loved, and it shall come upon him; and he would not have a blessing,
and it shall be far from him. He put on the curse like a garment, and
it has gone in like water into his entrails, and like oil into his
bones,--like a garment which covereth him, and like a girdle wherewith
he is girded continually." (Psalm cviii. 18, 19.)

8. Conversely, we might argue the final happiness which attaches to
the observance of the law of nature. (c. ii., s. v., p. 26.)

_Readings._--St. Thos., _Cont. Gent._, iii., cc. 140, 141, 143, 145.


SECTION II.--_Of the Finality of the aforesaid Sanction_.


1. By a _final_, as distinguished from an _eternal_ state, is here
meant the last state of existence in a creature, whether that state go
on for ever, in which case it is _final_ and _eternal_, or whether it
terminate in the cessation of that creature's being, which is a case
of a state _final_, but not _eternal_. Whether the unhappy souls of
men, who have incurred the last sentence of the natural law, shall
exist for eternity, is not a question for philosophy to decide with
certainty. The philosopher rules everything _a priori_, showing what
must be, if something else is. Of the action of God in the world, he
can only foretell that amount which is thus hypothetically necessary.
Some divine action there is, of which the _congruity_ only, not the
_necessity_, is apparent to human eyes: there the philosopher can tell
with _probability_, but not with _certainty_, what God will do. Other
actions of God are wholly beyond our estimate of the reasons of them:
we call them simply and entirely free. In that sphere philosophy has