grand principle brought out in our text-books of moral philosophy, for they treat only of the rational order, and for the most part treat of it as if it were an independent order without any dialectic relation to the revealed and palingenesiac orders, or the ultimate end of man. It is only in the theologians, who treat philosophy and theology in their ultimate principles and mutual relation as forming in the mind and creative act of God one uniform and dialectic whole, that we find it set forth, and are enabled to apprehend something of the grandeur, the majesty, the glory, and the sublime logic of creation and the Creator's design. The natural law and the revealed law are not two laws, but two parts of one and the same divine law, the one law of the one kingdom of God, and law alike for the temporal and the spiritual, for kings and subjects, states and individuals, and in every sphere and department of life. This one law, whether in the rational order or the supra-rational, as we understand Catholic teaching, is deposited by our Lord with his church, of which the successor of Peter in the see of Rome is the supreme visible head, commissioned by him and assisted by the Holy Ghost to be its guardian, keeper, interpreter, and supreme judge for all men and nations in all their relations. This is so, or Catholicity is false and without meaning; and Catholicity cannot be false or without meaning, unless downright atheism be true, and the fool says truly in his heart, " God is not." This gives the deathblow to political atheism, the independence of the political order, or its freedom from subjection to the spiritual order, represented by the pope as vicar of Christ. Politics areonly a branch of ethics; ethics depend on the moral law, of which, as of the revealed law, the pope is the guardian. and judge; and hence the Council of the Vatican declareshim supreme and infallible in morals no less than in faith. This is the only possible remedy for political atheism, for it makes the pope supreme under the natural law, from which the state holds, as well as under the revealed law, and subjects to his authority as vicar of Christ the whole moral order, as well as the Christian dogmas and sacraments; and while it gives him no direct power in temporal affairs, it gives him supreme authority to judge of the morality of the acts of temporal princes and governments, as well as of the acts of private individuals, and to subject them to such ecclesiastical discipline as he judges proper or necessary. The evil has originated, so far as Catholic:

nations are concerned, in the assumption of a natural moral order that is not within the jurisdiction of the vicar of Christ, and in regarding kings and princes, states and empires, as independent of the papal authority. If we do not misapprehend the syllabus, and the reach of the decrees of the Council of the Vatican touching the papal supremacy. and infallibility, this opinion, which had become so widespread, and done so much harm to religion and society, can no longer be held by any Catholic. A remedy, then, is now applied, and the Gallican dualism and political atheism are henceforth to be treated as formal, as they always have been material, heresies.

The war is now really between the church and atheism. The real enemy to be combated to-day is not heresy, is not rationalism even, but downright atheism, the denial of the divine dominion or sovereignty, which is as rank atheism as the denial of the divine being. Prince von Bismarck, in his persecution of the church, represents the atheistic spirit of the age, the spirit which meets us in some of its forms in the greater part of the literary and scientific works that issue from the non-Catholic press, in the popular journalism of all nations even when it affects to be Christian, in the Internationale and all other associations and movements for social reform, ostensibly for philanthropic ends. The archbishop of Westminster has shown it in his noble lectures on the "Four Great Evils of the Day;" the energetic bishop of Cleveland understands and denounces it, and so we suppose, since the Vatican Council at least, do all our bishops and priests, though many of them may be so engrossed with the pressing local affairs of their own dioceses or parishes, that they have little time or thought to devote to its consideration. But it is pressing home upon Catholics everywhere, and must soon become for all of them, and even for nonCatholics, the great absorbing question.

The National Zeitung, of Berlin, says, as cited above: "In the end this battle must become a battle of intelligence, and upon that territory the Jesuits, ghostly or worldly, with all their dogmas, and the miracles of the saints to boot, will come to grief." Passing over the sneer at the Jesuits, and the miracles of the saints, we agree with Bismarck, that the battle will not only become in the end, but is already, the battle of intelligence, or between intelligence and ignorance, though if he supposes the intelligence is on his side, he is wofully mistaken. Protestants and infidels pretend

that they are the enlightened portion of mankind, and represent the intelligence of the race. No stronger proof of their ignorance could be given, than this very pretension. We know something of Protestant and infidel intelligence, and were, when we were of them, up to their general level, nay, it is no boast to say, we were in their advanced ranks; and yet, when we became a Catholic, and had opened to us some glimpses of Catholic intelligence, we were appalled at our previous ignorance. The Catholic child that knows his catechism has a higher, broader, and deeper intelligence, than is dreamed of by the most intellectual and highly cultivated infidel or Protestant philosopher. The whole Protestant and infidel intelligence, science, and learning might be extinguished, and the world suffer no loss.

