Preface

Preface

The present compendium based chiefly on the works of Père Garrigou-Lagrange is a defence of Divine Revelation “sub directione Fidei.” It is intended to be a supplement to the Principles of Christian Apologetics published in the Westminster series of Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. The aim of the latter volume was to shew the rational grounds on which rest truths of the first importance regarding God, man and the relations between God and man. Its aim was also to stress the fact that advance in the various branches of Natural Science, so far from being a hindrance, is distinctly a help to Religious and Supernatural belief.

More than thirty years ago the late Professor Huxley, ablest of English Agnostics, wrote: “The extant forms of supernaturalism … in these latter days have to cope with an enemy whose full strength is only just beginning to be put out, and whose forces, gathering strength year by year, are hemming them round on every side. This enemy is Science” (“Essays upon some Controverted Subjects,” p. 29). He proceeds: “The first chapter of Genesis teaches the supernatural creation of the present forms of life; modern science teaches that they have come about by evolution” (p. 31). Would not the Professor have been astonished if he had been told that great Fathers of the Church, such as Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine held views on that question which leave room for Evolution in its fullest form—an Evolution from inorganic matter right up to the body of man, no special intervention of God being necessary? “The conservation of creatures, the concursus with their activity and finally the creation of the human soul when the disposition of matter calls for it, are the three acts of the natural government of the world by God… . Thus the necessary order of development of the world is included in what St. Gregory of Nyssa terms the primary impulse of the Divine Will.” (Cf. Darwinism and Catholic Thought, p. [page reference illegible in scan], by Canon Henry de Dorlodot, Professor at Louvain University.)

This is a typical case where the supposed conflict between Religion and Science is due to ignorance of the teaching of those who are accredited representatives of Religion. Professor Huxley proceeds to point out that whereas the late Mr. Gladstone interpreted the first chapter of Genesis as giving a chronology of the creation of organisms—a chronology in harmony with Science (viz., 1. Plants; 2. Aquatic and Aerial Animals; 3. All Terrestrial Animals) Science shews that plants and animals, aquatic, aerial and terrestrial existed contemporaneously. The Catholic position on this matter is that the author of Genesis had no intention to write a scientific statement. He aimed at emphasising the Divine origin of the world, the mode being outside his purview. In confirmation of this fact, amongst the decrees of the Pontifical Commission for Biblical studies published on the 30th June, 1909, we find the following: “Since it was not the intention of the sacred writer to teach the inmost constitution of visible things, or the complete order of creation, in a scientific manner, but rather to give to his countrymen a popular notion, conformable to the ordinary language of those times, and adapted to their opinions and intelligence, we must not always and regularly look for scientific exactitude of language when interpreting this chapter.” Were Professor Huxley alive to-day, it would be interesting to know on what grounds he, undoubtedly a lover of truth, would withhold his assent from this, the Catholic interpretation of Mosaic cosmogony. Again, regarding the geographical universality of the Flood, Father Hetzenauer writes: “The Fathers, neither directly nor indirectly, put forward the geographical universality of the Flood as the sense of the church, or as a doctrine of faith or morals; therefore tradition in the strict sense does not teach this universality.”

But there is one question of present-day interest to which more attention must be given. Is the early history of man, so far as it may be read in geological records, in harmony with the teaching of Divine Revelation as set forth in the Book of Genesis? In order to answer this question satisfactorily I venture to give a brief account of the various human relics which have been discovered so far, and which belong chiefly to the Pleistocene period. The diagram (Fig. 1) reproduced from Sir Arthur Keith’s Antiquity of Man (Second Edition, 1925) with the kind permission of Author and Publishers (Messrs. Williams and Norgate) indicates the different periods of the Pleistocene and portion of the Pliocene period. B is a magnification of the later periods of A. The human remains belonging to each period are given in the chronological order of discovery.

