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 proclaim that I am love,” Seuse replied, “Alas!  Lord, that does not suffice for a yearning soul.”  Faith feels itself secure neither with universal consent, nor with tradition, nor with authority.  It seeks the support of its enemy, reason.

And thus scholastic theology was devised, and with it its handmaiden—­ancilla theologiae—­scholastic philosophy, and this handmaiden turned against her mistress.  Scholasticism, a magnificent cathedral, in which all the problems of architectonic mechanism were resolved for future ages, but a cathedral constructed of unbaked bricks, gave place little by little to what is called natural theology and is merely Christianity depotentialized.  The attempt was even made, where