The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-04-01
POPULAR ApoLoGETIcS.
Adapted from the German of Rev.
Peter Mikes, S. j., by Rev.
James Watcher.
xxxVlIl. Materialisr~-Force and
MATER.


MaUgr.
Objection. Everything is only mat,
ter force and motion; what is
beyond This (soul, God, cte,), the
matecialist calls tran&cendental Che
Sonu selse perception), and this tran
seen .dence he considers as an aberra-
Ton of the human mind" (Buechner
: 1897, with the boundary of
ssenticnt experience we have eleo
Fhc boundary of thought" yvogt
1880
t.nswer: u TAts is at any rate
dreary and "spiritless" system
which forhias us to go farther with
cur thoughts than the animal goes
with its eye, ear and nose.
y 1t is, moreover, a system full
of contradictions, s@
az Did ever Il materialist perceive
with his senses an atom, the smallest
iaaiVisible body, if we want to be.
lieNe the dictates of science? And
still he believes in atoms and swears
by them. What a contradiction?
b Moreover, how could these
atoms, without a principle of unity
and order and fitness, being Spirit.
less, be put together SO wonderfully
as we see them in tho world?
To avoid thiS contradiction, the
materialist Haeckel warts to give a
soul to every atom In that event
everyone would nave billions of souls.
What eX!Laraganco! We are salts
ned with only one soul. We are
+scher with our one soul than the soul
millionaire lIaeckol.
Wherever we look in nature, we
see u purpose, Il final cause, a plan
and deliberation, not mere chance.
But plan and deliberation do not come
from matter, but from Il spirit.
q Materialism, admitted no soul,
can not admit freedom OF the will !;
according to it all that happens, hap
DenS by pure necessity, is the result
tant of the existing material forces.
But this is III fragrant contradiction
with the consciousness Of every man,
that he acts not by necessity but
freely,
Cribs question will be more fully
treated in future articles.)
Man is free, even if he were born
u "Buechner."
xxx. hosphorescence.
Objections: Thinking is nothing but
phosphorescence of the brain. 1t is
a purely material process. ,.,,.>.s,ss..,
Answer: That phosphorus shines
in the dark, we know; but that it
thinks, is new discovery. To dis
cover this hosphorescence
it took the darkness OF science as
we look for it in vain in the dark
ages"
We think of suDersensible things,
e. g., of spirit, God, Immortality,
eternity, justice, wisdom, etc. These
thoughts are dramatically opposed to
matter, hence can not be a product
of matter. They can only come from
an immaterial principle, from soul
The same holds good OF the will.
Did ever anyone hear Of a yard OF
JnOuSnI, quart Oh lueaS, dn acre vi
syllogisms, Il pound OF love, a peck
of hatred, bushCl of hope? Why
do we laugh at such things? Because
everyone knows that such things can
not be measured weighed, counted
like matter that they are on the con
trary, dramatically opposed to eN
tended and composite matter, that
they are immatCrial.
Hence the principle from which
they proceed must be immaterial;
from which it necessarily follows thai
there must be an immaterial soul, {
spirit.
y Sclf-consciousncss the intcnsi
fication and concentration of mar
into one point, SO to speak, would be
absolutely impossible without the
spirituality of the soul, since the
different parts of matter rcmair
always separated and side by side
Hence Du Bois-Raymond admits thai
this self-consciousness is an insolv
able riddle for materialism.