TRADITIONALISM, RATIONALISM, AND CATHOLIC TEACHING.

1 C/. vol. i., 15, p. 65.

2 It is this real function of motives which are not directly intellectual that is

misconceived and exaggerated in the anti-intellectualist theories to be examined later

(ch. xxv.).

3 C/. n. 2.

3 1 2 THEOR Y OF KNO W LEDGE

The later traditionalists l endeavoured to emphasize the divergence

of their own teaching from that of De Bonald and De Lamennais. 2

No doubt there are minor differences ; but the erroneous con

tention is still retained that the reception of the fundamental

truths of natural religion and morality on authority by the

individual is an essential prerequisite condition for that right " use

of reason " by which the individual will then be able to " prove"

such truths ; this authority being ultimately that of a primitive

Divine Revelation of which human society is the organon or

vehicle. This contention is erroneous. For although de facto it

is of course through the teaching of his fellow-men that the in

dividual usually, if not indeed invariably, first receives and assents

to the judgments which assert the existence of God, the spiritu

ality and immortality of the soul, human freedom and responsi

bility, etc., nevertheless it is not true either (i) that this social

authority must be in ultimate analysis the authority of God

manifested in a primitive Divine Revelation and transmitted by

tradition, or (2) that, even if it were so, the individual, reflecting

on the grounds of these judgments, would have to declare them

undiscoverable by human reason independently of Divine Revela

tion, and accessible only through such Revelation.

When the individual comes to reflect on the authority which

he had for accepting them as true from his teachers, he sees that

his acceptance of them was reasonable because, and only because,

his reason told him that such authority was an adequate

motive for accepting them. But reflection does not show him

that in regard to those judgments the teaching of his fellow-men

must be simply a traditional testimony to the fact of a Divine

Authority manifesting itself in a Primitive Revelation. He may

indeed raise the question of fact : How did men de facto first

1 Supra, 157, p. 293 ; 158, C, pp. 296-7.

J The philosophical teaching of De Lamennais had heen censured by Pope

Gregory XVI. in the Encyclical Singttlari nos (July isth, 1834). Cf. Catholic Encyclo

pedia, vol. viii., p. 764. 2 In 1855 the Sacred Congregation of the Index proposed

the following propositions to Bonnetty for acceptance : "(i) Ratiocinatio Dei exis-

tentiam, animae spiritualitatem, hominis libertatem, cum certitudine probare potest ;

(2) Fides posterior est ratione, proindeque ad probandam existentiam Dei contra atheos,

ad probandam animae rationalis spiritualitatem et libertatem contra naturalismi et

fatalismi sectatores, allegari convenienter non potest ; (3) Rationis usus fidcm prne-

cedit, et ad earn, ope revelationis et gratiae, conducit," ^apud JEANNIERE, op. cit., p.

267. In 1870 the Vatican Council condemned Traditionalism in the canon : " bi

quis dixerit, Deum unum et verum, Creatorem et Dominum nostrum, per ea, quae

facta sunt, natural! rationis humanae lumine certo cognosci non posse, anathema

sit." Can. n. De Rev., i.

TRADITIONALISM AND RATIONALISM 313

come to believe in the existence of God, the freedom and moral

responsibility of man, the spirituality and immortality of the

soul, the possibility and the fact of a Divine Revelation or Revela

tions ? But whatever answer he may reach in regard to the way

in which men de facto first came to believe in each of these

particular judgments, about which more presently, there is

another question which reflection must raise and answer, namely,

How is he 1 certain that any judgments accepted by him on

extrinsic authority are really and objectively true? Manifestly,

if his certitude is worthy of the name, if it is the firm assent of

a reasoning, intelligent being, the answer must be : Because by

the exercise of his indivdual reason he has convinced himself that

the authority on which he accepts the judgments furnishes a

reasonably adequate guarantee of their truth. And this holds

whether the authority be human or divine. If he has human

authority for believing that certain judgments have been de facto

revealed by God and vouched for by Divine Authority, he must,

in order to give a reasonable assent to them, have convinced him

self by the use of his own reason that he has adequate objective

evidence for the trustworthiness of that human authority. In no

conceivable case, therefore, does the exercise of faith (or assent

on extrinsic authority) precede some use of individual reason and

some rational appreciation of objective evidence. If faith on

extrinsic authority is to be reasonable, and unless it is it cannot

stand the test of reason reflecting on it, it must always imply

such an exercise of individual reason as will convince the believer

that the extrinsic authority is really there and is really adequate

to ground the firm or certain assent of the intellect to that for

which it vouches.

