de Lamennais Ubaghs

Joseph Joubert

French philosopher; b. at Martignac (Dordogne), 7 May, 1754, d. at Villeneuve-le-Roi (Yonne), 4 May 1824. At the age of fourteen, having finished his studies in his native town, he was sent to Toulouse to study law, but after a few months joined the Doctrinaires, a teaching order, and was entrusted with the instruction of lower classes. In 1778 he left the order and went to Paris, where he associated with the most famous literary men of the time, Marmontel, Diderot, and d'Alembert, with whose sentiments he was for some time in sympathy. The French Revolution opened his eyes and made him a strong opponent of the doctrines of the eighteenth century. In 1790 he was elected by his countrymen justice of the peace of the canton of Martignac. When his biennial term expired, he refused to accept re-election and returned to Paris, where in the following year (8 June, 1793) he married Mlle Moreau. Disgusted with the tyranny of the Revolutionists, he retired to Villeneuve-le-Roi. Even after the 9th of Thermidor he preferred to live there rather than in Paris. Chateaubriand, Mme de Beaumont, Fontanes, Molé, and Chênedollé were his frequent visitors. In 1809 he was appointed by Fontanes Inspector General of the University of France, and in spite of his poor health fulfilled his duties with the greatest zeal. When he was compelled to give up his inspectorship, he devoted his time to the education of his son and to his literary works. He was one of the first to understand the movement of the Romanticists and to encourage it. Owing to his kind disposition and his delicate taste, as well as his friendly and cheerful character, he had a strong influence over the young men gathered around him. Aiming at what was perfect in literature, he wrote very little and never published anything. He spent his leisure in thinking, and putting down his thoughts for himself. His aim was to note in terse and clear sentences the necessity, utility, and beauty of virtue. After his death, all these papiers de la malle (scraps of paper), as he called them, aroused the interest and admiration of Chateaubriand, who published a short selection of them for private circulation, under the title of "Recueil des Pensées de M. Joubert" (Paris, 1838). This book was re-edited with many additions by Paul Raynal, a nephew of the author, under the new title of "Pensées, Essais, Maximes et Correspondanee de J. Joubert" (Paris, 1842). Many other editions have since been published.

Notice historique sur Joubert by his brother, ARMAND JOUBERT (no date and no place of publication), a very valuable and rare document which has just been reprinted by GIRAUD in his new edition of the Pensees (Paris, 1909) . PAILHES, Du nouveau sur Joubert (Paris, 1900); DE RAYNAL. Les correspondants de J. Joubert (Paris, 1885).

Louis N. Delamarre

Transcribed by Joseph E. O'Connor

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.com

Louis-Gabriel-Ambroise, Vicompte de Bonald (Saint-Séverin)

French statesman, writer, and philosopher, b. at Monna, near Millau, in Rouergue (Aveyron) 2 October, 1754; d. at Paris, 23 November, 1840. He was educated by the Oratorians at the College of Juilly; joined the king's musketeers, returned to his own province in 1776, was elected mayor of Millau in 1785, and in 1790 was chosen member of the departmental Assembly for Aveyron. He resigned in 1781, emigrated, became a soldier in the army of Condé, and, when the army was disbanded, retired to Heidelberg, where he took charge of the education of his two elder sons.

Bonald published at Constance, in 1797, his first work: "Théorie du pouvoir politique et religieux", which was suppressed in France by order of the Directory. In 1797 Bonald returned to France under the name of Saint-Séverin, and published "Essai analytique sur les lois naturelles de l'ordre social" (1800); "Du divorce" (1801); and "La législation primitive" (1802). He also collaborated with Chateaubriand and others in the "Mercure de France", contributing several articles which were published in book form with other studies in 1819 under the title "Mélanges littéraires, politiques, et philosophiques". In 1808 he declined to be a member of the Council of the University, but finally accepted in 1810. He refused to take charge of the education of the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, and of the King of Rome, the son of Napoleon I.

A monarchist and royalist by nature and by principles, Bonald welcomed the restoration of the Bourbons. He was appointed a member of the Academy by royal decree in 1816. From 1815 to 1822 he served as deputy from Aveyron, and in 1823 became a peer of France. He then directed his efforts against all attempts at liberalism in religion and politics. The law against divorce was proposed by him in 1815 and passed in 1816. He took a prominent part in the law of 1822 which did away with the liberty of the press and established a committee of censure of which he was the president. In 1815 he published his "Réflexions sur l'intérêt général de l'Europe"; in 1817, "Pensées sur divers sujets" in 2 vols. 8 vo. (2d., Paris, 1887); in 1818 "Recherches philosophiques sur les premiers objets des connaisances morales"; in 1827, "Démonstration philosophique du principe constitutif des sociétés". Meanwhile he collaborated with Chateaubriand, Lamennais, and Berryer, in the "Conservateur", and later in the "Défenseur" founded by Lamennais. In 1830 he gave up his peerage and led a life of retirement in his native city. — "There is not to be found in the long career", says Jules Simon, "one action which is not consistent with his principles, one expression which belies them."

G.M. SAUVAGE

Transcribed by Ted Rego

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.com

Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard

Philosopher and French politician, b. at Sompuis (Marne), 21 June, 1763; d. at Châteauvieux (Loire et Cher), 4 September, 1845. An advocate under the ancient régime, and assistant registrar of the municipality of Paris from 1790 till 1792, he withdrew to La Marne during the Terror. In 1797 he represented La Marne in the Council of the Five Hundred (Cinq-Cents) and became prominent through a celebrated discourse in which he demanded liberty for the Catholic religion, "which rallied under its ancient standards seven-eighths of the French people", and accused of "profound folly" those who wished to substitute "I know not what philosophical silliness". Driven from the council by the stroke of the 18 Fructidor, he turned to the restoration of the Bourbons and began a correspondence with Louis XVIII; he was even, up to 1804, a member of a secret council which sent messages to the future king. Under the empire he withdrew from public life, but accepted from Napoleon (December, 1809) the chair of philosophy at the Sorbonne. His teaching, which was influenced by the School of Reid, marked a reaction against the sensualism of the eighteenth century. He held to a certain spiritualism based on "common sense", and an "understanding of human weakness". Under the Restoration he again took up politics; he became deputy and was president for five years of the Committee of Public instruction as counsellor of state. As deputy he opposed both the intrigues of the Ultras, and the anti-constitutional manoeuvres of the Left. His discourses on the religious laws of the epoch show that he was inclined to admit, as a consequence of the Concordat, the interference of the state in Church matters. Educated by a Jansenist mother, and declaring voluntarily that "whoever did not know Port-Royal did not know humanity", he preserved certain prejudices against Roman influence and gave expression to them in his discourses. He opposed the law punishing sacrilege with death, and the laws restraining the liberty of the Press. In 1827 he was elected by seven electoral colleges, became president of the Chamber in 1828, and presented to Charles X in 1830 the address of the two hundred and twenty-one in which the Chamber refused to accept Polignac. Royer-Collard described himself when he wrote to Barante (19 Sept., 1833): "my only vocation as a liberal was on the side of the Legitimists". For the "doctrinaires", of whom he was the head, the legitimist monarchy without liberty was an arbitrary absolutism, liberty without the legitimist monarchy, anarchy. Under the monarchy of July he continued as deputy, but only as a spectator. The "Restoration" writes Barante, "was for him a country", and from 1830 this country no longer existed. He resigned from the Chamber in 1842, and passed his last years in retirement, but his disciples, both in philosophy and politics -- Jouffroy, Cousin, Guizot, Rémusat -- perpetuated the influence of certain of his writings; and M. Faguet declares that in these one must seek "the most penetrating, the most solid, and the most far-seeing doctrine on parliamentary government". This he developed with a grave, austere eloquence, trusting to logic for its strength. Whilst during the first half of the nineteenth century the word "liberal" was generally synonymous with Voltaireanism and hostility to the Jesuits, certain speeches of Royer-Collard quoted by Barante show that this liberal, especially in his later years, professed a deferential attachment for the Church. "If Christianity", he wrote, "has been a degradation, a corruption, Voltaire in attacking it has been a benefactor of the human race; but if the contrary be true, then the passing of Voltaire over the Christian earth has been a great calamity." In a letter to Père de Ravignan he comments upon the institution of the Jesuits as a wonderful creation. His death was that of a professing and believing Catholic. He was the incarnation of the upper middle class of his time. He was a member of the French Academy from 1827.

JOUFFROY, OEuvres de Thomas Reid, III, IV (Paris, 1828-36), contains some lessons in philosophy and historical fragments by Royer-Collard; DE BARANTE, La vie politique de M. de Royer-Collard, ses discours et ses ecrits (2 vols., Paris, 1861); FAGUET, Politiques et moralistes du 19 siecle, first series (Paris, 1891); SPULLER, Royer-Collard (1895).

GEORGE GOYAU

Transcribed by Thomas M. Barrett

Dedicated to the Poor Souls in Purgatory

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIII

Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, D.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Félicité Robert de Lamennais

Born at Saint-Malo, 29 June, 1782; died at Paris, 27 February, 1854. His father, Pierre Robert de Lamennais (or La Mennais), was a respectable merchant of Saint-Malo, ennobled by Louis XVI at the request of the Estates of Brittany in acknowledgment of his patriotic devotion. Of the six children born of his marriage with Gratienne Lorin, the best-known are Jean-Marie and Félicité. The latter, though delicate and frail in physique, early exhibited an exuberant nature, a lively but indocile intelligence, a brilliant but highly impressionable imagination, and a will resolute to obstinacy and vehement to excess.

EDUCATION

At the age of five Lamennais lost his mother: his father, absorbed in business, was thus obliged to confide the education of Jean-Marie and Félicité to Robert des Saudrais, the brother-in-law of his wife, who had no children of his own. Jean-Marie and Félicité -- or Féli, as he was called in the family -- were taken to live with their uncle at La Chênaie, an estate not far from Saint-Malo, which Félicité was afterwards to make famous. At La Chênaie there was a well filled library in which works of piety and theological books were mingled with the ancient classics and the works of the eighteenth-century philosophers. Félicité was not very docile at his lessons, and, to punish him, M. des Saudrais would sometimes shut him up in the library. The child acquired a taste for the books he found around him, and read voraciously and indiscriminately all that came to his hands, good and bad. He even multiplied reasons for being shut up in the library, abandoned himself there to his favorite reading, and made such rapid progress that he was soon able to read the classical authors without difficulty. The Revolution was then at its height; the proscribed priests had been obliged to leave France, or to continue from hiding-places their sacred ministrations at the peril of their lives. The Lamennais household afforded an asylum to one such priest, Abbé Vielle, who sometimes said Mass at La Chênaie in the middle of the night. Félicité, who used to assist at the Divine services, derived from these early impressions a lasting and lively hatred of the Revolution. At the same time, his unwise reading, especially of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, seduced his ardent mind and prejudiced him against religion. These prejudices found vent in objections which moved his confessor to postpone indefinitely his First Communion.

