DISSERTATION.
In contradiction to that most grave and deplorable error by which many unbelievers of our own day, more than those of an earlier period, love to confound religion with philosophy, we firmly hold the principle which was efficaciously and unanimously sustained by the ancient sages, pagan as well as Christian, that religion is the chief end to which philosophy is directed. If this were not so, we should never have seen what forms one of the chief glories of the holy church. I mean, that the eagle of all human philosophy, the incomparable Augustine, claims the first and most glorious place among the renowned and venerable company of the holy fathers; I mean, that to the holy fathers generally belongs the merit of having initiated the whole Christian world into a philosophy much more severe, more legitimate, and more conclusive than that which was previously a most rare privilege, one, also, more or less temporary and successive, of Cortona, of Elea, of Athens, of Alexandria, and of some other cities; so that not a few of these fathers have left us, in their works, an immense harvest for the benefit of philosophy, partly the fruit of their own genius and thought on various topics, partly in the form of precious monuments of that admirable wisdom of more ancient times which was itself, as it existed among the heathen, not altogether free from the influence of the true religion, and therefore descended by a just title of inheritance to Christianity. And if philosophy revived and arose from its ashes two centuries, at least, before our language and literature, as this preceded by several hundred years those of foreign nations, to whom does the praise more justly belong than to the renowned Benedictine of Aosta, a man whose genius and metaphysical power equalled his sanctity? If, besides, the philosophy of Aristotle was exhibited to the world in a Christian form—that is, purified, completed, rigorous, true, irrefutable, as Augustine and the other fathers had done to the Platonic wisdom—to whom belongs the merit but to a seraphic cardinal and an angelical Dominican? Perhaps the modern depreciators of scholasticism, the chief enemies of the Catholic clergy, the persecutors of religious orders, have on their side philosophers worthy to be compared with an Anselm, a Bonaventure, a Thomas? Whoever has received from God the grace of appertaining to the Catholic Church can easily see, with his own eyes, if he is not altogether a faster in science, how many and great services the true religion renders to philosophy; by simply opening at random any one of the sacred and precious volumes, either of the illustrious ancient fathers or of the venerable princes of the schools. But those of us who are honored by the privilege of representing in the chairs of instruction, or cultivating and illustrating in books the Catholic philosophy, have far greater reason to know and esteem the masterpieces of the doctors and the fathers. Such can see, by contrast with these, that what is called the modern philosophy, although sustained and kept on foot, here and there, by some authors of unusual and vast speculative ability, nevertheless never satisfies in the least any one who attempts to revive it, always lacking a valid direction, always liable to sudden changes and vacillations—a sure sign of internal contradiction—agitated, discomposed, tormented by all the follies of the most mediocre and turbulent intellects. Such persons as these, not observing that logic (permit me here to use the language of St. Augustine) is properly the intellectual judgment of entire humanity, that it cannot be made anew, as it cannot either be unmade, but only obtained by inheritance and amplified and extended by felicitous discoveries; not considering, I say, any of these things, they believe that out of the present age there ought to issue a new and magnificent rational philosophy; just as there certainly has issued a new and stupendous literature, a geometry totally renovated and enlarged to most gigantic proportions, and a system of physics in great part constructed anew, corrected by experiments and elucidated by better hypotheses. But I pray and hope that the time of undeceiving has arrived, and that the Catholic masters (the others will turn back when this happens) will apply themselves in earnest to pick up again the thread of perfect and classical tradition in science. This I come to-day to recommend; and I have confidence that I can better persuade men to undertake it by example, and, as it were, by means of something actually done, if you, with your accustomed benignity, will deign to bear with my proposition, and to give it the support and weight of your authority.