The later traditionalists sought to show that it is one thing

to discover a truth, and another thing altogether to prove or defend

it when discovered : the insinuation being that the individual

reason is unable to discover such truths as those referred to above,

but is able, when enlightened and disciplined and brought to its

full use by the knowledge of them (through Revelation trans

mitted by tradition), to prove and defend them. In this conten

tion there is both an error and an unproven assumption.

The error lies in the supposition that there is an essential

difference, a difference in principle or in kind, between the pro-

1 And the same question must be answered by every human individual for

himself concerning hib own beliefs.

3 1 4 THEOR Y OF KNO WLED GE

cess by which the individual discovers a truth for himself and

the process by which he learns it from others or communicates

it to others. No doubt it is far easier to learn from others than

to discover for one s self: so much is undeniable. But the

difference is one of degree, of more or less ease, expedition,

efficacy, convenience. It is not a difference of kind. The in

dividual, whether he be discoverer, learner, or teacher, uses the

same intellectual faculty, follows the same intellectual laws,

employs the same concepts, starts from the same premisses, goes

through the same inferences and reaches the same conclusions. 1

The unproven assumption is that the traditional communica

tion of the truths in question from society to the individual, the

communication or " institutio socialis " (158, C) which is supposed

to be essential for the full development of his reason, implies

an original Divine Revelation. 2 But we have shown already,

against De Bonald (160), that it does not necessarily imply a

Divine Revelation. Nor, in fact, can it be shown necessarily to

imply any direct intervention of God as Teacher or Instructor ;

and not rather merely the indirect and natural Divine Teaching

which consists in God s endowment of man with the faculty of

reason.

It is, of course, an undeniable fact that the natural development of the

individual s faculties of thought and expression are conditioned by acquisition

of language and by social intercourse with his fellow-men : that the un

natural event of complete isolation would leave him in a " savage" state : that

he is naturally a "social animal". When, therefore, we speak of "the

natural light of human reason " ;i or the " natural power or capacity ot human

reason," the reference is not to the individual in an unnatural, solitary,

isolated condition, but to the individual in human society, and to the in

tellectual capacity of the ordinary or average member of human society.

Now it is a fact of universal history that a part of the actual enlightenment for

which the individual is indebted to his social condition consists in the com

munication to him of the religious beliefs which are in substance universally

prevalent : beliefs concerning immortality, an unseen world, an influence of

Divine Powers on mundane tilings, and man s dependence on such Powers.

It is, moreover, a fact that the Catholic faith includes the belief that God

did de facto make an Original Revelation to our first parents, and that de

facto its content was in part transmitted from them to posterity, although

gradually disfigured and corrupted by accretions of error. Now the later

traditionalists appear to have contended not only that such moral and religi

ous truths as have prevailed at least in substance universally throughout

1 Cf. MEKCIER, op. cit., 72, pp. 157-8 ; Science of Logic, it., 204, pp. 14-16.

a Cf. supra, p. 297. 3 Cf. Canon of Vatican Council, supra, p. 312, n. 2.

TRADITIONALISM AND RATIONALISM 315

human history come de facto from that original Divine Revelation, but also

that only through the enlightening influence of s itch divinely communicated

truths could human reason, whether individually or collectively, have the

capacity of establishing and defending these truths by rational demonstration

(158, C).

If this contention be examined from the standpoint of the believing

Catholic, it must be regarded as confounding the natural with the supernatural.

