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Show Uncle Jack and CONVERSATION VII. j "But, after all, uncle, you really deny all progress, and contend that the moderns have only retrograded." "My dear Dick, always mind the categories, and get clear, distinct, and precise ideas. Progress, in the sense you asserted it in our last conversation, I, of course, deny, because in that sense it is impossible. I deny also the whole philosophical system which you present pre-sent to me as its basis, because that j system is composed of abstractions and hard words, and it is as baseless as the fabric of a vision. In the sense of a progress -of being, growth, enlargement en-largement of the quantity of being of any particular individual or species, I deny progress; but a progress in attaining at-taining to the end for which we were made, I do not deny. I admit, and in my feeble way labor to make progress, where progress is conceivable, and by such means as. are adapted to effect it. If, instead of studying to be profound, you would study to be simple, and would labor to clear up and simplify your own conceptions, there would be less uiuereuce ueiween us tiia.ii uu suppose. You have never clearly and distinctly apprehended, and you do not so apprehend, what it is you mean by progress. Sometimes it is a progress in knowledge, sometimes in physical sciences, sci-ences, sometimes in ideas, theories, systems, sys-tems, sometimes in virtues, sometimes in the quantity of nature, or the species, spe-cies, and sometimes simply in the mon- I umeuts of the race. Now it is simply progress in achieving our destiny, in attaining to the end for which we have been created, and now it is a growth and enlargement of our substantive being be-ing itself. All these meanings are thrown together in a glorious confusion, confu-sion, and lie fermenting in your morbid intellect, and produce a very disagreeable disagree-able mental flatulency. Take a dose of ipecac and jalup, clear out your stomach stom-ach and bowels, and be careful of your diet henceforth, put yourself upon regimen, regi-men, and take plenty of exercise- in the open air, and you may hope to recover re-cover and maintain your health. But go near no quack,' take no patent nostrum, nos-trum, and hold in horror all the boasted panaceas trumpeted forth, in flaming advertisements. "Let us understand ourselves. There in the universe, in the cosmos, to speak in the manner of the ancients, two cycles, that of the procession of existences exist-ences by way of creation from God as their first cause, and their return without with-out absorption, to him- as their last end or final cause. In the procession from God the creature is not active, performs no part, and there is no activity ac-tivity but that of God, who, by a free act of his ominpotent will, operating according to the ideas of his own infi nite anu eceriicii lettauu, piuuui.es nic creature from non-existence and causes it to exist. All creatures in this procession pro-cession from God, in the very fact of their creation, receive a specific and determinate de-terminate nature, which is fixed and unalterable, as long as they exist at all. A progress in their nature would be a progress in creation; and a progress here by the creature's own activity would imply that he has a self-creative power .and has lot and part in creating himself, which is impossible and absurd, ab-surd, for what is not cannot act. In the first cycle, then, there is and can be no progress as effected by the creature. crea-ture. "Progress, then, must be restricted to the second cosrnic cycle, the return of existence or creatures to God, without being absorbed in him, as Oriental pantheism pan-theism teaches, or in gaining or attaining at-taining to their Ultimate end, or realization reali-zation of their supreme good. Here, and here only, is the sphere of human progress, and here progress is not in the growth or enlargement of the human hu-man being, but in fulfilling the end, or gaining the end for which the human being exists. "Progress is physically motion forwards, and morally it is going go-ing towards our end, or approaching it, more or less nearly." "But," interrupted Dick," though that is all very clear and pre- cise, it doe3 not satisfy me; for the very end for which we exist is progress. Hence It Is that the way is more than the end, and the acquiring more than the possessing. The gaining gain-ing of an end never satisfies, and there are few things that we can gain' that are not spurned as soon as gained." "I understand that' replied Uncle ! Jack. "It is so because the ends you refer to are not the last lend, and the-things gained are not the soul's supreme good, and no more satisfy sa-tisfy the soul in its craving for beatitude beati-tude than a secondary cause satisfies the intellect in seeking to get at the origin of things. But progress cannot itself be the end, the supreme good, because be-cause progress consists precisely in approaching it. Hence St. Thomas refutes re-futes the notion of illimitable or endless end-less progress by saying. 'If there is no end, -progress is inconceivable; if there is an end, progress cannot be illimitable, illimita-ble, for it must cease when the end is reached.' To say there is an end, and yet that it is not attainable, is simply a contradiction in terms. So all your fines rhetoric about the way being more tnan tne end, the acquisition more than the possession, you may abandon to the use of those unenviable spirits who are always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, always seeking rest, and never finding it. "Now, to be able to judge whether this or that is progress, you must first settle the question what is the end to be gained. See how philosophic is that child's catechism, into which I presume pre-sume you have never looked: "Q. Who made you? "A. God. "Q. Why did he make you? "A. That I might know him, love him, and serve him in this life, and he happy with him forever in the next." "Here in the outset you find answered an-swered those great questions which torment the whole non-Catholic world whence came we? Why are we here? Whither do we go? the origin, purpose and the end of our existence. The first and final cause of our existence is determined de-termined in the beginning, and then comes the purpose of our existence, and after that the way or means by which that purpose is to be accomplished. accom-plished. Nothing can be more scientific. scien-tific. Having settled the sphere of progress, having settled the end toward to-ward which we are to make progress, we can understand what is or what is not effected." "I assent to this view, and say that progress is towards an end, and the end for which man exists, whatever that may be," said Dick. "That end you must, then, concede to be attainable, for if the distance between be-tween vour startinsr noint and the goal can be shortened, and you advance nearer to it, it can be ultimatly reached, if the progress continues; but if the distance cannot be shortened, there is and can be no - progress, for where there is no nearing the goal, there is no progress towards it. Illimitable Illim-itable or everlasting progress is, then, an absurd conception, and all progress contemplates an end in which there is rest, perfect repose, or the quiet and undisturbed possession of beatitude. They who deny such beatitude deny progress, and they who know not where it is to be found, and are ignorant ig-norant of the means by which it is to be reached, cannot know what is progress, or whether they aYe going backwards or forwards, nearing the goal or receding from it." "I will not at this moment object to what you say, but I suspect you intend to draw from it some conclusion that I am unwilling to accept," said Dick. "I have no wish to entrap you into concessions against your will, even if I were able. I leave the point, then, for your meditation. You have charged me with denying all progress. I have shown you that I do not; that I admit it where only it is possible, in the discharge of our duty, and fulfilling fulfill-ing the purpose of our existence." (To be continued.) |