THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EDITORS:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PRoVINCE oF ST. JosEPH

Publishers: The Thomist Press, Washington 17, D. C.
VoL. X

JULY, 1947

No.8

THE FATHERHOOD OF THE PRIEST

T

HERE is a growing curiosity in the world today concerning the reason why the Catholic priest is called
father. There are many outside the Church who vehemently deny the priest's claim to fatherhood, whereas many of
the faithful, while they readily assent to the paternity of the
priest, are unable to offer any solid arguments in favor of their
position. The principal reason why both Catholics and nonCatholics cannot understand the reason for regarding the priest
as a father is because they fail to understand the notion of
fatherhood. Some have gone so far as to maintain that fatherhood is a relation to be found in God alone; and these object
to the application of the term to others in view of the words
of Christ, " Call none your father upon earth; for one is your
1 This objection, of course, totally
father, who is in
disregards the context in which Christ's words were spoken.
Our divine Lord does not restrict paternity to God the Father,
1

Matt., xxili. 9.

271

THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

although, as we shall see in the course of these pages, it is God
alone Who is Father in the fullest sense of the word, and the
term is applied to others only in so far as they participate in
His paternity. Others are under the impression that fatherhood
is the relation of the principle of generation in only natural
created beings. This materialistic concept rules out not only
the fatherhood of the priest, but that of God as well.
An understanding of the solution to this problem has great
practical importance, for the relations between priest and people
are, to a great extent, determined by whether or not the priest
recognizes the faithful as his children, and the faithful in turn
regard the priest as their father. The recognition of this mutual relationship will result not only in a more zealous, understanding priesthood, but also in a more enlightened, militant
laity. When the priests see in the faithful their own spiritual
children whom they must nourish, protect and instruct in the
supernatural life, they cannot but be inspired with a more loving, all-embracing solicitude for the problems of their subjects.
When this paternal solicitude is manifested in the daily life of
the priest, there will arise a bond of the utmost confidence between him and the faithful which will induce them to bring all
their difficulties to him as a child to his father; they will ever
be running to the priest for that nourishment, encouragement
and guidance which are so necessary for existence in the spiritual life. When, as today, however, priests and people lose
consciousness of their respective relationships of fathers and
children, the closest bond of mutual confidence between the
priesthood and the faithful is thereby relaxed and a distance and
diffidence often grows up instead. 2
Besides the practical importance of this question, it is of
great theoretical value in as much as its solution implies an
investigation of the most ·fundamental theological problems
together with their intimate relations among one another. In
order to understand the priest's claims to fatherhood it is neces• Cf. H. E. Manning, The Eternal Priesthood (The Newman Bookshop, Westminster, Md.: 1944); pp. 22-28.

THE FATHERHOOD OF THE PRIEST

sary to be acquainted with the Church's teachings on such important doctrines as the Trinity, the Incarnation, the efficacy
of Christ's Passion, grace and its communication through the
sacraments, and especially on the Christian priesthood. Moreover, a knowledge of the important philosophical· concept of
analogy is of the utmost necessity.
The precise end we have in view in writing this article is to
show that the priest is truly and formally a father. We are not
concerned here with the priest's non-formal claims to fatherhood, first of all because these are multitudinous and hence
could not be adequately treated in so brief a study, but more
especially because such claims are of relatively minor importance once the priest's formal claims to fatherhood have been
established.
As far as we have been able to ascertain, very little has been
written previously on this subject. It is true that some of the
Fathers of the Church, such as St. John Chrysostom, have, in
passing, alluded to the priest's claim to paternity by reason of
his sacramental ministry. But there seems to be no ex-professo
treatment of the subject, certainly not in English.
The method we shall follow is theological. We shall attempt
to draw from principles of faith a theological argument which
demonstrates the priest's formal claims to paternity. First of
all, we shall examine the concept of fatherhood, then show how
Christ participates most intimately in the fatherhood of God.
We shall then proceed to show that Christ is a father by reason
of His priesthood. From this fact follows the logical conclusion
that since the priest shares in the priesthood of Christ, he, by
that very fact, participates in the divine paternity.

I. THE NoTION oF FATHERHOOD
Of the origin of the word " father " very little is known for
certain. The word has the aspect of an agent noun in " fater "
and " father." It is doubtfully referred to by some as a cognate
of the Sanskrit root P A, meaning " protect " or " keep." Thus
in Latin we have the verb pascere, whence are derived the

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THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

words "pastor " and " pasture." Possibly the word is taken
from the Anglo-Saxon fedan, meaning " to feed,:' which has the
form feden in Middle English. In modern English this becomes
"feed." Whatever the origin of the word "father," it is one of
the terms. of intimate relation which occurs with slight changes
of form in nearly all the Aryan and Indo-European tongues. 8
Strictly speaking, a father is the proper active principle of
generation in perfect living beings, while " fatherhood· is the
relation of the principle of generation in perfect living beings." 4
Relation is the name given the order that exists between two
things, which two things are in some way referred to one
another. In every relation we can distinguish the principle or
subject which is referred to, the term to which the subject is
referred, and the reason for the reference. This latter is called
the foundation of the relation. We have a clear example of a
relation in teaching; the teacher is the subject of the relation,
while its term is the pupil, the foundation of the relation being
the act of teaching. 5
Generation, in its wider sense, is nothing more than a change
from non-existence to existence. 6 However, we are concerned
here with the strict meaning of generation which signifies the
origin of any living being from a conjoined living principle by
way of a similitude of nature in the same species.7 Three things,
therefore; are required in order that there be a true generation.
First, both the generator and the being generated must be
living. Consequently, perspiration and such things, although
they have their origin within a living body, are not properly
said to be generated. Secondly, it is required that the generator
be conjoined, that is, he must produce the generated being from
his own substance. Hence the first man cannot be said to have
been generated in the strict sense because God did not produce
8 Cf. The Jewish Encyclopedia, V, 851; also The Century Dictionary, lll, 2158.
• Summa Theol., I, q.
a. 4.
• Cf. Summa Theol., I, q.
aa. I,
also Aristotle, Metaph., V, 15.
8 ••• communiter ... generatio nihil aliud est quam mutatio de non esse ad
esse (Summa Theol., I, q. 27, a. 2).
•Ibid.

THE FATHERHOOD

OF THE PRIEST

275

him from His own substance, but formed him from the slime
of the earth. 8 Thirdly, it is required that the one generated
proceed from the generator by way of a similitude of nature,
and not only by way of generic similitude, but there must be a
procession by way of similitude in the same specific nature. 9
This definition of generation is verified only in perfect living
beings in as much as only perfect living beings proceed from a
conjoined living principle by way of similitude in the same
specific nature. The principle of a true generation is called a
father/ 0 the term being the son, while the relation of the father
to the son is fatherhood.
We refer to the subj_ect of this relation: as principle, rather
than cause, advisedly. "The word principle signifies only that
whence another proceeds." 11 But the ". . . term cause seems
to mean diversity of substance, and dependence of one from
another .... " 12 The necessity of the use of the word principle
rather than cause will be evident as we proceed, particularly in
our consideration of fatherhood within the Godhead, in which
there is a procession from, but no dependence upon, the principle
of generation .
. A father is said to be the proper active generative principle
inasmuch as in some imperfect generations, such as human
generation, there is required a duality of principles, the one
active, the other passive. The proper active principle in such
cases is the father, while the maternal principle, although endowed with a certain limited activity, is properly said to be
passive. 13
Gen., iii, 7.
Cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 27, a. 2; III, q. 28, a.1, ad 4um; I, q. 100, a. 1; I-II,
q. 81, a. 2; also P. M. Gazzaniga, Praelectiones Theologicae, Tom. III, Dissert, II,
Cap. III; also J. Gonzalez, Com. in I part. D. Thomae, Tom. II, Disputatio II,
Sect. I.
1 ° Cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 32, a. 2; q. 40, a. 2.
11 Summa Theol., I, q. 33, a. 1.
12 Ibid., ad 1um ...
13 Cf. Summa Theol., I, q. 92, a. 1. The recent theory concerning an equality of
active principles in generation is no longer tenable in the light of modern physiological findings. It is now generally admitted by competent scientists that not only
8

9

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THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

It must be noted that generation is a natural process, and
that nature intends as the term of the generation not only the
production of a being, but also the producion of a being in its
perfection. 14 Consequently, when a being which has not yet
reached its perfection results from the essential act of generation, nature demands that the generating process continue until
the being attains its perfection. This means that the education
and discipline of the offspring and all that these imply, such
as nourishment and protection, are related to generation as
integral parts. 15

Types of Fatherhood
We can distinguish five various types of fatherhood, namely:
1) divine fatherhood within the Godhead; 2) fatherhood of
divine adoption; 3) God's fatherhood of natural creatures; 4)
human fatherhood; and 5) the iatherhood of human adoption.
(1). Within the very Godhead Itself is to be found fatherhood in its fullness, which is the archetype of all other paternity
and of which all fatherhood is but a participation. Thus St.
Paul speaks of this fatherhood as that from which "all paternity in heaven and earth is named." 16 God is a Father because
He truly generates a Son. By an examination of the mystery of
the Holy Trinity we shall see that the relation of the First
Person to the Second Person is that of fatherhood in the fullest
sense of the word. 17
The procession of the Divine Word from God the Father is
a true generation because the Word proceeds by way of intellectual action, which is a vital operation. He proceeds from a
conjoined living principle because He receives the very nature
is the father the proper active principle in as much as the spermatozoon actively
penetrates the ovum, but also because of the established fact that the spermatozoon
is gifted with extraordinary powers of locomotion while the ovum is relatively
immobile.
"Cf. Summa Theol., Suppl., q. 41, a. I.
15 Cf. Ibid., II-II, q.
a. 1; Suppl., q. 41, a. 1.
16 Ephes., iii, 15.
17 Cf. Swmma Theol., I, q.

THE FATHERHOOD OF THE PRIEST

277

of the First Person of the Trinity. He proceeds by way of
similitude 18 in as much as the concept of the intellect is a
likeness of the object conceived. He proceeds in the same nature
because in God the act of understanding and His existence are
the same. 19 All fatherhood, whether it be in heaven or on earth,
is derived from this divine paternity within the Godhead. All
other types of fatherhood are but participations of this true
and perfect paternity of God by which the Father gives the
Son His whole nature. 20
"The terms' generation' and' paternity,'" says St. Thomas," like
the other terms properly applied to God, are said of God before
creatures as regards the thing signified, but not as regards the mode
of signification. Hence also the Apostle says, ' I bend my knee to
the Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, from whom all paternity in
heaven and on earth is named.' This is explained thus. It is manifest that generation receives its species from the term which is the
form of the thing generated; and the nearer it is to the form of the
generator, the truer and more perfect is the generation; as univocal
generation is more perfect than non-univocal, for it belongs to the
essence of a generator to generate what is like itself in form. Hence
the very fact that in the divine generation the form of the Begetter
and Begotten is numerically the same, whereas in creatures it is
nqt numerically, but only specifically, the same, shows that generation, and consequently paternity, is applied to ·God before
creatures." 21
(2). That fatherhood which approaches more closely than
all other types to true and perfect paternity is the adoptive
fatherhood of God, by which He communicates His divine nature to creatures. God is not the natural father of the creature
to whom He thus communicates His nature, for the divine
nature is in no way due to creatures. Thus this type of fatherhood is called one of adoption; for it is by adoption that one
takes a stranger as his own heir and child. 22 By the fatherhood
Cf. Coloss., i, 15.
Cf. Summa Theol., loc. cit.
2 °Cf. St. Thorn., In Epist. S. Pauli ad Ephesioa, Cap. III, lect. 4.
21 Summa Theol., q. 88, a. 2, ad 4um.
•• Cf. Ibid., III, q. 28, a. I.
18

19

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THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

of divine adoption men become the heirs and sons of God. The
charter of this adoption is to be found in the Gospel of St. John,
in the Synoptics, and in the Epistles of Sts. Paul, John, Peter,
and James. 23 According to their teaching, men are begotten,
born of God. God is the Father of men because He is the principle of a new life in them, a supernatural life, a life of grace.
This fatherhood is not a natural one, for the new life which men
receive is in no way due to them by nature. 24 Yet, as we shall
see, it differs greatly from human adoptive fatherhood, for it
adds inestimably to man's intrinsic worth. Indeed, it has the
primary formal nature of fatherhood; here there is a true generation, true new life, and it is God Who is the principle of this
new life. There is even a certain participation of nature, for
we become the adopted children of God. 25
Men can never by their own merits become sons of God. 26
Consequently, this fatherhood of divine adoption is something
which is entirely gratuitous. Moreover, it infinitely surpasses
human adoption " for as much as God, by bestowing His grace,
makes man whom He adopts worthy to receive the heavenly
inheritance; whereas man does not make him whom he adopts
worthy (to be adopted), but rather in adopting him he chooses
one who is already worthy." 27 Indeed, this adoptive fatherhood is perfect, for by it the " creature is likened to the Eternal
Word, as to the oneness of the Word with the Father . . . and
this likeness perfects the adoption; for those who are thus like
Him the eternal inheritance is due." 28 Thus this type of fatherhood approaches more closely than all other types the divine
natural fatherhood, from which " all paternity in heaven and
earth is named." 29
(8) . Considering the relation of God to those of His creatures
whom He has not endowed with His sanctifying grace, we again
•• John, i, 12, 18; Matt., v, 9, 44, 45; Luke, xx, 85, 86; Rom., viii, 14-16; Ephu.,
i, 5 fl.; Gal., iv, 4-7; I John, i, 8; I Peter, i; I Jamu, i, 18.
•• Summa Theol., I-II, q.ll2, a. 1; q. 114, aa. 2, 5.
•• II Peter, i, 4.
28 Ibid., ad 8um.
08 Summa Theol., I-II, q.112, a. 2.
19 Ephu., iii, 15.
IT Summa Theol.,. m, q. 28, a. 1.

THE FATHERf:IOOD OF THE PRIEST

find the notion of fatherhood verified in God. This, however,
will not be perfect fatherhood, for, as ·has been said, paternity,
in the strictest sense of the word, is to be found only within
the Godhead. But this divine paternity is reflected in God's
relationships with His creatures, and in other ways, as we shall
see. Between God and natural creatures we do not find the relations of true paternity and filiation, first of all, because the act
by which creatures proceed from God is not, properly speaking,
a generative one, but rather a creative one. Moreover, God
does not produce creatures by way of a similitude of His nature,
but by way of a similitude of His essence, divine nature implies
divine operation, and the only instances of creatures who
operate in a divine manner are those who are gifted with God's
grace. 30 So while natural creatures participate in the essence
of God, they do not partake of God's nature. Then, too, natural
creatures do not proceed from God as from a conjoined living
principle because God produces them from nothing and there
is no medium between the Creator and the being created.
However, God may be said to be the Father of natural
creatures because, as the principle of their being, He produces
them in a certain likeness of His essence.31 This likeness will be
more perfect as we approach nearer to the true relations of
fatherhood and sonship. Thus God is called the Father of some
creatures by reason only of vestige, as in the case of irrational
animals. 32 Of the rational creature, God is Father by reason of
the likeness of His image. 33 Thus we read in the Book of
"Is he not thy father, that hath possessed thee,
and made thee, and created thee? " 34 But God is not only the
principle of the being of natural creatures; He is also the director
and governor of their being in as much as the production of
being is not the ultimate end of the divine action, but is or•• Cf. Summa Theol., I-ll, q. 110, aa. 8, 4; q. 112, a. 1; q. 118, a. 9; q. 114, a. 8;
11-11, q. 19, a. 7.
81 Ibid., I, q. 57, a. 2, ad 2um .
.. Ibid., I, q. 45, a. 7; q. 88, a. 8; q. 98, a. 6.
•• Ibid., I, q. 45, a. 7; q. 83, a. 8; q. 98, a. 2.
•• Deuteronomy, xxxii, 6.

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THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

dained to a higher end. Creatures, however, of themselves, are
incapable of knowing and attaining this end, and so it is necessary that God conduct them to it. In this sense He may be
said to be their Father; " for it belongs to a father to beget and
to govern." 35 Thus while God may be rightly called the Father
of natural creatures, He is not formally a father in this sense
in as much as the formal notes of fatherhood are lacking in His
production of such creatures.
(4). Among men we find a relation of
that of
human fatherhood, which is but a shadow of the divine paternity. But it is fatherhood precisely because it is a reflection, a
participation, however weak, of the divine paternity within the
Godhead. The term fatherhood, therefore, is applied to creatures in an analogical sense in comparison with its application
to God. 36 Unlike the relationship that exists between the first
and second Persons of the Blessed Trinity, the nature of the
begetter and begotten in human generation is not numerically,
but only specifically, the same. 87 Human fatherhood is but a
reflection of divine paternity because human generation is far
less perfect. This deficiency is found not only in the principles
of human generation, but also in the human generative act.
While God enters in to supply the form in human production,
His action in this instance is not properly generative, but rather
creative, in as much as He produces the human soul out of
nothing. It is the secondary principles in human production
who place the specificially generative act. God gives the motion
that results in the generative act, and it is for this reason, as
well as because of the fact that he supplies the form for the
resultant being, that He can be called the father of the natural
man. However, His paternity here is but a faint reflection of
the plenitude of His fatherhood; the being that is produced as a
result of His action and that of the human parents, who are the
secondary principles in human production, receives the specific
•• Summa Tkeol., ll-II, q. 81, a. 3.
•• Cf. Summa Tkeol., I, q. 3, a. 6, ad lum.
31 Ibid., I, q. 33, a. !i!, ad 4um.

THE FATHERHOOD

OF THE PRIEST

281

nature not of the primary principle of its production, but
rather of the secondary principle.
Unlike the divine generation within the Godhead, human
generation is fraught with many imperfections. First of all, the
principles of human generation are imperfect, and they are
imperfect precisely because they are material and multiple.
Moreover, the generative act is imperfect, because in man, who
is finite, it is temporal. This means that not only does man have
to wait until he reaches a certain stage of development before
he can place the generative act, but, once he has placed that
act a period of time must elapse before the completion of the
process of generation. Moreover, when essential generation has
taken place, the being is far from having reached its perfection.
The child at generation and for a long time after birth is incapable of maintaining its own existence. Consequently, closely
bound up and included in the idea of human generation is the
notion of education, which includes the nourishment, protection,
instruction, and training of the child. These notions are inseparable from the concept of human generation, " for nature
intends not only the begetting of offspring, but also its education
and development until it reach the perfect state of man as man
• • ." 38 It is for this reason that St. Thomas says that a father
is the principle not only of generation, but also " of education,
of learning and of whatever pertains to the perfection of human
life."-so
It is the function of the human father, then, not only to
generate, but also to nourish, to protect, to instruct, and to train
his children. Indeed, in every generation which is not perfect
(and there is only the one perfect generation) some or all of
these functions will be necessary, depending on the nature of
the being generated.
The proper active principle of human generation is, then,
truly a father, for from his own living substance there proceeds
a new living being of the same specific nature. And the precise
reason that the proper active principle of human generation is
•• Summa Tkeol., Suppl. q. 41, a. I.

88

Ibid., II-II, q. 102, a. 1.

THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

called a father is the fact that he partakes of the plenitude of
fatherhood " from whom all paternity in heaven and earth is
named." 40
(5). Men participate in the divine paternity in yet another
way when they assume as their own children and heirs those
whom they have not generated. Since one who partakes of this
type of fatherhood is not the principle whence the life of the
child proceeds, he is not said to be the natural father of the
child; his fatherhood is one of adoption. Thus paternity of this
type does not partake of the intrinsic formal nature of paternity.
Consequently, in human adoption, the father adds nothing to
the intrinsic worth of his adopted child. However, such a father
does have a claim to paternity in as much as, in lieu of the
principle of the child's generation, he brings this generation to
its integral perfection by perfon:r,tingthe secondary functions of
a father. As we have seen, these latter functions, although
extrinsic, partake of the integral nature of fatherhood. So,
although this type of paternity is far less perfect than any we
have yet considered, it does, nevertheless, merit the name of
fatherhood.
A clear notion of the different types of fatherhood and their
relative importance may be had from the following illustration
showing the various degrees of paternity in relation to the
divine paternity, which is in the Godhead.

II. THE FATHERHOOD

OF CHRIST

As we have seen, one is a father formally, in as much as he
participates in the divine fatherhood of God the Father from
" whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named." 41 He Who
participates more fully than all others in this divine principality of the Father is His divine Son, Jesus Christ. Christ is a
father because He generates men into a new life. He begets new
creatures who participate in His own nature 42 much more
intimately than men, by human generation, share in .the nature
•• Ephes., iii, 15.

":Ephes., iii, 15.

" II Peter, i, 4.

THE FATHERHOOD

OF THE PRIEST

288

of their natural fathers. Christ is the principle of man's participation in the divine nature in as much as, through his human
nature, He merited this gift for men through His Passion, and
in as much as He efficiently communicates it to them through
the sacraments. 43
THE PLENITUDE OF DIVINE PATERNITY
WITHIN THE GODHEAD
True generation by way of an

identity of nature.

True generation
by way of a
participation

of nature
Formal Paternity.

HUMAN FATHERliOOD
True generation by way of a
11imilittuleof nature.
Formal Paternity.

No generation, but the procession of
living beings by way of a similitude
of God's essence.
Non-formal paternity.

FATHERHOOD OF HUMAN ADOPTION
No generation, no procession of creatures; .but
the external principle perfecting generation.
Non-formal paternity.

Christ's fatherhood of men became a necessity with the loss
of supernatural life by the first father of men. Adam, by his
sin, forfeited participation in the divine life not only for himself
but also for all his descendants. God had decreed, however, that
man's participation in the divine life should be restored. Moreover, He had determined the manner in which this restoration
•• Summa Tkeol., III, q. 64, a. 8.

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THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

was to be effected. The sons of Adam were not to be born into
this world in a supernatural state, but God had ordained that
men already born should be " reborn in a new manner so as to
die according to the first birth and live according to the
second." 44 Sacred Scripture assures us of the necessity of this
new birth in order that men may participate in the divine
nature. As the foundation of this doctrine we have the words
of Christ to Nicodemus," Unless a man be born from on high,
he cannot see the kingdom of God." 45 The very idea of birth
implies a son or children who are generated and a father who
generates. Therefore, in order that men may have life in God,
is it necessary that they have a father to generate them into
this new life.
Just as Adam is the father of the human race in so far as he
virtually contained as sons all men who were to proceed from
him as from a principle, so, too, Christ, the second Adam, is
the new Father of men in as much as by His passion He merited
for all men a participation in the divine nature. Indeed, Christ
is in a much truer sense the Father of men in as much as He
gives them spiritual life, a participation in the very life of God,
whereas Adam bequeaths to them only passing, human life in a
corrupted human nature, which, because of its corruptibility is
incompatible with the eternal life. It is for this reason that as
sons of Adam we must die, but as sons of Christ we have eternal
life.
Christ is not only the second Adam; He is also the " last
Adam," for 'f there is no other name under heaven given to men,
«Fray Luis de Leon, The Names of Christ (New York: 1926), p. 46.
45 John, iii, 3. Note:-The Greek text has" gennethe anothen" which may mean:
"born again"; "born anew"; or " born from on high." Some of the Fathers
and Doctors, St. Thomas among them, prefer " born from on high," and there is
little doubt that this is the correct signification. The context in 3: 31 shows that
this is the true meaning. It is not the fact of a rebirth that is emphasized but the
spiritual quality of the rebirth. The sense of the passage is: spiritual rebirth is
the first requisite for entry into the kingdom of heaven, which, contrary to the
general expectation, is here asserted to be a spiritual kingdom. Cf. M. J. Lagrange,
Evangile selon Saint Jean (Paris: 1936), p. 74.

THE FATHERHOOD OF THE PRIEST

9l85

whereby we must be saved." 46 There is no other father to be
expected who can free men from the deadly effects transmitted
through their generation by the first Adam, and can give them a
new life, a new nature, which is a participation in the divine
nature. What Adam would have bequeathed to his sons, had he
remained faithful, was lost by his sin; and, as a consequence,
his sons are born in a nature that bears the deadly effects of
his sin. Christ's sons, however, participate in the all-perfect
nature of God Himself. Therefore, Christ's fatherhood exceeds
Adam's as the divine and perfect exceeds the human and corrupt, as unsullied supernature exceeds corrupted nature. The
comparison of the two Fathers of men and of the inheritances
left their respective sons, as given by St. Paul in the fifth
chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, shows the infinite superiority of Christ as the Father of man.
" But not as the offence, so also the gift.
For if by the offence of one, much more the grace of God,
many died;
and the gift, by the grace of one
man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
And not as it was by one sin, so also is the gift.
For judgment indeed was by one but grace is of many offences
unto justification.
unto condemnation;
For if by one man's offence death much more they who receive
abundance of grace and of the
reigned through one;
gift, and of justice, shall reign
in life through one, Jesus Christ.
For as by the disobedience of one so also by the obedience of one,
many shall be made just." 47
man, many were made sinners;

As sons of Adam, therefore, men are sinners worthy of condemnation; but as sons of Christ they are saints, worthy of
eternal life.
Christ, then, is the Father of all men virtually in that He
merited for them by His passion a participation in the nature
•• Act.t. iv, 12.

07

Rom., v, 15-19.

286

THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

of God. But He is also the.actual Father of each individual man
to whom He communicates His divine nature, to whom He
applies the merits of His passion by generating them into a
new life.
This generation is effected through the sacrament of Baptism.48 In Baptism, Christ "actually implants within us that
which we begin to receive in him and which He performed in
Himself for us, that is, the destruction of our guilt and its
expulsion from our soul . . . At the same time He inserted a
germ-a seed, we might call it-of his spirit and grace, which,
enclosed within our soul and cultivated as it should be, might
afterwards sprout at its appointed time, increase in strength,
and grow to the measure of the ' perfect man ' . . ." 49 It is by
Baptism that men are incorporated in the passion and death
of Christ/ 0 for, as the Apostle says, we are saved" by the laver
of regeneration." 51 In Baptism all the requisites for a generation in the strictest sense of the word are verified. There is
the production of a new living being, for through this sacrament
man becomes a" new creature." 52 There is a communication
of the same nature because by the grace given in Baptism men
become partakers of the divine nature of Christ, " by whom,"
says St. Peter, "he hath given us most great and precious
promises that by these you may be made partakers of the
divine nature." 53 Men, in the sacrament of Baptism, proceed
from Christ as from a conjoined living principle in that the
grace merited by His'passion is communicated to them through
His human nature. 54 Hence it is that Christ is truly a father,
and men by the " laver of regeneration " become His sons.
It was in view of the fact that through their divine Mediator
men were to die as sons of Adam and live as sons of Christ
•• Cf. Summa Theol., ill, q. 89, a.. 8, ad Sum; q. 69, a. 8.
•• Fray Luis de Leon, op. cit., p. 55.
•• •.. per baptismum configuratur homo passioni et resurrectioni Christi, inquantum moritur peccato et incipit novam iustitiae vitam (Summa Theol., ill,
q.66, a.!t).
61 Titus, iii, 5.
•• II Peter, i, 4.
•• Cf. Summa Theol., ill, q. 62, a.. 5.
•• II Cor., v, 17; Gal., vi, 15.

THE FATHERHOOD

OF THE PRIEST

287

that Isaias called Christ "the Father of the world to come." 55
However, it must be noted that Christ is not the natural father
of men, for the nature which He communicates to them is in
no way due to them. 56 Hence its communication is entirely
gratuitous; 57 it is by adoption that men become sons of Christ.
Because Christ's fatherhood is one of adoption does not mean,
however, that it is less than human paternity. On the contrary,
His fatherhood is the highest participation in the paternity of
God the Father; it is God Himself who gives the form to Christ's
fatherhood, since the nature which Christ communicates is
divine. Obviously, then, Christ's fatherhood is in the supernatural order and exceeds human paternity as heaven exceeds
earth.
Despite the infinite superiority of Christ's paternity over
human fatherhood, it is not the plenitude of paternity which is
proper to the First Person of the Blessed Trinity Who generates a Son in an identity of nature; for men proceed from
Christ only by way of a similitude of nature. Moreover, Christ,
in Baptism, does not generate sons who have reached their
final perfection. The grace, the participation in Christ's divine
nature which they receive, is but the " seed of glory." 58 And as
the sons born of Christ have not attained their perfection, He
has provided for their growth, nourishment, strength, and protection through the medium of the other sacraments. 59 Consequently, Christ's work as the Father of each man is not complete
with his essential generation, but continues until he reaches
the stature of the "perfect man" in the life of glory.
Christ, acting as the perfect and all-loving Father, nourishes
His children throughout their lives with the spiritual food of
His own Body and Blood. He strengthens them and gives them
Pater futuri saeculi. (Isaias, ix, 6) .
Cf. Summa Theol., III, q. 2, a.12.
57 Cf. Ibid., I-II, q. 112, a. 1; q. 114, aa. 2, 5.
58 Gratia
gratum faciens hoc modo comparatur ad beatitudinem sicut ratio
seminalis in natura ad effectum naturalem; unde ... gratia semen Dei nominatur
(Summa Theol., I, q. 62, a. 3).
•• Cf. Ibid., III, q. 62, a. 2; q. 65, a. 4; q. 72, a. 1, ad 3um.
55

56

2

9l88

THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

courage to meet life's battles in the sacrament of Confirmation.
And when His children are enfeebled with the disease of sin, He
places His healing hand upon them in the sacrament of Penance
and restores them to health. When His children are weak and
famished and at the point of death, He is with them in the
sacrament of Extreme Unction, giving them added vigor to fight
on to the end. It is also the duty of a father to rule and to
govern. 6 ° Christ, being" the Father of the world to come," sees
to its rule and governance by communicating His power and
grace in the sacrament of Holy Orders, by which men are constituted His magistrates. A father must also propagate his
species. Christ provides for the perpetuation of His divine
society, and assures its members of all the supernatural helps
necessary for their perfection, by giving special grace for this
purpose to those who are united in the holy sacrament of
Matrimony.
The fact that it is Christ Who is the author of the grace
necessary for man's integral generation into the supernatural
life, and the fact that this grace is transmitted through the
sacraments is a matter of divine faith. Hence, because Christ
is the principle of grace by which men become His sons and
grow to spiritual perfection, there can be no doubt that He is
the Father of all to whom He communicates His grace in the
sacraments.
Christ is the Father of men because He is the great High
Priest. In decreeing that the Second Person of the Blessed
Trinity should become Incarnate, God primarily intended that
He should be the Father of men. It was included in the divine
plan that Christ's fatherhood of men should be the immediate
consequence of His priesthood. Indeed, the humanity, mediatorship, and priesthood of Christ were all ordered to His paternity
by which He was to restore to men their life in God.
While the Incarnation in itself did not constitute Christ a
priest, His priestly ordination is simultaneous with the Incarnation, " since the mission received from the Father to redeem
•• Ibid., ll-11, q. 81, a. 8.

