254. The doctrines explained in the theory of sensations in this volume, show how false it is to say that the Eucharist is impossible. Under the sacred species is a body which does not affect our senses; here is a miracle, but not an impossible thing. I have shown that there is no necessary relation between bodies and our sensibility. The connection which now exists cannot be explained by any intrinsical property of spirits and bodies; we must, therefore, recur to a higher cause which freely established these relations. The same cause can suspend them. From this point of view the question becomes this: Can the power of God make a body which shall not produce the phenomena of sensibility, and suspend the laws which he was free to establish? Thus presented, the question cannot bear two answers. It must be answered in the affirmative, or the omnipotence of God is denied.
255. Those who attempt to show the impossibility of our dogma, must prove the following propositions:
I. Passive sensibility is so essential to bodies that they cannot lose it without destroying the principle of contradiction.
II. The relations of our organs [to] objects are intrinsically immutable.
III. The transmission of the impressions of the organ to the sensitive faculties of the soul is equally essential, and can fail under no supposition.
If they do not prove the truth of these three propositions, all the objections founded on the phenomena of sensibility fall to the ground. If one only is not proved, all the objections are solved; for it is evident that the phenomena of sensibility may be altered by three causes:
I. By the absence of the dispositions necessary to the body, that it may be the object of sensibility.
II. By the interruption of the ordinary relations between our organs and the body.
III. By the failure of the transmission of the impressions of the organ to the sensitive faculties.
Consequently, if one of the first propositions is false, the doubter is reduced to silence.