X A professor of physical science, as such, does not arrive at the Creator. Motions, molar and mole- cular,— vibrations and transferences chemical, bio- logical, mechanical or cosmic, — are his subjcft-matter; but the Creator and the creative act are above motion. Atheist or theist, agnostic or Christian, a man may be equally proficient in physical science, as also he may in cookery, engine-driving, or soap-boiling. In this, the range of physical science is narrower and lower than that of literature. There is religious litera- ture and divine poetry. When a physicist pronounces on a religious question, either for or against religion, he is sutor supra crepidam: he has overshot his subject. Of course he ought to overshoot his subjecl. A man should no more be a physicist and nothing else than he should be a tallow-chandler and nothing else. The misery is, when, not having been conversant with God in his laboratory, observatory, or dissecling- room, the physicist poses upon this non-experience to turn an ti theologian. One might as well pose upon the limitations of the tallow vat. God is not evident in the melting of tallow, nor in the scientific infliction and curing of wounds. This riparo-pHsico-antitbeo- logical humour, as Aristophanes might have called it, is an exudation of the narrowest bigotry. Wherever physical science becomes the staple of education, to the setting aside of Latin and Greek, it will be found necessary in the interests of religion to insist upon a parallel course of metaphysics, psychology, and ethics. A popular course is all that will be possible or neces- sary. Otherwise, trained on physical science without literature or philosophy, the mind suffers atrophy of the religious faculties, a disease which some seem anxious to induce upon mankind, — a painful disease nevertheless, productive of much restlessness and irritability, as the life of Thomas Huxley shows. To repeat St Thomas's words here: — 44 It is not the concern of physical science to study the first origin of all things: that study belongs to the metaphysician, who deals with being in general and realities apart from motion." All the more important is it for the physicist to imbibe some tincture of metaphysics, that he may not 44 wallow in a slough of barbarism " (Plato, Rep. vii, 5 3 3d). This note is suggested by Sir Oliver Lodge's article, Faith and Science, in the Hibbert Journal for October, 1902, a masterly exposition of the present conflict between the two, except for one mistake. Sir Oliver confounds the mysterious with the miraculous. The daily bread of the Christian is mystery, not miracle. Miracle is obvious to the senses; my- stery lies beyond sense.
Reply. The notion of motion or change is foisted in here to no purpose: for what nowise is, is not anywise, and affords no hold for the conclusion that, when it begins to be, it is otherwise than as it was before.
These then are the reasons which some hold to as demonstrative, and necessarily evincing that creatures have always existed, wherein they contra- dict the Catholic faith, which teaches that nothing but God has always existed, and that all else has had a beginning of being except the one eternal God. Thus then it evidently appears that there is nothing to traverse our assertion, that the world has not always existed. And this the Catholic faith teaches: In the beginning God created heaven and earth (Gen. i, i): and, ^Before he made anything^ from the beginning (Prov. viii, 22).
CHAPTER XXXVIII- Arguments wherewith some try to show that the World is not Eternal, and Solutions of the same ARG. 1. God is the cause of all things (Chap. XV).But a cause must be prior in duration to the effects of its action. Reply. That is true of things that a<5t by motion, for the effe<5t is not till the termination of the motion: but with causes that a<5t instanta- neously there is no such necessity.
Arg. 2. Since the whole of being is created by God, it cannot be said to be made out of any being: whence the conclusion follows that it is made out of nothing, and consequently that it has existence after not existing.
I^eply. To the notion of being made out of somethings if that is not admitted, one must supply the contradictory notion: which contradictory notion is not being made out of anything. Observe, it is not being made out of nothings except in the former sense of not being made out of anything.* Arg. 3. It is not possible to pass through infinity. But if the world always had been, infinity would have been passed through by this time, there being infinite days, or daily rounds of the sun, if the world always has been.
Reply. An infinite quantity, though not existing in simultaneous aCtual realisation, may nevertheless be in succession, because every infinite, so taken, is really finite. Any given round of the sun could be passed, because so far the number of them was finite: but when they are all viewed together, on the supposition that the world had always existed, it would be impossible to fix upon any first day, and so to make any transition from that to the present day, since transition always requires two extreme points.
Arg. 4. It would follow that addition is made to the infinite, because to past days, or sun-rounds, a new round is daily added.
Reply. There is nothing to hinder addition to the infinite on that side on which it is finite. Supposing time eternal, it must be infinite as preceding, but finite as succeeding, for the present is the limit of the past.
Arg. 5. It would follow in a world always existing that we should have an infinite series of efficient causes, father being cause of child, and grandfather to father, and so to infinity.
