Chapter VI: Marriage Bells (5)

The Reading jail is worked entirely on the isolated system, each prisoner being virtually as much alone amidst two hundred fellow-captives as if he were the only inmate. It is urged against this system that it frequently leads to madness, total solitude being the most cruel form of punishment, and the one against which the human mind is, by its very essence, least calculated to bear up. But the theory applies in its chief force to solitary confinement, where the sound of the human voice and the sight of his fellow-creature's face never intrude upon the tomblike silence of the dungeon; where complete inaction of the body feeds the despondency of the imagination dwelling on the one fixed idea of an interminable perspective of silence and solitude. In the case of short periods of incarceration, the separate system must be regarded as an immense improvement on the old gregarious one. It prevents the spread of vice, and protects the comparatively innocent subject from being utterly corrupted by the hardened sinner. In France, where the gregarious system is in full force, its effect is too plainly visible in the most deplorable results. A youth or a girl goes in a mere novice in iniquity, and, after a short sojourn in the midst of the offscourings of society, comes out utterly depraved. Nowhere is this truth more lamentably apparent than in those cases that come under the head of _prison préventive_, where any suspected person, on the smallest amount of evidence, is thrown into these social sloughs for weeks, nay, months sometimes, and held in hourly contact with thieves, forgers, burglars, and every species of offender. Strong indeed must be the principles, and pure the heart, that come out unshaken and unsullied from such an ordeal.

The men were at work on the day when we arrived at the jail, so we saw the penal system in full operation. The mildest form of hard labor is the oakum-picking. It is performed partly in the open air, partly in the cells, and consists of untwisting old cables, and then tearing them into loose hemp, which is used for caulking the seams of ships.

The next category was the stone-breaking. One side of a yard is walled off into separate compartments, with a railing at each end, and from these the ring of the pick-axe resounds dismally for many hours in the day. One of these cages was occupied by a lunatic, who had attempted the life of his brother. The poor fellow was only there for the day, awaiting an order for removal to some government asylum for the insane. He stood bolt upright, without leaning against the wall, with his hands hanging by his side, and his head bent downwards, the picture of melancholy and sullen despair. We noticed with satisfaction that the warder compassionately avoided passing before the poor creature's railing, and did not even speak within earshot of him.

On re-entering the house, we came into a corridor where the air was filled with a grinding noise of ominous import. On either side of us were cells, where the forced labor in its most severe aspect comes into view. Warders were walking slowly up and down, peeping at intervals into the cells through a narrow little aperture in the doors, where the prisoners were undergoing the sentence of the law. Some were grinding corn, others were turning the crankpump. The former is done by a machine which it takes all the strength of the workman's two arms to keep going. In one of these cells, the door of which was unlocked for us to examine closely, there was a lad of a little over twenty, of middle height, and with a countenance which, but for the sinister leer of the mouth, might have been called mild and almost prepossessing. We were startled to learn that this juvenile criminal had been taken up for highway robbery, with attempt to murder.

The cell opposite his was occupied by a middle-aged, broad-shouldered man, who was turning the crankpump. This is the most severe of all the forms of labor in the jail. To a superficial observer it would seem almost easy labor, so smooth is the movement of the crank as it gyrates under the clenched hands of the prisoner, his body rising and falling in rhythmic movement with the rotation of the crank he is propelling; but the strain upon the spine becomes after a while intolerable. This man was a very hardened criminal, and had just undergone seven days on bread and water in the dark cell, twenty-four lashes of the cat-o'-nine tails having proved unavailing; and he was still unsubdued. His misdemeanor in the prison was swearing at one of the warders, and threatening to break his skull against the wall; even after the fearful infliction of the dark cell, he repeated his threat to "do for him."

Coarse-matting weaving is another prison employment; it is far less laborious than either of the two preceding, yet working the heavy looms must be a great discipline to unpractised arms. One man's face in this category struck us as different from the others; it bore the unmistakable stamp of education; we found that the weaver was properly a man of a better class, and who, with half the ingenuity he had shown in getting into his present condition, might have been a well-to-do member of society.

In the lower basement there are admirably constructed baths, immersion in which is compulsory on the prisoners once a month. The dark cell above referred to is also in these lower regions. Refractory subjects are consigned to it for three, five, or seven days, as the case may be, for insubordination or idleness. It must be a very obdurate spirit indeed, one would imagine, which this awful punishment could leave unbroken. The darkness is like that of the grave, so dense that it is suffocating; and when the warder, to show how utterly every ray of light was excluded from the cell, suddenly went out, and locked the double doors upon us as we stood in the gloom, we all felt a chill of indescribable horror creep over us. The ventilation is, however, perfect, though we could not see how it was contrived.

