Church, may, indeed, command the submission of our hearts, but not the assent of our intellects.13 In the Revue d'histoire et littérature religieuses, Nov., Dec., 1906, Abbé Loisy meets the charge that, according to him, an event may be historically false and yet dogmatically true. And his answer is instructive. I hold, he says, that what is historically false is false absolutely. This, as Father Pesch 14 points out, is a relevant answer only in case Abbé Loisy is prepared to maintain also that that is historically false which contradicts a dogma defined by the Church. And this he is not prepared to do, holding as he does that dogmatic definition does not affect the truth of an event which falls within the domain of scientific history. In Father Tyrrell's latest book Through Scylla and Charybdis, we find evidence of a similar tendency to hold a twofold standard of truth. Father Tyrrell denies (p. 320) that "the sole or principal value of the Church's definitions is a theological or scien tific value." He maintains that there are "two fountains of truth," the one scientifically exact, the other prophetic and inspired (p. 323). To attempt to bring these two orders of truth together, he says, is to lose oneself in a labyrinth of insoluble difficulties. This is the Kantian doctrine of the antithesis between the speculative and the practical, or more explicitly the Hegelian contention that the spiritual is higher than the external, contingent, historical, and, therefore cannot be authenticated.

The enormity of maintaining a twofold standard of truth, the one dogmatic, spiritual or religious, and the other scientific, historical or philosophical, should be apparent to anyone who is not willing to go the full length of scepticism in matters of religion. "Simply true" or "simply false," or, possibly

13"Having reached this point, Venerable Brethren, we have sufficient material in hand to enable us to see the relations which Modernists establish between faith and science, including history also under the name of science. And in the first place, it is held that the object of the one is quite extraneous to the object of the other. (Miracles, prophecies, the Resurrection) will be denied by the philosopher as philosopher, speaking to philosophers . . . . (and) affirmed by the speaker, speaking to believers." Encyclical Pascendi, pp. 61, 62.

"Theologische Zeitfragen, Vierte Folge, (Freiburg, 1908), p. 43.

unproven " must be the verdict of any science that aims at being ultimate. We may, indeed, distinguish in a legend the element of psychological truth and the element of historical truth. We may decide that a generalization, while true in theory, may be false in practice. We may even hold that a proposition is true in one science, in so far as it is capable of proof or is actually proved in that science, while it is false, or rather, unproved, or incapable of being proved in another science, or that the evidence in that other science, so far as it goes, is contrary to the proposition in question. All these instances, however, are beside the question of the relation between natural and supernatural truth. For when we deal with what purports to be the ultimate verdict of science an1 what is the definite pronouncement of Revelation, we cannot, without denying the most fundamental law of our own intellectual life, maintain that a proposition can be true in one and false in the other. To ask us to keep the two orders of truth entirely separate, to ask us to keep our faith apart from our philosophy and our science, is to require us to emulate the feat of the sage in the Arabian story, whose head, severed from the body, continued to expound the maxims of his sect, though severed from the heart and out of all relation with the heart's functions. Has not the accusation been leveled against the scholastics that they kept their piety out of their theology? Those who make this accusation so easily should not be the first to lay themselves open to the same charge.

Among the causes which the Encyclical assigns for the prevalence of Modernism is "the ignorance and contempt of scholasticism." The contempt is openly proclaimed in books, reviews, pamphlets and even in the daily press. No fifteenth century Humanist could go farther than some Modernists have gone in their sweeping denunciations of the method, the spirit, the arguments, and the conclusions of scholasticism. Ignorance is, however, a charge to which the Modernist will not so readily plead guilty. And yet, is not unmeasured denunciation a fairly open confession of ignorance? Even those who owe less to the scholastics than the Modernists do are ready to testify at least to the relative worth of what, after all, was at one time

the dominant system of thought in the world of Western Christendom. When we read in Coleridge that "there exists in the minds of reading men the conviction that not only Plato and Aristotle but even Scotus Erigena and the Schoolmen from Peter Lombard to Duns Scotus are not mere blockheads, as they pass for with those who have never read a line of their writings," 15 what are we to think of those writers in the Annales de philosophie Chrétienne who in advocating immanentism pour out page after page of abuse of the great scholastic writers? Surely, one may, without fear of being unfair, explain dispraise so unqualified by attributing it to ignorance of the writings of the schoolmen? The "intellectual formalism," the "reducing all truth to Jewish and Hellenic categories," the "laying stress on the logical, which is, after all, the weakest link between us and reality," the "slavish aping of the master ("psittacisme"), the "aridity," the "stilted style and barbarous diction "all these are accusations which in the estimation of those who know the history of scholastic philosophy, are either entirely beside the mark, or hit only those later representatives of scholasticism who fall far short of the School's best work.

