Conclusion 3 79 



pragmatism and of the revolutionary movement in the Catholic 

 Church called modernism. It is not possible to discuss either of 

 these in this concluding essay. 



The word intellcctualism, used in a disparaging sense, occurs 

 in one of these essays. It is in common use among the opponents 

 of speculative idealism, especially w^hen the Hegelians are being 

 attacked, and also by modernists in attacking the Catholic system 

 of dogma, based on the " Summa " of St. Thomas Aquinas. It is 

 a matter of faith w^ith Catholics that " the one true God can be 

 known with certainty by the natural light of reason." This, it 

 will be observed, is quite different from the " ontologism " of 

 Jacobi, mentioned above. The knowledge of God's existence, 

 for the Catholic, is of the nature of a valid inference. The 

 rationalistic proof of religion may take several forms. Paley's 

 argument is well known : " The marks of design are too strong 

 to be gotten over. Design must have a designer. That designer 

 must be a Person. That Person is God." To this section would 

 belong, if there were room to discuss them, the famous four proofs 

 of God's existence — the ontological, cosmological, teleological, and 

 moral arguments, with which Kant dealt very roughly. The 

 ontological argument has no doubt been often formulated faultily ; 

 but it seems to me a fair argument to say that the conception of God 

 can hardly be a purely subjective notion. A mystic might go 

 further. The intellect is trying to formulate and explain an actual 

 experience, the essence of which is that it is known or felt not to 

 be purely subjective. The cosmological argument, as restated by 

 Lotze, is not concerned with a Prime Mover but with an immanent 

 ground of the World. There must be an ever-present energy, 

 which is the source of all cosmical movement. The teleological 

 argument, which Kant treats with respect, has since his time been 

 repudiated by the majority of scientists. But though the simple 

 teleology of Paley is out of date, we must protest against the assump- 

 tion that uniform law and order are incompatible with the idea of 

 purpose. 1 am inclined to think that the very conception of law 

 implies purpose. These arguments are sometimes called proofs, 

 though they are not demonstrations ; they are, however, closely 

 inwoven with the texture of rational experience. 



Intellcctualism, in the disparaging sense, may take the form 

 either of pantheistic naturalism or of speculative idealism. The 

 rationalism of the deists lost sight of the meaning of faith j it ended 



