The first of these alternatives we must decidedly reprobate, as contrary to the Catholic sense, and incompatible with the respect which is due to the judgment and authority of the church. It is evident that philosophical instruction is regarded in the church as highly important and necessary, and as an essential part of Catholic education, more especially for those who are preparing for the study of theology. The sense of its importance is increasing instead of diminishing. Everywhere longer time and greater pains are bestowed upon it, and we have been told that it is the desire of the Sovereign Pontiff that the theological course should rather be shortened if necessary, than that philosophy should fail to receive its adequate proportion of the time allotted to the curriculum of the ecclesiastical seminary. All this implies that philosophy, like theology, is a true science, having its certain principles, methods, and doctrines. And if this is so, we are to look for it where the queen of sciences, whose herald and prime minister it is—Catholic theology—announces her magisterial teaching, and not in any particular school set up by private authority. In fact, the scholastic philosophy is an intimate and essential part of scholastic theology, which would be decomposed if its other elements were separated from this one, and be resolved into a mere collection of dogmas and doctrines without logical coherence. We may infer, therefore, from the express sanction which the church has given to scholastic theology, her approbation of scholastic philosophy. This tacit and implied approbation is also manifested in her practical action. The Holy See, the greater number of bishops, and the body of those ecclesiastics in high positions of authority who have control over strictly Catholic colleges, sanction and establish the teaching of scholastic philosophy, encourage works and authors professing to follow it, and in many ways repress and discourage whatever is contrary to it. More than this, the Holy See, during the reigns of our present Sovereign Pontiff and his illustrious predecessor, Gregory XVI., has repeatedly intervened by acts of supreme authority, in which books, authors, systems, and propositions have been censured and condemned on account of their teaching philosophical errors contrary to the received doctrine, and either subversive of or dangerous to the faith. The Fathers of the Council of the Vatican were occupied during several months with discussions upon fundamental questions of philosophy, the result of which is visible in the decrees of the Council. The doctrines which all Catholics are obliged to hold and teach have thus been to a certain extent defined and declared, and the limits marked beyond which they are forbidden to stray. We have occasion, at present, to specify only two of the erroneous doctrines which have been thus condemned, viz.: that which is called Traditionalism, and another commonly known under the name of Ontologism. We notice these, because both errors arose among sincere Catholics, and were the chief cause of dissension concerning philosophical doctrines in our own ranks, so that their condemnation has had a direct effect towards unity in teaching, especially as most of the principal persons concerned submitted obediently to the decision of authority. The first of these errors was an extreme anti-rationalism, tending to subvert and sweep away all philosophy, and upon this we have no need to enlarge. The second was of far greater import, as it professed to be a new and perfect philosophy, and was the most formidable antagonist which the scholastic philosophy has ever had to encounter. The question is still a living one, and the discussion of it is not yet over. Moreover, it relates to the very foundation of philosophy and theology, and has the most wide-reaching relations, wherefore we feel it to be necessary to be very careful and exact in what we say on the subject. That ontologism which we call an error is a certain ideological doctrine professing to be a true scientia entis, or science of being, and to be, therefore, the true and only real metaphysic. It has received its name from this profession of its advocates, and from common usage, for the want of one more specific and definite. It must not be supposed, however, that it is called an error on account of its being ontological, as if there were no true ontology, since this latter is the most essential part of philosophy itself. Nor is it correct to say that the doctrine of all those who call themselves ontologists by way of distinction from those whom they call psychologists, but whom we prefer to designate rather as Platonists in distinction from Peripatetics or Aristotelians, is a condemned error. The condemned error, as we understand it, after carefully examining and reflecting upon the matter for several years, is a false and heterodox ontological doctrine, which radically and principally consists in the affirmation of a natural power in the created intellect to know God in himself, as infinite and necessary being, or in any other ideal aspect. The essence of the error consists in that part of the affirmation which is expressed by the term in himself, denoting that the very idea which is the object of the divine intelligence and is identical with it, and is really the divine essence itself considered as intelligible, is the idea of the created, and specifically of the human, intellect. The falsity of the doctrine consists in this, that it substitutes an imaginary intuition of God, which has no existence, for the real intuition of the connatural object of the created intellect; and an explicit cognition of God explicated from this intuition for that cognition which human reason is actually capable of attaining, by discursion from self-evident truths which the developed intellect possesses as its first principles. It therefore overturns true philosophy and natural theology, and destroys the very cause which its advocates are most anxious to promote. It is heterodox, because its logical consequences annihilate the distinction between the natural light of reason and the supernatural lights of faith and glory, and, by ascribing to the natural condition of the creature that which belongs only to its deific condition, tend to annihilate the essential difference between the Word of God and the creatures of God, the Only Begotten Son of God and his adopted sons; thus introducing pantheism by a covert road, into which Platonists and mystics have always been in danger of straying unawares. The authors and advocates of this doctrine have been, at least in many cases, holy men of orthodox faith, who have strenuously denied its logical consequences. Wherefore, the condemnation of their opinions has been made in a very gentle and considerate manner, and their personal character as Catholics has not been compromised, unless they have shown a spirit of contumacious resistance to the authority of the Holy See. They have not fallen into heresy, but into philosophical error, and that in good faith, and before the authority of the church had given judgment. Several of the most distinguished among them have made a formal recantation of their doctrine, others have done the same tacitly, and we may take it as a settled fact that the ontologism condemned at Rome is banished for ever from the Catholic schools.