THE FATHERHOOD

OF THE PRIEST

the world through His sacrifice, dates from this instant." 61
"In becoming incarnate, the Word of God assumed, so to speak,
all the qualifications for and all the rights to the priesthood. By
the dignity of His person and by the perfection of His holiness
and His religion, He fulfilled all the requirements of a perfect
priest. Yet He was not formally a priest. ... For Jesus Christ
to be a priest, it was necessary, not only that He become flesh,
but that He be specially called and constituted priest by His
Father ... " 62 But Christ was constituted priest in as much
as " He was sent upon earth by His Father precisely for the
purpose of representing men and offering up the sacrifice which
would reconcile them with God." 63 Consequently, Christ participates in the divine paternity because He is the great High
Priest; for by His priestly sacrifice He became the new Father
of men in as much as by it He merited for them a participation
in the divine nature, by which they become sons of God. 64 And
because Christ thus shares in the divine paternity, He can
truly be said to be a father; for this is the primary formal claim
to supernatural fatherhood.

III.

THE PRIEST's

FIRsT FoRMAL

PARTICIPATION

CLAIM TO FATHERHOOD--

IN THE DIVINE PATERNITY

Christ is the Father of men because He is the great High
Priest. Moreover, He is the only High Priest of the New Law,
as is evident from the following words of the Council of Ephesus:
" If anyone say that the very Word of God did not become
our High Priest and Apostle, as though this were to be said of
another one . . . let him be anathema." 65 Christ the Priest
is the source of all priestly power; He "is the fountain-head of
the entire priesthood." 66 As we have seen, it was as High Priest
that Christ eminently fulfilled His role as the Father of men.
J. Tixeront, Holy Orders and Ordination (St. Louis: 1928), p. 21.
63 Ibid.
6 • Rom., v, 2; viii, 16.
Ibid., p. 17.
•• Cone. Ephesinum, Anathematismi Cyrilli, Can. 10; Denz., 122.
66 Christus ... est fons totius sacerdotii (Summa Theol., III, q. 22, a. 4).

61

62

290

THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

Since His Ascension into heaven, however, Christ is not
present upon earth as a visible priest. Nevertheless, in as much
as He is the everlasting propitiation for sin, 67 " always living
to make intercession for us," 68 He continues to function as our
High Priest in heaven.
Although Christ the Priest is no longer visibly present upon
earth, the fruits of His priesthood are being daily transmitted to
men. Since our divine Lord understood perfectly the nature of
man and his need for visible signs and institutions, 69 He established upon earth a visible priesthood/ 0 whose members He
empowered 71 to communicate to men the redemptive grace
merited by His priestly sacrifice. The members of this visible
priesthood, however, are not so much Christ's successors as they
are in very truth partakers of His priesthood. They are more
than representatives of the great High Priest; for they act in
the very person of Christ. 72 For this reason St. Paul could
say: "For what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned anything,
for your sakes I have done it in the person of Christ." 73 Thus
the priest becomes identified with the great High Priest in all
his ministerial acts .. His official acts are Christ's acts, for Our
Blessed Lord Himself says of His priests: " He that heareth
you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me; and
he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me." 74 The members of the priesthood of the New Law, then, are equipped with
Christ's divine authority and the plenitude of His power so
that they can bring to men the salvific effects of His sacrifice.
They are thus made sharers in the eternal priesthood of Christ;
in fact, the priesthood of Christ and that of His ministers is
one and the same thing.
67 I 1 ohn, ii,
•• Reb., vii,
•• Cf. Catechis. Concilii Trident., Pars II, cap. I, # 14.
7 °Cf. Cone. Trident., sess. XXII, cap. 1; Denz., 938.
71 Matt., xxviii,
72 Sacerdos ... novae legis in persona ipsius (Christi) operatur (Summa Theol.,
III, q.
a. 4).
7 ' Luke, x, 16.
78 II Cor., ii, 10.

THE FATHERHOOD

OF THE PRIEST

291

Christ instituted the priesthood of the New Law, when, at
the Last Supper, He commanded His Apostles to continue the
Eucharistic Sacrifice which He had· just performed. By the
words, " Do this for a commemoration of me," He conferred
upon them the power proper to priests of the New Law, the
power to offer the same sacrifice.75 The Apostles and their successors, to whom they were to transmit this sacred power, 76
are thus made participants in the priesthood of Christ. This
participation is effected by means of the character of the sacrament of Holy Orders, by which men are configured to the one
great High Priest.
Originally, the term character was used to signify an image or
figure which was indelibly imprinted or carved in wood or stone.
Of its very nature, then, a character is something permanent
and ineffaceable. Later, the word came to be used to denote a
sign bringing about a resemblance between its bearer and the
person in whose name he acted. " Thus soldiers, who are assigned to military service, are marked with their leader's sign,
by which they are, in a fashion, likened to him." 77 . This figure
has been borrowed to designate the instrumental power conferred by certain of the sacraments by which men are configured
to Christ and made participants in His priesthood. 78
"A character," says St. Thomas, "is properly a kind 6f seal,
whereby something is marked as being ordained to some particular end." 79 More specifically, "a character is a kind of seal
by which the soul is marked, so that it may receive, or bestow
on others, things pertaining to Divine worship." 80 If the character is one by which we receive things pertaining to the divine
cult, it is passive. If, however, by the character we bestow
things pertaining to the divine worship, then it is an active
power. 81 While it is true that all sacramental characters are
"certain participations in Christ's priesthood, :flowing from
Cone. Trident., sess. XXll, cap. 9, can. 2; Denz., 949.
Cone. Trident., sess. XXII, cap. 1; Denz. 988.
77 Summa Theol., III, q. 68, a. 8, ad 2um.
80 Ibid., a. 4.
78 Ibid., a. 2.
81 Cf. Ibid., a. 2.
79 Summa Theol., ill, q. 68, a. 8.
75

78

292

THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

Christ Himself," 82 the character of sacred ordination is a much
fuller participation in His priesthood, and is the closest configuration to Christ in His office as Priest. By configuration
is meant the conformity of the priest to the one great High
Priest. Just as Christ is the image of the Father, 83 so the priest
is the image of Christ, because by the character of Sacred
Orders the priesthood of Christ is impressed upon him, thus
making him the minister of the grace merited for men by the
priestly act of Christ. By this character the priest is invested
with divine authority and given the power to act in the very
person of Christ. In a word, he thus becomes " another Christ."
It is by the sacramental character of Holy Orders, then, that
men are configured to Christ, the great High Priest, and are
given an intimate share in His priesthood. Since, however, the
fatherhood of Christ immediately flows from His priesthood,
whoever shares in Christ's priesthood, by that very fact, participates in His divine paternity. Therefore, when one is ordained a priest of the New Law, he immediately by that fact
becomes a father of men. Virtually, he becomes the father of
all men in as much as Christ merited the grace of adoption for
all. It is for this reason that St. John Chrysostom says that the
priest is " the common Father of the whole world." 84 At the
same time the priest is the actual father of all those to whom
this- grace is communicated through the sacraments, and particularly the sacrament of Baptism. Thus St. Gregory, St.
Jerome, and St. Alphonsus rightly call the priest" the Father of
Christians." 85
Unlike a natural father, the priest does not have to wait
until he begets a child to become a father. His ordination, therefore, is not analogous in this respect to Matrimony which confers sacramental grace for properly disposing its recipients for
Ibid., a. 3.
•• Coloss., i, 15.
•• Quasi communis totius orbis pater sacerdos est (In I Tim., cap., ii, Hom.
82

VI; P. L.,
•• Cf. St. Alphonsus, Dignity and Duties of the Priest or Selva (New York:
1888)' pp. 144,

THE FATHERHOOD

OF THE PRIEST

293

the generation of offspring, but the moment a man becomes a
priest he likewise becomes a father. By his priesthood, which
is one with the priesthood of Christ, all men who are children of
Christ have been begotten. For this reason the priest is the
father of every person, living or dead, who has become a child
of Christ by Baptism. Moreover, the priest is the virtual father
of all men, even those who are not Christians, since by his
priesthood, which is one with Christ's priesthood, there is
merited for all the grace to become sons of Christ. Thus the
priest shares in the supernatural adoptive fatherhood of Christ,
which is the closest possible participation in the fullness of
divine paternity. While there are many other reasons why the
priest can lay claim to the title of spiritual paternity, these are
of relatively minor significance when compared to this intimate
participation in the fatherhood of God.

IV. THE PRIEST's SECOND FoRMAL CLAIM TO FATHERHOODTHE SACRAMENTAL

MINISTRY

We have arrived at the priest's claim to paternity by his
participation in the one, eternal priesthood of Christ. But,
unlike the claim to natural fatherhood, this is not one which
comes simultaneously with the exercise of the particular functions of a father. In the natural order, one is not a father
until he actually and personally generates a creature like unto
himself. But before the priest personally generates he is a
father; for he participates in the divine paternity by the very
fact that he is a priest. Since his priesthood and that of Christ
are one, the moment he shares in the priesthood he is the father
of all those who have become sons of God through the saving
grace of Christ the Priest. Should a priest never personally
communicate to others the principle of divine life, he would
nevertheless be a true father, for by his priesthood he participates in the fatherhood of God, which is the fundamental
formal claim to paternity. However, even if we were unable to
come to a knowledge of the participation of the priest in the

294

THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

divine paternity by his sharing Christ's priesthood, it would be
evident that the priest is a father since he performs those functions which are proper to a father. In other words, each and
every duty which belongs to the integral nature of fatherhood
is, in the supernatural order, a function proper to priests of the
New Law.
From the very notion of fatherhood we know that it belongs
to the paternal office to beget offspring and to bring that offspring to its integral perfection. The requisites for the life of
an individual in the natural and supernatural order are parallel.
Everyone recognizes the five following indispensable needs for
the natural life of the individual man: birth, growth, nourishment, the removal of disease, and the increase of waning
strength. Therefore, the supplying of the foregoing necessities
belongs properly to the office of a father. In order to live the
supernatural life man must be born spiritually, and his life
must be preserved and increased. But, as we have seen, man
is born into the supernatural life by the influx into his soul of
the grace won for him by the priestly sacrifice of Christ. It is
this grace which is the principle of man's new life. Consequently, the one who communicates to man this grace and preserves it in his soul is properly a father because by so acting
he performs functions which pertain to the very nature of
fatherhood.
For the communication of this divine life to the souls of men
Christ instituted the seven sacraments of the New Law. It is
well to note that He instituted seven sacraments, not more nor
less, because the requisites for the individual and social life of
man in the supernatural order, as well as in the natural order,
are seven. The Catechism of the Council of Trent, in a beautiful
analogy between the natural and spiritual life which it borrows
from St. Thomas, shows the fittingness of seven sacraments for
the communication and preservation of supernatural life.
In order to exist, to preserve existence, and to contribute to his
own and to the public good, seven things seem necessary to man:
to be horn, to grow, to be nurtured, to be cured when sick, when

THE FATHERHOOD OF THE PRIEST

weak to be strengthened; as far as regards the public weal: to have
magistrates invested with authority to govern, and, finally, to perpetuate himself and his species by legitimate offspring. Analogous
then as all these things obviously are, to that life by which the soul
lives to God, we discover in them a reason to account for the
number of Sacraments. Amongst them, the first is Baptism, the
gate, as it were, to all the other sacraments, by which we are born
again to Christ. The next is Confirmation, by which we grow up,
and are strengthened in the grace of God: for, as St. Augustine
observes, "to the Apostles who have already received baptism, the
Redeemer said: ' stay you in the city till you be imbued with power
from on high.' " The third is the Eucharist, that true bread from
heaven which nourishes our souls to eternal life, according to these
words of the Saviour: "My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is
drink indeed.'' The fourth is Penance, by which the soul, which has
caught the contagion of sin, is restored to spiritual health. The fifth
is Extreme Unction, which obliterates the traces of sin, and invigorates the powers of the soul; of which St. James says: "if he be in
sins, they shall be forgiven him.'' The sixth is Holy Orders, which
gives power to perpetuate in the Church the public administration
of the sacraments, and the exercise of all the sacred functions of the
ministry. The seventh and last is Matrimony, a sacrament instituted for the legitimate union of man and woman, for the conservation of the human race, and the education of children, in the
knowledge of religion, and the love and fear of God. 86

Of these seven sacraments the first five are necessary for the
life of the individual. Therefore, the minister of these five
sacraments is truly and formally a father, for in administering
them he generates a new creature and brings that creature to
its perfection. By virtue of his sacerdotal office, the priest is
the ordinary dispenser of the grace of the sacraments and it
pertains to the very essence of the priestly office to administer
the first five sacraments. Moreover, it is the five functions
performed in the administration of these sacraments which
constitute the integral nature of fatherhood. Consequently, by
virtue of his sacramental ministry the priest is formally a father.
The priest is not the minister of the sacraments of Holy
86

Catechis. Concilii Trident., Pars II, Cap. 1, #

q. 65, a. I.

Cf. Summa Theol., III,

296

THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

Orders and Matrimony because the grace communicated by
these sacraments is not directly ordained to either essential or
integral supernatural generation. The needs supplied by these
two sacraments are necessities not of the individual, but of the
social order. Both provide for the perpetuation of society, the
one by giving the grace to actually constitute men fathers in the
supernatural order, the other by imparting the grace to dispose men to become good fathers in the natural order. But
neither to constitute men fathers nor to directly dispose men
for the fitting exercise of the paternal functions pertains formally to the office of a father. Hence, in so acting one does not
function formally in the office of fatherhood, although such
action is intimately connected with it. Consequently, any man
in assuming the office of either a natural or supernatural father
must do so of his own accord. Neither his natural or spiritual
father can compel him to do so, for they have no authority in
this matter, which is ordained to the public and not the individual good.
Since it pertains to the very essence of the priesthood to
administer those sacraments, and only those sacraments, which
are directly ordained to spiritual birth and integral supernatural
generation, is is evident that the priestly office is, of its very
nature, a paternal office. The priest is the principle of the transmission and the preservation of divine life in the souls of men.
The divinity of Christ the priest is, of course, the primary principle of this divine life, but because the Great High Priest is
no longer visibly present upon this earth He has deputed His
priests to act in His person in the communication of this supernatural life. That Christ has given those who are configured to
Him by the sacramental character of Holy Orders the power
to communicate this new life by administering the sacraments
necessary for man's generation and continued existence in the
supernatural order is a doctrine defined by the Church, 87 and
evident from the words of Sacred Scripture. 88
•• Joannes XXII, Constitut. " Gloriosam Ecclesiam," 28 Jan., ISIS; Denz. 486.
S. Pius V, Bulla " Ex omnibus affiictionibus," 1 Oct., 1567; Denz. 1058.
88 I Cor., iv, 1; Matt., xxviii, 19; Luke, xxii, 19; John :xx, 28; James, v, 14.

THE FATHERHOOD

OF THE PRIEST

297

While the divinity of Christ is the primary principle in the
communication of grace, there are, besides the sacraments themselves, two secondary or instrumental principles, one of which
is conjoined to the divinity, the other of which is separated
from it. The humanity of Christ is the secondary conjoined
principle, whereas the priest is the secondary separated principle. This distinction of secondary or instrumental principles
in this case, however, is something accidental to the nature of
fatherhood; the separated principle here has the same power as
the conjoined principle in as much as the latter has given the
plenitude of His power to the former. 89 Moreover, since the
priest, the secondary principle of supernatural life, is an animated instrument, he operates personally in spiritual generation. The role of the priest in the transmission of divine life
through the sacraments is more easily seen from the following
diagram:
Primary ...............

The Divinity of Christ

s or I
The
Principle
of
Supernatural
Generation

e
c

n

0

t

n
d

r

Conjoined ... The Humanity of
Christ

s

a

u
m

r

e

y

n

Animated
Separated ... The Priest

t Inanimated ......... The Sacraments
a
1

Just as human parents are the secondary principles in human
production, priests are the secondary principles of the communication of spiritual life. Hence the following statement of St.
Thomas concerning human parents is likewise applicable to
priests in the supernatural order: " Parents are the principles
•• Summa Tkeol., ill, q. 64, a. 8; Matt., xxviii, 18; John, :a, !ll.

298

THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

of our being
," that is, secondary principles after God. 90
Since, then, those who share in the priesthood of Christ, are
truly principles of integral supernatural generation and since
such principles are formally fathers, there can be no doubt of
the priest's formal claim to fatherhood by reason of his sacramental ministry.
We shall now show how in administering each of the sacraments necessary for integral spiritual life the priest performs a
function proper to the office of fatherhood. The sacrament by
which men are born into the supernatural life is Baptism. 91
For this reason, St. Paul refers to it as "the laver of regeneration." 92 Through Baptism sanctifying grace is infused into
men's souls so that they become partakers of the divine nature
and are thus made sons of God. Since, however, it is the priest
who is the ordinary minister of Baptism and since this sacrament effects a true generation, the priest in administering it is
performing the primary function of a father. It is by a right
inherent in the sacerdotal office that the priest administers this
sacrament, for ". . . by Baptism a man becomes a participator
in ecclesiastical unity, wherefore also he receives the right to
approach Our Lord's Table. Consequently, just as it belongs
to a priest to consecrate the Eucharist, which is the principal
cause of the priesthood, so it is the proper office of a priest to
baptize, since it belongs to one and the same to produce the
whole and to dispose the part in the whole." 93
The priest, then, ·is a spiritual father participating in the
supernatural fatherhood of Christ, for he is the principle of
man's generation into the divine life. Hence, says St. John
Chrysostom: " It is to priests that spiritual birth and regeneration by Baptism is entrusted. By them we put on Christ and
are united to the Son of God and become partakers of that
blessed head. Hence we should regard them as more august
90 Deus ... est nobis essendi ... primum principium.
Secundaria vero nostri
esse ... principia sunt parentes . . . (Summa Theol., II-II, q. 101, a. 1).
91 Cone. Trident., sess. ii, cap. II; Denz. 895; Rom., vi, 1-8.
92 Titus, iii, 5.
•• Summa Theol., III, q. 67, a. 2.

THE FATHERHOOD

OF THE PRIEST

299

than princes and kings and more venerable than parents. For
the latter begot us of blood and the flesh, but priests are the
cause of our generation from God, of our spiritual regeneration,
of our true freedom and sonship according to grace." 94 From
these words of the great Father of the Church it is obvious
that he ascribes to the priest the conferring of divine sonship,
which is the effect of the priestly sacrifice of Christ, in whose
priesthood he participates.
Baptism alone, however, like human birth, does not fulfill all
the implications integral to generation. Should the newly born
spiritual child be left to himself, he would not grow to maturity,
he would be helpless against the attacks of the enemies of the
spiritual life, or he would die from the lack of care and nourishment. Just as in the natural order it is necessary that a child
be brought to maturity and strengthened so that he will be able
to repel any advances of the enemies of his natural life, so, too,
the spiritual child must be strengthened so that he will be able
to ward off any attack upon his supernatural life. For this
purpose he receives a more abundant infusion of grace in the
sacrament of Confirmation. This sacrament is compared to
Baptism as growth to generation. Confirmation brings the
child to spiritual maturity, 95 for by it" the fullness of the Holy
Ghost is given for the spiritual strength that belongs to the
perfect age." 96 By the character impressed upon the soul in
this sacrament, the recipient has a perpetual title to actual
divine assistance in the defense of his spiritual life.
In administering Confirmation, the priest is perfecting and
bringing to spiritual maturity the child he begot in Baptism.
He is thus performing a paternal act which pertains to the
integral generation of his offspring. While the simple priest i&
not the ordinary minister of Confirmation, when he does administer this sacrament, he is performing a function which
•• De Sacerdotio, lib. iii, n. 6, in PG XLVID, 648-44.
•• Summa Theol., III, q. 72, a. 1.
•• In hoc sacramento (Confirmationis) datur plenitudo Spiritus Sancti ad robur
spirituale, quod competit perfectae aetati (Ibid., a. 2).

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belongs primarily to the sacerdotal office, for to confirm is an
act of Orders. While the general practice of the Church has
ever been that Bishops should administer this sacrament, the
fundamental reason why they can administer it is because of
the power they have by reason of their sacerdotal character.
This is evident from the fact that in the Eastern Churches the
priests are commonly the ministers of Confirmation and their administrations are recognized by the Church as valid. 97 However,
the Bishop, not the priest, is the ordinary minister of this
sacrament, as the Council of Trent explicitly declares. 98 For
valid administration of Confirmation the priest needs the delegation of the Supreme Pontiff. But since by delegation the
character received in Holy Orders is in no way changed, the
fact remains that the power to confirm arises from the sacerdotal character, even though this power may not be validly
exercised without proper delegation. Thus the administration
of this sacrament, whether by a Bishop or a simple priest, is an
act that is performed primarily in virtue of participation in
Christ's priesthood. And of its very nature it is a paternal act,
for it has for its purpose the integral generation of offspring.
Not only must a child be free from outward attacks, but he
must be nurtured so that the life within him may be preserved
and perfected. 99 In view of this fact Christ instituted the
sacrament of the Holy Eucharist for nourishing the supernatural
life of His children. The effect of the Eucharist is signified in
the manner in which it is given, that is, by way of food. " And,
therefore, this sacrament does for the spiritual life all that
material bread does for bodily life; namely, by sustaining, giving
increase, restoring and giving delight." 100 Thus could Our
Lord truly say," My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink
indeed." 101
Just as man's natural life is sustained by material food, so,
Cf. Const. "Etsi Pastoralis," Benedicti XIV, Denz. 1458.
•• Sess. vii, Canones de Sacramento Confirmationis, can. 3; Denz. 873.
•• Summa Theol., III, q. 79, a. I, ad lum.
100 Summa Theol., III, q. 79, a. I.
101 John, vi, 56.
97

THE FATHERHOOD OF THE PRIEST

SOl

too, his spiritual life is sustained and invigorated by this Bread
of Life. This spiritual food not only augments the supernatural
life received in Baptism, but " whatever losses the soul sustains
by falling into some slight offenses, these the Eucharist, which
cancels lesser sins, repairs in the same manner, not to depart
from the illustration already adduced, that natural food, as we
know from experience, gradually repairs the daily waste caused
by the vital heat of the system. Of this heavenly Sacrament
justly, therefore, has St. Ambrose said: 'This daily bread is
taken as a remedy for daily infirmity.'" 102
The priest alone is the ordinary minister of this Living Bread,
as is evident from the words of Christ to His Apostles, " Do this
for a commemoration of Me," by which words priests alone were
designated. 103 Since the dispensing of the Eucharist is manifestly a spiritual feeding, a means of preserving and augmenting
the supernatural life given in Baptism, and since such an act is
proper to a father, there can be no doubt that the priest
in administering this Sacrament is functioning formally as a
spiritual father.
Besides nourishing his children, a father also has the duty
of restoring them to health when they are affiicted with sickness
and disease. This is done in the natural order by procuring the
proper medicaments and providing special care. In the sacrament of Penance, Christ has provided for the cure of His spiritual children who are suffering from the disease of sin; for " as
a father hath compassion on his children, so hath the Lord
compassion on them that fear him." 104 It is He " Who forgiveth all thy iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases.'' 105 In
this sacrament there is applied the grace that heals the wounds
of the soul. Penance also makes provision for the paternal instruction and admonition necessary for the preservation and
improvement of spiritual health. Just as the natural child must
Cathechis. Concilii Trident., Pars. II, cap. 4, #
Cf. Codex Juris Canonici, can. 845, § 1; also Cone. Trident., sess. xiii, c. 8;
sess. xxiii, c. 1.
105 Ibid., 8.
10 • Psalm cii, 18.
102

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THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

be taught the habits of good health, so, too, the child of God
must be instructed in the rules for safeguarding his spiritual
health. Thus this sacrament furnishes not only a cure for
spiritual sickness, but it also gives individual instruction and
direction which will enable its recipent to live the supernatural
life to the fullest.
Priests, and priests alone, are the ministers of this sacrament,
for Christ's words," Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain,. they are retained," 106 were directed to them alone. As can be readily seen,
all the duties of the minister of the sacrament of Penance are
paternal ones; a father is obliged to care for his child in time of
sickness, and to rule, govern and instruct him so that he may
reach the perfection of life. Therefore, the priest's role in this
sacrament is above all else that of a father.
A father must care for his
not only in time of mortal
sickness, but he must provide a cure for their less serious illnesses. Moreover, after the child has been restored to health,
it is the duty of his father to see to the removal of any defect,
debility, or weakness which results from the sickness. The
father must especially take care that the enemies of the life of
the child are not permitted to take advantage of such debility
and weakness. In the supernatural order the child is often sick
with the less devastating disease of venial sin. Moreover, he is
being constantly weakened by the effects which remain after
sin, especially original sin. 107 Because of the debilitating effects
of these remains of sin, the spiritual child needs special strength
and assistance to overcome those who would prevent his attaining the perfection of his supernatural life. The time at which
the enemies of his soul will be more prodigious than ever in
their efforts to take advantage of such weakness is at the hour
of death, for this is the last opportunity they have of preventing the child of God from reaching the stature of" the perfect
man" in the life of glory.
Provision has been made for this need in the sacrament
106

John, xx, 28.

107

Cf. Summa Tkeol., Suppl., q. 80, a. I.

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308

of Extreme Unction, for " ... in the other sacraments, our
Redeemer prepared the greatest aids whereby during life Christians may preserve themselves whole from every grevious spiritual evil, so did He guard the close of life, by the sacrament of
Extreme Unction, as with a most firm defense. For though our
adversary seeks and seizes opportunities all our life long to be
able in any way to devour our souls, yet there is no time wherein
he strains more vehemently all the powers of his craft to ruin
us utterly, and if he can possibly, to make us fall from trust in
the mercy of God, than when he perceives the end of our
life is at hand." 108
Extreme Unction not only cures the disease of sin, but it also
removes all the debilities that result from sin.109 It also gives
strength to the child of God at the very moment he needs it
most, so that he may overcome the violent assaults of his.
enemies and thus attain the perfection of life. " The proper
ministers of this sacrament," says the Council of Trent, " are
the presbyters of the Church by which name are to be understood . . . either bishops or priests, rightly ordained by the
imposition of the hands of the priesthood." 110 Since, then,
are properly the ministers of Extreme Unction, and in as
much as the functions performed by the ministers of this
sacrament pertain directly to the paternal office, the priest in
administering it is truly a father.
Thus the sacramental ministry of the priest in the supernatural order corresponds to the office of fatherhood in the
natural order. However, the fatherhood of the priest, even in
this respect, infinitely surpasses human paternity; for, as St.
John Chrysostom so beautifully puts it: ". . . God has given to
priests greater power than to our natural parents, and so much
greater as the future life excels the present. For our parents
begot us to the present life, but priests to the life to come, and
the former cannot ward off from their children the death of the
Cone. Trident., sess. xiv, cap. 9, Denz. 907.
Summa Theol., loc. cit.
11 ° Cf. Canonea de Extrema Unctione, can. 4; Denz.
108
109

3

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THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

body, nor hinder disease from attacking them, whereas the
latter often preserve souls that are ill and about to die ...
And not only in our regeneration have they the power to remit
sin, but they also have the power to remit sins committed after
regeneration. Moreover, parents according to nature can be
of no assistance to their children if they chance to offend anyone in dignity and power. But priests have often reconciled
them, not with kings or princes, but with God himself when
incensed against them." 111
CoNCLUSION

We have established by solid theological arguments that the
priest is truly the spiritual father of all. But such argumentation is of little value if its conclusion is not to be the driving
force of priestly life. This doctrine imposes upon the priest the
obligation of seeing in himself a spiritual father, for to be ignorant of this God-given role is to fail to understand the nature of
the priesthood with the consequent impossibility of properly
discharging its sacred obligations. In realizing that he is the
spiritual father of the whole world, that it is of the very essence
of the priestly office to take the place of Christ here on earth
as the new Father of men, the conscientious priest cannot fail
to see his obligation to conform himself more and more to His
divine Model. He will study eagerly the life of Christ in search
of His paternal virtues so that he may know just what virtues
should be the special equipment of his own priestly life. Children are something of their father, they become like their father;
and since the priest is a father who stands in the place of Christ,
he must strive to have, in so far as it is possible, every paternal
virtue which is to be found in Christ Himself so that his children,
through him, may be more perfectly conformed to their Blessed
Saviour. The matter of uncoveringanddelineatingtheprecisely
paternal virtues in the life of Christ is a study well worth development, as it will afford the priest very definite ideals to
111

De Sacerdotio, lib. Ill, n. 6, in PG XLVIII, 644.

