If this be Mr. Bixby’s meaning—or rather, whether meant or not, if this be the legitimate resultant of his views on religion—we see no way of escaping from the conclusion that matter is eternal, since his religion by no means includes the dogma of creation—indeed, it is his custom to scout dogmas—but is strictly limited to the recognition of an inner and an outer soul. It is true Mr. Bixby admits no such consequence, but he cannot help himself; he speaks most devoutly of God, condemns a “bald materialism that would make matter the sum and substance of all things, self-existent, and alone immortal, etc.,” all which is true enough, but by no means bound up in Mr. Bixby’s concept of religion. Our author consequently deprecates a conflict with a shadow, points out to scientific men the possibility of a complete reconciliation between their theories and a Bixbian fugitive tenuity, and devoutly implores them not to use
language which might delay “the awakening of our spiritual nature.” Mr. Bixby says that metaphysics must not obtrude themselves on the realm of physical science; that the missions of both constantly diverge. We would, however, remind him that without metaphysics—and we mean the metaphysics he so much abhors, viz., those of the scholastics—we could find no argument as supplied by reason against the eternity of matter. It is wonderful that a man of Mr. Bixby’s respectable attainments should not perceive into what a complete petitio principii he has fallen when he postulates the non-eternity of matter. He does not admit the correctness of the Mosaic cosmic genesis, and as he employs no reasoning to substantiate his postulate, we must regard it as a petitio principii and nothing more.
How differently do the theologians and philosophers of the Catholic Church comport themselves in presence of this old philosophical heresy, revived to-day in full force by Draper, Tyndall, and Huxley, and which may be regarded as the arch sin of modern scientific theories! They do not beg the question as Mr. Bixby does, but, grappling it with an iron logic, dispose of it as effectually as when St. Thomas overthrew the crude systems of Leucippus and Averroës by the aid of a few well-established metaphysical principles. Mr. Bixby says: “Mediæval scholasticism especially grievously sinned in these respects. It delighted in hair-splitting disputations over frivolous puzzles, and in endless speculations about things not only transcending the possibility of human knowledge, but destitute of any practical moment. Its only criterion was the deliverances of the church on the almost equally
venerated Aristotle.” Alas! we fear that the Summa of St. Thomas is a sealed book for Mr. Bixby, that he has not tempted the page of Suarez with well-trimmed lamp, and that his stock of mediæval lore is borrowed from Hallam or the latest edition of the encyclopædia. To prove how immeasurably superior the “hair-splitters” are to beggars of the question we will show in what way the former hold their own against the modern eternists. Prof. Draper says that as there will be an unending succession in the future, so there has been an unbeginning series in the past; species succeed species, and genera succeed genera, in a never-beginning and a never-to-end chain; Tyndall repeats the words of Draper, whom he so much admires; and Mr. Bixby says, “Gentlemen, it may not be so”; while the scholastic clearly proves that it cannot be so. At the outset a little “hair-splitting” is necessary. We distinguish what is called an actual series, each link of which has had an actual existence, from a potential series, in which the links have not as yet been projected into existence, but will be. Now, an actual series has an end—viz., the link marking the point of transition from the actual to the potential—and is susceptible of increase, since, indeed, it constantly receives fresh accessions from the potential. If, however, it can thus acquire increase, that increase is representable by numbers, so many fresh links added to the series. But a number cannot be added except to another number; consequently, the series to which fresh increase is added must be numerical—i.e., representable by figures. Now, whatever can be represented by figures must have had a beginning; for
there can be no number without a first unit, which is the first element of number. Moreover, the supposition that there stretches back into eternity a non-beginning succession of events contradicts the principle of causality; for it would give us one more effect than cause. Viewed in its descending aspect, every link in the chain is cause of the event which follows, till the last link is reached, the which is not cause, since it has as yet preceded no other event. But it is effect, since it depends on the previous event. Viewed now in its ascending aspect, the chain consists of a series of links which are all effects—effects more numerous than the causes by the addition of the latest link, which is effect but not cause. We must have, then, one effect without a cause, which is absurd. The same maybe said about consequent and antecedent terms in such a series; for the last term in the series being merely consequent, the chain or series which, by hypothesis, has no beginning contains more consequent than antecedent terms, which is equally absurd. We have here given but an outline of the argument. The scholastics have summed it up more fully, though far more tersely and concisely, in these words: There can be no infinite series a parte ante, but there can be a parte post. This reasoning not only conclusively disproves, but renders ridiculous, the arguments of Draper, Tyndall, and the rest. Yet from this philosophical armory Mr. Bixby would disdain to draw a single weapon in defence of his thesis, but prefers rather that the church be considered essentially inimical to the progress of true science, and constantly jealous of its encroachments.
“Mutato nomine de te
Fabula narratur.”
Mr. Bixby entertains a special dislike to theology as being apt to interfere with his pet scheme of reconciling science with—shall we call it Bixbyism? Certainly we cannot consistently call it religion. He says:
“Again, theological dogmas and science have been, and still are, opposed. Theologians have formulated their dim guesses about God’s character and ways into creeds, and imagined them finalities. They have speculated upon matters of purely physical knowledge—such as the antiquity of the earth and the age of man, the condition of the primitive globe and its inhabitants, the manner and method of their appearing—and have made these speculations into dogmas held as essential to religion.”
Here we must take sharp issue with Mr. Bixby. In the first place, have not the theologians as good right to speculate on such matters as Messrs. Spencer, Huxley, and Tyndall? And if they have fallen into error, it is no more than the latter gentlemen have frequently done. Surely Mr. Bixby must allow the fact that St. George Mivart is no less a sound savant because he is read in theology; or would he maintain that Father Secchi is liable to additional chromatic aberration because he believes in the decrees of the Vatican Council? In the next place, no theologian deserving the name deems himself competent to erect into a religious dogma demanding the reverence and belief of his fellows his individual scientific opinions. The absurdity of such an idea is apparent to any one who has read a Catholic theological treatise, which breathes a spirit of submissiveness in every line where the author’s own views are expounded—a spirit strikingly in contrast with the arrogant dogmatism of our