The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1921-03-12
PANEGYRIC ON SAINT THOMAS


morality was nothing at all. When
men write the newer PHILOSOPHERS of
history they can trace in large meas
ure the horrors of the late World
| War to the brute passion, brute greed
and brute force emancipated from
moral restraint by this satanic doc
trine of materialistic evolution. II
was simply a transition from mate
rialism to scarcely less dangerous
Pantheism, when Bergson poetically
proclaimed his Philosophy of Change,
| to which French Syndicalism con-
sciously and the wider movement of
Bolshevism unconsciously gave prac-
tical expression. In him again we find
| that banefnl reduction of Free Will
to sheer 6 imal impulse. What con-
ISOLATION is 81 to Christian ethics that
the jostling clouds of false reasoning
soar over the heads of the multitude,
while the pernicious conclusions of
those who reason thus continue to
wreak havoc in the lives of their con-
| temporaries?
The evils which have come to man.
! kind because of such false reasoning
| have been realized by the Church
from her very infancy, and in conse-
| quence the Fathers of the Church
have ever insisted upon the assiduous
cultivation of a sound constructive
philosophy The effectual aid that
sound reasoning brings to theology
was summarized long ago by ST..
Thomas Aquinas; and it has found
one of it's most complete and power
full apologists in the Aeterni PATHS of
Leo XIII. Reason, if it applies itself
to proving the truths which faith pre-
supposes, becomes a proper disposer
of the mind, solid stepping-stone to
the Faith, prelude and auxiliary to
| Christianity. Philosophy, further
more, is necessary to develop the
truths of Faith, so that sacred theol-
ogy may assume the nature, form
and genius of true science" 1t is
the duty of philosophy to gather the
many and various heavenly teachings
and build them into one solid struc-
| ture of doctrine, SO that the various
other, and thus, when properly CO.
ordinated, constitute an edifice beau
tiful in it's harmony, inlpreenable in
its soidity And as this noble edifice
of divine truth is frequently assailed
| by the furious storms of false philos-
ophy it behooves the Church to lay
| the foundations of her faith deep and
strong and to erect around it the bar
| riers of enduring truth. Thus it is
| the province and glory of philosophy,
| after it has made reasonable and sys-
| tematiZed the truths of divine revela-
ton. to become the impenetrable bull
| wark of the Christian Faith.
| Church Senses Real Evils.
| In the long centuries Of her eXpe-
rience the Church must have discov-
cred that particular system of thought
which would most adequately answer
| the three purposes she requires OF
! philosophy: nay rather, she must have
| evolved such a system herself, for
among her loyal sons there must have
| been a goodly number who had both
| the zeal as we'll as the mental equip
ment to accomplish such a task.
Whatever that particular system of
philosophy might be upon which the
Church finally put the stamp of her
approval, we may be certain that it
was of slow growth, that each con.
tributory element was carefully test
ed, for the mind of man is prone to
fallacy and its product invariably du'
bious, whereas the Church is prudent
and exacting in her demands, and in
the processes of her evolution years
mean little to her We should expect
to find little rivulets of thought trio
king through to larger channels, these
in turn furrowing through to wider
and deeper streams And as the
streams gathered volume they would
struggle onward, until finally some
spacious channel would encompass
them all, and the waters of thought
Scholasticism and Church would roll
. on in serene composure to the ocear
of Gods wisdom.
In the golden ages of the Church
{ we find that Scholasticism realizes
2 this ideal. During those dreary cen
: turies which marked the wandering:
2 of the peoples. and their gradual alb
t sorption into Christianity, the wisdom
. of the ancient Fathers of the Churcl
! lay dormant even as the winter snow,
: lie undisturbed on the sunless noun
3 ! tain sides. In the tenth century th'
E kindly light of knowledge began slow
t ly to thaw through the frozen reache
Q of those grim centuries, and soon W,
e find budding forth such mel
!. as Lanfranc, and his distin
v guished pupil, Anselm of Cante1
n bury, who has with much justice beef
a called the Father of Scholasticism
O The streams of knowledge now multi
n piled quickly, and in the heat of in
yestigation and discussion two riva
currents formed themselves. Realism
Traditionalism and Mysticism on th
f. one hand, and Nominalism, Concel
e tualism and Rationalism on the otl
t. er. In the one current moved tn
h TRANQUIL souls of Anselm of Laon an
e the sanity Bernard, while in the oil
Is er the brilliant genius of Abelard pu
O. sued amid whirlpools its eTratic an
d romantic destination. Then came th
s great synthetizers, Hugo of st. Victc
IT and Peter the Lombard, who attemp
IS al fa I1l,rify tho yyatnrC 0f cOutr0ynrc