THE FATHERHOOD OF THE PRIEST

305

guide him in preparing himself for the fitting exercise of his
paternal office.
In recognizing the nature and obligations of his role as spiritual father, the priest cannot but have a greater appreciation of
the divine Fatherhood within the Godhead as well as of the
participations in this divine Paternity by himself and human
fathers. He will understand that all his strivings, as indeed the
efforts of all fathers, are but a reflection of the eternal divine
action within the Blessed Trinity. He and all fathers are thus
seen in their admirable roles as cooperators with God in the
communication of life.
Since the priest is to communicate and preserve spiritual life
throughout the world, his obligations are without limit. First
of all, there is the duty of teaching men that he is really and
truly their father, and that consequently they have the right to
expect of him every possible means of help for preserving and
increasing the supernatural life in their souls. This the priest
must teach by word; but the truth and implications of this
doctrine will be more eloquently preached by the example of
his life. The priest who is ever eager to communicate and preserve the divine life in the souls of men lets pass no opportunity
to administer the Sacraments. Never will he go to the confessional without giving a word of paternal instruction and
encouragement to lead his children to a more abundant sharing
in the treasures of the spiritual life.
Just as no problem which concerns the progress of the natural
life of his children escapes the vigilance of a human father, so,
too, no action which has to do with the spiritual development of
the child lies beyond the orbit of sacerdotal duty. In as much
as every human action is good or bad and therefore beneficial
or detrimental to spiritual life, it is difficult to conceive of any
human affair which does not concern the priest. This does not
mean that one can do nothing without first consulting a priest,
but it does imply that the priest has the duty of equipping his
children with the knowledge necessary to perform all their
actions well, to supernaturalize them, thus making them meri-

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THOMAS E. D. HENNESSY

torious, for improved spiritual health here below and for the
perfection of spiritual life in the world to
Nor is it always
necessary that the priest personally perform all his paternal
functions. There are, indeed, many which can and must be
delegated, just as in the natural order parents must depute
others to assist them in educating and safeguarding their
children.
While spiritual fatherhood imposes upon the priest the cares
and obligations of a father, it lays upon the faithful the duties
of children. They are bound to love, honor and respect the
fathers of their spiritual lives. When the faithful begin to see
the priest as he really is, the father and guardian of their souls,
they will rush to him with all their problems, and much of the
evil and unhappiness which results from a lack of paternal care
and advice will be avoided. Those who are wracking their brains
for a cure for the evils of our times and especially for the delinquency of the young will find their answer in a closer relationship between priest and people. In the spiritual life all men
are children, and when they find in their priests all-loving
fathers who are eagerly awaiting to help them, evils will be
eradicated and progress in virtue and happiness will come and
come quickly.
Should this doctrine become a living fact, a truth, which as
God intended, would influence men's lives, there would be
thrown open wide the road to peace, peace in the Church, peace
in the world, peace in the hearts of men. The faithful would
have at their service an army of zealous fathers whose only
thought would be to assist them in progressing in the spiritual
life. The priests would have to work more, it is true; they would
be overburdened, but they would be filled with a happiness
which is but a foretaste of the eternal joy that will be theirs
when, at the end of their labors, they can report to their Master:
"I have suffered the little children to come unto you."
THOMAS

Dominican Boutte of Studiu,
Washington, .D. C.

E. D. HENNESSY, O.P.

TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY OF PHYSICAL
INSTRUMENTS

T

HE instruments of physics, like Gothic architecture,
Roman roads, and the pyramids, are among the most
admirable of man's exterior achievements. Galileo, at
the dawn of modern science, measuring the fall of bodies, seems
almost among the ancients by contrast with the decimal points
in the physics of today. Micromicrovolts and micromicrofarads
are common expressions in the ordinary textbook. The electronmicroscope has extended man's eyes to the molecular level.
The weights and charges of even sub-atomic particles have
flashed across films and meters. By radar techniques, measuring time lapses down to the millionths of a second, man has
bounced electromagnetic energy off the moon. Long before
Hiroshima, atoms had been smashed in laboratories; and since
the end of the war, physics has disclosed the synthesis of at
four new man-made elements. A German scientist claimed,
after the war, to have devised a thermopile to detect temperature differentials of a millionth of a degree. In the region of the
very large, a new giant telescope to be assembled on Mount
Wilson, will make the stars, the fine print of night, seem as
near and as clear as the morning headlines. On every side, the
vistas of modern physics are stretching even farther toward the
very large and the very small. As spectacles improve weak
vision, the instruments of physics have focused on the metrical
aspects of the universe with a sharpness that excites as much
amazement as it imparts knowledge.
An instrument does not stand isolated, even though in some
aspects of positivism, it is viewed as a sheer detached and passive register of actual laboratory events. The betatron, the
cathode-ray oscilloscope, and other such devices seem at first
sight to be as self-sufficient and as self-revealing as the Moses of

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EDWARD

SMITH

Michelangelo or a symphony. But they are not. Instruments,
whatever be their purpose, have relations without which they
lose their meaning-the tide without the ocean. These relations, not only with a view to clarifying physics but also with
reference to various forms of positivism and pragmatism, stand
in need of philosophical assessment.
Measurement, like everything else that the physicist deems
meaningful, is an interaction between facts or physical events.
As Lenzen has written, " The fundamental physical concept is
that of the space-time coincidence of two points-the similarity
of the two points with respect to spatial position and temporal
position." 1 In nature, there is no hierarchy between measure
and the measured. Whatever priority be accorded to the instrument is thus not owed to it in its own right. Evident by a philosophical analysis, the equivalence of measure and the measured
is endorsed by both the special and general theories of relativity
which make it permissible when A is moving relative to B, to
say simultaneously that B is moving relative to A; relativistically, for example, it can be said that the sun moves around
the earth just as truly as a helio-centric view may be accepted.
Being in physics does not stand alone with intrinsic nature and
intrinsic dignity. Scientifically, it makes no difference whether
man bites dog or dog bites man. 2
Instruments acquire their logical rank from the physicist.
In the scientific method, man is thought to be a merely passive
observer-a photosensitive plate exposed to external events.
But in a global view, scientific method, or more accurately the
scientist, cannot be so regarded. Scientific method is not selfIn openir;g, closing, directing, and focusing its camera,
this method is truly and totally dependent on the larger, vital,
active, and non-inertial power of the human spirit. Here at the
very onset of measurement, man thus intervenes with a qualitaThe Nature of Physical Theory, New York, 1931, p. 43.
•" Nun ist es klar, dass ... der Akt der Messung nichts anderes ist als ein
physikalisches Ereignis, dessen Ausgang sich rein empirisch beobachten liisst."
Wind, E., Das Experiment und die Metaphysik, Tubingen, 1934, p. 4.
1

TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY

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INSTRUMENTS

309

tive judgment, according at least a logical priority to his meter
as opposed to the measured object. Whatever be the reasons,
a yardstick is said to measure the table-top, and the Geiger
counter is said to register an amount of radioactivity. The
converse of these statements, however deftly put, is meaningless
even at first sight. It is obviously a vicious circle to use a sundial to measure the sun and, under the same aspect, to use the
sun to measure the sun-dial. If the sun-dial imparts meaningful
knowledge, as obviously it does, it is part of a hierarchical
arrangement and not an arc of the vicious circle.3
Such a hierarchy, however, cannot be grasped by the procedures of physics. Empirical science equates realities. The
method of the calculus, which provides the language of science,
proceeds as if all differences were simply matters of addition
and degree in which, for example, the number two, if allowed
to decrease continuously in a series of infinitesimal quantities,
approaches the number one, and one in turn by infinitesimal
steps tends toward zero. The difference then between the
instrument and the object would be regarded as a matter of
degree in physics with the instrument considered as an attenuated object 4-the counterpart of Hume's view of ideas as faint
• The works of Aquinas are replete with references to the hierarchy in the
universe. Perhaps the most important characteristic of scholasticism, as opposed
to the persistent errors of pluralism and monism, is its insights into hierarchy with
all the pregnant meaning of that term in being and in knowledge. Directly appropriate to the problem at hand is the following Thomistic analysis: " Ostendit
[Aristotle] quod in substantialibus praedictis non possit esse processus in infinitum
per modum circulationis. Et dicit, quod si aliqua predicata substantialia praedicantur de aliquo ut genera, non praedicantur ad invicem aequaliter, idest convertibiliter, idest quod unum genus sit alterius, et e converso ... Si ergo hoc
praedicatur de illo ut genus, sequeretur quod :psum quod particulariter conveniebat
alieni, e converso particulariter recipiat praedicationem illius quod est idem respectu
ejusdem esse partem et tatum, quod est impossibile." In I Anal. Post. 32.
• Though a full treatment of the scholastic notion of measure would require a
parenthesis too long to be inserted in this discussion, it is of interest to note that
the scientific standard of measurement is that which is minimum in a given
genus-the smallest unit; the notion of measure in metaphysics involves comparison
with the maximum, id quod est maxime tale in aliquo genere. There are many
more contrasts that could be made, e. g., the position of scientific measure, with
its mathematical form, in the order of truth as opposed to metaphysical measure-

·tHO

VINCENT

EDWARD

SMITH

sense impressions. But obviously, such an account is unsatisfactory. Knowledge, as reason and experience testify, cannot
be explained by simple attenuation. There is a leap between
the logical and the ontological orders, a difference in kind,
emphasis, and dignity. The instrument is viewed as superior
and can no more be but an object, thinly cut, than a plain by
simply being made longer can become a mountain.
In genuA scientific instrument is designed to replace
ine philosophy, truth is seen as the conforming of mind with
reality; man sees being as it is. In physical measurement, on
the other hand, two realities-the instrumental data and the
measured object-are viewed as fitted conformingly with each
other within a larger system, understood and validated by its
inner articulations. A scientific instrument thus divorces truth
from man, denying the mind's power to grasp reality intrinsically and affirming systematic simplification as the final norm
of truth. In this way, man never really knows reality as it is
but only as it relates within system. Somehow this layout, with
the scientist standing off as an onlooker rather than engaged
as a term in the truth-relation, is thought to provide greater
objectivity. 5
Before displaying the weakness of a mere systemic truthmodua, species, et ordo---which is in the order of goodness. The implications of the
third transcendental attribute are also stimulating in this regard. In the line of
the unity of each and every being in itself, a measure, as the philosopher views it
in metaphysics, expresses an intrinsic likeness between the measured and the
In science, on the other hand, measure is always extrinsic and transitive;
it is a case of predicamental measure as one might immediately suspect from the
role played in physics by the category of quantity to which predicamental unity
is reduced.
6 The elimination of so-called anthropomorphism
is one of the chief aims and
claims of modem physics and modem positivism. Planck writes, ". . . so konnen
wir kurz zusammenfassend sagen, die Signatur der ganzen bisherigen Entwicklung
der theoretischen Physik ist eine Vereinheitlichung ihres Systems, welche erzielt ist
durch eine gewisse Emanzipierung von den Anthropomorphen Elementen, speziell
den spezifischen Sinnesempfindungen." Wege zur Physikalischen Erkenntnis, Leipzig,
1984, p. 5. In view of what is to follow about the body-centered character of all
measurement, it could be suggested that empirical science is the most anthropomorphic of the purely intellectual disciplines and that the problem of pure science is a
meaningless question.

TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY

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311

standard in the wake of the real truth-relation where man is an
ultimate (because immanent) agent, an important distinction
must be made. The modern mathematician and mathematical
physicist no longer study quantative being (ens quantum) but
mere quantity. That is why they can no longer accept truth as
the adequation of mind and being. Rightly sheer quantity is
considered as meaningful only within system, since, as an inert,
plural reality, it has no actuality of its own with which a mind
can conform. Quantative being (ens quantum), on the other
hand, is intelligible as a type of being. It was q'J.lantumand not
quantitas which Aquinas and Aristotle defined in their classic
formulation. 6 Divorced from, entity, quantity is sheer multiplicity, indeterminate within itself and hence dependent on what
is outside of it to confer meaning, value, and purpose. Being is
so rich that it can be itself and be intelligible. Quantity is so
poor that it can only be made intelligible by what is exterior to
it. Quality is naturally intelligible since it is an actualizing
and formal attribute. It has something of its own and is not
dependent on what is outside of it. Quantity alone is subintelligible, but there is something self-revealing, self-significant,
and self-beautiful about the qualities of nature, the greenery of
grass, the orchestra of birds in a forest, the Alpine glow, and
the moonbeams playing on the sea. Quality can conform to a
mind because it is; when the mind affirms that something is, it
attains to a deeper layer of reality than all of systematic science.
A blind man can correlate the whole spectrum mathematically
within a system, but he has no idea of color as it is. Similarly,
more is known about the ocean by saying that it is blue or by
saying that it is than by knowing the number and nature of its
molecules, the depths of its floor, and the courses of its tides.
To say that something is is to range beyond mere system
and admit a ·principle of interiority which physics can never
recogmze.
The law of non-contradiction, as viewed by Aristotle's logic
• Aristotle said;
evv1r&.pxovra.'"

(Met. V 13,

a 7) "1rocrov AE'Y<Ta.t To i'ha.tpeTov m

312

VINCENT

EDWARD

SMITH

and by modern mathematics, is a principle of consistency. In
contrast to this logical approach, the law of non-contradiction is
primarily and ontally a principle of being, referred to some
status (actual or possible) of existence in its own right. Being
can never be anything except its own " it-ness " as had from
within, in its own right, with its own originality. Pure system
embarks on the infinite relationships of a fluid universe. Being,
on the other hand, considered as an immediacy or the analogue
of what Kierkegaard viewed as " inwardness," 7 either exists,
as being in its own right, i. e., ' stands out ' from nothingness;
or it does not exist at all. In realism, it is either known in itself
or not known at all. To know anything about its ' it-ness '
implies that we know its intrinsic character. Unless this intrinsic character is somehow grasped, nothing is known at all,
not even in scientific canons. For to be not-nothing on the
part of the object and to recognize this fact on the part of the
subject, both imply a mode of existence and a mode of knowledge in terms of interiority. Mere system is thus unable to gain
a hold on reality. How can being be understood in terms of
what is outside of it? What indeed lies outside being? Equating
being and nothing-ness is but another way of describing the
fluid-drive in the universe of modern science when it becomes
a philosophy, a fluidity that Aristotle predicted if first principles
of being are denied and that enforces itself from any point of
view which is followed in tracing out the farthest contours of
strict scientific method. The purely instrumental cognition
glorified by modern physics, the Hegelianism of idealistic or
Marxian shades, and pragmatism, despite James' furious rejection of Bradley's" relation" 8-all of these spurious approaches
to reality lead to mere fluidity, the swift, sheer by-passing of
reality as it is. Being is not a gushing stream. Somewhere
beneath, there is bed-rock.
If knowledge cou]d never take place in a purely systemic
7 Cf., for a pointed treatment
of 'inwardness,' Kierkegaard, S., Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans!. by D. Swenson and W. Lowrie (Princeton, 1941),
passim.
• Essays in Radical Empiricism, New York, 1922, pp. 92-122.

TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY

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INSTRUMENTS

313

universe, then an instrument and instrumental cognition do not
stand alone. If man knows not-nothing, as obviously he does,
then pure systemism has been superseded by a type of meaningful, mental compenetration of things in themselves and as they
are. This penetration is not channeled through an infinity of
relations among objects but by an immediacy between object
and Man. Man is not a mere news-reel camera. In Lavelle's
choice and frequent figure, man is not a mere spectator but
part of the spectacle as well.9 He has a power beneath and
beyond that of instruments. The immediacies, the inwardness,
and the a-transitive aspects of this knowledge process are stubborn facts. But they elude mere instrumentation. Modern
positivism seeks to rid physics of its so-called anthropomorphic
elements and to make man a register like his instruments, a
mere observer as the physicists themselves like to say. But
instruments cannot replace man. The reading of a scientific
instrument eventually involves something more than simply
another instrument. It. is the merit of Heidegger and of the
existentialists in general to insist on the hierarchy between man
and the object-world, though they overstate the position which
a genuine realist would adopt. Heidegger's prefixes are especially expressive. " That which is purely before us (Vorhandenheit) manifests itself as a tool, so that it may, however, again
be drawn into the service (Zuhandenheit) of the business concerned, namely, of the datum (Befindl!chen) as again acted
• For a succinct statement of L. Lavelle's thought, cf. his La Presence Totale,
Paris, 1934. Lavelle is not pantheistic, as his later works especially make clear.
God, he writes, cannot give us being without giving us liberty. However, confronting earlier critics who charged him with pantheism, he points out that pantheism
has at least one merit of preserving a type of dignity for man: " On se rassurera
sur ce point en voyant Lachelier lui-meme consoler Boutroux qui avait encouru
dans sa these le meme reproche: 'Votre conclusion etait sans doute pantheistique;
mais il me semble qu'on a bien tort aujourd'hui d'etre si scrupuleux sur cet article;
ce qui est a redouter, ce n'est pas le pantheisme, mais c'est, sous le nom de positivisme, le pur phenomenisme qui ote toute realite a la nature, et a plus forte raison
a Dieu, de telle sorte que, ce qui, de votre part, scandalise quelques-uns de vos
juges, m'a, au contraire, edifie." Op. cit., p. 15. Lavelle has written convincingly
against the tendency to view reality as a systematic sum. As against Pantheism,
Lavelle's own philosophy suggests the analogy of being.

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upon." 10 The being before us and the being at hand are both
in the service of the Dasein, accomplishing its tasks by their
means.
In truth, man enjoys a peculiar status, living, as Aquinas
stated it, on an horizon. 11 He shares the intimate depths of
the world below him by his body; by his rational power, he
partakes of the highest type of activity, intelligence. Considering man as an ultimate (i.e. immanent) term in the truthrelation and by opposition to the relativity theory when it becomes a philosophical dogma with its notion that all frames of
reference (points of view) are equivalent, it may be agreed with
Heidegger that metaphysical questions must be asked in relation to the concrete existence of the questioner. 12 It is a merit of
existentialism in general to have called attention to such a
theme. In this light, the privilege,d position of man's body has
been italicized by Marcel, attempting to write off the heavy
debt of Cartesianism in modern times which reduces the corporeal aspect of man to the status of mere objects like those
studied by physics. In Marcel's view, which is emphatically not
idealistic but a statement that any realist could adopt to express the intimacy between knower and known, " the more I
tend to lay stress on this objectivity of things, in cutting the
umbilical cord which binds them to my existence, to what I
have called my organico-psychic presence to myself-the more
I tend to affirm the world's independence with respect to me,
its radical indifference to my destiny, to my goals-the more
this world so proclaimed to be the only real one tends to become a spectacle felt as illusory, an immense documentary film
10 " Die pure Vorhandenheit
meldet sich am Zeug, urn sich jedoch wieder in die
Zuhandenheit des Besorgten. d. h. in der Wiederinstandesetzung des Befindlichen
zuriickzuziehen." Sein und Zeit, Halle an der Salle, 1935, p. 73.
11 Man's soul, "in confinio corporum
et incorporearum substantiarum, quasi in
horizonte existens aeternitatis et temporis, recedens ab infimo appropinquat ad
summum." Summa Contra Gentiles, II, 81.
12 " ••• das metaphysische
Fragen muss im Ganzen und je aus der wesentlichen
Lage des fragenden Daseins gestellt werden." Was ist Metaphysik?, ·Bonn, 1929,
p. 7.

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offered to my curiosity but which in the end conceals itself by
the simple fact that it is a stranger to me." 18
If instrumentation alone provides valid knowledge, an infinite
circuit of instruments is required. One object impresses mechanical energy on another which in turn actuates another, and
so ad infinitum. But what of man's own physical nature? In
the manner of a purely physical object, man's body is "energized " as any instrument reco-rding a laboratory event, say,
for instance, a galvanometer responding to a surge of electric
current. But this body is a favored instrument. The impressions made on it, the analogues of the needle-deflections, Lissajous patterns, and other" pointer-readings" are read and interpreted by a mind that is substantially united with the body. 14
In brief, the instrument and the reader of the instrument are
one and the same being or, in more forceful form, the instrument
reads itself. By recognizing this reality, the infinite regression
is avoided. In the subject of knowledge is the way _of escape
from the purely transitive, instrumental, and open-circuited
road of a systemic universe where nothing could either be or
be known. In the words of Chesterton, it is the mark of man
not only to know, like the animal, but to know that he knows.
The intimate, personal, and organico-psychic relation of
13 "Seulement,
par une anamolie qui se dissipe a la refiexion, plus je mettrai
!'accent sur cette objectivite des choses, en coupant le cordon ombilical, qui les
relie a mon existence, a ce que j'ai appele ma presence organo-psychique a moimeme--plus j'affirmerai !'independence du monde par rapport a moi, sa radicale
indifference a ma destinee, a mes fins propres-plus ce monde ainsi proclame
seul reel se convertira en spectacle senti comme illusoire, un immense film documentaire offert a ma curiosite, mais qui en fin de compte se supprime par le simple
fait qu'il m'ignore." Marcel, G., "L'Etre, Repere Central de Ia Refiexion Metaphysique," in Etudes Philosophiques, Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Ghent, p. Ill.
10 For purposes of simpler exposition, the body-soul terminology
has been employed rather than the more accurate descriptions in terms of matter-form. It is
simple to make the proper substitution and changes to bring the whole discussion
within the framework of correct hylomorphic cosmology where it belongs. The
reference to the body as " favored " or " privileged " indicates that it is not simply·
a geometrical or an inorganic physical body. The distinction in question here is
somewhat technical and need not be made in a general discussion to relate physics
and philosophy on some funda.mrmtal principles.

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knower and known is bespoken by the standards used in
measurement which are all relative to our body. Some English
standards have even preserved enough of their etymological
genes to indicate this reference of other bodies in terms of our
own. A " foot " refers to part of the human anatomy; " mile "
translates the old Roman concept of a thousand paces (millia
passuum); a" pound" from the Latin pondus is connected with
the sense of weight or effort. " In order to observe that a
material body has weight," Lenzen says, " I may support the
body with my hand. The muscles attached to the hand exert
a force which is experienced through kinesthetic sensations." 15
A day is associated with nature's dictate of a twenty-four hour
cycle to man's body with its schedule of eating and sleeping,
work and play. Though the continental system has abandoned
this so-called anthropomorphic terminology, it remains a resurgent fact that in deed, if not in name, our standards of
measurement are always based on magnitudes comparable to
man's body. Astronomical figures baffle us until we relate them
to light years or quantities equally familiar; the microscopic is
said to be small, but the standard for the smallness is our own
size; it is our body which gives meaning to the scale. James
asks: " what possible meaning has it to say that, when we think
of a foot-rule or a square yard, extension is not attributable to
our thought? Of every extended object the adequate mental
picture must have all the extension of the object itself." 16 In
other words, the thought of a foot, according to James, has
to be a foot long. Whatever be the author's meaning of such
remarks can be left to the chronicler of his system. But certainly in the nature of being and of knowing, it remains true
that man understands dimensions as he understands everything
else-by becoming them. There is a whisper of this becoming
in the fact that all measurements must be brought back, for
their meaning, to the familiar world of our own body and its
15 " Procedures of Empirical
Science," in The International
Unified Science, 1-5, p. 22.
10 Op. cit. p. 30.

Encyclopedia of

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dimensions. The body is in an eminent way the medium by
which man knows the external world.
Man, it was said, is the very instrument which he reads. He
is a calibrated scale. An instrument and interpreter all in one,
he is, as it were, the very measurements which he makes. It is
this profound and intimate union of matter and spirit which
deepens his spiritual knowledge of the material world, the
ideas which he forms and the measurements which he makes.
Such a substantial union escapes the finest detector equipment
which physics could ever devise. But it enables man to talk
meaningfully about the world and to enter into an innermost
contact with its hard and fast actuality. Without such a personal, interior relationship, man would never know anything.
By means of this relationship, since he is, as it were, the very
measurements which he makes, he is installed on the inside of
such measurements, looking at the world, so to say, through
their eyes, a world indeed that does not either flee man or
overwhelm him but where he feels himself familiar and at
home. 17
Man, as the "specially favored" frame of reference-to
employ a language that is meaningless in relativity mechanicshas been overdrawn in certain forms of existentialism. The
Heidegger Dasein is one example. For Sartre, man is his own
situation (l'homme est sa situation) . But without, like existentialism, impeding the mind from a knowledge of the nonmetrical that is, it can be truly said that man's body has a
priority in measurement. This body-centered character of mensuration is a fact that physics, in its positivist purge of anthropomorphic elements, simply cannot put away. It is as human
as man. In a broad sense, there are three mechanical properties
17 One of the tragedies of the age of science, with its astronomical figures of time
and place which tend to dwarf man and its insistence that the qualitative world of
common-sense objects is illusory, has been the feeling of man that he is a stranger
in his own home, the universe. On this point, cf. Riezler, K., Physics and Reality,
New Haven, 1940, p. 5. The atom bomb which ended a war to establish freedom
from fear has left man trembling in utter terror. Uneasy over the prospects that
the bomb may not be controlled, there is now a type of fear of freedom.

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of things which physics measures: length, weight, and time.
All other quantities-force, energy, velocity, and the like-are
combinations of the three fundamental magnitudes.
In Newtonian mechanics, for example, force is the product
of mass and acceleration. But this is a measure of force rather
than force itself. A psychologist, if he himself were incapable
of emotion like, say, an encephalograph, could only interpret
the writhing, tears, smiles, twitches, and other facial expressions
of a subject as merely physical distortions like the wrinkling of
a coat-sleeve when the elbow bends. However, being capable of
emotions himself, the psychologist from the gestures which he
sees can identify the feelings of others as similar to the states
which he experiences internally and signifies by similar movements. He knows the inner state of other persons by reference
to his own feeling. So it is with the entities in physics. 18 The
notion of force can be grasped most fully by the sense of
matter's resistance to our own personal assaults against it. Even
more, it is the experience of force and effort which specifies
these objects and the means of measuring them. It is only such
an experience which makes measurements both possible and
meaningful, permeating them with a breath and a being that
the simple transitive operations completely overlay from the
physicist's view. It is this experience of opposition-not merely
measurements of it-which identifies the object, force, suggests
a device to measure it, and makes way somehow into every
concept and context, no matter how symbolic, where the notion
later occurs. Nor is the experience of such a crude reality as
force simply associated with the early history of physics, like
the tadpole-stage of the frog, and later completely replaced by
readings and formulae. Every physicist must at some time or
other have such a psychophysical experience of force for himself.
18 Dr. Allers points out the role of self in the penetration
of substance: "There
is only ,one point in the whole field of possible experience where the knowing mind
grasps, although hardly in an adequate manner, substance itself, and this is selfexperience ... It is in ' deep ' emotional states that consciousness grasps something of the self's very being." "The Cognitive Aspect of Emotions," THE
THOMIST, 4 (1942) p. 619.

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Only thus does he ever know what force is, how to measure it,
how to manipulate the mathematical quantities which the
measurements provide, and how and where to apply his figures
to other concrete situations. In this first and often underestimated experience of force, a decision is thus taken which
is crucial for physics and the physicist. Without such a bodyreferring, familiar experience the world would forever remain
a stranger to man, unknown, undiscoverable, and unconquered.
Finally, even if the concept of force, based on experience, were
subsequently replaced by a more " objective " definition, it
would still be true that this secondary definition, during its steps
of derivation, would be conceived with respect to this pristine
experience, if only, by the contrast involved, to explain it away.
Any idea that we have even of the minutest particle and most
complicated wave, is derived, represented, and re-aligned by
analogy to something of the physicist's experience as a man.
Being a man involves thinking with respect to the corporeal
world, the material object of our cognition. It is not surprising
that the physicist finds himself unable to escape his humanity
in the general sense that even thoughts about the spiritual must
be formed by reference to our direct confronting of the material
world and in the more specific sense that, refusing to leave the
world of quasi-mechanical things, all the entities of physics
must continue to bear the raiment, thin and tattered though it
sometimes be, of the familiar world. 19 Husser! has well stated
the irreducibility of the qualitative world considered as a sign
for the relations which the physicist studies but, like every
sign, having a reality of its own. 20 The full implications of a
word, for instance, are not given in its meaning. Apart from
19 " The vocabulary of mechanics-vis
inertiae, vis impressa, vis viva; centripetal
and centrifugal force; work, energy, least action-shows clearly that the new explorers of the physical world continued to project into it, if not their souls, at least
their experiences of effort and resistance, of compulsion and yielding." Nunn, T. P.
Anthropomorphism and Physics, London, 1928, p. 4.
20 " Das sinnlich erscheinende Ding, das die sinnlichen Gestalten, Farben, Geruchsund Geschmackseigenschaften hat, ist also nichts weniger als ein Zeichen fiir ein
anderes, sondern gewissermassen Zeichen fiir sich selbst.' ldeen zu einer reinen
phiinomenologie und phiinomelogischen Philosophie, Halle an der Salle, 1928, p. 100.

4

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its character as a sign, it has a reality as oral and as written,
its physical as opposed to its intentional nature.
All the other mechanical properties treated by physics can
be studied like the reality of force. Time is initially understood,
and hence meaningfully measured, in terms of psychological
time, le temps vecu. 21 When we attempt to formalize this impression, St. Augustine's classic difficulty recurs, and man finds
himself unable to make a fully satisfying definition. Time is
registered by clocks, but the clocks are set by the time it takes
for the earth to move around the sun. But to speak of the
" time it takes " for the earth's revolution indicates that we
already have a notion of time. This notion determines the
means of measurement and makes it possible to apply the
measurement and its mathematical developments to concrete
situations. Lenzen, rejecting metaphysics, plunges immediately
into the notion of measuring time as though it could be made
meaningful and physically applicable without this familiar experience of time as le temps vecu. 22 Length, as James' remark
cited above might suggest, is also measured physiologically
and applied, in this light, whenever man's insight sees the
proper occasion. The distance in the recent radar path to the
moon, traversed with the velocity of light, is understandable
because man himself might have trod that same electromagnetic highway with his own feet.
The inaccuracies of measurement are frequently alleged
against science. 23 There exists, in fact, a calculus of error which
can discern the probable inexactness due to a combination of
factors when the factors themselves are known separately and
21 For a discussion of the concept of time, cf. de Munnynck,
"La Notion de
Temps,"· in Philosophia Perennis, Regensburg, 1930, vol. fl, pp. 855-868.
22 Art. cit., p. ll-12.
•• This seems to be an allegation in the following description: " Ruins are ruins,
and to make the scientific method with its dependence on inductive process, its
constant employment of statistics, its suppression of the individual, its inevitable
tendency to analyze, its rejection of all entities which cannot be numerically expressed, and, in a word, its formidable subjectivity, into what might be called
God's Own Method, is now more than ever a hopeless task.'' Needham, J., The
Sceptical Biologist, London, 1929, p. 15.