The kitchen department is as bright and as complete in its appointments as the rest of the building. Great and desirable reforms have of late been effected in the prison fare, which a few years ago was so luxurious as to call loudly for remonstrance from all wise rulers and thoughtful men. The thief and the burglar a little time ago fared far better than the poor working-man struggling to put honest bread into his children's mouths, and infinitely better than the inmate of the workhouse. All this is happily changed, and the hospitality of the jail is now proportioned to the quality of the guests. The bread is coarse and brown, but sweet and wholesome. Each prisoner gets six ounces of it at breakfast, with a pint of gruel; eight at dinner, with a pound of potatoes; and on three days in the week three ounces of bacon; the other four he gets cheese instead; at supper, bread and gruel again. The quantity is less for a short-period man, namely, those who are condemned for a week or a fortnight; the reason being that the constitution could not resist for a lengthened period the low diet, which acts with salutary effect on the spirit for a short time. In answer to our inquiries how far the present system or any system acted as reformatory on criminals, the warder said he believed it very seldom attained that end. A man who once came to jail was pretty sure to come twice. "When a man gets the name of a jail-bird," he said, "it is all over with him; he can never hold up his head again amongst honest folk, and so he goes back to his old ways and haunts." He added that the one chance he had was to go out of the country to a place where he had no past to live down; and for this reason he observed that the Prisoners' Aid Society ought to be upheld by all humane people. It offered the only plank to the shipwrecked that was possible.

Amongst the two hundred prisoners which the jail accommodates, there happens at the present moment not to be a single Catholic. We were surprised to hear this, for we noticed more than once that the men into whose cells we entered cast a wistful look at the young priest who was with us; and when he smiled and nodded to them on turning away, their faces relaxed into a smile too. Mr. S---- told us that this was no uncommon thing; that, as a rule, the prisoners, whatever be their religion, welcome the Catholic priest with a smile, and seem thankful for the chance of speaking to him. The parson, on the contrary, they look on with suspicion, and even with aversion, frequently listening in sullen silence to his questions, and refusing to answer them. This does not betoken any dislike to the Protestant minister personally; it arises from the fact of his having a sort of official character, and being thus associated in their minds with the cruel strength of the law; whereas the priest only comes in the capacity of a helper--one who pities them, and would serve them in body and soul if he could; his errand is purely one of mercy and kindness. Our companion told us that this jail has for him many beautiful memories of grace and repentance. He has gone there frequently in the course of the winter to hear the confessions of penitents who have approached the sacraments in their little cells with sentiments of the most touching humility and sorrow. These prodigals are almost invariably Irish. "Wherever you find a Paddy, you find the faith," observed Canon R----; "and where is the spot on earth where you don't find one?" To illustrate the truth of this remark, he told us a curious anecdote, which was related to him many years ago by the priest to whom it occurred. This priest went on the mission to America, and for some years his labors lay in the wild regions of the far West. The missionary led pretty much the life of the children of the virgin forests that he traversed, and where the footprint of the white man was never seen. He rode for miles and miles through the wilderness, feeding, like the anchorites, on what he could gather by the way, and sleeping in the branches of some thick-foliaged tree, to the stem of which he tied his horse; and at daybreak he was off on his rambles again. One morning, as he was riding through a wood in search of food, he descried a little wreath of smoke curling above the trees. He made for the spot, thinking he had come on a field of labor in the shape of a little colony to be baptized; but, on approaching, he found only a solitary wigwam, at the door of which a wild woman was squatting with a brood of small children about her. The good father was exhausted with hunger, and managed, by signs and a few words of the Indian dialect, to convey this fact to the woman. She rose at once, and placed before him her frugal store. While he was doing justice to it, the lord of the wigwam returned, and great was his amazement to behold the guest whom his lady was hospitably ministering to. The priest was trying to air his small store of words, when his host, who was attired in the scanty costume of his tribe, with a plentiful crop of feathers sprouting from his head-gear, after surveying him silently for a moment, exclaimed, "Your reverence is a Catholic priest, I'll be bound, and an Irishman into the bargain!" His listener nearly capsized with astonishment. But it was neither a vision nor a delusion. The wild Indian was himself an Irishman, who, with two older companions, had come to those remote forests many years before in search of fortune in some form or other; the trio had been captured by the Indians, who put two of them to death, and only spared the youngest on account of his expertness with the bow and arrow and other kindred accomplishments which made him useful to the tribe. He learned in time to speak their language and adopt their mode of life, even to the extent of marrying a wild woman of their race. But the faith of his childhood survived amongst the vicissitudes of this strange career. He welcomed the priest with joy and the reverence of a genuine Irish heart; and before the missionary left his wigwam, he received the wife into the church, married the pair, baptized and instructed the children, and administered the sacraments to the father. Then he sallied forth once more on his life of danger and self-sacrifice, which, though it afforded many consoling and romantic episodes, never furnished such another as this. "Now," exclaimed Canon R---- triumphantly, "just tell me if such an adventure as that could happen to any two men under the sun but a pair of Irishmen!" And no one contradicted him.

