Footnotes
[1.] “Essentialis ratio substantiæ ut sic non consistit in esse per se, quatenus per hæc verba describitur ipsum subsistere in actu, sed in hoc quod habeat talem essentiam, cui debeatur subsistentia, seu quæ ex se sit sufficiens principium illius.”—Suarez, Metaph. Disp. 34, sect. 8, n. 11. [2.] Τὸ ἐν ἑατῷ ὃν, καὶ μὴ ἐν ἑτέρῳ ἔχον τὴν ὔωαρξιν.—Dialect., c. 4. [3.] Ἐπὶ πάντων τῶν ὄντων, τὸ ἐν ἑαυτῷ, καὶ μὴ ἐν ἑτέρῳ ἔχον τὸ εἶναι, οὐσία ἐστί.—Dialect., c. 4. [4.] Ὀυσία ἐστι πᾶν ὄτιπερ αὐθυπόστατόν ἐστὶ, καὶ μὴ ἐν ἑτέρῳ ἔχει τὸ εἶναι.—Dialect., c. 39. [5.] “Quod in suo maneat, nec ope subsistat aliena (Deus), appellatur substantia.”—De Incarn., c. 10. [6.] This absence is a real negation—a negation of imperfection, so long as we speak of God, who cannot admit of an inferior nature being inserted in the plenitude of his reality; but a negation of further perfection when we speak of created things, which are potential, and can be raised supernaturally above their natural condition. [7.] Contra Gent., lib. 1, c. 25. [8.] “Substantia non addit supra ens aliquam differentiam, quæ significet aliquam naturam superadditam enti: sed nomine substantiæ exprimitur specialis modus essendi” (De Verit., q. 1, a. 1). Hence this special mode does not constitute the nature or essence of the thing itself, and for this reason it is not mentioned in its definition, as S. Thomas says, Quodlib. 9, q. 3. [9.] “Prima substantia est quædam natura sensibilis, quæ nec de subjecto dicitur, nec in subjecto aliquo est.”—In Logic. Arist., c. 5, De Substantia. [10.] “Non est de essentia eius subsistentia, sed modus substantiæ.”—In 3 part, q. 77, a. 1. [11.] Lib. xi. c. 14. [12.] Vol. 2, q. 1, de accident. [13.] “In substantiæ rationem redeuntes, tria quoad ipsam considerare possumus: primum, quod existat, et quidem in se; alterum, quod tali potius quam alia realitate constat, seu essentia, ex qua determinatæ vires operandi dimanant; tertium, quod se possideat, sitque sui juris in existendo. Primum proprie et præcise constituit notionem substantiæ; alterum conceptum offert naturæ; postremum denique, ... ideam suppositi præbet.”—Metaph. Gen., n. 64. [14.] “Ex duobus, nempe ex re prædicamenti, et ratione essendi ejus, quæ est ratio prædicamenti, constituitur ipsum prædicamentum, et diversificatur unum prædicamentum ab alio.” [15.] De Verit., q. 1, a. 1. [16.] “Non propter defectum alicujus quod ad perfectionem humanæ naturæ pertineat, sed propter additionem alicujus quod est supra humanam naturam, quod est unio ad divinam Personam.”—Summa Theol., p. 3, q. 4, a. 2. [17.] “Persona divina sua unione impedivit, ne humana natura propriam personalitatem haberet.”—Ibid. [18.] “Existere ex se solum dicit habere entitatem extra causas, seu in rerum natura; unde de se indifferens est ad modum existendi innitendo alteri ut sustentanti, et ad modum existendi per se sine aliquo sustentante.”—Metaph. Disp. 33, sect. 4, n. 24. [19.] It is known that this analogy has been erroneously interpreted by some old and modern heretics, who taught that Christ's body is in the Holy Eucharist by impanation or by consubstantiation, and not by transubstantiation. The heresy of impanation asserts that the Eternal Word in the Holy Eucharist becomes bread by assuming hypostatically the substance of bread. The heresy of consubstantiation assumes that in the Holy Eucharist the substance of Christ's body is united with the substance of the bread, and that therefore the Eucharist contains both substances. These heresies are, of course, mere corruptions of the traditional doctrine. The first corrupts it by confounding the substantive sustentation with the personal assumption, and by substituting the latter in the place of the former. The second corrupts it by supposing that a thing substantively supported by an underlying substance continues to exist as a substance; which is against the traditional definition of substance, and against the very analogy of which it pretends to be the interpretation; for, in virtue of such an analogy, it is as impossible for a thing thus supported to be a substance as it is impossible for the human nature assumed to be a human person. Hence what logically follows from the analogy of the two mysteries is neither impanation nor consubstantiation, but real and proper transubstantiation—that is, a real substitution of one substance for another under the remaining sensible species. [20.] “Subsistere dicit determinatum modum existendi per se et sine dependentia a sustentante; unde illi opponitur inesse vel inexistere; dicitque determinatum modum existendi in alio.”—Disp. Metaph. 