The Revival of Scholastic Philosophy in the Nineteenth CenturySECTION 1. -- THE NEO-SCHOLASTIC REVIVAL IN THE UNITED STATES
Stanley Hall's half-serious, half-jocose words, that "philosophers are as scarce in America as snakes in Norway," could not, without injustice, be repeated to-day. During these last years the European philosophical publications have so frequently studied the works and opinions of our writers that we may, without too much presumption, entertain the belief that philosophy has at last established a permanent settlement among us.
In this phase of our intellectual growth, our Catholic writers have naturally turned their attention to the official philosophy of the Church, so that neo-Thomism, although it has produced in our country no work which may compare with the great European contributions, has nevertheless given rise to excellent treatises which no student of the recent Thomistic movement should neglect.
In the middle of the last century the greatest Catholic writer in America was Orestes A. Brownson (1803-1876). His philosophy, which may be described as a form of ontologism, exercised a great influence upon American Catholics. Gioberti became the man in whose works the only true philosophy was supposed to be found.
Among the writers who were thus controlled by ontologistic principles, one of the best known is Henry A. Brann (born in 1839). In his "Curious Questions," published in 1866, he does not hesitate to call Gioberti the greatest philosopher of the nineteenth century.[1] According to Mr. Brann, God is an object of direct intuition: "From the mere fact of intuition," says he, "we prove the existence of God. We intue God existing, and therefore we say He exists. This argument is the strongest on account of its clearness."[2]
In some of his works, however, Mr. Brann is in perfect agreement with the principles of the Scholastics, and even follows their line of reasoning. The small work, The Spirituality and Immortality of the Human Soul, were it not for its preface, might well be regarded as a production of the most orthodox neo-Thomist.
To the Jesuits belongs the honor not only of having been the first defenders of Thomism in the United States, but of having furnished the larger and more valuable part of our neo-Scholastic literature.
The first works written in defense of Scholastic principles in this country were due to Louis Jouin, S.J. (1818-1899), professor of philosophy in St. John's College, now Fordham University. Father Jouin's works comprise two volumes in Latin: Elementa Philosophiae Moralis (1865), and Compendium Logicae et Metaphysicae (1869), and a shorter manual in English: Logic and Metaphysics. They have been honored by numerous editions and are still used as text-books in several institutions.
Not long afterwards, another series of text-books on Scholastic philosophy was written by Walter H. Hill (1822-1907). His "Elements of Philosophy," of which numerous editions have been made, was published in 1873, for the use of the students of St. Louis University, in which he was professor of philosophy. The Elements of Philosophy was soon followed by the volume, Ethics, or Moral Philosophy (1878). Besides these two works, Father Hill has written, in defence of the Scholastic principles, numerous articles in the American Catholic Quarterly (cf. Bibliography).
The year 1873 was also the date of the publication of Schiffini's Logicae gernalis Institutiones. An Italian by birth, professor in the house of studies of the Jesuits in Woodstock (Maryland), Biagio A. Schiffini embodied in his work the lessons he had given to the scholastics. He subsequently published some of St. Thomas's treatises: the De Homine, in 1882, and the De Motu Hominis in Deum, in 1883.
Among the courses of Scholastic philosophy written by the Jesuits in the United States, the most valuable are probably the two volumes of Nicholas Russo (born April 24, 1845 died April 1, 1902). His Summa Philosophica (Boston, 1885), in which he generally follows Liberatore, more complete than Jouin's works, is generally regarded as the most satisfactory exposition of Scholastic philosophy published in this country. In his De Philosophia Morali (1890), Fr. Russo published the lectures he had delivered to the students, when professor of moral philosophy in Georgetown University.
Among the courses of Scholastic philosophy thus written with special regard to the needs of the students, we must also mention the works of Charles Coppens and William Poland.