I invoke the authority of this respectable assembly for an end I have greatly at heart, and which seems to me of supreme importance both to scientific advancement and religious edification; that is, to obtain that our philosophers, divided, not by their own fault but by that of our ancestors of the last century, into ontologists and psychologists, should once for all give their attention and open their eyes to the history too long belied and alone worthy of consideration—the history, I say, ever new, brilliant, and unsurpassable, of our own philosophy; and instead of consuming all their strength in a war among our excellent doctors—which it is high time to break off—should apply themselves rather to lay a new grasp on the ancient wisdom of Catholicism with one hand, and with the other to repulse and discomfit the audacious and execrable crowd of modern errors. Assuredly, when the doctrine as well of the fathers relatively to the Platonic system, as of the greater schoolmen to the metaphysics of Aristotle, shall have been first placed in a better light and looked at in its multiform aspects by means of various and judicious investigations, it will be made universally manifest that the Platonism and Aristotelianism of the heathen were not in any wise identical with the ontologism and psychologism of the Catholic masters; that the war between the Academics and Peripatetics was annihilated and put aside by the rigor and integrity of Catholic thought; that, in fine, the Plato of the holy fathers does not disdain the psychologism of St. Thomas, and that the Aristotle of the chief schoolmen does not reject the ontologism of St. Augustine. Since this may appear to some as a thing which is more specious in assertion than capable of solid proof, I will draw out that exemplification of it which I have promised, and will come to facts; setting forth certain brief considerations in relation to ideology—that is to say, in relation to the most controverted theme and the most grave and obstinate question of the modern schools in rational philosophy, especially among Catholics. I will describe and mark out, first, from original testimonies, the Augustinian conception, or, indeed, the genesis of his ideology; in the second place, I will search into the modern origin of the division between the ideology of the Catholic ontologists and that of the psychologists equally Catholic; finally, I will make evident how the reconciliation of the children with the father and of the modern scission with the ancient unity, suffices to consolidate the hope of a peace which all desire, and which, by combining the forces of our best minds, may render Catholic philosophy more harmoniously operative against the better united forces of the modern enemies of truth.
A man who in his whole life had done nothing except to write the twenty-two books of The City of God ought justly to be esteemed the first and most admirable philosopher on the earth. Never was it better known or more loudly proclaimed than in our day, that the philosophy of history carries off the palm on the field of human speculations. In recommending, therefore, the philosophical excellence of St. Augustine, we can prove the justice of our opinion by this one argument, which is by itself sufficient. Let us compare whatever modern writers have been able to do in this class of books with The City of God; if no work of modern times, can be found either so original, so extensive, so erudite, or so profound as The City of God, written fourteen centuries ago, we must necessarily agree that a return to this centre of Catholic wisdom is the only method of giving impetus and improvement to philosophical speculations. But we will not now extend our search so far as this. I will confine myself to the eighth book, which includes a notice and an appreciation of the different systems of the entire pagan philosophy, and forms an introduction to that long and sublime parallel between natural reason and revelation, carried on throughout the succeeding books in a manner equally novel and splendid, with a view to the illustration of the whole field of Catholic theology by the highest efforts of human wisdom and the best sentiments of the pagans themselves. The most vital part of the preliminary views, introducing the subject of the eighth and succeeding books, is as follows:
There are two points, he says, which must be firmly held: that Catholics ought not to deny that which is good in the philosophy of the pagans; and that, on the other hand, they are bound to reject and refute all the falsehood contained in it. The first is proved by that which the apostle says. What is known of God is manifest in them; for God has manifested it to them. For the invisible things of him are beheld from the constitution of the world, being understood by means of those things which are made, even his eternal power and divinity. Moreover, at the Areopagus, when he affirmed that in him we live and move and are, he added, as some also of your own poets have said. The second is proved by another text. Beware lest any one deceive you by philosophy and vain seduction according to the elements of the world.[112]
This being laid down, the duty of Catholic philosophers is that already touched upon—the separation of the good gold in pagan philosophy from the counterfeit; and as all the philosophy is divided into three parts, natural, rational, and moral, "we shall hold," continues St. Augustine, "that natural philosophy for false which does not place God as the only principle and true creator of all other natures; we shall hold as false that rational philosophy which does not maintain that God alone is the intelligible reason of all minds; we shall repute as false that moral which does not prove that God alone is that good which is worthy to be the end of a virtuous and perfect course of life." Now, the great multitude of pagan philosophers was far distant from any recognition or profession of the three heads we have given; scarcely was there a small number of privileged persons among the disciples, I hardly know whether to say in preference of Plato or of Pythagoras, who made any near approach to Catholic truth, aided, in all probability, by some knowledge of Jewish traditions.