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individually. 24 Modern- equipments have reduced the margin
of error in measurement to almost incredible fractions, as in the
symphonic orchestra which usually tunes on the oboe but can
now, if it wishes, use a note produced from sure, steady oscillations of vacuum-tube techniques. But measurements can
never be clear-cutly absolute because of the ontal variables involved and because man has no way of checking this absolute
accuracy except, in turn, by measuring. Precision instruments,
in their calibration devices, usually have a coarse adjustment
and a fine adjustment on a Vernier scale. But the perfect instrument would require a fine adjustment for the fine adjustment,
and so ad infinitum. Logically and ontally, inaccuracy is thus
inherent in the measuring scheme.
Negligible as errors usually become in contemporary physics,
it may be asked whether they may not hide the utter secrets of
the universe. Does the structure of philosophy hinge on the
refinements which tomorrow's progress may bring to today's
measurements? In scientific method, revolutions may occur
when error is refined. Matter and light, separated in classical
physics, were discovered, with the creation of instruments to
detect their finer harmonies, to be quite similar, if not basically
the same thing. But before sundown today, an enterprising
physicist may have yet made finer measurements which establish another disproportion between mechanics and optics, restoring and even widening the old classical cleavage. Genuine
philosophy, however, is exempt from such vagaries. For man
is a remarkably immanent instrument.
For instance, in the familiar example of the stick which looks
bent in water, why is it called actually straight and only apparently bent? The eye tells us that it is bent. Touch insists
that it is straight. In the light of mere sensation, this question
could not be decided since there is no more evidence for trusting
the data of one sense rather than those of others. 25 It is man's
•• Cf. von Mises, R., Probability, Statistics, and Truth, New York, 1939, pp.
194-242.
25 Cf. Allers, R., "Remarks
on Some Problems Concerning Sensation," The
Modem Schoolman, 22 (1943) 3-163. From the point of view of instrumentation,

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mind, taking account of all the factors in the case, which
renders a verdict on the actual shape according as such a decision is needed. Here is observed the astonishing example of
a being correcting for its own errors. Man is able to surmount
the differences between " pointer-readings " or their analogues
in the sense order; installed in the realm of intelligibility, the
philosopher thus undercuts the revolutions in the concept of
sense-measurements by the physicist, guaranteeing himself by
this common undercutting principle, namely, being, that no new
physical discoveries could possibly be outside its compass.
This self-correction, which pragmatism finds as the constant
characteristic of man's thought, is of immediate importance
regarding errors in measurement. In a purely transitive instruthe problems of tri-dimensional perception are of great interest. For a study in
the visual estimation of size and distance, cf. Ledvina, J., A Philosophy and
Psychology of Sensation, Washington, 1941, pp. 84 ff. Instrumental knowledge
involves problems like those met in considering the naked eye. " The only heavenly
bodies for which we can determine the size by direct observation or of which we can
see any' detail are those belonging to our own solar family, such as planets and
their satellites. But we are made aware of the existence and position of the
far-away fixed stars because they are so brightly illuminated that our telescopes
gather and transmit to our eyes sufficient light to affect our retina. We are however
not able to tell anything about the size and shape of these fixed stars by vision
alone, no matter how huge our telescopes." Burton, E. F. and Kohl, W. H., The
Electron Microscope, New York, 1946, p. 79. In simple terminology, there are two
factors to be considered in the light reaching our eyes: the quantity of illumination
in the original source and the distance which this quantity must travel, all the while
diminishing in intensity according to a well-known physical law. Obviously, then,
something more than purely visual sensation is necessary to establish the distances
and the sizes of bodies in the remote heavens. In microscopy, a similar problem is
met; a cluster of molecules, for example, might be " seen " by the amount of
scattering which it produces in the illumination. Two factors are thus involved:
the brightness of the illumination and the magnitude of the object under view.
A small object under intense illumination would scatter as much light as a larger
object more weakly illuminated. Obviously, the microscopic and telescopic techniques of modern physics involve much more than simple visual data. Even the
larger molecules made visible by electron microscopy are known and estimated in
their magnitude by comparison with the very much ·grosser definition of a candle
power. Their sizes are relative to it. The relation of light to distance is similar
to the relation of length and temperature discussed below. Our standard is arbitrary
and relative and certainly, as we shall see, involves an insight into something that
is intrinsic, not merely transitive.

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ment like a vacuum-tube voltmeter, the coarse adjustment is
corrected by the finer circuits which, if they are calibrated, must
again be adjusted from still another auxiliary source. But in
man, the favored instrument, there is a correction by the very
being which makes the measurements. This correction need
not remove all error. If the mind simply recognizes that there
is a possibility of error or that all measurements are relatively
inaccurate, error has been corrected or eliminated in the sense
of being allowed for in our thinking. At least the error has been
interpreted, appraised, and incorporated into the meaning of
the measurement by the very instrument which is measuring;
to recognize error is to overcome it. The blood of man's real
metaphysical self has once again coursed through his veins in
physics. Without it, all would be unknowably vacuous. By its
graces, the philosopher can even " correct " for future physical
findings.
Instruments assist the physicist in probing matter's depths.
They help him toward new discoveries and new theories. But
the priority of instrument over theory cannot be simply viewed
as chicken-and-egg sequence. It has often been said that medieval thinkers failed to appreciate the metrical realities as treated
in modern physics because they had no appropriate instruments.
Whitehead has said that one of the chief causes for the advance
of modern physics has been the development of scientific
instruments. 26
But from another viewpoint, instruments depend on theories,
and it can also be justly said that the medievals had no instruments because they lacked appropriate theories. A bolometer
depends on the concept of infra-red energy as a wave. The
cloud chamber, so widely and fruitfully used in modern physics,
depends on the notion of quickly cooling a supersaturated gas
and of ionization. It would seem then that a concept of infrared radiation is necessary in order to detect this radiation or
that measuring electric particles presupposes such a measurement. In a more complicated device like the cyclotron, the
•• Science and the Modem World, Cambridge, Mass., 1980, p. 148.

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betatron, and the oil-drop assembly for measuring electroncharge, the relation between theory and experiment is even
more unmistakable. 27 Is there then another vicious circle or
even an infinite series here in modern experimental procedure?
Do instruments depend on theories and theories in turn on
instruments? Planck, from the viewpoint of the physicist,
writes: "Now you cannot put a reasonable question unless you
have a reasonable theory in the light of which it is asked. In
other words, one must have some sort of theoretical hypothesis
in one's mind and one must put it to the test of research
measurements. That is why it often happens that a certain line
of research has a meaning in the light of one theory but not in
that of another. And very often the significance of a question
changes when the theory in the light of which it is asked has
already changed." 28
A solution to this problem may be sought and found in the
relations of the vague to the considered, purified, and reflex
notions of a given being or of being in general. Moreover, before
and beneath the discursion of scientific method, there is a
primary apprehension of a given reality as reflection richly displays, the grasping of a non-discursive immediate unity which
makes a thing be an intrinsic, as opposed to inertial, nature.
In a physical situation, .a reality is thus grasped which is indifferent to being either an instrument or a theory which an instrument verifies. Great discoverers in physics as elsewhere are
those who have the sharpest insights. There is an inner unity of
reality where instrument and theory mingle and are truly
compenetrated as opposed to being merely added to each other
like sand mixed with cement while still being sand. Using
his scientific method, of course, the physicist can never grasp
such a unity of intrinsic principle. He can only deal with the
exteriority of being, its plurality and transitive relationships.
But before he decides to become a physicist and, even when
27 Heisenberg, W., Wandlungen in den Grundlagen der Naturwissenschaft, Leipzig,
1936, pp. 16-18.
28 Where is Science Going?, New York, 1932, p. 97.

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a physicist, before he decides to reduce an experience to the
formalism and discursion of his science, he has had a deep
quaffing of the unity in his subject, a primary apprehension
which is only later elaborated into discursive form. An instrument is discursively related to a theory only after the two have
been apprehended together in an immediate process which is as
outside scientific method as it is in the nature of man. Man
never feeds the scientific method by being a physicist but only
by being a man. The physicist can only prove. He can never
discover.
A scientific instrument does more than simply establish a
theory. It measures a real event in nature which confirms or
denies a theory when regarded from one viewpoint but which,
from another, is a fact in its own right. The observed empirical
data of physics, the locus of scientific law, is not to be confused
with the theoretical backdrop from which these data or laws
are deduced. A theory is a supposition, and the apprehended
unity of the foregoing example must include at its fulcrum the
indirect, provisional relation which it bears to the real. A
theory and fact differ in their mode of reference to reality, and
the same event may be regarded as a fact in itself or as a complexus of theory, depending on the viewpoint. It is this real
event which is measured which is now looming up for consideration, the establishing and calculating of a fact.
Once more the choking noose of the vicious circle seems
hanging overhead. The fact measured and the fact measuring
are, it was already argued, on the same footing in the ontal
order. There is no elevator shaft in physics, there is only an
endless single-storied corridor. In a sense, this problem parallels that of the preceding consideration where the instrumenttheory relation seemed at first sight to involve an idem-per-idem
movement. Nature simply presents facts without affirming or
denying them. Nature, Bergson said, neither measures nor
counts. 29 Why then should one fact be accorded a priority over
the other? Why should one fact be endowed with the dignity
•• L'Evolution Creatrice, Paris, 1919, p. !l39.

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of affirming or denying the other? Two facts, the instrumental
structure and the measured data, are not similar simply because
they are on the same anti-hierarchical level. Specifically they
are very much alike, 30 as examples obviously indicate. A pressure instrument, for instance, operates on a pressure principle,
just like the object to be measured. The input phases of a
pressure instrument could be, for example, a diaphragm, a
piezo crystal, or perhaps a carbon microphone. An electrical
instrument is always electrical (or perhaps magnetic since
electricity and magnetism are united in the physical view) . A
diffraction grid to establish the undulatory theory of light is
built on the concept of light as a wave. The resonance of one
wave with another is a frequent principle of measurement in
optics, electricity, and acoustics, not to mention the study of
microstructures. Resonance is the interaction of two phenomena having the same frequency; a good example would be a
tuning-fork emitting a musical note and causing another fork,
capable of the same acoustic frequency, to produce the same
note-a fact that is described in the expressive terms of sympathetic vibrations. Caruso was able to break ordinary drinking
glasses because, by singing into them, he could determine their
natural period of vibrations. The supersonic barrier in aerodynamical problems is basically a problem of resonance. Resonance, the sympathetic tuning of two waves, so widely used for
measurement in modern physics, suggests that men like Bergson
and Scheler in their emphasis on knowledge as a kind of sympathy had a view of great depth, even though their final epistemologies are inadequate. Resonance is but another example
80 In this light, Levy's statement is to be rejected: " In the first place, every
measuring instrument must be neutral to the system measured." Levy, H., The
Unive:rse of Science, Lonqon, 1989, p. 49. Levy is a dialectical materialist, and it
is interesting to relate this notion of neutrality to the whole Marxian theory of man
and the universe. Despite the Communist belief in the autodynamic character of
reality, Marxism touches in many ways the generill theme of positivism in its
inertial approach. " Actually, we get our deepest knowledge of the world in the
process of changing it.'' Rubenstein, S., "Soviet Psychology in Wartime," in The
JournaJ, of Philosophy and Phenomelogical Reaearch, 5-2 p. 184. Reality stands
there neutrally for man to change.

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of the tendency to use like as a measure of like, a surprising
carbon-copy of the original Empedoclean sense of simile simile
cognoscitur which Aristotle and Aquinas did not discard but
simply developed. From the physical viewpoint, there seems to
be, from one aspect at least, a mere identity in measurement
not only in a general sense but in the specific resonance between
measure and the measured. The measurement would seem to be
the same fact as the object, involving the same principles, same
quantities, and same activities. How can the tautology be
avoided?
Against this drab, slate-colored sky which such a problem
threatens to cast over physics, philosophy may provide at least
a faint streak of light. Unlike the physicist who regards truth
as different from being, the philosopher insists that truth and
being are convertible. Ontally, truth is being itsel£.31 It is not
an addition to being, except logically. It is being, as related to
mind and as known. In the ontal order, nothing can be added
to being. Since it is, it would include such additions unless of
course they were nothing. It is this profound reality of being
which is now to help clarify the apparent vicious circle of the
physicist in correlating facts.
The events in the instrument, or, better, the whole of the
measuring experience with emphasis on the instrument rather
than on the aspects measured can be said to correspond to the
reality co-terminous with being and called truth. The measured
aspects which the instrument matches correspond to being.
Thus there emerges another sample of the principle that being
is intrinsically intelligible. The measurement taking place in
the laboratory involves the identity of instrumental data and
measured fact, just as truth is identified with being. The convex
mirror is also concave when viewed differently. When according a priority to the instrument, the scientist is simply emphasizing being as true. He is making a more explicit and more
transitive display of what in ordinary language he would re31 For a recent exposition of this notion, cf. Sr. M. Cosrna.s Hughes, ThB Intelligibility of the Universe, Washington, D. C., 1946, pp. 60 ff.

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EDWARD

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gard as truth. He is, it was already exhibited and now more
fully explained, making logical additions to being, assigning
a logical rank to what in the ontal order is on the same level
with the object. To make a logical addition to being is to make
no real addition. Truth and being are convertible. A thing is
spoken of as having aspects of truth and of being, depending on
whether we look at this thing from the logical or ontal viewpoint. The instrumental and the measured data are, in like
manner, conjoined; aspectually they are distinguished. Hence
we can measure like with like and still make sense. The physicist employs a principle which positivism would consider redundant and meaningless but which genuine philosophy insists
is the most meaningful, fundamental, and pregnant principle
in knowledge. Being is intelligible intrinsically and not in virtue
of what is outside of it. Being and its principles are not simply
recognized before physics begins and then cut off like an ablative absolute. They are relentless and inescapable.
Pressed to the ultimate deep-freeze levels of his subject-matter and of his method, the physicist faces the facts which he
cannot meet but which are none the less real and meaningful
in the actual deployment of physics as a human activity and
which. because they are fundamental, suggest that empirical
sciences are subordinated to a metaphysical reality which gives
them power, direction, and responsibilities. Being is its own
evidence. There is a point where discursion is abandoned in
favor of self-evidence, intrinsic intelligibility, and the union of
truth with being on which all realism must eventually be
founded. It is this critical juncture, occuring not only at the
beginning of science but whenever the physicist measures, from
which his real knowledge, however tautological it may first
seem, takes its root. Manhattan Island has its sky-scrapers
because beneath it there is a mass of solid rock for support. In
less favored cities, such buildings would sink away into subterranean sands. It was indicated above that the physicist, as
such, can only prove and never discover. There is also a juncture where proof and discovery meet and where being is its own

TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY

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329

evidence. The self-intelligibility of being solves the problem
of the infinite regression in demonstration. It brings the direct
and the demonstrable together at a point where, to use Heidegger's language, a thing is the sign of its own self. Such a juncture makes it possible not only for reasoned knowledge to be
reasoned but to be knowledge, an intrinsic contact with an
object. Scientific method thus turns out to be something secondary in man. It is man who discovers and man who gives final
proofs for his answers in what is evident and, ultimately, selfevident. However much the physicist may think himself to
reject the metaphysical as meaningless, the vivisection of his
problems and processes shows meta-empirical realities and metaempirical knowledge that, in dynamic interplay, form the circulatory system of physics providing it with nutrition, growth,
and the ability to produce new ideas.
The problem of the logical versus ontal orders may be distilled objectively to the apparently reduplicative statement that
being is and subjectively to the favored position of man who,
since the rank he accords to instruments is of a solely logical
nature, really understRD.ds what he measures in terms of its
own ontal self. Russell and James, though erring by extremism,
seem to preserve a dim counterpart of being's self-intelligibility,
the first in his doctrine of " neutral monism " and the second
in his philosophy of "pure experience" which dates back to
Mach. According to James," any single non-perceptual experience tends to get counted twice over, just as perceptual experience does, figuring in one context as an object or field of
objects, in another as a state of mind . . ." 32 Recasting this
doctrine, it may be said that a thing is truly thought twice over,
once in its being and once in the logical additions which both
scientist and philosopher make to being but which, being only
logical, insure that we understand something-in-itself and as it
is. Purely logical additions, since they are not real, leave us
with the same being as ontally existing, thus assuring the objectivity of knowledge. Russell has a whisper of self-intelligi.. Op. cit. pp. 17-18.

330

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EDWARD

SMITH

bility, or at least his substitute for it, by his very term monism
which at least has the merit of emphasizing, like sympathy,
the logico-ontal identity that occurs in knowledge. Of neutral
monism, he writes: " This theory may be illustrated by comparison with a postal directory, in which the same names come.
twice over, once in alphabetical and once in geographical order;
we may compare the alphabetical order to the mental, and the
geographical order to the physical." 33 The concept of coming
"twice over" parallels the thought of James and suggests how
logical order can remain logical and by the very fact of logicality, as adding the non-real, can put man into contact with
reality-in-itself, not only as it is reality but also, what amounts
to the same thing, as it is in itself.
Physics has made it common to speak of approximations.
A thing is said to be approximately true. Newtonian mechanics
is in this category as a complete system, according to the correspondence principle. Individual measurements within this
and within other systems are likewise referred to as being high
approximations. The constants of nature are continually being
refined and revised. Sometimes the incommensurate appears
in physical discussions. Philosophers, accustomed to say that
there is no middle course between truth and falsity, are thus
confronted with approximations as the apparent violation of
the principle of the excluded middle. It has been suggested that
the expression
truth be abandoned and replaced by
approximate knowledge. 34 However, since knowledge is always
either true or false fundamentally, such terminology is questionable. The problem remains then of clarifying the notion of
approximate truth. The scientist's belief that all measurements
are approximate has led to the notion that all truth is approximate and that therefore nothing is ever true.
Here again philosophy comes aboard. Carnap has stated that

••" on

the Nature of Acquaintance," The Monist,
(1914) p. 161. Russell and
James ·are not exactly of the same mind since Russell emphasizes the purely
sensory whereas James seems to suggest a truth-relation which is a shade nearer
to the traditional notion.
•• Brunner, A., La Connaiasance Humaine, Paris, 1948, p. 79.

TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY

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INSTRUMENTS

331

the following propositions are equivalent: " The moon is
round " and " It is true that the nioon is round." 35 Since
truth is equivalent to being, Carnap's opinion, from one viewpoint, is compatible with a realistic philosophy. Further, in
the field of logistics, his two statements can be made symbolically equivalent. But on the other hand, the truth of judgment
is neither the truth of being nor the truth of a purely systemic
mathematics. 86 It is a factor of unity as opposed to the plurality of terms, a factor of assimilation as opposed to the detached
and passive observation of a news-reel camera. To say that a
judgment is true raises it beyond the status of a modem mathematical equation and brings it into a status of being known, as
marked off from merely being.
That " A is approximately B " is then ·not quite the same as
" it is true that A is approximately B," and this second judgment is by no means equivalent to " it is approximately true
that A is approximately B." That A is approximately B is an
ontallaboratory event. To judge this fact, in the act where man
attains to the fullness of truth and hence to the fullness of
being, 37 is to see the unity in this laboratory event and to state
what actually happens in terms of what happening involves,
namely, being. An approximation is recognized and labelled an
approximation-another reference that being is intelligible of its
very nature. There is thus a bending back over the road to see
it as a whole, a thinking, a counting, a coming twice over. As
in the case of error, to recognize approximation and to allow for
it in our thinking is to overcome approximation. It is not as if
truth were an ideal limit, 88 progressively approximated. Truth
•• Camap, R., An Introduction to Semantics, Cambridge, Mass., I94i!, p. 26.
86 Aquinas says of Aristotle:
" Unde dicit, quod esse significat veritatem rei,
In Met. V, 9, 895.
87 It is in judgment and not in apprehension that man attains to being because
it is only in judgment that he attains to truth. St. Thomas, de V er. q. I, a. I, sed
contra 8. Cf. also Maritain, Ref!exions Sur L'InteUigence, Paris, I988, chapter I.
88 Peirce has provided the following definition of truth which has its counterpart
in scientific method: " Truth is that concordance of an abstract statement with
the ideal limit towards which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific
belief, which concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the

332

VINCENT

EDWARD

SMITH

is the whole event, a unity between realities like the instrument
and the measured. It is not a term of judgment, a limit or an
asymptote. It is the whole unity in the event, being what is is
and being known as it is. To say that an approximation is an
approximation, thus taking it twice over, is not a tautology but
a meaningful statement, and the physicist, allowing for approximation in his thinking, proceeds as if he recognized such a
meanmg.
Lenzen has proposed, as a basis for measurement, a system
of standards established by what he calls " successive approximation." The core of his philosophy can be thought out in
terms of his own example: In the measuring of length, the rod
employed is altered by temperature, contracting with cold and
dilating with heat. The measuring rod, however, must be
established, in fact, before the temperature itself can be calculated. All thermal instruments, from the ordinary thermometer to the finest thermopile, involve a visual presentation
in function of length. Thus there seems to be another of those
vicious circles.
Lenzen solves the problem in an unconvincing fashion. He
suggests that we select " some standard rod," tracing out the
variations in length according to changing temperatures. We
thus define temperature "to the first approximation." Equipped now with a temperature scale, the standard of length may
now be defined " to the second approximation." But such a
solution is really meaningless. No absolute standard has been
obtained for either temperature or length by enabling us" quantitatively to define to the first approximation the conditions
under which the quantity is defined to the second approximation." 39 Both standards are still relative and arbitrary. The
approximate character of the measurement of both temperature
and length still remains whether it be of a first, second, or nth
degree. Lenzen's solution is purely verbal.
confession of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness and this confession is an essential
ingredient of truth.'' Collected Papers, Cambridge, Mass., 1981-1984, vol. 5,
paragraph 565.
•• Op. cit., p. 47.

TOWARD A PHILOSOPHY

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333

A solution to the problem is suggested by the principles
advanced above. Temperature and length are correlated not
by discursive measurements but by an insight into the unity of
the being at hand, a unity that is not additive but invisible like
being itself. Length and temperature, thought together because
they co-exist, are defined simultaneously by that insight of
the physicist, as a man, into a reality that as a physicist he
cannot reach by discursive formulae. The standard might
continue to be arbitrary and approximate, but it is thought
twice over, once as length and once as temperature which the
length measures 40 or first as temperature and then as length.
Without the recognition of meta-empirical reality and metaempirical operations, physics would forever remain an impos·
sibility. Even if the physicist doubts and denies such realities
as self-evidence and self-intelligibility, he implicitly affirms
them, and far from his open claim, through positivism, that
the principle of identity is tautological in its ontal sense, he
constantly displays and exploits its tremendously rich charge
of meaning and value. He interprets a being in terms of its
own self. It is as though in setting out to construct a manumentum aere perennius man should discover that the only
available building material is bronze itself. The monument
and the bronze thus go together into the same structure.
VINCENT EDWARD SMITH

Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.

•• This solution applies to the problem of microscopy raised in note !M in which
there was a problem of determining light by size and size by light. The two are
thought "twice over," once as light and once as size.

SACRAMENTAL SIGNIFICATION

T

HERE IS a latent antinomy in the theology of the
sacraments in the solution of which the most fundamental issues which divide Catholics and Protestants
are raised, and which seems intimately connected with another
antinomy which has troubled philosophers, more especially
from the time of Descartes to our own day. The problem of
how to bridge the gulf between spirit and matter, of how to
reconcile the subjective and objective, has called forth solutions
ranging from utter materialism to the most extreme idealism.
It is but natural to expect that if this antinomy appears in
the natural order, when we try to determine the relations of
man with nature, it will also appear when we come to consider
the relations of man with God, the author of nature. The overly
subjective point of view in determining these relations does not
begin with the Reformers, but it is they who raised this spiritual
subjectivism into a first principle, apply it methodically to
every part of theology, especially to the doctrines of faith,
grace, and the sacraments. A violent controversy followed, and,
as always in controversy, attention was directed to some particular aspects of the subject, while other, more important,
aspects were relegated to the background and were forgotten.
Later theologians are too often content to follow in the steps
of the masters of controversy thus perpetuating a tradition
which considers the elements of worn-out dispute as of primary
importance in questions of theology, whereas more fundamental
aspects of dogma, which have never been challenged, have been
therefore overlooked.
In a most general way, the antinomy which concerns us now
may be described as a conflict between the objective and the
subjective elements of the sacraments, or perhaps, between the
external and internal elements. The sacraments are both signs
334

SACRAMENTAL

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885

and causes; and the antinomy appears under both of these
considerations. As regards the causality of the sacraments,
tradition has crystallized this opposition into the two famous
formulas, opus operantis and opus operatum; and Catholic
theologians have ably defended the objective position against
the attacks of the subjectivists. But too few of them have
defined the objective standpoint in relation to sacramental
signification as distinct from causality; some who have attempted it do not seem to have succeded very well.
The heterodox theologians, as usual defending the subjective
point of view, seem to have reason and common sense on their
side. A sacrament, as everyone admits, is primarily a sign.
A sign is a means of communication of knowledge; and if we
omit natu:ral signs as outside the question where the sacraments
are concerned, the sacraments are symbols, not of things, but
of thoughts or of subjective states. Thus a sacrament is essen.;.
tially subjective, wholly ordained to making known to others
our feelings, our desires, our ideas. In the supernatural order,
then, sacraments as signs are symbols, means by which we give
or by which God does so.
expression to an inward state of
This subjectivist position leads, of course, to the teaching that
the sacraments are signs by which God testifies to our inward
sanctity, or by which we profess our faith, or excite it in
ourselves or others.
That sacraments are, in some way, signs of the faith that is
within us is perfectly true. The traditional formula "sacraments
of the faith" (sacramenta fidei) is no mere pious phrase, and
St. Thomas can write: " The sacraments are so many signs
which show the faith by which man is justified." 1 We have so
concentrated our attention on one aspect of the sacraments
that many would cry " heretic " if anyone other than St. Thomas
had, uttered these words. It would of course, be heretical to
affirm that the sacraments were nothing more than signs professing our faith. 2 If this were the only role of the sacraments
Summa Tkeol., I, q. 61, a. 4.
• Cf. Denziger, Enckiridion Symbolorum, nn. 848, 849.

1

5

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

they would be rather unnecessary, since the external profession
of faith pertains formally to the virtue of faith, not of religion.
Here, as in many cases, the heretics are right in what they
affirm, but wrong in what they deny.
Granted this true relationship of signification between the
sacraments and faith, the question arises: how can we safeguard
the objective content of the sacraments, remaining within the
limits of signification, that is, without having recourse to the
causal efficacy of the sacraments? This question has, fortunately, long since received a very adequate answer in the
well-known doctrine that the formal and specifying element in
the sign is the relation (not necessarily real; in technical language, the relation secundum esse dependentiae) to the object
signified, whereas the relation to the knowing subject is secondary and in no way proper to a sign, since it is common to every
act of knowing, whether the object known be a sign or a
term in its own right. 3 This teaching, which we take for granted
although it is disputed by some philosophers, provides us with
the foundation of our solution to the Protestant objection, for
the fundamental role of the sign cannot be subjective when its
distinguishing feature is the reality to which it points, or rather
the relation of dependence on this object, whose place it takes.
Perhaps the object thus signified is itself something subjective, such as faith, so that the original objection returns in
full force? The answer usually made to this difficulty is that
the object signified is not only faith, but, above all, grace. Yet
this is hardly a sufficient reply, for grace is as subjective as
faith, and, like faith, is a supernatural quality or habit in the
soul. Such teaching would not differ essentially (except of
course on the nature of grace) from the heretical teaching that
the sacraments are "merely external signs of grace or justice
received through faith." 4 True, the operative word in this
condemned opinion is "merely" (tantum) and no Catholic
theologian teaches that the sacraments are merely signs, for
• Cf. Joannes a St. Thoma, Cursus Philosophicus, "Logica," qq. XXI-XXII.
Council of Trent, sess. VII, can. 6; Denziger, n. 849.

&

SACRAMENTAL

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they are also causes. Yet, the causality of the sacraments is
proportionate to their signification. If the Catholic notion of
sacramental causality differs essentially from that of the Reformers, it would seem to follow that the Catholic notion of
sacramental signification should also differ from that of the
Reformers. Nevertheless, it seems to be generally assumed, in
textbooks of theology at least, that the sacrament is a sign
only of the faith which is a disposition for and of the grace
which is the fruit of the sacrament.• It is a traditional doctrine,
sanctioned many times by the Church, that the sacraments are
signs of the grace produced by them in the soul of the recipient.
This seems to be generally interpreted as meaning that the
sacrament is a sign of the grace as it actually exists in the soul
after the reception of the sacrament. This may not be the
express teaching of theologians, for this problem does not seem
to have occurred to them at all, and they are content to state
that the sacrament signifies its proper effect, without inquiring
how this may be so. In a certain, well-defined sense it is true
that the sacrament does signify its effect in the soul of the
recipient, but this appears to be only a partial view of the
sacramental signification, which terminates at a reality deeper
and more objective than grace.
The first reason for this statement is general and negative:
it seems that in teaching that the sacrament is only a sign of
the faith and grace in the soul of the recipient we are depriving
the sacrament of its objective content, of its primary relationship to something which does not depend on the subject. It
seems to enclose the sacrament within a network of relations
which find their term in the recipient, to pluck it from its external setting, and unduly to limit its signification to the realm
of subjective dispositions or effects. In other words, by overemphasizing the axiom that "the sacraments are for men"
this viewpoint seeks in man the whole term of sacramental
5 The manuals generally admit with St. Thomas
(Summa Theol., III, q. 60,
a. 3) that the sacraments also signify the passion of Christ, and glory, to this
extent safeguarding the objective element.