William Poland, born in Cincinnati in 1848, and professor of philosophy in St. Louis University, is the author of several treatises in which the fundamental principles of Scholasticism are expounded and defended in the clearest and most attractive style. His "Truth of Thought" (1896) is an excellent text- book on criteriology. Like all Scholastics, Father Poland holds a middle position between the idealist and the materialist. He skilfully points out the inconsistency of subjectivism,[3] and proves the objective character of reality by means of the evidence whereby it is presented to us as objective:
"Just as in the perception or knowing of self, I affirm self, so also, for the same reason, evidence, I affirm, with inevitable conviction, the objective value of non-self. I have a thought or a headache. The thought or the headache presents itself to me as mine. I thereupon have a conviction that it is mine. Of this conviction, certified in the perception of what is evident, I cannot rid myself, and I hold to it. The midnight glory of the stars presents itself to me as a something which excludes the element of myself. I have, thereupon, a conviction of that something, as strong as the conviction of my own thought; and simultaneously I have a conviction that that something is distinct from me. Of this conviction, certified in the perception of what is evident, I cannot rid myself; and I hold to it."[4]
The doctrine contained in this quotation is not, however, perfectly clear. We believe a thought to be subjective and the starred sky objective, because the former depends upon our will, while the latter does not; because we can have or reject a thought at pleasure, whereas, if our eyes are open, we are compelled to see the sky. But, why should a headache be any less objective than the starred sky? Does it depend upon a flat of our will? Can it be rejected as readily as we please? It is an affection of our body; it will perhaps be replied, and our body belongs to our own self. But our vision of the starred sky is a sensation of color which belongs to our body just as well. Why, then, should the sky be objective and the headache subjective? This is a question which Fr. Poland does not face.
Charles Coppens expounded the fundamental principles of Scholastic philosophy in two small volumes: A Brief Text-book of Logic and Mental Philosophy (1892), and A Brief Text-book of Moral Philosophy (1896). He also published, in 1897, a remarkable work upon which his fame chiefly rests: Moral Principles and Medical Practice. In the light of the Christian principles about the human soul, Fr. Coppens closely examines some subjects, such as craniotomy and abortion, which are of burning interest in the field of medicine. He also studies the questions of insanity and hypnotism, and lays down, in the most able manner, the professional rights and duties of the physician.
The American Jesuits have not thus limited themselves to the writing of Scholastic text-books. Such works, however serviceable they may be, exist now in so great a number that new ones cannot but repeat what others have already said. Fr. Coppens's work is one of those studies on particular questions to which neo-Scholastics should now direct their attention. Another study in the same direction has been made by Rene I. Holaind in his Natural Law and Legal Practice (1899), which contains the lectures he delivered at the Law School of Georgetown University. Fr. Holaind carefully studies the capital questions of taxation, capital and labor organizations, strikes and boycotts, etc. The solutions he gives are inspired by the principles of Christian philosophy, and perfectly adapted to the actual conditions of society. Not only all students of law, but all American citizens should read and meditate this work.
John J. Ming, professor of Moral Philosophy in Canisius College (Buffalo), besides numerous articles in the American Catholic Quarterly, has contributed to American neo-Scholastic ethics a precious work, entitled The Data of Modern Ethics Examined.
The aim of the author, as set forth in his preface, is to defend Christian ethics against the recent moral systems advanced by the modern schools of Positivists and Agnostics.
The several forms assumed by hedonism are faithfully exposed and examined at great length. The author is fully conversant with the theories of Spencer, J. S. Mill, and other English empiricists. His criticisms are often excellent, always interesting, and display a remarkable power of analysis.
The hedonistic system of ethics is not, however, as Fr. Ming seems to imply, essentially connected with positivism and agnosticism. The strongest believer in the spirituality of the soul might be as frankly and as consistently a hedonist as Mill or Spencer. A refutation of materialism or agnosticism will not therefore be, at the same time, a refutation of hedonism. This is a truth which Fr. Ming seems to have overlooked. As his work is a treatise on ethics, it ought to attack frankly hedonism itself, and to lay less emphasis upon the philosophical systems with which hedonism is but accidentally connected.
It is true that the characteristic fallacy of hedonism -- its confusing the result of a moral act with the nature of the act -- has been perfectly grasped by Fr. Ming:
"Delight is necessary to happiness," says he. "Every perfect action is followed by delight; for it lies in the nature of a faculty that, having discharged the function for which it was made, perfectly and normally, it comes to rest and is satisfied. But for the very reason that delight is not the action itself, but merely its result or concomitant, it cannot be an essential constituent of happiness: it is but one of its necessary attributes that adheres to it as beauty does to youth."[5]
This capital flaw of hedonism might have been, however, more strongly insisted upon.
On the, whole, Fr. Ming's work is one of the best productions of neo-Scholastic literature in the field of ethics, and deserves the careful study of all interested in moral philosophy.
