The Priest "Begs the Question "-Should we Pin our Faith to the Sleeve Great Men?-The Spirit of Inquiry in the Air--Subtle and Ingenious gument from Brownson's Quarterly Review; its Fallacy-Logic and Log Quibbles-Good-bye to Metaphysics-Is the Bible Inspired?

INGERSOLL." This question cannot be settled by say that it would be a mere waste of time and space to enumer the proofs that show that the universe was created by a p existent and self-conscious being."

The learned priest takes issue with this statement a claims that Mr. Ingersoll is refuted by his, the Father's, av ment, that the books are full of refutations of Mr. Ingersol arguments, and of proofs positive of the doctrines he cont verts! Considering that the good priest is a volunteer, a not, like me, invited to join the intellectual tourney, wou not a little modesty on his part become the situation? Shou he not, at least, name the books where those invincible pro may be found? for he says, "it would appear you are ign rant of these proofs." We are told, "The wisest and greate of mankind have known, studied and pondered these proo and been convinced by them." Francis Bacon was termed 1 a great poet the "greatest and wisest," even if the "meanest, mankind," yet he believed in witchcraft; and because he d shall we endorse the delusion? He did not believe "Catholicity," nor did Milton, nor Newton; will you therefo renounce it?

This is the nineteenth century. The spirit of inquiry is in the air, and pervades every avenue of knowledge. With untiring vigilance it watches every new development, and re-examines every scientific fact, every dogma, every metaphysical conclusion, be it old or new. No impediment can stay the grand

current of human thought.

We are glad to publish, word for word, the argument in proof of the existence of God, taken from Brownson's Quarterly Review, and which is incorporated in the "Notes." It is marked by a subtlety and ingenuity of logic which must command respect even with those who dispute its conclusions. It runs thus: "I allow you to doubt all things if you wish, till you come to the point where doubt denies itself. Doubt is an act of intelligence; only an intelligent agent can doubt. It as much demands intellect to doubt as it does to believe, to deny as it does to affirm. Universal doubt is, therefore, an impossibility, for doubt cannot, if it would, doubt the intelligence that doubts, since to doubt that would be to doubt itself. You cannot doubt that you doubt, and then, if you doubt, you know that you doubt, and there is one thing, at least, you do not doubt, namely, that you doubt. To doubt the intelligence that doubts would be to doubt that you doubt, for without intelligence there can be no more doubt than belief. Intelligence then you must assert, for without intelligence you cannot even deny intelligence, and the denial of intelligence by intelligence contradicts itself, and affirms intelligence in the very act of denying it. Doubt, then, as much as you will, you must still affirm intelligence as the condition of doubting, or of asserting the possibility of doubt, for what is not cannot

act.

"This much, then, is certain, that however far you may carry your denials, you cannot carry them so far as to deny intelligence, because that would be denial of denial itself.

Then you must concede intelligence, and then whatever is essential to the reality of intelligence. In conceding anything you concede necessarily all that by which it is what it is, and without which it could not be what it is. Intelligence is inconceivable without the intelligible, or some object capable of being known. So, in conceding intelligence, you necessarily concede the intelligible.* The intelligible is therefore something that is, is being, real being, too, not merely abstract or possible being, for without the real there is and can be no possible or abstract. The abstract, in that it is abstract, is nothing, and therefore unintelligible, that is to say, no object of knowledge or of the intellect. [?] The possible, as possible, is nothing but the power or ability of the real, and is apprehensible only in that power or ability.

"

'In itself, abstracted from the real, it is pure nullity, has no being, no existence, is not, and therefore is unintelligible, no object of intelligence or of intellect, on the principle that what is not is not intelligible. Consequently, to the reality of intelligence, a real intelligible is necessary, and since the reality of intelligence is undeniable, the intelligible must be asserted, and asserted as real, not as abstract or merely possible being. You are obliged to assert intelligence, but you cannot assert intelligence without asserting the intelligible, and you cannot assert the intelligible, without asserting something that really is, that is, without asserting real being. The real being thus asserted is either necessary and eternal being, being in itself, subsisting by and from itself, or it is contingent and therefore created being. One or the other we must say, for being which is neither necessary nor contingent, or which is both at once, is inconceivable, and cannot be asserted or supposed.

In assenting to the fact of doubting the intelligible is the intelligence doubting, and there is required no other "intelligible," which satisfies the requirement for something intelligible without postulating any reality besides the intelligence.

"Whatever is, in any sense, is either necessary and eternal, or contingent and created—is either being in itself, absolute being, or existence dependent on another for its being, and therefore is not without the necessary and eternal, on which it depends. If you say it is necessary and eternal being, you say it is God; if you say it is contingent being, you still assert the necessary and eternal, therefore God, because the contingent is neither possible nor intelligible without the necessary and eternal. The contingent, since it is or has its being only in the necessary and eternal, and since what is not, is not intelligible, is intelligible as the contingent, only in necessary and eternal being, the intelligible in itself, in which it has its being, and therefore is intelligibility. So in either case you cannot assert the intelligible without asserting necessary and eternal being; and therefore, since necessary and eternal being is God, without asserting God, or that God is; and since you must assert intelligence even to deny it, it follows that in every act of intelligence God is asserted, and that it is impossible, without self-contradiction, to deny his existence."

With great respect for the author of the above, I must say, when analyzed, it seems a web woven of words. Without preamble let us admit that God exists; yet those who believe in the eternity of matter believe also that all of the possibilities of life were infolded within it from the "beginning." They hold that it had always the innate power of infinite expansion and differentiation, and that from it evolved mind and all the other phenomena of being. Besides infinite succession of being is no more difficult of comprehension than self-existent eternal being. While we conceive of space as illimitable, the idea of a limit to space being unthinkable, we can, as we have shown, conceive as well of a chain composed of links interminable extending through space. The truth is we may apprehend both or either, but can comprehend

52

REPLY TO LAMBERT'S

neither. We may, as shown by Herbert Spencer, “symbol time and space, but from an understanding of them we co as far as our minds fall short of infinite comprehension.

So much space has been given to the quotation on wh reliance was placed that we must hasten to a conclusion this chapter.

Ingersoll.-"Logic is not satisfied with assertion."

Lambert." Then it is not satisfied with your assertion reference to it."

Certainly not. As an assertion merely, it carries no weis It is a major premise, and if disputed must be proved. If s evident it need not be proved. We consider it as such. will the good, honest priest demand that a disputant parse sentences and embrace in his work a treatise on every sub he mentions? Surely the earth could not contain the bod Lambert.-" Logic as a science deals with principles, assertions; and logic as an art deals with assertions only." The Father might have added, that logic, as a science, wi applied to the elucidation of the grandest problems which the attention of man, scorns the quibbles and sub engage fuges of the schoolmen and directs its aim to the exposit of truth only. I speak of logic with a soul back of it; the kind which amuses itself with the jumping-jacks of te nicality.

Ingersoll.-"A fact is a legal-tender.”

Listen to the rare profundity and excruciating logic of
Father's reply!

Lambert.-"A counterfeit is a fact; is it a legal-tender?
Yes, as a counterfeit it is. It is a legal-tender fact in co
to convict the one who made or circulated it with crimi
intent. But in the well understood sense in which Mr. Ing
soll used the word, it is not a fact, but a lie.

The same sophistical spirit pervades the balance of Chap