His father at first intended Lamennais to join him in his business, but the youth obeyed without enthusiasm. Always ill-at-ease in the office, he visited it as little as possible, and gave to reading all the time he could steal from his regular occupation. While he thus succeeded in completing his literary education and acquiring foreign languages, these studies undertaken without teachers or guidance necessarily left gaps in his training, and made him liable to contract dangerous habits of intellectual intolerance. The passions, too, gained a certain mastery over him, drawing him into lapses which he says, not without some exaggeration, in a letter written in 1809 to his friend Brute de Rémur, the future Bishop of Vincennes in Indiana, "the most rigorous austerities, the severest penance would not suffice to expiate". The happy influence of his brother Jean-Marie, who had recently (1804) been ordained a priest, rescued him from this condition. Restored to Christian sentiments, he made his First Communion, and resolved to consecrate himself to the service of the Church. He withdrew to La Chênaie and there gave himself up under his brother's direction to ecclesiastical studies, briefly interrupted (January to July, 1806) to reestablish his threatened health by a sojourn at Paris.

The Church of France was then in a struggling and precarious condition, being deprived of material resources and served but poorly by a clergy either enfeebled by age or inadequately prepared to meet the intellectual demands of the time. The two brothers set themselves to labor as best they could for the relief of the Church. In the common task which they imposed on themselves with this aim, the part that fell to Félicité, as being the better suited to his tastes, was chiefly intellectual and literary. In fact the story of his life is almost entirely contained in his books and articles. The first result of the joint labors soon appeared in a book published in 1808 under the title "Réflexions sur l'état de l'Eglise en France pendant le dix-huitieme siecle et sur sa situation actuelle". The first idea of this work and the materials were due to Jean-Marie, but the actual writing was done almost exclusively by Félicité. After describing the evils under which the Church labored in France, the authors point out the causes and propose remedies, among others provincial councils, diocesan synods, retreats, ecclesiastical conferences, community life, and proper methods in recruiting the clergy. Many of these views were calculated to offend the imperial government; the book was suppressed by the police, and was not republished until after the fall of the Empire. Meanwhile, the two brothers had left La Chênaie for the College of St-Malo, in which they had been appointed professors. Félicité was to teach mathematics; for he had to earn a living now that his father, already financially injured by the wars of the Convention, saw his business ruined by the Continental Blockade, and was obliged to surrender all his property to his creditors. This ecclesiastical college having been closed by imperial authority, Félicité withdrew to La Chênaie, while his brother was called, as vicar-general, to Saint-Brieuc. There Félicité completed another work, in which also he had his brother's collaboration, and which was to have been printed and published at Paris in 1814. In opposition to Napoleon, who wished to transfer the right to the metropolitans, the two brothers vindicated the pope's exclusive claim to the canonical institution of bishops. This work marked the beginning of Lamennais' long struggle against Gallicanism. However, the fall of Napoleon, coming some months before the book appeared, made it no longer appropriate, and it thus obtained only a succès d' estime. Lamennais next published a violent article against the imperial university; indeed, when Napoleon returned from Elba, the young writer, thinking himself insecure in France, went over to England, where he found a temporary asylum with M. Carron, a French priest who had established in London a school for the children of émigrés. On his return to France after the Hundred Days, Lamennais made M. Carron his confidant and took up his residence near him in Paris. Under the influence of this worthy priest and on the advice of M. Beysserre, a Sulpician, he decided, though not without strong repugnance and some sharp prickings of conscience, to take Holy orders, and was ordained a priest on 9 March, 1817.

STRUGGLE AGAINST INFIDELITY AND GALLICANISM

Towards the end of the same year appeared the first volume of the "Essai sur l'indifférence en matière de religion". >From beginning to end the book was a vigorous attack on that indifference which appears (1) among those who, seeing in religion nothing but a political institution, think it a necessity only for the masses; (2) among those who admit the necessity of a religion for all men, but reject Revelation; (3) among those who recognize the necessity of a revealed religion, but think it permissible to deny all the truths which that religion teaches with the exception of certain fundamental articles. While open to some criticism in regard to the development of its ideas and the force of some of the arguments employed, the "Essai" brought to Catholic apologetics a new strength and brilliancy, and at once commanded public attention. Not content with a defensive attitude in the presence of incredulity, it attacks the enemy boldly, supported by all the resources of dialectic, invective, irony, and eloquence. The clergy and all educated Catholics thrilled with joy and hope, when this champion entered the lists armed as none since Bossuet, for it was indeed with Bossuet and Pascal that this priest, yesterday unknown, was now compared. In the pulpit of Notre-Dame of Paris Frayssinous hailed Lamennais as the greatest thinker since Malebranche. Meanwhile, editions of the "Essai" came rapidly from the press; 40,000 copies were sold within a few weeks, it was translated into many foreign languages, and its perusal effected in some places notable returns, in others brilliant conversions to Catholicism. Some of these converts, such as Mme de Lacan (afterwards, by her second marriage, the Baroness Cottu), Benoît d' Azy, Senfft-Pilsach, thenceforth carried on an uninterrupted epistolary correspondence with Lamennais. These letters, with others published since then or about to be published (addressed to such friends as Mlle Cornulier de Lucinière, de Vitrolles, Coriolis, Montalembert, Berryer, Marion, Vaurin, David Richard), add considerably to our knowledge of his writings, and are not the least interesting part of his works. With their aid we can witness the intimate workings from day to day of a mobile and impressionable mind; in them we perceive an aspect of his character which so seldom appears in his other works his loving, kind, and tender disposition, lavish in devotion and of a timidity which sought a refuge in outspokenness.

Lamennais was now looked upon as the most eminent personality among the French clergy; visitors flocked to see him; the press solicited his contributions. He promised his collaboration to "Le Conservateur", a royalist paper of the Extreme Right party, for which Chateaubriand and de Bonald were writing. Lamennais, however, cared much less for politics than for religion, and contributed to "Le Conservateur" only in defense of Catholic interests. For him it was not enough to discredit infidel philosophy: he meant to put something else in its place. He believed that the Cartesian rationalism which had recently attacked the foundations of Christian faith, and therefore necessarily of human society, could be combated by a system which should firmly re-establish both. To this object he devoted the second volume of the "Essai", published in 1820. The philosophic system which he expounded in this volume was based on a new theory of certitude. In the main, his theory is that certitude cannot be given by the individual reason; it belongs only to the general reason, that is to the universal consent of mankind, the common sense; it is derived from the unanimous testimony of the human race. Certitude, therefore, is not created by evidence, but by the authority of mankind; it is a matter of faith in the testimony of the human race, not the result of free enquiry. In the last chapters of the book this philosophic system supports an entirely new method of apologetics. There exists, says Lamennais, a true religion, and there exists but one, which is absolutely necessary to salvation and to social order. Only one criterion will enable us to discern the true religion from the false, and that criterion is the authority of testimony. The true religion, therefore, is that which can put forth on its own behalf the greatest number of witnesses. This is the case with the Christian, or rather the Catholic religion. It is in reality the true, the only religion which began with the world and perpetuates itself with it. The result of a primitive revelation, this unique religion has perfected itself in the course of ages without being essentially modified; Christians now believe all that the human race has believed, and the human race has always believed what Christians believe. The last two volumes of the "Essai" (1823) were devoted to this thesis. In these he attempts to prove, with the aid of history, that the chief dogmas of Christianity have been and are still, under various disguises, professed throughout the world. Naturally, these later volumes failed to secure the success which the first had attained.

The philosophic system of Lamennais, like his apologetics, called forth serious objections. It was pointed out that this philosophy and apologetics favored scepticism by denying the validity of individual reason. If the latter can furnish no certitude, how can we expect any from the general reason, which is but a synthesis of individual reasons? It was also a confusion of the natural and the supernatural orders, of philosophy and theology, to base both alike on the authority of the human race; and, since according to him both alike are based on human testimony, religious faith was at once reduced to human faith. These criticisms and others irritated Lamennais without convincing him of his error; he submitted his book to Rome and, in reply to his critics, wrote the "Défense de l'Essai" (1821). Rome confined its intervention to giving its imprimatur to an Italian translation of the "Défense de l'Essai". Lamennais himself soon visited the Holy See; Leo XII received him very kindly and at one time even thought of making him a cardinal, despite his excitable character and exaggerated ideas. On his return to France, Lamennais showed a greater determination than ever to combat Gallicanism and irreligious Liberalism. On the occasion of a ministerial ordinance prescribing the teaching of the famous Declaration of 1682 (see GALLICANISM, VI, 384), he published his "Religion considérée dans ses rapports avec l'ordre civil et politique" (1825), in which he denounced Gallican and Liberal tendencies as the joint causes of the harm done to religion, and as equally fatal to society. Irritated by these attacks, a majority of the French bishops, who were moderate Gallicans, signed a protest against this pamphlet which accused them of leanings towards schism. Lamennais was also cited before the Tribunal of the Seine for attacking the king's government and the Four Articles of 1682 in their character of existing laws. Defended by his friend, the great advocate Berryer, he escaped with a fine of thirty francs. From this incident he conceived a lively hostility to the Bourbons, and was all the more energetic in maintaining ultramontane ideas against Frayssinous, Clausel de Montals, Bishop of Chartres, and other representatives of moderate Gallican principles.