For no positive Divine Revelation, or communication of knowledge by God

to man, is " natural " or due to human nature as such. Although, therefore,

the human race has been de facto (according to Catholic teaching) raised to a

supernatural end, and has been made from the beginning the recipient of re

ligious knowledge supernaturally communicated by Divine Revelation ; al

though, moreover, (according to Catholic teaching) human reason, whether

regarded individually or collectively, has been de facto aided in its purely

natural investigation of such fundamental problems as the existence of God,

the immortality of the soul, the conditions and sanctions of the moral order,

the rational grounds and duties of religion, by the universal transmission of at

least some portion of that original Divine Teaching ; and although, finally,

it is with man in this actual condition that the Catholic Church is concerned in

its teaching, and not with the hypothetical condition of man in what is referred

to as " the state of pure nature," nevertheless the Vatican Council, in teach

ing that man can attain to certain knowledge of the existence of " one true

God, our Creator and Lord " by " the natural light of human reason," brought

to bear on " the things that are made," * defined that it is within the natural

competence of men generally, exercising their reason on the data of human

experience, and without the sttpernatural aid of any Divine Revelation, to

reach a certain knowledge of God s existence.

But over against the error of Traditionalism, which it thus condemned

for unduly depreciating the power of natural reason, there is the opposite

error of Rationalism which claims an undue and erroneous extension of this

power. According to this general system, which has many different forms,

not only can natural reason demonstrate \he prcambula fidci, not only has

it the right and the duty to explore the authenticity of alleged Divine Revela

tions, and the possibility of Revelation, Miracles, and Supernatural Religion

generally, but natural reason can of itself attain to the discovery and under

standing of whatever moral and religious truths it is right or reasonable for

man to accept and profess. Against this system the general Catholic teach

ing is that, considering the nature of men as history and experience reveal

them in the mass with all the material tendencies of their passions, prejudices,

and preoccupations, the firm possession and preservation and transmission

of such a body of religious truths as would enable mankind to discharge sub

stantially the essential duties of natural religion, and preserve the human

race from grave religious ignorance, errors and superstitions, and gross moral

decadence, would be morally impossible without the assistance of some posi

tive Divine Teaching or Revelation : in other words, that for the effective

practice of the natural duties of religion by mankind, and for the continuous

substantial observance of the natural moral law by the human race the aid of

a positive Divine Revelation is morally necessary. 1 1 can scarcely be denied

1 " Ea quae facta sunt." Rom. i. 20.

3 1 6 TIIEOR Y OF KNO W LEDGE

that this teaching embodies a sound and reasonable interpretation, indeed the

only reasonable interpretation, of the universal data of human experience. 1

This is the truth which Traditionalism overstated in its vigorous reaction

against the anti-social teaching of Rousseau and the doctrinaire Rationalism

which proclaimed the absolute self-sufficiency of the individual (157). The in

dividual reason considered in itself, apart from the educative influence of society

and the magisterium of tradition, is not the imaginary self-sufficient being of

Rousseau and the Rationalists. But neither is it, on the other hand, the

helpless and imbecile creature that Traditionalists would make it. It was right

and proper for the Traditionalists to protest against the contemporary dei

fication of the individual reason, and to proclaim the reasonableness of re

cognizing and respecting the authority of the social magisterium which is

extrinsic to the individual, lint nevertheless the individual has the inalien

able right to question the credentials of such authority. In matters that are

within its own competence it must not bow blindly and unquestioningly. In

such matters, as St. Thomas has pointed out, locus ab auctoritate est infir-

missimus : the argument from authority is the weakest of all arguments.

Hence in fact, though not in intention, Traditionalism did a real disservice

to the cause of truth by its attempt to subordinate the function of the in

dividual reason to the function of tradition as the vehicle of extrinsic Divine

Authority.

Mercier puts the general argument against the " extrinsicist

theory of certitude," propounded by Traditionalism, in this strik

ing manner : - "It is involved," he says, " either in the fallacy

logicians call ignoratio ehnclii, or in a contradiction. On the one

hand, it asserts that reason is incapable of rationally demon

strating the fundamental theses of natural religion : the existence

of God, the distinction of good and evil, a future life. On the

other hand, it asserts that we are certain of these theses because

God has revealed them and humanity has accepted them. But

such a position confronts its advocates with one or other of two

alternatives. For we can say to them : Either you have reasons

for admitting that God has revealed these doctrines, that He

cannot teach error, that humanity is a reliable organon for the

transmission of revealed truths; and if you do you are reinstat

ing the function of rational proof which a moment ago you re

jected, i.e. you are contradicting yourself. Or else, you accept

those theses zvithout reason, thereby committing yourself to blind

faith ; and thus for a philosophical problem, which of its nature

demands a rational solution, you bring forward a solution which

1 Cf, ST. THOMAS, Summa Contra Grntes, I., c. iv. ; MKKCIKK, o/>. cil., 8 73,

p. 159.

