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the other two; they are but three forms of one and the same good.

"In so far as man is an animal subject endowed with a corporeal sense, he is capable of adapting to himself and of enjoying only particular goods, that is, corporeal ones; but, in so far as he is an intellectual subject, he perceives all kinds of goods and enjoys all the kinds of good perceived by him. His intellect may even attain the absolute good, and, therefore, this alone can entirely and completely appease it. This is the supreme good of intelligences, in the enjoyment of which consists what is properly called beatitude or happiness-terms which in common parlance are entirely refused both to the blind momentary pleasure of animal life and to all perfection of sensitive things (Principles of Moral Science, pp. 51, 52). In a note to this passage the author says, "Sensists, of necessity, confound happiness with pleasure, and measure degrees of happiness by pleasure; but they err. Happiness is certainly enjoyment, but not every enjoyment is happiness. Happiness is the enjoyment of the highest good. Now, between the enjoyment of the highest good and that of any other good there is a difference, not of degree, but of kind—an infinite difference, with no middle term to unite one extreme with the other."

151.

tradition

free man

doubts

there which corre- the sad

arise from

But, if human nature, when examined, shows Religious that this is its destiny, how is this destiny to be alone can reached? Here human reason stands dumb and from the in confusion, seeing that in the present life is not a single condition of man that fully sponds to that end to which he aspires. On the of the preone hand, the nature of the human powers, when carefully studied, and the incessant cravings of the higher des

spectacle

sent life,

and man's

tinies must

be treated

in a supernatural Psychology and Anthropology.

human heart reveal to reason the supreme aim of humanity; on the other, reason itself sees humanity on this earth for ever weltering in ignorance, tossed hither and thither by passions and vices, everywhere corrupt, everywhere unhappy; life transient as a flash, ever uncertain, ever a struggle, ever a sacrifice, and the death of every man that is born close this great tragedy. At this spectacle reason itself staggers, thinks it is dreaming, loses confidence in itself. At last, rousing itself by one effort, it reinvigorates itself with the consoling hypothesis of a future life. But human reason is not forsaken by God in its dark surmisings. Behold! God reveals to man the secret of His creative goodness, assures him that the theory inspired by feeling and found by reason, through study and meditation, neither lies nor deceives. It shall be realized, and to it the facts will accurately correspond in a yet higher mode of the same theory. All that upon earth appears as an obstacle to, and contradiction of, reason, finds its explanation in the manifestation of the entire design of the Creator, and even becomes, in this design, a necessary means and a confirmation of what reason itself teaches. The hypothesis of another life is converted into a certainty by an infallible testimony. That other life, which has no end, in which man no more dies, has in it an abundance of weal and of woe that will atone for all the inequalities, and correct all the irregularities, of this temporal life. But in this life itself God has given us a faint

outline of that future and eternal order, has granted us excellent and purely divine means whereby, if we will, we may rise to that sublime destiny which reason indicates darkly in the far distance. This part, therefore, of the destiny of the soul and of the entire man cannot be treated exhaustively in Natural Psychology or Anthropology, but in another Psychology and Anthropology which draw their doctrines from the mouth of God himself.

It does not enter into the scope of the present work to consider Rosmini's theological views; nevertheless, it may not be out of place here to state that, according to him, the light of grace alone can make us in any degree acquainted with the nature of God's reality. Human intelligence, with its infinite ideal term, is capable of reasoning with certainty to the fact of God's reality or subsistence; but only a direct presentation of that reality to feeling can in any way make us aware of its nature. Natural things are seen by natural light; supernatural things by supernatural light.

2. Cosmology.

152.

Cosmo

Cosmology is the science of the world. We What is have included it among the sciences of percep- logy? tion, because the objects of perception are the human soul and the bodies of which the world is made up. Of course, in the great system of creation there are other beings which do not fall under sensible experience, and are reached only through inductive reasoning. Such are the pure spirits, the angels.

Cosmology might be defined as the science of the extra-subjective, in contradistinction to Psychology, which is the science of the consubjective. The two, along with the inferential sciences of Ontology and Natural Theology, form the subdivisions of Metaphysics. Rosmini left no separate work on Cosmology, but the treatise on the Real, now printed as the fifth volume of the Theosophy, was intended to form part of such a work. According to the original design, the work on Cosmology was to be divided into the following chapters:—(1) The Metaphysical World-Finite Objective Being; (2) The Conditions of Finite Being-The Finite One; (3) Finite Triple Being— Creation; (4) The Universe-The Principle, Being-The Angels; (5) The First Created Intelligence; (6) The Soul of the World; (7) Man; (8) Time; (9) Space; (10) Matter; (11) Numbers; (12) Forms; (13) Laws, Final Grounds-Harmony-Beauty; (14) The End; (15) The Realization of the End.

This arrangement was subsequently modified somewhat. What was written is divided into two parts, the first of which treats of Essential Matter, the first element of Real Being; the second, of the Ontological Organism of Real Being.

How Cosmology considers the world.

153.

Cosmology considers the world (1) as a whole, (2) in its parts as related to the whole, and (3)

in its order.

In other words, the divisions of Cosmology are Philosophy of Nature (Naturphilosophie), Natural Science, and Theology. Under the first will naturally fall the question respecting the origin of the world, whether it was created or existed from all eternity. This question can, of course, be answered only through the discovery of the true nature of the real as presented in the world, and its relation to the ideal, the only form in which we know the eternal. If

the real presents the same characteristics as the ideal, necessity, universality, eternity, etc., then it must have existed always; if, on the contrary, it is contingent, particular, temporal, it must have had a beginning. Under the second division will come all the experimental sciences, wherein, through the search for general laws, we try to reduce the phenomena of the world to a unity, and to show that they are due to a single principle. Under the · third division will fall the question of the adaptation of means to ends. In whatever sense we use the term end, whether as conscious purpose or as actual result, it will always be true that the order and harmony of a natural organism will have a direct connection with that end, and will necessarily be expressed in terms of it. We cannot explain the construction and order of the eye without taking vision into account. As the Schoolmen said, Act follows being. Rosmini, of course, maintained the doctrine of final cause.

154.

of Cosmo

Cosmology, as the doctrine of the whole, treats First part (1) of the nature of contingent real being, and logy. (2) of its cause.

155.

the First proof

Contingent real being has not within itself ground of its own existence, and, therefore, requires a cause. Since, moreover, no part of contingent being, whether substantial or accidental, contains the ground of its own existence, it requires a creative cause. Contingent being, therefore, is, every moment, drawn out of nothing.

of the

creation of

the world.

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