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

signification, and minimizes, if it does not altogether ignore,
that deeper and more fundamental relation to God which must
be essential and primary in all things supernatural. The temptation to subordinate divine things to the subjective world of
human aspirations is most difficult to resist in an anthropocentric age, and many theologians are tainted with the tendencies
of their time. But it should be evident that, especially in
treating of divine things, the standpoint should be essentially
theocentric and should overshadow the human aspect, the relation to man. Instances of this anthropocentric tendency in
theology are to be found in the way in which some authors
approach the question of reconciling the free act of man with
the causality of God. Even in treating such a primarily supernatural entity as faith, the tendency is to stress the human
side, its psychological aspect in relation to human reasoning,
and to neglect the divine aspect, the relation to God, who is its
author and object. This relationship to God is primary in all
supernatural entities, and the sacraments should not be an
exception.
This general observation is very much strengthened by three
arguments, based, not on analogies, but on the nature of the
sacraments as signs, sigi;ls which are also causes. It is agreed
that sacraments are practical signs. Such signs, at least in so
far as they are used by intellectual agents as means of communication, do not refer primarily to the work which they indicate or enjoin, but to the intention of the agent who uses them
to make known his will. The words in which a law is framed
are practical signs whereby the will of the legislator is signified
to the subject; that which makes sigps of them is the relation,
not to the work to be performed, but to the internal command
of the legislator, which is the object signified. The relations to
the subject and to the work which is the object of the command
are secondary and qualifying. This must be true of the sacraments, since they are practical signs, which ·God uses to make
known to man the hidden working of the Spirit in his soul.
Moreover,
believe that the sacraments of the New Law

SACRAMENTAL

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are causes of grace, instrumental causes it is true, but still real
causes. An obvious difficulty at once arises, for the cause is
not the sign of the effect; rather, the effect is the sign of the
cause. The sacrament cannot be at once sign and· cause. St.
Thomas, in reply to this objection, points out that the sacrament can be also a sign because it is only an instrumental cause,
that is, a cause which is also to some extent an effect, since it
is moved by the principal cause. 6 It would seem, therefore,
that the sacrament is not a sign (directly at any rate) of the
effect which it produces in man, but of its principal cause, that
is, of God as sanctifying man by means of the sacrament, as
efficaciously decreeing, or imperating, the sanctification of man
through the use of sensible rites.
Finally, it is commonly taught that the sacraments do not
actually cause until that instant when the full signification of.
the united matter and form is completed. When the signification is completed, when the sacrament is perfectly constituted
as a sign, then, and then only, does it act as a cause. Hence it
cannot be a sign of the effect in the recipient; the effect is posterior in nature to the causality of the sacrament, and thus also
to the signification of the sacrament. It follows that it can
be
a sign of God, or of the divine activity working through
the media of sensible elements to transform the soul.
These arguments seem to point conclusively to the objectively
divine aspect of sacramental signification, to reveal the term
of such signification as something primarily divine, something
pertaining in itself to the Godhead, but having reference to the
sanctification of man, " a sign of a sacred thing in as much as it
makes men holy," as St. Thomas put it. 7 This "holy thing"
(res sacra) as the majority of theologian teach, is sacramental
grace. But, for the reason just given, it cannot be this grace as
already existing in the soul as the effect of the sacrament. We
must unite in a higher synthesis these two aspects of the truth,
that the sacrament is a sign primarily of the divine intention
6

7

Summa Theol., III, q.
Ibid., q. 60,

a. 1, ad I urn.

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

which it signifies, and that it also signifies the sacramental
effect. We can do this by regarding the divine intention as
efficacious, as a cause which is pregnant with its effects. The
effect is signified, not in itself, nor in the soul of the recipient,
but in its cause; this cause is God under the aspect of the principal cause of sacramental signification. God is such a cause by
His intellect and will, uniting in what we can only conceive
as an " imperium " or efficacious decree, which is the source of
the efficacy of the sacraments and, through this efficacy, of the
supernatural effect in the soul of man. It is this divine " imperium," this efficacious intention of bestowing grace through
the sacraments, which is the primary term of sacramental signification; thus grace also is signified, but only mediately, through
its cause.
In this conception of sacramental signification it is clearly
seen how the sacraments of the Old Law agree univocally in
their formal elements, that of sign, with those of the New Law.
Both are essentially signs of the divine " imperium " which
causes man's sanctification, and signs of the grace to be conferred. The way in which such grace is to be given, through the
sacraments or on the occasion of their reception, does not enter
the term of signification; the efficacious decree of God is the
formal term, and the different ways in which this decree is
actually realized are but material with regard to this formal
term.
If we now limit ourselves to the Christian sacraments, and
introduce the notion of causality, we see that the sacrament
does not merely signify the divine imperium or decree, but it is
a means whereby God, as it were, applies it to a particular
subject in order to enrich it with grace. The signification is
thus extended beyond its formal term in such a way as to attain
to the divine imperium, not only in its origin and source, but
also as it is participated in the symbolic instrumental action.
The sacrament signifies something transcendent in its source,
but actually communicated as a supernatural efficacy of fruitfulness to the sacrament itself. In this connection, St. Thomas

SACRAMENTAL

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speaks of a similar mediation of the creature in God's activity,
in the part played by rational creatures in the working of
miracles. 8 The parity between this case and the one we are
considering is evident, and is referred to by St. Thomas in his
conclusion to this article: " It is not to be wondered at that
God thus uses a spiritual creature as an instrument to bring
about marvelous effects in corporeal nature, since He uses a
corporeal creature as an instrument in the justification of spirits
in the sacraments." 9
St. Thomas thus envisages creatures as instruments through
which the divine will is revealed and efficaciously fulfilled in
virtue of a transient sharing in the power of God. The divine
imperium is formally immanent in God, but virtually transient;
it is communicated to the created mediator as a transient supernatural activity. Thus there is something actually in the sacrament which is signified, not immediately, but mediately; the
sacrament signifies what it contains in virtue of a previous
relation to God. The sacrament may thus be said to signify
grace in the same way in which it contains grace; and St.
Thomas teaches us that grace is contained in the sacrament
"not as effects in non-univocal causes ... but as to a certain
instrumental power transient and incomplete in its natural
being." 10 Grace is thus signified, not as it is in the soul of
the subject, but as it is present in the sacrament itself, where it
is contained as that transient activity which is the divine im8 Constat
autem quod Deus solo imperio miracula operatur. Videmus autem
quod imperium divinum ad inferiores rationales spiritus, scilicet humanos, mediantibus superioribus, scilicet angelis, pervenit, ut in legis veteris latione apparet;
et per hunc modum per spiritus angelicos vel humanos imperium divinum ad
corporales creaturas pervenire potest, ut quodammodo naturae praesentetur divinum
praeceptum; et sic agant quodammodo spiritus humani vel angelici ut instrumentum
divinae virtutis ad miraculi perfectionem; nom quasi aliqua virtute in eos manente,
vel gratuita vel naturali, in actum miraculi possint ... sed virtus ad cooperandum
Deo in miraculis in sanctis intelligi potest ad modum formarum imperfectarum,
quae intentiones vocantur, quae no permanent nisi per praesentiam agentis principalis, sicut lumen in aere et motus in instrumento (De Potentia, q. 6, a. 4.).

• Ibid.
Summa Theol., III, q. 62, a. 3.

10

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

perium communicated to the creature and realized through it.
The importance of this conclusion may be Seen when we remember that the Holy Eucharist is certainly a sign of a reality
which it contains; this manner of signification should not be
proper to the Eucharist, for all the sacraments are univocal in
their class, which is formally determined by the relation of
signification. Our explanation does seem to provide a univocal
signification for all the sacraments.
Perhaps this is what St. Thomas had in mind when he wrote
those otherwise puzzling words: " Since a sacrament signifies
that which sanctifies, it must signify the effect which is implied
in the sanctifying cause as such." 11 Pallavicini, in his History
of the Council of Trent, describes the difference between the
old and the new sacraments in such a way as to suggest the
same conclusion: " The former pre-signify the grace which is to
be conferred by the sacraments yet to come, while the latter
signify the grace to be conferred by themselves, in much the
same way as frogs croaking in the marshes and the clouds compacted in the air signify rain; the frogs signify the rain which
will fall from the clouds yet to come, while the clouds signify
the rain with which they themselves and which they will pour
forth." 12
It is evident that the divine activity, transiently communicated to the sacrament, could not, in itself, be the term which
gives specification to the sacramental signification. Such transient activity is not anything definite in its own right, for it has
no meaning except as a sharing in the efficacy of God, and as
ordained to produce a supernatural effect. The signification will
be specified by the divine activity as pointing to the sacramental effect. We should, indeed, expect this, for signification
is a relation. and relations are specified through their foundation
lbid., q. 60, a. 8, ad 2um.
Lib. IX, cap. 4: Altera gratiam praesignificabant per futura sacramenta novae
legis conferendam, altera vera significant tamquam conferendam a seipsis, eo fere
pluviam significant tam ranae in paludibus coaxantes, tum nubes in
modo
aere constrictae; illae significant pluciam a venturis nubibus effundendam, hae vera
pluviam qua ipsae ·gravidae sunt, et quam ipsae profundent.
11

10

SACRAMENTAL

SIGNIFICATION

848

or cause in respect of their term. The sacramental signification
is thus specified through its foundation, the divine imperium,
as connoting the effect, ·sacramental grace. We should then
determine the formal and specifying term of sacramental signification as the divine imperium, working through the created
instrument to produce the particular grace to which the sacrament is ordained; or, if we prefer, it is this sacramental grace
as" produced" (producenda), as virtually present in the divine
intention, and in the transient activity which is the created
counterpart and reflection of the divine imperium. 13
When we speak, therefore, of grace as being the term of
sacramental signification, we do not mean grace as in fieri. We
mean grace as in facto esse, but not as facta, rather as facienda.
Similarly, the idea which specifies the creative work of the artist
is the intellectual image of the effect. It is not this effect as
in fieri, but as in facto esse, the perfectly completed house or
statue, for instance. Neither is it the effect as already produced,
but as it is destined to exist and as still awaiting effective external realization. This distinction is made by St. Thomas in
a stimulating passage which we may quote without comment:
"The form of a sacrament ought to denote what is done in
the sacrament. Consequently, the form for the consecration of
the bread ought to signify the actual conversion of the bread
13 Since the sacraments, and their corresponding effects, are specifically distinct
among themselves, the ultimate specific differentiation of any individual sacrament
lies in its relation to this effect; in this article the effect is referred to as grace,
but what is said of grace in this
is equally true of the character, which
may be regarded as in some ways a more immediate effect than grace in those
sacraments which confer it. We may t1J.erefore regard the sacramental signification
as pointing to a double term, to the divine and efficacious intention of the Author
of the sacraments, and to the specific effect of the sacrament, which is, as it were,
foreshadowed and virtually contained in that intention. The relation to the
divine imperium may then be regarded as the generic element of the definition of
the sacrament (as belonging to the sacrament as such), whereas the relation to
the particular effect would constitute its specific element (of this determined
sacrament); both elements pertain to the definition and essence of the sacrament.
This fits in very well with the common Thomistic teaching that the specific difference of the sacraments of the New Law is not causality, but the relation of
sign'fication to the effect as produced by the causality of the sacrament.

344

A. J. MCNICHOLL

into the body of Christ. Conversion can be considered in two
ways, first in becoming, secondly, in being. But the conversion
ought not to be signified in this form as in becoming, but as
in being. First, because such conversion is not successive, but
instantaneous; and in such changes the becoming is nothing
else than the being. Secondly, because the sacramental forms
bear the same relation to the signification of the sacramental
effect as artificial forms to the representation of the effect o£
art. Now an artificial form is the likeness of the ultimate effect,
on which the artist's intension is fixed; just as the art-form in
the builder's mind is principally the form of the house constructed, and secondarily of the constructing. Accordingly, in
this form also the conversion ought to be expressed as in being,
to which the intention is referred." 14 The sacrament, therefore,
when actually being administered, like the instrument in the
hands of the artist (it is also a sign), signifies the effect, not
as already made, but as existing in the mind of the principal
agent, and as being given external existence through the activity
of the instrument.
To appreciate the bearing of this conclusion in sacramental
theory, it is necessary to draw attention to a distinction which
seems to have been quite overlooked by the defenders of the
so-called intentional causality of the sacraments. In the sacraments there are two quite distinct significations. The sacramental action has its own proper or natural signification, which
results from many partial significations-of the action or thing,
of the words, and of the words as determining the action.
Baptism, for instance, has one natural signification-cleansing
through water-which is materially composite, but formally
one by reason of the thing signified. 15 It is to this natural
signification that St. Thomas refers when he says that the
10 Summa Theol, III, q. 78,
This sacrament provides us with another confirmation of our thesis, in so far as the consecrated species are a sign, not directly
of grace as in the soul of the recipient, but of the Body and Blood of Our Lord as
really present under such species in the form of food destined to cause such grace in
the soul.
15 Cf. IV Sent., d. VIII, q.
a. 3 ad 6um; Summa Theol., III, q. 78, a. 4.

SACRAMENTAL

SIGNIFICATION

845

sacrament has a certain (passive) aptitude to be assumed by
God as a fitting instrument in the proc;Iuctionof grace. 16 Since
this signification is entirely natural, antecedent to the institution of the sacraments by Our Lord, of itself it has no reference
to a sacramental effect. It is indeed the formal element of the
action proper to the sacrament 17 as distinct from its sacramental activity in the hands of the principal agent, but this
proper activity has no relation, either of signification or of
causality, to the instrumental effect, when the effect is supernatural. It would be a serious mistake to endeavour to determine the effect of the sacrament by reference to this purely
natural signification; and one is not surprised to find that such
an attempt has led to assigning as the immediate effect of the
sacrament that mysterious reset sacramentum which is neither
grace nor the character .18
The properly sacramental, or supernatural signification, which
can determine the effect of the sacrament, is distinct
from this natural signification. Between the action proper to
the instrument and the supernatural effect there is not even
a proportion, although there is a " proportionality " or proportion of proportions between the two relations of causality and
signification. 19 The instrument has, of itself, a remote suitableness, a passive aptitude, that it should be elevated by God to
De Veritate, q. 1!7, a. 4, ad 13um.
Formally, such proper action is actio aen:ribilia symbolica.
18 According to Billot (De Eccle:riae Sacramentia, Rome, 1931, p. 59 sqq.) the
rea et sacramentum is the effect of the proper action of the sacrament and, as such,
must be purely natural; yet it is described as a dispo:ritio :rive titulus de se exigens
infu:rionem gratiae (p. 101!) . Such an entity must be supernatural, and could not
therefore be the effect of the actio praevia of the sacrament. Similarly, by teaching
that the sacrament is a sign, not of grace, but of this rea et sacramentum, that is,
the sign of a sign, he seems to forget that "intelligible effects do not have the
nature of a sign unless they are manifested by signs of some sort '' (Summa Theol.,
ill, q. 60, a. 4, ad 4um). The rea et sacramentum could be a sign only in so
far as it is infallibly connected with the outward sensible action of the sacrament;
its signification is but a participation in the signification of the outward rite. If
this later signification does not terminate at grace, neither does that of the rea et
sacramentum, not even indirectly.
19 Cf. IV Sent .• d. I, q. 1, a. I.
18

17

846

A. J. MCNICHOLL

signify a supernatural effect; after the divine institution of the
sacrament it has an active aptitude to signify such an effect,
and in this sense St. Thomas often says that a divine power
dwells in the sacrament in an incipient state (inchoative) even
before the actual confection of the sacrament. Billot is perfectly correct when he teaches that such signification, and such
active aptitude, are purely intentional entities, totally depending on the divine intention and institution. Such signification is
not natural, not only because its cause and term are supernatural, but also because it is arbitrary, and as such is an entity
of reason (ens rationis) which has objective existence only in
the divine mind. The sacramental signification draws any
reality it possesses from its cause and source, the divine intention or imperium; it is not something to be found as a real entity
in the sacrament itself. Materially, the natural and the sacramental significations are one and the same thing, since the
natural signification is elevated to signify a divine effect; from
this point of view the following words of Cardinal Cajetan are
verified: "the power of the words (in the form of the Eucharist)
is not a super-added quality, as if it were something distinct
from the signifying prayer, but it is the signifying prayer itself
as the instrument of God in the consecration." 2 ° Formally,
however, the sacramental signification is divine, and is not
distinct from the divine institution of the sacrament; it is the
divine decree itself, ordaining the sanctification of man through
sensible rites, as denominating or pertaining to those rites
themselves. 21
This same distinction between the natural and the supernatural significations provides an answer to the famous objection against the physical causality of the sacraments which
Billot bases upon their valid but unfruitful reception. 22 The
supernatural signification depends entirely upon the divine
intention; in fact it is this ·very intention, and so is never
•• Comm. in Ill, q. 78, a. 4.
21 The two significations are distinguished in IV Sent., d. VIII, q. 2, a:. S, ad 6um.
•• Cf. Billot, loc. cit., pp. 129 sqq.

SACRAMENTAL

SIGNIFICATION

347

frustrated. This intention is to cause grace through the valid
sacrament, when it is received with the proper dispositions (non
ponentibus obicem), and this intention or signification is always
verified. The natural signification may, indeed, be falsified, i£
grace is not actually conferred through the sacrament. Billot's
objection envisages this signification alone, but just as this
signification when verified, does not make the sacrament to be
a true and efficacious sign, so too, when it is not verified, it
does not render it false and inefficacious. Further, this objection assumes that the sacramental signification terminates at
grace as actually produced in the soul o£ the recipient, whereas,
as we have seen, the formal term is the divine intention o£ conferring grace through the sacraments when received with the
proper dispositions.
We seem to be confronted with a paradox when we collate the
two conclusions at which we have arrived, namely, (I) that the
principal term o£ sacramental signification is the divine imperium which transforms created agents into instruments pregnant with divine life, and (2) that the sacramental signification
itself is really nothing more than this divine imperium, elevating
the natural signification o£ the sacrament to a supernatural
plane. Thus it appears that the signification, formally considered, and its formal term, are identified; that which is signified is that which signifies, but through the medium o£ sensible
things £rom which alone man can learn in a way befitting his
composite nature. Spontaneously we think o£ that other paradox, the paradox o£ faith, wherein that which we believe is that
by which we believe-God made known by God, God revealing
Himself to us, once more in terms o£ human thought and o£
human nature. The sacraments are sacraments o£ faith, like to
the Blessed Eucharist in that they are mysteries o£ faith. I£
they share in the mystery o£ faith, they also, like faith, point to
God, and are signs o£ God. They are signs by which we profess
externally the faith that is within us; that is their subjective
aspect. But this faith reveals to us the mystery o£ the sharing
by man in the fruits o£ redemption gained £or us through the

848

A. J. MCNICHOLL

sufferings of Christ and applied to our souls by means of the
sacraments. They signify the sanctification of man by that
grace which has been gained for us by the passion of Our Lord,
and which by divine decree is communicated to souls in order
to lead them on to the complete transformation to the image of
Christ in glory. They make known to the world the divine intention of transforming souls to the image of the suffering
Christ, and they are raised to a sharing in His redemptive
activity. They signify the actual realization of the divine plan
of man's sanctification through the use of sensible elements
which are active with the activity of their author and principal
cause; they signify something eminently objective, something
divine, with all fecundity and infinity of the divine. We may
define the immediate term of this signification, but we can set
no limits to the extension of such signification to other supernatural realities, included in or flowing from this term, since
the divine decree embraces all time and all being.

A. J. McNICHOLL, O.P.
CoUegio Angelicum,

Rome, Italy

BOOK REVIEWS
The Origins of Christian Supernaturalism. By SHIRLEY JACKSON CAsE.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1946. Pp. 248, with index.
$3.00.
The title of this book, " The Origins of Christian Supernaturalism," is
not easy to understand; in the book Judaism is mentioned, Jesus is noticed,
as it were in passing, for the Saviour of the world always remains in the
shadows, but what is stressed is the influence of pagan philosophy and pagan
religious cults on the beginnings of Christianity. The author (p. vi) states
that the " present volume presents a survey of historical data." The digest
of pagan philosophy and pagan religious myths is well done. It is clear that
the Mediterranean world, at the time Christianity came to it, held to a
belief that the activity of the world, in some obscure way, was controlled by
superhuman powers. But it is not clear what the author attempts to prove
from this. His thesis seems to be that the supernatural element in Christianity is not supernatural at all but is due to the religious conditions of the
time; it was a better and more potent form of supernaturalism than the
Greek form and so conquered the Greek world. Dr. Case concludes the
book: " Christian supernaturalism arose to serve a functional need in the
course of the new religion's expansion within its particular environment
and in relation to characteristic modes of thinking prevalent in that day,"
and since these modes of thinking are no longer influential on the modern
world, " to maintain rigid adhesion to an outworn type of interpretation
might prove in reality detrimental to Christianity" (p. 224). The thesis,
of course, is not new; it was enunciated by Loisy and others a long time
ago and under various forms. At the present time it is not so prominent.
The book, therefore, belongs to that class of books which come under the
heading: " Comparative Study of Religions." Hence the title is misleading
or, at least, ambiguous; the book is not concerned with the real origin of
Christian supernaturalism at all.
The comparative study of religions is not something new nor is it to be
censured. If this science did not exist it would have to be devised; analogies
between diverse religions cannot be denied. People, no matter how far you
go back in history, do not live in hermetically sealed compartments. Nations
did not develop in isolation; peoples, tribes, and nations influenced one
another; even prehistoric time has its influence on historic time. Neither
did the religions of nations develop in isolation; the advanced form of
religions among the Greeks is not due to the Greeks alone. Nor did

349

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BOOK REVIEWS

Christianity develop in isolation. But development is one thing and origin
is quite another.
It was necessary, for instance, for a new religion to speak the language
of the time in which it appeared. If it did not it could have no contact
with the time nor any influence on the religion or the people of the time.
Christianity spoke the language of the Greeks; there was no other language
in common use in the Mediterranean world of that time. The writers of
the New Testament used the language of the religious writers of the Greeks
and, in point of fact, a great number of terms passed over from the religions
of Greece and of Rome to the religion of Jesus Christ. But widely divergent
spiritual attitudes and beliefs may creep in under the same symbols and
the same language. Religions may present similarities of language or of
externals but these will not necessarily indicate a common origin or even
the borrowing of one from the other. The vocabulary of the New Testament
and of the early Fathers of the Church is certainly the vocabulary of the
Greeks and sometimes even of the religion of the Greeks. But the content
of the vocabulary is not the same and we should not confound the expression with the thought. Hence, there is grave danger of exaggerating the
importance of analogies between religious rites and of concluding a dependance where only a resemblance exists, which may be traced to the
general laws of language and to the common basis of human nature.
Criticism of Christian origins often pays no attention to tradition and
excludes the supernatural in constant search for purely human origins or
antecedents to explain the most stupendous religious fact in history, namely,
the rise of Christianity. Christianity, it is said, invaded and conquered
the Graeco-Roman world because it is a fusion of Jewish and pagan
religious and philosophical elements. To sustain this thesis and reduce
Christianity to the plane of other naturalistic religions the vast field of
history has been investigated. Authors have turned to India, Babylon, to
all forms of Greek piety and to oriental syncretism; Semites, Iranians,
Egyptians, and Greeks cooperated to produce the religion of Christ. Dr.
Case states: " In less than four hundred years of historical development
Christianity had acquired a full supernatural equipment. No area of Jewish
or gentile thinking was left uninvaded. Every form of supernatural belief
was revised or transformed and supplemented to serve the purpose of the
new religion" (p. 220). Now, no one calls into question the superiority of
Christianity in relation to Judaism nor will any one seriously deny that it is
successor to that religion but Christianity certainly does not go back to a
graftin,g process of pagan religious cults. Aside from doctrinal considerations, the sensual and barbaric atmosphere of these rites renders it highly
improbable that any Christian preacher or religous leader would borrow
from them, even unconsciously. Also, the hypothesis is futile because of a
singular fact: Jesus. Christian tradition explains Christianity very simply.

BOOK REVIEWS

351

Jesus saw his mission clearly. He told it to the disciples and they told it
to the world. Of course St. Paul was not a disciple but he knew Christ
and his mission by special contact with Chr.ist and also through his association with the other disciples. Neither Paul nor the others needed to go
to the Greeks; indeed they knew little about the Greeks and what they
knew was abhorrent to them. Such an explanation may seem naive to some
but any other is a broad and watered-down variety of Christianity. And
it is difficult to see how a broad and watered-down Christianity, which
would be nothing more than a refined paganism, could be made acceptable
to a pagan world and conquer it. The Greeks would have been breached
by their own petard.
This has to do with the very origin of Christianity; the origin and impulse
But to a certain extent the development of Christianity
came from
could have been favored by the religions of the Greeks. There was a providential preparation for the true faith in the very midst of paganism. The
people who longed ardently for communication and union with the gods
were prepared by their religions, to a certain extent, to welcome the good
news of the Incarnation; they accepted Jesus because they felt that through
him they could come to God. Both Judea and Greece, therefore, had a say
in the development of Christianity. We are the heirs of both. From the
Jews we received the Sacred Scriptures; from the Greeks our confidence in
human reason. We love both and we adhere to both; we follow the footsteps of the prophets but we do not desert the way of the philosophers. But
at the same time we maintain firmly that Jesus was independent of both
Jew and Gentile; in other words, we do not explain the religion promulgated by Jesus on naturalistic grounds. But this seems to be the assumption
of Dr. Case. In referring to the supernaturalism of the early Church he
speaks of it as being acquired. " Christians ... believed themselves to be
in possession of unusual miracle-working power " (p. 15) . " Mark . . . and
subsequent gospel writers excelled even Mark in the use of supernaturalism
to interpret the career of Jesus" (p. flO). "The growth of Christianity
early acquired a full set of supernatural sanctions" (p. flO). "In the next
century the meal became an actual absorption of the flesh and blood of
Christ and insured immortality for the believer's body" (p. fl1). "In less
than a century of historical growth the movement had acquired an elaborate
set of supernatural sanctions . . . it now claimed superiority in this domain" (p. fll). Christian writers did not wait a century to claim superiority; they claimed it from the very beginning and the only way to deny this
is to throw out the New Testament or to date it long after it was written.
Nor did the Eucharist become the sacrament and sacrifice of Christ's body
and blood only after a century. Christ Himself asserted it, Paul insisted on
it, whether one believes that they knew what they were talking about
or not. The Gospel attests to the supernatural character
Jesus because
6

352

BOOK REVIEWS

He so imposed Himself on the Gospel writers; they did not make Jesus,
Jesus made them and to such a fashion that they were willing to die for
Him. Miracles were worked; there must have been something very visible
that struck the eyes of the Greeks, otherwise the sudden spread of Christianity is an enigma. Even the miracles of the Apocrypha of later ages
suppose· and do not exclude miracles that were well established, else the
Apocryphal writers would have been vainly beating the air.
After asserting that Christianity acquired a panoply of supernaturalism
(Dr. Case does not say just how), he goes on to assert that the pagan
world was prepared to accept Christianity because it saw in Christianity
something it already had. The second chapter is entitled," The Value of
Apparitions." " A belief in apparitions was fundamental to early Christians . . . the Christian preacher staked everything upon his conviction
that Jesus had been seen in the days following his crucifixion. Nowadays
one in inclined to smile at ghost stories " (p. QQ) • " In general," says Dr.
Case, " Christians found it exceedingly advantageous to adopt and revise
the apparitional imagery so widely current in their gentile environment "
(p. 4Q). It was something more than ghost stories, however, that overcame
the religious superstition of the ancient world. And the Resurrection is
fundamental, not only to early Christians but to Christians today; demolish
it and you demolish the very basis of Christianity: Jesus Christ. If the
Apostles preached the Resurrection it was because it was real and rested
on well attested facts. One may deny it but not as an historian; the denial
comes from the gratuitous assumption that miracles are impossible.
In the third chapter, "Channels of Revelation," Dr. Case uses the term
" revelation " in exactly the same sense of the revelation of Christ and
of a variety of other revelations. In fact, he uses the term in this way
throughout the book. The gods revealed themselves to the ancient world
and "in this respect its rivals had to be surpassed" (p. 63). Certainly
they were surpassed; the revelation of Christianity is a divine revelation.
One has only to read the New Testament to realize how far it surpasses
the revelation of the Greeks. Such revelation is not a refined pagan revelation coming through the Greeks but a real supernatural revelation coming
from God.
In the chapter on "Heroic Saviours" (chapter 4), Jesus is put in the
same class with heroes like Hercules or with gods like Isis, Osiris, Dionysius,
Demeter, and others. Dr. Case further assumes that the New Testament
writers got their ideas relative to the death of .Christ and the redemption
from these pagan sources. " A belief that salvation was to be attained
through trust in the accomplishment of a deceased historical individual,
later apotheosized as a reward for his self-sacrificing service to humanity,
sounds strange on the lips of Paul, who boasted of his competence in the
Jewish religion of his youth" (p. 9Q). "Certainly," says Dr. Case, "Paul

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353

found nothing there to suggest that salvation was to be attained through
the death of a man who would subsequently be elevated to the dignity of
a God." Dr. Case asserts that Paul persuaded himself that it was there.
Of course Paul found nothing in the Old Testament about a man being
elevated to a God but it did not take much persuasion on the part of
Paul to find the office and the mission of the Messias there, for it is there;
Paul makes frequent reference to the Old Testament about these things
and he knew as much about the Old Testament as Dr. Case. But what Dr.
Case seems to forget is that St. Paul is not relying on the Old Testament
for the clarity of his concept of the Crucified Jesus but on his direct visions
which were so real that he was willing to die for their truth and no Greek
worshiper of Dionysius or lVIithras had such a vision or such a spirit of
Martyrdom.
In the chapter," On the Human Approach to the Gods" (chapter 5}, the
author says that the Greeks and the Romans were a praying people and,
therefore, were prepared to accept a praying Christian missionary. "Christianity triumphed not by abolishing the yearnings of the heathen for access
to the supernatural but by intensifying and heightening the customary
There is nothing surprising
techniques for attaining this goal" (p.
about this; Christ came not to destroy the yearnings of nature but to
perfect them and it is natural for man to pray. The matter of prayer does
not explain why·the Greeks accepted Jesus. The Jews also knew of prayer
but they rejected Jesus. Why the Greeks accepted Jesus and the Jews
rejected him is an interesting and intriguing problem but it is not to be
explained by the presence or absence of prayer for both were a praying
people, each in his own way.
Again, toward the end of the same chapter (p. 119} Dr. Case implies
that there was little, if any, ecclesiastical organization, no priesthood, and
no sacrifice. It is true that there was little but there was something and an
impartial historical investigation will show that there were the beginnings
of an ecclesiastical organization. And, of course, there was a sacrifice, the
sacrifice of Christ's body, and a priesthood, the members of which were
ordained and commissioned by Christ Himself. The priesthood and sacrifice
came not by Greek imitation. If Christian missionaries did not have these
things from the beginning how could they preach them to the Greeks? They
would have had to preach and borrow at the same time, a rare feat of
legerdemain which would hardly have gone unnoticed by the ancient world.
In the chapter, "Protection for Society (Church and State)," concerning
providential care of the individual, the destiny and immortality of the
soul, Dr. Case points out certain ideas that were prevalent in the Roman
and Greek world. In none of these things is the Christian beholden to the
Roman or the Greek. The Christians learned a lot from the Greeks and
the Romans and they assimilated what was good into their system, but
the system was theirs.