~Op. fit., p. 161.

TRADITIONALISM AND RATIONALISM 317

is not rational, i.e. you are misconceiving the nature of the point

at issue."

Finally, if we look at the whole matter of the relation of in

dividual reason to extrinsic authority, if we consider the attitude

of traditionalists, rationalists, and orthodox catholics in regard to

it, from the general standpoint of reflecting reason, which is the

attitude of the philosopher, it will, of course, be obvious that the

philosopher must have, by the use of his own reasoning powers,

attained to the certain knowledge that man is a free, moral, and

responsible agent, that the human soul is spiritual and immortal,

that a Supreme, Infinite Being exists, on Whom man and the

universe are dependent, that a Divine Revelation of truth by God

to man is possible, and that if actual it can be discerned as

genuine and authentic, before he can usefully proceed to investi

gate the credentials of any such alleged Revelation in human

history, or explore any philosophical system which, like Tradi

tionalism, presupposes the truth of the Christian Revelation and

the Christian Religion.

To reach a reasoned certitude in regard to the true solutions

of those fundamental problems concerning God, freedom, immor

tality, etc., must be ultimately the achievement of the human

intellect considering the data of experience in the light of the

objective evidence furnished by those data to the intellect. But

many philosophers reject this statement, and try to base such

certitude ultimately on grounds other than intellectual. Attempts

of this kind we now purpose to examine.

CHAPTER XXV.

ANTI-INTELLECTUALIST THEORIES. KANT S MORAL DOGMATISM.

PRAGMATISM AND HUMANISM.

1 C/. vol. i., 15, p. 65.

2 It is this real function of motives which are not directly intellectual that is

misconceived and exaggerated in the anti-intellectualist theories to be examined later

(ch. xxv.).

3 C/. n. 2.

3 1 2 THEOR Y OF KNO W LEDGE

The later traditionalists l endeavoured to emphasize the divergence

of their own teaching from that of De Bonald and De Lamennais. 2

No doubt there are minor differences ; but the erroneous con

tention is still retained that the reception of the fundamental

truths of natural religion and morality on authority by the

individual is an essential prerequisite condition for that right " use

of reason " by which the individual will then be able to " prove"

such truths ; this authority being ultimately that of a primitive

Divine Revelation of which human society is the organon or

vehicle. This contention is erroneous. For although de facto it

is of course through the teaching of his fellow-men that the in

dividual usually, if not indeed invariably, first receives and assents

to the judgments which assert the existence of God, the spiritu

ality and immortality of the soul, human freedom and responsi

bility, etc., nevertheless it is not true either (i) that this social

authority must be in ultimate analysis the authority of God

manifested in a primitive Divine Revelation and transmitted by

tradition, or (2) that, even if it were so, the individual, reflecting

on the grounds of these judgments, would have to declare them

undiscoverable by human reason independently of Divine Revela

tion, and accessible only through such Revelation.

When the individual comes to reflect on the authority which

he had for accepting them as true from his teachers, he sees that

his acceptance of them was reasonable because, and only because,

his reason told him that such authority was an adequate

motive for accepting them. But reflection does not show him

that in regard to those judgments the teaching of his fellow-men

must be simply a traditional testimony to the fact of a Divine

Authority manifesting itself in a Primitive Revelation. He may

indeed raise the question of fact : How did men de facto first

1 Supra, 157, p. 293 ; 158, C, pp. 296-7.

J The philosophical teaching of De Lamennais had heen censured by Pope

Gregory XVI. in the Encyclical Singttlari nos (July isth, 1834). Cf. Catholic Encyclo

pedia, vol. viii., p. 764. 2 In 1855 the Sacred Congregation of the Index proposed

the following propositions to Bonnetty for acceptance : "(i) Ratiocinatio Dei exis-

tentiam, animae spiritualitatem, hominis libertatem, cum certitudine probare potest ;

