The Contemporary Review, January 1883

The author of "Natural Religion" says, Talleyrand; I do not know on what authority. Grégoire writes:—"Au Directoire même on le raillait sur son zèle thêophilantropique. Un de ses collègues, dit-on, lui proposait de se faire pendre et de ressusciter le troisième jour, comme l'infaillible moyen de faire triompher sa secte, et Carnot lui décoche dans son Mémoire des épigrammes sanglantes à ce sujet."—Histoire des Sectes Religieuses, vol. I. p. 406. Talleyrand was never a member of the Directory.

40

Preface to second edition.

41

"Eight Lectures on Miracles," p. 50.

42

Ibid. See Dr. Mozley's note on this passage.

43

"Analogy." Part I. c. i. I give, of course, Bishop Butler's words as I find them, but, as will be seen a little later, I do not quite take his view of the supernatural.

44

"Three Essays on Religion," p. 174.

45

"Address to the British Association," 1871.

46

I say "primary cause;" of course I do not deny its own proper causality to the non-spiritual or matter.

47

"Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection," p. 368. I am, of course, aware of Mr. Mill's remarks upon this view in his "Three Essays on Religion" (pp. 146-150). The subject is too great to be discussed in a footnote. But I may observe that he rests, at bottom, upon the assumption—surely an enormous assumption—that causation is order. Cardinal Newman's argument upon this matter in the "Grammar of Assent" (pp. 66-72, 5th ed.) seems to me to be unanswerable; certainly, it is unanswered. I have no wish to dogmatize—the dogmatism, indeed, appears to be on the other side—but if we go by experience, as it is now the fashion to do, our initial elementary experience would certainly lead us to consider will the great or only cause. To guard against a possible misconception let me here say that I must not be supposed to adopt Mr. Wallace's view in its entirety or precisely as stated by him. Of course, the analogy between the human will and the Divine Will is imperfect, and Mr. Mill appears to me to be well founded in denying that our volition originates. My contention is that Matter is inert until Force has been brought to bear upon it: that all Force must be due to a Primary Force of which it is the manifestation or the effect: that the Primary Force cannot exert itself unless it be self-determined: that to be self-determined is to be living: that to be primarily and utterly self-determined is to be an infinitely self-conscious volition: ergo, the primary cause of Force is the Will of God. This is the logical development of the famous argument of St. Thomas Aquinas. He contends that whatever things are moved must be moved by that which is not moved: a movente non moto. But Suarez and later writers complete the argument by analyzing the term movens non motum, which they consider equivalent to Ens a se, in se, et per se, or Actus Purissimus.

48

"Contra Faustum," 22.

49

Summa, 1, 2, qu. 83, art. 1. But on this and the preceding quotation, see the note on page 118.

50

"Quotidiana Dei miracula ex assiduitate vilescunt."—Hom. xxvi. in Evan.

51

"Stated, fixed, or settled" is a predicate common to natural and supernatural, not the differentia of either. And here let me remark that the expression, "Laws of Nature," is a modern technical expression which the Catholic philosopher would require, probably, to have defined before employing it. "Natura," in St. Thomas Aquinas, is declared to be "Principium operationis cujusque rei," the Essence of a thing in relation to its activity, or the Essence as manifested agendo. Hence "Natura rerum," or "Universitas rerum" (which is the Latin for Nature in the phrase "Laws of Nature") means the Essences of all things created (finite) as manifested and related to each other by their proper inherent activities, which of course are stable or fixed. But since it is not a logical contradiction that these activities should be suspended, arrested, or annihilated (granting an Infinite Creator), it will not be contrary to Reason should a miraculous intervention so deal with them, though their suspension or annihilation may be described, loosely and inaccurately, as against the Laws of Nature. By Reason is here meant the declarations of necessary Thought as to possibility and impossibility, or the canons of contradiction, the only proper significance of the word in discussions about miracles. Hence, to say that miracles have their laws, is not to deny that they are by the Free Will of God. For creation is by the Fiat of Divine Power and Freedom, and yet proceeds upon law—that is to say, upon a settled plan and inherent sequence of cause and effect. But it is common with Mr. Mill and his school to think of law as necessary inviolable sequence; whereas it is but a fixed mode of action whether necessarily or freely determined; and it is a part of law that some activities should be liable to suspension or arrestment by others, and especially by the First Cause.

52

"Vie de Jésus," p. 247.