Figure 1 — image to be inserted. Chronological chart from Sir Arthur Keith, The Antiquity of Man (2nd ed., 1925), reproduced by permission of Williams and Norgate. Two vertical columns. A spans the Pliocene and Pleistocene, reading upward from 350,000 years (Kentish Eoliths), through 300,000 (Sub-Crag Implements), Pre-Chellean, 200,000 (Early Chellean), Chellean, 120,000, Acheulean, 80,000, 40,000 (Mousterian), 20,000 (Aurignacian), Neolithic, to the Present at B.C. 0; the Günz and Mindel glaciations are marked within it. B magnifies the later periods on a separate scale, reading upward from 20,000 years (Aurignacian) through Solutrean (15,000), Magdalenian (13,000), Azilian (10,000), Neolithic (8,000), Bronze (2,000) to Iron at B.C. 0; the Würm glaciation is marked. Arrows connect the compressed upper band of A to the expanded scale of B.

Europe

Neolithic Culture

(1) 1883. Tilbury, skeleton; cranial capacity 1,500 c.c.; 5ft. 4in. in height; river-bed type.

(2) 1910. Coldrum Monument (Kent), fragments of twenty-two individuals; only five skulls complete enough for examination; men 5ft. 4in., women 5ft. 1in. in height; brain capacity of male skulls 1,600 c.c., of female 1,450 c.c.; some long-headed, some medium-headed. Before the beginning of the Neolithic period great numbers of round-headed people had come into Central Europe. Agricultural and settled communities were inventions of the Neolithic age.

Palæolithic Cultures

I.—Azilian (from Mas d’Azil in the Pyrenees) 1909. Cranial fragments from Spain; probably of river-bed type.

II.—Magdalenian (named after La Madeleine, a rock shelter on the river Vézère).

(1) 1888. Chancelade (near Périgueux), skeleton; probably round-headed; brain-capacity 1,530 c.c. Professor Sollas suggested that the Chancelade type may be ancestral to the Eskimos.

(2) 1903. Cheddar (Mendip Hills, Somerset), skeleton; river-bed type; long-headed; brain-capacity 1,450 c.c.; height 5ft. 4in.

(3) 1907. Ofnet (fifty miles south-west of Nürnberg), thirty-three skulls; mostly round but some long-headed; the round skulls are of Mongoloid form, the long-headed skulls are of Nordic type. Evidently round-headedness (now dominant in Central Europe) had begun at this period to prevail over long-headedness.

(4) 1914. Obercassel (near Bonn), skeletons of a man and a woman; Nordic type (still dominant in North-Western Europe); man 5ft. 3in. in height; brain-capacity 1,500 c.c.; woman’s brain-capacity 1,350 c.c.

III.—Soloutrean (named from Soloutré, near Mâcon)

(1) 1892. Predmost (fifty miles east of Brünn), forty skeletons; long-headed; in stature tall like the men of Cromagnon.

(2) 1922. Avellines Hole (Mendip Hills, Somerset), three skulls; skull A’s brain-capacity is 1,450 c.c.; skulls B and C are round-headed. The wave of round-headedness which was ultimately to impress itself on the greater part of the population of Europe, which commenced apparently in the East, had reached the West of England at this period.

IV.—Aurignacian (from Aurignac in Haute Garonne, where remains were found in 1860).

(1) 1822. Paviland Cave (near Swansea), skeleton, but skull not found; perhaps of Cromagnon race.

(2) 1833. Engis (Liège), skull found by Dr. Schmerling. It was of river-bed type; long-headed; brain-capacity 1,500 c.c. Huxley wrote: “This skull might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless mind of a savage.” Sir Arthur Keith remarks: “Huxley’s statement refers to the average brain, which is equal to the needs of both philosopher and savage. It does not in any way invalidate the truth that a small brain with a simple pattern of convolutions is a less capable organ than a large brain with a complex pattern.”

(3) 1868. Cromagnon (near the village of Les Eyzies, Dordogne), five skeletons, four being adults; height 5ft. 11in.; long-headed; brain-capacity 1,600 c.c.; limbs negroid in their proportions; not of the river-bed type.

(4) 1878. Cissbury (near Worthing), two skeletons, one of a man 5ft. in height; long-headed; brain-capacity 1,350 c.c.; the other skeleton of a woman, stature 5ft.; brain-capacity 1,732 c.c.; both of the river-bed type.

(5) 1891. Brünn (Czecho-Slovakia), skull; long-headed; brain-capacity 1,600 c.c.; variant of Cromagnon. The present day Patagonian skulls are similar—a fact which seems to show that the Patagonians are a survival of a Palaeolithic race, who made their way into America from Mongolia in Palaeolithic times.