"No one having even a slight knowledge of these things is ignorant that there are those philosophers called Platonists, from their master, Plato."(1) "Perhaps those who enjoy the greatest celebrity as having the most clearly understood, and the most closely followed Plato, who is with justice esteemed to be far superior to the other philosophers of the Gentiles, hold a similar opinion concerning God, namely, that in him is found the cause of subsistence, and the reason of intelligence, and the regulating principle of life."(2) "If, therefore, Plato has said that the wise man is one who is an imitator, a knower, and a lover of the one true and supremely good God, by a participation with whom he is blessed, what need is there of discussing the rest?"(3) "This is, therefore, the reason why we prefer these to the others; because while other philosophers have employed their talents and efforts in searching out the causes of things, and what is the method of learning and living, these, having the knowledge of God, have found where is the cause of the constitution of the universe, and the light of perceptible truth, and the fountain whence we may drink felicity."(4) "All those philosophers who have held these opinions concerning the true and supreme God, that he is the framer of those things which are created, and the light of those things which are knowable, and the good of those things which ought to be done, whether they are more properly called Platonists, Ionics, or Italics, on account of Pythagoras, we prefer to the others, and regard them as nearer to ourselves."(5)[113]
It is very necessary, he says, to exclude all merely verbal questions, since it is of things not words that he is treating. I wish to demonstrate that the philosophy of the pagans, when it is good and true, accords wonderfully with Catholic truth, and gives rise naturally to Catholic philosophy—that is to say, the principal and most excellent philosophy of mankind; similarly, I wish to demonstrate that, in so far as the pagan philosophy is in discordance and repugnance to Catholic truth, it is false, corrupt, and in need of better and more rational emendations.
No one, certainly, will exact of me that I make a minute examination of the innumerable and varying systems or opinions of pagan antiquity; it is enough that I prove my proposition by confining myself to the best philosophy of all paganism. If I make good my assertion respecting the best system of doctrine which ever appeared in Gentile philosophy, it will be evident enough that the same assertion holds even more strongly in reference to other systems, more or less inferior to this one. But this is certain, that gentilism had no philosophy worthy to be compared, much less preferred, to the doctrine of those authors who acknowledged, and, in the best manner of which they were capable, proclaimed the existence of one only supreme and true God, "from whom we derive the principle of our nature, the truth of our knowledge, and the happiness of our life."[114] I turn, therefore, to these authors with the purpose of examining what is good and what is bad in them; "but I find it more suitable to discuss this subject with the Platonists, because their writings are better known; for not only the Greeks, whose language is preëminent among the nations, have made them celebrated by greatly extolling their excellence; but the Latins also, moved by their excellence or their renown, have studied them with greater ardor than any others, and by translating them into our language have made them still more famous and renowned."[115]
From all this, not a few consequences, whose value you above all others are able to judge and appreciate, are immediately deduced with a clearness greater even than we could desire. The first is, that the noblest and greatest problem of modern philosophy, to wit, that the protological and encyclopædic principle cannot be placed elsewhere than in the principle of creation, understood in conformity with the tradition of the Catholic Church; this principle, I say, was stated and solved amply, doubly, irrefutably, by St. Augustine; first, in his Soliloquies, where one by one the partial principles of all the sciences are recovered; secondly, in this eighth book of The City of God, where the one only rule is laid hold of and exhibited by which to distinguish the only true system among various and opposite philosophical systems. The second consequence is, that those persons must cover their eyes with both hands who will not see and admit that St. Augustine preferred the Platonic doctrine, and specifically preferred the Platonic or Pythagorean ideology, in the clearest terms in which it was possible for him to express his meaning. The third is, that St. Augustine not only derived his ideology from the very principle of creation, in the way of an inference more or less remote; but held it, rather, as an integral part of the principle itself, and made of it a second cycle, one lying between the first, which respects the origin of substances, and the third, which assigns the good of operations. The final consequence is, that this second cycle, relating to rational intelligence, has been passed over by the moderns; which may serve as a useful admonition to them, to convince them thoroughly that no one can take St. Augustine's place in philosophy; that modern philosophy, with all its power, lags very far behind the Augustinian speculations, and that if all other books are understood and studied to the neglect of St. Augustine, this will turn not to his disadvantage but to ours. Thus we see, by a most striking example, that he alone not only saved, by the principle of creation, physics and ethics; but moreover, by that middle cycle, which is as it were central to the other two, saved rational philosophy, without which the other two result less necessarily, and, so to speak, revert back to nullity.
