We may observe these qualities, and account to ourselves for them; but in regard to the substance of the soul, as it is not directly perceived, it is not easy to say what it is; it is not easy, for example, to demonstrate that it is immortal, for it cannot even be demonstrated that it is immaterial. It cannot be demonstrated what is the substratum, the agent that resides under those qualities which we know; it is perhaps a natural and material agent. Here faith alone is allowable.* Is not this theory, borrowed from Duns Scotus, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries already the celebrated theory of Locke? Nothing is more false than all this reasoning. In short, if there is no substance without attributes, then, an attribute of a certain character being given, a substance of a nature opposed to the character of this attribute is inevitably excluded; thought being given as a fundamental attribute, a material substance is thereby excluded from thought. I insist upon this, because it would not be impossible that, under a false appearance of method and circumspection, modern philosophy, which is not very far from nominalism, might pretend also that the question of substances, and consequently that of the material or immaterial principle of the phenomena of thought, is without importance, and that the observation of phenomena is that only which is important. Yes, doubtless the observation of intellectual phenomena is important; but it is that precisely, which giving us phenomena of a certain character, imposes upon us a substance of an analogous nature. Another theory of Scot and of Occam, less seductive, and which * Duns Scot, lib. ii., quæst. 1, num. 3. "Cæterum via naturali demonstrari nequit quod anima humana sit immortalis; quippe cum demonstrari nequit quod ipsa non subsit alicui agenti naturali, quantum adesse vel non esse."-Occam, Quodlibeta, i., q. 10. "Quod illa forma sit immaterialis, incorruptibilis ac indivisibilis non potest demonstrari, nec per experientiam sciri. Experimur enim quod intelligimus et volumus et nolumus, et similes actus in nobis habemus; sed quod illa sint e forma immateriali et incorruptibili non experimur, et omnis ratio ad hujus probationem assumpta assumit aliquod dubium.” See the following volume, Lect. 25, and 1st Series, Vol. 3, Lect. 1, p. 66. 1st Series, Vol. 4, Lect. 12, p. 55-59; Lect. 20, p. 391; Lect. 21, p. 448. nevertheless finds, at the present time, numerous partisans, and is attached to the general spirit of nominalism, is the theory which makes morality rest not on the nature of God, which would be very true, but on his will,* which, at the same time, destroys morality and God himself in his most holy attributes. All that I have just told you shows plainly enough that there was more or less sensualism in the school of Occam, and this is what I desired to accomplish. Certainly it is not that defined and consistent sensualism, such as we have seen in the independent schools of Greece; but it is, in fact, sensualism such as might have been expected at the close of scholasticism, under the reign of Christianity, under the influence of an authority already contested, but not yet shaken. Hence a school whose common character is disdain of the method and entities of scholasticism, and the taste for analysis and the physical sciences. Do not imagine that the old schools could have slept whilst the spirit of independence was everywhere aroused under the auspices of Occam. The Thomists and many of the Scotists, united, in so far as they were realists, against the new nominalism, made a long war upon it. In the school of realism, we must cite principally with Henry de Gand, doctor solemnis, who also belongs to the thirteenth century, Walter Burleigh, doctor planus et perspicuus, author of the first history of philosophy * Occ., Sentent. "Ea est boni et mali moralis natura, ut, cum a liberrima Dei voluntate sancita sit et definita, ab eadem facile possit emoveri et refigi: adeo ut mutata ea voluntate, quod sanctum et justum est possit evadere injustum." + Professor in Paris, died in 1293, author of a Somme de Théologie and Questions Quodlibetiques. He, with Saint Augustine, called ideas principal forms, principales quædam forma, eternal reasons, rationes æternæ, contained in the divine intelligence and which are the model of the creature. Quodl., vii. q. 1. He pretended that man can discover truth only in the pure light of these ideas which is the divine essence, in pura luce idærum quæ est divina essentia, Somm. theol., art. 1, q. 3. Flourished about 1337, professor in Paris and Oxford, author of Commentaries on Aristotle, Porphyry, etc. His historical compilation is entitled: De vitis et moribus Philosophorum; it begins with Thales and closes with Seneca. Nurnberg, 1477, in-fol. Often reprinted. written in the middle age; Thomas of Bradwardin, a mathematician and at his death Archbishop of Canterbury;* Thomas of Strasburg, prior general of the order of the Hermits of Saint Augustine; Marsile of Inghen, called Ingenuus, founder of the University of Heidelberg. They attacked the doctrine of Occam as theologians and as philosophers. As theologians they accused Occam of Pelagianism. Among their philosophical arguments I will choose the three following: 1st, It is so true that there are genera, entirely distinct from the individuals, to which it is sought to reduce them, that nature, to which the nominalists incessantly appeal, sports with forms and preserves the genera. Every genus represents a real unity. And that again is the principle of a great school of naturalists of our age, which is founded on the unity of composition of each genus, and explains by circumstances the differences