satisfied by the elevation of one individual nature to the hypostatic union, and the communication of the privileges due to this elevated nature to one or more orders of intelligent creatures containing each an adequate number of individuals. It does not require the elevation of all intelligent orders or all individuals, but admits of a selection from the entire number of created intelligences of a certain privileged class. It is only on the supposition that God cannot give an intelligent nature its due perfection and felicity without conceding to it the beatific vision, that we are compelled to believe that God cannot create intelligent spirits without giving them the opportunity of attaining supernatural beatitude. And it is merely this last supposition against which we have been contending. The view we have taken, that rational nature precisely as such is not necessarily created merely in order to become the subject of elevating grace, but may be determined to an end which does not require it to transcend its natural condition, comports fully with the Catholic dogma of sanctifying grace. The church teaches that affiliation to God by grace is a pure boon or favor gratuitously conferred by God according to his good pleasure and sovereign will. It is not due to nature, or a necessary consequence of creation. The beginning, progress, and consummation of this adoptive filiation is from the grace of God, both in reference to angels and men. It was by grace that the angels and Adam were placed in the way of attaining the beatific vision, just as much as it is by grace that men are redeemed and saved since the fall. If rational nature cannot be explicated and brought to a term suitable for it, which satisfies all its exigencies, without this grace, it is not easy to see how it can be called a grace at all, since grace signifies gratuitous favor. Rather it would be something due to nature, which the goodness of God bound {156} him to confer when he had created it. It would be the mere complement of creation, and an essential part of the continuity of the creative act as much as the act of conservation, by virtue of which the soul is constituted immortal. In this case, it would be very difficult to reconcile the doctrine of original sin, and the doom of those who die in it before the use of reason, with the justice and goodness of God. It would be difficult also to explain the whole series of doctrinal decisions which have emanated from the Holy See, and have been accepted by the universal church, in relation to the Jansenist errors, all of which easily harmonise with the view we have taken.