In the field of Natural Theology, an important contribution has been made by Maurice Ronayne (1828-1903). His work, God knowable and known, published in 1888, has been deservedly honored by several editions. Departing from the usual form in which philosophical treatises are cast, Fr. Ronayne has made use of the dialogue with the greatest skill. The interlocutors meet, now in Fifth Avenue Hotel, now in Central Park amid the scenes of nature, and discuss, in the most attractive language, all questions connected with natural theology.
Other fields of philosophy are incidentally touched upon. The second chapter of the work, entitled: The Data of Natural Knowledge, contains a fair exposition of the Scholastic theory of knowledge, as well as an able refutation of idealism.
Fr. Ronayne also studies the Scholastic doctrines of causation and substance. He unmistakably regards substance as an unknown something lying behind the accidents. Speaking of the phenomenalists, he says: "They do not take gold for silver, nor silver for copper, because these metals differ in the phenomenon of color, but because of something beneath that color and partially manifested by it."[6]
Mention must also be made of AEmilius de Augustinis, for his work, De Deo Uno secundum naturam (1884), and James Conway (1849-1905), professor in St. Louis University, and author of a small volume entitled, The Fundamental Principles of Christian Ethics, which belongs to the series, Catholic Summer and Winter School Library.
Thomism has also found distinguished representatives in other religious orders. A name that readily comes to one's mind at the consideration of Scholasticism outside of the Society of Jesus is that of Brother Azarias, of the Christian Schools. Brother Azarias, born Patrick Francis Mullany (1847-1893), is one of the most distinguished -- the most distinguished perhaps-- of our Catholic writers. Although known chiefly as a literary critic, he is the author of several philosophical works well worthy of attention. Whether he is a great philosopher or not, I will not here decide. About his originality as a thinker, no doubt can be entertained. In his Essays philosophical, he gives the following principle as the first principle of philosophy: "God actualizes Cosmos by the Word, and completes its end in the Word." Which he unriddles in the following manner:
"In the term God, we have the subject of Theodicy and Natural Theology.
"In the term Cosmos, we have the idea that gives us the ideas of space and time, with all their concomitant ideas of number, extension, mathematics, natural history and physics.
"In the term the Word is contained the type of creation-- the basis of history -- the ideal of literature and art.
"In the term completes its destiny in the Word, we have the whole supernatural order -- a Church, the means of sanctification.
"In the term actualizes, we have the idea of pure and supreme cause expressed, and the real relations of the Creator to his creation."[7]
Brother Azarias thus regards philosophy as embracing all human knowledge, natural and supernatural. This view unequivocally separates him from the neo-Scholastics, to whose school, it is true, he does not profess to belong:
"To belong exclusively to any school of thought," says he, "is to shut out from one's soul all truth but that which presents itself under a given aspect. It is to be continually asking the question, Can any good come out of Nazareth? And Yet good can come out of Nazareth; every Nazareth of thought has its own lesson to teach us if we willingly learn it and put it to profit."[8]
Although Brother Azarias is not, strictly speaking, a Scholastic, he has done good service to the cause of neo-Scholasticsm in this country by his learned treatises on Mediaeval philosophy. The essay, Aristotle and the Christian Church, contains excellent pages dealing with the spirit of the schoolmen. Albert the Great, St. Thomas and Roger Bacon are chiefly dealt with. The author clearly shows that the Mediveval writers were not servile followers of Aristotle, but that they thought and wrote in the, spirit of real philosophers. How Brother Azarias regards the Scholastic revival is clearly indicated in the following statement:
"Finally, there is the intellectual atmosphere of the day in which thought lives and moves. It cannot exist without breathing this air. If the past is revived, it lives only in proportion as it is brought to bear upon the present."[9]
Brother Chrysostom, born Joseph J. Conlan, in New Haven (Connecticut), in 1863, and actually professor of philosophy in Manhattan College (New York), is more strictly a Scholastic than Brother Azarias. He is the author of two brief courses of Scholastic philosophy. One of them, the Elementary Course of Christian Philosophy, is an adaptation of a French work written by Brother Louis of Poissy, and, in spite of its concise form, is one of the most instructive manuals published in this country. The other course, written in Latin, was published in 1897, under the title, Elementa Philosophiae Scholasticae. It deals with logic, ontology or general metaphysics, and cosmology, and is chiefly inspired by the works of Zigliara, Liberatore and Farges.
