The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1870-02-27
Rationalism-No.4.>

In cur last 6rC1cl6 on Gn1S SuOJcc6 we an
| nounced it as our purpose to inquire, as
soon as circumstances permitted, where
| the true principles of ethics-the matter
then in hand-were to be found, and now
we modestly undertake to institute that
inquiry but as an essential preliminary to
it, we shall first examine into the nature,
properties and attributes of the human
will. The Good-the divine perfection we
were last neutrality-suspicious. and af-
firms itself to our will, as the peculiar
faculty which it creates and actaates, and
through the cooperation of which only can
this perfection be partakeE by man, who,
by the free exercise of his will, reproduces
it in his own actions. The human will is a
force, a power, but not of itself, or in it's
own right-it is created, and all created
forces can be but secondary causes, since
the first casualty pertains incommunicably
to the Creator. The theories of Kant and
Fichte, the dreams of Scbelling and Hegel,
and all the rawlings of the Pantheists and
Rationalsts, who deny second causes, and
thereby acquit man of all responsibility,
are contradicted by our everyday expert
ence, and can find no room outside of the
absurd systems which they were invented
to uphold. The two forces which produce
the Good on earth are but the one and
same human will reviewedin different lights
free Will (urbitrium) and atfection-both
distinct from each other, in that the one-is
operative, intelligent and free, and the
other simply cooperative, often blind, and
always fatal, in the philosophic acceptation
of the word, in its strife for the object on
which it is set. Both, however, concur in
enabling lis, as we shall see, to attain the
final destiny for which we We're created.
The existence and reality of free-will we
here more undertake to prove, than in
commencing this pretentionless series of
| articles, (and for the very same reason,
| too,) we undertook to prove the existence
and veracity of our intellectual faculties;
neither will we attempt to solve the diff
culties of fatalists or predestinationists
against it, for we hatter ourselves with the
conviction that, as our argument progresses,
all these difficulties will dissolve of their
own accord. We will simply state now
that free-wil results from a psychological
fact, too often lost sight of nowadays,
when every man claims, even at the risk of
having an ass for pupil, to be his own
| master, that "the human mind is q
force, which has not in itself it's own
law" Every force, being an active prin-
ciple, must proceed according to q Ger
| tain method, and be governed by a certain
law, in its operations. This law may be
either intrinsic extrinsic to the force
which obeys it. If it is intrinsic it is the
very dynamic principle itself, which ac
cordingly, since it contains in itself the
rule of its peculiar explication and devel-
opment, cannot possibly ,be free, it being
| absurd that any substance should have the
power to annihilate it's own nature. In
mechanics, for instance, in physics, in
chemistry, in the animal and vegetable
| king doms, in instructive and sensitive
| life, tile forces at work are necessarily fatal
in their action, because the law, in obedi-
| ence to which they operate, is identical
| with their own essence. But that this is.
not the case with the human will is evident
from the fact that the moral law affirms
itself to us as something distinct from us,
something absolute and independent,
| which, like the True and the Beautiful,
exhibits itself to the mind, but is not con-
founded with it; which the mind may OBJ
serve or transgress as it chooses; which is
obligatory in the strictest sense of the
word, but imposes only a moral obligation,
which itself always presupposes liberty.
By means of knowledge, the mind appre-
bends the law, and by exercising the free
dom of election, or choice, with which it is
endowed, accepts or repudiates it; the law
is substantially different from human indi-
viduality, although it is ever present, to
guide and direct its deliberations. Hence
it stands to the mind in the two.fold rela-
ton of motive and endvboth objective
realities, since both refer to the thinking
principle in us, and can be apprehended
only in as much as they are the objects of
understanding and thought. Now the es-
sence of thought demands an object dis
tinct from the thinking subject, and yet
connected with il by that mysterious spirit
ual contact without which thought is i'm
possible. Even when thought reflects, or
bends back, upon itself, beside its own
contingent individuality, it apprehends
dimly the absolute and creative reason
hence the act of thinking implies in all
! I. 4. - II