Newman to be named a doctor of the church/

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Part VII: Newman and the Pope

Newman and the Pope

“But we must hope, for one is obliged to hope it, that the Pope will be driven from Rome, and will not continue the Council, or that there will be another Pope. It is sad he should force us to such wishes.”
(Newman’s Letter to Fr. Ambrose St. John, 22 August, 1870)

The above words, written approximately one month after the promulgation of the Dogma of Papal Infallibility on July 18, 1870, succinctly summarize Newman’s attitude towards the Definition, and towards the Papacy of Pope Pius IX. This quote should astound us, and elicit an enquiry as to how such sentiments are possible from a man who has just been beatified, and who is being held up as a model of obedience to Church authority. It needs also to be stated that the reader should not conclude that Newman’s view expressed above merely reflect a momentary indiscretion. His letters during this period are replete with such sentiments. Two months after the above letter to Fr. Ambrose, and one month after the official suspension of Vatican Council I (dashing any of his expressed hopes that the Council Fathers could reverse themselves on the Definition), he wrote the following to Lady Simeon on Nov 18, 1870:

“We have come to a climax of tyranny. It is not good for a Pope to live 20 years. It is anomaly and bears no good fruit; he becomes a god, has no one to contradict him, does not know facts, and does cruel things without meaning it.” (Quotations from Newman’s letters are taken from Charles Stephen Dessain’s The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, v. XXVI).

The reader who wishes to somehow deny the significance of the above quotes is, of course, able to offer words from Newman’s writings which, in their general tenor and expression of belief, run directly contrary to such sentiments in regard to the Papacy. Thus, in his Discourse on University Education,1852), he writes:

“Deeply do I feel, ever will I protest, for I can appeal to the ample testimony of history to bear me out, that, in questions of right and wrong, there is nothing really strong in the whole world, nothing decisive and operative, but the voice of him, to whom have been committed the keys of the kingdom and the oversight of Christ’s flock. That voice is now, as ever it has been, a real authority, infallible when it teaches, prosperous when it commands, ever taking the lead wisely and distinctly in its own province, adding certainty to what is probable and persuasion to what is certain. Before he speaks, the most saintly may mistake; and after it has spoken, the most gifted must obey….” (Dessain, vol. XXVI, p. 167)

This duplicity of Newman in regard to the Papacy is, of course, paralleled by a corresponding duplicity in regard to the Dogmatic Definition of Papal Infallibility itself. It is the proclamation of the Dogma itself which is the act of cruelty of which Newman speaks, and it is for having promulgated this Dogma that Newman “hopes” for the death of the Pope Pius IX, or that he be driven from Rome. On the other hand, Newman claims to have personally believed in Papal Infallibility before the Vatican Council, and he also submitted to and embraced (after an agonizing struggle) the actual Definition after the Council.

This enigma of Newman’s duplicity in regard to both Dogma and the Papacy is usually lightly passed over as part of the complexity and depth of the man, and the profundity of his intellect. It is my belief that such is not the case. Rather, what might seem enigmatically complex, is simple contradiction; and what has been considered profound, is really the shallow fruit of his rejection of Thomistic philosophy, and especially of that branch of philosophy called epistemology – the science of how we know and, therefore, also the science which establishes the reliability and power of our knowledge. This subject has been covered in depth in my article titled Does God Love Us?, and I refer the reader to it for an in-depth understanding of what is really wrong with Newman’s approach towards Catholic Faith, Dogma, and Papal Authority.

In this article, I intend to analyze the fruits of this duplicity. We have already explored Newman’s astounding words concerning the Definition of Papal Infallibility and his sentiments towards the Pope responsible for its promulgation. I would now like to turn his equally disturbing treatment of Pope Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors.

The Syllabus

It is important to first place things in context.

The Syllabus of Errors of Pope St. Pius IX, sent to all the bishops of the world along with the encyclical Quanta Cura (Dec 8, 1864), amounted to a declaration of war against the revolutionary world of the 19th Century – revolutions being waged in every sphere of human thought, life, and activity against Christ and His Church. The vast scope of the errors condemned is reflected in its division into 10 sections, each section representing a different area of human thought or activity. These are labeled as follows: 1)Pantheism, Naturalism, and Absolute Rationalism; 2) Moderate Rationalism; 3) Indifferentism and Latitudinarianism; 4) Socialism, Communism, Secret Societies, Bible Societies, and Liberal Clerical societies; 5) Errors concerning the Church and Her Rights 6) Errors About Civil Society, Considered Both in Itself and in Its Relation to the Church; 7) Errors Concerning Natural and Christian Ethics; 8) Errors Concerning Christian Marriage; 9) Errors Regarding the Civil Power of the Sovereign Pontiff; 10) Errors Having Reference to Modern Liberalism.

In considering the Syllabus in its larger context, it is also important to realize that the Pontificate of Pope Pius IX’s successor, Pope Leo XIII, was largely focused upon fleshing out these condemnations through an amazing array of profound social encyclicals covering all these areas of thought and activity. Further, Pope Pius X, Leo’s successor, brought this analysis and condemnation of modern errors to fruition in both his encyclical Pascendi, and in his own Syllabus Against the Errors of Modernism.

It is therefore impossible to overestimate the importance of Pius IX’s Syllabus for our understanding of the ideas, techniques, and activities of the forces of evil in the modern world, and also, therefore, for our being able to acquire those intellectual and moral weapons necessary for the Church’s defense and offense against these immensely destructive errors.

On the other hand, to undermine the authority and importance of the Syllabus in any way can only serve the purpose of aiding and abetting these same forces of evil. As we shall see, John Henry Newman used virtually every subterfuge conceivable to accomplish just such a task.

One of the things characteristic of the Modernist mind is that, to a large extent, such persons are able to leave the “bigger” mysteries of our faith alone. The doctrines of the Trinity, or of the Incarnation, for instance, do not demand “essentialization” with the same intensity as do many other magisterial teachings. These “major” doctrines usually play a very small role in that “illative sense” (experiential) which is “immediate” to man’s perception and experience, and they therefore do not usually demand alteration in order for modern man to adapt to historical and cultural conditions, growth in secular and scientific knowledge, etc. Such doctrines are not confronted with the evolving ideas of human liberty, religious pluralism, political movements, new economic realities, and secularism. They do not, therefore, get “in the face” of the world.

It is otherwise with the truths which are affirmed as contraries to the 80 propositions condemned by the Syllabus, Here, the “illative sense” of the dominant worldview, with which the ecumenist wishes to enter into dialogue and dialectical progress, is directly confronted and condemned. A person could hardly find himself in a position of being more of a sign of contradiction to the world and modern culture than by fully assenting to and embracing the Syllabus. And this is why the Syllabus is such a nemesis to the Liberal and Modernist mind. It lays bare precisely those principles and ideas which are on the cutting edge of the “vitality” of the modern world, and effectively burns them at the stake. It puts the ecumenist out of a job, It puts the non-Thomist out of a job, and it would have put Newman out of a job if the Catholics around had taken it with the substantial seriousness which it deserved. Few did. Cardinal Manning was one of them. Newman eventually won the battle, and Manning lost.

Newman’s “definitive” response to the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX is to be found in Section 7 of the Letter to the Duke of Norfolk (1875), usually considered his last major work. It is with an analysis of this work that we will be concerned here

First, Newman does everything possible to undermine the physical and moral connection of the Syllabus to the Pope. He says such things as:

“viewed in itself, it is nothing more than a digest of certain Errors made by an anonymous writer.”

“There is not a word in it of the Pope’s own writing.”

“There would be nothing on the face of it, to show that the Pope had ever seen it, page by page, unless the ‘imprimatur’ implied in the Cardinal’s letter had been an evidence of this.”

“but the Syllabus makes no claim to be acknowledged as the word of the Pope.”

“the Syllabus cannot even be called an echo of the Apostolic Voice.”

Now, of course, none of the above statements are quoted in context. In point of fact, the context makes them appear even worse. This “context” is constituted by the fact that the Syllabus was long in preparation, and a project very close to the heart and mind of Blessed Pope Pius IX (and also Cardinal Pecci, the future Pope Leo XIII). Below is taken from the 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia. I quote it in its entirety because it clearly “puts the lie” to Newman’s contention that the Syllabus was not the “Voice” of Pope Pius IX:

“The first impulse towards the drawing up of the Syllabus of Pius IX came from the Provincial Council of Spoleto in 1849. Probably on the motion of the Cardinal Archbishop of Perugia, Pecci (later on Leo XIII), a petition was laid before Pius IX to bring together under the form of a Constitution the chief errors of the time and to condemn them. The preparation began in 1852. At first Pius IX entrusted it to Cardinal Fornari, but in 1854 the Commission which had prepared the Bull on the Immaculate Conception took matters in hand. It is not known how far the preparation had advanced when Gerbet, Bishop of Perpignan, issued, in July, 1860, a “Pastoral Instruction on various errors of the present” to his clergy. With Gerbet’s “Instruction” begins the second phase of the introductory history of the Syllabus. The “Instruction” had grouped the errors in eighty-five theses, and it pleased the pope so much, that he set it down as the groundwork upon which a fresh commission, under the presidency of Cardinal Caterini, was to labour. The result of their work was a specification, or cataloguing, of sixty-one errors with the theological qualifications. In 1862 the whole was laid for examination before three hundred bishops who, on the occasion of the canonization of the Japanese Martyrs, had assembled in Rome. They appear to have approved the list of theses in its essentials. Unfortunately, a weekly paper of Turin, “Il Mediatore”, hostile to the Church, published the wording and qualifications of the theses, and thereby gave rise to a far-reaching agitation against the Church. The pope allowed the storm to subside; he withheld the promulgation of these theses, but kept to his plan in what was essential.

