The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1870-03-27
Papal Infallibility, No. 2.

iect of infaihbiilty, we beg leave to make q
few preliminary remarks on the society for
which this much talked of privilege is
claimed. History, religion, and true phi
losophy proclaim the unity of the human
race, and their descent from one and the
same progeEitor; but mere unity of origin
and stock being purely material, cannot of
itself alone beget the moral unity so inti-
mately associated with our idea of the hu
man family. Mere identity of nature and
the natural resemblance of outward parts
to each other, while they may compose an
aggregation of similars, cannot form an
organic whole. Common sense and natural
instinct, in considering all mankind as
| members of one body and brethren of one
household, recognize a moral bond conform
able to the Christian dogma. This bond
itself is dogma, and the only scientific
postulate to establish the doctrine of civil
duties, and furnish a basis for the law of
nations. Were we to regard the various
people, by whom the earth is inhabited as
mere natural or fortuitous aggregations,
living apart from each other, and without
any moral tie to give them cohesion, it
NOuIu Uo lupOSStDlc " CSllulISu Ou
rational basis the reciprocity of rights
and duties among men. In their external
communications with one another Justice
would be replaced by brute force, and war,
now only lamentable expedient, would,
as Hobbies claims, be their only natural
condition. The law of nations therefore
prcsupposes that all men are bound togeth-
| Il oiY,1a Of Ia
cause they are brethren in blood, and be-
cause to this natural bond is added the
sacred tie of spiritual fraternity. On any
4 other supposition the law of nations is a
huge absurdity. In speaking of the social
unity of mankind, however, we mean their
moral, not their political unity we have
equally little patience, both with those who
deny the moral unity of the race and those
who, like some modern Legislators and wri-
tiers on education, would cast allkits MEM
bers in the same mould.
Every social body is one and manifold !;
it is variety reduced to unity; but this re-
duction must be viewed from different
stand-points, according to the properties of
the varieties reduced. Society simply, is
an organic composition, in, which parts,
whether similar or dissimilar, but unequal,
are grouped around common centre. This
is the society of mechanical forces, of the
vegetable and mineral kingdoms, of astron-
omy with all its brilliant clusters, of sounds
in music; harmonies in poetry and archi-
| lecture of numbers in arithmetic. If we
consider society as consisting of self-mov-
ing, active beings, it's centre, as we have
said of instinct in the brute creation, be-
comes also its principle of motion; but if
those beings are, in addition to their ac-
tive power, endowed with free-will, the
principle of motion is likewise the moral
rule of their actions. This is the moral So
ciety of mankind. 1t is one and manifold !;
it's unity exhibits itself as centre, force and
law, while its variety is organic, active,
free; two classes of correlatives which pre-
suppose each other as necessarily as aradi-
US does a circle, or the diterential its redi-
Indignation in the integral calculus.
The principle which informs, OF in other
Words. is the soul of human society, the
centre round which it revolves, the force
which impels and the law which governs it,
is the manifestation, the revelation God
makes to us, in creating us, of Himself-is
the evidence we wrote about some weeks
ago, in the light of which we see the first
principles of all human sciences, and with
tout which neither science nor knowledge is
conceivable. This revelation humanity,
even in the darkest periods of it's chequered
existence, never wholly lost sight of; it
alone could give semblance of unity to
the human family, establish ''the law of
nations" or, it's modern substitute, the bal
ance of power. 1t is, as we said some time
ago, the effulgence of the WORD, who was
in the world, though the world knew Him
not; by whom the world was made, and
who is the light of every man coming into
the world. He is the truth, the way, and
the life; the light of our minds, being the
principle of every physical, moral and su-
pernatural truth. He is the actuating prin-
ciple of all our powers-the standard and
model of every free operation. In Him So
ciety must seek its centre, it's principle of
| action and its law, for in Him only can be
found the secret of the organic, active and
obligatory unity, which harmonizes and
moulds into one common, moral brother
hood the universally of individuals and
nations.