principles of history. He accepts the whole instruction with unqualified assent; nor does the very thought of its being mistaken in any particular so much as enter his mind. It would surely be strange to call this a "provisional" assent; though, if you pressed him with the question, he must reply that his father is not infallible, and that part of the paternal instruction may possibly be mistaken. The assent due from every Catholic to the doctrinal decrees of a Pontifical Congregation is (we maintain) the same in kind, but very far firmer in degree: very far firmer in degree, for the various reasons assigned in pp. 390-392.

It is now admitted on all hands, that the condemnation of Copernicanism was (as one may say) objectively incorrect; that the theory, then declared contrary to the Scriptures, is not really contrary to them. Of this undoubted fact two explanations are possible. The first is, that Paul V. and his advisers simply made a mistake; nor is there any insurmountable difficulty in such a supposition. The youthful son gains immeasurably more of real knowledge by accepting without hesitation the whole of his father's instruction, than he could possibly gain by questioning and sifting it, and believing nothing on his father's authority. In like manner a Catholic would gain far more spiritual knowledge by interiorly accepting all these decrees, than by declining such acceptance; even though it might happen, on certain very rare occasions, that they led him into error.

But, for ourselves, we are most unwilling to admit that any doctrinal guidance is mistaken, which the Pope has put forth as Head of the Church; even though he has not given it in his capacity of Universal Teacher (see p. 422). True, there is no promise of such inerrancy; and whenever a clear case of mistake is conclusively established, we will, of course, change our mind. But, at all events, for more than one reason, we thought it very important to point out what we consider unquestionable; viz., that Galileo's condemnation was no mistake at all, in any proper sense of that word.

If a decree is put forth claiming infallibility, it purports to have God's unfailing guarantee of its truth. But it is most certain that Galileo's condemnation was not put forth with any claim to infallibility; and we ask, therefore, what such a decree does purport to be. No answer but one can possibly be given, as a moment's consideration will evince. It purports to instruct Catholics in that conclusion, which legitimately follows from existing data. Now we argued at much length, that the contrariety of Copernicanism to Scripture was the consequence legitimately resulting from the data of 1616.

(See pp. 392-400; 406; 420.) The reason why Copernicanism is now justly held to be consistent with Scripture, is its having been scientifically established (p. 394); but, so far was this from having been the case in Galileo's time, that, on the contrary, as a matter of mere science, its falsehood was more probable than its truth (pp. 399, 400). Nor was Galileo's confidence in the scientific strength of his theory any presumption of its real strength; because the one main argument, on which he laid his stress, is now admitted by every one to have been absolutely worthless (p. 400). By accident he was right; but formally," even as a man of science, he was wrong.

The decree purported to be-not infallibly guaranteed by God, but the true conclusion from existing data. Well, it was the true conclusion from existing data: how, therefore, in any true sense, can it be called mistaken? On the contrary, it afforded "true doctrinal guidance to contemporary Catholics" (p. 423). For (1) it inculcated on them that doctrinal lesson, which legitimately resulted from existing data; and (2) it warned them against "a most false, proud, irreverent and dangerous principle of Scriptural interpretation" (p. 417). What is that principle? "The contradicting the obvious and traditional sense of Scripture, on the strength of a theory scientifically unlikely" (p. 420). And this is a principle as anti-Catholic now as it was then.

Mr. Thompson characterises the case of Galileo as a "very difficult" one; but we cannot admit that when the facts are rightly apprehended, there is any great difficulty in explaining them. He suggests, however, two solutions of the "difficulty;" both of which, we must say, appear to us far less satisfactory, than even the simple supposition of the Congregation having made a mistake. His first suggestion is, that "exterior assent and submission was all that was absolutely required." But this is contrary to most manifest facts. Paul V. declared (p. 404) that Copernicanism may "not be defended nor held;" and Galileo was admonished to depart from," "desist from," and "desert" it (p. 405, note). Secondly, Mr. Thompson hints (as we understand him) that at last Copernicanism may turn out to be false. But surely this is to solve one difficulty (if difficulty there were) by substituting another immeasurably greater. Every educated Catholic throughout the world (with exceptions the most insignificant), now holds that tenet, which the Congregation condemned; Pope and bishops hold it no less than the rest. Nothing then can be more certain, than that the Ecclesia Docens has tacitly reversed the doctrinal decree of 1616: moreover, if Copernicanism were really contrary to Scripture, it would, of course, be heretical.

We would ask Mr. Thompson, then, which of these two alternatives is the more improbable. Is it more improbable that a tribunal, confessedly fallible, made a mistake?* or that when a certain heresy more generally prevailed among Christians, the Ecclesia Docens took occasion tacitly to revoke the authoritative condemnation of that heresy? nay, that both Pope and bishops have interiorly accepted it?

Before we were aware of any adverse criticism on our article, we felt that we had not sufficiently explained our meaning, where we had spoken of "true doctrinal guidance being afforded to contemporary Catholics." In answering Mr. Thompson's remarks, however, we have said all which seemed necessary in the way of elucidation.