The third phase of the introductory history of the Syllabus begins with the appointment of a new commission by Pius IX; its most prominent member was the Barnabite (afterwards Cardinal) Bilio. The commission took the wording of the errors to be condemned from the official declarations of Pius IX and appended to each of the eighty theses a reference indicating its content, so as to determine the true meaning and the theological value of the subjects treated. With that the preparation for the Syllabus, having occupied twelve years, was brought to an end. Of the twenty-eight points which Cardinal Fornari had drawn up in 1852, twenty-two retained their place in the Syllabus; of the sixty-one theses which had been laid before the episcopate for examination in 1862, thirty were selected. The promulgation, according to the original plan, was to have taken place simultaneously with the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception; in the event it was ten years later (8 December 1864) that Pius IX published the Encyclical “Quanta Cura”, and on the same day, by commission of the pope, the secretary of State, Cardinal Antonelli, sent, together with an official communication, to all the bishops the list of theses condemned by the Holy See. The title of the document was: ‘A Syllabus containing the most important errors of our time, which have been condemned by our Holy Father Pius IX in Allocutions, at Consistories, in Encyclicals, and other Apostolic Letters’.”

This effort to deny the connection of the Syllabus to the mind and will of Pope Pius IX is part of the larger scheme to deny any dogmatic force to its condemnations. Newman simply and emphatically states,

“the Syllabus then has no dogmatic force.”

His efforts towards establishing this fallacy are threefold:

1) As already analyzed, he makes every effort, and uses every subtlety to separate it from the Pope.

2) He exercises similar subterfuge to separate the Syllabus from the encyclical Quanta Cura (Condemning Current Errors). He writes:

“The Syllabus does not exist as far as the language of the Encyclical is concerned.”

This, of course, is pathetic. The Pope ordered Cardinal Antonelli to send Quanta Cura to all the bishops, accompanied by the Syllabus. Cardinal Antonelli’s letter of introduction read as follows

“Our Holy Father, Pius IX, Sovereign Pontiff, being profoundly anxious for the salvation of souls and of sound doctrine, has never ceased from the commencement of his pontificate to prescribe and condemn the chief errors and false doctrine of our most unhappy age, by his published Encyclicals, and Consistorial Allocutions and Apostolic Letters. But as it my happen that all the Pontifical acts do not reach each one of the ordinaries, the same Sovereign Pontiff has willed that a Syllabus of the same errors should be compiled, to be sent to all the Bishops of the Catholic world, in order that these Bishops may have before their eyes all the errors and pernicious doctrines which he has reprobated and condemned.
He has consequently charged me to take care that this Syllabus, having been printed, should be sent to your [Eminence] on this occasion….”

The Syllabus was obviously meant to augment the encyclical with greater detail by documenting individual errors. Both documents dealt with modern errors, and complimented one another. In Quanta Cura, the Pope, in speaking of past actions says, “We raised Our voice, and in many published Encyclical Letters and Allocutions delivered in Consistory, and other Apostolic Letters, we condemned the chief errors of this most unhappy age…we condemned the monstrous portents of opinion which prevail especially in this age, bringing with them the greatest loss of souls and detriment of civil society itself, which are grievously opposed also, not only to the Catholic Church and her salutary doctrine and venerable rights, but also to the eternal natural law engraven by God in all men’s hearts, and to right reason; and from which almost all other errors have their origin.” It is these “chief errors” spoken of by the Pope in Quanta Cura which are detailed and documented in the Syllabus. The two documents are clearly bound to one another.

3) Newman does everything he can to undermine the “universal application” of these condemnations. After flatly stating that “the Syllabus then has no dogmatic force,” he further writes:

“…[the Syllabus] is to be received from the Pope by an act of obedience, not of faith, that obedience being shown by having recourse to the original and authoritative documents.”

In other words, we are entirely relieved of all responsibility to obey any universality in the truths expressed in the propositions in themselves. It is Newman’s position that the individual propositions have no universal verity, no dogmatic force, and that their meaning and applicability are to be reduced to the particular historical situations, etc. which surrounded their original statement in the individual Papal documents of Pius IX. Five times, in fact, he refers to the Syllabus as being merely an “index” to these previous documents, and he says, “But we can no more accept it as de fide, as a dogmatic document, than any other index or table of contents.” This is proved manifestly false by the very title of the document:”A Syllabus containing the most important errors of our time, which have been condemned by our Holy Father Pius IX in Allocutions, at Consistories, in Encyclicals, and other Apostolic Letters”. The Syllabus is intended by the Pope to condemn “the most important errors of our time.” The “most important errors of our time” are not limited to a particular country, to an individual literary work, etc.

It is certainly good to have reference to the particular Allocution, Encyclical, etc. in order to obtain depth and accuracy of understanding of these propositions, but this “recourse” to these original contexts should in no way be used to undermine the universal application of these condemnations.
In order to perceive the depths or subterfuge involved here, let us look at Newman’s handling of one single condemned proposition

(#77) “It is no longer expedient that the Catholic Religion should be established to the exclusion of all others.”

Here is Newman’s “reduction” of this particular proposition:

“When we turn to the Allocution, which is the ground of its being put into the Syllabus, what do we find there? First, that the Pope was speaking, not of States universally, but of one particular State, Spain, definitely Spain; secondly, that he was not noting the erroneous proposition directly, or categorically, but was protesting against the breach in many ways of the Concordat on the part of the Spanish government; further, that he was not referring to any work containing the said proposition, nor contemplating any proposition at all; nor, on the other hand, using any word of condemnation whatever, nor using any harsher terms of the Government in question than an expression of “his wonder and distress.” And again, taking the Pope’s remonstrance as it stands, is it any great cause of complaint to Englishmen, who so lately were severe in their legislation upon Unitarians, Catholics, unbelievers, and others, that the Pope merely does not think it expedient for every state from this time forth to tolerate every sort of religion on its territory, and to disestablish the Church at once? for this is all that he denies. As in the instance in the foregoing section, he does but deny a universal, which the “erroneous proposition” asserts without any explanation.”

Newman here clearly uses every means possible to minimize the meaning and extent of this proposition’s condemnation. According to Newman, the condemnation only has application to Spain. It only applies to breaches of the Concordant by that government. It is really not a condemnation at all, but only an expression of “wonder and distress.” And it is reducible to the position “that the Pope merely does not think it expedient for every state from this time forth to tolerate every sort of religion on its territory, and to disestablish the Church at once [ this last, bold emphasis is mine].

To perceive the falsity involved in all of this subterfuge, one need only look to Quanta Cura for a true explication of this condemned proposition. Here, the Pope writes:

“For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of “naturalism,” as they call it, dare to teach that “the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones.” And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that “that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require.”

In other words, Proposition 77 says just exactly what it appears to say; it condemns precisely what it appears to condemn, and this in its obvious and universal sense. And, it affirms its opposite – that it is expedient that the Catholic Religion should be established to the exclusion of all others.

The Syllabus really came to fruition in the social encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII. There, we can find the full development and universal applicability of the condemnation of Proposition 77. Interestingly enough, in Pope Leo’s Encyclical Immortale Dei (Christian Constitution of States), we find a passage which seems very applicable to Newman and his relationship to the Syllabus of Pius IX:

“On the question of the separation of the Church and State the same pontiff [Leo is here speaking of Gregory XVI] writes as follows: ‘Nor can we hope for happier results, either for religion or for the civil government, from the wishes of those who desire that the Church be separated from the State, and the concord between the secular and ecclesiastical authority be dissolved. It is clear that these men, who yearn for a shameless liberty, live in dread of an agreement which has always been fraught with good, and advantageous alike to sacred and civil interest.’ To like effect, also, as occasion presented itself, did Pius IX brand publicly many false opinions which were gaining ground, and afterwards ordered them to be condensed in summary [the Syllabus] in order that in this sea of error Catholics might have a light which they might safely follow.”

It is this light which Newman dimmed with his obfuscations.

It is known what a great distaste Newman held for Pius IX. We now have a Pope who would be of his liking. The following is taken from my article The War Against Being:

The year 1982 also saw the publication of Cardinal Ratzinger’s book Principles of Catholic Theology. The book contains an Epilogue On the Status of Church and Theology Today. Part B is titled Church and World: An Inquiry into the Reception of Vatican Council II. The text focuses primarily on the Vatican II document the “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes), which the Cardinal calls “a kind of summa of Christian anthropology.” The following is of immediate interest to our subject:

“If it is desirable to offer a diagnosis of the text (Gaudium et Spes) as a whole, we might say that (in conjunction with the texts on religious liberty and world religions) it is a revision of the Syllabus of Pius IX, a kind of countersyllabus. Harnack, as we know, interpreted the Syllabus of Pius IX as nothing less than a declaration of war against his generation. This is correct insofar as the Syllabus established a line of demarcation against the determining forces of the nineteenth century: against the scientific and political world view of liberalism. In the struggle against modernism this twofold delimitation was ratified and strengthened. Since then many things have changed. The new ecclesiastical policy of Pius XI produced a certain openness toward a liberal understanding of the state. In a quiet but persistent struggle, exegesis and Church history adopted more and more the postulates of liberal science, and liberalism, too, was obliged to undergo many significant changes in the great political upheavals of the twentieth century. As a result, the one-sidedness of the position adopted by the Church under Pius IX and Pius X in response to the situation created by the new phase of history inaugurated by the French Revolution was, to a large extent, corrected via facti, especially in Central Europe, but there was still no basic statement of the relationship that should exist between the Church and the world that had come into existence after 1789. In fact, an attitude that was largely pre-Revolutionary continued to exist in countries with strong Catholic majorities. Hardly anyone today will deny that the Spanish and Italian Concordats strove to preserve too much of a view of the world that no longer corresponded to the facts. Hardly anyone today will deny that, in the field of education and with respect to the historico-critical method in modern science, anachronisms existed that corresponded closely to this adherence to an obsolete Church-state relationship…..
Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents, on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789.”