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BOOK REVIEWS

In the last two chapters Dr. Case is overly concerned with the suppression
of the mind and the survival of Christianity because of supernaturalism.
Supernaturalism keeps intellectualism in bondage to religion, thinks Dr.
Case; " the activities of the mind had to be suppressed in the interests of
an allegedly infallible ecclesiastical institution" (p.
"Early in its
career Christianity declared itself to be a divine institution . . . intellectualism can thrive only where perfect liberty is accorded the scholar, etc."
(p.
. Dr. Case is needlessly concerned; an infallible and divine Christianity never interfered with the legitimate aim or research of scholars.
Of its very nature it cannot; the object of the human intellect is truth
and that is. also the object of Divine Revelation, but truth of a higher
order. We are speaking, of course, of the divine and infallible institution
founded by Christ and not of a deified and infallible man-made institution
like the mystery religions of Greece and other religions. What is to be feared
is this defied humanism.
Dr. Case then synopsizes the long history of the relations between supernaturalism and the human intellect, that is, between faith and reason. Up
to the time of the modern rationalists, Christian theologians and philosophers attempted to reconcile faith with reason; the moderns dispense completely with faith and the supernatural. In passing, Dr. Case notes the
distinction that St. Thomas Aquinas makes between the " light of natural
reason " and the " light of divine revelation " whereby some things can be
known by human reason alone and other things only by revelation, but
the supreme arbiter is always revelation. Thus, says Dr. Case: " Supernaturalism was still supreme" (p. 229). Naturally, for St. Thomas man
always remains man and does not become God. But the moderns make the
fallible human intellect supreme; in other words, they deify it and make it
infallible, although, of course, they do this unconsciously. The euhemerism
of the Greeks has returned. A Christian cannot subscribe to such a doctrine
without repudiating Christ. Either the religion of Christ is divine, and,
therefore, supreme or it is not. If it is divine it will survive because of
its supernaturalism, and there is nothing that one can do against it. If it
were not divine it would have gone the way of the mystery religions of
bygone days in spite of an acquired supernaturalism and there is nothing
one can do for it.
Enough has been cited to show the tendency of this work. It is, in
general, a good digest of pagan religions and even of pagan religious philosophy. In this latter respect it might be noted that Dr. Case makes Aristotle
conclude to what he certainly does not conclude (p. 174). The Stagirite
never denied the immortality of the soul. Although his doctrine is confused and conditioned by his teaching concerning the active intellect, from
his principles one would conclude to the survival rather than to a denial
of the immortality of the soul.

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Dr. Case's thesis, then, is hardly novel nor at the present time particularly pertinent. The study of Christianity in its beginnings can be rewarding. But, the reality of Christian supernaturalism and its origin and,
therefore, the reason for the rise and survival of Christianity, entirely
escape this book.
J. S. CoNsiDINE, 0. P.
Dominican House of Studies,
River Forest, Illinois

The Myth of the State. By ERNST CAsSIRER. Yale University Press: New
Haven, Connecticut, 1946. Pp. 303 with Foreword. $3.75.
This is the last book written by Mr. Ernst Cassirer. His other books,
especially The Problem of Knowledge, lndividuurn und Kosmos in der
Philosophie der Renaissance, and Essay on Man aroused widespread interest
and established him as one of the most influential writers of contemporary
times.
In the foreword to this book, Mr. Charles W. Hendel, colleague and
critic of the present work, states the occasion for the writing of " The Myth
of the State." It came about because of the " dark, troubled times in which
we were living," and " the friends of Professor Cassirer looked to him as
the man who could speak with the wisest judgment, since he could interpret the situation of our time in the two great perspectives of history and
philosophy."
The book is divided into three parts. Part I is " What is Myth? " In
this part, Mr. Cassirer outlines what various authorities have analyzed
myth to be. These include such writers as Sir James Frazer, Levy-Bruhl,
F. Max Miiller, Herbert Spencer, and Sigmund Freud. Mr. Cassirer examines them critically and finds that all tend to over-emphasize this or
that element. His own conclusions on myth may be summarized as follows.
As opposed to science, which gives a unity of thought, " religion and myth
give us a unity of feeling." The myth is built up in an entirely fantastic
world. Its only " objective " aspect is the objectification of feelings. " Myth
does not arise solely from intellectual processes; it sprouts forth from deep
human emotions." The myth is an emotion turned into an image. It is
concerned not so much with individual experiences as with the objectification of man's social experiences. The genuine myth lives in a world of
images which are not known as images but are regarded as realities. Mr.
Cassirer particularly asociates myth with the difficult task of explaining
death: it is myth that persuades us that death does not mean extinction of
man's life, but rather only a change in the form of life. " In mythical
thought the mystery of death is' turned into an image '-and by this trans-

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formation, death ceases being a hard, unbearable physical fact; it becomes
understandable and supportable."-If this brief summary of Mr. Cassirer's
notion of myth entails some ambiguity, I think, nevertheless, it reflects
accurately his treatment. The notion of myth is not clearly distinguished
and there is a somewhat subtle identification of myth with religion.
Part II is " The Struggle against Myth in the History of Political
Theory." This is the major part of the book and analyzes thinkers who
have struggled against myth in the history of political theory. It starts
with the early Greeks and continues through Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (insufficiently), St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Machiavelli, the various adherents
to the Social Contract, the thinkers of the Enlightenment and of Romanticism. Some of Mr. Cassirer's best work as a " critical historian of ideas "
appears in this section.
Part III is "The Myth of the Twentieth Century." This section treats
those who began the accomplishment of the twentieth century myth and
those who fulfilled it. It starts with Thomas Carlyle and continues through
Gobineau, Hegel, and the various political myth makers of the present
century, particularly in Germany. At the conclusion of this, Mr. Cassirer
adds a brief, final summary.
It appears that a rather important question remains unresolved at the
conclusion of the book. This question concerns the title itself of the book:
Why the myth of the state? What is Mr. Cassirer's problem and why
should it be stated in terms of myth? The problem presumably is the
political disorder of the present time. Are we to accept mythical thinking
as the real cause of this disorder? In this book, myth becomes the principle
for interpreting all intellectual and moral disorder in man. Yet it seems,
rather, that myth itself is a part of this disorder and must point to something else as its cause. The degeneracy of the political order in our times
assuredly involves more than the influence of myth, even if myth is revealing by way of exploring political disorder. But what we have in fact is
a profound perversion of all levels, moral, philosophical, and especially
theological. If it were agreed that theological principles are the highest
and that any perversion can be- measured to the degree it denies the
highest, we would have a clear principle of measure. In this way, we might
understand myth in the perverse sense of superstitition, and hence a
denial of theology and religion. But for Mr. Cassirer, so far as he is explicit on this point, religion seems to be a form of myth, and no other
sound, literal principle is presented by way of measuring myth.
Also with respect to the question of the title of the book, it is significant
to note that Mr. Cassirer scarcely treats Aristotle in an analysis of political
thought while he devotes considerable space to Plato. I do not intend by
this to oppose Aristotle and Plato; in fact, I think it can be shown that
they are not in any fundamental opposition. But the point is that in

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357

Aristotle, literal principles and distinctions will be found on the nature
of the state, its function, and the different forms of government; these are
necessary for any political critique. Mr. Cassirer makes no use of them.
In Plato, such literal distinctions are not made explicit, which is not to
say they are not present. Plato's intention is other than Aristotle's and
his approach and method are symbolical rather than literal. However, without a good grasp of aristotelian principles, a platonic analysis will be inevitably misconstrued; even with a good aristotelian basis, Plato can be misconstrued. Hence, Plato and Aristotle are usually put in opposition since
the one opposing them is only an aristotelian or only a platonist. A symbolic analysis is good only if it does not contradict literal truths, and Aristotle has the literal truths. Aristotle shows throughout his works that if
Plato is taken literally, Plato is false. Hence we must first know Aristotle
if we are to understand Plato even if it tells us only how not to read Plato.
And we certainly need Aristotle if we are going to do any critical work
on the state and on distinctions of good and bad government.
The relevance of this to Mr. Cassirer's book is this. By ignoring Aristotle
(in an historical criticism of political theory), he has ignored the literal basis
needed to discuss good and bad government. This is also related to titling
the book " The Myth of the State." Without the literal, scientific distinctions, there is no solid basis for evaluating good and bad government,
and even less for discussing the state in terms of myth. And without
theological principles, there is no basis for determining the most profound
causes of the disorder even on the political level. I am not concerned with
the question whether Mr. Cassirer could or should have had a theological
critique; it is enough to see the problem objectively and understand how it
requires also a theological analysis for a resolution. I shall discuss briefly
two writers Mr. Cassirer considers (Plato and Machiavelli) by way of
making this general criticism more explicit.
In the first section of his part on Plato, Mr. Cassirer writes: "I cannot
accept, however, the thesis of Jaeger that Plato regarded the Republic
as the' true home of the philosopher.' If the Republic means the 'earthly
state,' this judgment is contradicted by Plato himself. To him as well as to
St. Augustine the home of the philosopher was the civitas divina, not the
civitas terrena. But Plato did not allow this religious tendency to influence
his political judgment. He became a political thinker and a statesman not
by inclination but from duty. And he inculcated this duty in the minds
of his philosophers. If they would follow their own way they would prefer
by far a speculative life to a political life. But they must be summoned
back to earth, and, if necessary, compelled to participate in the life of the
state. The philosopher, the man who constantly holds converse with the
divine order, will not easily return to the political arena .... The conflict
between the two tendencies in Plato's thought, the one tending to surpass

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all limits of the empirical world, the other leading him back to this world
in order to organize it and to bring it into rational rules, is never resolved. . . . Even after having written his Republic, after having become a
political reformer, Plato, as a metaphysician and as an ethical thinker,
never feels completely at home in his earthly state " (pp. 68-64) .
Mr. Cassirer is quite sound in rejecting the Jaeger thesis, and he shows
an initial grasp of Plato's thought that is better than many interpreters.
Yet he also fails to see fully the intention of Plato when he states there
is an unresolved " conflict between two tendencies in Plato's thought." He
does see the ordering of Plato's thought in so far as it seeks to transcend
the " limits of the empirical world." He might have seen further that
Plato's fundamental intention, manifest in various places throughout the
dialogues, is to transcend human reason itself, so far as possible, at least
in the negative sense of showing the limitations of human reason. Positively, this intention is to manifest things in their relation to God even
though this is often obscure to human reason. Consequently, what often
looks like a conflict in Plato is, instead, the radical insufficiency of human
reason to treat the ultimate problems raised, problems which center on the
relation of man to God. It is Aristotle who gives literal solutions to
problems. Plato raises questions (or " conflicts ") which extend beyond
human reason.
In this sense, then, we may speak of a " conflict " present in Plato's
writings. It is not, however, a contradictory element in Plato's thinking;
it is a conflict he deliberately makes evident. Such is the conflict Mr.
Cassirer is referring to when he speaks of the " philosophers " in the
Republic who would prefer a speculative life to a political life and who will
" not easily condescend to return to the political arena." This can be rightly
construed, as Mr. Cassirer implies, as a kind of conflict between the contemplative life and the life of action, a natural opposition for even a wellordered human being. Plato's philosophers, whether intended by Plato or
not, are like the saints who are ordered primarily to contemplation (which
is like Plato's "speculation" and not like Aristotle's "speculation"). Yet
even the saints have the conflict of the cares of the world to consider and
the cares of the political state. And they must return to it, even if not
easily, as a duty. In this way there is a conflict, but not one which is
Plato's, nor one which cannot be resolved. Plato himself says, as quoted
by Mr. Cassirer: "A man whose thoughts are fixed on true reality has no
leisure to look downwards on the affairs of man, to take part in their quarrels, and to catch the infection of their jealousies and hates. He contemplates a world of unchanging and harmonious order, where reason governs
and nothing can do or suffer wrong .... So the philosopher, in constant
companionship with the divine order of the world, will reproduce that
order in his soul and, so far as man may, become godlike. . . . Suppose,

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359

then, he should find himself compelled to mould other characters besides his
own and to shape the pattern of public and private life into conformity
with his vision of the ideal, he will not lack the skill to produce such
counterparts of temperance, justice, and all the virtues as can exist in the
ordinary man" (Republic, 500).
Mr. Cassirer, by not employing the sound, literal basis of Aristotle to
see that Plato's method is symbolical and that Plato's intention, in one
sense of the term, is theological, misses the real intention of Plato. This
becomes more evident in Mr. Cassirer's treatment of the Republic as a
" theory of the legal state." If Plato's Republic becomes a state in a purely
literal and political sense (as Aristotle treats the state), then difficulties
and incongruities multiply, as Mr. Cassirer accordingly notes. But if
Plato's Republic is an approximation of a heavenly state so far as possible
in this human world, and clouded with the many imperfections of human
understanding-the danger of which Plato constantly warns us-then the
so-called inconsistencies and contradictions do not arise.
This is important for the problem of the myth in relation to the state,
which Mr. Cassirer is raising. What is the "ideal" state for which Plato
is looking? In Mr. Cassirer's words: "The model he is looking for is far
beyond the empirical and historical world" (p. 71). In Plato's words, it
is "laid up somewhere in heaven." Now, is such an "ideal" state a reality
in any sense, or is it to be relegated to the domain of myth? In treating
myth, Mr. Cassirer has described it as being remote from "empirical
reality." Plato's Republic is also remote from empirical reality. Is it not,
then, as much myth as the modern totalitarian tyranny? If not, how, in
terms of Mr. Cassirer's analysis, can it be distinguished? If anything removed from empirical reality is myth, is there then " good " myth as well
as" bad" myth? And how do we know, in the absence of a literal critique,
what makes a state good or bad?
How, in particular, does Mr. Cassirer treat Plato and myth, especially
in view of the way in which Plato himself employs myth? Mr. Cassirer
claims that Plato " had to break the power of the myth. But here Plato
encountered the greatest difficulties. He could not solve the problem without, in a certain sense, surpassing himself and going beyond his own limits.
Plato felt the whole charm of the myth. He was endowed with a most
powerful imagination that enabled him to become one of the greatest myth
makers in human history. For we cannot think of Platonic philosophy
without thinking of the Platonic myths. In these myths-in the myths of
the 'supercelestial place,' of the prisoners in the cave, of the soul's choice
of its future destiny, of the judgment after death, Plato expressed his most
profound metaphysical thoughts and intuitions. . . . How is it to be accounted for that the same thinker who admitted mythical concepts and
mythical language so readily into his metaphysics and his natural philosophy

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spoke in an entirely different vein when developing his political theories?
For in this field Plato became the professed enemy of myth. If we tolerate
myth in our political systems, he declared, all our hopes for a reconstruction and reformation of our political and social life are lost. There is only
one alternative: we have to make our choice between an ethical and a
mythical conception of the state. In the Legal State, the state of justice,
there is no room left for the conceptions of mythology, for the gods of
Homer and Hesiod" (pp. 71-72).
It seems a bit incredible that Mr. Cassirer senses no change in meaning
between the " myth " of the prisoners of the cave, etc., and the " myth "
the poets tell in the Republic. The " myth " Plato denounces in the
Republic is not at all the same as the " myth " of the prisoners in the
cave or even of the whole Platonic Republic itself. The myth which Plato
denounces, the myth of the fable, is the idolatry of human invention, the
lies men tell about God, and such myths Plato would outlaw in the
Republic. The Platonic symbol of the cave, of the Republic, etc. {also
called " myth ") is the attempt to reach the understanding of the divine
within the limits of human reason. The myth of the fable is the perversion
of human reason, the myth against which Mr. Cassirer is also writing. The
other is above human reason which we can approach only through the
symbolic mode, but which gives something of an understanding we could
not otherwise attain.
It is not to be wondered, then, that Plato condemns the one and employs
the other. To fail to distinguish the two is to fail to see the real contribution Plato made against the anti-rational and superstitious myth. And,
on the other hand, it is a failure to see a primary purpose of the Republic,
which is to induce man to become more like God, so far as man is able.
But to introduce the notion of myth, especially if it is ambiguous, into a
critique of the state seems rather to confuse than to clarify. Apparently we
would have to distinguish between good myth and bad myth, but when
we do this the point of relating tyrannical government to the myth loses
its force and cogency because there is no principle for distinguishing the
good and the bad. And at best, it would still camouflage the proper principles for a scientific criticism of the bad state. Mr. Cassirer's own lengthy
consideration of Plato, who is the master of the symbol, is unsuccessful at
the very point where he should have distinguished the perverse myth from
the reasoned myth (if this terminology is to be employed). He is unsuccessful because he himself wishes to criticize contemporary political disorder
without a sound, literal basis, i. e., without real and objective distinctions
for determining good and bad government. This sort of approach, in
effect, is to be symbolical without the literal or, {without intending a play
with words) to be mythical about the state as a myth.
J.lerhaps the best critical work of Mr. Cassirer appears in his section on

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Machiavelli. It covers nearly fifty pages of his book and gives a certain
intelligibility to Machiavelli perhaps found nowhere else.
An important part of his analysis shows how Machiavelli is the " child
of his age," the typical witness to the Renaissance and the first great proponent of the modem, secular state. For example, Machiavelli's admiration
for Cesare Borgia was not for the man himself, but for " the structure of
the new state that had been created by him " (p. 134) . Machiavelli " was
the first who, decidedly and unquestionably, broke away from the whole
scholastic tradition. He destroyed the cornerstone of this tradition-the
hierarchic system" (p. 135). Religion, in Machiavelli's view, is useful for
the state in the modem sense: ". . . religion is no longer an end in itself;
it has become a mere tool in the hands of political rulers . . . Religion no
longer bears any relation to a transcendant order of things and it has lost
all its spiritual values. The process of secularization has come to its close;
for the secular state exists not only de facto but also de jure; it has found
its definite theoretical legitimization" (pp. 138-139).
This, and other passages in Mr. Cassirer's book, expose well the content
of Machiavelli's doctrine and its implications. But it is otherwise with
respect to any critique on Machiavelli's thought. This can be illustrated by
his chapter on "The Moral Problem in Machiavelli." The problem arises
from the highly immoral practices advised in The Prince for the ruler of
the state. Mr. Cassirer notes: "It remains, however, one of the great
puzzles in the history of human civilization how a man like Machiavelli,
a great and noble mind, could become the advocate of ' splendid wickedness.'" (p. 145). Mr. Cassirer's explanation is that Machiavelli accepts
as a first principle in the formation of the state that all men are bad by
nature and that this depravity cannot be cured by laws, but only by force.
A prince must know this to be successful. Hence, as matters stand, a
prince should also learn the art of craft and treachery. As Machiavelli's
famous simile tells us: " A prince ought to know how to resemble a beast
as well as a man upon occasion . . . he should make the lion and the
fox his pattern . . . so that he must be a fox to enable him to find out
the snares and a lion in order to terrify the wolves." (The Prince, chap.
XVIII, as quoted by Mr. Cassirer, p. 150). Since, then, political life is full
of crimes and treacheries, Machiavelli consciously undertook to teach this
art of crime; in political life, no distinction is to be drawn between " virtue "
and " vice."
One would expect in a book concerned with explaining the rise of modem
tyranny some refutation of those points of doctrine which laid the foundation for political perversity. Such points can be found in Machiavelli and
they are most illuminating with respect to modern tyranny. But Mr. Cassirer proceeds thus: " Yet if The Prince is anything but a moral or a
pedagogical treatise, it does not follow that, for this reason, it is an im-

BOOK REVIEWS

moral book. Both judgments are equally wrong. The Prince is neither a
moral nor an immoral book; it is simply a technical book. In a technical
book we do not seek for rules of ethical conduct, of good and evil. It is
enough if we are told what is useful or useless. Every word in The Prince
must be read and interpreted in that way" (p. 153).
It is in such a place as this that one particularly would expect some
distinction of good and evil in the political order, perhaps based on a
scientific analysis of the relation of the political and the moral order.
Instead, we have the insistence that there is no moral problem. Mr. Cassirer's distinction between the technical and the ethical in political matters
resembles very much the sort of distinction inserted by the tyrannies of
modem times, against which he is presumably writing. One of the chief
elements contributing to the rise of the political tyrannies of the twentieth
century is the denial of the supremacy of moral principles in political conduct. Mr. Cassirer could have fortified his whole thesis enormously had he
noted the inception of this type of denial in Machiavelli and the consequences it entailed in later political thought and action. Instead, he approves a distinction whose force is to justify theoretically the very disorder
in political life he wishes to attack.
It is here that a reasoned principle, not to say a theological understanding, of the nature of man as a political animal would provide a sound basis
of criticism. For Machiavelli's notion of man is faulty, and it needs criticism if only to make Machiavelli himself intelligible. Machiavell's prince
is based on accepting the denial of the virtue of prudence in a ruler. This
is not to argue that Machiavelli himself should have recognized that prudence should be the chief virtue in the ruler. Mr. Cassirer has well shown
how foreign this would be to Machiavelli's thought. Yet the most revealing analysis of Machiavelli's prince would be to show what happens if,
as Machiavelli intends, the ruler is not tobe a prudent man, but rather an
artist-a technician-defying prudence. For it is in just this way that an
artist of crime develops, and if there is one thing the modern tyranny has
created it is the artist of crime. The only answer to it, the only alternative
to it, is to recognize that prudence, as an intellectual and a moral virtue,
is necessary as directive of the art of the " political technician."
I think the very ignoring of this point in Mr. Cassirer's account of
Machiavelli arises also from the lack of literal distinctions and principles
which he could have obtained originally from Aristotle. Further, his failure
to grasp a moral problem as moral is related to treating the state in terms
of myt};l. For the contemporary political disorder stems from the radical
intellectual and moral disorder, and to understand such disorder only as
"myth" is to miss the real significance of what is happening today.
Much could be written in detail about Mr. Cassirer's book. Much could
be written by way of emphasizing some undeniably good qualities in Mr.

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Cassirer as a " critical historian," able to read the various political theorists
with an admirable penetration. Much, too, could be said by way of questioning further the interpretation he makes of different writers. But all this,
I believe, would in reality add little to a review.
The question still remains, in part, of the use of myth as a principle of
criticizing the state. It seems to me that the more one reads the book
the more apparent it becomes how singularly myth fails to explain political
disorder. The reason for this is that putting the problem in terms of myth
keeps it in the intellectual order and excludes it from the moral order.
Thus the myth does not adequately cope with the problem; it reaches no
real conclusion; and it offers no constructive basis for refuting political
tyranny.
That the myth is not really a critical principle seems evident enough
from the ordering of the book. Thus, Part II concerns those who " struggled against myth." Among those included are Machiavelli, Rousseau,
Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Schlegel, etc. To fail to see in them the theoretical
anticipation of consequent intellectual and moral disorder argues strongly
enough that myth is a barren critical principle. Mr. Cassirer does occasionally suggest points of disorder in these men, but because of his pre-occupation with myth he sees no radical principle of disorder in them. Even when
he discusses Carlyle, Gobineau, and Hegel in the concluding part of the
book, he disassociates them from consciously propagating myth; by implication, then, there is no fundamental disorder in them either. Hence,
to argue that, in varying degrees all these men either " struggled against
myth " or at least did not intentionally propagate myth tells us very little
about their real doctrine. Instead of emphasizing what they " struggled
against" should we not discover what they were "struggling for?" What
is it they want? And do we now have what their doctrines entail?
Further, that interpretation in terms of myth offers no real conclusion
seems evident enough from Mr. Cassirer's own summary:
" It is beyond the power of philosophy to destroy the political myths.
A myth is in a sense invulnerable. It is impervious to rational arguments;
it cannot be refuted by syllogisms. But philosophy can do us another
important service. It can make us understand the adversary. In order to
fight an enemy you must know him. That is one of the first principles
of a sound strategy. To know him means not only to know his defects and
weaknesses; it means to know his strength. All of us have been liable to
underrate his strength. When we first heard of the political myths we found
them so absurd and incongruous, so fantastic and ludicrous that we could
hardly be prevailed upon to take them seriously. By now it has become
clear to all of us that this was a great mistake. We should not commit the
same error a second time. We should carefully study the origin, the struc-

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ture, the methods, and the technique of the political myths. We should see
the adversary face to face in order to know how to combat him" (p. fl96).
In the final conclusion to the book, Mr. Cassirer adds: "What we have
learned in the hard school of our modern political life is the fact that
human culture is by no means the firmly established thing that we once
supposed it to be. The great thinkers, the scientists, the poets, and artists
who laid the foundation of our Western civilization were often convinced
that they had built for eternity .... But the mythical monsters were not
entirely destroyed. They were used for the creation of a new universe,
and they still survive in this universe. The powers of myth were checked
and subdued by superior forces. As long :ts these forces, intellectual, ethical,
and artistic, are in full strength, myth is tamed and subdued. But once
they begin to lose their strength chaos is come again. Mythical thought
then starts to rise anew and to pervade the whole of man's cultural and
social life " (pp. fl97-fl98) .
A significant fact overlooked in this conclusion is that what Mr. Cassirer
calls " myth " can and has existed simultaneously with presumably full
intellectual, ethical, and artistic strength. For when have we had apparently
highed cultural activity, according to "scholars'" views, than during the
last four hundred years? But during that time, have we not also had the
intellectual indoctrination and preparation for the disorder of the twentieth
century? Are we not then led to suspect that the disorder we have now
has a real relation to the culture of this period and to the intellectual leaders
of this time? And does not the use of myth obscure this real relation?
The struggle I am sure Mr. Cassirer wants to write about is, simply, the
struggle between truth and error, and between good and evil. But then
such a book has to be explicitly and profoundly theological. For it is within
a theological ordering that we comprehend fully truth and error, and good
and evil. And only through theological principles can we interpret what
is really happening.
In this way, by something of a paradox, Mr. Cassirer's use of myth becomes revealing. He intends something anti-rational by the myth. We can
understand this, theologically, in terms of original sin, which accounts for
man's inclination toward evil. Perhaps Mr. Cassirer would classify original
sin as myth. But it becomes apparent, rather, that myth-at least the
perverse myth-arises from original sin. I do not intend to offer original
sin as a simplistic solution of the problem, but rather as the principle of
interpretation in place of myth. Nor do I mean to state original sin as
the proper cause of the intellectual and moral disorder in the world, for
that requires a wholly deficient cause found only in the will of man. But
it is a principle which explains the origin of evil and the origin of the
perverse myth as well.

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865

To investigate this further in an adequate manner and to indicate how
theological principles could illumine this particular problem would extend
far beyond the limits of a review. It should be mentioned, however, by
way of noting the positive criticism which can be made. It is enough, for
the present purpose, to underline the insufficiency of myth as the explanation of our contemporary disorder. I think this can be done summarily
by the following question: Is it the " mythical thinker " who remains at
the root of our continuing political disorder? Is it the "mythical thinker"
who blocks the way to international peace and political order? Naziism,
whose apostles Mr. Cassirer considers to be the primary exponents of myth,
is officially dead. Yet our problems of tyranny and disorder continue to
grow. Clearly, then, the men from whom we can fear the most are decidedly
not the myth makers. They are, rather, the presumably educated men
whose only unity consists in an increasing denial of the theological order
and therefore of the natural order as well. They are found chiefly among
philosophers, scientists, politicians, and educators. They are men who deny
the objectivity of truth, the objectivity of moral principles, the objectivity
of the natural law, and so on. They are men who would claim that they
are especially struggling against myth.
To them, and to all of us in our foolishness and self-sufficiency, God has
said and continues to say: " Destruction is thy own, 0 Israel; thy help is
only in me."
JOHN A. OESTERLE, T.O.P.
CoUege of St. Thomas,
St. Pam, Minnesota.

Meaning and Truth in the Arts. By JoHN HosPERS. Chapel Hill, N. C.:
The University of North Carolina Press, 1946. Pp.
with index.
$4.00.