The first of the consequences above enumerated was noted by me in this place many years ago; and has been better exhibited for the benefit of science by the illustrious F. Milone in his book entitled, La Scuola di Filosofia Razionale Intitolata a S. Augustino; wherefore I will abstain from considering it any further at present. I will restrict myself on this occasion to taking advantage of the other consequences which follow to a marvel from the ideology, but especially from the genesis of the ideology of St. Augustine. Indeed we have a great number of authors, beginning with the most exalted of all, that is, the seraphic and angelic doctors, and terminating with writers who are still living in Italy, France, and Belgium, who have collected from the Augustinian writings a most extensive list of disputed questions concerning ideology and human knowledge; but, above all, we have two more remarkable collections in the works of those two fathers of the Oratory of France, who are equal to any in learning and merit—Thomassin and Martin.[116] That which may perhaps have something new and original in it, in our own investigation, is the more exact indication of the primitive fountain and source whence these large streams take their issue; that source, namely, from which St. Augustine derived the logical moment of that ideology which he bases, constructs, and amplifies with such great strength; which was the concept, original with him, of that most vast and sublime theory of human cognitions formed by him alone. It appears to me that I have made it clear to all, from those things which have been laid down and the testimonies adduced, that St. Augustine concentrates and hinges the three branches of the natural encyclopædia in one sole principle unfolded in three members: the principle being that of creation; the three members being physics, logic, and ethics; which are respectively the sole cause of existence, the sole light of knowledge, the sole end of virtue. From this every one can see and touch with the hand that St. Augustine found his ideology in the principle of creation, regarded it as a part of the principle of creation, distinguished it from the two extreme cycles, and from the two opposite members of the principle of creation. If any one had denied the ideology of St. Augustine in his time, St. Augustine would have been bound to say that such a person denied the principle of creation; if some one else had vaunted a contrary system of ideology, he would have been bound to judge that system to be contrary to the principle of creation; if any one had demanded from St. Augustine the substantial formula of his ideology, the origin of that ideology, or the proofs of the stability, security, and irrefutable validity of that ideology, he would always have been obliged to answer by appealing to the universal principle established by reason and the Catholic faith, that is, to the principle of creation. Therefore the genesis of the Augustinian ideology, if it had not been already traced out or properly considered before to-day, would be now as clear and certain as the light, and with the eighth book of The City of God, we might predict that it would be immortal.
In scientific themes a twofold labor must be undergone; on the one hand, in ascertaining, and in elucidating on the other, the matters to be treated of; and the one who must apply himself rigorously to one part of this is rarely able at the same time to attend to the other. This is the case with myself; for, having been obliged to point out the seat and position of the Augustinian ideology in that encyclopædic principle which I have above defined, I could not bring forward the second cycle except as implicated and restricted by the other two, the first and third. I am glad to be able now to supply, at least partially, this defect, by alleging one quite peculiar testimony, which, fortunately, leaves in the background the two cycles with which we are not concerned, and brings forward with admirable distinctness the one which specially concerns us in ideology.
"Now, those authors whom we with justice prefer to all others," (says St. Augustine, speaking of the Platonists, Pythagoreans, and others of the best stamp,) "have distinguished those things which are perceived by the mind from those which are attained by the sense; not taking from the senses those things for which they have a capacity, or granting to them what is beyond their capacity. But the light of minds by which all things are learned [see here clearly the second cycle] they affirmed to be God himself, by whom all things were made."