Cardinal Newman hoped for the death of Pope Pius IX, and the election of a successor more to his liking. Cardinal Newman now has his Pope.

This is a Dr of the Church?

waragainstbeing.com/partvi/

The Kingdom of man (2)

 Origin of the lord of the world

To come to the creation of man, we find him destined to occupy a peculiar position linking the material and spiritual world in himself; consequently, it is necessary to consider the element of the spiritual and that of the material in him separately. Really, the spiritual offers no rational difficulty, though it has been the stumbling block of intellectuals for hundreds of years; but then what could be more fitting than that a professed intellectual should stumble over a block that was not there.

His soul

It is immediately evident, and also a doctrine of faith, that the soul of Adam was certainly not an emanation of the substance of God, an outpouring of the divine stuff. From what has already been said of the infinite perfection and ceaseless act of God and what is quite evident of the limitation and imperfection of our own souls, there can be no question of identity of the two. The soul of Adam must, then, have been produced; and there is only one way to produce a spiritual substance, that is, by creation It cannot be knitted, woven, grown or manufactured. It cannot be made from any material stuff; the attempt to maintain that it can promptly involves the contradiction that the soul is both spiritual and possessed of parts. Nor can it have been made from any preexisting spiritual substance; such a substance, precisely as spiritual, is devoid of parts and thus cannot have anything taken from it without being destroyed. The soul of man is created; and that means that it was produced immediately by God, for the utterly independent mode of action which is creation is proper to the only utterly independent agent. Even though the angels were willing to take on a little extra work, God Himself could give them no part in this labor which is possible only to omnipotent power. It is the common teaching of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church that the human soul was not produced before the human body, though philosophically there is no impossibility involved in such a previous production. But then, neither is there any reason to be found for such a previous existence. Certainly, if Augustine is right and the body was only virtually produced during the six days of creation, there is no reason why the soul must necessarily have come into actual existence in that period.

It is plain, then, that on the question of the soul of man both faith and reason stand diametrically opposed to the theories of complete evolution. Because the human soul is spiritual, it can come only from God and must come directly from Him. There can be no question of its slow development, or, indeed, of any development of it; not only because there is nothing from which a spiritual substance can be developed, but also because, being devoid of parts, the soul is had all at once or it is not had at all. In any question of the evolution of man, if we are to stand on reasonable grounds, his soul must be excluded from the discussion; otherwise we place him on the level of material creation in violation of the evident fact that his acts exceed the limits of the material.

His body

In the production of the body of man, St. Thomas says no one element (fire, air, earth, or water) was exclusively used. As God had all things eminently in Himself, as the angels had all things intentionally (that is, by knowledge) in themselves, so man was a kind of microcosmos, having almost everything in his composition: spirituality in his soul, a likeness of the heavenly bodies in the stability of his make-up, and the earthly elements in his physical constitution. The question of the production of the body of man was really a question of disposing the material for the fit reception of the human soul.

Certainly that disposition could not have been accomplished by other human beings, as it is today; there were no others. Nor could it have been, naturally, the work of some other animals any more than a pair of tigers, let alone a pair of mountains, can dispose the material for the generation of a mouse. It was the work of God: perhaps immediately, by the direct divine formation of the body; perhaps mediately, that is, through lower animals to which such poster had been specially given or, as Augustine would have it, the body was only virtually produced in the work of creation.

Thomas, as opposed to Augustine, inclines towards the immediate production of the body of man by God because of the absence of any sufficient natural factors for such production. But he agrees that there is no philosophical reason militating against the gradual preparation of the material for such a body by other forces acting through powers given them by God. In any case, it is never a question of any other than God producing the final human composite made up of body and soul; the question is merely one of the preparation of the material for the infusion of the soul by God. In a word, as far as the body of man goes, there is no reason for serious opposition to the theory of evolution; on the other hand, there is no compelling reason for an enthusiastic embrace of every evolutionary theory advanced. A good many have gone by the board already; probably a good many more will follow. So far it is not at all proved that the body of man actually did develop from some lower form.

The actual design of the human body was an artistic triumph worthy of divine ingenuity. What defects there are in man's constitution come from the nature of the material that had to be used if man were to be the link binding together the material and the spiritual worlds; no amount of skill on the part of the craftsman can make a sword durable if he is confined to tin as to his material, nor can divine ingenuity find any natural escape from the defects of matter when matter must enter into the essential composition of a creature. As we shall see later on in this book, and again in the second volume, these natural defects were remedied by the preternatural gifts given man for his life in the Garden of Eden.

It is true that some animals have keener smell than men, others keener sight, and so on. But this was because man's senses were ordered to his higher knowledge so that a nice balance was struck lest any one of his senses interfere with his reason; not many human ears are so keen that a man cannot think because of the racket made by a cat tramping over a rug. In the fundamental sense of touch, and in those internal senses which so immediately serve reason -- imagination, memory, appreciation -- man far excels the animals.

We have no horns, claws or covering of hair and, normally, our hides are not too thick; in other words, man is shorn of the weapons and coverings naturally given to other animals. He does not have even a speck of fur or just a few of the porcupine's spikes. In place of these natural protections, man has his reason and his hands: by these he can prepare weapons for himself, provide himself with covering and the other necessities of life in an infinite variety. It is only the human female that does not have to wear the same coat of fur for a lifetime.

Man stands erect while the other animals normally go about on all fours; and for very good reasons. His senses are ordered primarily to intellectual delights, not to the search for sensible delights; he should not have his face to the ground as though concentrating on sensible things but rather high up where he can get a broad view of the sensible world, seeing it from all angles. To give his interior powers full play, it is right that his brain be placed above all the other parts of his body, that nothing might weigh heavy upon it and interfere with its operation. If man did not stand erect, he would have to use his hands for front feet, thereby seriously interfering with their usefulness; if he went about on all fours, he would have to take his foods with his lips and mouth, dispensing with all books of etiquette but at the same time thickening his lips, hardening them and roughening the tongue to the impediment of his powers of speech. Moreover, as the superior part of a creature is that by which nourishment is taken, the stature of man accurately places him in the world of creation: the plants have their superior part (the roots) pointed toward earth; the animals occupy a neutral position; while man points towards heaven.

His partner

In the very beginning, God Himself noticed that man needed a helper; a fact that has been observed by, or called to the attention of, many a man since. It was fitting, then, that woman should have been created from the very beginning of things. However, the fact that Adam needed a helper did not imply that woman was created that she might crawl into overalls and go out into the fields; for such purposes Adam might better have been given a hired man. But obviously the human race would not have lasted very long if God had created only a man.

Time and manner of the production of women

According to the medicine of his century, which, of course, Thomas did not correct, woman was an incomplete man, a half-baked male, whose unfinished characteristics come about through some weakness in the parents, some disposition in the human material or some extrinsic cause such as, for example, a strong south wind at the time of conception. Nevertheless Thomas thinks it is unjust to consider woman a cosmic accident; she was not an accident, this creature was made on purpose, deliberately planned by God. Further, he insists that the notion of subjection of woman to man be properly understood. It by no means signifies that woman is the slave of man, subject to man for his utility; rather, the domestic subjection is an ordinary requisite for order; it is subjection, not inferiority. Of course, when more than one free individual are living together and working for a common end there must be someone in charge, one governor, one director. Certainly this subjection is not inferiority; above all, it is not inferiority in any subjective sense: woman is not less human than man, her soul cannot be denied equality with his, and so on. Rather, this subjection is a statement of difference, of unequal gifts that counter-balance each other, making of man and woman a balanced whole. Among the peculiar gifts of man Thomas mentions discretion of reason, which beyond doubt means excellence in speculative reasoning; leaving the obvious corollary to be drawn, namely, that woman excels in practical reasoning.

Her relation to man

There are many reasons why woman was fittingly formed from Adam himself. Among others might be mentioned the preservation of the dignity of the first man as head of the whole human race, by way of likeness to God Who is the head of the whole universe. Then, too, this served to augment and conserve the love of man for woman as for one who came from himself, giving it some what the note of the love of a parent for a child; this increase and protection of love was of great importance in the human species where the union of the two sexes was indissoluble. As in the domestic life man is the head of the woman, it was fitting that woman come from man as from her principle; into the union of the two there was introduced, from this moment of origin, a note of sanctity and consecration from the fact that woman, proceeding from the side of man, was the figure of the Church proceeding from the side of Christ.

It is to be particularly noted that woman came from the side of man, formed from his rib. she was not taken from his head, lest she get the notion of dominating man; nor from his feet, lest she be despised by man as subject to him by way of a slave. To Thomas it was obvious that woman's body was immediately produced by God; for certainly no one else could produce such a masterpiece from such humble material.

Conclusion: Pertinence of the question of the origin of the world
To the mind of man

In concluding this chapter it is very much to the point to insist that this question of the origin of the world is not a purely speculative or academic affair the outcome of which makes no difference to individual men and women. The human mind is simply not made to shrug off a question as fundamental as this. That innate, driving insistence to know the why of things that gives the mind of man no rest is hardly likely to be content to know what this or that wheel is for while the meaning of the whole vast machine of the universe is hidden. The human mind has to have an answer to this question, however many others remain unanswered; and it will have an answer, though it concoct it from the monstrous materials of falsehood offered it by a world afraid of truth.

To the life of man

After all, a man has to live in this world, use it or be used by it year after year. Is it of no importance to him to discover that the whole is devoid of meaning and his puny life is a kind of vital insanity? Is it of no importance for him to be given a meaning that is totally false; that, for instance, reduces him to a part of a process, an accident in a biological experiment, a moment in the life of some organistic monster that uses him to his own destruction? Is it not important that he should find that the world he lives in is an intelligent product of a supreme intelligence, that he is its peak, that all beneath him is for the carving out of an eternally enduring personal life? It is hardly likely that men, embracing these different answers to the question of the origin of the universe, will live their lives with the same hope, the same intensity, the same courage, the same strong effort: for men, however ignorant they may be, are not universally fools.

