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that Peripateticism is anything more than a probable hypothesis, and he is, therefore, not entitled to conclude from it as if it were certain and undeniable truth.

The difficulty with both Father Chastel and the Traditionalists arises, we think, from their denying, overlooking, or not appreciating the fact that human reason has immediate intuition of the intelligible. The Traditionalists, not conceding this fact, are obliged to assume that the human mind is in no relation with the intelligible, as distinguished from the sensible, till instructed by society, which preserves the tradition of the revelation originally made to the first man. This necessarily denies all science, properly so called, or, what is the same thing, builds science on faith, making the act of faith precede the act of reason, which is impossible, since there can be no act of faith unless there has been previously an act of reason. Father Chastel sees this, and, fortified by the decisions of the Church, the teaching of doctors, and common sense, refutes it successfully; but denying, or at least not holding, intelligible intuition, he himself fails to give any satisfactory explanation of the real problem, or any clear and certain statement of the truth opposed to the error of the Traditionalists. After all, it is more as a theologian than as a philosopher that he refutes them. The fact is, both he and they are virtually sensists, and hold the Peripatetic maxim, that nihil est in intellectu, quod prius non fuerit in sensu. They, starting from this maxim of Aristotle, maintain that the human intellect can have cognition only of sensibles, and can come into possession of intellectual ideas, as they call them, only by means of external instruction; he, recoiling from this, and not quite prepared to accept the doctrine of innate ideas, contends that we possess these ideas only by way of mental abstraction from sensible intuitions or phantasms. He sees clearly enough, that, admitting neither innate ideas nor intelligible intuition, the Traditionalists place the human mind out of the condition of being even the recipient of the instruction they suppose, for they leave nothing in it to correspond to the meaning of the words through which it must be communicated. There is no magic in language, in mere words, that can put the mind in possession of ideas of an order of which it knows nothing, and can of itself know nothing. We do not know a language by committing its words to

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memory, but by learning the meaning of the words themselves. In the case of a foreign language we learn it ordinarily by translating its words into the corresponding words of our own language. We know our own mother tongue only in so far as we know the things its signs stand for, and we may say it is only by the verba mentis that we can understand the verba vocis, or external speech. It would be impossible through external language to teach anything to a mind that was perfectly blank, for we can teach the unknown only by attaching it in some way to the known. It is only by virtue of a correspondence or analogy between the natural and the supernatural, that man is capable of receiving a supernatural revelation, or of finding in the mysteries of faith anything for his own understanding beyond empty words. The Traditionalists, by representing the mind as destitute of intellectual ideas, and as unable to behold the intelligible intuitively, really deny the possibility of such ideas, even in the natural order, and therefore really, though unintentionally, deny that man can even be the subject of a supernatural revelation. But while Father Chastel sees all this clearly enough, he does not see that, by assuming that the intelligible is apprehended not immediately in intuition, but only mediately in sensation, he has to encounter a strictly analogous difficulty, because the intelligible by no conceivable mental process whatever is attainable from sensations or purely sensible data, from the intuition of sensible things no more than from sensible signs. We readily concede that the intelligible is never intuitively apprehended by itself alone, and is always presented to us along with the sensible; but if it is not actually and immediately presented, actually and immediately apprehended, it cannot be obtained at all. The analysis of sensation can give only sensation, or the sensible object. To hold the intelligible, or to contemplate it by itself, we must undoubtedly separate it from the sensible phenomenon, as St. Thomas teaches. But if it was not originally distinct from the sensible element of the phenomenon, we could not separate or distinguish it, and all we should have for it would be a simple mental abstraction, formed by the mind, and without the least conceivable objective value. Our cognition would be restricted, objectively considered, to the sensible or nonintelligible world, and we should have no knowledge at

THIRD SERIES.- VOL. III. NO. II.

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all, properly so called, none at least above that which we detect in brutes. We should be compelled to reduce all our ideas, with Condillac, to "sensations transformed." The intelligible would be to us as if it were not, and we could never receive a revelation of the supernatural, because we should want the natural ideas by which its mysteries could be connected with our natural intelligence. The only way we can see of escaping this conclusion is to regard the sensible as naturally corresponding to the intelligible, which in a certain sense it does, since God is similitudo rerum omnium. But we must remember that it is nature that copies or imitates God, not God that copies or imitates nature; the sensible that imitates the intelligible, not the intelligible that imitates the sensible. We must know the original in order to detect the resemblance in the copy. So, unless we suppose intelligible intuition, which puts the mind in possession of the original, the idea exemplaris, the fact alleged can avail nothing.

