MERCIER, DÉSIRÉ JOSEPH

Founder and first president of the Institut Supérieur de Philosophie at Louvain (Belgium), cardinal archbishop of Malines; b. Braine-l'Alleud (near Waterloo), Nov. 21, 1851; d. Brussels, Jan. 23, 1926. He was the son of Paul (1808–58), manufacturer and artist, and of A. M. Barbe Croquet (1815–82), sister of Msgr. Adrian Croquet (d. 1902), apostle of the Oregon native tribe. After his studies in the classics, philosophy, and theology at the seminary of Malines, Mercier was ordained (1874), obtained a licentiate in theology at Louvain (1877), and became professor of philosophy at Malines the same year. In 1882 he was commissioned to inaugurate the chair of Thomistic philosophy created at the University of Louvain at the request of Pope Leo XIII. Mercier endeavored to realize the program formulated in the 1879 encyclical aeterni patris : to restore the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, harmonize it with the progress of modern science and thought, and extend its influence to the scientific and social disciplines. On the basis of his initial successes, he asked for, and received, the support of the pope for the creation of an Institut Supérieur de Philosophie that would provide a complete education in the various philosophical areas. When named president of this institute in 1889, Mercier gathered collaborators from among his first students and with their assistance formed an international group of enthusiastic and devoted disciples. The Revue Néo Scolastique, founded in 1894, made the writings of the institute available throughout the scholarly world.

Philosophy. Mercier's views concerning philosophy differed greatly from those of most of his Catholic contemporaries. For him philosophy was a purely rational discipline distinct from theology; not only this, but it had to be free from every apologetical preoccupation. Furthermore, philosophy cannot be considered a finished work. It must be animated with the spirit of research found in other university disciplines. Without breaking with tradition, philosophy must address itself to men in their own times. It must stay in contact with the empirical sciences and gain support from them, while yet aspiring to explanations that transcend the order of observable data.

This view of philosophy explains why Mercier appealed to experience when treating the transcendental character of truth and goodness, finality, and other themes. It is also apparent in his view of psychology, Mercier's favorite discipline. Fighting the "exaggerated spiritualism" and the mechanism that flowed, according to him, from Cartesian dualism, Mercier appealed to biology, physiology, and neurology to show the substantial unity of man and to elaborate the hylomorphic explanation of this unity. In 1892 he installed at the institute one of the first laboratories of experimental psychology, under the direction of A. Thiéry (1868–1955). In the same way he encouraged D. Nys (1859–1927) to unite cosmology with physics and chemistry and S. Deploige (1868–1927) to link ethics with the social sciences.

Mercier recognized the critical problem as one of furnishing a criterion for truth and certitude. This criterion, he believed, must be furnished in and by reflection. Since the latter is characteristic of intelligence, the criterion must be the evidence arrived at in the domain of abstract ideas. Yet he made appeal to the principle of causality to explain that the content of these ideas comes from experience and to guarantee thereby the real character of the evidence. This "illationism," later abandoned at Louvain because of the influence of L. Noël, had the merit of stimulating a fruitful controversy.

Episcopacy. On Feb. 7, 1906, Mercier was named archbishop of Malines. He administered this diocese of2.5 million inhabitants with continual solicitude for every type of Catholic activity and deep concern for the spiritual development of his priests. As primate of Belgium he convoked a Catholic congress in 1909 to coordinate religious activity in the whole of Belgium. At the 1920 provincial council, he examined the rehabilitation necessary in the aftermath of the war. If at first he was actively engaged in the political life of the country—where a powerful Catholic party seemed to him the best guarantee of Church liberty and the surest defense against a de-Christianizing Marxism—his concern after the war centered more on national understanding and specifically religious action. Lacking somewhat in political adaptability, Mercier was led to identify "la patrie" unconditionally with a unitary Belgium. This deficiency, coupled with his native attachment to French culture, explains his lack of understanding in the face of Flemish grievances. During the war he was convinced that his duty was to build and sustain the morale of his countrymen, to protest against the excesses of the German troops, and to cry against the injustices of the occupying government. This attitude won for him enormous prestige in his own country and among the Allied nations, as witnessed by the enthusiastic welcome accorded him in the United States in 1919.

When created a cardinal in 1907, Mercier took a lively interest in problems of the universal Church. Resuming after the war the work undertaken by the Fribourg Union, he created the International Union of Social Studies and presided over its work; this led, among other things, to the publication in 1927 of a social code. He was preoccupied also with Church union, and he installed in Belgium the Institute of the Monks of Union (Chevetogne) to further reconciliation with the churches of the Orient. Most importantly perhaps, he presided over the Malines Conversations (1921–25); at the initiative of Lord Halifax, these studied the conditions for union between Catholics and Anglicans.

See also: scholasticism; neoscholasticism and neothomism.

Bibliography: Works. Logique, v. 1; Métaphysique générale, ou Ontologie, v. 2; Psychologie, v. 3; Critériologie générale, ou théorie générale de la certitude, v. 4, all 4 v. are in Cours de philosophie (Louvain 1892–99); Les Origines de la psychologie contemporaine (Louvain 1897); Oeuvres pastorales, 7 v. (Louvain 1911–29); La Correspondance de S. É. le cardinal Mercier avec le gouvernement général allemand pendant l'occupation, 1914–1918, ed. f. mayence (Paris 1919). d. j. mercier et al., Traité élémentaire de philosophie à l'usage des classes, 2 v. (Louvain 1906). Literature. j. a. gade, The Life of Cardinal Mercier (London 1935). j. j. harnett, "Désiré Joseph Mercier and the Neoscholastic Revival," The New Scholasticism 18 (1944): 303–339. l. de raeymaeker, Le Cardinal Mercier et l'Institut Supérieur de Philosophie de Louvain (Louvain 1952). a. simon, Le Cardinal Mercier (Brussels 1960); Position philosophique du cardinal Mercier: Esquisse psychologique (Brussels 1962).

[a. l. wylleman]