Lumen autem mentium esse dixerunt ad discenda omnia eumdem ipsum Deum a quo facta sunt omnia.[117] The principle of creation, then, in so far regards our rational intelligence as it places on the one hand the sensible perception we have of it, and on the other the intelligence which we have in addition as our great prerogative. Rational cognition comes from the conjunction of intellect with sensibility; and therefore the greater part of the ancient philosophers, grossly taking our cognition for an act tied to a mere sensible perception, and badly mixing up sense with intellect and the sensible with the intelligible, knew little or nothing of the contra-position of the one to the other. Some of them, giving every thing to the sensible, fell into Epicureanism, into materialism, into atheism, denying God, and thus the principle of creation; others, paying attention only to the intelligible, rushed into fatalism and pantheism, denying created substances, and thus again the principle of creation. These are the philosophers whom we Catholics cannot prefer to the others; whom St. Augustine says, non prodest excutere, it is lost time to discuss them. But those, on the contrary, quos merito ceteris anteponimus, began from a fundamental distinction between the intelligible and the sensible, and therefore also between the intelligence and the sensibility; discreverunt ea quæ mente conspiciuntur ab eis quæ sensibus attinguntur; nor did they take away from the senses their proper office and necessary value in the act of defending as their principal aim the intelligence, which is so true that they regarded rational cognition as a sort of marriage, and a true coöperation, of the mind with the senses. If, then, concludes the most glorious father of Catholic philosophy, the best sages of antiquity, and we with them admit and give value to the sensibility, that is necessary in order to maintain the principle of creation, since otherwise all the substances created by God, which are sensible natures, disappear. Likewise if the same sages, and we as much as or even more than they, admit and defend intelligence, this is of equal if not greater necessity, in order to keep the same principle of creation. In fact, with the sensibility alone, non est discere, we can learn nothing, as the brutes, certo nusquam discunt certainly never learn any thing; but only minds endowed with intelligence, who have as a light ad discenda omnia, eumdem ipsum Deum a quo facta sunt omnia—as a light for learning all things, that same God himself who created all things. Since, therefore, by the principle of creation, God is the only light of all minds, so, by denying to minds that divine, creative light, all rational intelligence is denied, and the principle of creation is totally destroyed, just as much as by taking away all substances.
But perhaps some one of you, considering that St. Augustine had been instructed in the Platonic doctrine, as we read in the Summa of Aquinas, will remain doubtful whether the genesis which I have traced out is not that of the Platonic or Pythagorean ideology, whichever we may choose to call it, rather than of the Augustinian. I think that I have in the preceding portion of this dissertation cited from the original texts enough of St. Augustine's own expressions, which always revert to these constant formulas, qui nobiscum sentiunt, quos merito ceteris anteponimus, to render it certainly and for ever incontestable that in these passages it is St. Augustine who cum istis sentit; it is he who hos ceteris anteponit; and by consequence he it is who embraces, explains, and defends the Platonic ideology, amending it where it sins, and supplying to it what it lacks. But, conceding that there is a difficulty here in our way, corroborated by an expression of the angelic doctor, I wish it to be noted distinctly that I do not resolve it principally by alleging any solitary expression whatever of the angel of the schools himself, but by a series of formulæ as distinctly marked in their significance as they are harmoniously located in the structure of his thought and of his boundless learning. Whenever there shall be for the first time produced a copious and well-arranged history of our philosophy, we shall see among other things relating to that most glorious Aquinas, a fact which gives lustre to his works, and is a memorable one in human philosophy; and the fact, which is one completely manifest and palpable, is this, that while he pays so little deference to the Platonic philosophy, while he habitually interprets the ideas of Plato only in the sense ascribed to them by Aristotle and other philosophers, the most hostile to him; while, consequently, he does not notice the Platonic ideology except to reject and confute it, he nevertheless gives us to understand, and professes a hundred times, that he has nothing to oppose to the ideology of St. Augustine; that he agrees that it is not the secondary truths which serve as the rule of our judgments, but rather the one only and primary truth which is the divine light and God himself; that he agrees that our soul is an image of God principally by the intelligence which we possess, into which the light of that first and one truth falling produces there an image of the intelligible things, as like as possible in the spiritual order to that figure which bodies cast upon a mirror by virtue of the exterior material light; that he agrees that our intellect is like wax which receives the impression of the primary truth as if from a seal; that he agrees that those universals from which metaphysics works under the form of principles, mathematics under the form of axioms, morals under the form of unchangeable, imperishable laws, these universals, (questi generali,) I say, and nothing else, St. Thomas admits to be eternal, in the eternal light of the eternal truth, which is the light of the divine intelligence.[118] Is there any great need of certifying that these formulæ to which St. Thomas agrees are not a single one of them taken from Aristotle, but are without exception taken from St. Augustine himself? Therefore St. Thomas, who had to treat the ideology of Plato, as it was presented to him, as absurd, sustains and honors as much as we could wish the Augustinian ideology; that is to say, he makes Augustinian and not Platonic the ideology of the eighth book of The City of God.[119]
What should hinder us from passing for an instant to those other books altogether similar to this one, Of the Trinity, Of the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, and the Confessions? The last five books of The Trinity are, indeed, a complete ideology which for novelty, sublimity, insight, and scientific force cannot be equalled in the whole range of human science. I will cite only one passage, however, which amid so many others is especially noteworthy, that one, namely, in which Augustine protects and defends, (who would believe it?) against Plato himself, that ideology which is nowadays called Platonic. Here it may be seen in express words.
