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 When, therefore, it is rapt into that region, and, being withdrawn from the senses, is brought more directly face to face with that vision, not by any local presence in space, but in a manner peculiar to itself; it even sees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!