matter, which in the scholastic view with the former makes up the substance? Our author answers that this quantity is a certain force or power of resistance, an ἐνεργήμα, radiating from the substance, which he calls ενεργεία. This is quite intelligible, just as it is easy to understand how the rays of light are distinct from the body of the sun. And as there is nothing inconceivable in God's maintaining miraculously the light after the destruction of the sun, so the quantity in this sense can easily be conceived to remain after the disappearance of the substance of the bread. This theory, though a development of the schoolmen, yet is a distinct move onward. It is a development out of the scholastic view of quantity; for we must banish modern quantity from our minds when we use scholastic language. Quantity is defined to be :"Accidens extensivum seu distributivum substantiæ in varias partes integrantes." Goudin. Logica Major. Disp. 2. Qu. 3. In fact, scholastic quantity implies at least three modern notions, impenetrability, extension, and organization. S. Thomas, for instance, says, 4 Cont. Gentes :-" Positio quæ est ordo partium in toto, in ratione quantitatis includitur." Goudin adds: "Ista quinque, extensio, seu distributio in varias partes, occupatio loci, seu extensio ad certum locum, impenetrabilitas, divisibilitas, et mensurabilitas conveniunt substantiæ per quantitatem." Father Franzelin goes a step beyond this, and conceives it to be a positive force of resistance emanating from the substance. Again, while the schoolmen use, concerning the relation of substance to accident, such material terms as "inesse," "sustentari," our author considers the accident to be an active effect flowing from the activity of substance as

a cause.

It is quite plain from this that Father Franzelin makes use of modern theories of force as an improvement and a complement of the scholastic. So high an authority as one holding his position is a model of the mode in which the schoolmen may be used. He keeps their main principles, yet he does not hesitate to improve upon and to complete them. In one sense even his theory is a correction as well as a completion. The scholastic account of materia was very confused. Our author, by making quantitas a real force, proceeding from it, gives a meaning to what seemed a mere negation.

Not content, however, with furnishing us in his own person with an instance of a legitimate development of the scholastic idea of substance, he also notices a theory which he considers as its perversion. A modern author whom he does not name propounds, in order to account for the presence of the accidents after the conversion of the substance, a new doctrine respecting substance. He makes it to consist simply in a negation. The object is a substance the moment that it is not sustained by something else; it ceases to be a substance as soon as it is so sustained, even though intrinsically it remains perfectly the same as before. The author of this hypothesis seems to have been led to adopt it by the application of Boscovich's theory to the explanation of the Blessed Sacrament. According to that view, matter being simply a collection of unextended points in space, related to each other by various combinations of mechanical movement, it becomes impossible to account for the presence of the accidents after the removal of the substance. Assuming the substance to be the points, and the accidents the result of their movement, it is inconceivable that this movement should remain, when the

thing moved is destroyed. He is, therefore, obliged to invent a theory of substance, which will allow it to be intrinsically unchanged after it has ceased to be a substance. This he effects by the negative view of substance above described. Father Franzelin objects strongly to this view, as opposed to the Council of Trent: "Sine ullo prorsus dubio Concilium docet, totum illud esse prius quod non est accidens seu species converti seu desinere per conversionem in corpus et sanguinem Domini. At juxta novam sententiam nihil entitatis desinit in pane, sed tota physica realitas manet eadem, solo modo existendi mutato; quod nunc ea realitas dicitur non esse in se, sed in altero scilicet in corpore Christi."

It is very valuable to the theologian to have in Father Franzelin's book an example at once of the right and the wrong mode of dealing with the philosophy of the schools. There is a development from it which is a lawful unfolding of its idea and a real progress. On the other hand, there is a corruption which disintegrates and destroys. On the one hand no purely mechanical or mathematical explanation of the laws of the universe is deep enough to be the basis of the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament. On the other, we have the authority of F. Franzelin for the application of the dynamical view of matter, though under the correction of theology. Use has before been made of Leibnitz's views in a modified form, both by English and foreign writers, for the defence of the Blessed Sacrament. We are not aware however, that any authority as high as that of Father Franzelin has as yet given them his sanction.

Die Theologische Censuren. Katholik. 1869. I. 3 und 4 Heft.

