much like trying to describe the texture of a moonbeam. I can only certify that it was white, diaphanous, and fleecy as a cloud, and that, in some mysterious way, eucharista lilies floated here and there over the soft, snowy foam. The graceful head, too, bowed modestly under its golden weight of hair, was crowned by the same lovely flowers, and a cloud-like veil of gossamer tissue encircled her like a morning mist.
M. de la Bourbonais looked very happy as he passed through the sympathetic groups with his clair-de-lune on his arm; there was subdued joy on his venerable face that smoothed away all painful traces of his late illness, and almost obliterated the lines of age and the deeper furrows of care on his thoughtful brow.
As to Clide de Winton, everybody declared that he bore himself admirably on this most trying occasion, presenting a model of what a bridegroom ought to be—manly, dignified, and simple; he made a speech at the wedding breakfast, and it was pronounced capital. I don’t think the effort proved such a very severe trial to him, either, as he had once expected, for when Mrs. de Winton, who had expanded like a sunflower in cordiality that day, asked him with an arch smile whether he found the ordeal very dreadful, Clide answered frankly that it was not so trying as he had anticipated, and that, even when the worst was said, a wedding ceremony, with all its fuss, was not an unmitigated evil.
THOMISTIC PHILOSOPHY.[104]
There is some evidence of the undue conceit which the present age has of its learning and culture in the fact that the works of the great writers of the middle ages indefinitely surpass our best literary productions in intellectual acumen and in the depth and width of real philosophical science. St. Thomas commences his Summa Theologica by telling us that it is to be an elementary work for the use of beginners in the study of sacred doctrine, according as the apostle says, Tam parvulis in Christo, lac vobis potum dedi, non escam. This book for junior students, this “milk for babes” of the mediæval times, is nowadays somewhat strong for the mental digestion of full-grown men, not excepting those whose minds have been carefully trained under the tuition of judicious preceptors. It was no doubt the modesty of the saint which prompted him to speak in this manner of that most wonderful work. Had he lived in such days as ours, so remarkable for feebleness of intellect, so conspicuous for contemptuousness, for self-confidence and self-sufficiency, such language would not have been possible with him; for he could only have used it in the bitterest sarcasm, which is utterly foreign to his meek and gentle character.
Since the days of the Angelic Doctor, it has become necessary to dispose the minds of those who would drink of this source of science by previous instruction in the first elements of his philosophy. Of all the elementary philosophies of the strictly Thomistic school, the most universally esteemed has been that of Father Goudin, who gave lectures in the Dominican College of Paris towards the end of the seventeenth century. The great aim of this faithful professor of Thomism is to be true to his master in every point, not only in the higher principles of philosophy, but even in the details of physics. He wrote at a time when a great revolution was taking place in men’s minds with regard to science, and he saw with concern that the new doctrines would prove in their results subversive of all that was Christian. He therefore set about opposing the doctrinal novelties of Descartes and his school by an uncompromising reassertion of the teaching of St. Thomas. In the judgment of posterity Goudin has erred somewhat, but not so much, certainly, as the school which he opposed; for the Cartesian doctrines have proved the source of many subsequent errors, as scepticism, rationalism, pantheism, atheism. The mistakes of Goudin simply regard some of the details of physical science which, whether correctly or erroneously explained, tend little to the benefit of our fellow-beings, although interesting enough to the minds of the well educated.
We are assured that the strictest Thomists are not bound to adhere to the details of the physics of their master. The Angelic Doctor, in matters of this kind (which, we submit, concern little the theologian, or the metaphysician, or the moralist), adopted the prevailing opinions of the time. We do not read that he ever showed much enthusiasm for natural or experimental science, and in this respect he differed from his friend and quondam preceptor, Albertus Magnus. But in those fundamental questions of philosophy which are intimately connected with our moral conduct and with natural or positive religion, and indeed in all questions where St. Thomas is bound to think for himself, we do not find that he simply endorses the teaching of another. When it is objected by knowing people that Aquinas teaches doctrines which are exploded or puerile—as, for instance, that the earth is stationary, or that the east is the right hand of the heavens—it would be well for them to reflect that these are rather the doctrines of the universally-admired Aristotle than of his Christian disciple.[105]
Father Gonzales (since created Bishop of Cordova) has given to the church an excellent manual of Thomistic doctrine. At the outset, he seeks to determine the sense of the word philosophy. This is no easy matter, as the definitions given by different authors are many and various. Cousin declares it to be—reflection completely emancipated and freed from the trammels of authority, so that reason depends solely upon itself for the acquisition of truth. By the subjectivists of Germany it is