Contrast of the answers: From the appraisal of reason

In our time, the answers to the question of the origin of the universe boil down to two, the answer of creation and the answer of evolution; that is to say, there is only one answer given, the answer of creation, for the other denies the necessity of an answer for a universe that is without cause or purpose. On the grounds of reason the modern man is hardly offered a choice, at least in this sense that there is little choice for the human mind between madness and sanity. The one, on the basis of a self-sufficient universe with no trace of its self-sufficiency, offers a man a process in place of an explanation, a contradiction in place of truth, fiction in face of facts, disorder as the explanation of order. The other, on the basis of a supreme cause whose existence can be demonstrably shown, faces the facts and bows to the inherent dependence of all that is not God; it gives man an explanation, challenges him with the truth, and commands his respect for the order he cannot hide from his eyes.

From the consequences of each

There is much more to the apparent choice than the intellectual aspect of truth or Falsehood; there is the difference between despair and hope, between a livable human life and a life that is completely shorn of livability. For if there be no personal end to human life, there is no point in personal concern with the means of living that life, means that can be means only in name. If there is nothing above that man, there is no ground for his hope, no sense to his sorrows, no excuse for his efforts, no reason to his courage; love, triumph, success, justice and all the rest are catchwords coined to lure man into a struggle where he loses even though he wins. But if he comes from the hand of God and goes his way to God, if every hair of his head is numbered, every moment of his life under his command, and ultimate success or failure not only a possibility but a certainty, then, indeed, man has something to live for. He can, and will, face the risks, take the blows, struggle to his feet after defeat, refuse to quit and scorn to bow his head to the things that are his servants. Yes, it does indeed make a difference what answer is given to the question of the origin of the world; the difference, in a word, between a human and an inhuman life.

The Kingdom of man (1)

THE KINGDOM OF MAN
(Q.65-74;90-93)

Scriptural account of the kingdom of man
Modern rejection of the story

IN THE Book of Genesis there is an account of the beginnings of the world that has amused the scholars of our age. In fact, their amusement was so huge that they shared the joke with the man in the street. The story was pleasant enough in its way: hardly plausible, still it was taken seriously by millions of men before the clear light of science exposed it for what it was: a myth among many similar myths. In that bright light, it looks as ridiculous as an actor caught in broad daylight with his make-up on.

Such amused tolerance is the product of a sense of immense superiority, superiority so great as to make it unnecessary to bother about details. In any field, such superiority is dangerous: it is the sort of thing that topples an experienced lineman from a telephone pole, that makes a drunkard challenge the world. Superiority is a heady drink to be sipped, not gulped; however enticing its bouquet, clear its color and warming its taste, it too easily brings on early morning regrets. Perhaps our moderns are only gay, not really drunk, though they have proved steady drinkers of this dangerous drink; they have not yet reached the morning-after stage, but they have been careless, they have laid the bases for the groans of regret.

The two elements of the story: The fact of creation.
Account of the distinction and adornment of the universe.

Along with the story of the world's distinction and adornment, they have, extravagantly, carelessly, blindly, thrown out a momentous fact, the fact of the origin of the world. They have tossed the whole thing out like an old rag doll. Perhaps nothing stamps Thomas as so completely out of date, in the eyes of the moderns, as the fact that he took this story seriously: Surely, nothing so clearly marks him off from modern thinkers as the fact that he saw the two elements in this story: the momentous fact of creation and the simple account of the distinction and adornment of the world. His intellect bowed before the first of these, as an unimpeded intellect must always do homage to solid truth, and he could mete out justice to the second because of his firm grasp of the first.

Unreasonable rejection of the fact of creation

Rejection of the fact of creation is unreasonable, not in the sense a man is unreasonable because he is slightly pig-headed or extremely meticulous. This rejection is unreasonable because it is an open flaunting of reason.

Résumé of proof of creation.

In a former chapter we have treated the matter of creation quite thoroughly, insisting that the world was brought into existence by a first cause creating it. However, a brief restatement of that reasoning will not be out of place here. A first cause means no more than an utterly independent cause; that is, a cause that has nothing or no one before it, that is in every sense first. To be independent in this full sense of the word means to be completely self sufficient as well as to be the first source of all else. Creation is commonly defined as "making something out of nothing"; more profoundly, it is the production of something independently of any pre-existing subject. In a word, it is the production of the whole being not merely a part of it, not disposing for it, or bringing it forth from something else. So that creation, the truth so eminently clear to reason and so solidly taught by faith, means simply that the world was produced by the first cause in the way proper to that first cause, that is, with complete independence. If we postulate anything on which this first cause depends, we are simply denying that this is a first cause and we push the problem just that much further back; we do not solve it. For it will always remain true, that where we discover someone leaning, depending, there will be something to lean on, to depend on; and the stability of this latter will not be the product of the feeble one who drapes himself on it. Complete independence in act means the production of the effect from nothing.

The reasons given for this explanation of the universe are those given for the existence of God. They can be put briefly by saying that either this was the way things were produced or there are no things -- which last is evidently false. There is no other way to account, not only for the universe, but for the very least thing in it. The question here is not merely of mountains, continents and planets; but of even a speck of dust or the wink of an eye. one cries out the existence of the first cause as loudly as the other, or of all together. An endless chain of dependent causes does not explain any one of them or all of them, for their very dependence precludes the possibility of their being self-sufficient, the source or the first; that dependence demands something upon which to depend. Either there is an independent or first cause, or there are no effects; either that first cause created, if it acted at all, or it is not first. The fact of creation, with its strict adherence to the facts of the world, is not something a man needs to feel self-conscious about or to apologize for. Rather, it is something demanded in the name of all that is reasonable.

Different senses of the word "evolution

Reasonable or not, this fact of creation has been swept out of men's minds along with the rest of the account given in Genesis. But the house need not be left empty; in place of creation we can have evolution, either all at once or on an installment plan that eases the pain of its acceptance by spreading the burden over millions of years. Lest such a statement bring on, with the promptness of an echo, the charge that we are anti-scientific, ultra-conservative or behind the times, let us investigate the meaning of the world "evolution."

Such an investigation is important for the word designates a strange set of triplets; one or the other may enjoy the confusion of a stranger who cannot distinguish them, but each will indignantly resent having the faults of one of the others attributed to her, especially the faults of the weak sister of the three.

A scientific hypothesis

Most properly, the word is taken to refer to a scientific hypothesis. As such it was, and is, advanced as a scientific record of the development of life. As a scientific hypothesis, and within its own field, it has immense value. The mass of cumulative evidence supporting it certainly classifies it as a first class working theory; and this is all the scientist seeks. It is not, nor is it in this sense intended to be, a final explanation of the universe. The object of science is not an explanation but the uncovering of a universal; it does not seek the last cause, but a general law; its reasoning does not terminate in conclusions or explanations, but rather in the generalizations which are called scientific laws.

In this proper sense, no philosopher or theologian can have any objection to it. To contrast an adherent of the creation explanation and an evolutionist in this sense is as silly as it would be to consider as mutually exclusive terms the words "democrat" and "nordic." The only possible source of conflict here would be the extension of this scientific working hypothesis to the origin of the human soul. That would be stepping outside the field of science immediately, for it would be to step outside the field of experimental observation; moreover, it is a step not taken by the scientist.

A pseudo-scientific solvent on a universal scale

The word "evolution" is also widely used for a pseudo-scientific theory that is in the nature of a patent medicine to remedy all intellectual ills by resolving all difficulties. It is considered applicable to nearly all fields and is actually wielded with the recklessness that formerly characterized the use of arnica or camphor. It is, for example applied to comparative religion and adduced as the explanation of the present existence of monotheism; to sociology and hailed as the explanation of the alleged development of monogamy from promiscuity; to ethics as the explanation of Christian ethics developing from a completely amoral condition -- and so on and on and on.

This approaches the ridiculous. If a man concludes, from the fact that the theory of relativity works beautifully in mathematics and explains many phenomena in physics, that everything is relative, he might, at any moment, logically start to use a pair of shoes for a handkerchief. These pseudo-scientific statements are quite groundless from a purely scientific point of view. As a matter of fact, the evidence shows no development of monotheism from polytheism or atheism; there is much more evidence for the conclusion that monotheism was the primitive form. A promiscuous society has yet to be discovered; and again the evidence of anthropology, insofar as it allows of a conclusion, points to monogamy as the primitive form of marriage. An amoral condition of men is a modern nightmare, not a scientific fact; some of the most surely primitive peoples we have yet discovered hold a high moral code and practise it. These things are flatly unscientific; yet they are solemnly advanced day after day, in publication after publication as though no scientific discoveries had been made since first the theorists started their castle building untrammeled by the brick and mortar of evidence.

For these things, there need be no sympathy whatever. They are without justification. They have none of the beauty of a fairy tale, the utilitarian efficient of a swindler's story, the venerable dignity of a myth, the plausibility of a lie or the humor of a whopping joke. Least of all have they any of the characteristics of a fact. They have only the ugly repulsiveness of intellectual degeneracy.

A philosophical explanation of the universe

In its third sense, "evolution" is seriously advanced as a philosophic answer to the question of the origin of the world. This philosophic theory, which denies causality and finality, assumes that the process of change is a self-sufficient explanation both of itself and of the perfection of the universe. One form of this explanation declares that the story reads like this: some primary stuff -- very imperfect -- eternal or mysteriously coming into existence of itself, has slowly developed, thanks to chance and environment, with the force of inexorable law into the complicated world as we know it today. A scientist would have a graphic picture of all this if, in the vacuum he has created, there should suddenly appear a puff of smoke fragrant of a blend of Virginia and Turkish tobacco; and then, under his astonished eyes, the smoke took form, developing into a perfect ring slowly floating off (without air to float on) and, as a last delicate touch, sporting just the suspicion of a bit of lipstick to support the illusion that there had been a smoker's mouth and a cigarette in back of the whole thing.