It may be said, though not without risking oversimplification, that there
are three fundamental attitudes which have been taken, or may now be
taken, toward the role which meaning and truth play in art. One is the
view which maintains that art is not only an intellectual habit and experience, but, in being so, is essentially ratiocinative. The artist is simply
a rational craftsman, quite like any other, and the pleasure which his work
gives is the pleasure of a formed rational judgment on the part of the auditor.
In addition, because a rational judgment has been made, it is sometimes said
that the auditor comes from art in possession of logically formulated
"truth" which is subsequently useful to him in a practical way. As a
result, this view sometimes calls itself " functional " and is almost always
favorably disposed toward the " didactic " potentialities of art. When in

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conflict with other attitudes toward art, this first view rather vigorously
claims the intellectual nature of art for itself exclusively, charging that all
anti-ratiocinative positions are necessarily irrational and sentimental. It
will be noted in passing, however, that in order to make this assertion the
proponents of this view must also make an absolute and exhaustive identification of the intellect with the ratiocinative processes, supposing one to
be the other in an exclusive sense.
A second, and more "modem" view, in nearly every way antagonistic
to the first, holds that the reasoning processes either are not involved in art
at all (music), or, if they are involved (literature, the verbal arts), are
serviceable merely as occasional tools to assist the artist and audience
toward an end of a completely different and anti-intellectual character:
the evocation of pleasurable affective states. In this view, "meaning" in
art becomes a· relative and subjective factor, without metaphysical correspondence. " Truth " as correspondence with reality is irrelevant to the
quality of the artefact, although there may be some " truthful " correspondence with similar affective states experienced in life. Knowledge, in this
view, is altogether absent. Because the .ratiocinative operation of art has
been denied, the intellectual nature of art has been denied also. Here again
it will be noticed that an absolute identification of the reasoning processes
and the intellect has been made, though to the precisely opposite effect of
that in the first view above.
A third view is possible, and is the object of much contemporary study.
It would insist that both the creative inspiration of the artist and the
final delight of the auditor are to be located in the intellect, that this consitutes a knowing in both cases, but that the mode of knowing is intuitive
rather than discursively ratiocinative. The creative knowing of the artist
which through his vision in-forms the imitation and is the really imitative
part of it, and the appreciative knowing of the imitation by the auditor are
possessed of valid correspondence with reality and acceptable as truth. On
the other hand, since this mode of knowing is imperfect in man, and since
this truth has not been scientifically achieved, the artefact or imitation has
no further " utility " in subsequent operations of a scientific kind, but must
rest content in its own imperfect but nevertheless proper particular end:
simple delight in the immediate knowledge of created being. The functional
and didactic interpretations of art, in this view, naturally disappear. It will
be seen, then, that this projected third position represents something of a
mean between the first two, and conflicting, views above, accepting as it
does the intellectual emphasis of the first and the non-ratiocinative insistence of the second. It may be that, when this third study shall have
matured a reconciliation between two emphatically opposed traditional
positions will be effected.
Whatever position may finally be taken, it must be said at once that

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the volume now under consideration represents no forward step in the
solution of a long-standing disagreement. It simply takes its stand, and with
surprisingly little awareness of what is to be said for other views, in the
second of the camps outlined above. Dr. Hospers, in his anxiety to exclude
the ratiocinative processes as essential to art, takes an anti-intellectual
position altogether and is thereby forced to deny knowledge (" What art
gives us . . . is something which is not knowledge but perhaps more
valuable than knowledge-the enrichment of experience itself ") ; to disallow any correspondence with reality (" Are not our esthetic experiences
just as rich and rewarding without a transcendental metaphysics to bolster
them up? ") ; and to limit the esthetic experience to affective states:
... a work of art means to us whatever effects (not necessarily emotions) it
evokes in us; a work which has no effects on us means nothing to us, and whatever
effects it does evoke constitute its meaning for us. As we become more acquainted
with the work of art, the effects it evokes in us gradually change, but in that case
its meaning for us (as I have defined it) gradually changes too. The work of art
is one term in the relationship, the evoked reactions the other; and the gradual
changing of the latter as we hear or see the work again constitutes a gradual
change in its meaning for us. Its meaning may or may not be describable in
words-in most cases it is not, since few if any states of mind (particularly
affective states) are describable to the satisfaction of the person who experiences
them.

The subjectivity of his position naturally leads the author into a prolonged duel with subject-matter in art: if art requires no correspondence
with reality, then what of those borrowings from reality (characters, actions,
even: emotions) which turn up again and again? It is a simple enough
matter for Dr. Hospers to dispose of any literal correspondence of a scientific or historical kind between actual persons and/or events and the artefacts in which they may appear; this has been done before, and better, and
is by now a truism. But what of universals (man, revense, sadness)? Is
there no correspondence with reality in these? In the largest view which
he takes, Dr. Hospers would say no ("I do not mean to say that every
work of art must be true-to something or convey some ' reality ' ") ,
although in some cases (and only some) he would allow a certain "truthto " which is merely affective and without metaphysical source: " But
certainly the character or situation presented is true-to something outside
the poem; not true-to any single physical appearance or historical event, but
true-to some salient character or essence . . ." At the same time, ". . . I
have no objection to this kind of language provided that the ' essence '
is not hypostatized into a metaphysical entity." In other words, the
auditor receives a very strong sense impression that the affective state
which he is now undergoing in the presence of a work of art is similar to
certain other affective states which he has previously experienced. He may

7

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subsequently verify the " truthfulness " of one affective state to another
by repeating the esthetic experience in similar life-situations (this, by the
way, is one of the more curious undocumented notions which the author
offers us). In any event, this correspondence of sensed experience to sensed
experience is the very most that can be said for the presence of " truth "
in art. Dr. Hospers is aware, though not critically, that there are other
positions: "Many critics ... feel inclined to give [the esthetic] emotion
some cosmic status by saying that ' reality ' is its source, etc. They are
apparently not satisfied, as we were . . . with saying that art conveys
communicable essences, ways of perceiving the world which are fruitful in
experience; they must add a metaphysics." Dr. Hospers does not discuss
the position of these " other critics," nor does his bibliography indicate
that he has read them. He is simply content to place " Reality " in prejudicial quotation-marks in his chapter heading, call the term a "weaselword," and, in touching briefly on the view of the " many critics," dismiss
the entire notion with: " In any event, I do not see how any such ' reality '
could be of help to us in art."
In the paragraphs directly above, I have tried to indicate not only the
general position taken by Dr. Hospers, but also his rather cavalier method
of dealing with the terminology, and the understanding, of rival positions.
This technique of summary, and sometimes contemptuous, dismissal of
notions common to a great many esthetic systems is by no means confined
to the conclusions of the book, but is immediately apparent in its first
premises, and at once raises a question as to the service which the book
may perform even for its own school of thought.
Particularly is the author's
suspect at the outset in his treatment
of " imitation." That so fundamental a concept in the history of esthetic
formulation should be given less attention than the concepts of " Representation " and " Expression " is startling, but perhaps a possible arrangement in a particular system. That, however, it should be so little understood
in its traditional meaning, and on the basis of a superficial understanding
so hastily discarded, is unforgiveable in a work of these pretensions. Rather
than investigate thoroughly the meaning of the term to discover whether
or no it might have value for his study, Dr. Hospers quickly adopts the
shallow interpretation which the realistic-naturalistic critics have given it:
" To continue to use the term ' imitation ' as the departure from exactness
increases is misleading and dangerous." Or, " ... nature is always transformed, interpreted, ' distorted ' in art . . . but to the extent that there is
this ' distortion,' nature is not accurately imitated . . ." and so on. With
these statements, imitation is abandoned as a useful concept; imitation is
simply precise reproduction (what has been neglected here, of course, is
the distinction between imitation and identity, the absolute necessity of
measure before imitation can exist at all) and since
dissimilarity in

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precise reproduction is clearly inartistic, imitation has no place whatever in
the discussion. Had the author exposed himself sufficiently to any deeper
understanding of the term he might have been greatly assisted in his prolonged bout with subject-matter; indeed some of his more Quixotic battles
perhaps need not have been fought at all.
In the last analysis, however, it is seen to be imperative that Dr. Hospers
avoid becoming entangled in the traditional doctrine of mimesis. On the one
hand, it is too generally agreed that literal precision at the surface of things
is inartistic. On the other, the author is preparing to disallow any metaphysical reality, any form (other than the sensed balance of things) which
might become the actual object of imitation. Between these two negations,
there is no room for mimesis, and the author is quick to rule it out before
it becomes troublesome. He is finally forced, by certain of his other conclusions, to admit it briefly into the discussion on pp. 198-4. The best he
can do with it at this juncture is the following:
. . . some philosophers have said that what the artist imitates or is true-to is an
essence, an objective essence which, though it does not exist in the perceivable
universe, exists (or perhaps subsists) in some metaphysical realm beyond the
senses. But such an hypothesis is certainly not necessary to account for our
esthetic experiences; indeed, it would be of no help at all, since that which is
beyond the realm of the senses cannot, by definition, be sensed. Accordingly, when
we say that the artist reveals an essence we need not be saying anything as metaphysical as this; we mean something in the realm of actual or possible experience
which the artist captures, a new way of seeing or feeling things which we can
share with him. Without this sharability it could not be universal. Perhaps the
essence he captures is true-to his own vision-it probably is; but it is not the
truth-to his own vision that is important; what is important is that his vision
is and can be the vision of others--that he can ' dive into the flux ' and come
back with a vision that we find ' true,' that stands the test of experience. The
essence is verified by our being conditioned by it in our subsequent perceptions.
And it is verified in experience: we need not hypostatize it to lend it dignity and
importance.

We may, however, need to hypostatize it to explain it. Dr. Hospers does
no better by way of ultimate explanation than the above. It is a curious
characteristic of those philosophical schools which pride themselves on
their exclusive attention to tangibles that their conclusions are so remarkably misty and their terminology for dealing with tangibles so povertystricken. This poverty of language, and failure of explicit definition, reaches
its zenith, I think, in this particular work when the author, confronted by
the facts that some works of art do contain referents in reality (a Rembrandt portrait) and that even he is inclined to place some value on this
(irrelevant) content, offers by way of solution a division of art into a thick
sense and a thin sense. The thick sense is achieved where the content is

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in some measure recognizably lifelike, the thin sense where it is exclusively
formal (sensed balances, music). Nor does the author wish to prejudice
the division in favor of the thick: it is simply there, and one may, or may
not, prefer it; it is never essential to art, nor a properly relevant part of it.
Artistic " greatness " is in no wise dependent on it, since no hierarchy of
metaphysical form is admitted as the object of imitation.
The author's cursory method of dealing with premises sometimes leads
him into too great generosity rather than too great exclusiveness. This,
I think, is the case with his handling of the concept " symbol," leading him
as it does through the least conclusive maze within the work. At the outset
Dr. Hospers announces "I think it is most convenient to apply the term
' symbol ' to all cases of ' standing for ' ... " He immediately includes the
artistic " image " within this perhaps too generous referent, and is forced
to spend an entire chapter in trying, unsuccessfully, to disentangle them
again. He might have found it considerably more convenient to attempt
an initial distinction between image and symbol, as the simplest Funk
and Wagnalls Dictionary does: a symbol is "something that (not being a
portrait) stands for something else." He might have found in Funk and
W agnalls, under the term " representation " which in his book follows very
dependently upon the discussion of symbol, no mention of symbol at all.
Indeed, it seems to me that immediate consideration of the distinction
between image and symbol is due on all esthetic fronts, not Dr. Hospers'
alone. We endlessly recognize this distinction without applying it effectively
to our study of the esthetic processes. For instance, we are everlastingly
saying that man is made in the image and likeness of God. We never say
that man is a symbol of God. Indeed, we never mean that man is a symbol
of God, though we do very literally mean that he is made in God's image.
An image, though owing a tremendous mimetic debt, has a further independent existence of its own, is in a measure, and within the character of
its creation, free and self-contained, may be known for itself; a symbol has
no independent vitality once created, is indeed utterly meaningless and
unknowable except in terms of its referent. Sometimes the symbol borrows
upon image-technique; onomatopoeia is a case in point, though this borrowing is always superficial and unessential. Sometimes the process is
reversed, but here again the borrowing can be only superficial and unessential: a halo is a poor substitute, in a painting, for actually seen
(known) spirituality. The two may be distinguished, and their distinctive
modes play a large part in the study, and certainly in the resolution, of the
problems of "meaning" and "truth." Unfortunately, Dr. Hospers has
neglected a distinction which, if successfully made, might again have
rendered unnecessary some of his more difficult jousts.
The author is at his best in those passages devoted to rejecting the
Zolaesque doctrine .of the" scientific" function of art (though his work here

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is merely assimilative, and no fresh contribution) , and to analyzing the
function of word-symbols in literature as prerequisites to the esthetic experience but as not in themselves constituting that experience. It is in the
second of these that Dr. Hospers offers his clearest and most original
thinking.
It must be said, however, that on the whole Dr. Hospers' thought suffers
seriously from certain a priori judgments on fundamental issues, from inadequate acquaintance with traditional interpretations of his subject matter,
and from a prejudicial rigidity of philosophical outlook which invariably
causes him to stop short of, and substitute vague and rhetorical phrases for,
a real coming-to-grips with his problem. It is to be doubted that the book
will serve as an advance in explication even for the constrained philosophical
position to which he is unquestioningly committed.
wALTER KERR.

Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.

An Introduction to Peirce's Philosophy. By JAMES FEmLEMAN. New York:
Harper, 1946. Pp. 508.

I
The name of Charles S. Peirce is usually met in historical prefaces to
pragmatism and symbolic logic. It can be said of him what has been said
of Bergson: that he died with many admirers but not one disciple. But like
Bergson, Peirce dug a deep groove through the generation following him.
In fact, his tradition has been positively continued while JJergson lives not
in word but in the general spirit of revolt against Positivism which he
mustered. Fragments of Peirce's thought appear in the pragmatism of
James; the instrumentalism of Dewey; mathematical logic; semiotic; and
logical positivism, especially in the formulations of Von Neurath. Thus
Peirce's influence, unlike that of Bacon who also stood at the gateway to
a new age, is much more than a name. Indeed, no American thinker has
had so vast, so varied, and so unheralded an influence. Symbolically enough,
as if to emphasize the critical position of Peirce, his life overlapped the turn
of the present century (1889-1914).
Those who have been accustomed to find portions of Peirce's thought
displayed here and there throughout modern philosophy are often unaware
that behind these scattered surfaces lies the firm heart-beat of a complete
philosophical system. Peirce the logician and Peirce the pragmatist were
not aspects of a split personality. They were the connective tissue of an
organic world view. Yet this synthesis, because of historical circumstances,
has remained unstudied and, for the most part, unknown. Indeed, during

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his life-time, Peirce did not publish a single philosophical book. The
standard encyclopedia of his thought has been the Collected Papers, published in 1931 and, because it is a six-volume work, it is available more for
specialists' consultation than for systematic reading. It is the great merit
of Mr. Feibleman's book to have disengaged the underlying system of one
of America's seminal minds and to have revealed a native genius in
American philosophy whose originality and synthetic force stand without
peer.

n
Peirce's thought is represented as the fruit of five positive historical
influences: the philosophy of Kant, the lessons of empirical science, the
realism and voluntarism of Duns Scotus, the dynamism of Darwin, and
the revolt against Descartes.
Like Kant, Peirce discloses, by his conception of logic, the architectonic
of his whole system. Metaphysics, Peirce held, would be " shaky and
insecure," unless it were founded on logic. But Kant had confined his
categories to the subjective order, whereas Peirce insisted that logic must
be founded on experience, thus possessing objective references. It was as a
logician, reacting against Kantian subjectivism toward a noetic realism,
that Peirce was led to pragmatism.
In his lifetime, Peirce was much more successful as a scientist than as a
professional philosopher. He had first-hand experience in both
and the empirical sciences. When he came to explore the locus of scientific
values, he was once more impelled to a statement of realism. He perceived
that only on such a philosophy could the separate sciences operate. The.
exemplar -of this realism, which is perhaps the primary concern of Peirce's
thought, was found in Duns Scotus. The formalism of Scotus enabled
Peirce to apply his logic to the real world and to account for the intelligibility of the individual as pragmatism suggests.
Darwinism provided Peirce with an historical mold for his doctrines
that chance is objective, that existence is associated with opposition and
resistance, and that there is constant evolution in reality. Darwinism, to
Peirce, was another affirmation of realism. Finally, it was realism which led
Peirce away from the Cartesian view of the primacy of consciousness.

m
For Peirce, logic is divided into three parts: Speculative Grammar, dealing with signs; Critical Logic, dealing with arguments; and Speculative
Rhetoric, dealing with discovery and communication. The key to each
branch of logic, as well as to the Peircean philosophy as a whole, is the
notion of a sign. There are really five aspects of a sign. First of all, it is
" anything which determines something else (its interpretant) to refer to

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an object to which itself refers (its object) " (p. 89) . The sign itself is
called the representamen. Also, " a sign stands for an object to an interpretant in some respect, that is, it represents the ' common characters ' of
the object, and this respect is called the ground" (p. 89). There is not
only the interpretant which Peirce seemed to describe as a mental state.
There is also the interpreter, namely, man.
Pierce divided signs into three classes of triadic relations: (p. 90 ff.)
First are the " ' triadic relations of comparison ' or logical possibilities
based on the kind of sign ... ": a) the qualisign, " a quality which is a
sign"; b) the sinsign, "an actual existent thing or event which is a sign";
and c) the legisign, "a law that is a sign." Mr. Feibleman, in general, does
not supply the needed examples to clarify such definitions. Peirce himself,
though not in connection with this present discussion, suggests concrete
cases that are illuminating. (Collected Papers, vol. ii, p. 147 ff.) A qualisign
would be " a feeling of ' red.' " A sinsign would be " an individual diagram.''
A legisign would be "a diagram apart from its factual individuality."
The next class of triads deals with performance or actual fact; it is based
on the kind of ground: a) " the icon, a sign which refers to an object by
virtue of characters of its own which it possesses whether the object exists
or not"; b) "the index, 'a sign which refers to the object that it denotes by
virtue of being really affected by that object '"; and c) " the symbol, ' a
sign which refers to the object that it denotes by virtue of a law, usually
an association of general ideas, which operates to cause the symbol to be
interpreted as referring to that object.'" Peirce writes ( op. cit. p. 266):
" 'J;'ake, for instance, ' it rains.' Here the icon is the mental composite
photograph of all the rainy days the thinker has experienced. The index is
all whereby he distinguishes that day, as it is placed in his experience. The
symbol is the mental act whereby [he] stamps that day as rainy ... " (p. 92).
The third class of signs, dealing with thought or law, is: a) " the rheme,
a sign which represents a possible object"; b) "the dicent, a sign which
represents an actual object "; and c) " the argument, a sign which represents a legal object.'' Examples of these signs may be adduced. A rheme
would be ' a demonstrative pronoun ' or ' a common noun.' A dicent sign
would be 'a street cry.' An argument would be a deduction or induction.
(Peirce, op. cit. p. 147 ff.)
Within the arc of these distinctions and divisions, Peirce's whole system
is found to swing. Related to the triadic dialectic described in logic are
the phenomenological categories; the modes of being; and the modes of
existence.
Phenomenology is " a science that does not draw any distinction of good
and bad in any sense whatever, but just contemplates phenomena as they
are, simply opens its eyes and describes what it sees ... " (p. 145). On the
level of phenomena, three categories of elements thus emerge: quality, fact

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(reaction), and law (rep::-esentation) which are commonly referred to in
Peircean terms as firstness, secondness, and thirdness. Quality is associated
with the notion of originality, spontaneity, and chance. Secondness may be
regarded either as an individual thing (in which case it is called fact) or as
a field of individual things (in which case it is called existence). A fact is
always a coincidence (in the literal sense). It thus involves duality. With
regard to existence, Peirce wrote: " Hie et nunc is the phrase perpetually
in the mouth of Duns Scotus, who first elucidated individual existence.
It is a forcible phrase if understood as Duns did understand it, not as
describing individual existence, but as suggesting it by an example of the
attributes found in the world to accompany it " (p. 163) . Thirdness is
representation. It is betweeness, mediation, and continuity (p. 164).
As distinct from the phenomenological categories are the metaphysical
categories of possibility, actuality, and destiny. In Mr. Feibleman's words:
" What distinguishes the metaphysical from the phenomenological categories
is the overlay of generality which pervades all three of the metaphysical
categories. They are the ultimate and irreducible broad divisions into
which the phenomenological categories fall" (p. 184).
Finally, there are the modes of existence. "Blind force, in its phenomenological aspect of secondness," Mr. Feibleman writes, "we had already
learned, is an effort of resistance, of opposition, of reaction. But the repetition of such an effort in the course of actuality leads to certain patterns
which can be detected. For resistance can only be effected, opposition conducted, and reaction exerted in terms of further categories which the repetition compels them to reveal. These categories are the modes of existence.
Peirce described them as (a) chance, (b) law, and (c) habit" (p. 190).
Chance is irregularity; law is regularity. Habit is a certain fixed mode of
behavior in the ontal order, according to the Peircean scheme. It seems,
in the Darwinian universe of Peirce, to represent the overlay on chance and
law. The triadic logico-ontological system of Peirce thus has obvious
analogies with Hegelian dialectic. In fact, though Peirce disavowed Hegel's
system, Hegel seems to have exerted a much deeper influence than Peirce
and, as a result, Mr. Feibleman seems to acknowledge. Marx showed an
affinity between Darwin and Hegel. Hegelianism failed to keep distinct the
natures of logical and ontal being.

IV
The pragmatism of Peirce originates, it was said, in the attempt to found
knowledge in experience as opposed to the Kantian categories. Logically,
pragmatism is a system of meaning. When Peirce wrote: " The meaning of
a sign is the sign it has to be translated into," (p. 131), he was simply
stating the genc'"al theme of pragmatism that we know and/or validate
anything in terms of its effects. Thus, Peirce could write that " the meaning

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of a proposition embraces every obvious necessary deduction from it " {p.
184): Bain had defined belief as "that upon which a man is prepared to
act," and Peirce was merely transcribing this statement when he wrote that
" different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which
they give rise " (p. 287) . What had been in the logical order a verification
by deducible results has become now in the practical order the pragmatic
test, as Peirce viewed it. "The peculiarity of my philosophy," Peirce said,
" is that it leads to positive predictions comparable with observation " (p.
The sense in which the logical and the practical (exterior) order were
different in Peirce's thought will be approached later.
For Peirce, pragmatism is not a philosophy. It is a method within a
larger philosophical system. It is a material logic, a theory of meaning.
"Pragmatism," Peirce wrote," is not a Weltanschauung but is a method of
reflexion having for its purpose to render ideas clear " (p. 296) . Elsewhere,
he stated: " In order to ascertain the meaning of an intellectual conception
one should consider what practical consequences might conceivably result
by necessity from the truth of that conception; and the sum of these conse.
quences will constitute the entire meaning of that conception " (p.
Peirce emphasized that the action need not actually take place. It need
only be conceived action. Thus he avoided the extreme of holding that
experience must be experienced in order to be experience. Peirce did not
believe that he was proposing a new system but that the concept of
pragmatism could be found even in Socrates.
Both James, the pragmatist, and Dewey, the instrumentalist, acknowledge
Peirce to be the founding father of their systems. Yet Peirce disavowed
the philosophies of these two would-be disciples. Bergson had said once
against exaggerations which were being passed off in the name of Bergsonism: "I am Bergson; I am not Bergsonian."
James was much more concerned with the 'particularity' of consequences
than with their 'practicality.' His system ends in nominalism. It is antimetaphysical in the extreme. Peirce, on the other hand, always insisted on
the priority of realism. "James's attitude is that of a nominalistic psychologist; Peirce's that of the realistic logician. James was concerned chiefly
with the effect of thought on the individual and his particular acts; Peirce
was concerned chiefly with the clarification of ideas" (p. 804). Peirce's
spirit was much deeper and wider than that of James.
Still narrower is the horizon of Dewey in his interpretation of the pragmatic principle. Peirce wrote of Dewey that he seemed " to regard what he
calls' logic' as a natural history of thought" (p. 480). Dewey seems to hold
that men create their experience (p. 478) . His position is thus intensely
subjective, entirely counter to the cast of Peirce's thought. Attempting to
dissociate himself from the direction taken by James and Dewey, Peirce
proposed to call his doctrine 'pragmaticism.' The name, however, was
never widely adopted.

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Because pragmatism occupies only a small portion of Peirce's philosophical system, it is incorrect to pass him off as a pragmatist without benefit of
adjectives. He was much closer to the medieval system than his contemporaries, as his preference for Duns Scotus suggests. He attempted to see
the whole wholly. In this respect, he far excels the water-level of typically
American thought. Philosophy must reach to the boundaries of being itself
and cannot halt, as so often is the contemporary case, where experience
gives place to the probing of man's intellect into ultimate causes and reasons.
Peirce's architectonic principle-his triadic dialectic-gave rise to a psychology, ethics, cosmology, aesthetics, and theology. Peirce had a system
rather than a mere method. He can no more be dismissed as a pragmatist
than he can be relegated to the background chapter of modern mathematical
logic.

v

Mr. Feibleman has wisely confined his present work to the proportions
of a factual presentation of Peirce. He indicates that a full-blown commentary on Peirce's system is in order. Obviously, there are grave questions
that only an extensive critique could resolve. What are the historical origins
(or parallels) of Peirce's triadic dialectic, and to what extent was he really
influenced by Hegel whom he so admired? Did Peirce really succeed in
safeguarding his realism? How can Peirce maintain side by side the apparent formalism of Scotus and the dynamism of Darwin? What is the
relation of method to system in Peirce? Is his system only a system or is
it in conformity with the real world and thus a true representation of the
real? All of these and kindred questions are aspects of a persistent problem
in philosophy which is found in Plato and which every modern system,
pragmatism, positivism, and idealism on the one hand and existentialism on
the other, brings to continual dawn: it is the relation of the logical to the
ontological order. It may be more than an historical accident that Heidegger, the leader of existentialism, and Peirce, a patron of pragmatism
and-by his influences-of positivism, were both influenced by Scotism
whose principal axis is the relation of the logical and ontological order. In
this same problem of the the so-called universals, it may be pointed out that
Stallo, in the nineteenth century, and Russell, in the twentieth, were both
propelled to a statement of realism as the world of science, though Russell
has since abandoned this position. But this realism, as that of Peirce would
seem to be, is an aspect of the formalism and mechanism which is inexorably embedded in the so-called scientific method. It is not the realism
of reason, which discovers in being itself the presence of potentiality and
actuality as a basis for explaining the universals in mind and in things.
Though a thorough comparison would be required to throw light on
Peirce's philosophy from the viewpoint of traditional thought, there is a
preview of the way in which the two philosophies would be related. Peirce

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held to a view of truth much closer to that of Hegel and modem physics
than to the scholastics in their notion of conformity between thought and
thing. If Peirce accepted the correspondence doctrine of truth in name
(p. 197}, he was actually much closer to the so-called coherence theory, as
enunciated for instance by Bradley and Joachim. Peirce wrote: " Truth is
that concordance of an abstract statement with the ideal limit towards
which endless investigation would tend to bring scientific belief, which
concordance the abstract statement may possess by virtue of the confession
of its inaccuracy and one-sidedness, and this confession is an essential ingredient of truth " (p. 212} . Peirce was naturally influenced in his philosophy
by his experience in physical science whose truth standard then as now
fits neatly into the above definition of truth. The discovery of truth is
really an endless investigation not toward the fullness and the unlimited,
as genuine philosophy would affirm, but toward the ideal limit, as physics
would tend to aim. There is, Peirce further held, only a high degree of
probability in all our knowledge, and it is always possible that our present
views may, with the continued progress of jet-propelled modern man, be
redistributed into a more ' significant whole,' to use Joachim's phrase.
Peirce again refers to truth as ' the universe of all universes.' It is as though
man were standing by as a contemplator rather than an actor in reality
and were fitting all the universes into one universe as an exterior system.
This is the Hegelian concept of truth. But there is a bituminously deep and
underlying affinity between the philosophies of Hegel, Plato, pragmatism,
Darwinism, mechanism, and modern positivism in general, not to mention
the mirror (otobraznie) theory of truth in dialectical materialism. They
are all based on an essentialist metaphysic, and they lead man on an
infinite chase.
Peirce realized the ultimately aimless character of man's search for truth
in his doctrine of probabilism or, as he labelled it, fallibilism. Despite Prof.
Weiss' statement that pragmatism recognizes a realistic universe to which
man's action must conform, it does not do so as pragmatic. Pragmatism,
unaided and unarmed, leads man nowhere. There is simply an egalitarian
systemism in the Essentialist metaphysics to which pragmatism and scienti:6.c method point, putting things together but never relating the things to
man, the thinker who identifies himself with reality rather than merely
' observes ' it, the doer who has a destiny to achieve as an actor in the
spectacle which he himself contemplates.
Peirce's preference for systemism, for Essentialism, and for a logical
universe is much stronger than his stated preference for realism would
seem to indicate. He even reifies the non-oeing; he makes no hierarchical
distinction between the term and proposition, the proposition and syllogism,
the particular and universal; he sees the present as only infinitesimally
different from the past; he discounts self-evidence, preferring to test by
deducibility rather than by insight.

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Peirce's universe is not a hierarchical one. It is a universe dominated by
the principle of continuity as formulated by Leibnitz, Hegel, Darwin, Newton's theory of 'fluxions' which became the calculus and, one might also
say with proper modifications, by Duns Scotus. Only in a universe which
is pervaded by existence do we have hierarchy. By reference to existence,
we can explain how the order of denotation and connotation is inverse.
In Peirce's system they are parallel with the result that there is too much
emphasis on categories and not enough emphasis on the real uriity of our
universe which derives from being.
Peirce belied his realism when he began with the logical order. The real
starting point is neither logic nor ontology. It is in being, as known through
a confused primary experience that is later differentiated into subjective
and objective aspects. It is a mistake of the 'either/or' mentality of
modern man to say that being must be either subjective or objective.
Reflex analysis proves being to be both. There is a difference in being
and mind and yet a likeness. Pierce's formalism could never account for
this distinction. It tends to infinity, the lot of any metaphysics that does
not come to rest in being. The
critique of Peirce would have to
confront the question: whether reason and the scientific method are really
driven to the Peircean realism or whether the philosophy of physics, for
the preservation of the subjective character of knowledge and the objective
character of object, does not impose the so-called moderate realism developed by John of Salisbury and perfected by Aquinas.
VI

Mr. Feibleman has performed a most commendable service in his painstaking book which will be important not only for American thought but
for European scholarship where such thinkers as James and Royce have
had a much more benign and constructive influence than in the United
States. Considering that this is an introductory work as the title indicates,
the content, in part, might have been rendered clearer if the author had
used that minimum of interpretation necessary to illustrate such weighty
matters as the notion and division of signs. More examples could easily
have been introduced without changing Peirce's thought. As it is, however, the book should be understandable reading for a specialist in philosophy; it cannot fail to stir the exponents of modern and traditional philosophy
alike into a greater consciousness of Peirce and of the deep, crucial problems
which his great genius perceived, and failed to answer satisfactorily.
VINCENT

Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.