Reply. The impossibility of an infinite series of efficient causes, according to philosophers (Aristotle, Metaph. ii, 2), holds for causes aCting together: because then the effeCt has to depend on an infinity of co-existent aCtions; * ov ycvoficvov c£ ovSevos {not made out of anything) such: the latter would not. The former denies preis not equivalent to ywdficvov ck rov /iiyScvds {made existent material, the latter affirms a previous condition out of nothing). The former notion would be applicable of nothingness. The former implies creation, the latter to a creature created from eternity, if there were implies the lapse of a finite period since creation.
GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES and the infinity of causes there is essential, the whole infinite multitude of them being requisite for the production of the effcdt. But in the case of causes not a<Sting together no such impossibility holds, in the opinion of those who suppose an endless series of generations. The infinity in this case is accidental to the causes: for to Socrates's father, as such, it is quite an accident whether he be the son of another man or no: whereas to a stick, inasmuch as it moves a stone, it is not an accident whether it be moved by an hand: for it only moves inasmuch as it is moved.
Arg. 6. It would follow that an infinite multitude exists, to wit, the immortal souls of infinite men who have been in the past.
Reply. This obje<5tion is more difficult: nevertheless the argument is not of much use, because it supposes many things.* Since these reasons, alleged by some to prove that the world has not always existed, are not necessarily conclusive, though they have a certain probability, it is sufficient to touch on them slightly, without insisting too much, that the Catholic faith may not seem to rest on empty reasonings, and not rather on the solid basis of the teaching of God.
CHAPTER XLI— That the V artety of Qreatures does not arise from any Contrariety of Prime Agents \ IF the diversity of things proceeds from diversity or contrariety of diverse agents, this would seem to hold especially of the contrariety of good and evil, so that all good things should proceed from a good principle, and evils from an evil principle. Now there is good and evil in all genera. But there cannot be one first principle of all evils: for the very essence of such a prin- ciple would be evil, and that is impossible. Everything that is, inasmuch as it is a being, must necessarily be good: for it loves and strives to preserve its own being, a sign whereof is this fa<5l, that everything fights against its own destruction: now what all things seek is good. It is impossible therefore for the diversity of things to arise from two principles, one good and one evil. J # Among the rest, that the earth has been eternally Again, habitable to man, which no geologist would admit. What all things ueh, is good. See Chap. LXXX, Arg. 3. 'But self-preservation is what all things seek.
t St Thomas has seven chapters (XXXIX-XLV) Therefore self-preservation is good. discussing the variety of creatures, why the universe But a principle of foil would seek its own self preservation. is not uniform but diversified, and how it has come Therefore a principle of evil would seek some good. to consist of such diverse components. As regards But a principle of eJil ought to be averse to all good. living creatures, the discussion is familiar to us from Therefore a principle of toil is absurd. Darwin's Origin of Species and the theory of Evolu- One wonders whether this is the argument that tion. St Thomas ventures on a larger question, the St Thomas thought of at the table of St Louis, when origin of all species, inanimate as well as animate. He he suddenly started up and cried, Ergo conclusum est states and rejects various archaic theories; but the contra Manichaeos. But it is difficult to kill a heresy point of supreme interest to the modern mind is with a syllogism. One might perhaps distinguish be- never raised. In all the seven chapters there is not tween absolute and relative good; and upon that dis- one word pointing to evolution. I have been driven tinction urge that the self-preservation, which the evil to make large omissions, omissions which I feel sure principle sought, was good relatiyesy to it only, but evil the Saint would have sanctioned, had he been face to absolutely for the world.
face with the cosmogonies of our day. Life is short, The deepest flaw in the Manichean notion of an art is long: the ground of philosophy must not be Evil Principle is that which is pointed out in the next cumbered with obsolete machinery. argument (n. 9). Moreover every argument which It is pleaded on St Thomas's behalf that the establishes the unity and infinite perfection of God, question before him is a metaphysical one, indepen- is destructive of Manicheism. (Cf. Isaias xlv, 6, 7, dent altogether of the manner in which actual species quoted below.)
have come into existence. Matter is not evil, as Plato supposed, but its X Done into syllogistic form, the argument might essential capacities for good are greatly limited; and, stand thus: where good stops short, evil readily en ten in. God What all things seek, even a principle of toil would seek,, does not override essentialities. *But all things seek their own self-preservation. Therefore foen a principle of foil would seek its own self preservation* 9. What in no manner of way is, is neither good nor evil: while every- thing that is, in so far as it is, is good. A thing can be evil therefore only inasmuch as it is not-being, that is, privative being; * and the evil is precisely the privation. Now privation never comes of the ordinary adtion of any cause: because every cause a6ts inasmuch as it is endowed with 'form'; and thus the ordinary effcft of its a<5lion must also be endowed with 'form,' since every agent a#s to the produ&ion of its own likeness, unless it be accidentally hindered. It follows that evil does not come of the ordinary adtion of any cause, but is accidentally incident among the effe£ts of ordinary causation.f There is therefore no one primary and essential prin- ciple of all evil: but the first principle of all is one primary good, among the effe6ts of which there ensues evil incidentally.
