NEW PUBLICATIONS
Allie's See of St. Peter, [139].
Alphonso, [144].
Church History, Darras, [575].
Curious Questions, [428].
England, History of, for the Young, [144].
First Principles, [288].
Frederick the Great and His Court, [575].
Holt, Felix, [141].
Harkness' Latin Book, [143].
International Law, Wheaton's Elements of, [282].
King René's Daughter, [859].
Jesus, Sufferings of, [576].
Jesus Crucified. The School of, [858].
Laurentia, a Tale of Japan, [287].
Letters, Beethoven's, [574].
Lydia, [719].
Mormon Prophet and his Harem, The, [144].
Moral Evil, Origin of, [432].
Men, Light and Life of, [576].
Mouthful of Bread, History of a, [720].
McAuley, Catherine, Life of, [854].
Manual, The French, [858].
Philip Earnescliffe, [143].
Pastoral Letter of Second Plenary Council, [425].
Poems, Alice Carey's, [572].
Poems, Buchanan's, [574].
Paulists, Sermons of the, [718].
Pictorial Histories, Goodrich's, [720].
Physiology of Man, The, [859].
Rise and Fall, The, [431].
See of St. Peter, Allie's, [139].
Six Months at White House, Carpenter's, [142],
Sunday-school Class-Book, Improved Catholic, [143].
Saint Cecilia, Life of, [286].
Spanish Papers, Irving's, [286].
Shakespeare, Authorship of the Works of, [429].
Scientific Subjects, Herschel's Lectures on, [430].
Saint Vincent de Paul, Life of, [576].
Severne, Robert, [857].
The Sham Squire, [288].
The Conditioned, Philosophy of, [432].
Town, Out of, [860].
Vignettes, Miss Parke's, [287].
Woman's Work, Essays on, [142].
Women, Higher Education of, [575].
Welte, Alte und Neue, [576].
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. IV., NO. 19.—OCTOBER, 1866.
ORIGINAL.
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.
VII.
THE DOGMA OF CREATION—THE PRINCIPLE, ARCHETYPE, AND END OF THE CREATIVE ACT.
The next article of the creed is, "Creatorem coeli et terrae:" Creator of heaven and earth.
The mystery of the Trinity exhausts the idea of the activity of God within his own interior being, or ad intra. The dogma of creation expresses the idea of the activity of God without his own interior being, or ad extra. It is an explication of the primitive idea of reason which presents simultaneously to intelligence the absolute and the contingent in their necessary relation of the dependence of the contingent upon the absolute. Being an explication of the rational idea, it is rationally demonstrable, and does not, therefore, belong to the super-intelligible part of the revelation, or that which is believed simply on the veracity of God. That portion of the dogma of creation which is super-intelligible, or revealed truth in the highest sense, relates to the supernatural end to which the creation is determined by the decree of God. Nevertheless, although the idea of creation, once proposed, is demonstrable on purely rational principles, it is fairly and fully proposed to reason under an adequate and explicit conception adequately expressed, only by divine revelation. Wherever this adequate formula of revelation has been lost, the conception has been lost with it, and not even the highest philosophy has restored it. Plato's conception of the formation of the universe went no higher than the impression of divine ideas upon matter eternally self existent. In all philosophy which is not regulated by the principles of revelation, the ideas of necessary being and contingent existence and of the relation between them are more or less confused, and the dogma of creation is corrupted.