The Catholic World, Vol. 27, April 1878 to September 1878

by Various

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Philochristus. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1878.

The peculiar merits of this book cannot be too highly valued by any sincere lover of Christ. Its sweet, earnest, intensely religious tone leads the reader through its learned pages over a most delightful walk of spiritual and intellectual recreation. Dry and unsatisfactory discussion is wholly avoided, and the all-absorbing subject, the human life of the divine Redeemer, is pictured in a light glowing with fascinating love and luminous with precise intelligence. Assuming the character of a disciple who actually lived with and followed Christ until the Ascension, the author represents himself as writing in Alexandria ten years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and when, he says, “almost all those disciples who with me saw the Lord Jesus in the flesh are now fallen asleep.” He admits the impossibility of portraying Christ “as he was in himself,” but he “determined rather to set forth an history of mine own life, wherein, as in a mirror, might perchance be discerned some lineaments of the countenance of Christ, seen, as by reflection, in the life of one who loved him.”

The book opens with a brief but strikingly graphic statement of the condition of Judea, both religiously and politically, at the time of our Lord’s public appearance. Its subjection to Roman domination had eliminated its existence as an independent state, whilst the excessive love of ceremonial into which the law had degenerated betokened the need of a new law and a new law-maker. For to be pious in those days meant “to be obedient to the light precepts of the law, such as the laws concerning the exact observance of the Sabbath, and concerning purifications, and concerning the consumption of nail-parings and the like” (p. 27). The nicety to which these casuistic pietists carried their human observances is shown from the example of one of them, Abuyah, who extolled the Law of the Tassels as most perfect; and so, he says, “once, because I had chanced to tread upon a portion of the fringe of my garment, going up a ladder, I steadfastly refused to move from the spot where I stood till such time as the rent had been repaired.” It was this same pious man that chid his mother “because she wore on her dress a ribbon that was not sewn but only fastened to her vesture, for thus she transgressed the law by bearing burdens on the Sabbath.”

Bringing in Philo and some Alexandrine Jews, with an exposition of their philosophical opinions, adds much interest to the narrative. The patriotic spirit of the enthusiastic Galileans who hastened to gather around Jesus, whom they thought to have come for the restoration of the ancient glory of Israel, is well depicted, and shown to have been the chief motive leading so many from that province to follow him. How slowly even the disciples learned the true mission of our Redeemer appears from the fact that Philochristus himself had no definite conception of it in the beginning. Conversing with Gorgias, a travelled Jew, he sees advancing the tetrarch’s Thracian guard, whose description, as well as that of the Roman soldiers, is admirable: “I looked and saw a band of about three hundred men, of a wild and savage aspect, bearing targets and girt with scimitars. But Gorgias, noting, as I suppose, the anger in my countenance, answered: ‘These dogs (may the Lord destroy them root and branch!) are swift indeed to shed the blood of women and children, but they are as naught compared with the Romans. Couldst thou see a Roman legion how they march, these would seem unto thee but as jackals at the lion’s tail. Mark but how the dogs straggle. But when the Romans march the spears in their hands all point one way, and the swords by their sides hang all after one fashion, and even their stakes and tools (which they carry behind their backs) do all swing to one time, and their feet, arms, and heads, yea, even to the winking of their eyes, go all together after the manner of a five-banked corn-ship of Alexandria, with her five hundred oars all keeping time; and when they charge, they charge like ten thousand elephants clad in iron.... Verily these Roman swine are all as children of Satan; but a Roman legion is as Satan himself’” (p. 126). As he had been listening to Christ teaching that whosoever would enter the kingdom should become as little children, it seemed not easy to him to reconcile this with the temporal restoration of Israel, and “methought,” he says, “it would be very hard to overthrow these Thracians, and much more the Romans, by becoming as little children” (ibid.)

Although the work does not come out as a Catholic production, it is very encouraging to those who desire the spirit of Christ to be more universally diffused to find such books receiving extensive circulation. Dogmatic or formally doctrinal propositions are not to be found in it, yet the substantial doctrine of the Gospel is clearly discernible in the body of the work. Excepting the brief exposition of the doctrine of divorce at p. 213, there appears nothing in the whole book inconsistent with a candid, Catholic exegesis of Scripture. The beautiful exposition of Peter’s faith and the founding of the church thereupon, at p. 249, could not be easily surpassed. It is a good sign when Protestants have such works placed in their hands, and the publishers deserve well of the public for the creditable manner in which they have brought out this admirable volume. No professing Christian can read it without very much profit, and, indeed, he will be filled with the author’s declaration concerning Christ: “For in his presence I find life; but to be absent from him is death” (p. 242).

Holy Church the Centre of Unity; or, Ritualism compared with Catholicism. Reasons for returning to the True Fold. By T. H. Shaw. London: R. Washbourne. 1877.

This pamphlet is not a little remarkable among those which issue from the pens of converts. It is very different from what its title leads us to expect. But perhaps it will take the Protestant mind all the better for its peculiarities. We confess, for our own part, to being disappointed at the same time that we are pleased. There is occasionally an exhibition of something like bad taste. There is extravagant use of italics—the effect of which is always weakening. There are outbursts of pious sentiment—a thing never suitable to polemical pages. Then, too, there is no continuity of argument. Each chapter stands by itself and needlessly repeats what other chapters have dealt with. Still, in spite of these defects, there is an earnestness from beginning to end which cannot fail to impress the mind of a real inquirer. And together with this earnestness there is a force in the way some of the arguments are put which is greater, by contrast, than it would appear in pages of the usual style of controversy.

The writer begins by telling us that he has been “for nearly fifty years a member of the Church of England.” He is therefore no hot-brained undergraduate. He adds that his “misgivings were first aroused as early as the year 1851”; and that his “convictions have become matured by means of earnest prayer for Divine guidance.” Here is a mental process that ought to strike a Protestant, and make him ask his conscience: “Am I seeking that I may find? Am I praying for light as this man did? Can I believe that such persistent prayer has ended in delusion?”

The author’s next paragraph is a specimen of his way of putting things:

“Regarding the Church of England—to say nothing of the overwhelming testimony against her through lack of ‘apostolic commission’ and her want of unity in doctrine—the endowments, the system of patronage, the untrained priesthood, are in themselves facts glaringly inconsistent with the idea of the guidance of the Spirit of that God who is the author and source of all unity. There is no trade or profession for which it is required that a youth should go through less training than that which suffices for the English clergy. Almost any scholar would pass for holy orders whose father had a lucrative benefice at his disposal. Is it so in Rome? I rather think that learning, self-sacrifice, and poverty are the main worldly requirements. Which most corresponds to our Blessed Lord’s life upon earth, whose ‘kingdom is not of this world’?”

On pages 22-25 he quotes from Father Harper’s reply to Dr. Fraser, Bishop of Manchester, on infallibility. The learned Jesuit is appealing to the testimony of the Third, Fourth, and Sixth Œcumenical Councils. All Anglicans profess to receive the Third and Fourth, some even the Sixth. If their divines should honestly state, as arguments on the Catholic side, the passages cited by Father Harper, their cause would be a lost one indeed, as many of them know but too well. It is therefore a great service to lay these passages before the candid inquirer, who, in all probability, has never heard of Father Harper’s “reply,” or would fear to read it if he had. Further quotations follow, from page 25 to page 27, showing how the dogma of Papal Infallibility, like all other definitions, is “at once old and new,” and thus refuting the stale charge of innovation.

