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.