Brother Chrysostom has also defended the cause of Scholastic philosophy in several review articles. The most important of them appeared in the Philosophical Review in 1894, and was devoted to the study of the theistic argument of St. Thomas.
In the Dominican order, we find a single work worthy of mention; but this work is one of the best studies written by American neo-Scholastics. La Philosophie en Amérique depuis les origines jusqu'à nos jours of Father Edward Gregory Laurence Van Becelaere (born 1872), was published in 1904, after having appeared in the form of articles in the Revue Thomiste. As a study of the various currents of thought which have dominated our country, Fr. Van Becelaere's work, despite its brevity, is the best work we possess. Some aspects of American thought have been, however, entirely overlooked or too briefly treated. A history of American philosophy ought certainly to contain a chapter on Pragmatism.
Fr. Van Becelaere's volume is completed by an appendix dealing with Catholic philosophy in the United States. This part of the work of the learned Dominican contains interesting details on the neo-Scholastic revival in this country.
Scholastic principles have also found able defenders in our secular clergy.
Gennaro Luigi Vincenzo de Concilio, born at Naples (Italy), in 1835, and for a short time professor of dogmatic theology, logic and metaphysics in Seton Hall College, South Orange, New Jersey, published, besides a text-book on Scholastic philosophy (Elements of Intellectual Philosophy, 1878), a theologico- philosophical work, entitled Catholicity and Pantheism (1874), in which he regards Pantheism as the necessary result of Protestantism,[10] as the universal error in time and space.[11] "Every particular error, says he, has either fallen into Pantheism, or disappeared altogether.[12]
John Gmeiner, born in Baernau (Bavaria), on December 5, 1847, and, for seven years, professor at St. Francis Seminary (Milwaukee), and at St. Thomas Seminary (St. Paul), has published several philosophical works, in which, in harmony with Leo XIII's formula: vetera novis augere, he endeavors to harmonize the Scholastic teachings with modern science, and mercilessly discards all tenets which cannot be easily harmonized. In a remarkable little work, entitled Mediaeval and Modern Cosmology (1891), he denounces some theories, usually defended in Catholic text-books, and which, in his opinion, reflect but little credit upon Catholic thinking. Among the doctrines thus stigmatized is the theory of Matter and Form.
John T. Driscoll, born in Albany (New York), after studying in Manhattan College and Troy Theological Seminary, completed his studies in the Catholic University. He has taught philosophy for several years in the Theological Seminary at Brighton (Massachusetts) and has enriched American neo- Scholastic literature with two excellent works: A Treatise on the Human Soul, published in 1898, and God, which appeared two years later.
The method followed in these two works may be characterized as experimental and comparative. In the Treatise on the Human Soul, the author starts from the facts of our consciousness: sensations, sentiments, ideas, memories, judgments, reasonings, etc., which are "as true and real as the circulation of the blood, or the existence of physical or chemical forces." From such facts of experience he derives, by a process of reasoning, his system as to the nature of the soul.
In agreement with the, Scholastic teaching, he proves the principle of our bodily and mental energies to be one and simple, spiritual and immortal.
Scholastic psychology is studied in connection with all adverse teachings. All ancient and modern systems concerning the principle of life in man are discussed with a remarkable erudition and brought face to face with the Scholastic theories.
The inadequacy of Materialism and Positivism is very ably pointed out. The work also contains valuable chapters on the diverse forms of Pantheism and Monism. Some conclusions of the author do not seem, however, perfectly justifiable. He rejects, for example, Kant's opinion that we know phenomena only, and not the thing-in-itself, on the ground that such an opinion is opposed to the data and methods of physical science:
"Science," says he, "deals with real things. The axioms and rules of mathematical science must be verified in concrete objects in order that the calculations founded upon them may have any validity. The same is true of chemistry and of physics."[13]
This objection would be perfectly valid if Kant failed to recognize in the phenomena an objective element. But this is not the case. The phenomenon is subjective in so far as the outside reality, the object, is clothed with the conditions of our sensibility and of our understanding; but it is also objective, inasmuch as it is caused by the thing-in-itself.
We are, with regard to the thing-in-itself, in the same position as a person with a pair of colored glasses would be with regard to the color of a landscape. Although such a person would never know the color of the landscape as it is in itself, he would nevertheless be able to possess a real science of color, to formulate laws, which would be conditioned by the object and in harmony with its manifestations.