We conclude our notice with another piece of excellent advice to professed inquirers:

“We should call a man insane who endeavored to roof in his house before he had laid the foundation or measured its dimensions; just so it is in fact when people seeking the true church begin by attacking and trying to understand every dogma. These can never be fully understood. It is only as the house becomes built up that the roofing begins; so it is in the spiritual house of the soul. Faith leads us to the church. Faith is, then, the foundation. As the soul grows in grace and humility, so the mysteries of godliness expand before the eye of the soul, revealing that which at one time appeared most obscure.... The great thing needed is divine faith; and this is never found by mere arguing and reading. It is the free gift of God, to be obtained only by earnest prayer.... Get this, and then search whether Jesus Christ did establish a visible church.”

The “faith” here spoken of is not fides formata, for that “comes by hearing”; but the grace of a right disposition for accepting the “word of Christ.” And this disposition is not merely an attitude of earnest attention, but, essentially, a spirit of humility—the “becoming as a little child.” It is precisely the lack of this child-like spirit that makes our arguments barren of result even where they are listened to with respect.

Life of St. Winfrid, or Bonifacius, Martyr, Archbishop of Mentz and Apostle of Germany. By the author of St. Willibrord. London: Burns & Oates. 1878. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This latest life of the great apostle of Germany is a truly interesting contribution to the early missionary history of the church, and as such seems to commend itself in an especial manner to those of his wandering Anglo-Saxon children who would fain be of the church without being within it; since in this short narrative these may learn how, in the eighth century, their great English saint laid his spiritual allegiance at the feet of Peter before he went forth successfully to undertake the conversion of the heathen and the reform of abuses among half-hearted and unruly Christians. And might not these also ponder on the counsel of Pope St. Zacharias, addressed to the Saxon monk, when commenting on certain of the Gallic clergy who held nationality above unity, the fringes of the episcopal robe of greater value than the seamless raiment of the Bride of Christ? “Preach, dearest brother,” writes the holy pope, “the rule of Catholic tradition we have received from the Holy Roman Church which we serve, and of which God is the founder.”

The present English biographer of St. Boniface has enriched the historical account of the saint’s labors with letters that give a vivid picture of the faith and simplicity of those troubled times that seem so confusing a maze as we look back on them with the clouded memories of early school-days, when English history was a tangled web of Ethelwulfs and Ethelberts.

To American ears the name of St. Boniface grows familiar through the churches that rise in his honor among his German children in the United States, yet, while we seem to know him better under the title given him at Rome, we heartily enter into the feeling of loving pride that makes his English biographer dwell on the sweetness of the Saxon name, and with its peaceful syllables waken patriotic echoes among the forests of Thuringia and the waves of the Zuyder Zee—Boniface or Winfrid, he is alike peacemaker and worker of good for all the nations.

Voyage of the Paper Canoe: A Geographical Journey of two thousand five hundred miles, from Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, during the years 1874-5. By Nathaniel H. Bishop, Author of “One Thousand Miles’ Walk across South America,” and corresponding Member of the Boston Society of Natural History, and of the New York Academy of Sciences. Boston: Lee & Shepard; New York: Charles T. Dillingham. 1878.

Mr. Bishop has given us a most interesting and instructive book. It cannot fail to be interesting to every one who has any love for nature, or any appreciation of out-of-door life and adventure; and it is instructive in two ways: first, by showing what can be done by a paper boat (a thing which most people know little or nothing about) under skilful management, and, secondly, by the information it gives regarding that remarkable inland line of navigation which runs along almost our whole Atlantic coast, the very existence of which is perhaps known to comparatively few persons.

Mr. Bishop started from Quebec on July 4, 1874, in a large wooden canoe, with which he had at first proposed to make his journey, under the impression, in which well-informed seamen shared, that two hundred miles of his route would be on the open ocean. With this boat he ascended the St. Lawrence and Richelieu rivers to Lake Champlain, thence proceeding by the Champlain and Erie canals to Albany. At this point he concluded to adopt a lighter craft, which was made for him at Troy by Mr. Waters. This was the paper canoe with which the rest of the voyage was made; it was only one-eighth of an inch in thickness, and weighed only fifty-eight pounds. In this seemingly frail but really very strong boat he rowed along down the Hudson, through the Kill von Kull, up the Raritan, through the canal to the Delaware, down the Delaware to the bay and Cape Henlopen, thence along the coast nearly to Cape Charles. Here he had to take the steamer across Chesapeake Bay; but thence, with the exception of short land-portages, the voyage was pursued through the sounds and inlets skirting the coast, and the Waccamaw River, to the Florida line at St. Mary’s, and across Florida by the St. Mary’s and Suwanee Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico.

We have given a short sketch of what Mr. Bishop did; but how he did it, and the various incidents and adventures of his trip, must be learned from the book itself, which we commend heartily to the perusal of all who like to read a most interesting story, which has the advantage of being true from beginning to end.

Seven Years and Mair. By Anna T. Sadlier. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1878.

This is a pleasing and graceful little tale quite out of the common track. It opens amid the wild scenery and the wild people of the Shetlands, passes thence to France, and goes back to a happy ending in its Shetland home. The out-of-the-way scenery and characters afford unusual scope for a picturesque imagination, which Miss Sadlier seems to possess in a very high degree, but which she holds under, a wise restraint and never allows to run away with her. She delights in the long, low sunsets, the gloom of night, the roar of the tempest, the swell of the sea, the grey and the rosy dawn of morning, the solemn beauty of the starry night. All these have a meaning, a poetry, almost a life for her; and she is very happy in her descriptions of them. These are enhanced by a sweet, clear English, which she has doubtless caught from a mother whose name is and will long remain a household word among Catholic readers. The narrative is fresh and pure and simply quaint. Miss Sadlier does not affect to depict the psychological monstrosities which are the ambition of most of the story-writers of the day. She avoids microscopic inspections of the interiors, so to say, of impossible personages, and gives us instead a pleasing story of the romantic style, with a few characters strongly marked and well contrasted, the whole forming a refreshing change from the average fiction of the day.

The Christian Reformed in Mind and Manners. By Benedict Rogacci, S.J. The translation edited by Henry James Coleridge, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1877. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This volume is the twenty-third of the quarterly series brought out by the Jesuits in London. The original is a work of the seventeenth century. “It may be considered,” says the editor, “as the fruit of the great experience of Father Rogacci in giving retreats,” and “is one of those series of meditations in which the whole substance and system of the Exercises of St. Ignatius are worked up, although not precisely in the form in which they lie in the Exercises themselves.” Moreover, “the meditations are meant for persons of all classes, not only for religious persons; and those who are familiar from practice with the text of the book itself of St. Ignatius will not fail to see how perfect an acquaintance with and mastery of it must have been possessed by Father Rogacci.”

The meditations are arranged for an eight days’ retreat, at the rate of four a day. But since this may be considered excessive, a “selection” is given on page xii. “for persons who desire to make only three a day.” Indeed, Father Rogacci’s own practice was “not to give more than three meditations a day, with a repetition, or some practical considerations helping to the reformation of life, in the afternoon.” “The place of these considerations,” continues the editor, “is supplied in the present work by a number of practical reflections which he calls réforme, one of which he would have the exercitant read each day at the time of the consideration. There are sixteen of these considerations, in order that the exercitant may choose for himself, or as directed by his spiritual guide, whose assistance is supposed in works like this, according to his special needs.”

Our own judgment of the work is that it is most excellent as a whole, and we recommend it specially to those who are called upon from time to time to give retreats, whether to religious or to sodalities. We regret, however, that the meditations on hell, which are assigned to the fifth day, have been left without annotations for those who may use the book in private. “Pious” exaggerations and figures of speech which may be necessary, by way of economy, to impress gross and sensual natures are very much out of place, we think, in a work of the kind before us.