Another form of this explanation pictures a mysterious life force, again utterly imperfect, necessarily surging its way up through matter (which is unexplained and, indeed, not a reality at all) into the perfections we know today. In this opinion there is no material world, for only the process of change is real and that does not stop long enough for it to be recognized, let alone given a name. The words seem obscure, but the idea becomes perfectly clear when you picture the change of expression from joy to sorrow on a man's face, first blotting out the joy, the sorrow, the face and the expression. Both these forms of the philosophic explanation called by the name of evolution are extended to include man, body and soul. Both deny the idea of a cause, or a starting point, outside the process of change. And both necessarily deny an intelligent finality to the whole affair.

Interrelation of creation and evolution

All three of these senses of evolution -- the scientific, the pseudo-scientific and the philosophical -- must be seen in relation to creation if there is to be any dissipation of the confusion that has come from using the one word in three distinctly different senses. Quite evidently there is no possibility of conflict between evolution as a scientific hypothesis and the fact of creation. Creation is explicitly a statement of the last cause, the ultimate explanation of the universe; and, just as explicitly, science is not interested in last cause or ultimate explanations but only in the uncovering of general laws. Science has no professional interest in the source of these laws or in the nature of the law-giver, or, indeed, in the very existence of such a legislator.

In the sense of a pseudo-scientific theory, there is no possibility of honest conflict between evolution and creation, or indeed between evolution and anything else, any more than there is a possibility of the babbling of a child clashing with some eternal truth. This theory is a positive insult to human intelligence; the audacity of its proposal assumes that we know nothing of the actual state of science, that we have heard nothing of the findings of science for the last twenty years.

In the sense of a philosophic explanation of the origin of the universe, evolution dashes head on with the act of creation -- and it is just too bad for evolution if reason be the witness of the accident, or even the undertaker. In this sense, evolution is nothing more than the process of change on a grand scale, the change from potentiality to actuality, the realization of potentialities. To use some examples from an earlier chapter, it is the becoming of the statue from a marble block, the becoming of the surgeon from the butcher, the becoming of the masterpiece from the paints and canvas. To claim self-sufficiency for such a process, to posit it without explanation and blandly declare that it explains itself and everything else, is contrary to reason, unintelligible and so patently false.

Let us look at it a bit more closely. It is frankly a denial of the principle of causality and finality, that is, it makes the world a lustry brat that was unborn but is growing, a play unfolding without beginning or end, a book without starting point, plot or finish, a motion that not only did not start and is not going anywhere but which has absolutely nowhere to go. This denial is reducible to the contradiction which is an identification of opposites and it brings the mind up sharply against a dilemma. Either there is no difference between the potentiality and the actuality, between the canvas and the masterpiece, for the potentiality is the producer of the actuality by the mere process of change, by merely moving itself, of itself, to that perfection; and this amounts to a denial of evolution itself for it is a denial of change. Or, the other horn of the dilemma, this latest perfection produced by evolution is not the same as the potentiality from which it developed; in this case, it came from nothing of itself. This gives us something from nothing with no other cause adduced; more simply, it staggers the mind with the incredible contradiction that nothing is something.

This may seem much too brutal a simplification of evolution, since nothing has been said of the million of years involved, the power of the process of change, environment and chance. In a sense, the charge is just; this is a simplification of evolution. It has disregarded the table decorations, the hors d'oeuvres and the liqueurs to concentrate on the meat and potatoes of the meal. But, as a matter of fact, millions of years do not help or hinder the problem; time has nothing to do with the central difficulty, it is merely a measure of the method of development not the explanation of that development. The process of change is merely a statement of the method of development, of how the change was brought about: it is not an explanation, not a statement of cause, it does not tell us why there is a world at all.

But then look at the part environment plays in the scheme; and necessity; and chance! Well, look at them. What produced the environments? What is the source of the necessity? What is chance, in this case, but the mathematician's "x", a statement of a common factor. The whole thing has been succinctly put in these words: "When there is change, there is reason for change -- and the reason for change can be found only in something not involved in that change. It follows that if there is such a thing as a process of change with a definite and discoverable law which embraces the whole of physical reality, the whole physical reality must have a non-physical environment." For change and evolution presuppose the environment and the environed interacting on one another.

Unjust rejection of the account of distinction and adornment of the universe
The purpose of the account

The rejection of the fact of creation is a violation of the reason of man; it is unreasonable in the sense of being mad. The rejection, on scientific grounds, of the Scriptural account of the distinction and adornment of the world has a petty meanness about it for it is definitely unfair. The purpose of Moses in writing the account given in Genesis was to instruct an unlettered people in the fundamental truths of the religious and moral order. He wrote that they might know the obligation of adoration and gratitude to Jehovah, the author, governor and conserver of all things; that he might preserve his people from idolatry in recalling to them that every Creature has its reason of existence in a superior cause, that every creature is destined to serve man, the Crown and masterpiece of creation, and not to be served by man.

The language of it

Moses did his work in masterly fashion. His language is necessarily one of great simplicity; but its grand figures speak vividly to the imagination, it pictures the sweeping lines of the universe in terms that slam against the senses. In fact, the account often approaches the grandeur and rhythm of sublime poetry.

A hundred and fifty years ago men were smiling at the tale of Moses because it said nothing of the nebular theory of the generation of thee planets, the physics of Newton or the optical theories of Descartes. Today the smile comes again because there is nothing there of relativity, no statement of the principles of thermodynamics or of evolution. A hundred and fifty years from now another generation will continue to enjoy the huge joke of Moses not stating the scientific theories of that future time. In other words, the account is rejected primarily because Moses was not a bungler, because he did not fill a lesson in religious and moral truths with a scientific jargon that would meet the approval of all ages.

Of course it is vain to look for chemical formulas or mathematical statements in this account; there is no display of geological evidence and no anticipation of biological discoveries to be found in it. It was never intended as a scientific account; if it had been, it would have completely failed of its purpose, leaving the Hebrews of the desert glassy-eyed and slack-jawed in astonishment. It is unjust to look for contradictions to modern science in an account that was avowedly non-scientific. The very nature and language of the account made it so evidently elastic that the earliest Christian commentators could find hardly a word that was not open to widely different interpretations in the factual field: thus "day" might have meant twenty-four hours, many such days, an indefinite period of time or even a stage in knowledge; the creation of plants might have meant the instant establishment of perfect species or only the establishing of these species in germ for development; light, firmament, earth and many another word were seen, from the beginning, to be of this same indefinite character.

Injustice of its rejection

Briefly, the account of Moses is an account that admirably serves its purpose, and that does not serve a purpose foreign to it. It is unjust to tie it down to the science of any one time; and unjust to cite it as contradicting the science of any one time. It can and does oppose pseudo-scientific theories that are at bottom philosophical, for it is avowedly expository of the philosophical truths that are at the roots of all being.

Origin of the kingdom of man: Thomas' approach to the question:
His three principles.

St. Thomas, approaching the account of creation from the vantage point of his faith, laid down some common sense principles. To him it was obvious that the truth of Holy Scripture must be held inviolate; after all, it is the inspired word of God and so there is nothing of truth which can be more sure. It also seemed clear to him that when it is possible to expose the Scriptures in many ways, no one position or interpretation should be 50 narrowly held to that, if it be certainly established that such a position be false, a man would nevertheless presume to maintain it. Such a man would justly be held in derision by the infidels and so block the infidels' way to belief. Thomas saw the necessity of remembering that Moses spoke to an unlettered people; condescending to their ignorance (imbecillitas is the word Thomas uses) he proposed only those things that were manifestly apparent to the senses. After all, man did not lose the knowledge of natural things by his sin, nor that science by which the necessities of the flesh are provided. In Scripture, then, man is not taught these things, but rather the science of the soul, which science he had lost by his sin.

His chief interest

Thomas, in other words, makes it plain at the beginning that he is not approaching this account in search of scientific explanations. His interest, as a theologian, was centered on the metaphysical truths which that account avowedly advanced for the Hebrews: creation as a fact and as an act proper to God; the first cause of all things: and the final cause of the world. Thomas was not particularly interested, then, in this account as scientific; nevertheless, in exposing it, he was obliged to make use of contemporary science, as we are today. Thomas knew the science of his time well; in this treatment he did not try to investigate that science, to improve it or criticise it. He merely used it.

The science of his time

To understand his exposition of the account of Genesis, it will be necessary to have at least a nodding acquaintance with the physics of Aristotle which was the science of the thirteenth century. To the minds of the men of that time, the universe was made up of seven concentric planetary spheres contained within an eighths the sphere of the fixed stars, containing in their turn the earth as a center. Above the heaven of the fixed stars began the invisible world, that is, the crystalline heaven, or heaven of the waters, which was the source of rain and the Empyrean heaven, or the heaven of light, which was the abode of the angels. The matter of these celestial spheres was strictly incorruptible because their forms completely exhausted the potentialities of the matter. To each sphere a moving intelligence was assigned; its work being to direct the circular motion of the particular sphere, not to inform it or vivify it as a soul vivifies a body. Below the lowest sphere, that of the moon, are arranged the spheres of the four elements, namely, fire, air, water and earth. By rights, each of these should be gathered up in a natural site with a resultant perfect equilibrium; but, in fact, they are intermingled. Since their natural tendency is to strive for their natural site, there results the distinctive movements of the elements, thus fire goes up, earth goes down.

Causes of the kingdom of man

With these ideas in mind, we already have a fair notion of Thomas' treatment of the account of creation. The first efficient cause was, of course, God, for Thomas had none of the modern madness about him. God is also the final cause or the end of the universe. The eternal ideas in the mind of God are the formal cause in the sense of exemplary cause. And, since all things come from God, both the matter of things and their intrinsic forms are from God, existing, of course, only in conjunction as composites.