(2) Fides posterior est ratione, proindeque ad probandam existentiam Dei contra atheos,

ad probandam animae rationalis spiritualitatem et libertatem contra naturalismi et

fatalismi sectatores, allegari convenienter non potest ; (3) Rationis usus fidcm prne-

cedit, et ad earn, ope revelationis et gratiae, conducit," ^apud JEANNIERE, op. cit., p.

267. In 1870 the Vatican Council condemned Traditionalism in the canon : " bi

quis dixerit, Deum unum et verum, Creatorem et Dominum nostrum, per ea, quae

facta sunt, natural! rationis humanae lumine certo cognosci non posse, anathema

sit." Can. n. De Rev., i.

TRADITIONALISM AND RATIONALISM 313

come to believe in the existence of God, the freedom and moral

responsibility of man, the spirituality and immortality of the

soul, the possibility and the fact of a Divine Revelation or Revela

tions ? But whatever answer he may reach in regard to the way

in which men de facto first came to believe in each of these

particular judgments, about which more presently, there is

another question which reflection must raise and answer, namely,

How is he 1 certain that any judgments accepted by him on

extrinsic authority are really and objectively true? Manifestly,

if his certitude is worthy of the name, if it is the firm assent of

a reasoning, intelligent being, the answer must be : Because by

the exercise of his indivdual reason he has convinced himself that

the authority on which he accepts the judgments furnishes a

reasonably adequate guarantee of their truth. And this holds

whether the authority be human or divine. If he has human

authority for believing that certain judgments have been de facto

revealed by God and vouched for by Divine Authority, he must,

in order to give a reasonable assent to them, have convinced him

self by the use of his own reason that he has adequate objective

evidence for the trustworthiness of that human authority. In no

conceivable case, therefore, does the exercise of faith (or assent

on extrinsic authority) precede some use of individual reason and

some rational appreciation of objective evidence. If faith on

extrinsic authority is to be reasonable, and unless it is it cannot

stand the test of reason reflecting on it, it must always imply

such an exercise of individual reason as will convince the believer

that the extrinsic authority is really there and is really adequate

to ground the firm or certain assent of the intellect to that for

which it vouches.

The later traditionalists sought to show that it is one thing

to discover a truth, and another thing altogether to prove or defend

it when discovered : the insinuation being that the individual

reason is unable to discover such truths as those referred to above,

but is able, when enlightened and disciplined and brought to its

full use by the knowledge of them (through Revelation trans

mitted by tradition), to prove and defend them. In this conten

tion there is both an error and an unproven assumption.

The error lies in the supposition that there is an essential

difference, a difference in principle or in kind, between the pro-

1 And the same question must be answered by every human individual for

himself concerning hib own beliefs.

3 1 4 THEOR Y OF KNO WLED GE

cess by which the individual discovers a truth for himself and

the process by which he learns it from others or communicates

it to others. No doubt it is far easier to learn from others than

to discover for one s self: so much is undeniable. But the

difference is one of degree, of more or less ease, expedition,

efficacy, convenience. It is not a difference of kind. The in

dividual, whether he be discoverer, learner, or teacher, uses the

same intellectual faculty, follows the same intellectual laws,

employs the same concepts, starts from the same premisses, goes

through the same inferences and reaches the same conclusions. 1

The unproven assumption is that the traditional communica

tion of the truths in question from society to the individual, the

communication or " institutio socialis " (158, C) which is supposed

to be essential for the full development of his reason, implies

an original Divine Revelation. 2 But we have shown already,

against De Bonald (160), that it does not necessarily imply a

Divine Revelation. Nor, in fact, can it be shown necessarily to

imply any direct intervention of God as Teacher or Instructor ;

and not rather merely the indirect and natural Divine Teaching

which consists in God s endowment of man with the faculty of

reason.

