In the first place, the human wisdom and virtue of our Lord are intelligible to him by the human nature common to both, and in proportion to his own personal wisdom and goodness. Having in himself, by virtue of his human nature, the essential type of human goodness, he is able to recognize the excellence of one in whom it is carried to its highest possible perfection. The human perfection visible in Jesus Christ predisposes him to believe his testimony. The testimony that Jesus Christ bears of himself is that he is the Son of God. This declaration includes two propositions. The chief term of the first proposition is "God." The chief term of the second proposition is "Jesus Christ." The first term includes all that can be understood by the light of reason concerning the Creator and his creative act. The second term includes all that can be apprehended by the light of faith concerning the interior relations of God, the incarnation of the Son, or Word, the entire supernatural order included in it, and the entire doctrine revealed by Christ. The idea expressed by the first term is already in the mind of the pagan, as the first and constitutive principle of his reason. His reflective consciousness of this idea and his ability to make a correct and complete explication of its contents are very imperfect. But when the distinct affirmation and explication of the idea of God are made to him by one who possesses a perfect knowledge of God, he has an immediate and certain perception of the truth of the conception thus acquired by his intelligence. God has already affirmed himself to his reason, and Christ, in affirming God to his intellect, has only repeated and manifested by sensible images, and in distinct, unerring language, this original affirmation. It is otherwise with the affirmation which Christ makes respecting the second term. God does not affirm to his reason by the creative act the internal relations of Father and Son, completed by the third, or Holy Spirit, and therefore, although it is a necessary truth, and in itself intelligible as such, it is not intelligible as a necessary truth to his intellect. The incarnation, redemption, and other mysteries affirmed to him by Christ, are not in themselves necessary truths, but only necessary on the supposition that they have been decreed by God. The certitude of belief in all this second order of truths rests, therefore, entirely on the veracity of God, authenticating the affirmation of his own divine mission made by Jesus Christ. We must, therefore, suppose that this affirmation is made to the mind of the pagan with such clear and unmistakable evidence of the fact that the veracity of God is pledged to its truth, that it would be irrational to doubt it. Catholic doctrine also requires us to suppose that Christ imparts to him a supernatural grace, as the principle of a divine faith and a divine life based upon it. The nature and effect of this grace must be left for future consideration.