"Plato, that noble philosopher, ... related that a certain boy who was asked some questions, I know not precisely what, in geometry, answered like a person extremely skilled in that branch of study; whence he attempted to prove that the souls of men have lived here before they were in their present bodies.... But we ought rather to believe that the nature of the intellectual mind was so created that, being naturally coördinated by the Creator to intelligible things, it sees them in a certain incorporeal light sui generis, in the same way that the bodily eye sees those things which are circumjacent to it in this corporeal light for which it has been created with a natural capacity and congruity."[120]
This passage being only an incident in connection with the whole context, we find him saying a little above that this incorporeal light is nothing else than the truth; that these intelligible things are the eternal reasons, and a little below, that this light and these things are "something eternal and unchangeable;" that our soul is made naturally in the image of God, inasmuch as "it can use reason and intelligence to know and form a conception of God," and as noted in another place, "although the mind is not of the same nature with God, nevertheless the image of that nature which is more perfect than any other must be sought and found in that part of our nature which is more perfect than any other."[121]
Joining together and recapitulating all this in the Confessions, he says in formal terms:
"Behold how much I have wandered about in my memory seeking thee, O Lord! and I have not found thee outside of it; ... for where I have found the truth, there I have found my God, the truth itself."[122]
Moreover, in those most stupendous books of the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, he undertakes to distinguish partitively the vision in the light of the truth from all the other manners of vision conceded to the nature of the human soul, and terminates with a final contrast which presents the fundamental opposition between the intelligent soul and its intellectual light in these words:
"Even in that kind of things seen by intellectual vision, (intellectualium visorum, understand here that which he is wont to call intellectum rationale,) those which are seen in the soul itself, as virtues, the contraries of which are vices, are one thing; ... the light itself by which the soul is illuminated, so that it is able to see in a true intellectual apprehension all things either in itself (rational knowledge) or in that (intellectual knowledge;) for that indeed is God himself; but this created existence, although made rational and intelligent (these two terms correspond to the two members, either in itself, or in that) after his image, when it attempts to gaze upon that light trembles with weakness, and can do but little; yet it derives from thence whatever it does understand according to its ability. When, therefore, it is rapt into that region, and, being withdrawn from the senses, is brought more directly face to face with that vision, not by any local presence in space, but in a manner peculiar to itself; it even sees in a way superior to its ordinary power that by the aid of which it also sees whatsoever it does see in itself by understanding."[123]
The few moments which remain to me will barely suffice for the briefest possible exposition of the contrast between the belligerent ideology of modern Catholics and the certain and incontestable ideology founded by the prince of all our philosophers, of which I have just given a sketch in his own words. I feel bound to say one thing here which has probably not been attended to, but is nevertheless not the less true or the less demonstrable to a wise critical judgment. However much it is to be lamented that the modern philosophy of the Catholic masters, through a miserable obliviousness of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, has brought once more into vogue and patronized so long, in great measure so blindly also, the Gentile dispute between the ideology of Plato and that of Aristotle; this most obstinate war, more bitterly waged in our day than ever before, has no right to be considered as excusable. Whoever will look a little into the interior of this matter, will be persuaded that the great mass of questions of this kind should rather be regarded as vain and superfluous, than as founded on unreasonable or unjust opinions. The Catholic ontologists and the Catholic psychologists sustain one and the same thing in two contrary parties; but that which all in common wish to maintain appears to the members of one party to be badly comprehended and worse defined by those of the other. All say unanimously, We ought to hold that theory alone as good and perfect in which is maintained the capital distinction between God and his creation; in which is firmly established the knowledge of God on the one hand, and that of things created on the other; in which neither the reality of the divine nature, which is the principle of every other reality, nor the reality of that which is created, apart from which that principle itself is no longer such, and all knowledge is overturned and destroyed from summit to foundation, is compromised. This all profess and maintain. But when it comes to the definition of a theory sufficient for such a lofty scope, the one party divide themselves from the other through the diverse aspect in which they regard, on the one side, that most sublime and universal truth which they hold as anterior to the mind, and, on the other side, the multitude of created natures which are perceived by the internal or external sensible faculty. To make my meaning clearer, there are two points to be made secure in ideology: the truth by which all things which are true exist; and the true things which furnish the argument by which their principle, that