vague and purely negative resemblances to certain lower types. Worst of all, it is not an analogy which is advanced to explain or illustrate an otherwise established truth, but it is an analogy adduced to demonstrate an otherwise unproved hypothesis. We are asked to believe that such an analogy can be so pressed as to make it appear that even rational life is a pure outcome of previous organic or material conditions. Surely no. Surely a conclusion of such importance as that of the evolution of mind and body, should be well established before any analogy is attempted. If there are facts of psychic life at all that can only be explained on the monistic theory, these facts should be studied directly in themselves, in the light of the individual, and not indirectly in the darkness of analogies vague, imperfect, uncertain. The monistic hypothesis begs the whole question at issue by assuming the inseparability of mental power and corporeal substance. What would the analogies prove? That the embryo first develops the general characteristics and that the lower forms, from the imperfection of their design, change the common characteristics less. That the thinking principle which ultimately manifests itself, began by exercising the functions of nutrition, growth, organization and feeling. Seeing that man's growth is from a single cell, seeing that the spiritual faculty is dependent on the sense organ and cannot act until the sense organ has reached a certain stage of development, and seeing that all the resemblances and differences in nature are explicable as the modifications of one fundamental design or world-plan, the extraordinary thing would be if the human embryo were not to touch various stages of animal life, and if the chief and characteristic human endowment of rational intelligence were manifested from the very beginning of its development. Reason appears at the end, but what proof is there that it was not also at the beginning? And what evidence is there for the additional assumption that the zero level of the infant's mental life is the same in kind as in brutes ?

III

It may be useful to consider, with an eye to advantage as well as to truth, what is the real strength of the theological demonstration of the Existence of God. Now, the arguments, the five well-known arguments of St. Thomas, are undoubtedly convincing to every honest man, and when properly set forth, particularly in the light of the doctrine of Conservation, will be found to have stood the test of time, and to be as conclusive to the cultured philosopher as to the simplest intelligence. What is their value against the monistic philosophy? The main thing, of course, is to be able to prove a thing to your own satisfaction; but it is little likely that the theologian, armed with even the best arguments, will achieve very much success against a man like the Professor of Jena, whose reason is bound down by the iron chains of sense. For example, you urge the famous argument from Motion: it goes for little with a man who maintains that the universe is a perpetuum mobile, pulsating to and fro in an eternal rhythm of life and death. You urge the argument from an Infinite Series: Professor Haeckel says he can as little imagine a first begining of the eternal phenomena of the universe as of its final end.' You advance the argument from Contingency: you are told that creation is a miracle' and 'inconceivable,' and that the world, space and time are 'eternal,' 'infinite,' 'immeasurable' (whatever those terms mean). You point to the great argument from Order, which appealed to Kant, and about which even Voltaire wrote: If a clock proves the existence of a clockmaker, and the world does not prove the existence of a Supreme Architect, I consent to be called "Cause finalier," that is to say, a fool '-Professor Haeckel declares that it is the result of the evolution of substance under the laws of universal causation. And so on

and on. There is little use in talking metaphysics to a sensist, to one who confounds his imagination with his reason. Hence, it is well to remember that the arguments of St. Thomas are much more likely to appeal to one trained in the

18 Philosophical Dictionary.

schools than to anyone else. They were never framed to meet, and need not be expected to meet, the difficulties that may be raised by the science of the changing time; they cannot be expected to appeal with the same force to every man, or to have exactly the same force at different times. And it is right to have it remembered, too, that Bonaventure declared that to posit the world as eternal, on the previous supposition of the eternity of matter, was reasonable and intelligible; while Suarez described the arguments wont to be drawn from the repugnance of an infinite series, as 'slippery and uncertain.

Accordingly, there are many who believe that, in modern apologetics, the best way to establish the Existence of God is not so much from the old arguments of St. Thomas, or from the production of life, consciousness, sensation of new forces in the world, as from the doctrine of Man-the Soul, its powers as manifested in the perception of necessary and universal truth, Free Will, Immortality. These are doctrines that rest upon the infallible testimony of universal human consciousness, and the testimony of consciousness cannot be gainsaid, except by plunging the human mind into the abyss of absolute Scepticism. Prove any one of them and Monism is vanquished. Prove the existence of a Producer, a First or Final Cause, for one, and it is reasonable to suppose that it was the very same Cause produced the great scheme of things. Above all, prove the doctrine of Liberty, which may well be regarded as the central doctrine of religion as opposed to science, and, as Mr. Mallock admits, the case of the Dualist as against the Monist is gained. Thus, the doctrine of Man is an enduring bar to Monism. And let it be clearly stated that the Law of Substance and the Law of Evolution cannot eliminate man from the equation of a mechanistic universe.