On the other hand, he derived valuable assistance from a certain number of young men, ecclesiastics and laymen, who gradually formed a group of which he was the centre. Of these the best known are Gerbet, de Salinis, Lacordaire, Montalembert, Rohrbacher, Combalot, Maurice de Guérin, Charles de Sainte-Foy, Eugène and Léon Boré, de Hercé. With them Lamennais founded the "Congrégation de St. Pierre", a religious society whose distinctive duty was to defend the Church by the study of theological and other sciences, by propagating Roman doctrines, by teaching in colleges and seminaries, by giving missions and spiritual direction. Hardly had this congregation come into existence when Mgr. Dubois, Bishop of New York, appealed to it to supply teachers to the Catholic University which it was then proposed to found in that city. The Revolution of 1830 put an end to this project. The congregation at one time possessed three houses -- La Chênaie, Malestroit, and Paris -- but it lived only about four years. Obliged to reckon with the demands of the Liberals, whom the elections had returned to the Chamber of Deputies, the government of Charles X had revived (15 June, 1828) former legislative enactments against the religious congregations -- particularly against the Jesuits, eight of whose colleges were closed. Although ill-disposed towards the Jesuits on account of their lack of sympathy for his philosophic system, Lamennais took up their defense in a book published in 1829 under the title "Progrès de la Révolution et de la guerre contre l'Eglise". His attacks spared neither the king nor the bishops, whom he reproached with their Gallicanism and their concessions to the enemies of religion. Here, for the first time, Lamennais openly broke with monarchy, setting his highest hopes upon political liberty and equal rights. "An immense liberty", he said "is indispensable for the development of those truths which are to save the world." This was what he called "catholicizing liberalism". The work met with enormous success. The bishops themselves protested almost unanimously against the Government's action. Not, however, that they approved of Lamennais' violent language; the Archbishop of Paris in a pastoral charge even condemned the work, and this drew from Lamennais two open letters in which the archbishop's Gallican ideas were unreservedly criticized.

When the Revolution broke out the next year (July, 1830), sweeping the Bourbons away and lifting the House of Orleans to the throne, Lamennais beheld without regret the departure of the one, and without enthusiasm the accession of the other dynasty. "Most people", he writes in his letters, "would prefer a republic frankly declared; I am of that number" Thenceforward he thought only of the defense of Catholicism against the triumphant party, who never forgave it the favor it had enjoyed from the fallen monarchy. While laboring to ward off the danger which menaced the Church, he hoped at the same time to ensure its social triumph by setting up its defense on the basis of equal rights, uniting its cause with that of public liberties. With this end in view he founded the journal "L'Avenir" (16 October, 1830) and his "General Agency for the Defense of Religious Liberty". With Lacordaire, Gerbet, Montalembert, and de Coux, he waged a grim battle in defense of Catholics against the hostility of the government, of Roman ideas against the Gallicanism of the clergy, and of his system of the "common sense of mankind" against rationalistic philosophy. The force of his blows, the boldness of his ideas, his outspoken sympathy for every people then in a state of revolt, provoked new accusations against him and gave rise to suspicion of his orthodoxy. To set himself right in the face of all this hostility, he suspended the publication of "L'Avenir" (15 November, 1831), and went to Rome to submit his cause to Gregory XVI. Though accompanied by Lacordaire and Montalembert, he did not find there the pronounced welcome of 1824. He waited a long time, but received no definite answer: then some days after his departure from Rome, appeared the Encyclical "Mirari vos" (15 August, 1832), in which the pope, without expressly designating him, condemned some of the ideas advanced in "L'Avenir" liberty of the press, liberty of conscience, revolt against princes, the need of regenerating Catholicism, etc. At the same time a letter from Cardinal Pacca informed Lamennais that the pope had been pained to see him discuss publicly questions which belonged to the authorities of the Church.

LAMENNAIS OUT OF THE CHURCH

Having forthwith declared that out of deference to the pope he would not resume the publication of "L'Avenir" Lamennais suppressed the "General Agency", went back to La Chênaie, and there apparently kept silence. In his heart, however, he cherished deep resentment, the echoes of which reached the outer world through his correspondence. Rome was stirred by this behavior, and demanded frank and full adhesion to the Encyclical "Mirari vos". After seeming to yield, Lamennais ended by refusing to submit without reserve or qualification. Little by little, he began by renouncing his ecclesiastical functions (December, 1833) and ended by abandoning all outward profession of Christianity. The amelioration of humanity, devotion to the welfare of the people and of popular liberties, dominated him more and more. In May, 1834, he published the "Paroles d'un croyant", through the apocalyptic diction of which resounds a violent cry of rage against the established social order: in it he denounces what he calls the conspiracy of kings and priests against the people. In this way he loudly declared his rupture with the Church, and set up the symbol of his new faith. Gregory XVI hastened to condemn in the Encyclical "Singulari nos" (15 July, 1834) this book, "small in size, but immense in perversity", and at the same time censured the philosophical system of Lamennais. One after another, all his friends abandoned him, and, as if to break finally with his own past, Lamennais wrote a volume on "Les Affaires de Rome", in which he set forth, very much in his own favor, his relations with Gregory XVI. After this he published only works inspired by his new democratic tendencies, repeating with no great show of originality the ideas of "Les Paroles d'un croyant", the whole foundation of which consisted of a few humanitarian commonplaces, relieved here and there with vague socialism. The Government having in 1835 caused the arrest of 121 revolutionaries in connection with certain disturbances, Lamennais consented to undertake the defense of his new friends before the Peers. Besides some articles in the "Revue des Deux Mondes", the "Revue du Progrès" and "Le Monde", he published a series of pamphlets, e.g. "Le Livre du peuple" (1839), "L'Esclavage moderne" (1839), "Discussions critiques" (1841), "Du passe et de l'avenir du peuple" (1841), "Amschaspands et Darvands" (1843). In these writings he expounds his views on the future of democracy or vents his rage against society and the public authorities. One of his works, "Le Pays et le Gouvernement" (1840) brought down on him a year's imprisonment, which he served in 1841.

Mention should here be made of his "Esquisse d'une philosophie", published from 1841 to 1846. It comprises a treatise on metaphysics in which God, man, and nature are studied by the light of reason only. Many of the opinions maintained in this book remind one that it was begun when its author was a Catholic, but there are many others which betray his later evolution; he denies in formal terms the fall of man, the Divinity of Christ, eternal punishment, and the supernatural order. The portions of the work devoted to aesthetics are among the finest that Lamennais ever wrote, while the general tone breathes a spirit of serenity and calm. To this epoch, too, belongs the translation of the Gospels, with anti-Christian notes and reflections. It was not the first work of piety that Lamennais had published. From 1809 he had devoted his moments of leisure to the translation of the "Spiritual Guide" of Louis de Blois. In 1824 he published a French version of the "Imitation of Christ" with notes and reflections, more widely read than any of his works. Then came the "Guide du premier âge", the "Journée du Chrétien", and a "Recueil de piété" (1828). To spread this pious literature he had become connected with a publishing house, the failure of which led to his financial ruin..

The Revolution of 1848 brought to Lamennais a renewal of hope and celebrity. He was elected a deputy for Paris in the Constituent and in the Legislative Assemblies. His plan of a constitution, however, met with no success, and thereafter he confined himself to silent participation in the sessions. He was not more fortunate in a newspaper, "Le Peuple constituant", in which he made common cause with the worst revolutionaries; its existence ended after four months, through failure to furnish its cautionnement. The coup d'état of 1851 put an end to the political career of Lamennais, who relapsed into misery and isolation. Numerous attempts were made to bring him back to religion and to repentance, but in vain. He died rejecting all religious ministration, and after requesting that his body "be carried to the cemetery, without being presented at any church".

However regrettable his end, it does not efface the memory of Lamennais' great services to the Church of France. When that Church lay bleeding from the blows inflicted on it by the Revolution, and intimidated by the insolent triumph of infidel philosophy, he consecrated to her relief, both absolute devotion and abilities of the highest order. He was the first apologist to compel the attention of unbelievers in the nineteenth century, and to force them to reckon with the Christian Faith. He was the first who dared to attack Gallicanism publicly in France, and prepared the way for its defeat, the crowning work of the Vatican Council. To him also belongs the honor of having inaugurated the struggle which was to issue in freedom of education (liberté d'enseignement). Despite his justly blamable excesses, we must trace to him that reconciliation between Catholicism on the one hand and popular liberty and the masses of the people on the other, upon which Leo XIII set the final seal of approbation. If a temper impatient of all restraint and a pride overconfident in its own conceits deprived him of the blessings which he was instrumental in securing for others, this is surely no reason why the beneficiaries should forget to whom they owe their happier condition.

For the works and historical accounts of Lamennnais published during his life, see QUERARD, Les supercheries litteraires devoilees (2nd ed., Paris, 1870), col. 510-634. Consult also Lettres inedites de J. M. et de F. de Lamennais (Nantes, 1862); (Euvres posthumes de Lamennais (2 vols., Paris, 1863); (Euvres inedites de Lamennais (2 vols., Paris, 1866); Confidences de Lamennais (Nantes, 1886); Correspondance inedite de Lamennais avec le baron de Vitrolles (Paris, 1886); L'intime (2 vols., Paris, 1892); Lettres de Lamennais a Montalembert (Paris, 1898); Lettres de Lamennais a Benoit d'Azy (Paris, 1898); Lamennais et David Richard. Documents inedits (Paris, 1909); BLAIZE, Essai biographique sur M. F. de Lamennais (Paris, 1858); MERCIER, Lamennais (Paris, 1895); SPULLER, Lamennais (Paris, 1892); BOUTARD, Lamennais, sa vie et ses doctrines, I-II (1905-8); MARECHAL, Lamennais et Victor Hugo (Paris, 1906); IDEM, Lamennais et Lamartine (Paris, 1907).

Antoine Degert

Transcribed by Joseph E. O'Connor

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.com

Gioacchino Ventura di Raulica

Italian pulpit orator, patriot, phyilosopher, b. at Palermo, 8 Dec., 1792; d. at Versailles, 2 Aug., 1861. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1808, and in 1817, when the Society was suppressed in Sicily, joined the Theatines. Ordained a priest, he distinguished himself as a Catholic journalist and apologist, as a preacher, especially by his "Funeral Oration of Pius VII" (1823), as an exponent of the systems of de Lamennais, de Maistre, and de Bonald. He was appointed by Leo XII professor of canon law at the Sapienza, and in 1830 was elected Superior-General of the Theatines. He published his "De methodo philosophandi" in 1828 and "Bellezze della Fede" in 1839. After his generalship (1830-33) he preached in Rome. His eloquence, though somewhat exaggerated and prolix, was vehement and direct, with a noble bearing, a magnificent voice, and an affecting delivery, and it won him great renown. In Paris, though not perfectly master of French, he almost rivalled Lacordaire. With the accession of Pius IX, Ventura became politically prominent. His "Funeral Oration of O'Connell" (1847) glorified the union of religion and liberty. His eulogy of liberty on the "Morti di Vienna" sounded almost like a diatribe against kings in general. It was put on the Index; the author nobly submitted.