But to return to the jail. We visited the church last. It was the saddest spectacle of all, though the building itself was bright and just then full of sunshine. The seats rise in the form of a steep amphitheatre, almost touching the ceiling at the last tier; and they are so contrived that each prisoner is as isolated in his own seat as if he were the only one looking up at the bare pulpit, where no crucifix, nor pitying Madonna, nor kindly angel face looks down upon him, but only the wooden box, where the preacher once a week tells him of the message of mercy, and points to the home where the Father awaits each prodigal son. There, locked up between four narrow boards that rise high above his head, the prisoner assists at the service on Sunday. So rigorously is the separate system maintained that the two men who were employed in washing the stairs and floor of the church were masked, so as not to recognize each other even in passing, while a warden stood by to prevent their exchanging a word together. The men are exercised in batches every morning from six to a quarter past seven in the prison garden--a dreary place to call by that flower-suggestive name. They wear masks, and walk at a distance of four yards from one another, holding a rope with the left hand. Such a system naturally disarms the dangers of agglomeration, and makes mutiny or concerted rebellion impossible. The strength of union is not theirs, and they are as feeble as if, instead of being two hundred against nine, the proportions were reversed. Attempts to escape are almost unknown. The reason of this may be that the inmates are never condemned to a longer term than two years, which would be trebled, both in duration and in severity, if the attempt failed; so, in face of such a risk, it would hardly be worth while to make it. We did not visit the female department, which is conducted on precisely the same principle, the only difference being the greater lenity of the enforced labor. It was painful enough to see strong men brought to just humiliation for their misdeeds; but our hearts failed us to look at women in the same position. On the whole, we left the Reading jail with our minds disabused of many illusions concerning the strong hand of the law. Its application is as humane and merciful as is compatible with the interests of justice and the professed object of legal punishment. There is nothing to demoralize or to harden a culprit whose misfortune it is to undergo a term of durance within its walls. Before, however, such punishment can be really reformatory, the whole community must be reformed on the highest Christian ideal. We must learn not to despise or unduly mistrust the weak brother who has fallen once, but to practically recognize the vital truth implied in the prayer taught us by our Master: "Lead us not into temptation;" remembering that if we have not fallen it is from no merit or strength of our own, but of the gratuitous mercy of God, whose providence has prevented us in temptation, and saved us from our own weakness; and that the measure of our preservation from evil should be the measure of our charity to the fallen. When we have all learned this, we may see our prisons reformatory as well as penitential; we doubt if we ever shall otherwise.

THE LUTE WITH THE BROKEN STRING.

I took the lute I had prized so much
In my day of pride, in my day of power,
And wiped the dust with a tender touch,
And wreathed it gaily with ribbon and flower.
And the tears from my heart were falling fast
For the bloom that had faded, the fragrance fled,
As I thought of the hand that had wreathed it last--
The hand of my darling now cold and dead:
And I put it aside with a passionate fling,
And something was broken--a heart or a string.

And again I essayed, when the tears had dried
And the tumult of sobs in my bosom was still,
To touch it once more with the olden pride,
That the hearts that yet love me might hear it and thrill:
But a soft low note, with its melting power,
A tone of deep pathos, had trembled and gone;
And my hopes died out in that silent hour,
And left me in darkness and sorrow alone.
What wonder, beloved, that I cannot sing
A song of the heart with a broken string?

What worth is the lute when its music hath fled?
What worth is the strain when its alto is lost?
What worth is the heart with its tenderness shed,
And all its warm feelings laid waste by the frost?
But love cannot die. There is comfort in this,
That Love is eternal, though passion controls.
And what, then, is heaven, with its glory and bliss,
But the union of hearts and communion of souls--
When saints shall be minstrels, and angels shall sing,
And lutes shall have never a broken string?

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE DIVINE SEQUENCE. By F. M. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1873.

This is a small volume, but one replete with thought. It treats of the relation existing between some of the principal doctrines of the faith, with special reference to the office of our Blessed Lady as mediatrix of grace. The topics treated, though they are the most sublime and mysterious dogmas of faith, are handled with a theological precision and with a depth of contemplative piety which show that the author has drawn her doctrine from the purest sources, and meditated on it profoundly within her own soul; for the author of this admirable treatise is a lady, though we refrain from giving her name out of respect to the modesty which has induced her to hide herself behind the veil of initials. There are some copies of the English edition--which we regret very much not to see reprinted here--for sale at The Catholic Publication House; and we feel sure that if the lovers of the choicest gems of spiritual thought and sentiment knew the value of this one, they would lose no time in securing it.

THE LIFE OF LUISA DE CARVAJAL. By Lady Georgiana Fullerton. London:
Burns & Oates. 1873. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication
Society.)

