acle, and we, like the Jews, seek for
a sign, something that can be taken hold of with all the powers of the
soul and with all the senses of the body. And with the hands and the
feet and the mouth, if it be possible.

But alas! we do not get it. Reason attacks, and faith, which does not
feel itself secure without reason, has to come to terms with it. And
hence come those tragic contradictions and lacerations of
consciousness. We need security, certainty, signs, and they give us
_motiva credibilitatis_--motives of credibility--upon which to establish
the _rationale obsequium_, and although faith precedes reason (_fides
praecedit rationem_), according to St. Augustine, this same learned
doctor and bishop sought to travel by faith to understanding (_per fidem
ad intellectum_), and to believe in order to understand (_credo ut
intelligam_). How far is this from that superb expression of
Tertullian--_et sepultus resurrexit, certum est quia impossibile
est!_--"and he was buried and rose again; it is certain because it is
impossible!" and his sublime _credo quia absurdum!_--the scandal of the
rationalists. How far from the _il faut s'abetir_ of Pascal and from the
"human reason loves the absurd" of our Donoso Cortes, which he must have
learned from the great Joseph de Maistre!

And a first foundation-stone was sought in the authority of tradition
and the revelation of the word of God, and the principle of unanimous
consent was arrived at. _Quod apud multos unum invenitur, non est
erratum, sed traditum_, said Tertullian; and Lamennais added, centuries
later, that "certitude, the principle of life and intelligence ... is,
if I may be allowed the expression, a social product."[21] But here, as
in so many cases, the supreme formula was given by that great Catholic,
whose Catholicism was of the popular and vital order, Count Joseph de
Maistre, when he wrote: "I do not believe that it is possible to show a
single opinion of universal utility that is not true."[22] Here you have
the Catholic hall-mark--the deduction of the truth of a principle from
its supreme goodness or utility. And what is there of greater, of more
sovereign utility, than the immortality of the soul? "As all is
uncertain, either we must believe all men or none," said Lactantius; but
that great mystic and ascetic, Blessed Heinrich Seuse, the Dominican,
implored the Eternal Wisdom for one word affirming that He was love, and
when the answer came, "All creatures proc