It is equally certain, however, that there is an ideology, distinct from that of the Thomist school, and frequently called ontologism, which is not condemned. Its advocates profess to find it in St. Augustine. It is probably contained in the doctrine of St. Bonaventura. It is the doctrine taught in the later and more mature works of the great and saintly Cardinal Gerdil, who was in his youth a disciple of Malebranche the author of the theory of the vision in God. And it is still maintained, under various forms, by a considerable number of most respectable persons in the church. Rosmini is well known as the author of a system which bears an affinity to it, and, in a general sense, it may be said to include all those Catholic teachers and disciples of philosophy who are Platonists rather than Aristotelians. It is certain, we say, that this ideology, distinct alike from that of the Thomists and the pure ontologists, is not condemned. This is proved by the answers given to queries on the subject by persons connected with the Roman congregations, by the fact that the doctrines in question are openly advocated in lectures and published works under the eye of the Sovereign Pontiff, and by the express or tacit admission of the opponents of ontologism. We have been informed also by a distinguished prelate who was present at the discussions of the Vatican Council, that such was the general understanding of the bishops there assembled.
This ideology gives the human intellect an idea created by an immediate illumination of God, and preceding all apprehension and perception of particular, finite objects. It may be an idea of God, of the infinite, of being, of the necessary and universal, under any aspect, or under many distinct aspects; or it may be an assemblage of ideas representing both the infinite, and finite exterior objects. According to St. Bonaventura, it is an idea representing God; according to Rosmini it is idea of ens in genere. But in whatever way this theory of innate ideas may be expressed, the intellectual object is always an image, something created with and in the mind, and even where it represents God, or the archetypal ideas of God, it is not identified with the uncreated ens of which it is the created image. The theory is therefore free from the censures of the church. It is necessary, however, for those who still adhere to the Platonic ideology to be very careful and accurate in their expressions, in order to avoid the likelihood of being understood by their readers to teach condemned propositions. The looseness of language which is more or less found in the more ancient authors; in all authors not familiar with the scholastic method, unless they have a precise terminology of their own, which is another difficulty in the way of understanding them; and the abstruseness of the subject itself, produce a great deal of misunderstanding. There is a great deal of obscurity in the writings of Plato whenever he speaks of ideology, and his disciples have inherited the same. It has been quite possible, therefore, for writers whose doctrine is sound to use the language and adopt many of the ideas of the celebrated authors of the ontologistic party, without really apprehending the nature and bearings of that erroneous doctrine which was at the bottom of their whole system. These authors have frequently expressed their ideas under terms and forms of expression borrowed from St. Augustine, St. Bonaventura, Gerdil, Fénelon, and other well-known doctors, prelates, and theologians. Very few of them have elaborated their doctrine with sufficient completeness and precision to make it easy to be understood. Those who have done so have been the occasion of its precise formulation and condemnation in the famous seven propositions. But, now that the supreme authority in the church has distinctly specified what errors of ontologism must be rejected as dangerous to faith, it is specially important that every Catholic writer should be precise, accurate, and clear in his language, so that he may not be misunderstood even by the ordinary student or reader of philosophical essays. The supreme, infallible authority of the Holy See has not, in condemning certain errors, prescribed or defined what precisely is the true ideological doctrine. Catholic philosophers must therefore seek to come to as close an agreement as possible by the way of reason. In order to do this, it is necessary that the method and terminology sanctioned by ancient and general usage should be strictly adhered to, since, otherwise, endless discussion will be the only result. We think, moreover, as we have already said, that this agreement can only be effected by means of the ideology of St. Thomas. The church has not, indeed, formally approved it, but, in our opinion, she has condemned that which is its only logical alternative. Therefore, we trust in the power of reason and logic to bring all master-minds into agreement with St. Thomas, and in the authority of these teachers and leaders to secure the adhesion of the great majority, who must ever be their disciples. It is, we believe, ignorance or misapprehension of the scholastic philosophy, as taught in the school of St. Thomas, which has been the occasion of the attempt made by so many highly gifted and noble-hearted men to fabricate out of Platonism a better ideology. Disgust at nominalism, sensism, and psychologism, abhorrence of the scepticism into which Hume and Kant sought to resolve all knowledge and belief, have driven