33, sect. 4, n. 24. [21.] At the consecration of a church to the Sacred Heart. [22.] What, sir! you bring us all those pretty ladies! You will revolutionize our poor curate. [23.] According to Gov. Dix's report for 1874, our “evangelical” state church will have to draw the sum of $8,600,000 (eight million, six hundred thousand dollars!) out of the public treasury to erect two “evangelical” asylums, one “evangelical” hospital, and one “evangelical” non-sectarian state reformatory! From the same report we learn that our “evangelical” system of public education cost the state for the year ending September 30, 1873, the sum of $20,355,341 (twenty million, three hundred and fifty-five thousand, three hundred and forty-one dollars!); and that our “evangelical” state church owns twenty-seven millions, seventy thousand, three hundred and ten dollars' worth of school property! Remember that Catholics pay their proportion of the taxes, and that most of the public schools are not only “evangelical” in their religion, but some even formally Methodist by the “hymns” and prayers taught in them! [24.] How little publicity the “Evangelical” press have given to this letter, because it favored the Catholics! [25.] One of our judges—an ex-Methodist minister—lately in open court violated the parental right over offspring by sending a Catholic child to a Protestant establishment in spite of the respectable father's opposition. [26.]
The following are the words of our State constitution in regard to religion:
“The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall for ever be allowed in this State to all mankind.”—Art. 1, sec. 3.
Now, it is known that the “free exercise” of the Catholic religion is not “free” in most of our state institutions; and in most of them there is “preference and discrimination” in favor of “Evangelical” clergymen and against the Catholic Church. The writer could prove by affidavits that in the very city of New York there is religious persecution in some of the state institutions, if the general scope of his remarks permitted him to go into many details. Where is the Catholic priest living near a state institution but knows that there is “discrimination” made against him?
S. Thomas says (Summa Contra Gentiles, l. 4, c. xi.): “Nam viventia sunt quæ seipsa movent ad agendum; illa vero quæ non nisi exteriora movere possunt omnino sunt vita carentia.” This, however, is rather a description of a vital phenomenon than a definition of life itself. Fichte says: “Life is the tendency to individuation;” which, like most of the phrases of the German pantheists, means nothing or anything you please.
According to Richerand, “Life is a collection of phenomena which succeed each other during a limited time in an organized body”; but this applies equally to the succession of phenomena which takes place in the body after death. Herbert Spencer defines life to be “the co-ordination of actions”; but what is anything but a co-ordination of acting forces, consequently of actions? This definition is as applicable to sulphuric acid as to life.
It may be well to quote the testimony of two Englishmen on this subject.
Buckle, in his History of Civilization, vol. i. page 158, says: “Thus, for instance, the miserable and impudent falsehoods which a large class of English writers formerly directed against the morals and private character of the French and—to their shame be it said—even against the chastity of Frenchwomen, tended not a little to embitter the angry feelings then existing between the two first countries of Europe: irritating the English against French vices, irritating the French against English calumnies. In the same way, there was a time when every honest Englishman firmly believed that he could beat ten Frenchmen—a class of beings whom he held in sovereign contempt, as a lean and stunted race, who drank claret instead of brandy, who lived entirely off frogs; miserable infidels, who heard Mass every Sunday, who bowed down before idols, and who even worshipped the Pope.”
“I did not know,” says John Stuart Mill, in his Autobiography, “the way in which, among the ordinary English, the absence of interest in things of an unselfish kind, except occasionally in a special thing here and there, and the habit of not speaking to others, nor much even to themselves, about the things in which they do feel interest, cause both their feelings and their intellectual faculties to remain undeveloped, or to develop themselves only in some single and very limited direction, reducing them, considered as spiritual beings, to a kind of negative existence.”
“O thou, whom chance or will brings to the soil,
Where fair Armida doth the sceptre guide,
Thou canst not fly; of arms thyself despoil,
And let thy hands with iron chains be tied.”
—Fairfax's Translation.
The Question of Anglican Orders Discussed. By E. E. Estcourt, Canon of S. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham. 1873.
On the Decision of the Holy Office on Abyssinian Orders. By the Rev. J. Jones. Letter to the Month, November-December, 1873.