(6) 1895-1902. Grimaldi (Mentone), fifteen individuals in seven Grimaldi caves. In the “Grotte des Enfants” (at the level of the second hearth) was found the skeleton of an old woman of small stature; (at the level of the third hearth) skeletons of two young children; (at the level of the eighth hearth, 23ft.) skeleton of very tall man (6ft. 2½in.)—a representative of the Cromagnon race; (at the level of the ninth hearth) two skeletons—one of a woman of middle age, and the other of a youth of about sixteen years. The last two are perhaps the earliest Aurignacian settlers discovered in Europe, and represented a negroid, or, perhaps, a variant of Cromagnon race; brain-capacity of woman 1,375 c.c.; stature 5ft. 2⅜in.; brain-capacity of boy 1,580 c.c.; stature (at 16 years of age) 5ft. 11in., both long-headed.

(7) 1909. Combe-Capelle (Dordogne), skeleton; long-headed; brain-capacity 1,440 c.c.; of river-bed type; 5ft. 2in. in height.

Thus we see that at the beginning of the Aurignacian period (“at the beginning,” because one of the implements which lay near the skeleton was a Mousterian “point”—a flint scraper) the men in the Dordogne valley were people of modern types—the Cromagnon people tall, the Combe-Capelle short.

(8) 1909. Langwith (near Cresswell Craggs, Derbyshire), skull; river-bed type; brain-capacity [figure illegible in scan].

(9) 1911. Ipswich, skeleton; 5ft. 10½in. in height; brain-capacity 1,430 c.c.; long-headed. These remains were at one time referred to the early Pleistocene period, but Mr. Reid Moir found at about the same level or horizon (as that occupied by the skeleton) scanty remains of an ancient floor “probably referable to the early Aurignacian period.”

(10) 1912. Halling (Kent), skeleton; river-bed type; long-headed; brain-capacity 1,500 c.c.; 5ft. 4in. in height.

(11) 1914. Baker’s Hole (Kent), skull; long-headed; brain-capacity 1,490 c.c.

(12) 1923. Soloutré (near Mâcon), skeletons of three adults and two babies; one man (No. 2) 5ft. 10.8in. in height; the other (No. 1) 5ft. 9in.; woman 5ft. 1in. Both the male skulls are round-headed; the woman was medium-headed; brain-capacity of taller man 1,550 c.c.; of less tall 1,472 c.c.

Hence the Aurignacian men of Europe included five types: (1) tall, lank, rather negroid Cromagnon type; (2) robust large-headed Brünn type; (3) the river-bed type of Engis; (4) the Nordic type of Obercassel; (5) the rounded-headed type of Soloutré and of Ofnet.

Negroid Aurignacians may have been the remote progenitors of the Bushmen; but the remains found at Boskop (to be described presently) indicate more direct ancestry.

V.—Mousterian (named from Le Moustier, Vézère). During the Mousterian period, Neanderthal men were widely distributed. The Neanderthal characteristics were:

(a) Platycephalic or low-domed skulls like those of such anthropoids as the gorilla and chimpanzee.

(b) Eyebrow ridges—a supra-orbital torus.

Neanderthal man was a flint artisan, used fire, and buried his dead with implications of life beyond death of the body.

(1) 1848. Gibraltar skull of a woman; brain-capacity between 1,200 and 1,300 c.c.; medium-headed; face not prognathous; the supra-orbital ridge formed a prominent continuous bar of bone.

(2) 1857. Neanderthal (near Düsseldorf), vault of a skull; right and left thigh bones, right and left humerus and other fragments; long-headed. Huxley judged that Neanderthal man was an extreme variant, but not a separate species. Others thought that he was not only specifically, but even generically, distinct from Homo Sapiens.

(3) 1866. Naulette (Valley of Lesse, Belgium), mandible of a woman.

(4) 1886. Spy (near Namur), two male skeletons of Neanderthal type; large, robust skulls holding brains which, in point of size, were above the average of the modern European.

(5) 1899-1906. Krapina (Croatia), ten individuals; short-headed race. The Neanderthal species included long-headed, medium-headed and short-headed races. Amongst the Krapina remains are those of children, whose Simian eyebrow ridges are not as massive and characteristic as they appear in later adolescence. “Neanderthal women were less distinctly marked off from the modern type of mankind than was the case with the men.”