TH

HERE seems a very large concurrence of Catholic opinion, that the Vatican Council will probably put forth some definition on the Church's infallibility; and it can hardly be doubted that, if such be the fact, some important light will be thrown on that particular controversy in which this REVIEW has been especially engaged. Under these circumstances, we think it in every respect the preferable course to refrain from saying another word on the details of that controversy, until the Church may have either spoken, or else indicated her intention of not immediately speaking at all.

We are perhaps stretching a point when we apply this resolve to the particular case of Dr. Scheeben's treatise; because, whatever difference of opinion there may be on other kindred points, we suppose the number of English Catholics could almost be counted on one's fingers, who doubt the Church's infallibility in her various theological censures, 66 erroneous," "temerarious," and the like. Not to add, that the recent placing of Chrismann's work on the Index may possibly have converted some even of these few. Still, though we must of course notice a treatise which the author has sent us from Germany for the express purpose of being noticed, it will VOL. XIII.—NO. xxv. [New Series.] Q

perhaps be better if we confine ourselves to a brief exposition of its general contents.

The treatise is made up of two articles, which have lately appeared in the Katholik of Mayence, of which Dr. Scheeben is the editor; and we will begin by noticing an important remark which he makes as to the authors to be consulted on the question. Among those he refers to are Montagne, "De Censuris, seu Notis Theologicis," to be found in Migne's "Cursus Theol.," tom. i., and Gautier, "Prodromus ad Theol. Dogm.," in Zaccaria's "Thesaurus Theol.," vol. i. Of these he says, "The two last works are especially valuable, because their authors lived at a time when, in consequence of the acts of ecclesiastical authority, -and the warm discussions of the learned, resulting from the Jansenist controversies, the subject appeared in a much clearer light, than at the time of the great theologians already named. This progress in the development of the doctrine is often overlooked; and the reputation of the great theologians of the classical Sæculum Tridentinum is indiscriminatingly alleged in support of views, which it was possible, indeed, to hold in their time, or rather which they had not as yet clearly and distinctly rejected, but which, in the light of later facts (especially the Bulls Unigenitus' and Pastoralis Officii' of Clement XV.), and the more sharply-defined action of the Church, remained hardly tenable any longer."

6

We will now give Dr. Scheeben's more important Theses:

Thesis I. That judgment of the Church which pronounces any theological censure (supposing it to possess all the formal conditions) lays on every Catholic the obligation, in virtue of his obedience to the Church, of receiving it unconditionally; i.e., of inwardly and sincerely assenting to the censure itself, and firmly holding the censurableness and perverseness of the propositions denounced in the judgment.

Thesis II. These judgments, as regards that which they formally contain, i.e. the declaration of the censurableness, and of the particular species and manner or of the formal ground of the censurableness, are infallible; and hence the obedience above referred to demands the exclusion, not only of every practical and actual, but also of all theoretical and hypothetical doubt of the justice of the censure.

Dr. Schceben adds that this infallibility is so certain, that most theologians, in qualifying its denial, leave only the choice between "error" and "hæresis."

He adds in a note an important quotation from a decree of the Council of Embrun (1727) on the subject of the "Unigenitus," and the theological censures therein contained; the Council having been "plenissimè” approved by Benedict XIII.: a quotation which has already appeared in our pages, but which it may be as well to repeat.

"Constitutio Unigenitus'... est dogmaticum definitivum, et irretractabile judicium illius Ecclesiæ, de quâ divino ore dictum est, portæ inferi non prevalebunt adversus eam.' Si quis igitur eidem Constitutioni corde et animo non acquiescit, aut veram et sinceram obedientiam non præstat, inter eos habeatur, qui circa fidem naufragaverunt."

Thesis III. Furthermore these censures, not only in virtue of ecclesiastical obedience, but also because of the unquestionable certainty resulting from them, impose an obligation (under pain of mortal sin) actually to reject the condemned propositions as untrue.

Our readers may remember that we have always considered the question an open one, whether every censured proposition is quite certainly not censurable only, but untrue. Dr. Scheeben however holds, that the objective falsehood of all censured propositions must be received, under pain of mortal sin, as at least morally certain. It would be too long in a notice to give his reasons. We will only add therefore, that amongst them he states that Steyart, Montagne, Regnier, and, to the best of his knowledge, all the theologians without exception who have urged the Church's censures against the Jansenist evasions, have maintained this opinion.

