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 DIAMANTINA

DIAMANTINA

capable of revealing reality to the speculative reason of man. Kant, nevertheless, believed in these reali- ties, deriving a subjective certitude about them from the exigencies of the practical reason, where he con- sidered the speculative reason to have failed.

(d) The Hegelian Dialectic. — Post-Kantian philoso- phers disagreed in interpreting Kant. Fichte, Schel- ling, and Hegel developed some phases of his teaching in a purely monistic sense. If what Kant called the formal element in knowledge — i. e. the necessary, uni- versal, immutable element — comes exclusively from within the mind, and if, moreover, mind can know only itself, what right have we to assume that there is a material element independent of, and distinct from, mind? Is not the content of knowledge, or in other words the whole sphere of the knowable, a product of the mind or ego itself? Or are not individual human minds mere self-conscious phases in the evolution of the one ultimate, absolute Being? Here we have the idealistic monism or pantheism of Fichte and Schel- ling. Hegel's dialectic is characterized especially by its thoroughgoing identification of the speculative thought process with the process of Being. His logic is what is usually known as metaphysics: a philosophy of Being as revealed through abstract thought. His starting-point is the concept of pure, absolute, inde- terminate being; this he conceives as a process, as dynamic. His method is to trace the evolution of this dynamic principle through three stages: (1) the stage in which it aflSirms, or posits, itself as thesis; (2) the stage of negation, limitation, antithesis, which is a necessary corollary of the previous stage; (.3) the stage of synthesis, return to itself, union of opposites, which follows necessarily on (1) and (2). Absolute being in the first stage is the idea simply (the subjects matter of logic) ; in the second stage (of otherness) it becomes nature (philosophy of nature); in the third stage (of return or synthesis) it is spirit (philosophy of spirit — ethics, politics, art, religion, etc.).

Applied to the initial idea of absolute Being, the process works out somewhat like this: All conception involves limitation, and limitation is negation; posit- ing or affirming the notion of Being involves its differ- entiation from non-being and thus implies the nega- tion of being. This negation, however, does not ter- minate in mere nothingness; it implies a relation of affirmation which leads by synthesis to a richer posi- tive concept than the original one. Thus: absolutely indeterminate being is no less opposed to, than it is identical with, absolutely indeterminate nothing: or Being-Nothing ; but in the oscillation from the one notion to the other both are merged in the richer synthetic notion, of Becoming.

This is merely an illustration of the a priori dialectic process by which Hegel seeks to show how all the cate- gories of thought and reality (which he identifies) are evolved from pure, indeterminate, absolute, ab- stractly-conceived Being. It is not an attempt at making his system intelligible. To do so in a few sentences would be impossible, if only for the reason, that Hegel has read into ordinary philosophical terms meanings that are quite new and often sufficiently remote from the currently accepted ones. To this fact especially is due the difficulty experienced by Catholics in deciding with any degree of certitude whether, or how far, the Hegelian Dialectic — and the same in its measure is true of Kant's critical philoso- phy also — may be compatible with the profession of the Catholic Faith. That these philosophies have proved dangerous, and have troubled the minds of many, was only to be expected from the novelty of their view-points and the strangeness of their methods of exposition. Whether, in the minds of their leading exponents, they contained much, or little, or anything incompatible with Theism and Christianity, it would be as difficult as it would be perhaps idle to attempt to decide. Be that as it may, the attitude of the

Catholic Church towards philosophies that are new and strange in their methods and terminology must needs be an attitude of alertness and vigilance. Con- scious of the meaning traditionally attached by her children to the terms in which she has always ex- pounded those ultimate philosophico-religious truths that lie partly along and partly beyond the confines of natural human knowledge, and realizing the danger of their being led astray by novel systems of thought expressed in ambiguous language, she has ever wisely warned them to " beware lest any man cheat [them] by philosophy, and vain deceit" (Coloss., ii, 8).

For the use of dialectic in the early Christian and medieval schools, see Arts, The Seven Liber.\l.

A. Stockl, tr. FiNL.\Y, History of Philosophy (Dublin, 1907); ToRNER, History of Philosophy (Boston, 1903); De WuLF, tr. Coffey. Scholasticism Old and New (Dublin, London, and New York, 1907); Id., Histoire de la philosophic medievale (Louvain, 1907).

B. ScHWEOLEB. tr. Sterling, History of Philosophy (Edin- burgh, 1871); Sterling, The Secret of Hegel (Edinburgh, 1S71); MacTaggart, Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic (Gam- bridge, 1896); Wallace, The Logic of Hegel and Hegel's Philos- ophy of Mind (Oxford, 1894); Cairo, Critical Philosophy of Kant (London. 1899); Max Muller's and Mah.vfft's transla- tions of Kant's works (London, 1881, 1889).

P. Coffey.

Diamantina, Diocese of (Ad.\mantin.\), in the north of the State of Minas Geraes, Brazil, Soutii America, created under the Brazilian Empire, 10 Aug., 1853, and confirmed by the Holy See, 6 June, 1854. This territory was part of the ancient Diocese of Marianna (now the Archdiocese of Minas Geraes), which had four suffragans: Marianna, Diamantina, Pouso Alegre and Uberaba, in the centre, north, south and far west of the State of Minas Geraes. The present territory comprises twenty municipalities or town- ships di\'ided in 106 parishes and 173 districts (an area of 33,708 square miles or half the territory of the State of Minas). According to the last official census (31 Dec., 1900) the population of the Diocese of Diaman- tina was 829,018. There are about 200 churches in as many villages and towns; and 100 priests, belong- ing to the regular and parochial clergy of the diocese. A seminary and diocesan college (recognized by a de- cree of the Feileral Government, and modeled on the National Gymnasium of Rio de Janeiro) are directed by the Lazarists, and a college for girls, also in Dia- mantina, and directed by religious, are the principal educational institutions of the diocese. Premon- stratensian missionaries in Montes Claros, and Fran- ciscans in Theophilo Ottoni and Itambacurj', are en- gaged in Christianizing the Indian tribes of Botocudos. About 7,000 have been converted along the Mucury River, and in the mountains of Aimores and forests of Itambacury. In addition to these there are Dutch Redemptorists in Cur^-ello and a few (Spanish and Italian) priests.

Charity hospitals (Diamantina, 2, Curvelho, 1, Montes C"laros, 1, Serro, 1, Concei9ao, 1) are attended by the Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, and of Our Lady of Providence. Catholic leagues, charitable societies and confraternities are organized in the parishes ; and there is an inst itution at Serro for invalid or poor priests. There were formerly two missions, in Poaya (forests of Urupuca River anil Suassuhy-Grande') and in Figueir.a (Dom Manoel Harbour), and Indian oWcnmaitos which prospered under the apostolical zeal of Italian Fran- ciscan missionaries.

Since its erection the Diocese of Diamantina has had three bishops. The first was the Right Rev. Marcos Cardoso de Paiva (a native of Rio de .laneiro). His successor was the Right Rev. Joao .\ntonio dos Santos who died in Diamantina, 17 May, 1905, after an epis- copacy of forty-one years. Born in the village of Rio Preto, 1S19, he serveil as professor of philosophy in the seminary of Marianna before his appointment as Bishop of Diamantina, 2 May, 1864. During the last years of his episcopacy, the Holy Sec named