Ventura maintained the lawfulness of the Sicilian Revolution (cf. his "Sul riconoscimento della Sicilia, etc.", Palermo, 1848; "Menzogne diplomatiche", etc.). His ideal was an Italian Confederation under the presidency of the pope. During the exile of Pius IX at Gaeta, Ventura's position in Rome was a delicate and compromising one. Though refusing a seat in the Roman Assembly, he advocated the separation of the ecclesiastical and temporal powers, and in the name of the Sicilians recognized the Roman Republic. As commissioner from Sicily, he was present at an unseemly politico- religious ceremony in St. Peter's, but took no active part in the services. He opposed French intervention in behalf of the pope and when Oudinot attacked Rome, spoke of Pius IX in words which he bitterly regretted. On the downfall of the Triumvirs (1849), he went to Montpellier and then to Paris (1851). Here he made an ineffectual attempt to convert his former friend de Lamennais. His Conferences at the "Madeleine" etc. were published as "La raison philosophique et la raison catholique" (1852---). In 1857 he gave the Lenten Sermons at the Tuileries before Napoleon III; these appeared as "Le pouvoir politique chrétien". Ventura's philosophical views received final expression in "La tradizione e semi-pelagiani della philosophia", "Saggio sull' origine dell' idee", "Philosophie chrétienne" (Paris, 1861). He is a moderate Traditionalist of the Bonald-Bonnetty School. Ventura's private life was irreproachable. In spite of some blunders he remained a loyal Catholic and died an edifying death. His works were published as: "Opere Complete" (31 vols., Milan, 1854-64); "Opere Postume", (Venice, 1863).

CULTRERA, Della vita e delle opere del Rev. P. D. Giocchino Ventura (Palermo, 1877); MONTAZIO, Gioacchino Ventura (Turin, 1862); RASTOUL, Le P. Ventura (Paris, 1906); BROWNSON, Works (Detroit, 1904), III, 180; X, 69, 78, 263; XII, 423; XIV, 526; XVI, 139; DUDON, Lettres inedites de Lamennais a Ventura (1826-33), in Etudes, CXXII, 602; CXXIII, 239, 621; Etudes, VIII, 156; XII, 650; HURTER, Nomenclator Litterarius, III (Innsbruck, 1895), 1005; DARRAS-FEVRE, Histoire de l'Eglise , XLII (Paris, 1884-97), 419-31; LAURENTIE, Melanges (Paris, 1865); DE REMUSAT, Le P. Ventura et la Philosophie in Revue des Deux Mondes (Feb., 1853); Revue du Monde Catholique (Feb., 1874). For Ventura's philosophy cf. BONALD, LOUIS JACQUES MAURICE DE; BONNETTY, AUGUSTIN; URRABURU, Institutones Philosophicae (Rome, 1896); KLEUTGEN, Theologie der Vorzeit, I (Innsbruck, 1873), 361.

JOHN C. REVILLE

Transcribed by Thomas M. Barrett

Dedicated to the Poor Souls in Purgatory

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Aloysius Taparelli

(D'AZEGLIO, christened PROSPERO)

Philosopher and writer on sociological subjects, born at Turin, 24 Nov., 1793; died at Rome, 20 Sept., 1862; interred near the altar of St. Aloysius in the Church of St. Ignatius.

His father, Cesare, was at one time ambassador of Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia to the Holy See, and his brother, Massimo, was one of the Italian ministers of State. He was educated under the Calasanctians at Senis and in the Atheneo of Turin. He attended the military school of St-Cyr at Paris for some months, but he was not destined to be a soldier. He entered the Society of Jesus at Rome, 12 Nov., 1814. In his youth he displayed a bent for mechanics, painting, and music, and later invented a musical instrument which he called the violicembolo (highly praised by Liszt and afterwards at his suggestion named the symphonium), and which was exhibited at the London Exhibition. He was the first rector of the Roman College after its restoration to the Jesuits by Leo XII. He taught philosophy for sixteen years at Palermo, and for many years afterwards was attached to the editorial staff of the "Civiltà Cattolica". His chief work, "Saggio teoretico di diritto naturale appogiato sul fatto", i. e. "A Theoretical Essay on Natural Right from an Historical Standpoint" (2 vols., 7th ed., Rome, 1883), was in a way the beginning of modern sociology. It was translated into German (Ratisbon, 1845) and twice into French (Tournai, 1851; Paris, 1896). Herein was developed the position, at once widely accepted in conservative circles on the Continent, that the normal origin of civil government was by extension of paternal power through the patriarchal head of a group of families. This essay was later abridged into "An Elementary Course in Natural Right" (6th ed., Naples, 1860; also in French, Tournai, 1864; and in Spanish, Paris, 1875), which was in use as a text-book in the University of Modena. Next in importance is his "Esame critico degli ordini rappresentativi nella società moderna", i. e. "Critical Examination of Representative Government in Modern Society" (2 vols., Rome, 1854; in Spanish, Madrid, 1867). Besides his striking monographs on "Nationality" (Rome, 1847), "Sovereignty of the People" (Palermo, 1848; Florence, 1849), and "The Grounds of War" (Genoa, 1847) he left a long list of articles in the "Civiltà Cattolica" chiefly on subjects in political economy and social right, as well as an equally long list of book reviews on kindred topics, which were acute and penetrating essays.

De claris sodalibus provinciœ Taurinensis (Turin, 1906); SOMMERVOGEL, Bibliothèque de la C. de. J. (Brussels, 1896); Civiltà Cattolica, series V, vol. IV, and series X, vol. XI. The last reference gives a critical estimate of his writings.

CHARLES MACKSEY.

Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter

Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV

Nihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Louis-Eugène-Marie Bautain

Philosopher and theologian, b. at Paris, 17 February, 1796; d. there, 15 October, 1867. After a course at the Ecole Normale, where he was influenced by Cousin and Jouffroy, he became (1819) professor of philosophy at Strasburg. Three years later he took up the study of medicine and finally that of theology and was ordained priest (1828). As director of the seminary at Strasburg, he at first won distinction by his work in apologetics, especially against atheism and materialism. He was chiefly interested, however, in the problem of the relations between faith and reason, concerning which he accepted the view of Fideism and Traditionalism, and reduced to a minimum the function of reason. Divine revelation, he claimed, is the only source of knowledge and certitude. He was consequently obliged to sign (18 November, 1835) six propositions containing the Catholic doctrine on faith and reason. After the examination at Rome of his work, "Philosophie du christianisme" (Paris, 1835), Bautain signed (8 September, 1840) six other propositions differing but slightly from those of 1835. Finally, in obedience to the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, he promised (26 April, 1844) not to teach that the existence of God, the spirituality and immortality of the soul, the principles of metaphysics, and the motives which make revelation credible are beyond the reach of unaided reason. Bautain was appointed Vicar-General of Paris (1850) and taught at the Sorbonne (1853-62). His works include: "De l'enseignement de la philosophie au 19me siècle" (Strasburg, 1833); "Psychologie experimentale" (ib., 1839); "Philosophie morale" (ib., 1842); "La religion et la liberté" (Paris, 1848); "La morale de l'Evangile" (ib., 1855); "La philosophie des lois" (ib., 1860); "La Conscience" (ib., 1868).

De Regny, L'abbe Bautain, sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1884); Bellamy in Dict. de theol. cath., s. v.; Ingold, Lettres inedites du P. Rozaven in Bulletin Critique, 5 April, 25 June, 1902. (These letters refer to Bautain's visit to Rome in 1840.) Hurter, Nomenclator, III, 999.

E. A. Pace

Transcribed by Susan Birkenseer

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

Augustin Bonnetty

A French writer, b. at Entrevaux (dept. of Basses-Alpes) 9 May, 1798, d. at Paris, 26 March, 1879. In 1815 he entered the seminary at Digne and studied for the priesthood. After completing his philosophical and theological studies, as he was too young to be ordained, he went to Marseilles as private tutor in an excellent family. He soon felt that his mission was to use science and philosophy in the defense of the Church and to remain a layman. In 1825 he went to Paris, and five years later founded the "Annales de philosophie chrétienne" (first number 31 July, 1830) which he edited until his death. His main object was to show the agreement of Science and religion, and to point out how the various sciences contributed to the demonstration of Christianity. In 1838 he also took up the direction of the "Université catholique" founded two years before by Gerbet, de Salinis, de Scorbiac, and de Montalembert. Having become the sole owner of this review in 1846, he suspended its publication, in 1855, in order to devote himself exclusively to the "Annales". Among the main features of the "Annales" was the attempt to show the universality of a primitive revelation which is recognizable even in the myths and fables of all nations. But Bonnetty went farther, exaggerating the necessity of this primitive revelation, and minimizing the value of reason in attaining truth. This tendency to the system known as "traditionalism" soon drew the attention of the ecclesiastical authorities. A report was sent to the Congregation of the Index by Archbishop Sibour of Paris, and two years later (1855) Bonnetty was asked to sign the following four propositions:

"(1) Although faith is superior to reason, yet no discord or disagreement can ever be found between them, since both proceed from one and the same unchangeable source of truth, God infinite in perfection, and thus are of mutual assistance. (Encyclical of Pius IX, 9 November, 1846.) (2) Reasoning can demonstrate with certainty the existence of God, the spirituality of the soul, and the freedom of man. Faith is posterior to revelation, and in consequence cannot consistently be adduced to prove the existence of God against an atheist, or the spirituality and freedom of the rational soul against an adherent of naturalism and fatalism. (Proposition subscribed to by Bautain, 8 September, 1840.) (3) The use of reason precedes faith, and, with the help of revelation and grace, leads man to faith. (Prop. subscribed to by Bautain, 8 September, 1840.) (4) The method used by St. Thomas, by St. Bonaventure, and, after them, by other scholastics, does not lead to rationalism, nor does it explain why, in modern schools, philosophy should fall into naturalism and pantheism. Hence these doctors and masters cannot be reproached for using that method, especially with the approval, at least tacit of the Church. (Prop. contradictory to propositions extracted from different passages of Bonnetty.)"

It must be noted that in the letter sent at the same time as these propositions by Father Modena, the secretary of the Congregation of the Index, to Monsignor Sacconi, the papal nuncio in Paris, it was stated that Bonnetty's attachment to the Holy See and to Catholic doctrines was never suspected. The intention was not to pronounce any Judgment declaring his opinions "erroneous, suspicious, or dangerous", but only "to prevent the possible consequences, proximate or remote, which others might deduce from them, especially in matters of faith". Bonnetty, without any hesitation, gave his full assent to the above propositions. He declared that he had meant all along to defend these doctrines, and that he would hereafter endeavor to do so with greater accuracy.

