Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 114

90

FALLACIOUS THEORIES

§ 41.

[Div. II

ence that science leads to an understanding of the cosmos,

both as to

elements and relations.

its

The

to assimilate the cosmos as object, because

subject

it

is

able

bears in itself

microcosmically both the types of these elements and the

frame into which these relations naturally lit. And finally the possibility of obtaining not merely an aggregate but an organically connected knowledge of the cosmos, by which also to exercise authority over it, arises from the fact that there is a necessary order dominant in this cosmos, springing logicall}'^ from the same principle which also works ectypically in our own microcosmically disposed consciousness. Thus, taken apart from all disturbances by sin and curse, our human consciousness should, of necessity, have entered more and more deeply into the entire cosmos, by representaThe cosmos tion as well as by conception-forming thought. would have been before us as an open book. And forasmuch as Ave ourselves are a part of that cosmos, we should have, with an ever-increasing clearness of consciousness, lived

the

life of

that cosmos along with

we should have

ruled

it,

and by our

life

itself

it.

In this state of things, the imiversality and necessity, which are the indispensable characteristics of our knowledge of the cosmos if it is to bear the scientific stamp, would not have clashed with our subjectivism.

Though

it

is

in-

development of our race all conceivable that in a individuals would have been uniform repetitions of the selfsame model and though it must be maintained, that only in the multiform individualization of the members of our sinless

;

race lies the

mark

of its organic character

;

yet in the ab-

sence of a disturbance, this multiformity Avould have been as

now it works unharmoniously With mutual supplementation there would have been no conflict. And there would have been no desire on the part of one indiharmonious, as

.

vidual subject to push other subjects aside, or to trans-

form the object after itself. That this disturbance, alas, did occur, from which subjectivism sprang as a cancer to poison our science, comes under consideration later. Only let it here be observed how entirely natural it is for thinkers who deny

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