"THE METAPHYSICAL SOCIETY." 815 



experience alone. Now, how do we Catholics, who have a philosophy 

 the value of which we imagine that you believers in Spencer and Mill 

 and Bain greatly underrate, account for the uniformity of Nature 

 without trenching in any way on the supernatural basis of that Na- 

 ture ? I will show you. Aquinas says in his " Summa " and the Arch- 

 bishop, of course, pronounced his Latin in the Continental manner 

 " Tota irrationalis natura comparatur ad Deum sicut instrumentum ad 

 agens principale" the whole of inanimate and irrational Nature 

 bears to the Divine being the relation of an instrument to the princi- 

 pal agent. That is to say, the Divine intellect conceives the law 

 which the Divine will sanctions and enforces by a great methodical 

 instrument. The natura naturans makes use of the natura naturata. 

 The law determines the instrument it is to use, and the instrument it 

 is to use determines the world. Why, then, should the law be regular 

 and not variable ? Why, because it is the instrument of a being who 

 is not variable. The schoolmen tell us that Nature has an appetite, a 

 desire to accomplish its ends. They say of Nature " appetit," " de- 

 siderat." Such are the phrases they use. And as no constant aim, no 

 true development can be attained by capricious, inconsistent, incon- 

 sequent action, by instruments incoherent, part with part for the 

 gratification of Nature's appetite, for the fulfillment of her desire, and 

 the attainment of her purpose, a constancy and fixity of method are 

 essential which are never interrupted, save where the Divine power 

 modifies the instrument for its own good purpose. Thus the uniformity 

 of Nature is based upon the wisdom of God, and the wisdom of God 

 is manifested in the uniformity of Nature. St. Thomas has said, 

 " Proprium est naturae rationalis ut tendat in finem quasi se agens et 

 ducens ad finem." And again : " Necessitas naturalis inhaerens rebus, 

 qua determinantur ad unum, est impressio quaedam Dei dirigentis ad 

 finem, sicut necessitas qua sagitta agitur ut ad certum signum tendat, 

 est impressio sagittantis et non sagittae "; that is, the necessity, or may 

 we not say the uniformity of Nature, is a career impressed upon it by 

 the Divine archer, who never misses his mark ; it is not the arrow 

 which determines that career, but the archer who points and who dis- 

 misses the arrow in its flight. But St. Thomas goes on : " Sed in hoc 

 differt, quod id quod creaturae a Deo recipiunt est earum natura, quod 

 autem ab homine rebus naturalibus imprimitur praeter earum naturam 

 ad violentiam pertinet." Dr. Ward will correct me if I am wrong, 

 but I interpret this as meaning that if what men ingraft on lower 

 creatures is spoken of by the angelic doctor as doing them a certain 

 violence, altering, I suppose, their mere involuntary qualities by in- 

 fecting them with a certain human purposiveness not their own, how 

 much more is it evidently open to the Divine purpose to ingraft on 

 this uniformity of Nature a supernatural bent of its own, to open it, as 

 it were, to the power of miracle, to infuse it with the significance of 

 revelation ! 