The work of distinction -- the first three days

The act of creation was an eternal act of God. As to the unfolding of that eternal act in time, these were two phases: one of distinction and one of adornment. The first three days of creation were occupied with the work of distinction, for obviously there can be no adornment until there is something to adorn. The first day saw the distinction of light and darkness; the second day brought the distinction of heaven and earth, the firmament dividing against the waters; on the third day the waters of the earth were gathered into seas, dividing seas from dry land. The land carried its quota of plants as a man wears his clothes, for the plants were not so much an ornament as an ordinary and decent covering for the bare earth.

The work of adornment -- the last three days

The last three days were filled with the pleasantly creative labor of decoration, God appearing as the interior decorator of the universe facing a crucial test of His divine good taste. Thus, on the fourth day He concentrated on the heavens, adorning them with the sun, moon and stars; on the fifth day the waters received their bewilderingly various adornment of fishes, the air its fragmentary beauty of birds; the sixth day was dedicated to the adornment of the earth with its animals, among which was man. But he is so important that his production deserves, and gets, special treatment.

Throughout this exposition, Thomas is content to coast along, explaining the natures of the different products in terms of the science of his time, signalling the great differences in the interpretations of the Fathers, assigning reasons for the precise order in which these things were produced. Some of these reasons are penetrating and humanly interesting to an extreme, the reasons, for example, for the production of the stars. Every corporal creature has three ends: itself, a nature above it, and the universe. Moses, in accounting for the stars, considers only the second, the utility of man: the stars serve man by giving light for the direction of work and the acquisition of knowledge; by furnishing a change of seasons to destroy the ennui of an unchanging climate, to conserve health and to allow the necessary food to be raised -- things that could not happen in an eternal winter or an eternal summer; by furnishing opportunities for business and work by allowing the forecasting of dry and rainy seasons.

The rest of God -- the seventh day

By the end of the sixth day, creation was over and done with. Everything that was ever to exist was made by that time, either actually or virtually, that is, in its full perfection or potentially, in germ; as for human souls, they existed at least in their exemplar, in the mind of God. Creation was an accomplished fact; God then rested. But the rest of God by no means implies that God's action in the world ceased on the sixth day, there was no question of a Florida trip or an ocean voyage on a divine scale to get away from it all. He operates unceasingly in conserving and governing the world. The seventh day, marking the repose of God in this sense, is fittingly kept holy; for the sanctification of everything consists precisely in its reposing in God as God did in Himself on the seventh day.

Man has one goal in life.

 Walter Farrell, O.P., A Companion to the Summa, Volume II

CHAPTER I -- THE ESSENCE OF HAPPINESS
(Q. 1-5)

CHAPTER I
THE ESSENCE OF HAPPINESS
(Q. 1-5)

Here we have, as a matter of fact, reason for the same terror that engulfs a man at the beginning of his study of God. The terrific complexity of man's life and man's activity might well seem an overpowering assignment for the limits of one volume. The scope of those activities, stretching from ocean to ocean, from pole to pole, from the earliest beginnings to the limitless future, would be far too much to touch upon, let alone plunge into, if man were not man. Because he is man, there is an element of unity that binds together the whole sweep of man's doings as closely as his nature binds the individual; there is a common harmonious note that reveals the meaning of the whole apparently discordant chorus.

The key to the mystery of human life is happiness

That note of unity and harmony is human desire. The same force that has driven men apart, that has set nations at one another's throats, that has wiped individuals and races off the face of the earth, is at the same time the one great focal point of human agreement and harmony. All men agree on this -- they want what they want. And because of this desire, men act. In the attainment of what they want we have the essential notion of happiness. It is not pleasure, not enjoyment, but the possession of the object of desire which constitutes happiness. And in this sense all men want to be happy. Happiness is the key to the mystery of human life, of human activity.

Happiness consists in the attainment of the goal of life.

The material of our study in this volume, therefore, is human action, particularly in its culmination in happiness. It is fortunate for our feeble courage in the face of this task that the fundamental notions involved are so clear. At least most of us will agree theoretically on what a human action is; certainly all of us will agree practically in determining when a man is acting humanly. Theoretically, an act is human over which a man has control, an act that is done deliberately, i.e. on purpose, for a precise reason, to attain a definite goal. When we catch ourselves up now and then and ask in astonishment, "Why in the world did I do that?", only to find there is no answer to the "why" of that question, we are right in concluding that we need sleep, or a vacation, or a visit to the doctor. For while a human being has certainly placed an act, he has not acted humanly. Practically, we have a whole set of phrases to express the difference between a human action and one that is not human. A servant explains: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that"; and of course the apology must be accepted, even though the coffee spilled on us is, unlike most coffee, incredibly hot. A man whose foot has been trampled in a subway crowd says what he says because he "is angry, not himself". we are "beside ourselves" with indignation, "in a trance, absent-minded, forgetful, cross, hysterical or terror-stricken", and of course our actions are not human.

The study of happiness must begin, not at the beginning, but at the end, the goal

For if human they are, then they must be done for some reason, to some end, for some goal. For, after all, action has to do with the attainment of the object of desire, and the object of desire is precisely the goal or end of that particular action. The study of happiness, then, cannot begin at the beginning; it is too intimately wrapped up with the finish or goal. It is not that man's head is befuddled, but rather that man has the kind of head which makes it necessary to begin at the end. He is not living his life backwards but has that divine faculty of standing off to one side and looking at his life, or of looking ahead of his life, and so is capable of appreciating its meaning as well as its humour. And looking ahead, he will see that the goal does much more than flavour the action directed to it; it does even more than explain the existence of that action, as we shall see presently. For on the determination of the nature of that goal depends the meaning of the whole life of a man, the nature of all his activity, the very destiny of man.

There is a goal of life: Fact of man's goal -- from his activity.

From what we have seen of action that is human, we know the life of man has some end or ends, some goal or goals. The very fact that an act, to measure up to our requirements of human action, must be deliberately controlled, places it as coming from deliberate will; the act is ours and imputable to us because we have willed it. This is universally true of any act that presumes to be human; so that human activity comes from the human will and goes to the object of the human will. In other words, it is placed because of some good, some end, since it proceeds from the instrument of human desire (will) whose only object is good.

The failure of modern philosophy

Here we come upon one of the most drastic failures of modern philosophy. Face to face with the unquestionable fact of finality -- purposiveness -- in human action, modern philosophy has taken refuge in the murk of vague speculation. In the face of modern contempt for any but the most empirical knowledge, modern philosophy has committed itself to the building of castles in the air. It is dangerous to attempt to classify modern ethical theories; they are so intensely flavoured by the individual philosopher's personal outlook and background that almost every man has a system of his own. But, roughly, we can split modern ethical theory into three classes: (a) the first trles to explain this finality of human activity in terms of the society to which man belongs, reducing ethics to positive law, to some form of public opinion, to sociology; (b) the second attempts the same task in terms of a necessity of the universe in which man moves, whether mechanical or animal, reducing ethics to mathematics, biology, or psychology; (c) the third, faced with the dilemma that reduced Aristotle's magnificent reasoning to vague muttering, makes a god out of man and talks in frankly, or insidiously, subjectivistic terms, describing its ethics as individualistic, emotional or autonomous.

The human being, in whose name all this has been done, is an intensely individual and practical being. To explain patiently that his efforts, his sufferings, his triumphs, his courage, his loyalty, his failures have no objective significance for him personally, merely exasperates him If all his activity is only in the name of, and for the vague purposes of a very intangible, perhaps very distant, community perfection; or is only the ceaseless grinding of a giant machine, the necessary, irresistible urging of an animal, or the frail spinnings of his own mind, he will do one of two things: either he will stop all his effort, all his activity, or he will push the theorizing of philosophies into the room with the children's toys and make his own decisions. And this latter is precisely what he has done. The position and influence of philosophy in our universities today are adequate testimony of philosophy's failure in the field of ethical theory. The pursuit of wealth, of power, of pleasure, of food or drink, of physical perfection, or of scientific inquiry as the goal of human life, gives the other side of the picture, the failure of philosophy in the field of ethical practice.

Men and women of today are no more satisfied with tables than were the men and women of any other age. And if we are to get at the truth of human happiness, we cannot simply scramble human activity with every other form of action in the universe. To act for a goal of our choosing, and that means to attempt to attain happiness, is a uniquely human fight. Other things, other creatures, may be propelled towards a goal by the drive of physical necessity or of animal instinct, much as an arrow is shot towards a target by the impulse and aim of the archer. But only man can direct action towards a goal, for only man is in control of his actions. Control of action involves deliberate will, the ability to see the connection between the tools used and the Job to be done, between the means and the end. To envy the secluded happiness of a pampered lap dog is a waste of energy; he cannot be happy because he cannot know what it is all about. We might, indeed we do, whip a puppy for chewing up slippers, we hope that he will remember the whipping in connection with the slippers and avoid both; but we never think of absolving him from his sins.

Aristotle, and St. Thomas after him, laid the solid foundation for the investigation of human activity by tying its goal up with the order of reality. In his treatment of God, St. Thomas triumphantly vindicates both the reality and the sublime supremacy of the divinity by first showing its connection with the very first principles of being and thought. Here, in the very beginning of his investigation of the meaning of human life, we see him laying down the same metaphysical basis for his thought, bringing out clearly the connection between that goal of human activity and the first principles of reality.

