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Show Uncle'' Ofacli aM ;';-;;B(s'nepbew8ffl Dick, growing impatient over the flow of logic proceeding from his uncle, interrupted with a plea for free thought, comprehended in poetry-Poetry, poetry-Poetry, not dialectics, he contended, transforms the world. Uncle Jack points out his mistake, reminding his nephew that truth expressed in its unity and under the form of the beautiful, beau-tiful, demands clear and well defined outlines, although such demands may be couched in soft and delicate language. lan-guage. Uncle Jack holds the floor in further explanation of the idea. CHAPTER VI Continued. "You greatly mistake me, if you suppose sup-pose that I am a slave to scholastlsm, or the dry and barren forms of logic. What passes for scolastism is mere analysis, a mere dissection of its subject, sub-ject, and seldom gives us more than a mere skeleton of its truth, and the skeleton Itself is only as disjointed and scattered bones. I love and revere as much as any man can the great scholastics schol-astics of- the middle ages. The summa theologia of the angel of the schools has for me as many miracles as articles, arti-cles, and, when studied as it should De, it gives one me sum ot an uieuiug,y and of all philosophy. But, after all, few study it with sufficient care and diligence to seize its theology in its unity and totality. The method of treatment is analytic, that of division, which is exhaustive. . The subject is first divided into parts, then the parts are divided into questions, and then the questions are subdivided into articles. arti-cles. Nothing in the world can be more convenient for the learner or the professor; pro-fessor; but the student, if not on his guard, is liable, in thus studying a subject, to lose sight of unity and syn-thesis, syn-thesis, and to master it only in its details. de-tails. St. Thomas had himself studied and seen theology in its unity and synthesis, syn-thesis, and seldom, if ever, for a moment mo-ment loses sight of 'the truth in its unity and integrity; but this cannot always be said of feebler minds, who follow him, and still less of feebler minds yet, who follow them, and consult con-sult him only on special questions or in special articles, and even that Is second or third hand. These often master mas-ter all the theology and philosophy in their detail, without ever having a single conception of them in their unity and Integrity, In their mutual relations, connections and dependencies. 'Scholasticism has, undoubtedly, introduced in-troduced just and accurate distinctions and favored clearness, exactness and precision in details," but it has, I think, at the same tlmei led to a neglect of synthesis, and Intended to enfeeble, rather than to invigorate, thought. It has not a little to do in producing, indirectly, in-directly, that frivolezza so universal in the' last century, and not wholly unknown un-known In the present, and which made the philosophical, scientific and literary world regard as its representative the shallow Voltaire, prince of persiflage, superficial erudition, and still more superficial su-perficial thought. . While insisting on exactness In detail, while , valuing the analytic method in its place, and continuing con-tinuing and extending the study of the great scholastics,- I would, if it were my business, urge, upon those students who wish to qualify themselves to meet Tthe scientific wants of our age, and to act powerfully on the public mind and heart, to go back and study the works of the great fathers of the third, fourth and fifth centuries, those real masters of the human race who stood at the summit of human science and revealed theology; and study these great fathers, fath-ers, not merely in the prefaces and -Indexes of ttie' .fienedictines, but in their works themselvvs s handed down to us. from their authors. Then we should not' have the truth in mere detail, as a mere hortus siccus, .but in its unity and integrity, as a living, viv ifying and productive whole. "Revelation is complete, and truth changes not, and the dogma is fixed and unalterable; but modes and proc-' proc-' esses of investigation, study, and exposition ex-position may change with time, and vary -with varying wants and tastes of the age. , The scholastic method 'was in accordance with the tastes . and wants of the epoch when it was adopted, adopt-ed, and must be always more or. less the method pursued when only scholars are to be addressed, and the object is to act only on professional readers. But times with us have changed. Questions Ques-tions which were formerly discussed only by school' men; in the bosom of the schools and monasteries, are now brought before the public at large, and the profoundest principles of theological theolog-ical science have to be discussed for the laity, because the laity, no longer docile, and content to receive in humility hu-mility the simple teachings of the catechism, cat-echism, and the practical instructions of their pastors, have Imbibed a habit of questioning everything, and of . denying de-nying everything which