Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 187

§49.

Chap. Ill]

TWO KINDS OF SCIENCE

163

possible on this side of the grave (Perfectionists), but that

any case a period of transition and conflict must precede been the experience and common confes-

in

this completeness has

sion of

all.

If

we

call to

mind the

facts that those people

who

as a sect proclaim this Perfectionism, are theologically almost

without any development, and soon prove that they reach their singular conclusions by a legal Pelagian interpretation of sin

and a mystical interpretation

of virtue,

while the

Rome who

theologians in the church of

defend this position consider such an early completion a very rare exception, it follows, that as far as it concerns our subject this Perfectionism claims no consideration. These sectarian zealots have nothing to do with science, and those who have been canonized are too few in number to exert an influence upon the progress of scientific development.

we

Actually, therefore,

here deal with a process of palingenesis which operates

continually, but tion of the

which does not lead

to an

immediate cessa-

preceding development, nor to a sufficiently

and powerful unfolding at once of the new development as a necessary result the scientific account, given in the consciousness, cannot at once effect a radical and a clearly ;

conscious separation.

Several causes, moreover, have assisted the

tinuance of this intimate relation.

long con-

First the fundamental

conceptions, which have been the starting-points of the

two

groups of scientists, were for many centuries governed altogether by Special Revelation. Not only those who shared the palingenesis, but also those who remained without it, for a long time started out from the existence of God, the creation

man

of the world, the creation of

as sui geiieris, the

fall, etc.

A

few might have expressed some doubt concerning one thing and another a very few might have ventured to deny them but for many centuries the common consciousness ;

;

rested in these fixed conceptions.

Properly, then, one cannot say that any reaction took place before the

Humanists

;

and the forming

of a

common

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