This book is an addition to the sum total of sound Catholic literature. We almost lose sight of the merit of the translator's style in admiration of the motive that led her to undertake the task. The life of this holy Spanish woman is strange and pathetic. Her lifelong sacrifice of worldly, and, what is more, of national, associations for the sake of an apostleship in England during the dark days of the faith in that country, is indeed a triumph of grace and a heroic model to all after-ages. Luisa de Carvajal was a woman of rare strength of mind, energy, perseverance, and endurance. Her holiness was that of the champion rather than of the novice. Her mind was richly cultivated. Latin was familiar to her; English she acquired after she was thirty years of age--a feat requiring much patience in a Spaniard. Her theological knowledge, patristic lore, and minute acquaintance with the Scriptures were distinguishing traits of her subsequent self-education. Involved in a tedious lawsuit, her accurate memory, excellent understanding, and unflagging presence of mind were no less remarkable than her sweet temper and great patience. Although never setting her will in opposition to that of her spiritual advisers, she invariably conquered their objections, and by her very humility proved her superiority. Her vocation to a life of poverty, without at the same time being called to a conventual life, was a peculiar dispensation; and when we think of the greater ridicule that attended such an unconventional manner of "leaving the world," we see how much greater the sacrifice was than we at the present day can imagine. Her life in England seems a romance of self-devotion, and her English biographer has lovingly dwelt upon its interesting details. One pregnant suggestion is made by the translator, which is, that it would be a specially holy work for a woman to undertake to train in a species of semi-religious community life those young girls whose future destiny is the instruction of youth in the higher classes. This, although applicable chiefly to England, and of less significance on this side of the ocean, is a suggestion that deserves more notice than it is perhaps likely to get, embedded as it is in the crowded narrative of Doña Luisa's life. One thing shines forth out of this exceptional record of a holy and strong woman's days, and it is this--that God somehow or other always removes all obstacles to his _real_ will in his own good time. In her youth, Luisa was foiled, by her natural guardians and really best-intentioned friends, in her desire to adopt the strange life to which God called her--that of a recluse without a cloister--and in a few years these friends were taken away, leaving her her own mistress. Later on, when the seemingly Quixotic wish came over her to leave Spain to minister to the English martyrs under James I., and preach the Catholic faith in London, her long lawsuit, which was urged as a reason for giving up this design, suddenly came to a favorable and

THE

CATHOLIC WORLD.

VOL. XVIII., No. 105.--DECEMBER, 1873.[88]

A TALK ON METAPHYSICS.

One of the greatest obstacles to the spread of philosophical education is the false opinion which, through the efforts of a school of low scientists, has gained much ground--viz., that metaphysics, the central and most important part of philosophy, is only a mass of useless abstractions and unintelligible subtleties; a science _à priori_, telling us nothing about facts; a dismal relic of mediæval ignorance and conceit; a thing, therefore, which has no longer a claim to hold a place in the world of science. This is a shameless misrepresentation, and as such it might be treated with the contempt it deserves; but it is so carefully insinuated, and with such an assurance, that it succeeds in making its way onward, and in gaining more and more credit among unreflecting people. We intend, therefore, to give it a challenge. A short exposition of the nature and object of metaphysics will suffice, we hope, to show our young readers the worthlessness of such mischievous allegations.

What is metaphysics? _It is_, answers one of the most eminent metaphysicians, Francis Suarez, _that part of philosophy which treats of real beings as such_. This definition is universally accepted. It is needless to remark that a being is said to be _real_ when it exists in nature; whereas that which has no existence except in our conceptions is called _a being of reason_. But it is well to observe that the expression, _real being_, is used in two different senses. In the first it means a _complete_ natural entity, which has its own separate existence in nature, independently of the existence of any other created thing; as when we say that _Peter_, _John_, and _James_ are real beings. In the second it means some _incomplete_ entity, which has no separate existence of its own, but is the mere appurtenance of some other thing to the existence of which it owes its being; as Peter's _life_, John's _eloquence_, James' _stature_. Of course, every substance, whether material or spiritual, simple or compound, is a complete entity; but every constituent, attribute, property, or quality of complete beings is an incomplete entity, inasmuch as it has no separate existence, but only partakes of the existence of the being to which it belongs.

A real, complete entity is said to be a _physical_ being, because it possesses all that is required to exist separately in the physical order of things. On the contrary, a real, incomplete entity is said to be a _metaphysical being_. Thus, _movement_, _velocity_, _time_, _force_, _attraction_, _repulsion_, _heat_, _cold_, _weight_, _work_, _resistance_, _figure_, _hardness_, _softness_, _solidity_, _liquidity_, etc., are metaphysical beings. Those modern men of science who shudder at the very name of metaphysics would do well to consider for a while this short catalogue of metaphysical entities. They would find that it contains the very things with which they are most familiar. If metaphysical entities are only abstractions--empty and useless abstractions, as they declare--what shall we say of all their scientific books? Are they not all concerned with those dreadful metaphysical entities which we have enumerated? Yet we would scarcely say that they treat of _useless abstractions_. Certainly, when a drop of rain is falling, the _action_ by which it is determined to fall is not an abstraction, the _velocity_ acquired is not an abstraction, and the _fall_ itself is not an abstraction. In like manner, the _rotation_ of the earth, the _hardness_ of a stone, the _sound_ of a trumpet, are not abstractions; and yet all these are entities of the metaphysical order. Therefore, to contend that metaphysics is a science of pure abstractions is nothing but an evident absurdity. The object of metaphysics is no less real than the object of physics itself.