JOHN MEEHAN,

CALENDAR OF PAPAL REGISTERS RELATING TO GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND

A.D. 1362-1404

HE fourth volume of the Rolls Series of Calendars, containing Papal Letters referring to Great Britain and Ireland has recently been issued, and it may at once be admitted that it contains a mine of information of the very first importance to the student of ecclesiastical history. Not only are the 'Littere Secrete et de Curia' of Popes Urban V., Gregory XI., Urban VI., and Boniface IX. given, but also those of the anti-Pope Robert of Geneva (Clement VII.); thus, the ground covered, namely, from 1362 to 1404, is one regarding which Irish ecclesiastical history had hitherto been an almost terra incognita.

It will, doubtless, be of interest to many readers of the I. E. RECORD to give some of the salient features of the present Calendar, as regards Ireland. This is the more desirable as the volume contains 670 pages imperial octavo, and at least seven-eighths of the entries relate to England and Scotland.

Under date of 13 Kal. April, 1303, Thomas Minot was appointed Archbishop of Dublin, and, as a wrong date was given by error- March' having been written instead of April-letters of confirmation were issued from the Roman Chancery on 4 Ides of May. The editors take care to mention that Theiner copied the wrong date at page 323 of his

monumental work.

On the 6th Nones of May, 1364, a relaxation, during ten years, of a year and forty days of enjoined penance, was given by Pope Urban V. to 'penitents who give alms for the repair of the Church of St. Nicholas, Blanchevillestown, in the diocese of Ossory.'

Under date of 12 Kal. Dec., 1364, there is a dispensation. to John O'Grady, Archdeacon of Cashel, son of a sub-deacon, that he may on election accept the See of Tuam, vice Thomas O'Grady, translated from Tuam to Cashel. This

entry is corroborated by the Annals of Ulster, wherein John O'Grady is given down as son of Archbishop O'Grady of Cashel.

On September 1st, 1368, John Duncan, Archdeacon of Down, was appointed Papal Nuncio for Ireland and Collector of dues for the Papal camera, and, a few months later, he received indults for a portable altar, etc.

An interesting entry occurs in 1371, from which we get much information regarding Dermot O'Conor, O.P., Prior of Roscommon, whose existence was apparently unknown to Father Coleman, O.P., in his excellent edition of O'Heyne.

Another hitherto unknown item is the letter dated 7th of October, 1371, stating that Hugh, Bishop of Clonmacnoise (unnoticed by Ware or Monahan) was being sent by Pope Gregory XI. to King Edward III. to release Roger de Beaufort, the Pope's brother. We can therefore supply the hiatus in Ware between the years 1370 and 1385, by including Hugh as Bishop of Clonmacnoise, who had as successor a certain Philip.

Under date of 4 Kal. May, 1371, there is an Indulgence, for twenty years, of 'a year and forty days of enjoined penance to penitents who give alms for the Church of "St. Peter de Hulle," Dublin, which by reason of deaths and pestilence has been brought to ruin.' This church is described as 'without the walls of Dublin,' and is also called St. Peter's of the Hill.

During the year 1371, a contest had gone on between Hugh, Cardinal of St. Mary's in Porticu, and Matthew Crumpe, regarding the wealthy Archdeaconry of Meath, and Pope Gregory XI., on April 1st, 1372, wrote to King Edward and to Sir William Windsor, Viceroy of Ireland, 'to assist the Cardinal in his rightful occupancy of the said archdeaconry.' Finally, in November, 1373, Matthew Crumpe was left in peaceful possession, on condition of paying the Cardinal a yearly pension. Subsequently, when Cardinal Hugh adhered to the anti-Pope (Clement VII.), his pension was transferred to Lewis, Cardinal Deacon of New St. Mary's, and after him to Landulph, Cardinal Deacon of St. Nicholas in Carcere Tulliano. This was opposed by Thomas Sprot,