E LONDON. The Genuine Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica At Half-Price. VERY educated person the world over | ing and binding order ever given in England knows that the ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRIT or America), instead of printing one volume ANNICA is the most scholarly and useful at a time in small quantities; and thus the work that has ever been published; but why price was materially reduced. it is so, and how it came to be so, are not so widely known. Fortunately the reason is so simple that it can be told in a few words. Second-The Times brings the book straight from the publishers to the purchaser, without the intervention and consequent profits of Emerson has said that our English version bookseller, agent, or other middlemen. The of the Bible attained its present perfection saving made in these two ways enables The chiefly because it was revised again and again, Times to offer the one indispensable work each reviser adding something to what had in the world at half its former price. But been done before. So it is with the ENCY- it is the price alone that has been cut. The CLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA. For over one hundred quality of the volumes themselves is absoand twenty-five years the work of improve- lutely unchanged. The purchaser of to-day ment, enlargement, and enrichment has been obtains precisely the same work, and yet saves going on, until now the ninth and final edi-over half on any style of binding he may tion stands without a rival in any language. I select. Of it Mr. Gladstone has said: "To own a set of the Encyclopædia Britannica is to acknowledge one's self as recognizing the best there is in literature." In addition to the fact that the ENCYCLO PÆDIA BRITANNICA is the matchless product of a long and splendid evolution, there is a, further reason why it has attained its present position of pre-eminence. A greater number of distinguished men were engaged in its preparation than in that of any other work ever published, and no other work ever involved So gigantic a preliminary outlay. It contains, in all, 16,000 different articles, every one of which was written by an authority on the particular subject of which he treats. These articles embrace so vast a variety of topics, and cover so broad a field that it is impossible to present in a single announcement any adequate idea of this unequalled work. Moreover, and most important of all, the sets of the ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA at present offered by The Times, at less than half-price, are the only ones now furnished to any one anywhere in the world by the publishers, Messrs. A. & C. Black, of London and Edinburgh, who expended the immense sum of $1,100,000 on the work. No sets other than those printed from the original plates of the publishers. Messrs. A. & C. Black, are, or can be, genuine. The Times offers to those who do not wish to pay for the volumes all at once what is known as the serial-payment plan. Under this method the subscriber obtains the complete work by the preliminary payment of $5.10 (one guinea). When he has paid this, the twenty-five volumes are delivered to him promptly, so that while he is completing his payment at the rate of $5.10 (one guinea) a The publishers, Messrs. A. & C. Black, fixed month, he has the use and enjoyment of the the price for the cloth binding at £37, and | full work. There is not a man or woman in for half morocco and full morocco at corre- ' America who understands the value of books sponding amounts, and these prices, consid- and who knows how useful a set of the ENCYering the enormous outlay, were not exor-CLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA is to every member of bitant. The Times is now in a position to the family, but can afford to set aside this offer identically the same work-the same in sum for a limited number of months. every detail-for less than half the former price. The reason why this can be done is twofold: First-The Times caused to be printed one, enormous edition (involving the largest print Sets of the books in the different styles of binding will be exhibited at the American Office of The Times (London), 290 Broadway (Dun Building), New York. A Pamphlet of Specimen Pages, Coloured Plates, and Brief Extracts from the ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA will be sent upon application to the American office. Also full particulars of the prices in the different styles of binding Address American Office of The Times (LONDON), 290 Broadway, N.Y. The Catholic University Bulletin. Vol. VI. JANUARY, 1900. "Let there be progress, therefore; a widespread and eager progress in every century and epoch, both of individuals and of the general body, of every Christian and of the whole Church; a progress in intelligence, knowledge and wisdom, but always within their natural limits and without sacrifice of the identity of Catholic teaching, feeling and opinion."-ST. VINCENT OF LERINS, Commonit, c. 6. PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY No. 1. THE JAN 27 19CC CAMBRIDGE, MASS Catholic University Bulletin. Vol. VI. JANUARY, 1900. No. 1. THE CONCEPT OF IMMORTALITY IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF ST. THOMAS.1 The aim of this lecture is to outline the concept of immortality which is presented to us in the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas. As to the importance of the subject, its place among the problems of philosophy, its ethical and religious bearings, nothing need be said. Nothing, in fact, can be said that has not been in the thoughts and words of earnest men of every age. That in our age, too, spite of all those influences which tell against such speculation, man should be concerned with the question of his destiny, is not surprising. It would be surprising, or rather incomprehensible, if, with our greater advance in the knowledge of all things else, we should lose interest in the supreme problem of our own exist ence. The individual scientist may become so absorbed in his special research that he has no leisure for such discussions; but the more he discovers and teaches regarding Nature and its laws, the more seriously must mankind at large inquire as to their final lot and estate, their position in the changing universe of things. When biology tells us that the phenomena and nature of life are known in our day as they were never known before, it surely is natural that we should ask whether our human lives are more enduring than the lives of creatures less noble. When psychology proclaims that, in these latter 1 Delivered before the University, in the Public Lecture Course, December 8, 1899. times, it is gaining, by more rigorous methods, a more thorough insight into mind and its workings, it can hardly blame us for seeking to know whether these minds, like everything else, are doomed to decay. Nor do the physical sciences, which declare man's growing mastery over the forces of the material world, help us to the conviction that man himself, in his soul as in his body, is but a passing phase of energy in a momentary grouping of atoms. It is, of course, possible that the progress of science has rendered the task of philosophy more difficult. The problem of immortality is perhaps more embarrassing, and the easiest way to treat it is to pass it over in silence. This, indeed, is the only course left open to those who take the materialistic point of view. If mind is simply one form of material energy, it is a foregone conclusion that mind cannot survive the body. The problem of immortality is not insoluble, because no such problem exists. Happily, materialism of this extreme, unabashed sort is losing ground. Few care nowadays to make open profession of a philosophy that robs even the present life of its value. The greater number are those who take refuge in the agnostic position and content themselves with saying - we cannot know. As the nature of mind is forever beyond our knowledge, speculation regarding its future is a hopeless task. We may look backward as far as we please, and discern in primordial matter the promise and potency of life; but we may not look forward to a life of which the present life is potency and promise. For all that, men continue to make guesses at the riddle of existence. Now in one form, now in another, the problem of immortality appears on the arena with its challenge to philosophy. The old views and the classic arguments may be abandoned. Scientific demonstration may be urged as a substitute for metaphysical proof. Doubtless, from age to age, the sifting and testing of evidence becomes more severe. Yet the very earnestness of criticism shows that men, at heart, are not only concerned about the possibility of a future life, but that they are anxious to secure an unshakable basis for their conviction. |