(6) 1908. Le Moustier (Vézère), skeleton of boy about sixteen years of age; head remarkably large and capacious.

(7) 1908. La Chapelle-aux-Saints, skeleton; buried in such a way as to manifest hopes and beliefs as to what happened after death; skull on the border line which separates long-headed and medium-headed groups; brain-capacity was 1,600 c.c., i.e., 120 c.c. above the modern average; height 5ft. 4in. The Neanderthal was not a tall race.

(8) 1909. La Ferrassie (four miles above the point where the Vézère joins the Dordogne), skeleton; brain large.

(9) 1910. La Ferrassie skeleton of woman.

(10) 1911. La Quina (Charente), skeleton of woman; long-headed; brain-capacity 1,350 c.c.; 5ft. in height. Also skull of a child of about eight years old showing supra-orbital ridges.

(11) 1914. Ehringsdorf (Weimar), human jaw (female), prognathous, ape-like face.

VI.—Acheulean (from St. Acheul, near Amiens, in the valley of the Somme).

(1) 1863. Moulin Quignon (Abbeville), human jaw; first discovery of the “river-drift,” terrace-gravel man; shows characteristics of modern European type, and was therefore rejected, because it was assumed that men of modern type could not have been in existence before the Mousterian period.

(2) 1882. Bury St. Edmunds, fragment; part of vault of human female skull; round-headed; brain-capacity 1,340 c.c.; characters indicate a head of modern type.

(3) 1902. Dartford (Kent), skull; brain-capacity 1,740 c.c.; long-headed; modern type; “we cannot cite it as evidence that men of modern type lived in England during the Acheulean period; yet we cannot reject it, for it may be authentic.”

VII.—Chellean (Chelles lies in the valley of the Marne, eight miles east of Paris).

(1) 1863. Olmo (Upper Arno), skull; exact cultural horizon cannot be fixed with certainty, but the skull is certainly older than the Mousterian period; modern type; long-headed; brain-capacity 1,560-1,600 c.c.

(2) 1868. Clichy (Paris), skeleton; brain-capacity about 1,500 c.c.; modern type; evidently in earliest Palaeolithic times, the peoples in the valleys of the Seine and Thames were very much alike.

(3) 1888. Galley Hill (Kent), skeleton; modern type; 5ft. 3in. in height; long-headed; “most of the Palaeolithic Europeans, especially of the Aurignacian period, had exceptionally long heads. In any large modern population on the Western side of Europe, individuals with heads of a very similar size and shape could still be found”; brain-capacity 1,500 c.c.; skull thick; thus the Western European type has come down through (according to some geologists) 100,000 years, and yet has undergone but minor changes in structure.

(4) 1907. Heidelberg; mandible of Neanderthal race.

VIII.—Pre-Chellean.

(1) 1860. Castenedolo (six miles south-east of Brescia), fragment of skull.

(2) 1880. Castenedolo, fragments of skeletons of two children, and skeleton of woman; woman long-headed; brain-capacity 1,330 c.c.; modern types.

(3) 1912. Piltdown (Sussex), skull; there are doubts as to whether the somewhat simian-like mandible belongs to the skull; skull probably that of a woman of brain-capacity 1,400 c.c. This early Pleistocene or Pliocene form was more like ourselves than was the Neanderthal type of mid-Pleistocene times. “In general conformation, in actual dimensions, in brain-capacity, the head of the Piltdown race was remarkably similar to that of modern races.” The mandible is marked by simian traits, the molar teeth, whilst showing simian characteristics, are essentially human; the canine tooth (discovered by Father P. Teilhard de Chardon in 1913) is ape-like; the Piltdown race tended towards round-headedness.

Africa

(A) Later Pleistocene.

(1) 1913. Boskop (Transvaal), skull-cap; right temporal bone, a large part of the left half of the lower jaw and some other fragments; brain-capacity 1,630 c.c.; long-headed; race ancestral to Bushmen and Hottentots.

(2) 1914. Oldoway (south of Lake Victoria, Africa), skeleton of negro.

(3) 1921. Tzitzikama (100 miles west of Port Elizabeth), remains of twenty-three individuals; skull of woman; all members of the Boskop race; woman’s skull long-headed; brain-capacity 1,750 c.c.