them to seek for a self-subsisting, objective foundation of the ideal, separate from and independent of the sensible. Irresistible logic has impelled them by degrees toward the ultimatum which the pure ontologists have reached; and which is simply the affirmation of God existing in his attribute of absolute being, the infinite, or archetypal truth, beauty, and goodness, to which Gioberti adds in the creative act; as the immediate ideal object of the intellect. They have supposed that this is the only alternative of the opposite extreme, and have put aside the scholastic ideology as halting between the two upon untenable ground. The opinion which they have of its inconsistency and insufficiency is distinctly expressed in the oft-repeated assertion that it is mere psychologism. This term properly denotes any system which makes ideas mere subjective modes of the mind. It is obvious that every species of semi-ontologism, every theory of innate ideas, every system shaped out of Platonic elements, which separates ideas from the sensible as the centre of their concretion and their focus of visibility to the human intellect, without locating them in God, is psychologism. But it is not true of the philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas, that it reduces ideas to this condition of subjectivity, no better than that of the phantoms which arise in the imagination of the sleeper or the day-dreamer. In this philosophy, the intelligible object has a reality exterior to the mind, which it directly perceives, and by which as a medium it attains self-evident and demonstrated truths, having their foundation in the eternal truth, in the infinite, in absolute being, in the Word, in God; who is the object of the mediate intellectual vision of the mind, as the apostle declares. Invisibilia ipsius; per ea quæ facta sunt, intellecta, conspiciuntur. His invisible perfections are disclosed to our sight, being perceived by the intellect through those things which are made. Videmus nunc per speculum. We see even now, although only in a mirror. The scholastic philosophy is not identical with any merely sensistic, conceptualistic, or empirical system. It does not reduce ideas to mere abstractions, make philosophy a mere induction from the results of experience, or the knowledge of God by reason the sum of an aggregate mass of probabilities. It is not in any wise a system of subjectivism. On the contrary, it is objective in the highest sense of the term, and truly ontological, the real scientia entis, and not an imaginary one like that of the so-called ontologists. If this be so, the whole ground of the prejudice against the Catholic peripatetic philosophy falls away, and there is no reason to desert the common teaching of the schools for any other doctrine, either ancient or modern.
The four great masters in philosophy are Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, and St. Thomas. Plato is rather a teacher of theology and ethics than of metaphysics. His doctrine concerning God, the immortality of the soul, and the moral ideal, is in many respects purer and more sublime than that of his pupil. Yet Aristotle deserves par excellence the title of the heathen philosopher. The name of the dæmon given to him by his fellow-pupils on account of his wonderful intellect well expresses what he really was—the greatest intellectual prodigy that has appeared in human history, the real creator of logical and metaphysical science. St. Augustine followed Plato rather than any other heathen philosopher, and does not appear to have been acquainted with the works of Aristotle. Yet his philosophy as a whole was original; it was chiefly his theology under a rational aspect; it was by no means a complete and distinct system. St. Thomas, with the Aristotelian system as a plan and basis, built the vast and sublime structure of a Catholic philosophy. Although it may be true that he derived his knowledge of Plato chiefly from Aristotle, and the latter may have misrepresented his master; yet, through St. Augustine, he obtained all that was really valuable in Plato purified and improved; and has thus incorporated into his system everything, whether pagan or Christian, which tradition had brought down to his time. As Aristotle is the dæmon, St. Thomas is the angel of philosophy. It is difficult to compare his natural gifts with those of Aristotle in such a way as to make a relative estimate of the genius of the two men. But in actual wisdom, enlightened as he was by revelation and the Christian luminaries of the ages which preceded him, and elevated above the natural capacities of man by the gifts of the Holy Ghost, he is like the bright mid-day sun compared to the pale orb of night. All other stars in the firmament must be content to shine as lesser lights, and the brightest among them are only his planets. Metaphysical genius of the highest order is the rarest of gifts. Clement of Alexandria thought that the Greek philosophy had not arisen without a special act of the divine providence which was preparing the way for Christian theology. When we consider the wonderful work accomplished by Aristotle, and the manner in which his philosophy has become blended with the theology of the church, we cannot fail to recognize the hand of God making use of the human intellect in its most consummate perfection as the servant of the Eternal Word in his mission as the teacher of divine truth. Much more must we recognize the same divine hand in the genius and work of