[PHILOSOPHICAL TERMINOLOGY.]
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF “THE CATHOLIC WORLD.”
The suggestion often made in your excellent magazine, that Americans in general, and American Catholics in particular, should be supplied with some means of acquiring sound knowledge of philosophical truth, led me to consider what particular plan might be most adapted to this end, and what resources were at our disposal for carrying out successfully such a praiseworthy undertaking. The result of this my investigation is not calculated, perhaps, to excite that degree of interest which the subject deserves; yet, as it may be the occasion of other useful reflections on the part of those who wish to promote this enterprise, I have decided to offer it to your philosophical readers.
I assume that our plan should unquestionably embrace either all that is worth knowing in philosophy, or at least all that is needed for the explanation and vindication of all important truths, as well as for the radical refutation of all modern errors.
To carry out such a plan, a writer would need an extensive knowledge and a keen appreciation of the teachings of the scholastic philosophers and theologians, and especially a masterly comprehension of the general principles on which those teachings have their rational foundation. Such a writer, I think I may safely add, should be of that sort of men who not only know the doctrines of the great masters of the old school, but who also feel the greatest respect for those eminent thinkers; and he should be prepared boldly to follow their leadership in all fundamental questions concerning principles, without the least regard for what is now circulated as “modern thought.” His style should be modern, but his principles should be the principles sanctioned by the wisdom of all past ages.
Every one, of course, will allow that we modern men, in many branches of natural science, have attained to a degree of information vastly superior to what the ancients even dreamed of. Accordingly, we may not improperly consider ourselves better qualified than they were for the solution of a great number of physical questions, of which they are known to have either overlooked the very existence, or missed the true interpretation. It is quite certain, however, at the same time, that we are immensely inferior to them with regard to strictly philosophical knowledge; and this is the more surprising as one would suppose that our superior information concerning the laws of nature would have enabled us to reach truth from a higher standpoint, and to correct and improve, even to perfection, the philosophical theories of the old school. Yet the fact is certain and notorious: we have only a few good philosophers, while we need a great many to stand against the torrent of infidelity.
As it is, I think that no man of judgment will deny that we cannot raise ourselves to a competent philosophical level and secure the triumph of truth unless we learn again, and turn to account in our war against our modern barbarians, those doctrines that triumphed over the barbarians of old, and made Europe remain for centuries the shining centre of the civilized world. Wisdom was not born yesterday, and philosophical principles are as old as mankind; hence, new facts may be seen, but no new principles of philosophy can be invented.
It therefore remains for us, if we wish to spread sound knowledge and foster true wisdom, to cling to the old philosophical principles, to vindicate them so far as in our present struggling condition it may be necessary, and to apply them judiciously to the close discussion and consistent settlement of arising questions. This is the road that will lead us to the goal; and it is a short and easy one, too; for the first principles of all things are not very many, and can be mastered with ease, while their application needs only two conditions, namely, first, a sufficient knowledge of the primitive facts and laws of the physical order; and, second, a rigorous logic.
As the main object we should have in view is the improvement of American thought concerning moral and social truths, it might seem that the work of which I am speaking should mainly be a work of moral philosophy, comprising the treatment of all natural rights and natural duties whether of individuals or of societies, and leaving dialectics and metaphysics mostly in the background as idle speculations, or at least as teaching nothing that is essential to the happiness and prosperity of private and public life. It is a fact that the general reader is inclined to look upon all logical and metaphysical subtleties as a string of mere quibbles or an array of unsubstantialities. Though I am sure that, in the present wretched state of our public education, many would be found, even among our best citizens, ready to adopt and countenance such a view of the subject, I must say that the view is intrinsically wrong.
Philosophy is a whole whose parts are not merely integrant, but constituent; for each of these parts is essentially linked with the others. As time cannot exist without motion, so neither can moral philosophy without logic and metaphysics; and so sure as no velocity can exist apart from a moving body, even so rational philosophy cannot exist apart from all metaphysical truth. To see this the more clearly, let us examine what are the relations that bind together the parts of philosophy.