If

truths known by revelation with truths known by reason. the latter data therefore be wrongly supplied, the whole science is vitiated and worthless.* The disciples then of an unsound philosophy are ipso facto excluded from all full or trustworthy scientific knowledge of dogma. Since therefore nowadays all speculatively given Catholics regard a large number of their fellow Catholics as being in this very category as being disciples of an unsound philosophythe natural result is, that dogmatic theology goes very much to the wall. And indeed one very curious indication of this result may be observed; viz., that the very meaning of the phrase "dogmatic theology" has imperceptibly changed. Catholics do not like to admit that they neglect dogmatic theology; and so they give that name to other studies, which, however valuable in themselves, are of quite a different character: such as dogmatic history, and anti-Protestant controversy. Both these studies, it need not be said, have very great value; and the latter indeed has been for the last three centuries absolutely indispensable: but surely it is quite a misnomer to speak of either as dogmatic theology."

Now we should have to occupy a long article with the subject, if we attempted to set forth the deplorable disadvantage under which all Catholic speculation labours, from the comparative neglect into which dogmatical science has lately fallen in many parts of Christendom. Here we will but express briefly our own strong opinion, (1) that this is the one central science, which gives unity and due proportionato significance to all other sacred studies; (2) that where this is neglected, even those which are zealously cultivated produce far less good fruit than would otherwise be the case; and (3) that the one predominant cause of its neglect-the cause which has had much more influence than all the rest put together-has been the mutual divergence of Catholics in the field of philosophy. Canon Walker has spoken excellently on this; though in language studiously moderate :

"What is theology? The philosophy of revelation in other words it is the result of applying to revealed dogmata the methods and principles of philosophy. Evidently therefore all hope of theological union must be abandoned, so long as disputes continue on philosophical principles and on the intrinsic trustworthiness of reason. . . . If one of our students opens S. Thomas, Suarez, or some other of those great doctors whom the Church has proclaimed the luminaries of theology,-instead of light he finds therein but obscurity: their terms, their axioms, their formulae, which used to be perfectly clear to those who had been philosophically educated, have now become even to teachers mere hieroglyphics" (Ramière, pp. 21, 22).

In this point of view the Church has suffered loss, when her writers and teachers turned more to the historic and authoritative foundations of truth, than to its intrinsic reasons, analogies, and aims; although she has undoubtedly gained in other and important respects. At first the younger methods, as with Petavius, inherited a rich stock of principles and dogmatic truth to support and vivify their elaborate and critical illustrations; but by degrees the substance began to subside, and the most meagre groundwork of reason served the purposes of varied erudition; nay, what has been very prejudicial to truth, a dangerous eclecticism of different principles of philosophy has been adopted for the uses of dogma, as if philosophy were an alien without any definite character, intended only to meet the accidental wants of the theological disputant; till at last new and foreign principles and processes of reasoning have on all sides forced an entrance into the domain of dogma; and the Church seemed, as some of late have too crudely and absolutely stated, to be left without a philosophy (pp. vi. vii).

A second evil has arisen from Catholic philosophical differences, almost as serious as that which we have just mentioned, but entirely distinct. Many thinkers have of late pointed out, that all the higher and more gifted non-Catholic intellects have entirely abandoned the old Protestant ruck; that they are either in some sense on their road to the Church, or else are rationalists, pantheists, atheists. As against this latter class-which among men of great intellectual power is very far larger than the former,-the old controversial formulæ -the old "probatur ex Scripturâ," "probatur ex Patribus," have become simply antiquated and obsolete. It is no parodox to say, that the controversial theology now most peremptorily required is controversial philosophy. If then we would estimate the seriousness of our present calamity, let us make a very intelligible supposition. Let us suppose that in the palmy days of Protestantismin the period of Bellarmine or Bossuet-Catholic controversialists had been as much at issue with each other on first principles, as Catholic philosophers are now. What would have been the certain result? Catholics would have wasted their intellectual energies in disputing with each other, and would moreover have been incapacitated from combining against the common enemy; while Protestants would have been under little danger from an army divided against itself. Such alas! is the attitude now forced upon the Church's children, in confronting those portents of unbelief which are the great intellectual peril of our time. Catholics are simply impotent to contest collectively against the evil. Some doubtless do individually gird themselves for the conflict: but many more are simply cowed and dispirited; they fold their

hands and gaze on the monster with alarm and disgust; or they compel themselves to forget his existence.

A third evil result, more or less closely connected with each of the two former, is exhibited in Catholic higher lay education. The "Pall Mall Gazette," in a very interesting and significant article issued last April 12th, alleges one characteristic and widely-extended calamity as having befallen the present age. It complains that Christians in general, and Catholics in particular, "have persuaded themselves to doubt whether it is necessary, or even desirable, that their religious belief should be true, in the plain common sense of that word. They have got into the way of thinking," it adds, "that there is an inferior article different from ordinary truth, which may perhaps be called spiritual truth, and which will for all religious purposes do quite as well, or rather much better. Their creed is... less a doctrine than a resolution, or ... an attempt to believe. They are believers in a general sense." Now of course there is here very much exaggeration; but we wish we could be sure that it does not rest on a certain basis of truth. Catholic thinkers have seen the coming danger. They have constantly pointed out that now, when there has long ceased to be a Christian atmosphere diffused throughout society imbuing the mind unconsciously with Catholic doctrine and principlenay, when the prevalent atmosphere has long been in character most opposite-it has become far more necessary than it was in earlier times, to inculcate dogma in one or other shape, as an express study for every class. In proportion as this is not done, the phenomenon described in the "Pall Mall Gazette " will be ever of less and less rare occurrence. But dogma cannot possibly be taught in a shape which shall find access to highlycultivated intellects, unless in most intimate connection with philosophy. And thus two most lamentable results at once follow in Catholic higher education, whenever some philosophy is not carefully inculcated as the one fundamentally true and certain system. (1) A Catholic youth cannot be duly protected against that poisonous habit of speculative thought, which infects the whole air he breathes; nor (2) can he be trained in a due apprehension of those dogmata, which are given him by God for the very purpose, that he may direct his life by their constant contemplation.