St. Thomas. God does his work once for all. The apostles finished their special work, the fathers finished theirs, and we can have no more apostles or fathers of the church. The doctors have done their work, and, although they may have left room for successors, yet this is not in the sense that their work is to be done over again. We do not believe there can ever arise another St. Thomas to reconstruct more perfectly the edifice of theology and philosophy in those parts which he has built, and these are its essential and principal parts. Of theology we need not speak particularly. Of philosophy, the principal parts are those which give a scientific exposition of the rational basis of theology; that is, which treat scientifically of the objective reality of the intelligible which the human intellect perceives by its natural power; of the first principles of reason; of self-evident and demonstrable truth; of the process by which the mind ascends from the knowledge of things to the knowledge of their highest and creative cause, from the creature to the Creator, from the visible and ideal world to God, from the knowledge of God through the creation to the knowledge of God through revelation. It is precisely here, as we have shown, that the dispute lies between scholastic philosophy and ontologism. And it is precisely what we claim for scholastic philosophy, that it gives us the true science of ideology and theodicy, which satisfies reason and accords with faith, and is really that which is implicitly and confusedly possessed by the common sense of all men, especially of all Christians, in proportion to the degree in which reason is developed and instructed. This has been proved in the most thorough and ample manner by F. Liberatore in his great work Della Conoscenza Intelletuale, F. Kleutgen in his Philosophie der Vorzeit, and F. Ramière in his Unité de l’Enseignement Philosophique, as well as in other recent works of the same kind.
We will endeavor to give a statement as succinct and clear as possible of the scholastic theory, in order that its opposition to every form of sensism, idealism, and ontologism may be apparent.
In thought or cognition, we find by analysis these three, the subject, the object, and the intellectual light; as in vision we have the visual faculty, light, and the visible object. The subject is the human intellect; the primary, immediate object is the intelligible in the sensible, or the essences of sensible things; the light is intelligence. It is a primary maxim that nothing is in the intellect which was not first in the sense. Sensible experience is therefore the starting point of thought. The thought itself is the result of an active operation of the intellect upon a passive impression which it receives from the object. This active operation produces a similitude of the object (species) in the mind, by which it becomes cognizant of the object itself as distinct from and extrinsic to the subject. The intelligible essence which is in the sensible object is distinguished and made the object of apprehension by the process of abstraction. In this intelligible essence, or what is called in common parlance “the nature of things,” are contained the fundamental notions which are the first germs of all intellectual processes, the first product of the act of abstraction which is the beginning of intellectual activity in the infant. In these notions are given the first principles, the self-evident principles, the axioms of reason; and with these reason is able to start the discursive process, by which it demonstrates conclusions from premises, which in the last analysis are intellections a priori and self-evident. By this reasoning process, the existence and attributes of God are proved from the rational and material universe by the principle of causality, which is one of the self-evident principles. Self-consciousness begins as soon as the mind takes note of itself as acting, and thus the subject becomes objective to itself without any need of a species or impressed similitude of itself, because it is itself, and present to itself, and more vividly cognizant of itself in acting than of anything exterior to itself. The notions derived from reflection on its own operations are thus added to those which are derived by abstraction from sensible objects. The immediate perception terminates only on particular individual objects, but the notions obtained by abstraction are universal, whence it is necessary to define in what consists the objective reality of these universals. The universal is defined by Aristotle as that which is one, but having aptitude to be contained in many. That is, it is genus, with whatever is included under genus, to wit, species, differentia, essential and accidental propriety. For instance, the notion of man is the notion of a nature which is one, but apt to be contained in an indefinite number of men. It includes the genus animal, the species rational animal, the differentia rationality, the essential propriety, or the entire human constitution, mental and physical, and, in respect to the varieties of race, the accidental proprieties which distinguish each one from the others. All particular and individual objects of cognition can be classed under these five predicaments of the universal. The universal itself has its formal existence and reality, as universal, only in the intellect. It is a conception of the mind, formed by abstraction from the concrete and particular. It is not, however, a mere abstract