Bonnetty was a member of the "Société des études littéraires", the "Association pour la défense de la religion catholique", the "Société asiatique", and the "Roman Academy of the Catholic Religion". He was also a knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great and of the Order of Pius IX. In addition to his numerous articles in the "Annales de philosophie chrétienne" and the "Université catholique", he wrote the following works most of which, however, were first published as articles in the Annales: "Beautés de l'histoire de l'Eglise" (Paris, 1841) "Le christianisme et la philosophie" (Paris, 1845); "Table de tous les auteurs édités par le cardinal Mai" (Paris, 1850); "Documents historiques sur la religion des Romains" (Paris, 1867-78); "Dictionnaire raisonné de diplomatique", based on that of Dom de Vaines (Paris, 1863-65); a translation of the Latin work by Father de Prémare, a Jesuit missionary in China (1666 1734), "Vestiges des principaux dogmes chrétiens tirés des anciens livres chinois" (1879).

Annales de philosophie chrétienne, passim; DEDOUE, Augustin Bonnetty, ibidem (1879, I), XCVI, 348-441; Polybiblion (1879), I, 454; DUBLANCHY in Dict. de theol. cath., II, 1019.

C.A. DUBRAY

Transcribed by Joseph E. O'Connor

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

Olympe-Philippe Gerbet

A French bishop and writer; b. at Poligny (Jura), 1798; d. at Perpignan (Pyrénées Orientales), 1864. He studied at the Académie and the Grand-Séminaire of Besançon, also at St-Sulpice and the Sorbonne. Ordained priest in 1822, he joined Lamennais at "La Chesnaie" (1825) after a few years spent with Salinis at the Lycée Henri IV. Although an enthusiastic admirer of Lamennais he nevertheless accepted the papal Encyclical "Mirari vos" of 15 Aug., 1832, and the "Singulari nos" of 13 July, 1834, which condemned the traditionalism of Lamennais; and, after fruitless efforts to convert the master, he withdrew to the "Collège de Juilly" (1836). The years 1839-49 he spent in Rome, gathering data for his "Esquisse de Rome Chrétienne". Recalled by Monseigneur Sibour, he became successively professor of sacred eloquence at the Sorbonne, Vicar-General of Amiens, and Bishop of Perpignan (1854). His episcopate was marked by the holding of a synod (1865), the reorganization of clerical studies, various religious foundations, and, above all, by the famous pastoral instruction of 1860 sur diverses erreurs du temps présent, which served as a model for the Syllabus of Pius IX. Gerbet has been called the Fénelon of the nineteenth century. Besides many articles in "Le Mémorial catholique", "L'Avenir", "L'Université catholique", and some philosophical writings ("Des doctrines philosophiques sur la certitude", Paris, 1826; "Summaire des connaissances humaines", Paris, 1829; "Coup d'oeil sur la controverse chrétienne", Paris, 1831; "Précis d'histoire de la philosophie", Paris, 1834; under the names of Salinis and Scorbiac), all more or less tinctured with Lamennais's errors, he wrote the following: "Considérations sur le dogme générateur de la piété chrétienne" (Paris, 1829); "Vues sur la Pénitence" (Paris, 1836) — these two works are often published together; "Esquisse de Rome Chrétienne" (Paris, 1843), previously mentioned. In the two former books Gerbet views the dogmas of the Eucharist and Penance as admirably fitted to develop the affections — nourrir le coeur de sentiments — just as he uses the réalités visibles of Rome as symbols of her essence spirituelle. Sainte-Beuve (Causeries de lundi, VI, 316) says that certain passages of Gerbet's writings "are among the most beautiful and suave pages that ever honoured religious literature". Gerbet's "Mandements et instructions pastorales" were published at Paris in 1876.

J.F. SOLLIER

Transcribed by Gerald M. Knight

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VI

Nihil Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

Casimir Ubaghs

Born at Bergélez-Fauquemont, 26 November, 1800; died at Louvain, 15 February, 1875, was for a quarter of a century the chief protagonist of the Ontologico-Traditionalist School of Louvain. In 1830, while professor of philosophy at the lower seminary of Rolduc, he was called to Louvain, which under his influence became a centre of Ontologism. In 1846 he undertook the editorship of the "Revue catholique", the official organ of Ontologism, in conjunction with Arnold Tits, who had taught with him at Rolduc and joined him at Louvain in 1840, and Lonay, professor at Rolduc. La Forêt, Claessens, the Abbé Bouquillon, Père Bernard Van Loo, and others followed the doctrines of Ubaghs. But opponents soon appeared. The "Journal historique et littéraire", founded by Kersten, kept up an incessant controversy with the "Revue catholique". Kersten was joined by Gilson, dean of Bouillon, Lupus, and others. From 1858 to 1861 the controversy raged. It was at its height when a decision of the Roman Congregation (21 Sept., 1864) censured in Ubaghs's works, after a long and prudent deliberation, a series of propositions relating to Ontologism. Already in 1843 the Congregation of the Index had taken note of five propositions and ordered M. Ubaghs to correct them and expunge them from his teaching, but he misunderstood the import of this first decision. When his career was ended in 1864 he had the mortification of witnessing the ruin of a teaching to which he had devoted forty years of his life. From 1864 until his death he lived in retirement.

The theories of Ubaghs are contained in a vast collection of treatises on which he expended the best years of his life. Editions followed one another as the range of his teaching widened. The fundamental thesis of Traditionalism is clearly affirmed by Ubaghs, the acquisition of metaphysical and moral truths is inexplicable without a primitive Divine teaching and its oral transmission. Social teaching is a natural law, a condition so necessary that without a miracle man could not save through it attain the explicit knowledge of truths of a metaphysical and a moral order. Teaching and language are not merely a psychological medium which favours the acquisition of these truths; its action is determinant. Hence the primordial act of man is an act of faith; the authority of others becomes the basis of certitude. The question arises: Is our adhesion to the fundamental truths of the speculative and moral order blind; and, is the existence of God, which is one of them, impossible of rational demonstration? Ubaghs did not go as far as this; his Traditionalism was mitigated, a semi-Traditionalism; once teaching has awakened ideas in us and transmitted the maxims (ordo acquisitionis) reason is able and apt to comprehend them. Though powerless to discover them it is regarded as being capable of demonstrating them once they have been made known to it. One of his favourite camparisons admirably states the problem: "As the word 'view' chiefly expresses four things, the faculty of seeing, the act of seeing, the object seen, e.g. a landscape, and the drawing an artist makes of this object, so we give the name idea, which is derived from the former, chiefly to four different things: the faculty of knowing rationally, the act of rational knowledge, the object of this knowledge, the intellectual copy or formula which we make of this object in conceiving it" (Psychologie, 5th ed., 1857, 41-42). Now, the objective idea, or object-idea (third acceptation), in other words, the intelligible which we contemplate, and contact with which produces within us the intellectual formula (notion), is "something Divine" or rather it is God himself. This is the core of Ontologism. The intelligence contemplates God directly and beholds in Him the truths or "objective ideas" of which our knowledge is a weak reflection. Assuredly, if Ubaghs is right, skepticism is definitively overcome. Likewise if teaching plays in the physical life the part he assigns to it, the same is true of every doctrine which asserts the original independence of reason and which Ubaghs calls Rationalism. But this so-called triumph was purchased at the cost of many errors. It is, to say the least, strange that on the one hand Ontologistic Traditionalism is based on a distrust of reason and on the other hand it endows reason with unjustifiable prerogatives. Surely it is an incredible audacity to set man face to face with the Divine essence and to attribute to his weak mind the immediate perception of the eternal and immutable verities.

Ubaghs's principal works are:

* "Logicae seu philosophiae rationalis elementa" (6 editions, 1834-60);

* "Ontologiae sive metaph. generalis specimen" (5 editions, 1835-63);

* "Theodicae seu theologiae naturalis" (4 editions);

* "Anthropoligicae philosoph. elementa" (1848);

* "Précis de logique élémentaire" (5 editions);

* "Précis d'anthropol. psychologique" (5 editions);

* "Du réalisme en théologie et en philosophie" (1856);

* "Essai d'idéologie ontologique" (1860);

* numerous articles in the Louvain "Revue catholique".

M. De Wulf

Transcribed by Carol Kerstner

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XV

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Henri-Marie-Gaston Boisnormand de Bonnechose

Cardinal and senator, b. at Paris, 1800; d. 1883. Entering the magistracy, he became attorney-general for the district of Besançon in 1830, but having received sacred orders at Strasburg, under the episcopate of de Trevern, he was made professor of sacred eloquence in the school of higher studies founded at Besançon by Cardinal de Rohan. After the death of de Rohan, he went to Rome to settle the differences between Bishop de Trevern and himself, due to philosophical opinions found in his work, "Philosophy of Christianity", for which Bonnechose had written an introduction. In 1844, he was named by Rome superior of the community of St. Louis; in 1847 he became Bishop of Carcassonne, was transferred, 4 November, 1854, to Evreux, and in 1854 raised to the archiepiscopal See of Rouen. Created cardinal in 1863, he became ex-officio senator of the empire. The cardinal showed himself a warm advocate of the temporal power of the popes, and firmly protested against the withdrawal of the French army from the Pontifical States. In 1870, at the urgent prayers of the citizens of Rouen, notwithstanding his advanced years, he went in the rigor of the season to Versailles, the headquarters of the German armies, to entreat King William of Prussia to reduce the war contribution imposed on the city of Rouen. Under the republican government he uniformly opposed the laws and measures passed against religious congregations and their schools, but endeavored to inspire his clergy with sentiments of deference and conciliation in their relations with the civil authorities. His best known work is "Introduction a la philosophie du Christianisme" (1835), two octavo volumes.

GUERIN, Dict. des dict. (Paris, 1892); LAROUSSE Dict. Univ. du XlX siecle (Paris 1867).