We may conclude by mentioning, that those astronomers who advocated the Copernican hypothesis, as the one most serviceable for advancing their science, not only were never discouraged in Rome, but were more favoured there than their opponents. Our authority for this statement is a very interesting letter addressed, three or four years ago, to the Tablet by Prof. Robertson.

The reader will remember that we do not admit the Congregation to have made any mistake at all.

268

Notices of Books.

Prælectiones Theologica de Virtutibus Fidei, Spei et Charitati.

Auctore JO. PERRONE, S. J. in Collegio Romano Studiorum Præfecto. Ratisbonæ, 1865.

IT

T was in the year of our Lord 1753, that the "Theologia Moralis" of S. Alphonso Liguori was first given to the world. At that time what is technically called "rigorism" held a decided and settled sway, not only among the French clergy, and the clergy of other lands who had drawn their theological knowledge directly from French sources, but also, to a considerable extent, among the clergy of Italy, of Germany, of Spain, and of other countries. There was a Gallican rigorism; there was a Jansenist rigorism; and there was a rigorism, as that of Antoine, Concina, &c., distinct, in certain important respects, from both. We need hardly say that the Jansenist rigorism was very much the most objectionable of all. There was, moreover, besides the Jansenist and condemned, a milder rigorism, as in Billuart; a sterner rigorism, as in the two authors just named. Alongside the rigorous schools, but also existing before them, there was a "lax" school of moral theology, but far more limited in the number of its teachers and defenders, and still more limited in the extent of its practical influence. In fact, this school may be said to have died out about the close of the seventeenth century. Not so rigorism, which maintained a hard struggle, and ruled a wide, though gradually narrowing, domain, down to a period within the recollection of the present generation. If we bound over one hundred years from the date of 1753, we find rigorism—especially the more extreme rigorism-banished from every, or almost every, theological school in the world. The man who, above all others, had the main part in achieving this mighty and salutary work-the man who may be justly and without any exaggeration called its Apostle, was Alphonso Liguori. We are writing only a notice, and therefore cannot enter into the details of the movement, or do more than name the present Archbishop of Rheims, Cardinal Gousset, as the man who took so leading a part in giving a strong and wide impulse to that movement in France.

What S. Alphonso Liguori achieved for moral theology, in clearing it of rigorism or moral Gallicanism, but only a long time after he had gone to his reward, very much the same has Father Perrone achieved during his own life time for dogmatic theology in purifying it from the already fading taint of dogmatic Gallicanism. He was born in the year 1794, at Chieri, a large manufacturing town, distant about nine miles from Turin. When he had attained his twenty-first year, and after a brilliant course of philosophical and

theological studies in his native country, he set out for Rome, and there entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, which had just been re-established by Pius VII. At the termination of his noviceship he was sent to the Jesuit College at Orvieto, where he remained for seven years teaching dogmatic and moral theology. In the year 1823 he was recalled to Rome, to fill the chair of dogmatic theology in the Roman College which Leo XII. had in that year restored to the Society. In 1830 he was appointed Rector of the Jesuit College at Ferrara. In 1833 he was again recalled to the Eternal City to resume his former functions. Here, with the exception of the period of the Mazzini reign of terror, he has remained ever since. In 1853 he was relieved from the onerous duties of professor, which he had discharged for about thirty-four years, and appointed Prefect of Studies in the same College-an office which he has held up to this day. It was in 1835 that he commenced the publication of his Prelections, which was completed in the course of a few years. This brief sketch of the life of so eminent a personage (which is mainly taken from a biographical notice prefixed to a French translation of one of his later works) would prove, we thought, not altogether uninteresting to our readers.

The Prelections have already passed through at least as many editions as years have elapsed since their completion. We believe that we speak the literal truth in saying that there is not a theological college of any repute in the whole Church, in which numerous copies of this work are not found in the hands of students and professors. Whatever shortcomings may have been attributed to it by certain critics, there can be no doubt that it had exercised an extent of influence on the schools of Europe, to which we know of no parallel since the days of the great old theologians.

An author cannot be fairly censured for not having accomplished what he has not proposed to accomplish. All that can be justly demanded of him is, that he should propose to himself to do a work that was really needed, and that he should do that work well. Now it is apparent on the face of his Prelections that Father Perrone put before himself two important objects to be attained, one of them very important.

In the first place, he has undertaken throughout his work to distinguish carefully the defined doctrines of the Church, together with the sure and unquestionable conclusions of theologians, on one hand, from open questions and free opinions on the other. This, in many departments of dogmatic theology, was not a difficult task, or one to be executed for the first time. But in other departments, neither was the task so easy, nor had it been as yet satisfactorily accomplished. We would instance particularly the treatises on the Incarnation and on Grace-more especially the latter. One who had not tried to master the treatise on Matrimony before the publication of Carriere's larger work on the subject, can have no idea of the numerous perplexities which that great work (great, notwithstanding its serious blunders on certain points) disentangled. One who had not studied the subject of grace before the appearance of F. Perrone's treatise, can have no idea of the immense benefit which it has conferred on theological students, by its clear and accurate separation of the binding from the free, of the certain from the uncertain. We could easily illustrate our position by numerous examples.