conception, but an abstractive conception. An abstract conception is one in which a quality is considered as separated by thought from any particular subject in which it has residence, as goodness or sweetness. An abstractive conception, as that of the human species, is one formed from the consideration of men actually existing, in whom the species is actually individualized. The conception has, therefore, its foundation in the real object of mental intuition, the individual man, and in him the whole that is contained in the universal conception really exists. The conception is universal, because the intellect perceives the intrinsic possibility of an indefinite multitude of men in the very essence of man, as made known by the existence of any one man in particular. This possibility is something necessarily and eternally true, which is disclosed to the intellect by means of its outward expression and realization in the human race. That is to say, it is a thought which has been expressed and communicated, by an intelligence in which the possibility eternally and essentially subsists, to the human intelligence. The foundation of the universal conception is therefore in God. It is in God as archetype of man, as the reason of the possibility of man’s nature, and the cause of his existence. But the idea in God is totally different from the conception in the mind of man. God understands the possibility of the existence of man in the vision of his own essence, as imitable in this particular form, and of his own creative power. But man cannot see this idea as it is in God; he cannot compare the human type with its archetype. He can only produce an afterthought of the divine thought itself, a copy or imitation of the divine idea, which is wholly inaccessible to his immediate vision, and is only known to him inasmuch as it is manifested through the created type.
Let us take another example, that of a triangle. The figure drawn on the blackboard is the sensible object. The conception of a triangle is the intelligible object formed by abstraction, and universal. In this conception are contained the general notions of a point, a line, an angle; and in these notions are involved several self-evident principles or axioms. From these are demonstrated the various mathematical propositions of trigonometry. It is easy to see that, in the intellectual process of the pupil’s mind, the genesis and development of the act of cognition of mathematical truth is precisely what has been above described. In an intelligent and well-developed mind, many of the steps of the process may be made with such ease and rapidity that they appear to be instantaneous, and the conceptions gained are so clear and evident that they appear like innate or intuitive ideas. But they are not so, and this is made manifest enough in the case of dull or slow-minded pupils. The conception of the triangle, with all the mathematical truth which it contains, is necessary, universal, and eternal. It has, therefore, its foundation in necessary being, or in the divine intelligence. But it is in God in an eminent mode, and formally only in the human intellect. Geometrical truth is founded in the essence of God, who is the archetype of the triangle and of every other geometrical figure. But that which the triangle imitates the human intellect cannot see; the divine idea in which mathematical truth as apprehended by us is eminently contained is inapprehensible by any created mind; and the procession of the divine thoughts expressed in quantity and its relations in a manner intelligible to us, from the divine essence, is as much above our understanding as the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son. It is impossible to think of mathematical conceptions except as having objective verity, and equally impossible to think of them as identical with the ideal being of God; they must be, therefore, as St. Thomas teaches, concrete only in particular quantities, but in their universality, conceptus mentis cum fundamento in re.
It is the same with the conceptions of time and space. These conceptions come from the apprehension of things which succeed or coexist with each other. Real time and space are relations of real and finite things. Ideal time and space are necessarily conceived as illimitable. It is equally evident that these conceptions of illimitable time and space are not purely subjective categories of the mind, and that they are not, in the formality which they have in our mind, either eternal realities in themselves or identical with God. They have a foundation in the divine essence, which we can demonstrate to be nothing else than the infinite possibility of being imitated in created existences. But this is a conclusion of reason, and not an intuition of the divine essence as infinite archetype. In our minds, the conceptions represent space and time as boundless extended locality and boundless successive duration, as Locke and Clarke have so clearly set forth, and as every one knows by his own reflections. As conceptions of the universal, they have their existence, therefore, only in the mind, while their foundation is in reality. They presuppose and demand an eternal thinker and an eternal thought; we can see immediately neither the thought nor the thinker as they are in themselves, but we behold both mediately by the conceptions of the universal and the necessary; which reflect in our minds the eternal thought of the eternal thinker, the eternal idea of the eternal God.