This proud and conceited non-Catholic world may have made some supposed useful applications of scientific principles, discovered by Catholics, or at least, by persons trained in Catholic schools or under Catholic influences; but they have shed on every important subject they have handled, darkness, not light. Their science is a sham, their learning is untrustworthy, their histories are a tissue of lies, and their morality, when not cant and hypocrisy, is borrowed from the sty of Epicurus. Under their influence, society has lost the conception of the spiritual order; has lost its faith in God and providence, abolished the law of nations, and sapped the foundation of liberty and authority, rejected the very bases of civilization and social progress, resolved right into expediency, justice into force; and torn by ceaseless revolutions, and alternating between despotism and anarchy, society is once again on the high road to barbarism. They the enlightened portion of mankind, and they superior in intelligence to Catholics? Bah! Tell that to the marines.

EDUCATION AND THE REPUBLIC.

[From Brownson's Quarterly Review for January, 1874.]

THE great misery of society is in the fact that the people do not and cannot discriminate, and are carried away by half-truths, or by some particular phase of truth. The human mind never does or can embrace pure, unmixed falsehood, and it is the true mingled with the false, or truth misapprehended, misapplied, or perverted, that gives currency to error and renders it dangerous. It was the mingling of the true and the false in regard to religion that gave to the so-called reformation its destructive power, and it is the mingling of the true and the false in regard to education that vitiates the popular theories of its necessity or utility in developing and sustaining the virtue of the people.

The revolutions of the last century, continued in the present, were and are defended on the ground of the natural perfectibility of man or the race, and the assumption that error, vice, and crime originate in external causes, come from without, not from within, from a vicious training and a vicious political and social organization. Godwin, a Protestant minister, and husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, maintains that all the evils that afflict mankind spring from bad political government, and proposes as a remedy the abolition of all government, all authority, and the recognition of pure, unmitigated individualism. Robert Owen held that our characters are formed, not by us, but for us by purely external circumstances amidst which we grow up. The Internationals adopt the views of Godwin, only they propose to do by violence, by fire and sword, what he proposed to effect only by "peaceful agitation." But, wise Mr. William Godwin, whence came bad governments? Dear Mr. Owen, whence came these villainous circumstances? And dear Internationals, as you believe neither in God nor the devil, and hold that human nature in itself is all right, be so good as to explain to us the origin of these evils against which you wage such fierce and relentless war.

Now the perfectibility of man is unquestionably true, but that he is indefinitely perfectible by natural means, causes, or influences, as Condorcet held, is as unquestionably false. Man's natural progressiveness is determined by

his specific nature, which is finite, and has its bounds beyond which it cannot go. But supernaturally, as regenerated by the Holy Ghost in Christ, man is progressive even to the infinite. The perfectibility of man is a Christian doctrine, and can be effected only by supernatural means, or the grace that flows from the Incarnation. The doctrine of man's perfectibility or progressiveness, save from infancy to adult age, was not known to the Greeks and Romans prior to their conversion. The gentiles held that men and nations naturally deteriorate with the lapse of time. But since all these modern revolutions and revolutionists reject the supernatural, scoff at the Incarnation, make a mock of the crucified God, and place all their reliance on simple unassisted nature, they have no ground for asserting their doctrine of human perfectibility or the natural progressiveness of man; and consequently all political revolutions, social changes, or educational systems based on it are founded in error, and must turn out worse than failures, as all experience proves.

It is singular that men who deny the supernatural, God, and providence, and assert only the natural, should hold the sufficiency of nature, and ascribe all the evils they war against to unnatural or extra-natural causes. If there is only nature, these evils must have originated in nature, therefore from within, not as they pretend, from without. Religion, we are told one time, is an invention of the priests; but how could there be priests before there was a religion? The priest presupposes religion. Another time we are told that tyrannical rulers invented religion as a means of enslaving the people and of tyrannizing over them. But though rulers may abuse an existing religion, or a religion that has a strong hold on the people, for such a nefarious purpose, yet it is somewhat difficult to conceive how they could invent a religion, or how it could serve such a purpose with a people hitherto absolutely destitute of all religion! We are told again that man is naturally religious, that religion is a law of his nature, or that he is naturally prone to superstition, and that it is this natural law or disposition that has created the priests, and that it is to this natural law or disposition that crafty rulers appeal to support their power. But what has been may be. If there is only nature, and nature has hitherto produced the evils you seek to get rid of, what assurance have you that it will not, in spite of all efforts to prevent it, continue to produce