Open denunciation is, however, more easily dealt with than subtle evasion. It is undoubtedly an evasion of the question at issue to take refuge in a distinction between the letter and the spirit of scholasticism. Only by studying the letter of the works of the Schoolmen and not by repeating at long range the absurd formulae ascribed to them, can their spirit be known and acquired. Of the Schoolmen as of Plato and Aristotle it is true that the first condition of a scholarly appreciation of their philosophy is an acquaintance with their works. Neither does it avail the Modernist to appeal to the history of Aristotle in the Christian Schools in order to justify his own hope that the tide will turn towards the philosophy of immaIf we are to believe the apologist of Modernism, we are about to witness one of those repetitions in which history is said to abound. For, as in the thirteenth century the study

nence.

15 Statesman's Manual, XXXVII.

of Aristotle was first condemned, then permitted, and finally prescribed by pontifical authority, so too, in the twentieth century we shall witness a swinging back of the pendulum of authority from the condemnation to the approval of the doctrines of the Modernists.16 Such prophecies are easy when, as in the present case, the facts are made to suit the hopes of the prophet. The story of the decrees of the University of Paris and of Gregory IX in the matter of "reading " Aristotle has been told so often that one might reasonably expect every student of medieval history to understand that the attitude of the authorities was consistent, reasonable and enlightened. The "blind and unchecked passion for novelty," which the Encyclical assigns as a cause of the errors of Modernism was foreign to the spirit of St. Thomas and his contemporaries. They never considered that "Theology must follow the vagaries of their philosophies," ‚” 17 and never for a moment set up Aristotle as a rival of the authority of the Church.

It is vain to attempt to prejudice the modern world in favor of agnosticism, immanence and dynamic pantheism by appealing to the prestige of modern progress. It is natural for us to love our own age with an affection akin to that which we feel for our own country. The age is ours, ours to live in and to work in, and its achievements belong in a special sense to

us.

This predilection for the age in which we live should not, however, blind us to the faults and the errors of the age. It should not prevent us from perceiving that in our era, especially in the philosophy and the science of our day, there is much that is false and pernicious side by side with what is true and good. To reprobate what is false, avoid what is pernicious, cling to what is true and promote what is good is to love modern progress in the best sense of the word and to be modern without being a Modernist.

WILLIAM TURNER.

16

15 Cf. Bulletin de littérature eccl., Nov., 1907; La Nouvelle France, Jan.,

THE CHAIR OF AMERICAN HISTORY.

Since the establishment in this University of a Chair of American History and Institutions nearly four years have passed. In May, 1904, the earliest moment consistent with academic deliberation, the University engaged an instructor and promptly announced the courses of study to be given by the new department. Probably no one then expected that any considerable number of students would soon take advantage of the opportunities which, in founding the Chair, the Knights of Columbus intended to offer those attending the University. At any rate the authorities of this institution appear to have had no illusions on the subject. As a matter of fact, months passed before the enrollment in the department exceeded three; of these we shall presently speak. Time appraised the course of instruction; students began slowly to come in, and toward the close of the first year about nine bona fide students and a few auditors appeared regularly at the lectures. During the second academic year the enrollment slowly increased, and by the close of the third year the attendance averaged seventeen. At the present time the department is directing the reading and researches of twenty-seven men. The growth, however, has not been merely numerical, for there has been a marked improvement as well in the interest as the scholarship of the students. From the beginning, it is true, there were earnest and intelligent men in the department but they were then in the minority. Few now come to the American History classes to be entertained. The majority of those in attendance are doing serious work, and many of them are of men of much promise.

The first student to register in the new department was Matthew J. Walsh, of Holy Cross College, Washington, D. C. Selecting American History as his major, with Sociology and The Principles of Education for his minor branches, Mr. Walsh after the usual residence passed before a committee of the Faculty a splendid examination, and in June, 1907, received