The recognition of the fact of immediate intuition of the intelligible solves every difficulty in the case, and we confess that we do not understand the unwillingness of Father Chastel and the Traditionalists to accept it. Man is intellective as well as sensitive by nature; and if so, he must be as capable of intelligible as of sensible intuitions. Why, then, is there any more propriety in supposing the intelligible is obtained from the sensible, than in supposing the sensible is obtained from the intelligible? All Catholics must hold, that ratio Dei existentiam cum certitudine probare potest, reason can prove with certainty the existence of God, and therefore that the existence of God is a matter of science as well as of faith. But how can reason prove with certainty what it does not intuitively apprehend? Men certainly do and can know God, at least that he is, and is God, by the light of reason, but who will pretend that our cognitions can embrace matter not included in our intuitions? Why, then, since God is the intelligible, and, if we can know him, intelligible to us, hesitate to say that we have intuition of the intelligible? All knowledge is either intuitive or reflective. But as reflection is a return of the mind on its own past thoughts, reflective knowledge can never include any matter not included in our intuition. This is not a theory or an hypothesis in our understanding of the subject, but a

plain matter of fact. We cannot understand, therefore, the fear which many of our friends have of it. Is it attachment to routine, adherence to system, a reverence for great names, or a fear of being found to agree on any point with Gioberti? Or is there something in it which we do not see, that militates against faith, or the approved methods of explaining or defending the Christian mysteries?

There is no name in philosophy that we respect more than we do that of St. Thomas, but in philosophy we swear by the words of no human master. "Call no man," said our Lord, "master on earth, for one is your master in heaven." In heavenly things, in all that pertains to faith, we own a master, and we are content to sit at his feet and learn; but in earthly things, in matters of pure reason, so long as we keep within the limits of faith, we hold ourselves free. And it will not do for men who are vindicating the rights of reason, and who contend that reason without revelation is able to discover and prove all the great elementary truths of natural religion, to restrict our freedom by the authority of great names. The single name of St. Thomas, if against us, would, no doubt, be a presumption that we were in error; but on a point of simple natural reason we should not regard it as conclusive, for we believe it is lawful to dissent from even his philosophical opinions, when one has solid reasons for doing so. There are passages in St. Thomas which seem to us quite too favorable to modern sensism; but, as we have shown on another occasion, we do not believe that, fairly and honestly interpreted, he can be said to have held any of the errors of that system. We do not pretend that he formally taught the doctrine on intuition we have set forth, but we have studied him to no purpose if he teaches the contrary. He explains, after Aristotle, cognition by means of intelligible species and phantasms, or the intellectus agens and sensation; but he teaches expressly that the intelligible species is that by which the mind attains to the cognition of the intelligible, not that in which it terminates, and that what the mind really obtains or apprehends through them is the intelligible object itself. The intelligible species furnished by the intellectus agens, translated into plain English, is simply the intellectual light, or that property of the intellect by virtue of which it is capable of cognizing the intelligible, and in our modern modes of

thought is included in the intellectual faculty itself. The doctrine of St. Thomas, as we understand it, is, that man is intelligent by virtue of a created light, or reason, which is made in the image and likeness of the Divine Reason, and therefore contains in itself, in a participated sense, the ideas, types, species, or images of whatever we are naturally capable of knowing. It is by virtue of these ideas, types, images, or species, that the intellect is capable of cognition. Evidently, then, the intelligible species is really a property of the intellectual faculty, and that which makes it intellective. It is included in the subject, and goes to make up what we call the intellect. Hence, to say that man takes cognizance of the intelligible by means of the intelligible species, means, in the system of St. Thomas, precisely what we mean when we say man has direct and immediate intuition of it. There is then really no discrepancy between the doctrine of St. Thomas and ours, and the apparent discrepancy arises from the fact, that he carried his analysis of the intellect a step or two further than we do ours. Thomas never really taught the sensist doctrine which some would father upon him, that the intelligible is merely inferred or concluded from sensible data. All he taught was that the intelligible is never apprehended without the sensible, and that, to be distinctly apprehended, it must be abstracted, that is, separated or distinguished by reflection, from the phantasms along with which it was originally presented, which is precisely the doctrine we contend for. At least, it is so we understand the Angelic Doctor, and therefore we do not seem to ourselves to depart from the real sense of the Thomist philosophy.

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But we have no disposition to enter further at present into this discussion. We think, if the two parties now so fiercely pitted against each other in France would recognize the fact that reason has two modes of activity, one intuitive and the other reflective, and understand that in the reflective order language is necessary to represent-not present, but re-present- the intelligible, and that reflection proves, but does not discover, rational truth, they might shake hands and be friends; for no Catholic will pretend that reason in our fallen state is able without revelation to build up a complete system of even natural religion and morality. We beg Father Chastel to do us the justice to believe that we have made these remarks more by way of

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