(B) Early Pleistocene.

1921. Broken Hill (Northern Rhodesia), skull; more ape-like, more gorilla-like, than any of the modern man’s variants, living or extinct; brain-capacity 1,300 c.c.; stature 5ft. 10in.; medium-headed; separate species; supposed to be the ancestral type of modern races; not a direct ancestor of any living race; foreshadows many features of the modern type, particularly of the Australian Aborigine.

Asia

(A) Later Pleistocene.

1890. Wadjak (Java), two skulls; brain-capacities 1,550 and 1,650 c.c. respectively; related to Rhodesian and Talgai (Australian) types but later and higher than either of them.

(B) Early Pleistocene or Pliocene.

1891. Trinil (Java), Pithecanthropus erectus; was he ape-like man, or man-like ape? Brain-capacity 900 c.c. Some biologists are of opinion that a brain of at least 1,000 c.c. is necessary for human action. The mean brain-capacity for male gorillas is 518 c.c.; for Europeans 1,450 c.c. Hence the 900 c.c. of Pithecanthropus is supposed to furnish the “missing link.”

1892. Lake of Galilee. Fragment of Neanderthal skull found in cave near Tiberias.

Australia

1914. Talgai (Queensland), skull of boy; brain-capacity 1,300 c.c.; ancestral to modern aborigine; older than Wadjak and Boskop remains. Some claim this relic to be the earliest form of Homo Sapiens yet discovered. The Tasmanian native (now extinct) in spite of his woolly hair came from the same stock as the Australian Aborigines.

North and South America

Human remains, hitherto discovered, are of later Pleistocene period, and are all of the same American-Indian type. The Patagonians are survivals of a Palaeolithic race. They seem to be representatives of the proto-Mongolian type.

Fig. 2, which represents a hypothetical genealogical tree, is useful as a résumé of the most important finds described above.

Figure 2 — image to be inserted. Hypothetical genealogical tree of man. A vertical section with the left margin marked Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene, and two inner scales in years (450,000 to 10,000) and feet (9,000 to 100). A branching stippled form rises from the Humanoid Stem at the base, through the Human Stem and Modern Stem, dividing near the top into five columns labelled (left to right) Negro, Negroid, Australoid, Mongoloid and European. Named finds are ranged down the right-hand margin against their horizons: Obercassel, Cromagnon, Combe Capelle, Grimaldi, Boskop, Talgai, Neanderthal, Wadjak, Galley Hill (?), Ehringsdorf, Rhodesian, Heidelberg, Piltdown, Pithecanthropus. The uppermost band is labelled Recent.

Critical Remarks

In addition to the classification just given of human remains assigned to their periods, mention must be made of “eoliths” (i.e., chipped flints, chipped by Man or by Nature) discovered at St. Prest, in Kent, on the uplands of Belgium, and under the crag deposits of East Anglia. If these eoliths are of human workmanship (there are authorities of weight for and against) then the words of Abbé Breuil addressed to a friend are undoubtedly true: “Mon cher, cela vieillit beaucoup l’Humanité.”

The bearing of these facts on Divine Revelation has been set forth in the Principles of Christian Apologetics, chap. ix. Hence it will be sufficient to state the following conclusions:

(1) It is an interesting discovery that the brain-capacity of primitive races was, as a rule, higher than the average (1,450 c.c.) for the modern male European. Sir Arthur Keith writes of the Piltdown skull: “I cannot detect any feature in the frontal, parietal, or occipital areas which clearly separates this brain cast from modern ones; nor can I recognise any feature which has a distinct claim to be regarded as simian or primitive.” Putting aside Pithecanthropus as too problematical, the characteristics of Rhodesian man seem to favour the theory of Evolution. The appearance and disappearance in mid-Pleistocene times of Homo neanderthalensis is a fact on which no light can at present be thrown.

(2) The numbers of years assigned by scientists for the Antiquity of Man vary so much that they must be regarded as little more than guess-work. Professor Penck’s 1,500,000 years and Dr. Frederick Wright’s 30,000 years (both eminent men in geological science) eloquently attest the truth that data are wanting to form even an approximate estimate. Sir Arthur Keith (following Professor Sollas) put down in the first edition of his work 400,000 years for the Pleistocene period. In the second edition the estimate has been reduced by half, and a further reduction is anticipated. From the standpoint of Divine Revelation it should be remembered that there was no intention on the part of Inspired Writers to give an accurate chronology of events from Adam to Abraham.