It may, perhaps, be objected that, though the material object of metaphysics is real and concrete in nature, we despoil it of its reality as soon as we, in our metaphysical reasonings, rise from the individual to the universal; for universals, as such, have no existence but in our conception.

The answer is obvious. The _metaphysical_ universals must not be confounded with the _logical_ universals. The logical universal--as genus, difference, etc.--expresses a mere concept of the mind, and is a mere being of reason, or a _second intention_, as it is called; but the metaphysical universal--as figure, force, weight, etc., is not a mere being of reason; for its object is a reality which can be found existing in the physical order. It is true that all such realities exist under individual conditions, and therefore are not _formally_ but only _fundamentally_, universal; for their formal universality consists only in their mode of existing in our mind when we drop all actual thought of their individual determinations. But, surely, they do not cease to be realities because the mind, in thinking of them, pays no attention to their individuation; and, therefore, metaphysical universals, even as universal, retain their objective reality.

We might say more on this subject, were it not that this is hardly the place for discussing the merits of formalism, realism, or nominalism. We can, however, give a second answer, which will dispose of the objection in a very simple manner. The answer is this: Granted that abstractions, _as such_, have no existence but in our intellect. Nevertheless, what we conceive abstractedly exists concretely in the objects of which it is predicated and from which it is abstracted. Humanity in our conception is an abstraction, and yet is to be found in every living man; velocity, likewise, is an abstraction, and yet is to be found in all real movement through space; quantity also, is an abstraction, and yet is to be found in every existing body. Therefore, abstract things do not cease to be real in nature, though they are abstract in our conception. This is an evident truth. If the adversaries of metaphysics are bold enough to deny it, then they at the same time and in the same breath deny all real science, and thus forfeit all claim to the honorable title of _scientific_ men. Statics and dynamics, geometry and calculus, algebra and arithmetic, are abstract sciences. No one will deny that they are most useful; yet they would be of no use whatever if what they consider in the abstract had no concrete correspondent in the real world. Chemistry itself, and all the experimental sciences, inasmuch as they are sciences, are abstract. Atomic weights, inasmuch as they fall under scientific reasoning, are abstractions; genera, species, and varieties in zoölogy and botany are abstract conceptions; crystalline forms in mineralogy are as abstract as any purely geometric relation. Indeed, without abstractions, science is not even conceivable; for all science, as such, proceeds from abstract principles to abstract conclusions. But though the process of scientific reasoning be abstract, _real_ science deals with _real_ objects and real relations. And such is exactly the case with metaphysics, which is the universal science of all reality, and the queen of all the real sciences.

These general remarks suffice, without any further development, to vindicate the reality of the material object of metaphysics. But here the question arises, Are _all_ real beings without exception the object of this science?

Some authors, in past centuries, thought that the only object of metaphysics was to treat of beings _above nature_; and accordingly taught that God and the angels alone were _metaphysical_ beings--that is, beings ranging above nature. On the contrary, man and this visible world--that is, all creatures liable to local motion--they called _natural_ beings, and considered them to be the proper and exclusive object of _physical_ science. This view was grounded, apparently, on the latent assumption that metaphysics meant _above physics_; which, however, is not correct, as μετὰ does not mean _above_, but _after_; and therefore metaphysical is not synonymous with supernatural.[89] On the other hand, God and the angels are undoubtedly _physical_ beings; for they are complete beings, having their complete physical nature and their separate existence. We cannot call them _metaphysical_ beings; for we know of no beings which deserve the name of metaphysical but those incomplete entities which are attained through the intellectual analysis of physical and complete beings.

As to man and all the other natural things, every one will see that though they are, in one respect, the proper object of physics, yet they are also, in another respect, the proper object of metaphysics; and this too, without in the least confounding the two branches of knowledge. The attributions of physics and of metaphysics are, in fact, so distinct that there can be no danger of the one invading the province of the other, even though they deal with the same subject. The office of the physicist is to investigate natural facts, to discuss them, to make a just estimate of them, and to discover the laws presiding over their production. This, and no other, is the object of physics, to accomplish which it is not necessary to know the essence of natural things. Hence, the physicist, after ascertaining the phenomena of nature and their laws, cannot go further in his capacity of physicist. But where he ends his work, just there the metaphysician begins; for his office is to take those facts and laws as a ground for his speculations in order to discover the essential principles involved in the constitution of natural causes, and to account by such principles for all the attributes and properties of things. This is the duty of the metaphysician. Thus natural things, although an object of physics when considered as following certain laws of action or of movement, are nevertheless an object of metaphysics when considered in their being and intimate constitution.