Our Sunday Fireside: or, Meditations for Children. By Rory of the Hill. London: Burns & Oates. 1878. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

The author of this series of stories, as we find stated in the preface, aims “to supply, for the use of children, some meditations on the choice of life,” while he endeavors so to clothe, in a garb attractive to childish minds, great truths of salvation and of every-day morality—as well as the more complex relations of “church and state”—that, the picturesque raiment winning the eyes, the soul may be led to weigh the half-hidden substance. How far he has attained his aim remains for the children to prove to whom his words shall be read. To us the garb seems, in many cases, too deep-freighted with cabalistic embroidery for little hands to lift, and the substance too heavy with the world’s fate for little minds to weigh. “Many carps are to be expected when curious eyes come a-fishing,” says gentle Robert Southwell, and so our curious eyes open wide with wonder at the wise little maiden of thirteen years who discourses of “amphibologics” and “the hypodichotomy of petty schisms”; who quotes from Renan and Voltaire, Walpole and De Tocqueville, citing almost volume and chapter, and who sets before her younger brothers and sisters the question of the great social conflict of the age, the ceaseless war between Christ and the world in its modern phase of “Liberalism” versus the divine voice of the church of God. In his ardent interest in the subjects whereof he treats we fear the scholar has often forgotten himself, and so has failed to stoop low enough, or rise high enough, to reach the hearts of the little people for whom he writes, picturesque as are his descriptions and full of meaning as are his tales, among which we like best “The Way of Life,” for the greater simplicity of its action; “Forgiveness,” for the Christian pathos of its close; and “The Last Mass,” for the solemn beauty and true poetry of its cathedral vision.

A Manual of Nursing. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1878.

In reading this little volume it will be seen that nursing is an art only to be acquired by a large experience and under competent instruction. Although this Manual has been published expressly for the Training School for Nurses at Bellevue Hospital, nevertheless it would repay perusal by any person who is liable to be called upon to act as nurse. As is truly remarked in the preface, the infirm and superannuated are not suitable as nurses. The young and vigorous are the proper subjects to act in such capacity. Judging from its past record, the Training School is a success, and its pupils are far in advance of the old-time nurses who vegetated about Bellevue and charity hospitals. Many physicians state that numbers of patients are lost through injudicious acts on the part of the nurse. A careful perusal of this Manual, and a careful attention given to the physician’s advice, will certainly be important, and would repay the trouble a hundred-fold.

Frederic Ozanam, Professor at the Sorbonne: His Life and Works. By Kathleen O’Meara. (First American Edition.) New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 9 Barclay Street. 1878.

We greet with pleasure the appearance of an American edition of this delightful biography, an article on which appeared in The Catholic World, February, 1877, on the event of its publication in England. This edition has, we understand, been published at the request of the Supreme Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul of this city, and we trust there is not a member of the society in the country who will not read this life of one of the founders, in fact we may say the founder, of the great and useful Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

Vacation Days: A Book of Instruction for Girls. By the author of Golden Sands. Translated from the French. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1878.

This is another of the admirable little series of devotional and instructive works which Miss McMahon has been the happy means of setting before the English-reading public. Vacation Days follows Golden Sands in its method of appealing simply and tenderly and with apt illustration to the young heart. We recommend it strongly to young people who have the opportunity of idling during these idle days. A passing glance once a day at a page or two of it will form an excellent antidote to the literary trash which nowadays constitutes the staple commodity of summer reading.

Select Works of the Venerable Father Nicholas Lancicius, S.J. Vol. I. London: Burns & Oates. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This is the first volume of a selected edition of the works of one who was a very holy Jesuit and great master of spiritual life during the first half of the seventeenth century. It is a spiritual treatise developing the eight days’ retreat which is founded on the Exercises of St. Ignatius, and contains many pious considerations supported and illustrated by opinions of the saints. We do not question the doctrine of the book; it is solid, orthodox, and inviting; but we believe the book is one which, on the whole, is not adapted to people living in the world, and had better be confined to that class of persons, religious and people retired from the world, for whom it was originally written. Some of the examples taken from the lives of saints are “hard to be understood,” and several of the illustrations given in the chapter on “Helps to escape Purgatory” are not specially edifying to us. We do not care to believe in the vision of a certain monk, or even to think about numerous souls impaled upon spits and roasted like geese before a large fire, with a lot of devils around them acting the part of cooks. The work is well translated from the Latin, and contains a short preface by Father Gallwey, S.J., whose name stands deservedly high in England.

The Mysterious Castle: A Tale of the Middle Ages. Translated from the French by Mrs. Kate E. Hughes. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co.

This quaint autobiography of the Baron de Rabasteins is charmingly written. It is full of pleasant, lively incidents of travel, with descriptions of the life and manners of the French people during the middle and latter half of the last century, a period which can hardly be classed as mediæval, as the title given to the translation imports. The adventures of the young baron in the so-called “mysterious” castle of Monségur surpass any story of the kind we have ever read in fiction. If they knew what a treat was in store for them by its perusal, there is not one of our young folks who would not like to get it as a school premium or as a Christmas present. However, we feel it our duty to say that there are numerous faults in translation which in future editions should be corrected. As, for example, on the first page we are confronted with the expression “decision of the holy siege,” by which we presume is meant “the judgment of the Holy See.”

The Art of Knowing Ourselves, etc. By Father John Peter Pinamonti, S.J. With Twelve Considerations on Death, by Father Luigi La Nuza, S.J., and Four on Eternity, by Father John Baptist Manni, S.J. Translated by the author of St. Willibrord. London: Burns & Oates. 1877.

Daily Meditations on the Mysteries of Our Holy Faith, and on the lives of our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Saints. First Part, containing Meditations for the five weeks of Advent, for the six weeks after Christmas, as also on the Mysteries of the Life of Christ. Translated from the Spanish of Rev. Father Alonso de Andrade, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1878. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

Here are two more volumes of meditations written for other times and rescued from oblivion. Of the three brief treatises contained in the first volume, the “Art of Knowing Ourselves” is a veritable gem. It may well be called “the looking-glass which does not deceive.” Regarding the other two treatises—the “Twelve Considerations on Death” and the “Four on Eternity”—we have to remark again that there is much in them unsuited to the present age. We greatly prefer the second volume from the Spanish of Father Andrade; for though here, too, in the meditations for the first week of Advent, will be found things rather calculated to irritate than to edify, yet the rest of the book is the more delicious for its quaintness, and has a way we have never seen surpassed of making us familiar with Jesus and Mary as our models, and of showing us what wealth is treasured up in the gospels which the church has chosen for her Mass.

St. Teresa’s Own Words; or, Instructions on the Prayer of Recollection, etc. London: Burns & Oates. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

This is a good English translation, by Bishop Chadwick, of St. Teresa’s admirable method of interior prayer. It contains the sense and substance of the whole third book of the Imitation of Christ, showing us in brief how Truth speaks within, without the noise of words; and that interior conversation of Christ with the faithful soul is the surest means of possessing our Sovereign Good in this world and the next. It is, as Edmund Waller says, “infinite riches in a little space.”

The Notary’s Daughter. From the French of Mme. Donnet, by Lady Georgiana Fullerton. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

As the translator, Lady Fullerton, announces that this very pretty tale is an adaptation, and not in a strict sense a translation, we are assured that the gifted authoress of Lady Bird has not only avoided servility in translating the parts of Un Mariage en Province which she has decided to employ, but has added to a very charming French story some of her own excellent ideas, both in relation to plot and dialogue. The story brings us to the south of France, about Toulon, and is strikingly illustrative of the French theories in regard to matrimony. A notary, M. Lescalle, who possesses great political influence, has a very pretty daughter, Rose, whom he successively offers to all the great men in the neighborhood, desirous of his support, as a suitable wife for their sons. His offer is accepted by a rich roturier, but is abruptly broken off by M. Lescalle himself, in consequence of another offer of marriage by M. le Comte de Védelles, in behalf of his younger son, George. Now George, being considered a fada—namely, a half-witted person—is an object of aversion to Mlle. Rose; but, in spite of her repugnance, the ceremony takes place. It is needless to say that George is not a fada, but is a poet, unappreciated by his relations, and so everything is brought to a happy conclusion. The dialogue is above the average of novels, but even so, it is not very sprightly. The moral tone is exceptionally good. The plot affords an opportunity of condemning the system by which marriages are arranged in France, and invites reflections which cannot be discussed in a brief criticism.