they do not comprehend. It has become necessary to become truly theological when we spead ad populum, as well as when we speak" ad clerum. But for the people, the scholastic method will not answer, for they have neither the time nor the patience to . go through with all the long arid fine-spun analyses in which It delights. They turn away unedified, uninstructed.and even disgusted, from its distinguos, concedos, negos, pro-bos, pro-bos, . respondeos, objectiones and ob-jectiones ob-jectiones solventures. To themt the truth must be presented, not in its analytic, but in its synthetic form; not in separate details, but as a whole in its living principle as it is really, not as we make it for the conveniences of study. They whose office it is to teach, and to meet the insurgent errors of the times, which in our days assume almost a laical form, must be accustomed to contemplate truth in its synthetic character, or they will find themselves impotent" before the enemies of truth, as they undeniably were" before the terrible ter-rible errors broached, and so widely and fiercely propogated, in the eighteenth eight-eenth century. "These are times when something more than a knowledge of details, something more than mere scholastic minds, something more than respecta-bel respecta-bel mediocrity, or men of mere routine, Is demanded. We want men of strong synthetic minds, who grasp truth in its fundamental principles, and have been accustomed to contemplate it in Its living unity, and its several parts in its real, ontologlcal relations to one another an-other and to it as .a whole men who think, who comprehend, not merely remember re-member and repeat men "of free, original, orig-inal, bold, and vigorous thought, who oy tneir own mental and spiritual action ac-tion have made the truth their own, and are able to apply it to the insurgent error as soon as it raises its head above the wave. - Such a man Gioberti might have been, had it not been for his pride, his ambition and his. worldly affections; af-fections; such a man to some extent was the excellent Balmes, and such a man was beginning to be the late brilliant bril-liant and lamented Donoso Cortes; such a man is the Jesuit Passaglla, and, in spite of his early training and his theory the-ory of development, ' such a man- will turn out to be John Henry New-man." "But how can you, Uncle Jack, a Catholic, bound to believe what and only what you are taught, and whose mind must run in the grooves hollowed out for it ages ago, talk of free, bold and original thought?" ' "As well as you or any one else, and better than those who are not Catholics. Catho-lics. I demand not free, bold, original thought in the construction of cobweb cob-web theories, in the formation of dogmas, dog-mas, or in the explication of inexplicable inexplic-able mysteries. It is not in the sphere of faith that I demand it. The dogma ' ; . . . , i is revealed and imposed by authority, fixed for all time, and to be received and adhered to without a question. But the mysteries and dogmas of faith have I a mutual relation, a logical relation to one another, and to all scientific truth, and to all that pertains to the natural order, to so.Jety, the state, the family, and to the private life. Here, in understanding un-derstanding the relations of the dogmas of faith to one another, and their relations rela-tions to all not of faith, is the scope for free, bold (not rash),, and original thought; for here is a field for proper human science and comprehension, working at once with data furnished by the light of revelation, and by the light of nature. This field, if you are able to survey it. you will find is far more extensive than that which is open to those who deny the church and fall back on their private judgment and individual in-dividual reason. Catholicity, instead of forbidding or hindering free, vigorous and original thought within what is really open to human thought, encourages encour-ages it, stimulates it, and affords it all the assistance it needs; and if the contrary would sometimes seem to be warranted by what is met among Catholics, it is to be attributed not to Catholicity, but to the barren and chill- '"j, Buuuia.siic memoas too exclusively followed. Who would ever pretend that the lawyer, because he neither makes nor as a judge declares the law, has no scope in the practice of his profession for free, bold, vigorous and original thought? "But we are wandering from the point we were considering. You object to my demand for exact definition. I understand the objection. Put your young declaimers and dreamers to your definitions, and your occupation, like Othello's, is gone. All in your minds is vague and floating, and in your horror hor-ror of scholasticism you have run almost al-most beyond the opposite extreme. I am, as you see, far enough from being wedded to the modes and processes of the scholastics, but I cannot very well talk without talking something, nor intelligibly in-telligibly without knowing what I am talking about. So I will ask you again to define to me what you mean by progress." (To be Continued.) |