Here then is the one pressing intellectual need of our time; that Catholics be philosophically united here is the first, second, and third thing intellectually necessary. In fact, this has been among our principal reasons for dwelling so unintermittently in this REVIEW on the Church's infallibility

and authority within ground not strictly dogmatical; since it is in the most complete interior submission to her various philosophical decrees, that the earliest remedy must be sought for so deplorable an evil. Other things will have to be added afterwards, no doubt; but this must come first, and without this the others are futile.

But now, if philosophical unity can be obtained at all,— among the various philosophies which have a footing within the Church, is there one in particular to which all eyes would turn as to the nucleus of such unity? Of course there is. The connection is most intimate, as we have seen, between theology and philosophy; and yet there is no philosophy with which the Church has ever had official relations, except only the scholastic. No Catholic who fairly gives his mind to the matter will be able to doubt, that in its essential and fundamental principles scholasticism must be infallibly a true philosophy. We have already pointed out that dogmatic theology is based throughout on philosophy; and that a dogmatic theology, which should take a false philosophy for its basis, must by necessity be preponderatingly false. If then it be admittedas all Catholics will admit-that the Church's dogmatic theology has been in every age substantially and predominantly trustworthy;-it must be no less infallibly certain, that those philosophical doctrines, which everywhere pervade it and are its animating principles, are fundamentally true.

But there is another and counterbalancing statement of the case, which it is no less important to bear in mind. We say that those philosophical principles, which pervaded and animated the scholastic theology, are fundamentally true. But this is quite a different thing from saying that—even as exhibited by its best exponents, by S. Thomas or Suarez,-the scholastic is a perfect and fully satisfying philosophy. As the connection of theology with philosophy was the ground of our general proposition in favour of that system ;-so the degree of such connection must limit the extent to which the proposition itself may reasonably be carried. Take one instance of what we mean. The number is by no means inconsiderable of vital philosophical questions, which now profoundly agitate the mind of thinkers, but which three centuries ago had never been raised. It is not to a scholastic philosopher of the past, that a Catholic of this day would naturally look for their explicit solution; though he should reject any proposed solution of them, which is at variance with the fundamental principles of scholastic philosophy. Again, even very eminent scholastics may have fallen into various philosophical errors, not fundamental indeed, but very far from unimportant; and yet these errors

may so little have worked their way into the fabric of theology, that the Church may have had no call to interfere. Our own opinion is that the fact is so: but until we have given reasons for this opinion, we have no right of course to say more, than that the fact may be so for anything which theology declares to the contrary. We would allege also with some confidence, that numerous and emphatic as have been the Church's testimonies to the value of scholastic philosophy, they have always stopped very far short of stamping with her authority each several portion of its doctrine.*

We speak on this whole subject with unfeigned diffidence, and with deep submission to better judgments than our own. But there is such pressing necessity for speech, that we felt it could not be right much longer to forbear, however keenly we might feel our own incompetence. And we speak now with far greater comfort than would be otherwise possible, because we are able to follow in the wake of so admirable a treatise, as that of F. Kleutgen which we have named at the head of our article. Indeed this great work appears to us by far the most valuable acquisition to Catholic philosophical literature (so far as we are acquainted with that literature), which has been made since the time of Suarez. Its two main theses are just those two on which we have been insisting: (1) the scholastic philosophy is infallibly true, in its essential and fundamental principles; but (2), to be made fully available for our time, it needs large additions and no inconsiderable corrections. In illustrating these theses, F. Kleutgen exhibits, not only the widest, the profoundest, apprehension of scholasticism, but also a surprisingly fair and large-minded appreciation of other philosophical schools; treating his whole theme moreover with an accuracy of thought and expression, which cannot be surpassed. We may add that not unfrequently he warms with his subject, and rises into real eloquence.

As to the former of the two theses we have ascribed to him-viz., that the scholastic philosophy is true in its essential and fundamental principles-this is the one staple, the one pervading argument, of his whole work. We will quote one passage in particular: because (to our mind) it places the matter on precisely its true ground; and because it dwells on that doctrine concerning the Church's unintermitting

Take, for example, the well-known decree against Traditionalism. "Methodus, quâ usi sunt D. Thomas, D. Bonaventura, et alii post ipsos scholastici, non ad rationalismum ducit ; neque causa fuit, cur apud scholas hodiernas philosophia in naturalismum et pantheismum impingeret. Proinde non licet in crimen doctoribus et magistris illis vertere, quod methodum hanc, præsertim approbante vel saltem tacente Ecclesiâ, usurpaverint."