The nature of this goal: It is uniquely human

Precisely because a human action, to be human at all, must be directed to some goal, to some good, it follows that there must be some goal that is the last, the ultimate explanation of all human activity. Just as all movement must have one supreme beginning if there is to be any movement at all (as we saw in the first volume in proving the existence of God), so all human movement must have one goal, one end, if there is to be any movement at all. In concrete terms, I buy a boat-ticket to Europe, either because the supreme goal of my life is the possession of such a ticket, or because I want that ticket for some other purpose, such as to go to Europe. Whatever it is I strive for, I want that thing either for itself, or as a step to getting something else. Of course no one starts to climb a flight of stairs devoid of the conviction that the stairs go somewhere, that they have some end; for after all the whole purpose of stairs is to get us to some other place. So, no human being starts a chain of action that is going nowhere; for the whole reason of acting at all is to get somewhere, to attain some object of our desire. This is the first argument used for the existence of God, but taken from the order of efficient cause and put to work in the order of final cause. To question its validity is to demand action and at the same time, in the same breath, make action impossible.

Each man has but one goal

A final, ultimate, supreme end, or goal, is necessarily solitary, unique. In simpler language, no man or woman can have two final goals at the same time, any more than a person can walk in two directions at the same time. Action is a majestic flight towards a landing field; and motion, swift or slow, crooked or straight, has only one final stopping place. The family likeness of all desirable things -- goodness -- is an unerring clue to their common origin and final resting place.

That goal is the source of all other desires

This ultimate, supreme goal is the giant power-house from which the current flows out to all other lesser goals. This is the head of the house of desirable things, from whom comes all the beauty and allure of the lesser members. These lesser ends are intermediaries, steps, which have value because of their connection with the supreme end; separated from it, they are as pathetically useless as a bridge torn from the banks of a river it was meant to span.

It is the same for all men.

In a very real, very objective sense, this supreme, ultimate good which draws forth all human activity is identical for all men. For on this one point are all men agreed; the purpose of their action is happiness. And it is precisely this supreme end which can fulfil that purpose. Actually, the ends of human activity are as multiple as the energies men put forth in search for happiness, as diverse as the mistakes men make in trying to determine just what that final, supreme good is. A man with a thick tongue and a headache is not a dependable judge of the tastiness of a breakfast; neither is a perverted will a dependable judge, of the object in which human happiness is to be found. Our next steps in the investigation of the essence of happiness will be the determination of the healthiness of the human appetite or will, the concrete discovery of just what particular object can confer happiness on man.

It is the end of all creatures, but differently

But first, and passingly, we might point out that the majestic force which has swept the universe on from its dim beginnings towards its final goal has made no exception in the case of man. He may be the very summit of nature, the lord of the world, but he is none the less a part of that natural order, subject to those same natural laws, and moving along with nature to the same supreme end. For it is quite true that the end of nature and the end of every man in nature is the same; as all motion must have had the one source, so it must have the one final resting place, the one goal. In this same sense, we might say that Admiral Byrd's plane, his dog, and himself all reached the same goal, the South Pole, but certainly not in the same way. So with the creatures of our universe: some by merely existing, some by living, others by living and feeling, reach a little image of that final good; while men and angels speed on to the very core of that final good on the wings of knowledge and love.

Objective Happiness -- determination of the beatifying object:
Three possible -- and historical -- mistakes

It is the peculiar genius of our race to be able to make mistakes. And that genius has been exhausted in the attempt to determine the object the possession of which will mean happiness for us. Men have placed their chips on every number that the universe offers in the gamble for happiness, and they have always been wrong. As a matter of fact only two classes of mistakes were possible: placing all chance for happiness in some external, particular good, or on some good within the nature of man himself, whether of body or of soul.

External goods: riches, honour, fame, power

Of the external seducers, riches have played a leading role, but their beauty has been an illusion produced by make-up and a spotlight. For the ultimate goal of man cannot exist for anything else; because it is ultimate it is desired for itself, it is never a step but always that to which steps lead. And riches, whether natural (such as food and drink) or artificial (such as wealth) are always steps, always for something else: the first for the sustaining of life; the second, even more obviously, for the purchase of natural goods.

The other external goods -- honour, reputation, power -- are just as easily disposed of as being claimants to the place of honour in man's quest for happiness, no matter how many millions of men and women they have fooled. Natural and artificial riches, as instruments used by man for his ends, are servants, not the supremely desirable answer to his lifetime of longing. Honour and reputation are quite outside of the man himself and indeed often independent of his efforts; in any case they bring nothing intrinsically within the scope of a man's own being. Honour is rather a witness to excellence than the constituent of happiness. Reputation (fame or glory) is another witness, not in us at all but in those who are honouring or praising us. These are frail things, often grossly erroneous, as we well know, at the mercy of every circumstance, and presupposing, not establishing, some claim to happiness. No, these are not the reason for man's existence, the final goal of all his efforts.

If the supreme good to which every man dedicates his life could be conceived as capable of being utterly vicious, capable of being possessed and still leaving its possessor a fool, or even dragging a man down to the gutter, we might be forced to hesitate before the throne of power in determining the object which will give us happiness. Power is quite capable of all these things; but, by the same token, it is incapable of being the final answer to man's quest for happiness.

Corporal good: the body itself, its pleasure

Since his happiness is not to be found in the universe in which he lives, man looks, quite logically, in the only other obvious place, within himself. But his body is no more helpful than was the whole scope of the universe. Its conservation, its health, its beauty, its sensitive acumen or vegetative prodigality, are no more the explanation of man's activity than the conservation of a ship is the real purpose, the last end of a captain. The captain's job is to make a port, to navigate his ship; everything else about that ship serves this master purpose. The body's job is to make possible that activity we call human and all of its various and complex workings serve that same master purpose; ministering the material to the intelligence and will which the body serves.

The soul of man

To pass immediately to a consideration of the soul of man would be to treat with contempt the mistake about happiness most common in our own day. And no human mistake deserves contempt, if only because there is behind it a human heart which, until its last beat, is capable of that incredible courage that snatches victory from despair. What of sensual pleasure? Can a man lose himself here and find the complete happiness whose absence has been the driving force of all his days? Because there is so much of the animal in us, this is a mistake easy to make and difficult to remedy.

But mistake it is. For if human activity is distinctive, the goal at which it aims is no less distinctive, not at all a place where we must lie down with the brutes. As a matter of fact, a child does not have pleasure because it is enjoying ice-cream, but because it has ice-cream to enjoy. In other words, pleasure, delight, does not cause itself, but is caused by possession of some good, some end. No pleasure can make up happiness; rather it must always follow humbly in the wake of happiness, like a train-bearer following a bride.

Our attempt to determine the object which will bring man his happiness has thus far been entirely a consideration of facts. It has been no more than a pattern of the final or the ultimate, demanded by every human act, laid on the actual choices made by men. We have not been theorizing, not preaching, but simply comparing facts and rejecting obvious misfits. This strict adherence to facts brings us to the last possibility -- the soul of man. It is the end of a great experiment; the last step which many have not bothered to make because they think the answer could not be other than the right one, the one sought. But honest facing of the facts cannot allow cowardice to creep in at this last stage. Let us put that pattern of finality, of supremacy in the order of things desirable over the soul and its possibilities -- and the answer again is no! They do not match.

Indeed, if they did match, there would be no necessity for the bustle of human life; man would be happy from the very beginning. The very urge of man's nature that he get out of himself, as well as the shrivelled, distorted result achieved by the introvert, are indications that man's happiness does not lie within himself. Man, by his knowledge, can in a sense take all things into himself. He can become all things, and so he can desire all good. But he is not all things, he is not God. Neither he nor any creature is all good; and only that which can satisfy man's desires can bring him happiness.

The true object in whose possession lies happiness is the Universal Good

The object of his pursuit of happiness is not outside man and in the universe; it is not within man, body or soul. But this does not mean that the whole affair is a grim joke of cosmic proportions. It is still real, still decidedly objective, this beatifying object -- but it is above man and the universe. It is the answer to the human capacity to desire all goods and be satisfied with none; it is the final good that can leaves nothing to be desired; it is the absolutely universal good, outside and above man; outside and above the world, outside and above any good that bears the brand of limitation, of particularity.

Subjective or Formal Happiness -- the attainment of the goal

A boy is not happy because an apple will bring him happiness; but because he has the apple in his possession. Neither is a man happy because the universal good will bring him happiness; but because he possesses that universal good. The attainment of the final goal, not its mere existence, marks the close of the pursuit of happiness. And that means no less than our having reached out and taken possession of the final good, bringing it into ourselves, making it our own. In this strictly formal sense, happiness, the final accomplishment of our human actions, is indeed within man.

Dr. Cabot of Harvard(The Meaning of Right and Wrong (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1936), p. 112 ff.) insists that man's business in life is to grow. The dimly seen truth behind this statement is the same as that behind modern philosophers' insistence on progress, advance, constant change, evolution without end. For to the naked eye it is apparent that action and perfection have a strange affinity. When I have absorbed all that an educational system can offer me in the way of knowledge, quite patently I have more of perfection than I had in my grammar-school days. A potential opera star has much less perfection of voice than the opera star who has realized her potentialities. It is quite true then that perfection is in exact proportion to actuality, as true of man as of plants, or indeed as of God.

Happiness possible -- from a comparison of man's faculties man's goal

Consequently, this ultimate perfection of man, which is his complete happiness, is to be found in his consummate, most perfect act. In modern terms, substance exists for the sake of function; the ultimate in perfection of any substance, then, will be its most perfect function. More simply, the goal of life will be the realization of the best that is in man.

It is accomplished by an act of man

This truth is so obvious that, stated in common-place language, it seems almost insulting to intelligence. Everyone knows that man's desires are satisfied only by his reaching out and getting what he lacks. Of course, since some object he now lacks will satisfy his desires, will bring him happiness, the thing for him to do is to reach out and get it -- a feat that is accomplished by using the tools at our command, human actions.