On this point even physicists agree. "Instead of regarding the proper object of physical science as a search after essential causes," says one of the best modern champions of scientific progress, "it ought to be, and must be, a search after facts and relations."[90] Hence, physical science deals with natural facts and their relations exclusively; the search after causes and essential principles constitutes the object of a higher science; and such a science is real philosophy, or metaphysics proper.

I was surprised at finding in Webster's _English Dictionary_ (v. Metaphysics) the following words:

"The natural division of things that exist is into body and mind, things material and immaterial. The former belong to physics, and the latter to the science of metaphysics." From what we have just said, it is clear that this division is not accurate. We must add that it is not consistent with the definition of metaphysics given by the same author only a few lines before. Metaphysics, says he, is "the science of the principles and causes of _all_ things existing." Now, if material things existing do not belong to metaphysics, it evidently follows that either material things existing have no principles and no causes, or that such principles and causes are no object of science. But it is obvious that neither conclusion can be admitted. Furthermore, it is well known that all metaphysicians treat of the constitution of bodies--a fact which conclusively proves that material things are not excluded from the object of metaphysics.

Here, however, we must observe that some modern writers, while conceding this last point, contend that material things _must be mentally freed from their materiality_ before they can be considered as an object of metaphysics. Their reason is, that this science is concerned with real things only inasmuch as they consist of principles known to the intellect alone. Matter, they say, is not an object of the intellect. Therefore, the object of metaphysics must be immaterial--that is, either a thing which has no matter of its own, or at least a thing which is conceived, through mental abstraction, as free from matter.

But we should remember that, according to the common doctrine, the true and adequate object of metaphysics is _all_ real being as such, whether it be material or immaterial; and that it is, therefore, the duty of the metaphysician to divide substance into material and immaterial, and to give the definition of both; for it belongs to each science to point out and define the parts of its own object. Hence, the metaphysician is bound to explain how things material differ from things immaterial, and has to ascertain what metaphysical predicates are attributable to material substance on account of its very materiality.[91] Now, it is evident that nothing of the kind can ever be done by a philosopher who, through mental abstraction, considers material substance as freed from its matter. For when, by such an abstraction, he has taken away the matter, what else can he look upon as a ground of distinction between material and immaterial beings? We must admit, then, that material things, inasmuch as they are _real_ things, and only in that manner in which they are real (that is, with their own matter), are a proper object of metaphysics.

To the patrons of the opposite view we confidently answer that their argument has no sound foundation; for though it is true that no material thing, owing to the complexity of its simultaneous actions on our senses, distinctly reveals to us its material constitution, yet it is not true that material things cannot be understood by our intellect unless they are mentally stripped of their matter. To understand them thus would be simply to misunderstand them. Matter and form are the essential constituents of material substance, as all metaphysicians admit; it is, therefore, impossible to understand the essence of material substance, unless the intellect reaches the matter as well as the form.[92] Let us add that those very authors who in theory affect to exclude matter from the object of metaphysics find it impossible to do away with it in practice, and, in spite of the theory, devote to matter, as such, a great number of pages in their own metaphysical treatises.

Thus far we have defined the object of metaphysics. We now come to its method, on account of which it is so frequently assailed by the votaries of experimental science. Metaphysics, they say, is a science _à priori_; it is, therefore, altogether incompetent to decide any matters of fact; and, if so, what is the use of metaphysics? To this reasoning, which claims no credit for perspicacity, many answers can be given.

And first let us suppose for a moment that metaphysics is a science altogether _à priori_. Does it follow that it has no claim to our most careful attention? Geometry, algebra, and all pure mathematics are _à priori_ sciences. Are they despised on this account? We see, on the contrary, that for this very reason they are held in greater honor and lauded as the most thorough, the most exact, and the most irrefragable of all sciences. Some will say that the object of mathematics is not to establish natural facts, but only relations; but this is equally true of metaphysics. The metaphysician, when treating of physical subjects, assumes the facts and laws of nature as they are presented to him by the physicist; he has not to establish them anew, but only to account for them by showing the reason of their being. Metaphysics would, therefore, be as good, as excellent, and as interesting as geometry, even if it were an _à priori_ science.

But, secondly, what is the real case? To proceed _à priori_ is to argue from the cause to the effect, and from antecedents to consequents; whereas, to proceed _à posteriori_ is to argue from the effect to the cause, and from consequents to antecedents. Now, it is a fact that in metaphysics we frequently argue from the cause to the effect, as is done in other sciences too; but it is no less a fact that we even more frequently argue from the effect to the cause. The very name of _metaphysics_, which is the bugbear of our opponents, clearly shows that such is the case. Real philosophy, in fact, is called _metaphysics_ for two reasons, the first of which is extrinsic and historical, the second intrinsic and logical. The historical consists in the fact that Aristotle's speculations on those incomplete entities which enter into the constitution of things were handed down to us under the name of metaphysics. The logical is, because the knowledge of such incomplete entities must be gathered from the consideration of natural beings by means of an intellectual analysis, which cannot be made properly without a previous extensive knowledge of the concrete order of things. This latter knowledge, which must be gathered by observation and experiment, constitutes physical science. Hence, the rational knowledge which comes after it, and is based on it, is very properly called _metaphysical_, and that part of philosophy which develops such a knowledge _metaphysics_--that is, after-physics.

