SAPPING THE SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS 9 



stated by one who was honored for his learning 

 no less than for his patriotism by many of our 

 greatest secular universities, Cardinal Mercier: 



Man and external beings are contingent i.e., in none of 

 them does essence imply existence and nevertheless they exist. 

 Hence there is something which has brought them into existence. 

 If this cause were itself contingent, it would not altogether 

 resolve the problem of their existence, because it must have a 

 cause for itself. Therefore contingent existence must have a 

 cause that is itself non-contingent, necessary by which we mean 

 that its essence is identical with its existence. 



Therefore it is on the ground of experience that the existence 

 of a necessary Being is affirmed. Reason compels us to choose 

 between affirming the existence of God or else maintaining an 

 essential contradiction at the very heart of that contingent being, 

 the existence of which we have ascertained.* 



Either this, or chaos, both in the intellectual and 

 the moral world! There is no deduction of 

 science that can be claimed to be more reasonable, 

 none that can be more imperative than the first 

 conclusion here arrived at, affirming "the existence 

 of a necessary Being." At the same time it in no 

 way encroaches upon the domain of any of the 

 natural sciences, but accepting all the facts they 

 have discovered, or may yet discover, it finds in 

 them only a firmer warrant for its logical necessity 

 and indisputable truth. 



Even Kant could not fail to acknowledge the 

 logical necessity of these conclusions when he 

 wrote : 



'"The Origins of Contemporary Psychology," pp. 314, 315. 