is, the truth, is proved. The psychologists observe the following maxim, which is irreprehensible. It is impossible to prove the existence of the creator without asserting and proving the existence of the creation; since we cannot attain to the scientific notion of the truth except by the medium of the knowledge of actualities. The ontologists contemplate the matter from another entirely diverse side, reasoning with equal evidence in this form. To know a thing to a certain extent, is to distinguish to the same extent whether it be true or false; but we must necessarily distinguish whether a thing be true or false by the light of truth—the truth, however, is God; therefore, without an interior and divine light, neither man nor angel can know any thing whatsoever. But take care, exclaim the psychologists, that you do not by such a method destroy physical cognition; in fact, if every thing is known in the truth, which is eternal and immutable, created things, which are mutable and temporal, cannot be known at all. You ought rather to take much greater care, reply the ontologists, lest by your mode of reasoning you deny and destroy metaphysical cognition; in fact, the universal cannot be any kind of created thing, since every creature is completely individual and particular; wherefore, it follows, from your statement, that the universals are nothing either physically or metaphysically. The psychologists rejoin by saying, God in creating things renders them knowable; therefore, when we know them, this comes from the fact that they are thus created—that is, precisely knowable. The ontologists with equal force respond, We agree entirely that created things are knowable because they are created; but since they would not be created except for the divine action of the creator, so they would not be any more knowable except for the divine action which creates their knowledge in the human mind; wherefore, in the same way as the drawing of a substance from nothing requires omnipotence, which is entirely from God, the giving of intelligence to a created spirit requires the truth, which is entirely from God, and is God himself. But, reply again the psychologists, you are obliged to admit the reality of the created apart from the divine reality; therefore, also, its cognoscibility. And you, reply the ontologists, ought further to maintain the contra-position of intelligence to sensibility. We, who profess that the intelligibility of things consists in a divine light, easily secure the contra-position of intelligence and sensibility by means of the contra-position of God and created substances visible in the creation; whereas, taking away the divine light, the creation alone remains to form the object of the sensibility on one part, and the object of intelligence on the other. But in that case it is impossible to secure one's self scientifically, logically, demonstratively, as is necessary, from confounding intellect with sense, which results—note it well!—in the denial of the creation of man itself, and the reduction to nullity not less of revealed religion than of natural morality.[124]
I will not proceed any further, but will leave it to the historians of Catholic philosophy to continue, if they see fit, this chain of parallel arguments, which describe the whole cause of combat between the two great modern schools. The sketch I have given will, I hope, suffice to convince you, first of all, of that which is chiefly commendable, honorable, and worthy of attention in this dispute, which, in many other respects, is so excessively wearisome. I have demonstrated that the two contrary parties look toward one and the same end—which is, to make valid in ideology the Catholic principle of creation; that both govern themselves by the same criterion—which is, the genuine and Catholic interpretation of the principle of creation, more or less known naturally, and perfectly defined in Catholic doctrine. All this is due to the praise of the two schools, and to the glory of that philosophy to which both pride themselves in belonging. This, however, would go but a little way toward the attainment of that peace at the present day so necessary, and always so desirable. Since, therefore, all truths are in agreement with each other, and are harmoniously united in one only and self-same truth, I have consequently wished to demonstrate by actual proofs that, aside from human weakness and the errors of certain teachers on both sides, the living and substantial arguments on either side which are brought forward in an opposite sense are not really opposed to each other, being drawn from the difference of terms, and the fact that they apprehend and contemplate from opposite sides that truth which is, above all others, universal and comprehensive in the principle common to both parties. This consideration, most powerful for promoting the peace we all desire and recommend, ought so much the more to be held as good and sound, as the Augustinian formula in which all the force of Catholic philosophy is concentrated with the most luminous evidence, appears divided into two parts, and distributed between the argumentation of the two opposite schools. For, while the one sustains that first clause which forbids to take away from the senses their proper capacity—neque sensibus adimentes id quod possunt—the other stands firmly by the last clause, which declares that the light of the mind is God, lumen autem mentium ad discenda omnia esse ipsum Deum a quo facta sunt omnia. But would it not be a great fault of the ideologists, to whatever school they might belong, if they should wilfully dismember and destroy the organism of Christian protology? Is it, perhaps, not true that the Catholic masters of modern psychologism and ontologism all completely agree in that maxim, as new in itself as it is felicitous for the whole human encyclopædia, and clearly distinct to us?