Now, all analysis belongs to the _à posteriori_ process; for it proceeds from the compound to its components, and therefore from the effect to the cause. Therefore, metaphysics, inasmuch as it analyzes natural beings and finds out their constituents, is an _à posteriori_ science; and since such an analysis is the very ground of all metaphysical speculations, we must conclude that the whole of metaphysics is based on the _à posteriori_ process, no less than physics itself.

Thirdly, that metaphysics cannot decide any matter-of-fact question is a silly objection; as it is evident that to establish the existence of God, the spirituality of the human soul, the creation of the world, etc., is nothing less than to decide matters of fact. It may be that, in the opinion of the utilitarian, such facts are not very interesting; they are facts, however, as much and as truly as the rotation of the earth, atmospheric pressure, and universal attraction are facts; and they are much more important, too.

We might also maintain that metaphysics is mainly a science of facts; for there are facts of the intellectual as well as of the experimental order. That every effect must have a cause is a fact. That every circle must have a centre is another fact. That a part is less than the whole is a third fact. Intellectual facts are as numerous and as certain as the facts of nature; and it is through them that our experimental knowledge of natural things is raised to the dignity of _scientific_ cognition. For there is no science, whether inductive or deductive, without reasoning, and no reasoning without principles; and every principle is a fact of the intellectual order. Those critics who are wont to slight metaphysics as an _à priori_ science would, therefore, do well to consider that no true demonstration can be made but by _à priori_ principles, and that true demonstration constitutes the perfection of science.

We may here remark that metaphysics is usually divided into _general_ and _special_, and that the _à priori_ character, for which it is assailed, belongs to general metaphysics only. General metaphysics treats of the constituents, attributes, and properties of being in general, and is called ontology. Ontology is considered as a necessary preparation for the study of special metaphysics, which, from the knowledge of being in general, descends to the examination of the different classes and genera of beings in particular. Our men of science, accustomed as they are to the inductive method, do not approve of this form of proceeding. On what ground, they ask, do you impose upon the student notions, definitions, and principles _à priori_, as you do in ontology, affirming in general that which has not yet been examined in particular, and taking for granted what has yet to be established and verified?

The answer is obvious enough. General metaphysics assumes nothing but what is already admitted as evident by all mankind. It is mainly concerned with the notions conveyed by such words as _being_, _cause_, _effect_, _principle_, _essence_, _existence_, _substance_, _accident_, etc. These notions are common, and their methodical explanation is based on common-sense principles--that is, on evident, intellectual facts. Thus far, therefore, no one can say that we invert the natural order of science; for we start from what is known.

Next comes the analysis of the notions just referred to. The object of this analysis is to point out distinctly the different classes of being, the different genera of causes, the variety of principles, reasons, etc., implied in those general notions, to show their ontological relations, and to account for their distinction. This important investigation, as well as the preceding one, is based on common-sense reasonings, but sometimes not without reference to other truths, which are established and vindicated only in special metaphysics, to which they properly belong. Thus, it is the custom to treat in ontology of the intrinsic possibility of things, and its eternity, necessity, and immutability; but it is only in natural theology that such matters find their full and radical explanation. Of course, whenever an assertion is made, of which the proof is totally or partially deferred to a later time, the assent of the student to it is more or less provisional. It is not, however, in metaphysics only that a student must accept certain things on trust; he thus accepts the equivalents in chemistry, the distances of the planets from the sun in astronomy, and the logarithms in trigonometry.

Yet we confess that philosophical writers and teachers sometimes expose themselves to just criticism by treating in general metaphysics certain matters which it would be better to reserve intact for special treatises. It is doubtless necessary, immediately after logic, to treat of the nature of being, and its principles and its properties in general; but it is extremely difficult, and even dangerous, to undertake the settlement of some questions of ontology connected with the physical department of science before these same questions are sufficiently explored by the light, and disentangled by the analysis, of special metaphysics, to which their full investigation really appertains. What is the use of giving, for instance, an unestablished, and perhaps preposterous, notion of corporeal quantity to him who has as yet to learn what is the essential composition of bodies? Is a student prepared to realize the true nature of the quantity of mass, or of the quantity of volume, who has never yet explored either the mysterious attributes of formal continuity or the intimate constitution of material substance? Certainly not. He may, indeed, make an act of faith on the authority of his professor; but philosophy is not faith, and no professor who understands his duty would ever unnecessarily oblige his pupils to admit anything as true on his own sole authority. Questions connected with the physical laws of causation and movement, or with the nature of sensible qualities and properties, should similarly be deferred to a later time; for no one will be able to deal successfully with them, unless he has already acquired a distinct knowledge of many other things, on which both the right understanding and the right solution of these questions essentially depend. Accordingly, such matters, instead of being treated lightly and perfunctorily at the beginning of the course of metaphysics, should be treated with those others to which they are naturally allied, in order that they may be fully examined and competently decided.

