PHILOSOPHY SECTION

PROCEEDINGS

The Philosophy Section held its meeting as scheduled with an attendance of forty members. "Religious Training from the Standpoint of Philosophy" was the subject of the lecture delivered by the Rev. Patrick Cummins, O. S. B., Conception, Mo. Father Cummins gave a great deal of life to his subject by developing it without the aid of notes. He was requested to commit the lecture to writing for publication in the annual report. The lecture was followed by a few remarks made by the Very Rev. Anastasius J. Kreidt, O. C. C., Rev. John A. Conway, S. J. and Very Rev. Bernard P. O'Reilly, S. M.

The following constitute the Executive Committee of the Philosophy Section for the ensuing year: Rev. John A. Conway, S. J., Chairman, Washington, D. C.; Rev. P. Cummins, O. S. B., Vice President, Conception, Mo.; Very Rev. Bernard P. O'Reilly, S. M., Secretary, Dayton, Ohio.

A meeting of the Committee was held and topics and speakers were selected for the next annual meeting. A committee was also appointed to prepare a list of Catholic philosophical works. It is hoped that the Committee may have a report for the next meeting.

By the action of the College Department the Philosophy and History Section now combines the work of the two sections in

one.

B. P. O'REILLY, S. M.,

Secretary.

PAPERS

RELIGIOUS TRAINING FROM THE STANDPOINT OF PHILOSOPHY

REV. PATRICK CUMMINS, O. S. B., D. D., CONCEPTION ABBEY, CONCEPTION, MO.

Religious training aims directly at religious conduct. Religious instruction also aims at religious conduct, but indirectly. It has done its work when religious truth is impressed upon the mind of its disciple. The further step of leading that disciple to express by deeds the truths already impressed by instruction, is the task of religious training.

Success in religious training, then, depends on the harmonious development of the factors involved in religious conduct. If you permit the use of a terminology suited to the practical purpose of this paper, these factors, in ascending order, will be as follows: the muscles, the nerves, the will power, God. Religious conduct is perfect when the free will, acting as instrument of God, as creature of God, exercises its sovereignty over the nerves, and through the nerves over the muscles.

The free will is by its nature, always instrumental in the hands of the Creator, and master of man's subordinate powers. In other words, every man is, objectively and fundamentally, a mystic and an ascetic. This holds good even of the irreligious man, the unbeliever, the atheist. But man is not religious, does not act religiously, until he consciously realizes this twofold relation of his free will and consciously acts accordingly.

Thus the task of the religious trainer is to make the free will self-conscious, self-consciously instrumental towards God, selfconsciously sovereign towards its inferiors. And this double selfconsciousness, mystic and ascetic, must govern the basic centers.

at every stage in the development of the child's central nervous. system. These successive stages or levels, physiology tells us, are three in number. The centers that control nutrition and respiration are the first to develop, then come the centers that control motion, finally the centers that control conduct. It may be noticed by the way, how strikingly parallel this theory is to that of St. Thomas regarding the threefold development, vegetative, sensitive, intellectual, of the human soul in the embryo. We are not, of course, to imagine that the first of these developments ceases when the second begins, or that when the third is initiated the second and first come to a standstill. Rather, once begun, all three must continue while life lasts, since each higher form of development needs the lower forms as living instruments.

We are thus brought to the statement that the primary problem in religious training is mystic and ascetic control of the nutritional nervous centers. This control is the condition and foundation of control along other lines. It is the rock which alone can support the house of character. Without it religious training

builds on the sand.

This statement of the primary problem in religious training will, I think, meet with no serious opposition. But it will provoke a question that will lead us into the heart of the problem. "Will not," it will be asked, "will not the words you have chosen to announce your theory defeat your pedagogical purpose? 'Control' is scarcely an attractive word to youth. It is the antipode to spontaneous activity. 'Mystic' is to them the symbol of darkness, enclosure, aloofness, weirdness. 'Ascetic' paints on their fancy images of starvation, repression, gloominess, pessimism. How are you going to prevent these stalking forms of repulsiveness. from following the angel of mysticism and asceticism into the camp of merry childhood?"