"The whole discipline of wisdom pertaining to the instruction of man is the correct discrimination of the creator from the creation; the worship of the one as possessing supreme dominion, and the acknowledgment of the simple subjection of the other."[125]
Let us then bring these things back to their origin, and the philosophers of our times will recognize that they have much the advantage in antiquity and merit of the philosophers of another class who are the chiefs of natural science; the psychologists will observe that they have a psychological formation in St. Thomas against which Catholic ontologism cannot have any just complaints; on the other hand, the ontologists will observe that there is an ontological form in St. Augustine to which nothing is wanting of that which Catholic psychologism can hold as correct. The time is past for beginning philosophy over again da capo; whoever wishes to participate in it, let him gather it from the most choice, weighty, and authoritative traditions. That peace which for so many ages it has been impossible to conclude, was already made centuries ago. There was no ideological dispute, (whoever maintained that there was?)—no! there was only diversity of method of exposition and of language, between St. Augustine and his most faithful disciple, who was in every sense the Angelical; and this was wrought by the infinite Providence, so that Catholic intellect might remake philosophy twice over by the two opposite ways, from intelligence to sense, and from sense to intelligence. It is a shame to mention the Platonists with dispraise, when our glory is a Catholic Plato; it is a vile thing to lose one's self in reproaches against Aristotle, after that a Catholic Aristotle has filled the whole church with the fame of his wisdom.
The learned Caramuele affirmed that if that ancient Plato of heathenism could have seen the Aristotle who diverged from him so widely, as St. Thomas re-cast him, corrected and entirely altered, he would have been forced to applaud him, and to declare himself satisfied with him. Cardinal Sigismund Gerdil announced and demonstrated[126] that in the ideology of St. Thomas more than one principle is encountered wonderfully conformed to the principles of St. Augustine. The Scuola di Filosofia Razionale of the excellent F. Milone is for this reason more precious and valuable in my eyes, that he, contrary to Gioberti, who is only one among numberless others, marks out a theory of peace between the ontological and psychological method, between St. Augustine and St. Thomas. It is a matter of the most transparent certainty that, if the ontologism of Catholic authors is reduced to a profession of the philosophical doctrines of St. Augustine, well understood and better exposed and elucidated, nothing can be more secure and more respectable among Catholics than ontologism; nor is it less certain and transparent that, if the psychologism of Catholic authors turns to a maintenance of the philosophical doctrines of St. Thomas, well and symmetrically arranged, and with fine language reduced to science and made accessible to our age, nothing can be more adapted to our time, or more suitable, or more irreprehensible than the same psychologism. Let Catholic philosophers follow the example of the holy church, who, since the time of St. Augustine and St. Thomas, has turned toward no one a regard more steady and fixed than to Augustine and Thomas.
In the name of these most authoritative and most blessed doctors, I pray for Catholic philosophy the just and desired tranquillity, which can only be obtained from a direction less arbitrary in the selection of questions, and more capable of embracing all the grand problems. Ideology distinguishes naturally between the objective and the subjective; in it the ontologists are accustomed to establish with sound reasoning the objectivity of the truth, and likewise the psychologists the subjectivity of signs and knowledge. If both the one and the other desire to become victors in such a grand combat, let them make place, as they ought, the ontologists to larger considerations respecting the created, non adimentes sensibus id quod possunt; and the psychologists to a greater security of the intelligibility of things, non dantes sensibus ultra quam possunt. Then, the choice will be free to all to select between the two opposite methods, and they can, in respect to that divine light, quo illustratur anima, profess indifferently the original formula of Catholic ontologism in St. Augustine, or the imitative exposition of Catholic psychologism in St. Thomas. With these peace-makers, so glorious, so well-deserving, so venerable, it appears to me that we ought at once to treat of peace. May these saints aid from heaven my humble undertaking!