From this it will be seen that we do not want a metaphysical science based on _à priori_ grounds. In all times, metaphysics has been a science of facts; and it could not be otherwise, since its object is real, and all that is real is a matter of fact. Experiment and observation have always supplied the materials of its speculations. All its conclusions about the nature of the soul are drawn from the facts of consciousness; all its affirmations concerning the constitution of bodies are founded on the facts and laws of the physical world; and all its theses on God, his existence and his attributes, are likewise deduced from a positive knowledge of contingent things. To suppose that metaphysical knowledge can be obtained otherwise is such an absurdity that nothing but the most stupid ignorance can be made to believe it. And yet this absurdity is what many of our modern scientists fall into when they contend that metaphysics is an _à priori_ science.

It is not difficult, however, to account for such a dislike of metaphysical reasonings. The greatest number of our scientific men have been brought up under the influence either of Protestantism or of its legitimate offspring, indifferentism; and absolute truth, such as is attained by rigorous metaphysical reasoning, is not congenial to their habit of thought. Protestantism is a system made up of half-truths, half-premises, and half-consequences. A Protestant must at the same time believe the authenticity of the Bible, and reject the authority by which alone the Bible can be proved to be authentic; he must conciliate the liberty of his private judgment with the obedience due to the teaching of his church; he must have the courage to believe that true Christian religion is not that which, from the apostolic times down to our own, has formed so many generations of saints, changed the face of the world, confirmed its own divine origin by a perpetual succession of prodigious works, but that which, starting from Luther or some other mischievous innovator, has never and nowhere produced any fruit of high sanctity or witnessed a single miracle. Hence, to a Protestant mind, truth in its entirety must be embarrassing; since the very essence of Protestantism is to cut truth into pieces, to believe and relish a portion of it, and to reserve some other portion unbelieved and unrelished, lest nothing should be left to protest against.

It is clear that minds so disposed in religious matters cannot be much better disposed in other branches of speculative knowledge; and it is but natural that they should despise metaphysics altogether. "To the healthy scientific mind," says a modern writer, "the fine-spun arguments and the wonderful logical achievements of metaphysicians are at once so bewildering and so distasteful that men of science can scarcely be got to listen even to those who undertake to show that the arguments are but cobwebs, the logic but jingle, and the seeming profundity little more than a jumble of incongruous ideas shrouded in a mist of words."[93] Indeed, when men of science are thus satisfied with their ignorance of philosophy, and shut their eyes and their ears, lest the light, or perhaps the jingle, of logic compel them to learn what mere experimentalism cannot teach, we cease to wonder that they countenance such theories as the _Descent of Man_, the eternity of matter, or the meteoric origin of the principle of life.

We do not wish to deny the progress of modern science; we fully acknowledge that experimentalism has led to the discovery of important facts. But this is no reason why our men of science should disregard philosophy.

An increase of positive knowledge regarding facts, far from bringing about the exclusion of philosophical reasoning, extends its range, enlarges its foundation, and makes its employment both easier and surer. Accordingly, while we profess gratitude to the modern scientists for their unceasing labors and untiring efforts towards the development of experimental knowledge, we beg leave to remind them that this knowledge is not the _ne plus ultra_ of natural science. Subordinate sciences account in a certain measure for such things as form their special object; but philosophy, the highest, the deepest, and the most universal of sciences, not only embraces in its general scope all the objects of human knowledge, but accounts for them by their highest principles and causes, and makes them not only known, but understood. To know facts is an excellent thing; yet the human mind craves something higher. We are all born to be philosophers. Indeed, our rational nature teaches us very early the first elements of philosophy, and compels us to philosophize. As soon as we acquire the use of reason, we detect ourselves tracing effects to causes, and conclusions to principles; and from that time we experience a strong tendency to generalize such a process, till it extends to all known objects and to the ultimate reasons of their being.

Yet we should reflect that our rational nature, while thus prompting us to such high investigations, does not lead us freely to the goal, but leaves it to our industry to acquaint ourselves with the proper methods of discovering philosophical truth. Negligence in the study of such methods hinders intellectual advancement, and leaves men exposed to the snares of sophistry. Such a negligence on the part of men who are looked upon as the lights of modern science is one of the great evils of the day. Distaste for philosophical instruction, when confined to the lower classes of society, is of little consequence: even in the middle classes it might be comparatively harmless if men were ready to own their ignorance, and forbore judging of what transcends their intellectual acquirements. But in an age like ours, when every one who has a smattering of light literature or of empirical science thinks himself called upon to decide the most abstruse and formidable questions; when countless books and periodicals of a perfidious character are everywhere spread by the unholy efforts of secret societies; and, when a confiding public allow themselves to be led like sheep by such incompetent authorities, then ignorance, supported by presumption or malice on the one side, and by credulity on the other, cannot but be the source of incalculable evils.