ingle supernatural
fact or miracle. M. Littre's inexorable phrase, "Despite all the
researches which have been made, no miracle has ever taken place where
it could be observed and put upon record" is a stumbling-block which
cannot be moved out of the path. It is impossible to prove that a
miracle occurred in the past, and we shall doubtless have a long time
to wait before one takes place under such conditions as could alone
give a right-minded person the assurance that he was not mistaken.

Admitting the fundamental thesis of the treatise _De la vraie
Religion_, the field of argument is narrowed, but the argument is a
long way from being at an end. The question has to be discussed with
the Protestants and dissenters, who, while admitting the revealed
texts to be true, decline to see in them the dogmas which the Catholic
Church has in the course of time taken upon herself. The controversy
here branches off into endless points, and the advocates of
Catholicism are continually being worsted. The Catholic Church has
taken upon herself to prove that her dogmas have always existed just
as she teaches them, that Jesus instituted confession, extreme unction
and marriage, and that he taught what was afterwards decided upon
by the Nicene and Trent Councils. Nothing can be more erroneous. The
Christian dogma has been formed, like everything else, slowly and
piecemeal, by a sort of inward vegetation. Theology, by asserting the
contrary, raises up a mass of objections, and places itself in the
predicament of having to reject all criticism. I would advise any one
who wishes to realise this to read in a theological work the treatise
on Sacraments, and he will see by what a series of unsupported
suppositions, worthy of the Apocrypha, of Marie d'Agreda or Catherine
Emmerich, the conclusion is reached that all the sacraments were
established by Jesus Christ during his life. The discussion as to the
matter and form of the sacraments is open to the same objections. The
obstinacy with which matter and form are detected everywhere dates
from the introduction of the Aristotelian tenets into theology in the
thirteenth century. Those who rejected this retrospective application
of the philosophy of Aristotle to the liturgical creations of Jesus
incurred ecclesiastical censure.

The intention of the "about to be" in history as in nature became
henceforth the essence of my philosophy. My doubts did not arise from
one train of reasoning but from