F.M.L. DUMONT

Transcribed by Joseph E. O'Connor

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

Jaime Luciano Balmes

Philosopher and publicist, b. at Vich, Spain, 28 August, 1810; d. there, 9 July, 1848. His parents enriched him with no material wealth, but he owed to them a firm, well-balanced temperament, a thorough education, and, probably to his father, a marvellous memory. If to these endowments we add a penetrating intellect, an instinctive sense of right method, an absorbing passion for knowledge, an unflinching though noble ambition, an indomitable determination, a pure life—wherein no unruly sensuousness seems to have ever beclouded the spirit—and abundant opportunities for mental development, we may be prepared to accept even what looks so much like an extravagance on the part of his biographers, that with his sixteenth year, having passed through the schools of Vich, he had completed the seminary course, including philosophy and elementary theology. The next stage of his education was completed at the University of Cervera, where after seven years he received his licentiate in 1833. Later on, he stood for the dignity of Magistral of Vich, contesting for the position with his former teacher, Dr. Soler. Returning to Cervera after his ordination to the priesthood he held a position as an assistant professor and pursued the study of civil and canon law. He shortly afterwards received the doctorate in pompa. In 1834 he went back to his native place where he devoted himself with his wonted ardour to physics and mathematics, and accepting a position as professor in the latter branch, varied the onerous duties of this position by cultivating the classics and writing poems. The latter, though not of a very high order of merit, served to extend his reputation to the capital. He wrote for the "Madrileno Católico" a prize essay on "Clerical Celibacy" which was so favourably received by the public that he was encouraged to send forth a small book, entitled "Observaciones sociales, políticas, y económicas sobre las buenes del clero" (1840), which won for him national distinction, the essay arousing special interest in the Cortes. Soon afterwards he wrote "Consideraciones sobre la situacion en España", directed mainly against Espartero, then at the zenith of his power. It was a bold deed and might easily have been fatal to Balmes.

This was followed by a translation, with Spanish introduction, of the maxims of St. Francis de Sales (1840). He was now far advanced in his "Protestantism Compared with Catholicism" but suspended the work for fifteen days to compose "La Religion demonstrado al alcance de los niños" a work of advanced instruction for children which rapidly spread throughout Spain and Spanish America and was translated into English. Elected a member of the Academy of Barcelona (1841), he wrote his inaugural dissertation on "Originality", an essay which exemplifies the predominant trait of its author's mind. Having completed his reply to Guizot's "Civilization in Europe", he published it at Barcelona (1844) under the title "El Protestantismo comparado con el Catolicismo en sus relaciones con la civilización Europea". The work was at once translated into French and subsequently into Italian, German, and English, and extended the fame of Balmes throughout the world. This work, which for its wealth of fact and critical insight would alone have taxed the resources of a longer life than that which was allotted to Balmes, left to its author time and energy adequate to accomplish tasks of hardly less magnitude and significance. During the bombardment of Barcelona by Espartero, Balmes, going away unwillingly with his friends, took refuge in a country house with no other books than his breviary, "The Imitation", and the Bible, and while the cannon roared in his ears the philosopher, repeating the experience of Archimedes at the siege of Syracuse, composed the "El Criterio" (The Criterion, New York, 1875; The Art of Thinking, Dublin, 1882), a thoroughly practical guide on method in the pursuit of knowledge. It seems incredible that the work could have been produced as it was with a month. Shortly after Balmes became associated with two friends, Roca y Cornet and Ferrer y Subirana, in editing "La Civilización", a widely influential review wherein appeared one of his most powerful, because sympathetic, papers—that on O'Connell. In 1843 Balmes withdrew from the editorship to found in Barcelona a review of his own, "La Sociedad". It contained a mass of important papers meeting the social, political, and religious exigencies of the time. "La Sociedad" was reprinted at Barcelona in 1851. It was through its pages that the greater part of a notable work, subsequently completed by the author, was issued—"Cartas á un eséptico" (Letters to a Sceptic, Dublin, 1875).

About the date of the appearance of "El Protestantismo" (1844) Balmes was called to Madrid where he established a newspaper "El Pensamiento de la Nacion" in the interests of politics and religion. Its special purpose was the advocacy of the marriage of Isabella II with the eldest son of Don Carlos, a union which appeared to Balmes to offer the most effectual solution of the existing political problems of Spain. He even accepted a mission to Don Carlos and succeeded in persuading the latter to renounce his title of king in favour of the Count of Montemolin. Unfortunately, the plan which might have spared his country many misfortunes failed through French interference. Balmes, seeing his cherished design come to naught when Isabella married her cousin Don Francisco de Assisi, suspended the publication of "El Pensamiento" notwithstanding the remonstrance of friend and foe, for the journal had, through the impress of his mind and character and literary power, come to mark an epoch in the history of the Spanish press. Balmes now retired from the political arena to devote the closing years of a life all too short to the publication of his philosophical writings. In May, 1845, he visited France, Belgium, and England, a journey of which there are few details recorded save that he was feted in Paris, where he also met Chateaubriand, and in Brussels, and Mechlin. Returning to Madrid, he repaired thence to Barcelona where he issued in 1846 his "Filosofía fundamental" (this was translated into English by Henry F. Brownson, with an introduction by his father, Dr. Orestes A. Brownson (New York, 1864). It is an exposition of the philosophy of St. Thomas in view of the intellectual conditions of the nineteenth century. His biographer, Dr. Soler, speaks of this work as one "which, from the stupendous variety of knowledge which it manifests and the richness of its mental treasures, appears a collection of libraries, a mine of science, for there is no faculty foreign to the vast comprehension of its author". Allowing for some extravagance in this fervid eulogy, no reader competent to judge can fail to recognize the breadth, depth, and practical timeliness of the "Fundamental Philosophy".

From Barcelona he returned to his native place, where he composed his "Filosofía elemental" (Madrid, 1847), a compendium that became widely used in the schools and which was also translated into English. In 1847 he wrote his pamphlet "Pio Nono" wherein he defends the liberal policy of Pius IX, at the opening of his pontificate, when that pope gave a universal amnesty and adopted constitutional government. Though perhaps the best written of all Balmes's works, it was unfavourably received, was bitterly attacked by his enemies, and regretted by most of his friends. The pain inflicted on his sensitive spirit by the unjust aspersions and insidious innuendoes of his opponents preyed upon his constitution which, never robust, had been severely taxed by incessant labours. He retired once more to Barcelona dividing there his time between linguistic studies, his inaugural discourse for the Royal Spanish Academy, to which he had been admitted, and the Latin translation of his "Elementary Philosophy", undertaken at the request of Archbishop Affre of Paris. He returned to his native Vich, May, 1848, where his health steadily declined till the end came on the 9th of July following. Balmes is described as of more than medium stature, slight of frame though well-developed; his face was pale but delicately tinged; his eye penetrating; his aspect agreeable and naturally majestic. His temperament combined the better elements of the traditional four. He was moderate in all lines of conduct, except probably in study and intellectual work, which he seems to have carried at times to a passionate excess. His thoughts and expression were so copious and so close to his call that he could easily dictate to two secretaries on any subject he might take in hand. Exact and methodical in his relations to God, he was no less conscientious in his duties towards his neighbour. Unostentatiously charitable to the poor, he was unaffectedly kind and affable, though somewhat reserved, in all social converse. A strong soul in a sensitive organism, his intellectual life absorbed and spiritualized the physical.

Balmes has a universally admitted place of honour amongst the greatest philosophers of modern times. He knew the reflective thought of his day and of the past. The systems of Germany, from Kant to Hegel, he studied carefully and criticized judiciously. The scholastics, especially St. Thomas, were familiar to him. He meditated on them profoundly and adopted most of their teaching, but passed it through his own mental processes and turned it out cast in the mould of his own genius. Descartes, Leibnitz, and especially the Scottish school, notably Jouffroy, had considerable influence on the method and matter of his thought, which is characterized consequently by a just eclecticism. He deemed it a danger to take lightly the opinions of any great mind, since, as he said, even if they did not reflect complete reality, they rarely were devoid of strong grounds and at least some measure of truth. Balmes was, therefore, one of the most influential causes in reviving sound philosophy in Spain and indeed throughout Europe generally during the second quarter of the nineteenth century—an influence that continues still through his permanent works. Certain indeed of his theories are open to criticism. He perhaps accords too much to an intellectual instinct, a theory of the Scottish school, and too little to objective evidence in the perception of truth. In psychology he rejects the intellectus agens (the abstractive intellect) and the species intelligibilis (intermediary presentations), and he holds the principle of life in brutes to be naturally imperishable.

These, however, are but accidental and relatively unimportant divergencies from the permanent body of the traditional philosophy—the system which receives in his "Filosofía fundamental" a fresh interpretation and a further development in answer to the intellectual conditions of his day; for it was an habitual conviction with Balmes that the philosopher's business is not merely to rethink and restate but to reshape and develop. While the book just mentioned reflects the speculative aspect of its author's mind, the work that most fully manifests his personality, his mental, moral, and religious character, and his social and political ideals, together with the range and accuracy of his learning—the work, therefore, that is likeliest to endure—is "El Protestantismo comparado". Though conceived originally as a reply to Guizot's "History of Civilization", it is much more than a critique or a polemic. It is really a philosophy of history—or rather of Christianity—combining profound insight and critical analysis with wide erudition. It searches for the basal principles of Catholicism and of Protestantism, and summons the evidence of history concerning the comparative influence exercised by the former and the latter in the various spheres of human life—intellectual, moral, social, and political. The side on which the author's sympathies lie is frankly indicated by him, while he appeals to the historical data in justification. It should be read in the Spanish to be fully estimated; for the English translation, done through a French medium, though accurate and scholarly, can hardly be expected to reflect all the light of the original.

For the rest, the general position of Balmes among his countrymen may be summed up in the words of one of the leading Spanish journals, "El Heraldo", at the time of his death. "Balmes appeared, like Chateaubriand, on the last day of the revolution of his country to demand from it an account of its excesses, and to claim for ancient institutions their forgotten rights. Both mounted on the wings of genius to a height so elevated above the passions of party that all entertained respect and veneration for them. One and the other brought such glory to their country that, though they combated generally prevailing opinions and prejudices, all good citizens wove for them well-earned crowns and loved them with enthusiasm." Besides the works mentioned above, a collection of fragments and unpublished pieces were issued after his death under the title "Escritos postumos" (Barcelona, 1850); also "Poesias postumas" (ib.), and "Escritos politicos" (ib.).

Soler, Biografia del D. J. Balmes (Barcelona, 1850); Garcia de los Santos, Vida de Balmes (Madrid, 1848); Raffin, J. Balmes, sa vie et ses ouvrages (Paris, 1849; Ger. Tr. Ratisbon, 1852); Art of Thinking (Dublin, 1882, Biog. Introd.); Protestantism and Catholicism Compared (Baltimore, 1850, Biog. Introd.); Gonzalez Herrero, Estudio historico critico sobre las doctinas de Balmes (Oviedo, 1905); Menendez y Pelayo, Historia de los heterodoxos espaniles (Madrid, 1881) III, lib. VIII, iii; Baranera, Balmes (Vich, 1905).