(3) If the theory of Evolution and the consequent great antiquity of man be rigorously proved no conflict ensues with Divine Revelation. The Church has never condemned the hypothesis of the existence of pre-Adamites.¹

(4) It is of the first importance to remember that the evolutionary development of organisms suggested by SS. Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine is not in conflict with the doctrine of Creation as set forth in the book of Genesis. The final developments of an organic form whereby (through the action of discontinuous variation) it becomes possessed of brain-capacity capable of functioning in human fashion, and thus becomes fit for the reception of a rational soul—these final developments are in the truest and strictest sense a creation of man. The material element was originally drawn from no pre-existing material, the potentiality of the matter to develop was absolutely God-given, the soul created by God was infused when suitable development on the physical side was reached and, as time does not exist from the Divine standpoint, the Mosaic narrative of man’s creation is in complete harmony with the hypothesis which SS. Gregory and Augustine suggested.

The miracles of the New Testament were next attacked. The main indictment was that the Gospels, far from being contemporaneous records, belonged to the middle of the second century A.D. This contention of the Tubingen school is now discredited, and Professor Harnack, leading critic of New Testament chronology, has reverted to the Catholic position that the Synoptic Gospels were written between 50 and 70 A.D. In many other instances the supposed conflict between Religion and Science has vanished, and the conclusion is borne in upon fair-minded critics that (to use the words of Professor J. Arthur Thomson) “there is no fundamental antithesis between empirical description and transcendental interpretation. The one view seeks for the empirical Lowest Common Denominator, the other seeks for the transcendental Greatest Common Measure.” Dean Inge (Outspoken Essays: Second Series, p. 38) writes: “The conflict of religion is not with Science, but with materialistic philosophy, built upon Science, a philosophy which takes an abstract field of enquiry for the whole of reality and ignores those spiritual values which are just as much a part of our knowledge as the purely quantitative aspects of reality with which the natural Sciences are concerned.”

Alas! this admirable statement is not in harmony with later utterances. Writing the concluding essay in Science Religion and Reality (Sheldon Press, London, 1925), the Dean states: “Those Churchmen who airily declare that there is no longer any conflict between Christianity and Science are either very thoughtless, or are wilfully shutting their eyes. There is a very serious conflict, and the challenge was presented not in the age of Darwin, but in the age of Copernicus and Galileo” (p. 357). “Heaven and Hell were geographical expressions. The articles in the Creeds on the descent of Christ into Hades, and His ascent into Heaven affirm no less; and it is evident that the bodily resurrection of Christ is intimately connected with the bodily ascension” (p. 357). “Among all the stars, planets, satellites and nebulas we can hardly imagine that one has been chosen as the abode of the Creator and the site of the heavenly Jerusalem” (p. 358). Comparing these statements, the reader must conclude that whilst the Dean maintains that there is no conflict between Science and Religion, there is in his view a serious conflict between Science and the fundamental doctrines of Christianity! Non tali auxilio!

Professor Thomson in his recent work, Science and Religion, is responsible for the following statement: “The data of Science cannot furnish a basis for the transcendent inference that there is a God. They may suggest the belief, strengthen it, even ennoble it, but they cannot be its foundation” (p. 113). “It is not by Science that we can pass from Nature to Nature’s God. The pathway is that of Religious experience.” This statement, based on the principle of Immanence, comes curiously enough from one who has written impressively and beautifully of the wonders which Science reveals. In one place he reminds us that through Science we are made aware of “an intelligible cosmos, an orderly flux, an advancing movement in which we share, a process in which there is progress, a world instinct with beauty” (p. 168). Elsewhere he notes: “The nerve cells in our cerebral cortex number more than five times the population of the earth, and every cell is a microcosm. Within each cell there is an orderly laboratory, in which there take place oxidations, reductions, hydrations, condensations, fermentations, up-buildings, down-breakings, all proceeding at great speed, all very close together, and yet not interfering with one another. We admire a complex machine and honour its inventor; why not extend our admiration more generously to the organism and our honour reverently to its Creator?” (pp. 102, 103). “What potency in a bacillus, less than one five-thousandth of an inch in length, that can duplicate itself every half-hour, and that could in five days fill the whole ocean down to the depth of a mile” (p. 34). Again “matter is not so much a screen hiding God as a medium in which the Divine Art finds expression:

Trees in their blooming, Tides in their flowing, Stars in their circling Tremble with song.