53

When Mr. Mill says ("Three Essays on Religion," p. 224), "The argument that a miracle may be the fulfilment of a law in the same sense in which the ordinary events of Nature are fulfilments of laws, seems to indicate an imperfect conception of what is meant by a law and what constitutes a miracle," all he really means is that this argument involves a conception of law and of miracle different from his own, which is undoubtedly true. Upon this subject I remark as follows: There is a necessary will (spontaneum non liberum) and a free will(liberum non spontaneum); and these are in God on the scale of infinite perfection, as they are in man finitely. With Mr. Mill, as I have observed in a previous note, Law is taken to signify "invariable, necessary sequence;" and its test is, that given the same circumstances, the same thing will occur. But it is essential to Free Will (whether in God or man) that given the same circumstances, the same thing need not, may not, and perhaps will not, occur. However, an act may be free in causa which hic et nunc must happen; the Free Will having done that by choice which brings as a necessary consequence something else. For there are many things which would involve contradiction and so be impossible, did not certain consequences follow them. This premised, it is clear that the antithesis of Mr. Mill's "Law" is Free Will. Law and antecedent necessity to Mr. Mill are one and the same. But Law in Catholic terminology means the Will of God decreeing freely or not freely, according to the subject-matter; and is not opposed to Free-Will. It guides, it need not coerce or necessitate, though it may. Neither in one sense, is Law synonymous with Reason, for that is according to Reason, simply, which does not involve a contradiction, whether it be done freely or of necessity; and many things are possible, or non-contradictives, that Law does not prescribe. Nor again does Free-Will mean lawless in the sense of irrational; or causeless, in the sense of having no motive: "contra legem," "præter legem" is not "contra rationem," "prater rationem." The Divine Will, then, may be free, yet act according to Law, namely, its own freely-determined Law. And it may act "not according to Law," and yet act according to Reason. In this sense, then, theologians identify the Divine Will with the Divine Reason—I mean, they insist that God's Will is always according to Reason—in this sense, but, as I think, not in any other. For the Divine Will is antecedently free as regards all things which are not God; but the Divine Intellect is not free in the same way. St. Augustine always tends to view things in the concrete, not distinguishing their "rationes formales," or distinguishing them vaguely. And Ratio with him does not mean Reason merely, but living Reason or the Reasoning Being, the Soul. When St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of Lex Æterna he means the Necessary Law of Morality, concerning which God is not free, because in decreeing it, He is but decreeing that there is no Righteousness except by imitation of Him.

The root of all these difficulties and of all the confusion in speech which they have brought forth is this: the mystery of Free-Will in God, the Unchangeable and Eternal, The great truth taught in the words of the Vatican Council, "Deus, liberrimo consilio condidit universa," must ever be borne in mind. Undoubtedly, there are no afterthoughts in God. But neither is there a past in which He decreed once for all what was to be and what was not to be. He is the Eternal Now. But still all events are the fulfilment of His Will, and contribute to the working out of the scheme which He has traced for creation. Feeble is human speech to deal with such high matters, serving, at the best, but dimly to adumbrate ineffable truths. As Goethe somewhere says, "Words are good, but not the best: the best cannot be expressed in words. My point, however, is that there is, on the one hand, a connection of events with events all through creation and an intelligible sequence, while, on the other, the Free-Will of man is a determining force as regards his own spiritual actions, as is the Free-Will of God in respect of the whole creation, and that miracles are neither afterthoughts, nor irregularities, nor contradictions, but at once free and according to law. Miracles are not abnormal, unless Free-Will is a reduction of Kosmos to Chaos, and the negation of Reason altogether."

54

I say "the doctrine of the Divine goodness," because that is, as I think, what the author of "Natural Religion" means. As to the "simple, absolute benevolence"—"benevolence," indeed, is a milk-and-water expression; "God is love"—which "some men seem to think the only character of the Author of Nature," it is enough to refer to Bishop Butler's striking chapter on "The Moral Government of God," (Analogy, Part I. c. iii). I will here merely observe that although, doubtless, God's attribute is Love of the creation, He is not only Love, but Sanctity, Justice, Creative Power, Force, Providence; and whereas, considered as a Unit He is infinite, He is not infinite—I speak under correction—viewed in those aspects, abstractions, or attributes which, separately taken, are necessary for our subjective view of Him. I allow that God's power and His "benevolence" may in some cases work out different ends, as if separate entities, but still maintain—what the author of "Natural Religion" ignores—that God in His very essence is not only "Benevolence," but Sanctity, &c. also; all as One in His Oneness.

55

"Three Essays on Religion," p. 38.

56

"The Land of Gilead," p. 295.

57

Phœnicia, the Greek [Greek: phoinikê], has been by some derived from [Greek: phoinix], a palm tree.

58

Vice-Consul Jago, writing from Damascus, March, 1880, says:—"With regard to the property near the Damascus Lakes, it is on the edge of the Desert where no authority exists, and therefore exposed to Bedawîn raids." He summarizes the agricultural products of the neighbourhood of Damascus as:—"Wheat, barley, maize (white and yellow), beans, peas, lentils, kerané, gelbané, bakié, belbé, fessa, boraké (the last seven being green crops for cattle food), aniseed, sésamé, tobacco, shuma, olive, and liquorice root. The fruits are grapes, hazel, walnut, almond, pistachio, currant, mulberry, fig, apricot, peach, apple, pear, quince, plum, lemon, citron, melon, berries of various kinds, and a few oranges. The vegetables are cabbage, potatoes, artichokes, tomatoes, beans, wild truffles, cauliflower, egg-plant, celery, cress, mallow, beetroot, cucumber, radish, spinach, lettuce, onions, leeks, &c."—Report, dated Damascus, March 14, 1881. To these might be added numerous other products, such as bitumen, soda, salt, hemp, cotton, madder-root, wool, &c.

59

"The Land of Gilead," p. 19.

60

"Tent Work in Palestine," p. 355.

61

"Tent Work in Palestine," p. 361.

62

Ibid. p. 372.

63

"The Land of Gilead," p. 330.