Hence it is said: I am the Lord, and there is none other, forming light and creating darkness, making peace and creating el>il: I am the Lord doing all these things (Isa. xlv, 6, 7). And, Good things and evil things, life and death, poverty and rank are from God (Ecclus xi, 14). And, Against eVil is good, and against life death; so against the just man is the sinner. And so behold all the Works of the Most High, two and two, and one against one (Ecclus xxxiii, 1 5).
God is said to make and create evil things, inasmuch as He creates things that are good in themselves and yet hurtful to others: thus the wolf, though a good thing naturally in his kind, is evil to the sheep. Hence it is said: Shall there be evil in the city that the Lord hath not done? (Amos iii, 6.)
Hereby is excluded the error of those who suppose two primitive contrary principles, good and evil. This error of the early philosophers some evil- minded men have presumed to introduce into Christian teaching, the first of whom was Marcion, and afterwards the Manicheans, who have done most to spread this error.
CHAPTER XIAV-That the Variety of (features has not arisen from V zriety of Merits and Demerits ORIGEN in his book ntpl dpx*»v says that God out of mere bounty in His first produ&ion of creatures made them all equal, all spiritual and rational, and they by free will behaved in various ways, some adhe- ring to God more or less, and others receding from Him more or less; and thus by order of divine justice various grades ensued among spiritual sub- stances, some appearing as angels of various orders, some as human souls also of various states and conditions, some again as demons in various states. He also said that it was through this variety of rational creatures that God insti- tuted a variety alsp of material creatures, so that the nobler spiritual substances should be united to the nobler bodies, and that in divers other ways the material creation might serve to express the variety of spiritual substances. According to Origen, man, sun, and stars are composed of rational sub- stances united with corresponding bodies. Now all this opinion can be shown to be manifestly false.
1. The better a thing is, the higher place does it hold in the intention of the agent who produces it. But the best thing in creation is the perfe6tion # Ens priyatiyum. A privation as distinguished from t The usual example is that of a man limping: a mere negation, is tfie lack of a perfection due to the he walks by his ordinary locomotive power, but limps nature, as the lack of sense in this or that man, not inasmuch as he accidentally happens to be lame. The the lack of wings. Privation is in the individual only, race does not limp, never in the species. Hence all evil is in the indivi- dual: the specific nature is entirely good.
GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES of the universe, which consists in the orderly variety of things:* for in all things the perfedtion of the whole is preferable to the perfc&ion of parts and details. Therefore the diversity of creatures does not arise from diversity of merits, but was primarily intended by the prime agent.
2. If all rational creatures were created equal from the beginning, we should have to allow that they do not depend for their activity one on another. What arises by the concurrence of divers causes working independently of one another is matter of chance; and thus the diversity and order of creation comes by chance, which is impossible^ 1 2. Since a spiritual creature, or angel, does not deserve to be degraded except for sin, — and it is degraded from its high, invisible estate, by being united with a visible body, — it seems that visible bodies have been added to these spiritual creatures because of sin; which comes near to the error of the Manicheans, who laid it down that the visible creation proceeded from an evil principle.
Origen seems not to have given sufficient weight to the consideration that, when we give, not in discharge of any debt, but out of liberality, it is not contrary to justice if we give in unequal measure: but God brought things into being under no debt, but of sheer liberality (Chap. XXVIII): therefore the variety of creatures does not presuppose variety of merits.
CHAPTER XLV-TAe Real Prime Cause of the Variety of £reatures SINCE every agent intends to induce its own likeness in the effect, so far as the cffeft can receive it, an agent will do this more perfc&ly the more perfect itself is. But God is the most perfect of agents: therefore it will belong to Him to induce His likeness in creation most perfectly, so far as befits created nature. J But creatures cannot attain to any perfect like- ness of God so long as they are confined to one species of creature; because, since the cause exceeds the effeft, what is in the cause simply and as one thing is found in the effedt in a composite and manifold way, unless the effcdt be of the same species as the cause; which is impossible in the case before us, for no creature can be equal to God. Multiplicity therefore and variety was needful in creation, to the end that the perfect likeness of God might be found in creatures according to their measure.