The Precious Pearl of Hope in the Mercy of God. London: Burns & Oates (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

We welcome this beautiful little book as a great addition to our ascetical literature. It is translated into English from the Italian, and, to judge by its grace and elegance, by a master of both languages. The aim of the pious author was to awaken and increase in us a sense of confidence in God, which is so necessary to our spiritual life; and he admirably answers objections drawn from certain passages of the Sacred Scriptures which heretics and others have abused, and from some opinions of the Fathers insisting on the severity of the divine judgments. We are reminded by this little work of the great and constant account which the early Christians made of the virtue of hope, whose symbol was an anchor—suggested by St. Paul to the Hebrews vi. 18-19—and which, either alone or in connection with the fish (symbol of our Lord and Saviour), or combined with a cross, substituted for the ring by which the anchor is attached, was a very common device cut or impressed on lamps, rings, and other objects of daily use. Among early Christian inscriptions, also, few are more frequent than those which express hope in the mercy of God, such as Spes in Deo, Spes in Christo, Spes in Deo Christo.

Thalia. From the French of Abbé A. Bayle, by a Sister of St. Joseph. Philadelphia: Peter F. Cunningham & Son.

The vast majority of the lovers of light literature look upon classical stories with a certain mistrust. They fear them either to be too pedantic or wanting in “esprit.” Thalia opens in Arles, thence we voyage to Alexandria, then to Rome, from Rome to Nicomedia, and so on. There are a few good scenes and descriptive passages; but, although a somewhat agreeable way of learning the history of the time, it does not necessarily make a pleasing romance. A Sister of St. Joseph has translated Thalia into very correct English. The book is likely to be discarded as a light production by one who can appreciate its learned allusions, and to one who cannot, to read it will seem a task rather than a pleasure.

Ireland, as She Is, as She Has Been, and as She Ought to Be. By James J. Clancy. New York: Thomas Kelly. 1877.

The comprehensive title of this work indicates the author’s intentions in giving it to the public, and, if he has not succeeded in doing justice to a theme so important, he has at least produced a very readable book, in which will be found many historical facts clearly and succinctly stated, and several suggestions that will command the attention of the thoughtful reader. With some of Mr. Clancy’s views on the past and present of his native country we cannot agree. They are those entertained by a certain class of radical and impracticable politicians whose sole claim to attention consists in the fact that they are continually inveighing against the inevitable, and criticising the acts of the able men who, like Edmund Burke and Daniel O’Connell, have conferred dignity on their native land and earned for themselves the world’s applause. Still, the author of the book before us advances his opinions with so much comparative moderation that, while they do not compel conviction, they certainly command our respectful consideration. Those who have read Mr. Sullivan’s New Ireland will probably like to read this Irish-American version of the oft-told tale of Ireland’s wrongs and rights.

Wrecked and Saved. By Mrs. Parsons. London: Burns & Oates. 1878. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

The author of this very pretty and instructive tale is already well known to the public as the writer of several moral stories which, while thoroughly Catholic in tone and interesting in plot, are sufficiently attractive in an artistic point of view to command the attention of all intelligent readers. Wrecked and Saved is a story of everyday life very simply and gently told. The hero, who has been a shipwrecked babe, passed through all the phases of the life of a foundling, winning to himself friends by his good conduct, cheerful disposition, and intrinsic merits. Wrongfully accused of a heinous crime, he suffers imprisonment and mental torture, but, having finally been proven innocent, all ends happily. The plan of the book can scarcely be called original, but the lessons of patience, industry, and dependence on the will of Providence inculcated are excellent.

Forbidden Fruit. From the German of F. W. Hackländer. By Rosalie Kaufman. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. 1878.

This is a novel with the threadbare plot of a young heir being obliged to marry before a certain age or lose a considerable fortune. There is no grace or lightness about the dialogue, and scarcely a particle of humor in the entire book. There are one or two characters well drawn, of whom an old gentleman named Renner, and a young and vivacious beauty, Fräulein Clothilde, are possibly the best. As a rule, this kind of novel does not prove a success when translated for an American public. How it may succeed in Germany it is impossible to say, but certainly the book is even uncommonly stupid. When it is remarked that all the young ladies and gentlemen are distinguished for their elegance and beauty, the character of the story will be appreciated.

Total Abstinence in its Social and Theological Aspects. An address by the Rev. James J. Moriarty, Catholic pastor of Chatham Village, N. Y. Published by special request. Chatham Village, N. Y.: Courier Printing-House. 1878.

This is a very earnest and eloquent address, which was delivered to a mixed audience of Catholics and Protestants. Studiously popular in its style, it is for that reason especially adapted to go home to the hearts of the people. Father Moriarty has happily hit on the peculiar danger and fascination of the vice of intemperance in the following passage: “It is a vice that lies in wait for the most prominent members of society, the highest in station, the most influential over their fellow-men. It is not the vice of the naturally mean, the selfish, or the miserly. It is more apt, of its nature, to attack those of the finest mind, the most brilliant talent, the brave, the frank, the generous-hearted, those open to the influence of the highest, the purest, the noblest sentiments.”

Erleston Glen: A Lancashire Story of the Sixteenth Century. By Alice O’Hanlon. London: Burns & Oates. 1878. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)

The scene of this tale, as the title indicates, is laid in England, and the time is that of Queen Elizabeth, before the Catholic gentry of the country became almost extinct, and the persecuting spirit of the “Reformers” had died out for want of material upon which to exercise its fanaticism. The plot of the book is simple, and the story is, taken all together, sad. Two happy, unobtrusive families, allied by long acquaintance and sincere friendship, but still more by the bond of a common faith, are suddenly and cruelly interrupted in their retired happiness by the agents of that government which it is the boast of some modern historians to characterize as one of the most glorious England has ever had. Then follow espionage, arrests, mental suffering and physical torture, that, though less than historical facts and by no means distorted from the truth, sicken the heart and move us to thank God we live in the nineteenth and not in the sixteenth century. As a work of art Erleston Glen is by no means perfect. Its stiffness of style argues an unpractised hand, and the incomprehensible Lancashire dialect is too often introduced to suit the general reader; but as a picture of English life as it was during the sudden paroxysm of Protestant reformatory zeal which characterized the reign of Elizabeth, it is both truthful and vivid. Many who do not care to read the more serious works lately printed in England on the same topic—the sufferings of Catholics in that country—will be both edified and instructed by a perusal of Miss O’Hanlon’s clever book.

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The Catholic Publication Society Company has in press, and will shortly issue, one of the most important of its excellent series of educational works. This is the History of the United States (for the use of schools), advance sheets of which lie before us. It is written by one of the most experienced and cultured of our writers, Mr. J. R. G. Hassard, author of the Life of Archbishop Hughes, Life of Pius IX., etc. Its letter-press, illustrations, and maps are beyond criticism. Its method is singularly well adapted to assist both scholar and teacher. At the foot of every page are questions on what has gone above. The History begins with the discovery of America and brings us down to our own times. It has this special distinction to recommend it: it gives Catholics their due prominence in a history of which they occupy so large a place, but a place that has hitherto been resolutely denied them. It is well, it is necessary, that Catholic children should feel and know that they have as grand a share in the history, the development, the life, the struggles, the triumphs of their country as has any other class. Placing this History in their hands at school is the very best means of instilling into their minds facts which it has been the custom to ignore in the histories thus far published.

