Edward Aloysius Pace

“ While this warning is always needful, especially in the interest of religion, nothing can be gained by the attempt to form a concept of God which offers a mere negation to thought and to worship. It is of course equally futile to propose an unknowable Absolute as the basis of reconciliation between religion and science. The failure of Spencer's philosophy in this respect is the more disastrous because, while it allows full scope to science in investigating the manifestations of the Absolute, it sets aside the claim of religion to learn anything of the power which is thus manifested. ”

“ So far as, in reasoning upon these facts, we are led beyond them to the concept of an Absolute, some remnant of the knowableness which facts present must be found in that which is the ultimate explanation of the facts. ”

“ Now it is just here that a more serious difficulty arises. It is claimed that the Absolute can neither be known nor conceived. "To think is to condition"; and as the Absolute is by its very nature unconditioned, no effort of thought can reach it. ”

“ If, as Spencer affirms, "every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated distinctly postulates the positive existence of something beyond the relative", it follows that by getting clearly before our thought the meaning of those arguments and their force for distinctly postulating we must obtain some knowledge of the Being whose existence is thus established. ”

“ In the interest of science, he travelled extensively, spent a fortune, and gathered rich collections in botany and zoology which became, by his legacy, the nucleus of the Bologna Museum. His herbarium is the first collection deserving the name. ”

“ During his administration the University grew rapidly in equipment and organization. Abbeloos, although in the midst of his official duties, was always the scholar and the man of high ideals, whose word and example stimulated younger men to earnest work. Modest and unassuming, he realized none the less the significance of his position as rector of a great Catholic university, and he exerted his influence in behalf of Church and country so effectually that his retirement in 1900 occasioned regret both in the University and in the whole kingdom. ”

“ In 1843, Achterfeldt incurred suspension from his professorial chair rather than sign the declaration of faith required by the Coadjutor Archbishop von Geissel of Cologne. Though Hermesianism lost ground and finally disappeared during the revolution of 1848, Achterfeldt clung to his views. ”