Not by any of his inferior acts

Since we know what we are after -- the universal good -- we can immediately exclude all those operations that are not distinctively human, those sense operations common to all animals, whose goals are not universal but particular goals. This action must be a distinctively human action, i.e. an act of intellect or will. And again the process of exclusion is simple. I can desire a hat in a draughty room by a mere act of my will: I can enjoy the possession of that hat with my will. But if I ever expect to have that hat, I'll have to get up and get it. As a universal good is not something to be had by reaching out my hand, or by calling a servant, the only possibility of its possession is by an act of my intellect. Can I make it? Why not? That same intellect can know all things, even the universal; and it is the universal good that I am after.

But let it be well understood that no substitutes will do. My will can be satisfied only when I possess that universal good, only when it is present within me by my knowledge of it. The lofty considerations of truth offered by philosophy or science will not do; not even the absorbed contemplation of angelic beauty will be tolerated patiently. It must be all or nothing: either the universal, all-embracing good, or the failure of the pursuit of happiness. The intellectual perfection that will help me to take more steps towards a goal is not sufficient; rather that is necessary which will mean no more steps.

But by the supreme act of man -- intellectual vision

In plain words, I must see God. From the very beginning I have been driven by the desire to plumb the depths, to be unsatisfied with the superficial, to know the inner workings, the very essences of things. And having come upon the traces of God in nature, having learned of His existence, my nature will not be satisfied until I have seen the very essence of God.

So far Aristotle managed to trudge up the last hill in his pursuit of happiness. He saw man standing at the summit of the created universe; at the peak of man's nature was the intellect; and the zenith of that intellect's activity was the contemplation of truth. Here, he concluded, must lie the happiness of man: in the supreme act of his supreme faculty, in the perfect realization of his greatest potentiality.

Looking down from these heights, Aristotle was brought to earth with a crash. The men of that earth were real; the labours, interests, worries of their lives were decidedly real and left very little room for silent contemplation. Perhaps their offices were not as busy then as ours are today, but certainly their lives were. Moreover, how many of these men were capable of contemplation; and how long could the best of them keep it up? What an end to the quest of happiness! Such was the way Aristotle must have felt about the whole thing. His courage and devotion to facts were great enough to make him hold doggedly to the conclusions facts had forced upon him; but they were not great enough to make him take the last few steps that were possible to philosophy -- to come out clearly with the last conclusions demanded by the facts. He chose to leave them vague.

Two common errors in regard to this formal happiness:
Cannot be had.
Would not give happiness if it were had.

Two obvious difficulties jumped at Aristotle -- and at men ever since. For it seems evident that man cannot see God, and, even if he did, the act, like all his acts of contemplation, would endure for only a short time and could not give him happiness. To these objections St. Thomas had the infallible answers of divine faith. As a matter of fact, men do see God; and in their vision is their supreme happiness.(Ex Constitutions Benedict XII, "Benedictus Deus" H. Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbobrum (Freiburg, Germany: Herder & Co., ed.; 17, 1928), #530.) It is quite certain that the universal Good, the essence of God, cannot be crowded into a mental concept, nor be abstracted from sensible things; and yet that is the way our intellect works. Yes, the way it works naturally; the way it works at the present time, not because of its intelligence, but because of that crutch which intelligence must use and which we call reasoning. Man can be, and is, lifted above that lowest grade of intelligence; he is enabled to throw away the crutch and come to grips with divinity, not through an image or a concept, but in the way the divinity sees itself -- through the immediate union of that supremely knowable essence to the intellect of man.

Supernatural? Of course it is supernatural. But that fact is no more of an affront to man's self-sufficiency, to the efficacy of nature, than is the fact that man is born without protection and clothes but is given hands and reason to make up for the deficiency. Here he is given a free will by which he can co-operate with the supernatural help infallibly offered him and reach the happiness which hangs over his head. That the contemplation of divinity is unsatisfying in this life, is beyond all question; and if reason could not have discovered that fact, faith would broadcast it to the four winds.(Council of Vienna, condemned propositions of Beghards, 1,4,5. (Denzinger, #471,474,475).

But that dissatisfaction is in this life, seeing that divinity through a glass darkly and while we are sadly pressed by all the necessities of physical existence. Aristotle was right as far as he went; but it had not entered into the mind of man that God would insist on such a perfect image of Himself in the unfolding of the goal of human activity.

Characteristics of formal happiness:

Once gained it can never be lost.

It cannot be had by natural power alone.

It is strictly a personal accomplishment.

Of this ultimate goal, then, it is strictly true that it is supernatural, not to be attained by natural powers. Yet, paradoxically, it is strictly personal attainment. No other creature, neither man nor woman, nor the highest angel in heaven, can get it for us; nor will God force it upon us. We approach it step by step, by onr own human actions, working with the constant help of God; and the last and eternally enduring act by which we grasp God Himself is an act of our intellect, something that can no more be done for us than our thinking here and now can be done by someone else and still be ours. Once had, this supreme good which satisfies all our desires and puts an end to the quest of happiness cannot possibly slip from our fingers. On its part, the beatifying object cannot dry up and blow away, it cannot decrease or cease to be what it essentially is, the universal good; on our part, we cannot get tired of it, there is nothing else that can tempt us from it, that can seem to have something that is not contained in that ultimate goal. Otherwise it would not be the ultimate, the universal good. Just as now we must will everything under the guise and in the name of good, so then we must will everything in the name of the divine good -- what attractiveness there is in other things, comes from this final end.

The perfection of happiness:
The three essentials or happiness: vision, comprehension, joy

Summing this up: a universally good object and its attainment by us is required for our complete happiness. In that attainment of the final goal there is involved the intellectual vision of the beatifying object; not merely a passing glance, but a tenacious grasp, an enduring comprehension of that object, and, finally, the eternally enduring joy (or rest) of our will, our appetite, in the accomplishment of our goal, in the possession of the all satisfying good.

All else that may be involved in our final happiness, however much it may contribute to the perfection of happiness, is secondary and relatively unimportant -- a delicate touch perhaps, like a drop of perfume on the gown of a perfectly dressed woman, but adding nothing substantial.

Role of the body in happiness

In this way, the reunion of body and soul will add to the perfection of the happiness of man. After all, his body belongs to a man, the soul was made for union with that body, and without it, the soul is in a very real sense incomplete; but the addition of the body will not add to the essential joy and glory of the soul, rather the other way around. From the soul will come joy and glory to the body, much as at present a light heart gives buoyancy to our steps.

Role of external goods

This overflow from the soul to the body will carry that body far beyond the limits of natural perfection. Often the body is in command of the situation at present, as the protest of our knees at an overlong prayer will testify; but then, the body will be completely subservient to the soul as it was meant to be. It would seem difficult then to find a place in the perfection of happiness for external goods. At present they are ordained to the needs of physical life; even the most sublime contemplative needs food and clothes. But the question of clothes in heaven would seem to be still very much open to debate.

Role of friends

Friends, of course, there must be, in the same way that we must have our bodies. They are our other selves; something of ourselves would be missing without them. And this is true, even though the principal end of friendship -- the opportunity to help, to sacrifice, to give to others -- will no longer exist; that subtler, infinitely precious joy in the beauty, the triumph, the happiness of friends will give a splendidly human air to the courts of heaven.

Key to present or imperfect happiness -- where and how happiness is to be found here and now

All of this may seem very far away, very unsatisfactory to men and women who are engaged in the actual pursuit of happiness -- as always the tape at the end of a race seems infinitely distant from the starting line. We want happiness now. What can we do about it today? What, if any, is the possibility of some happiness in this life?

Activity and progress as a measure of happiness

All of the answers to questions that might be put about present happiness are contained in what we have already said. Perhaps one of the most important is that no perfect happiness is to be had this side of death. It is an important thing to know. What happiness is possible can be had only by going in the general direction of that final goal, for because of that goal every other good is desirable, every other good has what power it possesses to satisfy the longings of our hearts. And what happiness can be had will be had slowly, trudgingly, little by little, with many an imperfection, distraction, interruption mixed in. The degree of present happiness is in exact proportion to our approach to the final goal of life, as the heat we feel from a fire is in exact proportion to our proximity to the fire. In utterly simple language: happiness, even the imperfect happiness this life can offer, is a matter of approaching God. The closer we get to Him, the greater our share of this imperfect happiness; the farther away we get, the less happiness we can expect to garner. The words of the child's catechism are an adequate summary of all we have said: man was made to know and to love God. The goal of life is the knowledge and love, the vision and enjoyment, of divinity; what happiness we get in this life will be through an imperfect knowledge or love of God, either in Himself, or in one of the mirrorings of divinity which we call creatures.

Answers to the puzzles: of activity, despair and boredom.

The rush of New York life is not necessarily an improvement on the sleepy quiet of a tiny Irish hamlet. Man gains his happiness by activity; but not by every activity, rather by activity that is going somewhere, going to the right place. There is such a thing as being so busy we have no time to live; having our heads so full of knowledge we have no chance to think; or our hearts so crowded that there is no place for love. Activity for activity's sake, bustling for its own sake, may help us to forget, may prevent our thinking, but it will not bring us happiness. Progress is indeed a measure of happiness -- if it is progress towards God. But progress in time saving devices, or labour-saving devices, in wealth, health, strength, beauty, athletic ability, business efficiency -- all of these can easily be synchronizing with flight away from the ultimate goal of human life. At best they are helps; at times they make that true progress easier. There can be no question that a young man of today has made less real progress as a result of fourteen or eighteen years of intensive educational efforts than did the Apostles by rubbing elbows with Christ for three years. A man or woman who starts off in high expectations of grasping full happiness within the span of human life is headed straight for despair; for despair is the fruit of reaching for the impossible. The person today starting life with a denial of life's goal, of the ultimate universal good, has no choice, eventually, but to choke out life or to attempt to choke out reason. The first is despair. The second produces a weariness from trying to pretend that the petty particularities of the universe can be the absorbing explanation of human activity, the goal of human life, the reward for the pursuit of happiness. This is boredom.