The work is intended for the more advanced students in our schools and colleges. For younger scholars an Introductory History, arranged on the catechetical plan, has been prepared as an abridgment of the larger work, and will be issued simultaneously with the latter.

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We would again call the attention of our readers to the new and excellent works published by the Catholic Publication Society Co., and especially intended for light summer reading. Such are Six Sunny Months, Sir Thomas More, Letters of a Young Irishwoman, Alba’s Dream, and the various volumes of stories collected from The Catholic World. We only call attention to these because they are the most recent of their kind. The field of Catholic fiction is now happily a large and rich one, and Catholics who are given to this kind of reading might well turn aside from the foolish romances that are made to suit a vicious popular taste to works which are fully as interesting as the others without their nauseous flavor and immoral tone and tendency.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXVII., No. 162.—SEPTEMBER, 1878.

THE MATHEMATICAL HARMONIES OF THE UNIVERSE.[^[150]]

ARGUMENT.

The primary light of reflection which awakens the human mind to a distinct consciousness of itself at the same time reveals a world of unknown forms, the universe of space and succession, teeming with evolutions of order, beauty, and power. With the dawn of reason comes also the principle of causality, and man asks himself, What mean these mighty changes on earth and in the sky? What urges the wonderful motions of wind and wave, of sunshine and of shadow, and yonder golden fires that sparkle and burn in the high vault of heaven? Whence are they all, and whence am I? And the very first attempt to answer these spontaneous questions produces the first theory of natural theology, inaugurating the reign of the earliest natural religion.

But the curiosity of the intellect never slumbers, and the problem repeats itself from age to age: What is the magnificent and mysterious power above man and before nature, the primordial Cause of all phenomena? And in response to this constant and ever-recurring interrogatory the annals of speculation have presented several contradictory solutions, as the atheistic, the sceptical, and the pantheistic, none of which I shall now pause to criticise. I shall simply undertake to prove, in accordance with the rigorous rules of inductive logic, that the great cause, the fundamental efficient of all facts whatsoever, must possess the attributes of intelligence, and especially mathematical reason.

It will be remembered, however, that on the subject of causation, as to the reality of the abstract idea itself, the schools of both ancient and modern philosophy stand divided. The disciples of one sect assume the existence of secret forces in the bosom of nature, whose development results in those varied manifestations of mingled matter and motion which become perceptible to our senses; while their opponents, now including the élite of the most enlightened thinkers, as strenuously contend that the knowledge of efficient causes lies altogether beyond the reach of the human faculties; that our science must therefore be limited to the strict generalization of phenomena according to their invariable conjunctions of simultaneity and succession, without the possibility of discovering any hidden nexus or closer tie between them. This is the doctrine taught alike by the great names of Reid, Locke, Hume, Brown, Kant, and Comte.

But it is fortunate that the path of the present argument will not carry us into the mist of that interminable controversy. I shall not pretend to determine the specific qualities of causation in general. On the contrary, the whole extent of my purpose is to show that the fundamental efficient of all material facts, whatever else it may or may not be, must be endowed with the attribute of rationality.

I will begin by laying down the universal proposition: Every natural phenomenon having the characteristics of mathematical order and harmony, to the exclusion of chance, must be the effect of a rational cause.[^[151]]

Now, it is evident that the foregoing assertion, the major premise of my intended syllogism, predicates a uniformity of relation between a certain class of facts and the power which produces them. In other words, it affirms an invariable correspondence betwixt a given quality in the consequent, or effect, and a like definite attribute in the antecedent, or cause, whichever terminology different schools may prefer. The existence of this relation would by some be deduced from à priori principles founded on a mental analysis of the abstract notion of causation, while a large majority of mankind actually take it for granted as an intuitive axiom of self-evident truth; and thus, wherever they behold the appearances of design or the beautiful evidence of mathematical order, their inference of previous or contemporaneous causal intelligence is immediate and irresistible.

But neither of those procedures can be regarded as either certain or scientific. No sequence of events can attain to the dignity of a general and philosophic law until the antecedent and consequent are brought face to face and tested by the rigid rules of an infallible induction. The complicated web of circumstances must be unravelled to eliminate the extraneous facts, and discover what precise quality alone in the cause produces mathematical harmony in the effect.

For example, it is known that the air supports animal life as well as combustion. But that same atmosphere consists of two elements, oxygen and azote; how, then, shall it be ascertained which ingredient is the supporter of life and flame? To determine this question the natural philosopher performs an experimentum crucis by plunging a bird or a lighted candle in a jar of pure azote from which the oxygen has been removed, when the bird instantly dies and the candle is extinguished. The problem is solved according to the inductive canon of difference. Nevertheless, to make sure he reverses the experiment, and treats the animal or the flame with oxygen instead of azote, when the functions of vitality and combustion proceed without disturbance—indeed, with additional vigor. Here there can be no longer any room for doubt. It is manifest as any demonstrated theorem in geometry that of the two elements in atmospheric air, the oxygen, and not the azote, sustains both life and combustion. And as I said before, this is the procedure of induction by what Mill so happily terms the method of difference—the most potent and unerring of all the five canons for the investigation of causes.

Now, what we need for our induction as to the real and absolute efficient of mathematical order and harmony in the motions of the universe is a similar analyzed instance, where the naked antecedent and consequent shall be detected in the very act of conjugation. And, by a propitious arrangement of nature in the great fact of our complex organization, we have it in our power to perform this decisive experiment in the same manner and with as much certainty as in the previous example. We can act as individual causes, either with or without the presence of a rational purpose. Then, let the student seat himself, pen or pencil in hand, to make marks on the paper, without any intelligent design, as we sometimes do in a state of reverie when the reason is exclusively occupied with some other subject. The result is a medley of irregular and disconnected figures, of letters and words written mechanically, without beauty, order, or consecutive meaning.

Again, let the experimentalist apply the test of his intelligence. The effect is a series of united diagrams solving some profound problem in geometry, or a divine page of impassioned and classical eloquence, or the elegant delineation of any particular object of nature or art, according to the specific intention of the person. Here the analysis is perfect, and realizes the exact conditions imposed by the inductive canon of difference. The circumstances are all precisely identical in both cases, save the presence of rationality and its consequent mathematical harmony in the one instance, and their absence in the other. Hence there can be no question that in human causation the attribute of reason is the actual efficient of every species of order.

Besides, even nature herself presents the same experiment in every case of total insanity. The madman is deprived of reason, but not of simple volition or bare causal power; and the consequence is utter disorder and want of method in his actions. He cannot produce mathematical effects, because he is deficient in mathematical intelligence.

The same general law is demonstrated also by the canon of agreement. Universal experience shows in every department of science, industry, literature, and art that intelligence is the invariable antecedent of order, and that the absence of that mental quality involves the corresponding absence of all regular and harmonious sequence.

It remains, however, to prove our major premise by the method of concomitant variations, the canon of which has been expressed with such clear and scientific accuracy in Mill’s Logic: “Whatever phenomenon varies in any manner whenever another phenomenon varies in some particular manner, is either a cause or an effect of that phenomenon, or is connected with it through some fact of causation.”

For instance, in the case of heat, by increasing the temperature of a body we enlarge its bulk, but by enlarging its bulk we do not increase its temperature; therefore heat must be the cause, and not the effect, of expansion. In a similar manner philosophers demonstrate the first law of motion, or uniform velocity in a straight line, by showing that retardation, or divergence, is always in the definite ratio of the obstacles encountered by the moving body.

The application of this rule to our argument, although its force cannot be augmented, gives the evidence the greatest variety and splendor. For the annals of all ages and nations, without one single exception, bear witness that, in exact proportion to the increase of rationality, the human mind has always displayed corresponding effects of beauty and order in every sphere of art and civilization. What investigators have extended the limits of natural knowledge by perfecting the science of geometry, or discovering the differential calculus, or fixing the true principia of the material universe? Not a low class of intellects with feeble faculties of reason and no broad sweep of mathematical perception, but men of the loftiest genius, such as the immortal names of Euclid, Archimedes, Leibnitz, or Newton.