The aim of the treatise on God is thus set forth in the preface:
"The considerations adduced are the heritage of Christian Philosophy handed down by the pens of St. Augustine and St. Thomas. The marvelous advance in the sciences furnishes increased data for argument and illustration. The question is considered under all aspects. All sources of knowledge are investigated. History, Language, Psychology, Ethics, the Physical sciences, each comes with its special testimony. The aim is simply to eollect the data and show their bearing on the idea of God; to answer the question: What is meant by God, and has the idea of God an objective validity?"[14]
Like all modern Scholastics, Mr. Driscoll rejects the ontological argument, in its original shape as well as in the form it has assumed in the hands of the neo-Hegelian school. He also rejects the theory of direct intuition of the Divine Being, advocated by Harris, Wilson, Caird, and other non-Catholic writers of the present day. He regards as valid the arguments from universal consent, from the moral life, from the contingency of living beings, from a first cause, froih motion, from the order of the universe. He also accepts the old argument drawn from the nature of truth, first proposed by St. Augustine, and recently revived by Josiah Royce. He clearly points out, however, that, in the hands of Mr. Royce, the argument loses its value and involves a petitio principii:
"What is (for Royce) the test of subjective truth? Not conformity with external reality. This he expressly rejects. But conformity with a higher intelligence. Hence he is a disciple of Berkeley. Hence he falls into a petitio principii. He sets forth with the data of consciousness to reason God's existence as absolute Truth. Yet he postulates the existence of the All- Knower or All-Enfolder to justify the veracity of the data. This was the mistake of Descartes."[15]
Mr. Driscoll, as we have seen, has been a student in the Catholic University. This university, the first stone of which was laid on May 24, 1888, in the presence of Cardinal Gibbons, four archbishops, twenty-one bishops and numerous eminent men, among whom President Cleveland, has contributed to neo- Scholastic literature numerous articles in a periodical publication, the Catholic University Bulletin. The most eminent contributors have been Edward A. Pace, Edmund T. Shanahan and William Turner (cf. Bibliography).
Mr. Turner has also published valuable articles about the Middle Ages in other reviews, such as the American Catholic Quarterly, the Philosophical Review and the New York Review. His greatest title to the gratitude of all students of philosophy is, however, his History of Philosophy, published in 1903. This work has been greatly praised, and with justice. It exposes with a remarkable erudition the philosophical systems of ancient and modern times. More perfectly than any other similar work, it condenses, in a few pages, the spirit and the doctrines of each philosopher it studies. Mr. Turner devotes a special attention to the study of the, Middle Ages. Of the 674 pages, which the work contains, 185 are devoted to Scholastic philosophy.
Mention must be made also of two important works written as dissertations for the Doctor's degree. The first of them is Religion and Morality, written in 1899, at the Catholic University, by James J. Fox. The work, inspired by the purest Thomistic ethical principles, strives to base upon history and reason the thesis that religion and morality are necessarily connected. The other work, The Knowableness of God (1905), written at Notre Dame University by Matthew Schumacher, is one of the most important contributions of neo-Scholasticism to the field of Natural Theology.
SECTION 2. -- THE NEO-SCHOLASTIC REVIVAL IN CANADA
The philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas forms the basis of all philosophical teaching in the Catholic institutions of Canada.
A long time before the promulgation of the encyclical Aeterni Patris, Thomism was already taught in the College of St. Hyacinth. One of the professors of this college, Mgr. Desaulniers, wrote a complete course of Scholastic philosophy, inspired by St. Thomas and Liberatore, which has never been published. The University of Ottawa, directed by the Oblate Fathers, likewise follows the teachings of the Angelic Doctor. It possesses an Academy of St. Thomas in which a thesis, in harmony with the Scholastic principles, is defended every week.
The most important center of Thomism in Canada is, however, the University Laval, in Quebec. As early as 1879, this University adopted Zigliara's Summa Philosophica as a text- book in philosophy. In 1884, the Faculty of Theology decided to study St. Thomas in the Summa Theologica itself, which has been, since that time, the manual of theology.
The Thomistic movement in Canada has also given rise to a few interesting works. The first in date is the volume entitled, Philosophy of the Bible Vindicated (1876), written by Cornelius O'Brien.
