The Catholic World, Vol. 14, October 1871-March 1872: A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and ScienceVarious
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 14, October 1871-March 1872: A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
The Positivists reject for what they call the scientific age both
theology and metaphysics. They believe in the progress of the race,
and indeed in all races, as does Dr. McCosh. They distinguish in the
history of the human race or of human progress three epochs or
stages--first, the theological; second, the metaphysical; and third,
the scientific. Theology and metaphysics each in its epoch were true
and good, and served the progress of man and society. They have now
passed away, and the race is now entering the scientific age, which is
the final stage, though not to last forever; for when the field of
science is exhausted, and all it yields is harvested, the race will
expire, and the world come to an end, as having no more work to do. It
will be seen there is here a remarkable difference between the real
Positivists, or believers in Auguste Comte, and our author and his
Protestant brethren. The Positivists never calumniate the past, but
seek to appreciate its services to humanity, to acknowledge the good
it did, and to bury it with honor, as the children of the New
Dispensation did the Old, when it had lived its day. One of the finest
appreciations from the point of view of humanity of the services of
the mediæval monks we have ever read is from the pen of M. E. Littré,
the chief of the French Positivists, and one of the most learned men
of France. It said not all a Catholic would say, but scarcely a word 12
that could grate on a Catholic ear. Dr. McCosh also believes in
progress, in the progress of our species, and, for aught we know, in
the progress of all species and genera, and that we outgrow the past;
but he takes pleasure only in calumniating it, and like a bad son
curses the mother that bore him. Because he has outgrown his nurse, he
contends the nurse was of no use in his childhood, was a great injury,
and it would have been much better to leave him to himself, to toddle
about at will, and toddle into the fire or the cistern, as he saw
proper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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