But I have already spent sufficient, and perhaps the reader will think too much, time on this primary induction, which indeed, from the universality of the law, has every appearance of being self-evident. Nevertheless, this fulness of discussion was indispensable to my purpose, that being to place all the premises of the argument on a scientific rather than a popular basis. And, if I am not mistaken, we are now entitled to consider the first proposition as completely proven: “That all natural phenomena having the attributes of mathematical order and harmony to the exclusion of chance must be the effects of a cause, or of causes, possessing rationality.”

I am aware, however, of the specious objection that the general induction is too wide for the warrant of its particular instances. It may be urged that although the demonstration is perfect as to the logical relation of intelligence as a cause and harmony as the consequent, yet still we are not justified in affirming that no other cause is capable of producing the same result. For example, a hundred separate antecedents may lead to death; and many ordinary facts follow very different material or mental efficients. Upon what principles, then, it will be asked, are we enabled to pronounce the universal negative that there cannot exist any unintelligent forces in the bosom of nature entirely adequate to the production of the mathematical order which we behold in the world of time and space? I state the adverse criticism in all its strength, because it is the only answer that can be interposed by the sceptical philosopher; and, besides, it constitutes the main difficulty in the minds of the multitude. Nevertheless, it cannot claim the slightest pretension to the dignity of a scientific argument.

In the first place, I remark that the objection, if it has any semblance of validity, proves too much, as it goes to overthrow every general proposition which can possibly be framed on the subject of causation, so far as assertion can proceed from the antecedent to the consequent. It cuts off from the realms of logic, at one reckless blow, the whole category of universal as to the predication of any causal sequence even among perceptible phenomena. Nay, it also denies the legitimacy of particular affirmations in all cases of causation; for if the sceptic has the logical liberty to assume the hypothesis of unknown and invisible efficients in one instance, he may with equal plausibility do so in all; and therefore these secret and unseen causes may be the real producing antecedents of every phenomenon whatever, and thus all knowledge must be reduced to naked conjecture.

By what rule, let me inquire, are we justified in extending the sublime law of gravitation to the various planets of the solar system, and even as high as the fixed stars? Obviously for the only reason that we perceive in the magnificent evolutions of the celestial bodies the same class of effects which appertain to terrestrial attraction. And upon that identical principle we are entitled to infer the existence of a rational cause wherever we behold mathematical harmonies or the manifest evidences of intelligence and design. The most stringent canons of induction give us this right, and I can see no motive for refraining from its exercise, if the process should perchance conduct us to the recognition of a Supreme Being. But as to this last point, we have not yet advanced far enough in the discussion to venture a positive declaration.

It must be admitted, however, that the axiom by which we are enabled to deduce a cause with specific attributes from any definite facts, such as we know by previous experience to be the natural consequents of that particular efficient, must be restricted to the special case where we have no acquaintance with any other cause competent for the production of the given phenomena. And this is precisely the condition of the case in our present argument. We have the most abundant and perfect experience that intelligence is adequate to produce the harmonious regularity and beautiful order of nature; but we are altogether destitute of scientific, or even superficial, knowledge as to the reality of any different cause which might yield those results.

As I have already observed, the most advanced schools of modern sensist philosophy entirely ignore the investigation of efficient or producing causes, as removed beyond the sphere of the human senses. On this point the Scotch metaphysicians speak as decidedly as the disciples of Locke and Hume, or the more profound and intensely critical Kant. Indeed, Dr. Thomas Brown has clearly demonstrated that in the physical world we can never hope to discover by sensation anything save phenomena, either antecedents or consequents, with their invariable laws of simultaneity and succession; while the deepest as the most laborious thinker of all, M. Auguste Comte, refuses even so much as to use the term cause in his Course of Positive Philosophy.

On the other hand, those who aver the existence of imperceptible powers and occult qualities as the actual efficients of phenomena do not attempt to define their character, nor pretend that they fall within the limits of sensible or intellectual cognition. A member of that sect, like the pedant in the old play, may explain “that opium produces sleep because it has a soporific property”; but if you ask him how he knows it to possess such a property, he can only answer, from the fog of his vicious circle, “because it produces sleep.” And such must ever be the virtual avowal of utter ignorance as to the nature of causation by the adherents of this obsolete school. And could they thus solve, even to their own satisfaction, the question of secondary causes, they leave the question of the First Cause untouched.

It therefore follows, in accordance with all the rules of the most rigid and thorough induction, that the mathematical harmonies of the universe furnish conclusive proofs of an intelligent cause; and if we reject this inference there is not, and cannot be, the faintest shadow of a possible hypothesis for the explanation of natural phenomena.

I will next proceed to state my second proposition: All natural phenomena have the characteristics of mathematical order and harmony to the exclusion of chance.

Now, it is evident that a generalization so sweeping and universal as the above could only be made good by an immense, an almost infinite series of inductions. Nevertheless, we are not bound to assume an onus of such overpowering magnitude. For as the syllogism of our argument belongs to the first figure, and we have to deal at present with the minor premise, that may well be particular; and the conclusion will be valid as to everything embraced within its terms, and that will be found sufficient to warrant our conclusion.

As a preliminary, however, it becomes necessary to explain the logical process for the exclusion or mathematical elimination of chance. Suppose there be two dice in a box, what are the chances of our turning an ace at a single throw? Obviously one-sixth, leaving six chances minus one against the probability; while the chances against our throwing two aces, or any other equation, may be set down, with sufficient accuracy for the purpose of this argument, as the square of the last number, or thirty-six. The chances against an equation of four dice are 1,296; while against eight they amount to the enormous sum of 1,679,616—an impossible throw, unless the cubes have been loaded. And it is manifest from this example how very soon the multiplication of coincidences indicative of order must demonstrate causation to the utter elimination of chance. I will now commence with the particular cases of the general law announced in my second premise.

INSTANCE I.—MYSELF.

I survey my right hand: it has five fingers; I look at my left: it has five also—the other member of an algebraic equation. I then turn to my feet, and behold a similar equation of five toes on each. I next turn to my bodily senses, and again find the mystic five. The wonder is increasing. And now all the incalculable millions of my fellow-men rise up and sweep before the eye of the mind, in all the rich and radiant, or coarse and unseemly, varieties of humanity; and all these, too, present the identical God-announcing miracle, the quintuple equation of fives.

Let us, however, apply the rigorous rules for the calculation of chances, not forgetting the judicious remark of Whately: “That the probability of any given supposition must be estimated by means of a comparison with each of its alternatives.”

Now, there can be but two suppositions possible as to this uniform combination by which the number five is five times repeated in the human organism. The cause, whatever that may be, which produces these invariable equations must be endowed with intelligence or not. There is no other conceivable alternative; for the abscissio infiniti effected by the word not, in logical division, always exhausts the whole category of things, both real and imaginary. Every object must be rational or not—rational in thought and in fact.

Therefore all these millionary equations of fives must have been produced by a cause, or causes, possessed of reason, or by a power destitute of that attribute. If we assume the first alternative there will be no chances for calculation, the efficient itself being amply adequate to develop the mathematical harmony.