Thesis IV. Censures once pronounced by the Church are irreversibly binding for all time, so far as they affect the doctrine (as distinguished from the expressions) contained in the propositions.

"I am well aware," so Dr. Scheeben concludes his second article, "that the theses I have here maintained have been in whole or in part decried in England and Germany as 'theological extravagances.' This, no longer unusual, sort of private censure will however only be effectual, when it is accompanied by a thorough refutation of my arguments, and also by an exact assignment of the limits within which one can move without extravagance."

Das Oekumenische Concil. Stimmen aus Maria-Laach. Neue Folge. Unter Benützung römischer Mittheilungen und der Arbeiten der Civiltà. Herausgegeben von FLORIAN RIESS und KARL VON WEBER, Priestern der Gesellschaft Jesu. Freiburg in Brisgau, 1869.

THE children of the Church, as well as her enemies, are for once agreed;

Council of the Vatican-will do a work which the former hail with joy, but which the latter hate and fear. Catholics are praying everywhere for the good issue of the Council, and learned theologians are busy teaching the unlearned what a council of Holy Church is. The present generation comes to the consideration of an old fact, as if that fact were new, because more than three centuries have passed away since the last general Council was dissolved. A very great service, therefore, is rendered to us when learned men, thoroughly saturated with the spirit of the Church, supply us with the results of their thoughts. No doubt much error has crept into many minds on this question, and many men have adopted very false notions about councils; for it could hardly be otherwise in Europe, where anarchy has established itself as the normal state of intellect and morals. Secular law is a very potent instrument, but it is not to be trusted alone; and that is the

only weapon which governments now recognize. It is not capable of doing the work offered it, and the consequence is either confusion, or a tyranny of the most debasing nature, called the will of the majority. For many years the men who have brought us into this condition were in the habit of saying that intellect and worth ought to reign; but as they meant nothing but their own intellect and their own worth, the end is what we see: every man is enlightened, and every man is worthy; therefore brute force has come to be the law of Europe, for no intellect will bow to another.

In these calamitous times, then, the Sovereign Pontiff has proclaimed the old doctrine that kings must reign by justice, and that the people must obey the law. He has called together from the four corners of the earth the true princes of the people of God, and He with them will send forth once more the law from out of Zion, and the word of God from Rome, the true Jerusalem. Some of the governments of this world have been startled by this act of supreme rule, and would gladly, if they dared, hinder its accomplishment. The spirit of Herod is still active; and though the godless governments of the day will not venture to slay, they will do their best to thwart, and, failing that, to worry and annoy.

The first general Council was held under the protection of the first Christian Emperor, but the nineteenth under the protection of no secular prince whatever. This is the progress of the nineteenth century. Every state in Europe has fallen away, as a state, from the profession of the faith of Christ. The world is gone back to the old paganism, and the Church has her work to do over again if the mercy of God allows the world to last long enough for her to do it.

In these days of multifarious reading and inaccurate thinking, it will do us all good, even the most faithful children of the Church, to be reminded of the truth from time to time. We shall have a keener interest in the Council if we have a clearer knowledge of its nature. It is our custom to pray, when asked, for the intentions of others; but we pray more earnestly when we know what those intentions are, and more earnestly still if we have any personal interest in them. His Holiness has summoned a General Council, and has commanded the faithful to pray for the good success of it; the faithful now, as always, obedient to the voice of the Chief Shepherd of the sheep, are doing what they have been commanded to do; and learned men, seconding the orders of the Pope, are helping us all to make those prayers more fervent by giving us the means to know what a general Council We are but imperfect Christians, however fervent, if we do not give up our understanding also to be guided and informed in the spirit of the Church; and the more accurate our knowledge of her powers and prerogatives, the keener will be our interest, and the more absorbing our love. There is a majesty about the house of God which captivates of itself, and the true esteem of that majesty comes ordinarily by cultivating the sense of it. Holy Church is not merely the treasury of grace from which we are daily and hourly supplied, but she is also the strong tower on earth where the Divine jurisdiction is lodged.

means.

The summoning of a General Council is one of the highest jurisdictions conceivable; and brings out into clear light the unity of the Church, and