With the animus of this question I find myself in the fullest accord. What the child does not do willingly, harms his character. Our first business must be to propose the activities we desire in terms that appeal to the child's experience and enthusiasm. Perhaps a concrete illustration of the method I endorse will be the best answer to the proposed question.

Ask the class why it is so important to eat moderately, to masticate thoroughly, to draw deep breaths while holding the food in the mouth, etc. They will offer you physiological reasons (saliva, etc.). Popular authorities may be added by you (overeating causes more deaths than war, pestilence and all other evils combined, etc.). This point established, comes the question: "Is it easy to eat slowly, to keep from bolting our food, etc.?" "Oh, no! I read somewhere how Mr. Gladstone trained his children. to chew each mouthful of food thirty times before swallowing. I thought I'd try it, but after four or five rounds my stomach said. it wanted food faster, and I just didn't have patience to go farther. So I went back to the old way." Others have had similar experiences. While you warn the boys that the report about Mr. Gladstone may be exaggerated, you must sympathize with the boys' main contention that reasons other than physiological are necessary if we are to arouse any interest in the problem of nutrition.

Everywhere in God's kingdom the lower world is symbol of the higher. Physiology is an adumbration of psychology. The laws of nutrition belong to the soul as well as to the body. Ask the boys what difference it makes to our free will whether or not we observe the laws of correct eating. Where does the free will come in direct contact with our food? In the mouth, and in the mouth only. So what does bolting our food mean? It means to deprive our free will of exercise. We don't give the will a chance to grapple with our food. We like to see a rider train a wild young colt till it obeys him absolutely, till it will stand under him, perfectly motionless for long minutes, then dash away in a willing gallop, subside into a lope or come to a standstill, all at his slightest beck or nod. Our body is the colt, our will the rider. How foolish, then, to shut up our will in a cage just when food enters our mouth and will has the first chance to show his power. No wonder the body throws him off whenever it pleases. No wonder we meet so many people with splendid talents and loving natures, who nevertheless have no energy for their duties, no control over their passions. Their free will is starved. If they had only given him as many bites as they did to the stomach ! And when I hear a boy complain of hard lessons or grumble

against superiors, I can't help thinking that the rider in his body is rather pale faced and sickly. The wild young colt does what it pleases. The boy whose sense of freedom is strong, who sits firmly in the saddle, simply cannot conceive the idea of letting his horse become stubborn and balky, of letting his body be lazy when it ought to be galloping over the fields of learning, of letting his thoughts and his tongue turn aside from the race course and · run away with him into the shameful blind alleys of unkind, unclean, disobedient words.

So it makes a tremendous difference whether or not we master our food. Our food is the material of which our bodies are built, and the builder is the soul, the free will. To build a beautiful home it is not enough to dig a hole in the ground and then pile in bricks topsy-turvy. The mason has to give time, care and patience to each brick in turn. Surely we should have as much care for the house of our soul as the mason has for the home of our body! But we must have even more care. The brick which the mason handles is already prepared to do its work. It needs but to be put in place. Not so with the morsel of food which comes to our mouth. The human body is a spiritual organism, dwells on a higher level of life than does the body of plant or animal. It is the home of the soul, and shares in the spiritual life of that soul. So when we bolt our food, we deprive it of the psychical energy it ought to have in order to build up a spiritual organism, and which it would have if Free Will would take it between his teeth, draw a long breath or two, and meet growling Slave Stomach with the words: "Wait, please, till I'm ready.” That, I think, would be the real way to enjoy our food, for then we would enjoy it both with body and soul.

Free Will or Slave Stomach-Which? Wouldn't that be a fine title for an essay? Whose part do you take? Free Will's. Very well. Suppose we write a composition entitled, "My Banquet-A Chapter from the Autobiography of Free Will." What will be its general tone? "I, Free Will, like to do what the muscles, the nerves, the body doesn't like to do. I like to hear the sign for rising in the morning, to lift the lazy body out of bed, to put a smile on its face and give it no chance to frown. I like to make the body kneel up straight in chapel, to force the wan