EDWARD SMITH.

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879

The Existence of God. A Commentary on St. Thomas Aquinas's Five Ways.
By ERIC G. JAY. London: Society for the Promotion of Christian
Knowledge (New York: Macmillan), 1946. Pp. 70. $1.25.
Does God Exist? By A. E. TAYLOR. New York: Macmillan, 1947. Pp. 172.
$2.00.
The perennial question of the existence of a Supreme Being still agitates
the heart and fascinates the mind of man. These two books, one a translation of the voice of a great teacher of the Middle Ages, the other the
voice of a great teacher of our own age, complement one another, and
reach the same conclusion.
The significance of Mr. Jay's work to Thomists lies not so much in
its contents-the traditional proofs-as in its background. What a surprise
to discover, when Catholic schools and seminaries are still turning out
students to whom he is only a name is the fine print of footnotes, that
St. Thomas Aquinas has joined the Society for the Promotion of Christian
Knowledge. Of further interest (and, may it be hoped, worthy of emulais declining, is the
tion) to our Catholic schools where the study of
fact that St. Thomas serves Anglican deacons as 1t source whence not
only doctrine but also the Latin tongue may be learned.
The present volume is a series of lectures given to serious-minded service
men, but based on others arranged for Anglican seminarians. After a foreword which states that it was written " to arm with sound reasons, and
with confidence in those reasons, any who . . . give a reason for the faith
that is in them ... " we have a brief and confusing biographical note on
St. Thomas, which apparently sends Thomas to Cologne before his Baccalaureate at Paris. The first three chapters clear the way, as it were,
for the Five Ways by considering the relation between faith and reason
(Summa Theologica I, q. 1, a.1), by rejecting the Ontological argument
and exposing its roots in the Platonic world of Ideas (ibid. q. 2, a. 1), and
by sketching the Aristotelian notions of matter and form, potency and act,
causality· and finality, from the analysis of which St. Thomas will demonstrate the existence of a Being Who is Pure Act, First Cause, All Wise, All
Good and· All Perfect. Then in a chapter for each, the Five Ways are
presented in translation from the Summa, with an explanation and commentary. A final chapter on all five ways shows how, taken together, one
supplements the limitations of the other to give us a broad concept of a
personal living God. A short bibliography of six books evenly divided
between Anglicans and Catholics, and a short index complete this precious
and profitable little book.
It is, on the whole, a good piece of work, and it would be unduly
captious to point out the defects almost inevitable to one who attempts to
interpret a part of St. Thomas without being well acquainted with the

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" broad and spacious garden " of St. Thomas' mind. Some of the translation seems ad hoc, some of the reasonings go slightly askew, but no serious
damage is done. Indeed, since the old objections can be and are restated
in many new ways, the old arguments can be refurbished as well. We can
be thankful to Mr. Jay for having placed within the grasp of almost any
literate person one of the richest veins of doctrine in St. Thomas, and for
having defended man's reason and his knowledge of God from the blight
of Barthian Fideism.
Professor Taylor's little essay is very different. It is personal rather
than traditional, and argumentative rather than expository. His purpose,
however, "is not to demonstrate 'the being of a God,' but only to argue
that some alleged and widely entertained ' scientific objectons ' to theistic
belief are unsound, and that it is unbelief (not belief) that is the unreasonable attitude . . . ."
Since the modern objections to the existence of God are based on
science, Professor Taylor proceeds to destroy on science's own principles
its competence to either affirm or deny God. He first shows the irrationality of the rationalistic acceptance of only one of two inseparable
principles, the existence of a uniform pattern in nature (which "science"
accepts), and the existence of objective norms of right and wrong and
divine purpose in nature (which "science" rejects). The moral law is no
less a reality than the law of gravitation. By pointing out that science and
its methods are only a very narrow and limited department of knowledge,
he throws the problem of God and His existence into the realm of metaphysics, or as he prefers to call it, for the sake of his scientific opponents,
"pre-scientific knowledge" or" alert and critical common sense." Thus by
examining the assumptions on which objections drawn from science are
often unconsciously based, he shows that they are indefensible on scientific
grounds precisely because they are the primary assumptions, and in some
cases " palpably false " on the grounds of common sense. Science then
cannot be the supreme and ultimate norm of all human thought and
activity. This paragraph is too timely to miss:
If there is any characteristic of the last age which, it may be hoped, is really
' doomed,' it is that ' Science ' divorced from fear of God and love of men which has
long vaunted its pretensions to be the only foundation of human life. We all hope
for a better Europe when the present calamity is overpast, but the better Europe
will never be seen· until ' science ' has been gently but firmly ' put in its place,'
that Second place which rightfully belongs to it as a servant of man's estate, not
his master . . . It is such science divorced from wisdom and fear of God which
the world has directly to thank for the worst evils of ' modem war,' and if there
is anything in the adage that the tree is known by its fruits, must we not say
that a theory which produces such fruits is as false as its harvest in deeds is
deadly?

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881

Nor is Professor Taylor alone in his several accusations; Lecomte de Nouy
repeats them again and again in Human Destiny. Now, theoretically this
is all quite correct and logical, but its practical efficacy remains doubtful.
The same defect of logic which leads scientists to a denial of God should
also blind them to the logical untenableness of their position.
Whatever his success with the case for Theism, Professor Taylor's presentation of the case for Christianity, from the eighth chapter on, leaves something to be desired. His own assumptions, in fact, betray him. Like all
Anglicans, at time of writing, he cannot fully trust the logic he needs as a
shield against the rationalists lest it lead him whither he simply will not
go, and so at the last moment of the argument he must turn to faith, not
even a supernatural (and therefore objective) faith, but a comfortable
subjective feeling of good-fellowship and trust.
My object in the pages which follow is not to produce a substantive apologia
for the Christian or any other positive creed, but simply to offer some considerations
in rebuttal of this anti-theological prejudice. My purpose is not here to contend
that the specific beliefs of any denomination of Christians are in fact true, but ...
that some reasons which are often complacently regarded as disposing of their
claim to be true are irrelevant (p. ISO).

This is done by an appeal to our trust in the testimony of our fellow men
on which all social and business intercourse is based, and the universal
conviction of the existence of " fundamental decencies." But it is not
unreasonable, e. g., to deny the official infallibility of the Pope. Thus his
confusion and uncertainty about the demonstrative value of the arguments
of Catholic apologetics blur the clarity of his arguments and reduce his
last chapters to mere sophistic exercises. This is the more unfortunate
since the desired " better Europe " in the founding and direction of which
" science " must take its proper second place depends upon the stable
occupation of first place by a Faith that is itself one.·
Curiously enough, Professor Taylor feeling the need of the Barthian
support which Mr. Jay rejects, arrives at substantially the same conclusion,
that it is necessary for God Himself to communicate to men more knowledge
of Himself than is possible of attainment by unaided reason. In other
words, they realize what St. Thomas pointed out long ago, that a knowledge
of the existence of God is the preamble to supernatural faith and the riches
of revelation.
J. I. McGUINEss, 0. P.
Dominican House of Studies,
Washington, D. C.

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Spinoza, Portrait of a Spiritual Hero. By RUDOLPH KAYSER. With an
introduction by ALBERT EINSTEIN. Translated by AMY ALLEN and
MAXIM NEWMARK. New York: Philosophical Library, 1946. Pp.
xix + 326. $3.75.
To the available biographies of Spinoza this work is added. In the
preface it is stated: "Industrious scholars have collected and sorted the
material for us. But if we wish to hear a man's heart beating behind this
material, we must be able to listen long and carefully to the inner music
of his soul. And that is the intention of this book " (pp. xviii, xix) .
To fulfill his intention the author devotes fifty-three pages to the ofttold tales of the Marranos in Spain and Portugal and of the beginnings of
the Jewish colony in Holland. The reader meets some strange assertions.
Of the Jesuits it is said, that they " were secular priests who knew and
understood the habits of the upper classes of sodety. Hence, young Gabriel
[Uriel da Costa] was bound to have a fine and easy existence" (p. SO}.
For the Spanish Jews the period between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment is described as " an age in which the great witches' sabbath of
the Counter-Reformation was celebrated" (p. 11}. The Dominicans "became the real ' domini canes,' the bloodhounds of God. . . . A mass frenzy
surged through the world and lusted for death, a lust that could only be
sated with the blood of its victims, and could only be appeased when the
hands that had heaped thousands onto the execution pyres became tired
of their own gruesome performance" (p. 14). In the midst of twentiethcentury facts, Bjelinsky, a Russian writer, is quoted with approval as
naming " the Spanish Inquisition as the most horrible sacrifice that chance
and superstition had ever exacted" (p.
Rembrandt, Jan de Witt, and Spinoza are all described as enacting in
their lives " great tragedies . . . in which the creative individual went
along his way to Calv;ary.... All three men were not understood by
their contemporaries; they were rendered powerless, or were put to death.
Their lives were filled to the brim with a loneliness which they themselves
created and of which they themselves were the martyrs" (p. xv). These
quotations will give an idea of the author's style, modes of thought, and
approach to his subject. It is unfortunate that Spinoza's life is again
presented in this mode and strain. After three centuries it would be well
if his story were told in a more objective way. It is more than time for
writers to forget the myths and legends of the" poor persecuted Jew" and
" the God-intoxicated man'." Spinoza needs to be read and written about in
a spirit akin to that in which other thinkers are approached.
In his introduction Prof. Einstein writes that " the spiritual situation with
which Spinoza had to cope peculiarly resembles our own" (p. xi). Just
how our
the age of world wars and world revolutions, of collapsing

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888

civilizations and cultures, of dictators and dialectical materialism, and
of mass rape and mass murder, peculiarly resembles the grand siecle is not
apparent. Prof. Einstein also writes that "Spinoza had no doubt that our
notion of possessing a free will (i.e. independent of causality) was an
illusion resulting from our ignorance of the causes operative within us. In
the study of the causal relationship he saw a remedy for fear, hate, and
bitterness, the 'only remedy to which a genuinely spiritual man can have
recourse " (p. xi) . One may speculate upon how much philosophy Prof.
Einstein has studied and what manner of scholarly research he has devoted
to the doctrine of free will so as to understand that doctrine and the
problem with which it deals. Aside from such speculation, it is difficult to
see how a scientist can write with such dogmatism and such lack of reflection. Does the deterministic doctrine really answer the great moral
problems? If it does, we must cease to condemn the Nazis for their plan
and practice of genocide, the keepers of Dachau for their murders and
human vivisection, and Stalin and his associates for their program of
treachery, destruction, and enslavement.
JoHN K. RYAN.
Catholic University of America,
Washington, D. C.

8

BRIEF NOTICES
L'Existentialisme est un Humanisme.
Nagel, 1946. Pp. 141.

Par JEAN-PAUL SARTRE. Paris:

The word " humanism " is equivocal, ranging from its description of
the Renaissance spirit down, through a whole spectrum of meanings, to its
more recent applications by Maritain and La Chance. Sartre argues that
his existentialism is a humanism because it makes man, unaided and alone,
completely responsible for his own destiny and that of all mankind. Man,
existing before he acquires an essence according to Sartre's familiar theme,
must in his own solitary anguish make an original choice that sets the
pattern of his life. Even in seeking counsel, he must choose a counsellor
according to the personal, uncounselled decision of his closed self. He is
his own legislator. In a fashion described by Heidegger and suggested by
Kierkegaard, man awakens to himself in his thrust toward the future,
being-as Sartre, following Heidegger, calls him-nothing but a projection
of his own self.
Sartre, apart from the mention of l'humanite of Comte, nowhere differentiates his humanism from that of more classical philosophies associated with
this confusing word. But it is clear that by humanism Sartre means to
take man as he finds him. It is a misfortune that Sartre never finds man
at all. What results from the existentialist dialectic is not man but a pure
subjectivity, with no nature, freedom, or intelligence, with no social relations, with only inert experience that is constantly in the act of being
realized. In his typical sophisms, Sartre attempts to establish a social
community of understanding on the basis that one man can go through
the same experience as others and thus learn what that experience is (pp.
69, 70). However, such a duplication must involve recognizing the other
as other (fieri aliud in tantum aliud) -a difficulty that Sartre does not see.
This is really a focal phase of existentialism in general. Until it is clarified,
existentialism must remain a humanism dehumanized.

Robert Boyle Devout Naturalist. By MITCHELL SALEM FISHER. Philadelphia: Oshiver Studio Press, 1945. Pp. 184.
The aim of this book is to present Robert Boyle as a chemist of the
seventeenth century who sought to reconcile his science with an orthodox
philosophy and religion. Boyle is depicted as developing the basic principles of the experimental method. As Mr. Fisher shows with ample

384

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885

documentation, Boyle had a very definite logic of scientific proof and a very
definite, though less clearly formulated, mechanical view of the world which
he sought to reconcile with the existence of a personal God, Supreme
Author and Designer. Boyle was thus not simply the father of the law
that now bears his name.
Though Mr. Fisher has succeeded in giving a coherent and commendable
synthesis of Boyle's Lebensanschauung, he has perhaps not always kept in
mind the circumstances of Boyle's age. The seventeenth century with its
political turmoil and the scientific struggles against traditional thought is
not an easy century to portray, and Mr. Fisher's portrayal does not provide a full enough setting for Boyle's· work. The incipient deistic currents
of this century Mr. Fisher unfortunately neglects, and Boyle cannot be duly
assessed apart from such a trend. In fact, Boyle, in his mechanical concept
of matter guided by a somewhat Newtonian God, played into the hand of
deism since the very nature of mechanism is to seek for matter's explanation
within matter, keeping God so far out of the picture that He eventually
disappears altogether. If Boyle did not draw this conclusion, others of
our own day have finally done so. Mr. Fisher, sketching the intellectual
conflicts of the seventeenth century does not see their full meaning and
present them meaningfully enough. A devout naturalism can be defined
apart from history but can be much more clearly appreciated within history.
It must be further remarked that it is an error in perspective to think
of Boyle as "the father of the experimental method" (p. 64). Implicitly,
it had been formed by such men as Gilbert, Tycho, Kepler, Da Vinci, and
Newton, and explicitly it had been stated by Bacon and even by Descartes.

Elements de Critique des Sciences et de Cosmologie. Par FERNAND RENOmTE. Louvain: Editions de l'Institut Superieur de Philosophie, 1945.
Pp. 235.
This is one of a series of books on the general field of philosophy published by the University of Louvain, where the author is a professor. He
deals with his critico-cosmological subject matter in three parts: an exposition of some data in chemistry and physics; a critique of scientific laws
and theories; and the philosophy of structure embodied in atomism, dynamism and hylomorphism.
Though the Pere Renoirte gives a lucid and somewhat detailed picture
of the structure of matter in classical chemistry and physics, he stops on
the threshold of the really contemporary problems raised by quantum
mechanics and the theory of relativity. Thus his work was scientifically
out of date when it was written.
In his discussion of laws and theories, the author does not sufficiently

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BRIEF NOTICES

differentiate their respective references to reality. Law itself has, for him,
only a provisional status. Thus there is nowhere encountered a satisfactory
explanation for the way in which the scientist meets the existential universe,
enabling him to produce and predict not only laboratory data but real
changes in the real world.
By far the most serious objection to the book is the treatment of matter
and form. The author believes in hylomorphism, but the only argument
which he can marshal in its favor is a duality with space as one term
and time as the other. The argument from substantial change is dismissed
because, the author says, the scientist had cast doubt on the traditional
differentiations of substances. Yet, if the multiplicity of substances and the
reality of substantial changes are questioned by pure science, then one
may question also, and on the premise, the author's own attitude toward
space and time. The traditional arguments from passivity-activity, unitymultiplicity, and determination-indetermination
are not developed.
What the author has done has been to accord too little to science in
its contact with reality from the point of view of its laws and then accord
too much to it in dismissing the arguments for hylomorphism. Physics in
reality has not disproved any of the traditional arguments for hylomorphism. An empirical science, as such, cannot change a philosophical truth
if it is really philosophical. The problem is not to abandon the philosophy
but to interpret the physics against the truth which philosophy makes available. The author has not interpreted physics. He has simply repeated it,
on a philosophical level.

The Great Beyond. By MAURICE MAETERLINCK. New York:
sophical Library, 1947. Pp. QQ6. $3.00.

The Philo-

In a half dozen brief, unformed plays, and in hundreds of gnomic paragraphs, M. Maeterlinck, a firm believer in a life " which precedes our earthly
existence," here greedily hunts down death. Toward life after death, as
indeed toward life itself, the Belgian playwright continues to maintain a
quizzical attitude whose acceptance is rejection and whose submission is
open rebellion. He has raised thP. denial of the principle of contradiction
to the status of epigram, and he goes about putting old wine into old
bottles with a kind of bleak inso•rciance. Imbibing the Pascalian spirit with
the form, he multiplies rubrics on his master's Je mourirai seul. He believes
in God, in the soul, and in death; but God is " the summit of the inexplicable," the soul presumably exists to understand God's "psychology,"
and death seems to be life, for " To be or not to be is the same thing."
Vedism, Gnosticism, and Calvinism are a few of the metals from which

BRIEF NOTICES

387

Maeterlinck strikes sparks on a random anvil. On almost every page there
is material blasphemy, always-and this is curiously characteristic-reverently unintended.

The A Priori In Physical Theory. By ARTHUR PAP. New York:
Crown Press, 1946. Pp. 102.

King's

Modern philosophy has failed to satisfy man's thirst after certitude, and
the story of this philosophy from age to age is very much a process of
correcting previous errors. The error which Mr. Pap clearly perceives has
been the view, inherited from Kant, that the a priori in physics is in a
regulative category by itself having no experiential verification. The correction for this error proposed by Mr. Pap, who carries out the conventionalism of Poincare, is that principles considered inductive generalizations in one stage of physics grow to the status of so-called a priori truths
for the next stage. Whether a principle is viewed as inductive or a priori
depends on the context. It is conventional to adopt a well verified inductive
truth as an a priori matrix to guide experiment toward new inductive
generalizations. This process seems to go on without limit, according to
Mr. Pap's philosophy.
The question now arises as to whether there may be an inadequacy in
Mr. Pap's thesis which would inspire another corrective stop-gap or even
provide a settled basis to resolve the continual shifting of modern philosophical soil. Perhaps such an answer can be found if attention is directed
to a meaning of induction that is not synonymous with empirical generalization but with that immediate insight which brings man into contact with
the very immediacies in reality itself. Such a frame of reference in immediate insight Mr. Pap unwittingly used in comparing inductive and
a priori principles, for nothing could ever be related if all relations are
mediate. Certainly the physicist has such an insight, for without it he
could never relate the real. Acknowledging this insight into the being that
is and not simply being as related to is mediately, one can then reverse
Mr. Pap's statement "that a concept is what it is defined to be" (p. 23),
showing instead that a thing is defined to be what it is.

Medieval Islam. By GusTAVE E. voN GRUNEBAUM. Chicago: The University
of Chicago Press, 1946. Pp. 372, with index. $4.00.
Approximately three-sixths of the world is pagan, one-sixth Catholic,
another sixth Protestant, and the remaining sixth Mohammedan. Islam is
not a mere historical fact but a religious phenomenon whose beginnings

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stretch back some 1400 years to Mohammed (c. 600}, and which once
almost engulfed Europe in a pincers movement whose anchors were Spain
and southeastern Europe. The average modem gives comparatively little
thought to Islam, although it still claims the allegiance of many millions in
the Near East. Here however is a study of Islam at the moment of its
greatest glory; Medieval Islam is a careful historical examination by a
competent scholar thoroughly familiar with the Koran and authoritative
Muslim sources.
Islam was successful because it simplified the important questions of
human life: man's relationship with God, his responsibility before God, his
salvation or damnation. Mohammed preached the equality of all believers
before God, and was on fire to prevent men from falling into hell. His
converts were rewarded by " the consciousness of belonging to a divinely
favored commonwealth of unprecedented and ever growing strength, a
privilege which was paid for by maintaining and spreading certain carelessly worn verities and by complying with certain patterns of. behavior·"
(p. 89}.
Muslim prayer (obligatory five times a day} is not so much an effort to
achieve personal communication with a remote, inscrutable Allah as a set
of ceremonies expressing the Muslim's obedience, worship, and devotion
(p. 114}. Trust in God, fear of God, silence, humility, and even poverty,
are.recommended. But when all is said and done, the Muslim's only hope
is in his reliance on the divine mercy (Islam means " resignation to God "} ,
which will be assured him through the intercession of the prophet (pp. 124,
347).

Thus many terms are common both to Islam and to Christianity, but
the similarity stops there. Despite its dealings with the deepest surgings
of the human heart tm•'ard God, and despite the fact that " the most
genuinely Islamic· contribution to the religious experience of mankind . . .
is the great movement of mysticism " (p. 137 f) , Islam produced no
genuine saints; aside from one or two possible exceptions (e. g. Al-Hallai}
.true mystics do not make their appearance in Muslim circles.
In the following paragraph, each word of which has been amply demonstrated in preceding chapters, the author admirably has summed up the
results of his investigations:
Conservatism expressing itself as the determination never to let go of past
achievement and thus unduly accentuating the crudeness of its origins, and the
tendency natural to despotism and orthodoxy to discourage revision and reform,
combined with Islam's catholic curiosity and receptiveness, are responsible for
that lack of integration of the component elements which makes Islamic civilization
look like a torso. Arrested in its growth during the eleventh century, it has remained an unfulfilled promise. It lost the power of subjecting the innumerable
elements to an organizing idea more comprehensive than the desire for individual

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389

salvation. It stagnated in self-inflicted sterility. And expecting renascence from
return to its beginnings, Islam in the last centuries of the Middle Ages weeded
out whatever remnants of Hellenism could still be isolated from its structure (p.
322).

Muslim sources reveal Islam's many shortcomings, and at the same time
insinuate by way of striking contrast the transcendent superiority both of
Christendom and of the Christian scriptures. Islam's fidelity to the past,
its concentration upon the stereotyped pattern and amazing accuracy of
detail in preserving the past, illustrate to some extent the Semitic mind
which preserved for us our sacred writings. Islam helped arouse Western
interest in philosophy, especially Greek philosophy (p. 340), contributed
to the advance of mathematics (p. 338) , and, best of all, invested the
individual Muslim with a sense of dignity, peace, and security (p. 345 f).
But over and above these good points there must be balanced Islam's
toleration of slavery, drastic depersonalization of the individual, discouragement of all individual initiative in thought. As the author so justly remarks, " the tenacious vitality of this civilization . . . is indeed a cause for
wonder " (p. 346) .
It is a pleasure to note (pp. 49-51) the considerable Dominican contribution towards an intellectual understanding of the opponent that was medieval Islam. Besides the Summa Contra Gentiles of Saint Thomas Aquinas,
there was Ricoldus de Santa Cruce who composed one of the better controversial works against the Saracens; and in 1250 the· first school of oriental
studies was founded at Toledo by the Order of Preachers. It is a further
pleasure to add that the same tradition is being carried on by the Order
of Preachers in Jerusalem (Ecole biblique) , Cairo, and Mossoul.

BOOKS RECEIVED
Attwater, D. ed., Modern Christian Revolutionaries. New York: DevinAdair, 1947. Pp. 414, with bibliography. $4.00.
Az-Zarnuji, Talim al-Muta'allim-'fariq at-Ta•allum. (Instruction of the
Student: The Method of Learning. Trans. by G. E. von Grunebaum
and T. M. Abel.) New York: King's Crown Press, 1947. Pp. 78, with
index. $2.00.
Bloy, L., Pilgrim of the Absolute. New York: Pantheon Books, 1947. Pp.
358, with index of sources. $3.50.
Britt, E. T., Where Is Truth? New York: Longmans, 1947. Pp. 336, with
index. $3.00.
Budenz, L. F., This Is My Story. New York: Whittlesey House, 1947.
Pp. 392, with index. $3.00.
Cantor, N., Dynamic.<J of Learning. Buffalo: Foster and Stewart, 1946.
Pp. 292, with index. $3.00.
Chase, C. T., The Evolution of Modern Physics. New York: Van Nostrand,
1947. Pp. 213, with index. $2.50.
Conant, J., On Understanding Science. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1947. Pp. 162, with index. $2.00.
De Benedictis, M. M., The Social Thought of St. Bonaventure. (Philosophical Series, Vol. XCIII) Washington, D. C.: Catholic University
Press, 1946. Pp. 292, with index.
Diefenbach, G., Common Mystic Prayer. Paterson, N. J.: St. Anthony
Guild Press, 1947. Pp. 136, with bibliography. $1.50.
Eudes, St. John, Meditations on Various Subjects. New York: Kenedy,
1947. Pp. 387. $3.00.
Eustace, C. J., An Infinity of Questions. New York: Longmans, 1947. Pp.
170, with bibliography. $3.50.
Feibleman, J., The Revival of Realism. Chapel Hill, N. C.: University of
North Carolina Press, 1947. Pp. 333, with index. $4.00.
Ferre, N. F. S., Evil and the Christian Faith. New York: Harper, 1947.
Pp. 184, with index. $2.50.
Hawkins, D. J. B., The Criticism of Experience. New York: Sheed and
Ward, 1946. Pp. 146, with index.
lvanovic, V., publisher, American Thought: 1947. New York: The Gresham
Press, 1947. Pp. 509. $3.75.
Ivanovic, V., publisher, British Thought: 1947. New York: The Gresham
Press, 1947. Pp. 461. $3.75.
Jay, E. G., The Existence of God. London: Society for Promotion of

39{)

BOOKS RECEIVED

391

Christian Knowledge (New York: Macmillan), 1947. Pp. 72, with
index. $1.25.
Johnson, F. E., ed. Foundations of Democracy. New York: Harper, 1947.
Pp. 288, with index. $2.00.
Kenny, H. A. and Keane, G. P., A Catholic Quiz Book. New York: Macmillan, 1947. Pp. 216. $2.00.
Laurent, M. H., Le Bienheureux Innocent Vet Son Temps. (Studi e testi
129) Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1947. Pp. 560,
with indices, appendices, plates.
Maciver, R. M., ed., Unity and Difference in American Life. New York:
Harper, 1947. Pp. 168, with index. $2.00.
McCall, R. J., Basic Logic. New York: -Barnes and Noble, 1947. Pp. 203.
McKeon, R., ed., Introduction to Aristotle. New York: Modern Library,
1947. Pp. 697. $1.10.
Maeterlinck, M., The Great Beyond. New York: The Philosophical Library,
1947. Pp. 226. $3.00.
Mander, A. E., Logic for the Millions. New York: The Philosophical
Library, 1947. Pp. 220, with index. $3.00.
Mirkine-Guetzevitch, B., introd., Les Doctrines Politiques Modernes. New
York: Brentano's, 1947. Pp. 322. $2.50.
Murphy, L., Cobble Stones of Galilee. St. Nazianz, Wis.: Salvatorian
Press, 1947. Pp. 136. $2.00.
Murphy, R. T., Pere Lagrange and the Scriptures. Milwaukee: Bruce, 1946.
Pp. 224, with notes. $3.75.
Nuttall, G. F., The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell (New York: Macmillan), 1946. Pp. 204, with index.
$3.25.
Ortega, I., De Vocatione Omnium Gentium In Salutem. Manila, P. I.:
University of St. Thomas Press, 1946. Pp. 279, with index.
O'Sullivan, R., Christian Philosophy in the Common Law. Oxford: Blackfriars, 1947. Pp. 61. 2/6d.
Palacios, L. E., La Prudencia Politica. Madrid: Instituto de Estudios
Politicos, 1946. Pp. 212. 20 pesetas.
Plus, R., Toward the Eternal PriesthC?od. New York: Pustet, 1946.
844. $7.00.
Regis, Louis-Marie, St. Thomas and Epistemology. Milwaukee: Marquette
University Press, 1946. Pp. 96. $1.50.
Schamoni, W., The Face of the Saints. New York: Pantheon Books, 1947.
Pp. 280. $4.50.
Schwarzschild, L., The Red Prussian. New York: Scribner's, 1947. Pp.
432, with index. $4.00.
Smid, F. L., De Adumbratione SS. Trinitatis in Vet. Testamento secundum
Sanctum Augustinum. Mundelein, Ill.: Seminary of St. Mary of the
Lake, 1947 (1942). Pp. 88.

392

BOOKS RECEIVED

Strebel, R. F., Education-Keystone of Peace. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse
University Press, 1947. Pp. 225. $8.00.
Taylor, E. A., Does God Exist? New York: Macmillan, 1947. Pp. 182.
$2.00.

Taylor, M. C., introd., Wartime Correspondence between President Roosevelt and Pope Pius XII. New York: Macmillan, 1947. Pp. 140.
$2.50.

Thils, G., Theologie des Realites Terrestres. (Vol. I: Preludes) Bruges,
Belgium: Desclee, De Brouwer, 1947. Pp. 198. 60 fr.
Thomas, N., Appeal To The Nations. New York: Holt, 1947. Pp. 191.
$2.75.

Vann, G., Eve and the Gryphon. Oxford: Blackfriars, 1947. Pp. 71. 6/-.
Voss, J., De Fundamentis Actionis Catholicae ad mentem S. Gregorii Magni.
Mundelein, Ill.: Seminary of St. Mary of the Lake, 1947 (1948) . Pp.
116.

Whitehead, A. N., Essays In Science and Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library, 1947. Pp. 848, with index. $4.75.
Whittaker, E., Space and Spirit. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1947. Pp.
156, with index. 6/-.