But take up the other and only remaining supposition, that the causal agent producing the human organism is mere blind force of some unknown and unimaginable nature; what are the chances against such a hypothesis? We might say, in all logical strictness, that as we have no scientific knowledge of any such unintelligent cause capable of effecting the given phenomena of order, while we are acquainted with an efficient fully competent for the purpose, the chances against the naked assumption of blind force must be stated as infinity to zero. The chances against the equation of five fingers on each hand would be twenty-five. Add the five toes on each foot, and the chances will be six hundred and twenty-five. Then incorporate into the calculation the five senses, and the chances are three thousand one hundred and twenty-five. Let me procure a larger sheet, as the measureless sea of infinite and nameless numbers is flowing fast upon me. Next reckon the chances in the case of two persons, and they swell to the vast sum of nine millions, seven hundred and sixty-five thousand, six hundred and twenty-five; while the chances for four men will be the square of that number, and so on for ever. But the enormous sums soon overpower all the magnificent processes of our algebra, and no logarithmic abbreviations can aid us to grasp what stretches away into the unexplored fields of immensity. The attempt to apply the calculation even to the inhabitants now living on the globe would be as idle as the endeavor to enumerate the sunbeams shed during a solar year. The arithmetic of the archangel would perhaps be insufficient for the mighty computation.

In reference also to a single individual the subject might be pushed indefinitely farther—to the bones of the arms, head, feet, and the convolutions of the brain; for everywhere, and all through the physical framework, there runs a wonderful duality, where the series of constant equations counterbalance each other.

It must be borne in mind that I have shown in my major premise the necessity of rationality in the cause which effects mathematical order in the sequences of any natural phenomena. Hence such a cause is demonstrated for the whole of humanity. But, apart from the rigid logic of the argument, the question presents itself to popular apprehension: Could a cause without the intellect to perceive, the faculty to calculate and arrange, numerical relations, produce this infinity of mathematical harmonies?

If it be answered that the efficient is some unknown power or secret quality involved in the facts themselves or concealed beneath them, the problem still remains unsolved and rebounds upon us with accumulated force: Is that supposed secret power or occult quality self-conscious? Hath it the attribute of mathematical reason competent to the calculation and production of all these beautiful and boundless equations?

INSTANCE II.—CHEMISTRY.

Let us take our next comparisons from chemistry, that youngest sister of all the sciences, the splendid child of the galvanic battery, whose birth was brilliant as that of lightning.

Go analyze a cup of water. You find it composed of two parts of hydrogen to one of oxygen by volume, and eight parts of oxygen to one of hydrogen by weight. Nor do these numerical ratios ever vary. Freeze it into ice hard as the crystal of the jewelled mountains; dissipate it into vapor of such exquisite tenuity that a million acres of floating mist would scarcely form a single dewdrop; bring it from the salt solitudes of the ocean, or from the central curve of a rainbow, and submit it to the test of analysis; and still the pale chemist, as he watches the evolutions of the perpetual wonder from the depths of his laboratory, calls out: “Two to one, and one to eight, now and for ever!”

Let no one hope to estimate the chances against the hypothesis of the production of these mathematical relations by an unintelligent agent, unless he can first reckon the drops of a thunder-storm or measure the capacity of the sea.

A similar numerical harmony prevails in the atmosphere, which contains twenty parts of oxygen to eighty of nitrogen in every one hundred by volume, very nearly; the definite proportions never varying. Can it be imagined that the cause of this constant order, which rolled the aerial ocean of the breath of life forty-five miles deep around the globe, is itself destitute of the reason to perceive the ratios of its own wonderful works?

But select as another example a bit of limestone. You discover its elements to bear a quadruple proportion. There are twenty-two parts by weight of carbonic acid, and twenty-eight of lime. Lime yields on analysis twenty parts of the white metal calcium and eight of oxygen gas; while carbonic acid is composed of sixteen parts of oxygen to six of pure carbon. And these fixed relations of numbers are the same in every particle of limestone on the earth: in the snowy stalactite torn from the roof of coral caverns, in the ponderous fragment hurled up from the heart of the globe by the fiery hand of world-rocking volcanoes, and in the gleaming pebble which the child picks up from the waters of the brook. What a field is here for the calculation of chances! What a theme for devout and transcendent wonder! What a magnificent Bible with leaves of crystal is this among the old silent rocks! Must not such marvels of mathematical order have been produced by an efficient endowed with rationality—a cause that, to borrow the sublime language of Hebrew poetry, had the skill “to weigh the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance”?

But not only do we find numerical ratios here; symbolical angles are also detected. All the hundred forms of carbonate of lime split into six-sided figures, or regular rhombohedrons, whose alternate angles measure 105 deg. 55 min. and 75 deg. 5 min. Let the mathematician come with his trigonometry fresh from the schools to study this lofty lesson; although no science can avail for the computation of the chances against the hypothesis of an unintelligent cause for this celestial geometry of the crystal mountains.

INSTANCE III.—BOTANY.

We will make our next inductions in that study so charming to all genuine lovers of nature. Not over smoky furnaces or in darkened chambers will we read this division of our theme, but out in the sunny fields, and in the green-robed valleys, among the silken sisterhood of vegetable beauties, and beneath the radiant smile of the blue-eyed heavens.

The first ten classes of Linnæus are arranged simply according to the number of stamens presented in each blossom. For example, let us analyze a flower of the tobacco plant. It is of the fifth class, and of course has five stamens. But the equation does not end here; its corol has five parts, and the emerald cup of its calyx as many points.

Now, suppose that every bloom is produced by some efficient which cannot count; what are the chances against this combination of fives three times in a single specimen? Obviously one hundred and twenty-five; while for two flowers they amount to the sum of fifteen thousand, six hundred and twenty-five. For four blossoms the chances would be the square of the last number, and so on ad infinitum. What, then, must be the chances against the supposition of atheism in the flowers of a solitary field, in all the fields of a solar summer, in all the summers of sixty centuries?

But similar equations hold with all the vegetables to be found on the globe, and in their fruit as well as flower. Some blossoms are perfect time-pieces, marking the eternal march of the celestial lights in the firmament. Many open to the morning sun; some only to the fiery kisses of noonday; others at purple twilight when the gentle dews begin to fall; and a few in the depth of darkness, as it were to gaze on the glory of the midnight stars.

INSTANCE IV.—LIGHT.

I shall not hazard a remark as to the nature of that wonderful agent whose coming at the dawn of every day is like the sweet smile of some viewless yet omnipresent divinity, bringing with it the revelation of a new world. At present we have only to deal with mathematical evolutions, and not with the substantial essence of any fact or phenomenon.

The first law of light is an algebraic formula: The intensity of the fluid decreases as the square of the distance increases, and vice versâ.

The second law is equally mathematical: The angles of incidence and reflection are equivalent for every ray. Thus a sunbeam, falling on the table before me at an angle of forty-five degrees, will be reflected at the same angle.

Here, then, in the development of these two general laws, we behold the miracle of innumerable squares, circles, angles, such as sweep over countless millions of leagues in the stellar spaces, with a regularity that no Euclid or Legendre might ever hope to trace. And can it be possible that after all the great cause which thus geometrizes may be devoid of all geometrical knowledge—nay, of even the faculty of rationality? If so, then might a blind mole, or the abstraction of a nonentity, compose a system of beauty and order superior in both accuracy and splendor to the Principia of Newton or the sublime theories of La Place!

You can scarcely commence the estimation of chances in reference to these luminous angles being continually formed all over the material universe. Even imagination reels before the immensity of the conception. Think of all the fire-beams that emanate from the sun during one long summer day—of all the rays which flash out from the high stars for only a single night! Then let the mind travel back over the march of dim and distant centuries, gathering age upon age, rolling cycle after cycle, in those vast segments of eternity where the Alps and Andes seem evanescent as the snow-flakes that ride on the gyrations of the whirlwind around their hoary summits; where Platonic years are fleeting as the pulsations of the pendulum, and even the starry galaxies come and go “like rainbows.” Then bid your soaring fancy lift her lightning-wings away from world to world, and behold the horizon of the space which hath no limits, still opening for ever onwards and upwards, and thickening all around with serial columns of suns and stars, and undulating like some shoreless sea with its waves of nebulous light. Then tell me the number of rays that have shot athwart this teeming expanse of immensity since the sons of heaven shouted their choral hymns in the morning of creation. And answer me, who shall calculate the chances against the sceptical hypothesis here? Only a God of infinite intelligence may solve this infinite problem.

