eagle? Is there one of those _savants_ who have no system who would dare to maintain that he sees in any way how light could produce by its action the organ which is appropriated to it? Or, if it is not light, what is the exterior agent sufficiently powerful, sufficiently ingenious, sufficiently skilled in geometry, to construct that marvellous apparatus which has made Newton say: "Can he that made the eye be ignorant of the laws of optics?" {240} Remarkable expression, which, coming from so great a master, should make the forgers of systems of cosmogony reflect an instant, no matter how learnedly they may dilate on the origin of planets, and who pass with so much complacency over the origin of conscience and life!