Cornelius O'Brien, born on May 4, 1843, in New Glasgow (Prince Edward Island), educated at St. Dunstan's College (Charlottetown), and at the Propaganda (Rome), ordained priest in 1871, professor in St. Dunstan's College, orator, theologian, novelist, poet, has occupied the archiepiscopal see of Halifax from 1883 till his death, on March 9, 1906.
His "Philosophy of the Bible" consists of three parts. In the first part, entitled Natural Theology, the author proves the existence of a Supreme Being by the well-known Scholastic arguments from a first cause, from the order of the world, and from the universal consent of mankind. He demonstrates that this Supreme Being, or God, existing by necessity of nature, is infinitely perfect, the creator and ruler of the physical world.
In the second part, entitled Psychology, he proves the soul to be simple, spiritual, immortal, endowed with free will, and created immediately by God when it is to be infused into the body.
O'Brien differs from most modern defenders of Thomism with regard to the origin of our ideas. As he insists more than Scholastics usually do, upon the activity essential to substances and maintains not only that substance acts, but that whatever acts is a substance,[17] he is led to the assertion that the soul is et a force the very essence of which is that it should think, understand, know, will,"[18] that it must therefore necessarily know its own existence and something about happiness, and possess, by the same fact, two ideas which are, if not innate, at least coeval with the soul.
The third part of the Philosophy of the Bible is devoted to the study of certain questions which have an intimate connection with ontology and have not been studied in the two preceding parts: space and time, certitude, religion, revelation, the relation of faith and reason, etc.
O'Brien is an enthusiastic admirer of Mediaeval philosophy. He is convinced that many, "professors who are now extolled as prodigies of learning would, had their lot been cast in the oft- reviled middle ages, have been considered noisy school-boys."[19]
In harmony with the Scholastic principle of the unity of truth, he maintains that there can be but one true system of philosophy, and goes even farther than most of the early neo- Scholastics in his contemptuous disrespect for modern thinking.
"Let it be understood from the outset," says he, "that we deny the title of Philosopher to the founders of schools of error. . . . The man who, as a general rule, blunders in the art he professes to follow, is not called a tradesman, but a botcher; why, then, call meaningless scribblers Philosophers? They are literari fungi."[20]
And if we wish to know more definitely who those "meaningless scribblers" are, we shall perhaps be astonished to find among them:
"Philosophic quacks, such as Hegel, Kant, Darwin, and id genus omne;[21]
"Spinoza, who gave such a proof of mental aberration that a school-boy who would be guilty of similar contradictions, would most surely be doomed to lose his first holiday, and obliged to write five hundred times: Idem non potest simul esse et non esse;[22]
"The disciples of the transcendental German school, who, lulled into a semi-somniferous state, by lager beer and strong cigars, talk misty things which they call transcendental."[23]
Louis A. Paquet, actual president of the University Laval, published, in 1888, in the review Canada francais, of Quebec, an important article, entitled: Rosmini et son système, in which he refutes the Rosminian doctrines by the principles of Scholastic philosophy.
A few years later, Mgr. Paquet published the first volumes of the work upon which his fame chiefly rests, his Disputationes theologiae, which form a learned commentary on St. Thomas's Summa Theologica. The first edition of the work was published in Quebec between the years 1893 and 1903. A second edition is now being made at Rome.
Mention must also be made of Brother Symphorien-Louis, of the Christian Schools, who published in Montreal, in 1905, a text-book on Scholastic metaphysics (Précis de Métaphysique). Among the recent defenders of Thomism in Canada, no one perhaps has served the Scholastic cause with a greater distinction than Alexander MacDonald, actual Vicar General of Antigonish and rector of St. Andrews (Nova Scotia).
Born in S. W. Mahon, Cape Breton, on February 18, 1858, Mr. MacDonald studied at St. Francis Xavier College (Antigonish) and at the Propaganda, in Rome, where he was the disciple of the famous Cardinal Satolli. After being ordained, in 1884, he taught philosophy for nineteen years in St. Francis Xavier College. During this time he showed himself a valiant champion of the Scholastic principles in numerous articles, which appeared in the Casket, of Antigonish, or in other periodical publications (cf. Bibliography). Mr. MacDonald is also the author of several important works in theology, such as The Sacrifice of the Mass (New York, 1905), The Sacraments (New York, 1906), with which this essay is not directly concerned.