INSTANCE V.—ASTRONOMY.

The first law of the celestial motions discovered by Kepler, like all the rest, expresses a mathematical formula: All the planetary orbits are regular ellipses, in the lower focus of which stands the sun.

Now, as the ellipse contains an infinite number of geometrical points, it follows that the chances against the repetition of this figure by the progress of the same body along the same path in space must be infinity multiplied into infinity, compared with zero.

The second law is equally decisive. It may be stated thus: The times occupied by a planet in describing any given arc of its orbit are always as the areas of the sectors, formed by straight lines from the beginning and end of the arcs to the sun as a common centre. And here it cannot fail to be remarked that every term of the enunciation is purely mathematical.

But the third law of Kepler is still more astonishing. The squares of the periods of the planetary revolutions vary as the cubes of their distances from the sun.

What amazing evolutions are these to be the work of unthinking masses of matter! What angel’s music is this among the stars to be chimed by the choir of tongueless atoms! And well might the inspired old man exclaim when the heavenly harmony first broke upon his ear: “I have stolen the golden secret of the Egyptians. I triumph. I will indulge my sacred fury. I care not whether my book be read now or by posterity. I can afford to wait a century for readers, when God himself has waited six thousand years for an observer.”

We will not speak of chances in the production of such a mathematical marvel. We dare not approach the stupendous calculation, unless we might borrow the geometry of the morning star.

But every region of astronomy overflows with similar wonders; yet I have only time to adduce one more. The sun and all his suite of luminous attendants rotate from west to east, on axes that remain nearly parallel to themselves. La Place has computed the probability to be as four millions to one that all the motions of the planets, whether of rotation or revolution, originated in a common cause. Is it, then, even so much as conceivable that the efficient of such an endless order should be itself destitute of all reason and foresight? For it is universally conceded that the discovery and quick perception of mathematical relations evince intellect of the most lofty character; how incomparably superior, therefore, must have been the rationality required for the primary composition and arrangement of these relations! If to think geometrically demands intelligence, can any cause work geometrically without possessing the attributes of thought? We admire the genius of a Kepler and of a Newton as almost superhuman, because they were enabled to understand the harmonious laws of the heavenly bodies; what madness, then, must it be to deny the existence of mind as the necessary efficient for the production of these very harmonies!

I might go on to career all over the fields of science, and show the prevalence of mathematical ratios and equations in every department of approachable nature. But on the strength of the instances already adduced I think we are entitled to assume our minor premise as thoroughly proven: that all natural phenomena have the characteristic of mathematical order and harmony to the exclusion of chance. And this induction, although it only rests for support on the canon of agreement—per enumerationem simplicem, ubi non reperitur instantia contradictoria—nevertheless has as broad and firm a basis as the philosophic axiom that every fact has a cause. For as we have never found a phenomenon without an efficient, so neither can we ever find one without its relations of mathematical order.

And now calling to mind our major premise—that every natural phenomenon having the characteristics of mathematical order and harmony must be the effect of a rational cause—it follows irresistibly by the rules of logic, from the conjugation of the two propositions, that all natural phenomena are the effects of a rational cause.

But we are not yet justified in dignifying the efficient of all these natural phenomena with the name of God. For the cause, though demonstrated to be intelligent, may be one or many, permanent or transient, good or evil. We have only inquired as to its existence, without considering any other attribute. However, we have not far to go in the sequel of the investigation, as the laws of logical inference founded on our previous inductions will enable us to give a speedy solution of the remaining problems, at least so fully as they may be susceptible of scientific explanation.

On the subject of causal unity it may be laid down as a general principle: That in the same sphere of time and space the identity of an efficient is to be concluded from the identity of the phenomena which experience has shown it to be capable of producing. Thus we refer all the electrical facts in the universe to a single imponderable agent; and we always predicate the power of heat whenever we witness its usual and well-known effects. Nevertheless, these instances are only analogous. But the following are precisely in point. The affirmation of a single human being, the truth of his separate existence as a real and rational unit, is inferred alone from his manifestations as a cause in time and space. He stands demonstrated, present or absent, by the power that he develops, or has developed, in his individual sphere. His physical features may change, yet he will still be revealed in his intelligent actions. The divine pictures of a Raphael or a Rubens may be identified for long ages after the hand that sketched the now immortal lineaments of some mortal face has been mouldering, like the lovely original, in darkness and dust. No two persons—that is to say, human causes—present exactly the same effects. Every fact evolved will differ more or less. And, lastly, every cause is manifested as a unit by its occupation or pervasion of a given space.

Applying, then, this axiom of identity to the efficient of natural phenomena, the unity of the great Cause becomes at once apparent. Everywhere we behold the same laws of mathematical harmony. The identical principle of gravitation, which we have proved to be the effect of a sublime rationality, carries us away to the utmost limits of the solar system, and shows us one sovereign efficient, one pervading force, that we may henceforth call God, all over those immeasurable fields of infinite azure. And when this path grows so dim and distant amidst that far-off wilderness of flaming worlds that we can no longer trace the footsteps of attraction, there still remains heaven’s own highway of radiant light to conduct us on and on towards the centre, or perchance it may be the circumference, of the universe, revealing the same God enthroned on every sun; because every ray that flashes from the great blue deep of the firmament preserves the same identical laws of reflection and refraction.

Who can elevate his mind to the contemplation of these amazing and magnificent depths of distance, those profound caverns of space, teeming and sparkling with worlds like crystals? That light which travels almost two hundred thousand miles in a second does not reach us from the star 61 Cygni until after a journey of nine years and three months; and yet that is one of the nocturnal luminaries which may be termed the nearest neighbors of our system. The number of registered stars amount to two hundred thousand; while the entire host accessible to the sweep of the telescope have been reckoned as a hundred millions, from some of which it takes the luminous rays thousands of years to fly down to the earth. What mathematician, then, shall measure this celestial expanse, brimming over with suns and stars, and swarming with galaxies of living flame? Imagination stoops beneath such a giddy summit, nor dares attempt to scale those cliffs of golden fire. Reason, faltering on the brink of that boundless ocean of immensity, recoils as from the verge of annihilation. None but God can walk the heights of those starry pinnacles, and the light that burns and flashes around his feet falls down to man as the proof of the divine presence. In fine, if we had never before known a Deity, the telescope would have revealed him.

The unity of God being established, can we predicate his eternity? In the first place, all history bears witness to the permanence of the same grand principles of causation, since the primary annals of the species; and then geology takes up the subject, and carries it back for countless ages through those records inscribed on the ancient rocks by the pencil of central fire, or the fierce pen of earthquakes and blazing volcanoes; and still everywhere we see the evidence of the same mathematical laws, the same attraction and gravitation. Everything alike shows the existence of the same all-creating Deity as anterior to itself; and further than this the canons of mere induction cannot go.

Nor can the goodness of God be demonstrated in the precise and conclusive manner which has marked our previous propositions. The beauties of nature and the blessings of Providence are sufficient proofs to the majority of mankind; and for all the rest one must depend on à priori reasoning, or look to the clearer light of a divine revelation.

It must be observed that the foregoing argument differs essentially from that of the celebrated Paley. His is founded on the mechanical phenomena of the universe, but this on the mathematical relations of order and harmony—on the present as well as the past physical evolutions in time and space, thus proving the continued agency of the supreme Cause, the Deity, both in immanence and in act.

But it is not my purpose to criticise other theories, nor to answer objections, which must be impotent unless they can overthrow the legitimacy of my inductions. Accordingly, I submit the whole.