2. As the things that are made of any material are contained in the potentiality of the material, so the things done by any agent must be in the a&ive power of the agent. But the potentiality of the material would not * A salient thought and favourite principle with vidence has prepared for any spirit or human soul St Thomas. It comes out remarkably in his specula- created by Him, is a good place, good with a twofold tions on grace. The final end for which God made goodness, good for the order and beauty of the unimankind, according to St Thomas and his school, is verse, and good in view of the particular end of that not the salvation of this and that individual soul, taken individual, which is happiness. Only in consequence as isolated units: it is a social construction, an organic of a man's own sin (B. Ill, Chap. CLXIII) undoing whole, in which each soul and every man has his the special providence that made for his peace (Luke proper place divinely allotted, — not of course irre- six, 42), does the man fall under another order of spe&ive of the efforts of his will to secure it, — and providence, which still secures the general good, but places vary in quality and honour. But of them all no no longer his gain.
place is a bad place as God designed it. If any man's t Impossible, because the world is an organic career ends in final woe, he must, by some wilfulness whole, one part subservient to another. Such an of his own, have traversed and defeated God's special organic body, such a cosmos, could never be the and particular purpose on his behalf. The axiom, De result of unconcerted actions, and situations assigned minimis nan curat praetor, does not hold of God's deal- in reward commensurate with such actions, ings with His creatures (B. Ill, Chap. LXXVI), least t And this He does much less in the kingdom of of all with His rational creatures (B. Ill, Chap, nature than in the kingdom of grace, to which the CXIII). The humblest place that God's special pro- former kingdom is subservient.
be perfe&ly reduced to a&uality, if out of the material were made only one of those things to which the material is in potentiality.* Therefore if any agent whose power extends to various effefts were to produce only one of those effe6ts, his power would not be so completely reduced to a&uality as by making many. But by the redu&ion of aftive power to adtuality the effedt attains to the likeness of the agent. Therefore the likeness of God would not be perfeft in the universe, if there was only one grade of all beings, f 3. A creature approaches more perfe6tly to the likeness of God by being not only good itself, but able to aft for the good of others. But no creature could do anything for the good of another creature, unless there were plurality and inequality among creatures, because the agent must be other than the patient and in a position of advantage {honorabilius) over it. J 5. The goodness of the species transcends the goodness of the individual^ Therefore the multiplication of species is a greater addition to the good of the universe than the multiplication of individuals of one species.
7. To a work contrived by sovereign goodness there ought not to be lacking the height of perfection proper to it. But the good of order in variety is better than the isolated good of any one of the things that enter into the order: therefore the good of order ought not to be wanting to the work of God; which good could not be, if there were no diversity and inequality of creatures. There is then diversity and inequality between creatures, not by chance, not from diversity of elements, not by the intervention of any (inferior) cause, or consideration of merit, but by the special intention of God, wishing to give the creature such perfection as it was capable of having.
Hence it is said, God saw all things that he had madey and they were tery good (Gen. i, 31); and this after He had said of them singly, that they Were good; because while things are good singly in their several natures, all taken together they are very good, because of the order of the universe, which is the final and noblest perfection of creation.
CHAPTER XLVI-That it was necessary for the Perfection of the Universe that there should be some Intelle&ual Natures THIS then being the cause of the diversity among creatures, it remains now to treat of the several distindt creatures themselves as we pro- posed to do in the third part of this book (Chap. V). And we will show first that by the disposition of Divine Providence assigning perfection to creatures in the way best befitting them, it was consonant with reason that some intellectual creatures should be placed at the head of creation.
5. Nothing else moves God to the production of creatures but His own goodness, which He has wished to communicate to other beings according to the manner of their assimilation to Himself (B. I, Chap. LXXXVII). Now the likeness of one thing may be found in another in two ways: in one way in point of natural being, as the likeness of heat is found in the body heated; in another way in point of knowledge, as the likeness of fire (perceived) is in sight or touch. In order then that the likeness of God might be in creatures # e.g., if out of clay were made only drain-pipes. § The species of course has actual existence only t e.g., a society, all dukes. The fad is, differentia- in the individuals that represent it. The meaning then tion is at the root of existence. of the saying is, that it is better to realise good of a X St Thomas may be here said to anticipate the higher order than to multiply good of the same order great physical and social discovery, that if things or again and again, to develop a head rather than ever persons were all on a dead level, there would be no so many toes. At the same time the head cannot be energy available and no work done. without the toes.