It is, of course, an undeniable fact that the natural development of the

individual s faculties of thought and expression are conditioned by acquisition

of language and by social intercourse with his fellow-men : that the un

natural event of complete isolation would leave him in a " savage" state : that

he is naturally a "social animal". When, therefore, we speak of "the

natural light of human reason " ;i or the " natural power or capacity ot human

reason," the reference is not to the individual in an unnatural, solitary,

isolated condition, but to the individual in human society, and to the in

tellectual capacity of the ordinary or average member of human society.

Now it is a fact of universal history that a part of the actual enlightenment for

which the individual is indebted to his social condition consists in the com

munication to him of the religious beliefs which are in substance universally

prevalent : beliefs concerning immortality, an unseen world, an influence of

Divine Powers on mundane tilings, and man s dependence on such Powers.

It is, moreover, a fact that the Catholic faith includes the belief that God

did de facto make an Original Revelation to our first parents, and that de

facto its content was in part transmitted from them to posterity, although

gradually disfigured and corrupted by accretions of error. Now the later

traditionalists appear to have contended not only that such moral and religi

ous truths as have prevailed at least in substance universally throughout

1 Cf. MEKCIER, op. cit., 72, pp. 157-8 ; Science of Logic, it., 204, pp. 14-16.

a Cf. supra, p. 297. 3 Cf. Canon of Vatican Council, supra, p. 312, n. 2.

TRADITIONALISM AND RATIONALISM 315

human history come de facto from that original Divine Revelation, but also

that only through the enlightening influence of s itch divinely communicated

truths could human reason, whether individually or collectively, have the

capacity of establishing and defending these truths by rational demonstration

(158, C).

If this contention be examined from the standpoint of the believing

Catholic, it must be regarded as confounding the natural with the supernatural.

For no positive Divine Revelation, or communication of knowledge by God

to man, is " natural " or due to human nature as such. Although, therefore,

the human race has been de facto (according to Catholic teaching) raised to a

supernatural end, and has been made from the beginning the recipient of re

ligious knowledge supernaturally communicated by Divine Revelation ; al

though, moreover, (according to Catholic teaching) human reason, whether

regarded individually or collectively, has been de facto aided in its purely

natural investigation of such fundamental problems as the existence of God,

the immortality of the soul, the conditions and sanctions of the moral order,

the rational grounds and duties of religion, by the universal transmission of at

least some portion of that original Divine Teaching ; and although, finally,

it is with man in this actual condition that the Catholic Church is concerned in

its teaching, and not with the hypothetical condition of man in what is referred

to as " the state of pure nature," nevertheless the Vatican Council, in teach

ing that man can attain to certain knowledge of the existence of " one true

God, our Creator and Lord " by " the natural light of human reason," brought

to bear on " the things that are made," * defined that it is within the natural

competence of men generally, exercising their reason on the data of human

experience, and without the sttpernatural aid of any Divine Revelation, to

reach a certain knowledge of God s existence.

But over against the error of Traditionalism, which it thus condemned

for unduly depreciating the power of natural reason, there is the opposite

error of Rationalism which claims an undue and erroneous extension of this

power. According to this general system, which has many different forms,

not only can natural reason demonstrate \he prcambula fidci, not only has

it the right and the duty to explore the authenticity of alleged Divine Revela

tions, and the possibility of Revelation, Miracles, and Supernatural Religion

generally, but natural reason can of itself attain to the discovery and under

standing of whatever moral and religious truths it is right or reasonable for

man to accept and profess. Against this system the general Catholic teach

ing is that, considering the nature of men as history and experience reveal

them in the mass with all the material tendencies of their passions, prejudices,

and preoccupations, the firm possession and preservation and transmission

of such a body of religious truths as would enable mankind to discharge sub

stantially the essential duties of natural religion, and preserve the human

race from grave religious ignorance, errors and superstitions, and gross moral

decadence, would be morally impossible without the assistance of some posi

tive Divine Teaching or Revelation : in other words, that for the effective

practice of the natural duties of religion by mankind, and for the continuous

substantial observance of the natural moral law by the human race the aid of

a positive Divine Revelation is morally necessary. 1 1 can scarcely be denied

1 " Ea quae facta sunt." Rom. i. 20.