F.P. SIEGFRIED

Transcribed by Susan Birkenseer

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume II

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

Daniel Noble

Physician, b. 14 Jan., 1810; d. at Manchester, 12 Jan, 1885. He was the son of Mary Dewhurst and Edward Noble of Preston, a descendant of an old Yorkshire Catholic family. Apprenticed to a Preston surgeon named Thomas Moore, Noble was in time admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and a licentiate of Apothecaries Hall. In 1834 he began to practise in Manchester, and soon showed the special interest in mental disease which afterwards distinguished his career. In the following year he published his first work, "An Essay of the Means, physical and moral, of estimating Human Character", the tendency of which is indicated by the fact that he is described as President of the Manchester Phrenological Society. His practise increased, and in 1840 he married Frances Mary Louisa Ward, of Dublin, they had eight children, one of them Frances, the novelist. Cardinal Wiseman stood sponsor to his eldest child. From the University of St. Andrews he received the degrees of M.D. and M.A., and in 1867 he was elected a fellow of the College of Physicians. His other works are: "Facts and Observationss relative to the influence of manufactures upon health and life" (London, 1843); "The Brain and its Physiology, a critical disquisition of the methods of determining relations subsisting between the structure and functions of the encephalon" (London, 1846); "Elements of Psychological Medicine: an Introduction to the practical study of Insanity" (London, 1853-55); "Three Lectures on the Correlation of Psychology and Physiology" (London, 1854); "The Human Mind in its relations with the Brain and Nervous System" (London, 1858); "On certain popular fallacies concerning the production of epidemic diseases" (Manchester, 1859); "On the fluctuations in the death-rate" (Manchester, 1863); "Evanescent Protestantism and Nascent Atheism, the modern religious problem" (London, 1877); "On causes reducing the effects of sanitary reform" (Manchester, 1878) and several contributions to various medical journals, the best-known of which was a paper called "Mesmerism True—Mesmerism False", which was translated into German and Dutch.

GILLOW, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., V, 181.

EDWIN BURTON

Transcribed by Thomas J. Bress

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI

Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Salvator Tongiorgi

Philosopher, born at Rome, Italy, 25 December, 1820; d. there, 12 November, 1865. At the age of seventeen he entered the Society of Jesus. After the usual noviceship, literary and philosophical studies, a half-decade was spent in teaching rhetoric at Reggio and humanities at Forli. Then four years were passed in the study of theology, under the eminent professors Perrone, Passaglia, Ballerini, and Patrizi. Immediately after this, in 1853, the young priest was assigned to the chair of philosophy in the Roman College, and there during twelve years distinguished himself as a teacher and author. Within a few days of his forty- fourth birthday he was appointed assistant to the provincial of the Roman Province; but his health gave way before a year had elapsed. Father Tongiorgi wrote a well-known course of philosophy, "Institutiones philosophicae", which he published in three volumes at Rome in 1861 and at Brussels in 1862. Nine editions appeared during the next eighteen years, some of them modified by Claude Ramiere. A compendium of the same work and a separate volume on ethics also came from his pen. All his works are still used as text-books for college or seminary. On some of the mooted questions in philosophy the author departed from Scholastic traditions, rejecting the Peripatetic theory of matter and form, denying the real distinction between accidents and substance, and claiming that mere resultants of mechanical and chemical forces could produce the life-activity seen in the vegetable world. These doctrines, though not widely accepted, yet stimulated the Scholastics to make better use of the researches carried on in the physical sciences.

SOMMERVOGEL, Bibl. de la. c. de J., VIII, 96; HURTER, Nomenclator.

JOHN M. FOX

Transcribed by Thomas M. Barrett

Dedicated to the memory of Father Salvator Tongiorgi

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIV

Nihil Obstat, July 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Ausonio Franchi

The pseudonym of CRISTOFORO BONAVINO, philosopher; b. 24 February, 1821, at Pegli, province of Genoa; d. 12 September, 1895, at Genoa. He entered the ecclesiastical state, and some time after his ordination to the priesthood, was appointed director of an institution for secondary education at Genoa. Soon, however, he became imbued with the doctrines of French positivism and German criticism. Doubts arose in his mind, followed by an internal struggle which he describes in his work on the philosophy of the Italian schools. At the same time, important political events were taking place in Italy, culminating in the revolution of 1848. Misled, as he later says of himself, by a political passion, and also by a kind of philosophical passion, Franchi abandoned the priest's habit and office in 1849, and assumed the name of Ausonio Franchi (i.e. free Italian), indicating thereby his break with his own past and his new aspirations. Henceforth all his talents were devoted to the cause of intellectual and political liberty. The dogmatic authority of the Church and the despotic authority of the State are the objects of his incessant attacks. Combining Kant's phenomenalism and Comte's positivism, he falls into a sort of relativism and agnosticism. For him, religious truth and reason, Catholicism and freedom, are irreconcilable, and Franchi does not hesitate in his choice.

In 1854 he founded the "Ragione", a religious, political, and social weekly which was a means of propagating these ideas. Terenzio Mamiani, then Minister of Education, appointed him professor of the history of philosophy in the University of Pavia (1860), and later (1863) in the University of Milan, where he remained until 1888. No work was published by him between 1872 and 1889. A change was again taking place in his mind, not now due to passion, but to the professor's more mature reflection. It led to the publication of Franchi's last work, in which he announces his return to the Church, criticizes his former works and arguments, and denounces the opinions and principles of his earlier writings. His works are: "Elementi di Grammatica generale applicati alle due lingue italiana e latina" (Genoa, 1848-49), under the name of Cristoforo Bonavino. Under the name of Ausonio Franchi he wrote "La Filosofia delle scuole italiane" (Capolago, 1852; "Appendice", Genoa, 1853); "La religione del secolo XIXo" (Lausanne, 1853); "Studi filosofici e religiosi: Del Sentimento" (Turin, 1854); "Il Razionalismo del Popolo" (Geneva, 1856); "Letture sulla Storia della Filosofia moderna; Bacone, Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche" (Milan, 1863); "Sulla Teorica del Giudizio" (Milan, 1870); "La Caduta del Principato ecclesiastico e la Restaurazione dell' Impero Germanico" (Milan, 1871); "Saggi di critica e polemica" (Milan, 1871-72). He also edited "Appendice alle Memorie politiche di Felice Orsini" (Turin, 1858); "Epistolario di Giuseppe La Farina" (Milan, 1869(; and Scritti politici di Giuseppe La Farina" (Milan, 1870).

C.A. DUBRAY

Transcribed by Gerald M. Knight

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VI

Nihil Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor

Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

Jean-Felix Nourrisson

Philosopher, b. at Thiers, Department of Puy-de-Dôme, 18 July, 1825; d. at Paris, 13 June, 1899. He received his education in the college of his native city and in the Collège Stanislas (Paris), where, at the age of nineteen, immediately after completing his studies, he was appointed professor. In accordance with. the wishes of his father, he applied himself first to the study of law, but his own inclinations led him in another direction, and he finally decided to devote himself to philosophy. He was appointed to the chair of philosophy in the Collège Stanislas (1849), received the Doctorate (1852), and was made professor of philosophy successively in the Lycée de Rennes (1854), the University of Clermont-Ferrand (1855), the Lycée Napoleon, Paris (1858) and the Collège de France (1874). Nourrisson obtained three prizes in competitions on the philosophy of Leibniz (1860), and on the role of psychology in the philosophy of St. Augustine (1864), subjects proposed by the Institut de France. In 1870 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques in the section of philosophy. Nourrisson was one of the best representatives of French spiritualistic philosophy in the nineteenth century. Not only was he a deep thinker, a penetrating philosopher and historian, but a firm believer, convinced that "conscience remains hesitating, and that convictions come to nothing, unless the teachings of religion complete the data of reason" (letter to de Barante, 5 Dec., 1856.

Besides a number of reports, memoirs, and articles in the "Journal des Débats", "Revue des Deux Mondes", "Revue Contemporaine", "Correspondant", etc, Nourrisson's works are: "Quid Plato de ideis senserit" (Paris, 1852); "Essai sur la philosophie de Bossuet" (Paris, 1852); "Les Pères de l'Eglise latine" (Paris, 1856); "Le cardinal de Bérulle" (Paris, 1856); "Exposition de la théorie platonicienne des idées" (Paris, 1858); "Tableau des progrès de la pensée humaine depuis Thalès jusqu'à Leibniz" (Paris, 1858), the third edition was augmented and brought down to Hegel's time (1867); "Histoire et philosophie" (Paris, 1860); second enlarged edition under the title "Portraits et études" (Paris, 1863); "La philosophie de Leibniz" (Paris, 1880); "Ledixhuitième siècle et la Révolution française" (Paris, 1863), 2nd ed., 1873, under the title "L'ancienne France et la Révolution"; "La nature humaine: essais de psychologie appliquée" (Paris, 1865); "La philosophie de Saint-Augustin" (Paris, 1865); "Spinoza et le naturalisme contemporain" (Paris, 1866); "De la liberté et du hasard, essai sur Alexandre d'Aphrodisias" (Paris, 1870); "Machiavel" (Paris, 1875); "Trois révolutionnaires: Turgot, Necker, Bailly" (Paris, 1885); "Pascal, physicien et philosophe" (Paris, 1885); "Philosophes de la nature: Bacon, Bayle, Toland, Buffon" (Paris, 1887); "Défense de Pascal" (Paris, 1888); "Voltaire et le voltairianisme" (Paris, s. d.); "Rousseau et le rousseauisme" (Paris, 1904), a posthumous work edited by Paul Nourrisson.

THEDENAT, Une Carriere Universitaire, Jean-Fe1ix Nourrisson (Paris, 1901).

C.A. DUBRAY

Transcribed by Joseph E. O'Connor

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI

Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

St. George Jackson Mivart, Ph.D., M.D., F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., F.Z.S.

Corresponding member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia; Member of the Council of Linnean Society, etc., b. in London, 30 November, 1827, d. there 1 April, 1900.

