Brownson's Quarterly Review

ART. I. On Nature and Grace: A Theological Treatise. Book I. Philosophical Introduction. By W. G. WARD, D. P. H., late Lecturer in Dogmatic Theology at St. Edmund's Seminary, Herts. London: Burns and Lambert. 1860. 8vo. pp. lvi. and 490.

MR. WARD was one of the earliest and most distinguished of the converts to the Church from the now almost forgotten Oxford Movement, and we agree with our able and learned contemporary, The Dublin Review, that "no work since the appearance of the Tracts for the Times has issued from the English press that can equally claim the attention of Catholics" with his treatise on Nature and Grace, the first volume of which, embracing an elaborate preface and a philosophical introduction, is now published and before us.

The treatise, we are told in the preface, is composed of a part of the course of lectures on Dogmatic Theology given by the author in St. Edmund's Seminary, and "includes all those revealed truths which relate to each man's moral and spiritual condition; all those which concern his individual relations with God, his true end, whether tending toward that end, or unhappily moving in an opposite direction." It is divided into five books, of unequal length: 1. Philosophical Introduction; 2. Theological Prolegomena; 3. On Man's Moral Action; 4. On Divine Grace; 5. On God's Providence and Predestination. His work, the VOL. II.-No. I.

author tells us, corresponds, in the main, to the Pars Secunda of St. Thomas, borrowing, however, from the Pars Prima, the topics of Providence and Predestination, and from the Pars Tertia, that of Attrition in relation to the justification of adults in the sacraments of Baptism and Penance.

If we understand the learned and philosophical author, he embraces, under the head of Nature and Grace, all that part of theology, natural and revealed, which relates to the second cycle, or return of existences or creatures to God as their last end, that is, all that part of theology which relates to God as the Final Cause, in distinction from that which relates to God in himself, and as First Cause. He contends that this, according to St. Thomas, the second part of theology, may be treated by itself, independently of the first part, or that which treats of the existence, nature, and attributes of God, of the Unity and the Trinity of God, and of God as Creator, or First Cause. He says St. Thomas, in the pars secunda of his Summa Theologica, takes a fresh start, and might as well have treated it in the first, as in the second place. "It is impossible to understand the de Deo Trino till we have studied the de Deo Uno; and it is impossible to understand de Gratia, till we have studied de Actibus Humanis. But that portion of science on the one hand which contains the de Deo Uno et Trino, and that portion, on the other hand, which contains the de Actibus Humanis and the de Gratia-these are mutually independent; it is a matter of indifference which is studied before the other. Upon these two independent portions is founded the doctrine of the Incarnation, and all which follows." But how can we scientifically treat de Actibus Humanis independently of the de Deo Creatore? of man's end before we have treated of his origin? or of de Gratia before de Incarnatione, the origin and end of the "new creation," or life of grace?

Theology, in its broadest sense, embraces both natural theology, or metaphysics, and supernatural theology, that is, all the truths we know by the natural light of reason, and all that we know by Divine Revelation, or the supernatural light of Faith. There is always, then, to be carried along, the double order, and the theologian has to treat the origin and end of man in the natural order, and his origin and end in the supernatural order, which, as to the end, in some sort assumes the natural. The origin and end of the natural order depend on God as Creator; of the supernatural, which presupposes

the natural, on God Incarnate. We should say, then, that the order of science, as of being, requires that the de Deo Creatore should, as in St. Thomas, precede de Actibus Humanis, and de Incarnatione de Gratia. It is true St. Thomas places de Gratia before de Incarnatione, and de Incarnatione only before de Sacramentis, as if the Incarnation is to be regarded as the effect of the Gratia Dei, and the source, or cause, only of Sacramental Grace. There may be a question whether in this he follows the true scientific order or not, because there is among theologians a question whether, if man had not sinned, the Second Person of the Ever-Adorable Trinity would, or would not have become Incarnate. Grace certainly pertains in the supernatural order to the First Cause, the first cycle or procession of the supernatural life from God, and if we hold with St. Thomas that if man had not sinned, the Word would not have assumed flesh, we must regard the Incarnation as the effect of the grace of God, and then treat it after treating grace; but if we regard, with the general current of modern theology; the Incarnation not as merely reparatory of the damage done by sin, and taking sin as the occasion of elevating man to a higher and nobler destiny than he would have attained had he not sinned, but as primarily intended to ennoble man, and to elevate him, as his final beatitude, to union by nature with his Creator, and, therefore, the Word would have been incarnated even if man had not sinned, we should, it seems to us, place de Incarnatione before de Gratia, immediately after de Deo Creatore, as we find it placed by Father Perrone in his Prælectiones Theologica. We incline to the latter view, and, therefore, we should maintain that no treatise on Nature and Grace can be scientifically constructed independently of de Deo, de Deo Creatore, and de Incarnatione, for we cannot understand how the Final Cause can be treated independently of the First Cause, or the return of existences to God as their last end independently of their procession by way of creation from Him as their first Beginning.

But, however it may be with regard to the Incarnation, we are certain that there can be no scientific treatment of Moral Theology, or the speculative part of Ethics, natural or supernatural, that excludes all consideration of God as First Cause; and nearly all the criticisms we shall have to make on the author's theory of morals, as set forth in the volume already published, grow out of his attempt to find

a solid basis of morals without taking into the account the creative act of God, or considering in its proper place and bearing man's relation to God as his First, as well as his Final Cause. But more of this hereafter.

The volume before us is introductory to the volumes that are to follow, but it is complete in itself, and contains a very full treatise on moral philosophy as distinguished from practical ethics. It is purely philosophical, that is, wholly within the province of natural reason, and treats of an important branch of natural theology. The matter treated is arranged in four chapters: 1. On the Principles of Morality; 2. On Ethical Psychology; 3. On Self Charity; 4. On various Kinds of Certainty and Impossibility. Our remarks in the present article will be confined, for the most part, to the first chapter-On the Principles of Morality. This chapter is subdivided into seven sections: 1. On Intuitions and on the Principle of Certitude; 2. On the Essential Characteristics of Moral Truth; 3. On the Relation between God and Moral Truth; 4. Catholic Authority on Independent Morality-placed at the end of the volume; 5. On the Idea of Moral Worthiness; 6. On the Extent of the Natural Rule; 7. On God's Power of Interference with the Natural Rule. We shall have, at present, little to say, except on the first three sections of the first chapter, which contain the fundamental principles of the whole Introduction. The author, we hardly need remark, is a psychologist, and, though professing to recognize objective truth, discusses all questions from the point of view of the subject, or his own Ego. He begins by distinguishing between judg ments of consciousness and judgments of intuitions. I judge that I am this moment suffering the sensation of cold, hunger, or thirst; this is a judgment of consciousness. I remember that some time ago I suffered that sensation; this is a judgment of intuition, or intuitive judgment. Judgments of consciousness are simply the interior recognition of our own present mental state; intuitive judgments are the direct and immediate perception or apprehension of objective truth or reality, that is, something exterior to and independent of the percipient or intuitive subject. Intuition, then, in the author's sense, is the perception of the Scottish school, and the judgment à posteriori of the Kantian. It is the simple, direct, immediate apprehension of the object by the subject, and is presented as a purely subjective or psychological act.

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