of individuals, instead of making genera of simple abstractions, all the reality of which is in the individuals, whether different or similar; 2d, human laws, like nature, neglect individuals and are occupied only with genera; human laws, then, recognize that there are not only resemblances in the human species, but an identical basis; 3d, we seek happiness in the different goods of this world; but all are relative, all variable, all insufficient; and we cannot do otherwise than elevate ourselves from these particular goods to a general good, which is not the union of all particular goods, but which is superior to them all, which is better than all, and which for us is the sovereign good, the unity itself of good. Our desires transcend the particular and the variable; then the absolute and the general exist. All these arguments found answers more or less forcible in the school of nominalism.§ I content myself with remarking that this * In 1439. His principal work is a treatise de causa Dei Contra Pelagium, de virtute causarum et de virtute causæ causarum. Lundini, 1618, in-fol. + Died in 1857. Author of a Commentary on the Master of Sentences. Died in 1894. The following are the names of the most celebrated nominalists: Durand de Saint Pourçain, born in Auvergne, bishop of Meaux, died in 1338, Doctor resolutissimus. controversy represents very well the struggle of empiricism and idealism. It was sustained on both sides with much talent and skill, and both parties enlisted very commendable names; it continued nearly a century. Nothing else than skepticism could have sprung from it. But what skepticism could there be in the middle age ? The human mind had not yet arrived at that degree of independence which enabled it to question the basis itself, that is, theology; skepticism could then fall only on the form, that is, on scholastic philosophy, and it completely destroyed it. Hence the great decrial of scholasticism among all the good spirits of the fifteenth century, and hence still the formation of a new system, of that system which we have hitherto seen issuing, after skepticism, from the struggle between sensualism and idealism, I mean mysticism. Doubtless in the middle age and under the reign of Christian theology, mysticism was very natural to the human mind. It had always existed from John Scot until the fourteenth century. Thus in the twelfth century Saint Bernard,* Hugues, and Richardt de Saint Victor inclined to mysticism; in the thirteenth century Saint Bonaventura gave to it a character more systematic. But it was in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, after Jean Buridan, de Bethune, professor in Paris; he perfected logic; a great partisan of the free will; died in 1358. Robert Holcot, general of the order of the Augustins, died in 1849. Henry of Hesse, a mathematician and astronomer, died in 1897. Pierre d'Ailly, Chancellor of the University of Paris, a Cardinal, died in 1425. Gabriel Biel, a pupil of Occam, a professor at Tubingen, died in 1495. Raymond de Sébunde, professor at Toulouse, in 1436. In his opinion there are two books wherefrom man draws his knowledge, Nature and Revelation. See Montaigne, who translated the Theologia Naturalis sive Liber creaturarum of Raymond, and gives its apology in his Essays, Book ii. Chap. xii. The Theologia Naturalis was printed in 1502, at Nuremberg, in-fol., and very often reprinted. * Opp., éd. Mabillon, 2 vol. in-fol. Paris, 1690. + Opp., 3 vol. in-fol., Rothomagi, 1648. Opp., 1 vol. in-fol., Rothomagi, 1650. the warm debates of nominalism and of realism, that mysticism, separating itself from all other systems, acquired consciousness of itself, was called by its own name, and exposed its own theory. The most remarkable men of this epoch were almost all mystics, like the Dominican John Tauler, a preacher at Cologne and Strasburg,* and Petrarch, who, at the close of his life, abandoned profane studies in order to devote himself to contemplative philosophy. The last four works of Petrarch are: 1st, de Contemptu Mundi, the Contempt of the World; 2d, Secretum, sive de Conflictu curarum, the Secret, or the Combat carried on in the Soul by the cares engendered by human things; 3d, de Remediis utriusque fortuna, Remedies against Good and Bad Fortune; 4th, finally, de Vita Solitaria et de Otio religiosorum, On Solitary Life and Religious Repose. Then also appeared the celebrated book of the Imitation of Jesus Christ; whether it may belong to Thomas A-Kempis, or our own illustrious Gerson, it may be said to be the natural fruit and perfect image of those unhappy times when man, overwhelmed with the weight of present existence, anticipated the hour of deliverance by hoping in death and in God. This sad and sublime book then formed the constant reading of the religious, as may be seen by the great number of copies which are found in the convents of Germany, of Italy, and of France. I have mentioned the name of Gerson; he is the interpreter, the true representative of the mysticism of this epoch. Gerson, doctor Christianissimus, was a pupil of the celebrated Pierre d'Ailly, an ardent nominalist; he succeeded him as Chancellor of the University of Paris. He had all the science of his times; * Born at Strasburg in 1861. His works, in German, have been published at Francfort, by Spener, 1680-1692, and a Latin translation appeared at Colog., 1615. The Divine Institutions have been often reprinted at Paris. + Born at Arezzo, in 1804, died at Padua in 1874. Opp., Basil., 1554, 2 vol. in-4. Born in the district of Rheims in 1863, died in 1429. Opp., Paris, 1706, 5 vol. in-fol., an edition due to the care of Ellies Dupin, who added to it dissertations on the life and works of Gerson. |