Professor Mivart, whom Darwin styled the "distinguished biologist", third son of James Edward Mivart, owner of Mivart's Hotel in Brook Street, was born at 39 Brook St., Grosvenor Square, London. His parents were Evangelicals; and his early education was received at the Clapham Grammar School, at Harrow, and at King's College, London; from which latter institution he intended to go to Oxford. His enthusiasm for architecture led him, at the age of sixteen, to make a tour of Pugin's Gothic churches; and while visiting St. Chad's, in Birmingham, he met Dr. Moore (afterwards President of St. Mary's College, Oscott) who received him into the Catholic Church in 1844. Mivart's conversion is said to have been determined by Milner's "End of Religious Controversy". On his reception he proceeded to Oscott College, where he remained until 1846. On 15 January of that year he became a student at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the Bar in 1851. He did not, however, follow a legal career, but gave himself to scientific and philosophical studies; and in 1862 was appointed Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at St. Mary's Hospital Medical School. In 1874, he was appointed professor of Biology at the (Catholic) University College, Kensington. From 1890 to 1893 he gave a course of lectures on "The Philosophy of Natural History" in the University of Louvain. From 1849 he was a member of the Royal Institution; Fellow of the Zoological Society from 1858, and Vice-President twice (1869 and 1882); Fellow of the Linnean Society from 1862; Secretary of the same during the years 1874-80, and Vice-President in 1892. In 1867 he became a member of the Royal Society -- elected on account of the merit of his work "On the Appendicular skeleton of the Primates". This work was communicated to the Society by Professor Huxley. Mivart was a member of the Metaphysical Society from 1874. He received the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy from Pope Pius IX in 1876, and of Doctor of Medicine from Louvain in 1884. His communications, dating from 1864, to the "proceedings" of learned Societies -- notably the Royal, the Linnean, and the Zoological -- are numerous and of great scientific value. He contributed articles to the "Encyclopædia Brittanica," and to all the leading English and American reviews.

In 1871 he published his "Genesis of Species", in which work, foreshadowed by an article in the "Quarterly Review" of the same year, he took his stand as the leading opponent of the Darwinian hypothesis. This estranged him from Darwin and Huxley; but his reputation as a specialist in biological science was in no way impaired by the position he took up. In subsequent editions of his "Origin of Species" Darwin deals at great length with the objections raised by Mivart. His since published "Life and Letters" afford ample evidence of how weighty he felt them to be. Mivart, however, himself professed a theory of evolution; but he unhesitatingly and consistently asserted the irreconcilable difference between the inanimate and animate, as well as between the the purely animal and the rational. By maintaining the creationist theory of the origin of the human soul he attempted to reconcile his evolutionism with the Catholic faith. In philosophical problems, towards which he turned more and more in later years, his attitude was rather that of a neo-scholastic as against the post-Cartesian philosophies; and he opposed with success a critical, or moderate realist, system of knowledge to the widely prevalent agnosticism of his time. Towards the close of his life Mivart's philosophical speculations began to verge on an "interpretation" of theological dogma that was incompatible with the Faith. The crisis, however, did not become acute before his articles in the "Nineteenth Century" ("Modern Catholics and Scientific Freedom" in July, 1885; "The Catholic Church and Biblical Criticism" in July, 1887; "Catholicity and Reason" in December, 1887; "Sins of Belief and Disbelief" in October, 1888; "Happiness in Hell" in December, 1892) were placed on the Index.

His orthodoxy was finally brought into the gravest suspicion by the articles "The Continuity of Catholicism" ("Nineteenth Century", January, 1900) and "Some Recent Apologists" ("Fortnightly Review", January, 1900). In the same month (18 January, 1900), after admonition and three formal notifications requiring him in vain to sign a profession of faith that was sent him, he was inhibited from the sacraments by Cardinal Vaughan "until he shall have proved his orthodoxy to the satisfaction of his ordinary." The letters that passed between the Archbishop's House and Dr. Mivart were published by him in the columns of the "Times" newspaper (27 January, 1900); and in March a last article -- "Scripture and Roman Catholicism" -- repudiating ecclesiastical authority, appeared in the "Nineteenth Century".

Dr. Mivart died of diabetes 1 April, 1900, at 77 Inverness Terrace, Bayswater, London, W., and was buried without ecclesiastical rites. After his decease his friends, persuaded that the gravity and nature of the illness from which he suffered offered a complete explanation of the amazing inconsistency of Dr. Mivart's final position with that which he had maintained during the greater part of his life, approached the authorities with a view to securing for him burial in consecrated ground. Sir William Broadbent gave medical testimony as to the nature of his malady amply sufficient to free his late patient from the responsibility of the heterodox opinions which he had put forward and the attitude he had taken with regard to his superiors. His disease, not his will, was the cause of his aberration. But there were difficulties in the way. Cardinal Vaughan was ill and could not deal directly with the representations made. Misunderstandings arose about the publication of Sir William Broadbent's certificate; and the cardinal counselled a little patience and left the matter to the decision of his successor. So it was that, on the appointment of Archbishop Bourne, the case was reopened; and now the condition of the publication of the facts, at the archbishop's discretion, was accepted by the friends of Dr. Mivart. The burial took place in Kensal Green Catholic cemetery 18 January, 1904. The text of the certificate has not been published; but an account of the matter is to be found in the second volume of "Life of Cardinal Vaughan".

Dr. Mivart's chief works are the following: "One Point of Controversy with the Agnostics" in Manning: "Essays on Religion and Literature" (1868); "On the Genesis of Species" (London, 1871); "An examination of Mr. Herbert Spencer's Psychology"; "Lessons in Elementary Anatomy" (London, 1873) "The Common Frog" in "Nature Series" (1873); "Man and Apes" (London, 1873); "Lessons from Nature" (London, 1876); "Contemporary Evolution" (London, 1876); "Address to the Biological Section of the British Association" (1879); "The Cat" (London, 1881); "Nature and Thought" (London, 1882); "A Philosophical Catechism" (London, 1884); "On Truth" (London, 1889); "The Origin of Human Reason" (London, 1889); "Dogs, Jackals, Wolves and Foxes, Monograph of the Canidæ" (London, 1890); "Introduction Générale à l'Etude de la Nature: Cours professé à l'Université de Louvain" (Louvain and Paris, 1891); "Birds" (London, 1892); "Essays and Criticisms" (London, 1892); "Types of Animal Life" (London, 1893); "Introduction to the Elements of Science" (London, 1894); "Castle and Manor" (London, 1900); "A monograph of the Lories" (London, 1896); "The Groundwork of Science: a study of Epistemology" (London, 1898); "The Helpful Science" (London, 1898); Article "Ape" in "Encyclopædia Britannica"; besides many notes and memoirs not collected, Transactions and Proceedings of the Zoological Society and articles in the "Popular Science Review", the "Contemporary Review", the "Fortnightly Review", the "Nineteenth Century", the "Dublin Review", etc.

See Gentleman's Magazine (1856 and 1900); Royal Society Year Book (1901); Men and Women of the Time (1895); DARWIN, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (London, 1887); SNEAD-COX, The Life of Cardinal Vaughan (London, 1910); Oscotian, Jubilee Number (1888); The Times (January 12, 13, 15, 22, 27, 29, and April 2, 3, 4, 1900); The Tablet (April 7, 1900); Nature (April 12, 1900).

FRANCIS AVELING

Transcribed by Thomas J. Bress

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume X

Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

Léon Ollé-Laprune

French Catholic philosopher, b. in 1839; d. at Paris, 19 Feb., 1898. Under the influence of the philosopher Caro and of Père Gratry's book "Les Sources", Ollé-Laprune, after exceptionally brilliant studies at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (1858 to 1861), devoted himself to philosophy. His life was spent in teaching a philosophy illuminated by the light of the Catholic faith, first in the lycées and then in the Ecole Normale Supérieure from 1875. As Ozanam had been a Catholic professor of history and foreign literature in the university, Ollé-Laprune's aim was to be a Catholic professor of philosophy there. Père de Règnon, the Jesuit theologian, wrote to him: "I am glad to think that God wills in our time to revive the lay apostolate, as in the times of Justin and Athenagoras; it is you especially who give me these thoughts." The Government of the Third Republic was now and then urged by a certain section of the press to punish the "clericalism" of Ollé-Laprune, but the repute of his philosophical teaching protected him. For one year only (1881-82), after organizing a manifestation in favour of the expelled congregations, he was suspended from his chair by Jules Ferry, and the first to sign the protest addressed by his students to the minister on behalf of their professor was the future socialist deputy Jean Jaurès, then a student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure.

Ollé-Laprune's first important work was "La Philosophie de Malebranche" (1870). Ten years later to obtain the doctorate he defended before the Sorbonne a thesis on moral certitude. As against the exaggerations of Cartesian rationalism and Positivistic determinism he investigated the part of the will and the heart in the phenomenon of belief. This work resembles in many respects Newman's "Grammar of Assent"; but Ollé-Laprune must not, any more than the English cardinal, be held responsible for subsequent tendencies which have sought to diminish the share of the intelligence in the act of faith and to separate completely the domain of belief from that of knowledge. In his "Essai sur la morale d'Aristote" (1881) Ollé-Laprune defended the "Eudaemonism" of the Greek philosopher against the Kantian theories; and in "La philosophie et le temps présent" (1890) he vindicated, against Deistic spiritualism, the right of the Christian thinker to go beyond the data of "natural religion" and illuminate philosophy by the data of revealed religion. One of his most influential works was the "Prix de la vie" (1894), wherein he shows why life is worth living. The advice given by Leo XIII to the Catholics of France found in Ollé-Laprune to the Catholics of France found in Ollé-Laprune an active champion. His brochure "Ce qu'on va chercher à Rome" (1895) was one of the best commentaries on the papal policy. The Academy of Moral and Political Sciences elected him a member of the philosophical section in 1897 to succeed Vacherot. His articles and conferences attest his growing influence in Catholic circles. He became a leader of Christian activity, consulted and heard by all until his premature death when he was about to finish a book on Jouffroy (Paris, 1899). Many of his articles have been collected by Goyau under the title "La Vitalité chrétienne" (1901). Here will also be found a series of his unedited meditations, which by a noteworthy coincidence bore the future motto of Pius X, "Omnia instaurare in Christo". Professor Delbos of the University of Paris published in 1907 the course which Ollé-Laprune had given on reason and rationalism (La raison et le rationalisme). Some months after his death Mr. William P. Coyne called him with justice "the greatest Catholic layman who has appeared in France since Ozanam" ("New Ireland Review", June, 1899, p. 195).

Bazaillas, La crise de la croyance (Paris, 1901); Blondel, Léon Ollé-Laprune (Paris, 1900); Goyau, Preface to La Vitalité chrétienne; Delbos, Preface to La raison et la rationalisme; Roure in Etudes religieuses (20 October, 1898); Boutroux, Notice sur M. Ollé-Laprune, read before the Académie des Sciences morales (Paris, 1900).

GEORGES GOYAU

Transcribed by Stefan Gigacz

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XI

Nihil Obstat, February 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York