GOD THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES in such modes as were possible, it was necessary that the divine goodness should be communicated to creatures, not only by likeness in being, but also by likeness in knowing. But mind alone can know the divine goodness. There- fore there needed to be intelligent creatures.
6. In all comely arrangements of things, the attitude of the secondary to the last imitates the attitude of the first to all, as well secondary as last, though the imitation is not always perfect. Now God comprehends in Himself all creatures (B. I, Chapp. XXV, LI, LIV); and this is represented in material creatures, although in another way: for the higher body comprehends and contains the lower, according to quantitative extension;* whereas God con- tains all creatures in simple mode, and not by quantitative extension. In order then that an imitation of God might not be wanting to creatures even in this mode of containing, there were made intellectual creatures to contain material creatures, not by any extension of quantity, but simply by mode of intelli- n gence: for what is understood is in the mind that understands it, and is comprehended in its intellectual activity.
CHAPTER YANW-That Subsistent Intelligences are Voluntary Agents GOOD is what all things yearn after, and in all beings there is a craving (appetitus) for good. In beings unendowed with any sort of cognition, this craving is called 4 physical appetite 9 (appetites naturalis).J In be- ings that have sensitive cognition it is catted Animal appetite/ and is divided into ' concupiscible* and 'irascible.'J In intelligent beings it is called the *in- telle<5tual ' or * rational appetite/ otherwise the * will.'
CHAPTER XLVIII-7^/ Subsistent Intelfigences have Free Will THEY must be free, if they have dominion over their own a£ts. 2. A free agent is an agent that is cause of its own action (sui causa, sibi causa agendi). Agents that are determined (moventur) and aft only inasmuch as they are determined by others, are not causes of their own a£ts. Only self-determining agents (moventia seipsa) have liberty of aCtion; and these alone are guided in their aftion by judgement. A self-determining agent is made up of two elements, one determining and another determined. The element determined is the appetite; and that is determined either by in- tellect, or by phantasy, or by sense: for to these powers it belongs to judge. Of such self-determining agents, those alone judge freely which determine their own judgement. But no faculty of judging determines its own judgement unless it reflects upon its own a<5t. If then it is to determine itself to judge, it must know its own judgement; and that knowledge belongs to intellect alone. Irrational animals then have a sort of free determination, or aCtion, but not a free judgement (sunt quodammodo liberi quidem motus, she aflioms, non autem liberijudicii):% while inanimate things, being dependent for their every de- # So in the Ptolemaic system of concentric spheres observable in chemical compounds, and in organic making the heavens, the sphere of the moon would bodies, as such, apart from conscious aclion. "comprehend and contain" the earth. Perhaps we X See Sum. Thol. I a, q. 23, art. 1 (Aquinas Ethimight substitute some consideration like the follow- cus9 I, 85).
ing: that the orbit of the primary planet carries with $ We should call it a 1 spontaneous movement/ it and in a manner contains the orbit of the satellite: analogous to what is called the motus primo-primus of earth and earth-way carry and involve moon and the will in man, antecedent to reflection and ' free moon-way; while the sun carries all the planets, and judgement.' The movements of dumb animals left to all their ' ways' or orbits. themselves are prompted by a sort of self, but not by t Such are the tendencies to maintain themselves a self-conscious, free-judging, or firee self.
termination on things other than themselves, have not so much as free adtion, or determination. On the contrary, intelligent beings have not only free aftion, but also free judgement, which is having free will.* 3. An apprehension becomes a motive according as the thing apprehended takes the form of something good or suitable. In agents that determine their own movements,f the outward aftion goes upon some judgement pronoun- cing a thing good or suitable according as it is apprehended. If the agent pronouncing the judgement is to determine himself to judge,J he must be guided to that judgement by some higher form or idea in his apprehension. § This idea can be no other than the universal idea (ipsa ratio) of goodness or fitness, by aid whereof a judgement is formed of any given definite good, fit, or suitable thing. Therefore those agents alone determine themselves to judge, which have this general concept of goodness or fitness, — that is to say, only intelligent agents. Therefore intelligent agents alone determine themselves, not only to a6t, but also to judge. They therefore alone are free in judging, which is having free will. || 4. No movement or aftion follows from a general concept except by the medium of some particular apprehension, as all movement and aftion deals with particulars. Now the understanding naturally apprehends the universal. In order then that movement or any manner of aftion may follow upon the intelleftual apprehension, the universal concept of the understanding must be applied to particular objefts. But the universal contains in potentiality many particular objefts. Therefore the application of the intelleftual concept may be made to many divers objefts; and consequently the judgement of the under- standing about things to be done is not determined to one thing only.^f