In point of fact, ontologists are obliged to admit that the process of the act of the cognition of the infinite is historically the same in substance with that which we have just explained. Their immediate ideal intuition is something involute and out of the reach of consciousness, until contact with sensible objects, reflection, experience and instruction bring it into the state of evolution. On the one hand, this proves that it has no existence, except in their own imagination. An innate or intuitive idea of God would make his infinite splendor to shine on the mind with such incessant and dazzling splendor, that the sunlight would appear as darkness, and finite things as nonentities, before it. It would be impossible to doubt or to forget it, if it existed. On the other hand, this shows that the scholastic theory of the origin of ideas and knowledge adequately expresses everything which they can reasonably desire in respect to the relation of the intellect to the infinite, or real and necessary being, as the object of cognition. The idea of the infinite and the knowledge of God are virtually in the intellect, because the light of reason, a participation of the divine light, gives it the potentiality which can be reduced to act by union with the intelligible object. The theory which ascribes to the newly created soul something besides its rational capacity, which it brings with it as a kind of form to vivify the sensible object, or keeps as a distinct ideal object within itself, is wholly unnecessary and superfluous. It is, moreover, not in accordance with the true doctrine respecting the human soul as forma corporis. It belongs rather to that imperfect philosophy which ascribes to the soul in this life a separate and independent subsistence, into which the body does not enter as an integral part of the personality, but which it merely serves as a machine. The scholastic doctrine preserves the unity of the essence and the operation of man, as a rational animal. That an intellectual operation should begin from our senses, and the mind commence its existence in its rudimental body as a tabula rasa, is in accordance with our humble position in the natural order. The capacity for gaining knowledge by the slow process of experience and discursion is all that we have any right to claim for ourselves. It is enough for us that we are rational, that “the light of God’s countenance is signed upon us” by the impress of an image of his intelligence upon our souls; and that we are enlightened by “that light which enlighteneth every man coming into this world” by receiving the power to know God as manifested in his works. We are certainly a “little lower than the angels,” who have no natural vision of God in his essence, and how are we essentially inferior to them, except in the necessity of beginning the process of intellectual cognition from the apprehension of sensible objects? It still remains true that God is both the author and the object of knowledge even in the natural order, and that we naturally tend to the contemplation of his being and perfections. But this process carried on for eternity could never bring us to a point where we could obtain the faintest glimpse of an intuitive vision of the divine essence. The capacity to attain to this vision is wholly gratuitous and supernatural, a gift of grace, an elevation of our nature above itself, and above the angelic nature to a similitude with the divine nature. The actual vision is reserved for the state of glory in which the blessed see God in himself and all things in God. The scholastic philosophy is therefore in conformity with Catholic theology, and a proper preparation for studying and understanding this sublime science. Every other system is either in discord with it, or deficient in the perfect logical concord which ought to make the inferior harmonize completely with the superior science.
The revival of scholastic philosophy, and the general consent with which, in all parts of the world, those who lead in the great work of Catholic education and instruction are uniting together in promoting its study and exposition, are a most hopeful sign for the coming age. It is especially encouraging to witness this revival in Germany; and to see the powerful and heavily panoplied champions of orthodox theology and sound philosophy coming forth from the German schools, to meet and overthrow the boastful giants of that land of colossal intelligence and learning; who defy the armies of the living God and aim at an imperial domination over the world of science, as its statesmen and warriors do over the political world. They are but giants of condensed cloud, like the genii of Arabian fable who escaped from the bottles of King Solomon. The wisdom of Solomon subdued these genii, and it is the true wisdom, sapientia, which must subdue the cloudy giants of critical, historical, and philosophical sophistry; the Bruno Bauers, Strausses, Döllingers, Kants, Hegels, and Büchners, who make war on the old Bible, the old church, the old religion, the old philosophy, the old God of Germany and Christendom. A nephew of Hegel and pupil of Feuerbach asked the latter what was to be done next, since the Kantian philosophy had ended in the complete dissolution of all science. The reply was, that we must return to common sense. The pupil followed the advice by returning to the old God and the old religion. To bring back the next generation to this old religion, and to educate in it the youth who have received it by their baptism in the church, is the great task of Catholic teachers. This can be done only by the aid of the old philosophy. The attempts made everywhere, but especially in Germany, to do this by a new philosophy and a new theology are all failures, and end only in betraying the whole cause of the church to the enemy. Those Catholic scholars of Germany who are sound and strong alike in their faith and in their science are beginning to see this, and are returning to the philosophy of the Angelic Doctor as the only fit companion to theology, the true wisdom in the rational order. Those who become the interpreters and teachers of this wisdom to the young are the most valuable and efficient of all laborers in the field of divine philosophy. They need to be thoroughly learned both in theology and philosophy, and at the same time to have a special gift for teaching and explaining doctrine in a condensed, lucid, and attractive manner.