3 1 6 TIIEOR Y OF KNO W LEDGE

that this teaching embodies a sound and reasonable interpretation, indeed the

only reasonable interpretation, of the universal data of human experience. 1

This is the truth which Traditionalism overstated in its vigorous reaction

against the anti-social teaching of Rousseau and the doctrinaire Rationalism

which proclaimed the absolute self-sufficiency of the individual (157). The in

dividual reason considered in itself, apart from the educative influence of society

and the magisterium of tradition, is not the imaginary self-sufficient being of

Rousseau and the Rationalists. But neither is it, on the other hand, the

helpless and imbecile creature that Traditionalists would make it. It was right

and proper for the Traditionalists to protest against the contemporary dei

fication of the individual reason, and to proclaim the reasonableness of re

cognizing and respecting the authority of the social magisterium which is

extrinsic to the individual, lint nevertheless the individual has the inalien

able right to question the credentials of such authority. In matters that are

within its own competence it must not bow blindly and unquestioningly. In

such matters, as St. Thomas has pointed out, locus ab auctoritate est infir-

missimus : the argument from authority is the weakest of all arguments.

Hence in fact, though not in intention, Traditionalism did a real disservice

to the cause of truth by its attempt to subordinate the function of the in

dividual reason to the function of tradition as the vehicle of extrinsic Divine

Authority.

Mercier puts the general argument against the " extrinsicist

theory of certitude," propounded by Traditionalism, in this strik

ing manner : - "It is involved," he says, " either in the fallacy

logicians call ignoratio ehnclii, or in a contradiction. On the one

hand, it asserts that reason is incapable of rationally demon

strating the fundamental theses of natural religion : the existence

of God, the distinction of good and evil, a future life. On the

other hand, it asserts that we are certain of these theses because

God has revealed them and humanity has accepted them. But

such a position confronts its advocates with one or other of two

alternatives. For we can say to them : Either you have reasons

for admitting that God has revealed these doctrines, that He

cannot teach error, that humanity is a reliable organon for the

transmission of revealed truths; and if you do you are reinstat

ing the function of rational proof which a moment ago you re

jected, i.e. you are contradicting yourself. Or else, you accept

those theses zvithout reason, thereby committing yourself to blind

faith ; and thus for a philosophical problem, which of its nature

demands a rational solution, you bring forward a solution which

1 Cf, ST. THOMAS, Summa Contra Grntes, I., c. iv. ; MKKCIKK, o/>. cil., 8 73,

p. 159.

~Op. fit., p. 161.

TRADITIONALISM AND RATIONALISM 317

is not rational, i.e. you are misconceiving the nature of the point

at issue."

Finally, if we look at the whole matter of the relation of in

dividual reason to extrinsic authority, if we consider the attitude

of traditionalists, rationalists, and orthodox catholics in regard to

it, from the general standpoint of reflecting reason, which is the

attitude of the philosopher, it will, of course, be obvious that the

philosopher must have, by the use of his own reasoning powers,

attained to the certain knowledge that man is a free, moral, and

responsible agent, that the human soul is spiritual and immortal,

that a Supreme, Infinite Being exists, on Whom man and the

universe are dependent, that a Divine Revelation of truth by God

to man is possible, and that if actual it can be discerned as

genuine and authentic, before he can usefully proceed to investi

gate the credentials of any such alleged Revelation in human

history, or explore any philosophical system which, like Tradi

tionalism, presupposes the truth of the Christian Revelation and

the Christian Religion.

To reach a reasoned certitude in regard to the true solutions

of those fundamental problems concerning God, freedom, immor

tality, etc., must be ultimately the achievement of the human

intellect considering the data of experience in the light of the

objective evidence furnished by those data to the intellect. But

many philosophers reject this statement, and try to base such

certitude ultimately on grounds other than intellectual. Attempts

of this kind we now purpose to examine.

CHAPTER XXV.

ANTI-INTELLECTUALIST THEORIES. KANT S MORAL DOGMATISM.

PRAGMATISM AND HUMANISM.