God on His throne Is eldest of poets; Unto His measures Moveth the whole.”

(p. 42.)

And yet the validity of the transcendent inference is questioned! The object of the present as well as of the former Apologetic is to show that the Natural and Supernatural Revelations, so far from manifesting fundamental antithesis, do, when properly understood, support each other in such a way that the transcendent inference is perfectly valid. As St. Cyril of Alexandria reasoned “the wider our contemplation of Creation, the greater will be our conception of God”—a truth which a modern Indian philosopher stresses by inviting us to hear the music of the great I AM pealing from the grand organ of creation through its countless reeds in endless harmony.

On the publication of the Principles of Christian Apologetics, a suggestion was made to me from a high ecclesiastical quarter that a similar book, treating expressly on Divine Revelation, would be acceptable. Meanwhile, the lectures of Père Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., delivered in the Collegio Angelico at Rome were published in two large volumes. They are intended for the theological student, and the name of the author is sufficient guarantee of the excellence of the work. It seemed to me that a resumé of these lectures would (under competent direction) be a help to University students and advanced pupils of Secondary Schools. Such students are called upon sooner or later to associate with those who hold agnostic views on matters, which, from the Catholic point of view, are of primary importance. I venture to think that whilst the Religious Instruction given to Catholic senior students is admirable as a practical guide to duty, there is need that greater attention should be given to the philosophical foundation upon which Religion is based. Knowledge of Catholic Philosophy will assuredly (under the influence of Divine grace) safeguard the student from the shock of associating with able men and women, whose views on matters religious are frankly negative. Nowadays, the value of Catholic Philosophy is widely appreciated outside the Church. Alone has the traditional teaching of the Schools withstood the test of ages, and the repeated onset of attacks led by adversaries both numerous and subtle. Is it not time that these treasures of philosophical wisdom should be known and utilised more generally in the household of the Faith? I have ventured to rearrange the matter of Père Garrigou-Lagrange’s lectures to meet this need, and hope that the section which I entitle First Principles will be thoroughly assimilated. Words written elsewhere continue to have relevance: “If students are called upon to unravel the intricacies of Differential and Integral Calculus in order to obtain University degrees, it is surely not too much to expect that the metaphysical principles which are the support of Natural and Supernatural Religion should have some share of their attention.”

Père Garrigou-Lagrange has graciously given permission for the Resumé herein attempted, for which kindness I offer him sincere thanks. I wish to thank also the Right Rev. Monsignor Canon Moyes for the Summary of Catholic teaching on Divine Faith, Chap. XV., Art. V. Necessarily, owing to its aim, the Compendium shows omissions and additions. The additions comprise a chapter on the philosophy of M. Bergson—a system of vivid interest in itself, of wide acceptance, and withal admirably adapted for the application of the principles of Catholic Philosophy. I have endeavoured also to emphasise the objections against Divine Revelation, which proceed from English schools of thought, so as to give the treatise more “actuality” for the English-speaking student.

I avail myself of the opportunity afforded by the publication of the present Apologetic to offer my sincere thanks to critics, inside and outside the Church, who, when the earlier work appeared, wrote words which were not only a sign of their approval, but a strong encouragement to further effort in the same direction. They appreciated especially the use made of the conclusions of science for apologetic purposes. In truth the attitude of the Catholic Apologist is expressed in the well-known lines:

“Let knowledge grow from more to more But more of reverence in us dwell; That mind and soul, according well, May make one music as before, But vaster.”

T. J. W.

Notes

Footnotes

1. It is obvious that the only tenable theory of the existence of pre-Adamites is that if human beings existed before Adam they must have ceased to exist before the creation of Adam. Remains (for example) of homo neanderthalensis have been found in Europe, Asia, Africa, etc., and the race completely and mysteriously disappeared. ↩