Now,
while in matter the form and the attribute are inherent in and
contemporary with substance, in liberty the form is given by
three external agents, as it were,--the human essence, the laws
of thought, exercise or education. GRACE, in fine, like its
opposite, TEMPTATION, indicates precisely the fact of the
determination of liberty.
To sum up, all modern ideas regarding the education of humanity
are only an interpretation, a philosophy of the Catholic doctrine
of grace, a doctrine which seemed obscure to its authors only
because of their ideas upon free will, which they supposed to be
threatened as soon as grace or the source of its determinations
was spoken of. We affirm, on the contrary, that liberty,
indifferent in itself to all modality, but destined to act and to
take shape according to a preestablished order, receives its
first impulse from the Creator who inspires it with love,
intelligence, courage, resolution, and all the gifts of the Holy
Spirit, and then delivers it to the labor of experience.
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