ANTI-NATURALISM IN EXTREMIS
29
the dogmas of that Roman Catholic theological philosophy, which
is held up by the adherents of this faith as the sole basis of a "free"
and ordered society, is a commentary on the intellectual criteria
employed by the writer. It is kind of gross carelessness that a
naturalist would not dare to engage in. Only the confidence of
one who thinks he is speaking for a divinely founded and divinely
directed institution could lump together men of such contrary
beliefs. Even more to the point is the fact that among those
who are regarded as causes of the present social disorder is
Kant-one who is a philosophical anti-naturalist, and who among
other things formulated the doctrine that every human person is
an end in himself, possessed of freedom because of member–
ship in a realm above the natural world: - the Kant who re–
garded it as the function of history and the gradual improvement
of social institutions to usher in republican government as the only
one that conformed to the philosophical principles he laid down.
In view of the fact that Bergson is included in the list, it is
interesting that the next quotation is from a writer, held up to
Protestants as a specimen of the liberalism of the Catholic Church,
who has publicly expressed peculiar indebtedness to this very
Bergson: "What the world and civilization have needed in modern
times is the intellectual order, what the temporal good of man has
needed for four centuries, is Christian philosophy. In their place
arose a separate philosophy and an inhuman humanism, a
humanism destructive of man because it wanted to be centered
upon man and not upon God. We have drained the cup; we now
see before our eyes that bloody anti-humanism, that ferocious
irrationalism and trend to slavery in which rationalist humanism
finally winds up."*
A "mere" naturalist would hesitate, even if he counted upon
the ignorance or short memory of his audience, to assume that
the world was in a state of blissful order and peace, free from
blood and ferocity, before the rise of rationalism, naturalism and
humanism. Even the ordinary reader might recall that some of
the bloodiest and most cruel wars in human history were waged
in the name of and with the explicit sanction of supernaturalism
*From
J.
Maritain's
Contemporary Renewals in Modern Thought,
p. 14, contained
in
Religion in the Modern World.
