LITMIR.BIZ

The opponents of the theory of the Mass are apt to charge the Roman Church with the proposition that therein the elements are changed into “real” flesh and blood. In the nineteenth century, as in the thirteenth, this Church has not, I believe, determined whether the “real” substance be corporeal or incorporeal, separable or inseparable from the sensible properties of things; whether in a word it be something or, as many of us would say, nothing at all. Spinoza regarded “substance” as intelligent and extended.

Thus it was difficult to claim his authority for one side or the other. The metaphysical treatises were not known till the later part of the twelfth century. (See p. 75, note 2.) At the outset of the Physics Aristotle discusses what nature is in itself, and defines first elements; in the Second Analytics on the other hand, although thinking of science as deductive and expository, he strongly opposes the primary existence of ideas, though these are predicable of many individuals. By excess of logical formations, the division of properties, the use of such terms as “γένη ὑποκείμενα,” &c. &c., he laid himself open to misconception, and so was readily platonised by his commentators. It would seem indeed that for Aristotle universals were not merely propositions obtained by negation of individual variations, but something more active. A νόησις became somehow a ποίησις; e.g. “ἡ δημιουργήσασα φύσις.” His position may be appreciated briefly thus: – In the Categories Aristotle speaks of individuals as primarily existent, while in Met. z, and elsewhere, the primary existent is the form. The inconsistency is, however, more apparent than real; for in the Categories it is the individual so far as he represents his natural kind which is primarily existent, whilst the form which in the Metaphysics is primarily existent occurs only in the individual. This terse appreciation is one of my many debts to Dr Jackson.

It were almost to be desired, for our own lucidity, that we could get rid of the words cause and law, and use language significant of order only. Aristotle’s influence has weighed heavily in favour of studying “Causes” rather than sequences; thus it is hard to clear our own minds, and impossible to clear the minds of our pupils, of a genetic notion of causation – that an effect comes, as it were, from the womb of its causes. Even Ockham taught as if causes contained their effects. Mr Marshall (West. Rev. loc. cit.) is of opinion that Roger Bacon by his “non oportet causas investigare” intended to confine scientific thought to the relations of phenomena.

As St Anselm put it, “Participatione speciei plures homines sunt unus homo.” Out of humanity individual men proceed.

Vid. p. 32, note.

Erigena, “the miracle of the Holy Ghost”; a figure of almost mythical grandeur, arising in the far west, full of new learning, of lyric enthusiasm, and heroic courage. He did not protest, with St Columba, against the Papacy only; he protested against authority, and he protested against mighty ignorance; neither of which should withstand the persuasion of right reason. “Ratio immutabilis … quæ … nullius auctoritatis adstipulatione roborari indiget.” His works were proscribed and burned.

The one, to which alone Parmenides and Melissus attributed existence, was a material although an incorporeal unity. We must beware of accepting “matter” in the current dualist sense; for Aristotle himself ὕλη was hardly distinguishable from δύναμις.

With every allowance for the phases of church and school in successive academical generations it seems strange that in 1209 Aristotle should have been forbidden under excommunication, and in 1231 restored to such favour that for the disciples of Albert and St Thomas the master almost attained the authority of a father of the church; the explanation probably is that “Aristotle” meant for a time the paynim interpretations of Toledo, particularly of the Physics (the Metaphysics were not translated from the Greek till about 1220); and meant not this only, but also liberal quotation and incorporation of the writings of Arab philosophers. To show how learning, even in the University of Paris, lay under ecclesiastical control, some extracts from the Edicts of the Synod of Paris and of Gregory the Ninth may be cited in illustration: – After directing that “Corpus magistri Amaurici extrahatur e cimiterio, et projiciatur in terram non benedictam” the Synod farther orders that the “Quaternuli [“Quaternuli” is translated by Ducange, Quatuor quartæ chartæ, seu octo folia: i.e. the octavos] magistri David de Dinant, … afferantur et comburantur; nec libri Aristotelis de naturali philosophia, nec Commenta legantur Parisiis, publice vel secreto. Et hoc sub pœna excommunicationis inhibemus… De libris theologicis scriptis in romano, præcipimus quod episcopis diocesanis tradantur, et Credo in Deum et Pater noster in romano, præter vitas sanctorum.” The order two years later confirming these prohibitions differs but in form. Even the Bull of Gregory in 1231, relieving the schools of this proscription, says, “Ad hæc jubemus ut magistri artium unam lectionem de Prisciano et unam post aliam ordinarie semper legant, et libris illis naturalibus, qui in concilio provinciali ex certa causa prohibiti fuere, Parisiis non utantur, quousque examinati fuerint, et ab omni errorum suspicione purgati.” The pope adds paternally, “Magistri vero et scholares theologiæ, in facultate quam profitentur, se studeant laudabiliter exercere, nec philosophos se ostendant, sed satagant fieri theodocti: nec loquantur in lingua populi, et populi linguam hebræam cum azotica confundentes” [azotica or arethica means the profane tongue (Ducange); Hebrew being a Sancta lingua]. The pantheistic outburst of the later twelfth century, although deriving in part from Erigena, was probably fed by the commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias. This commentary was widely read in Arabic and Arab-latin translations, the latter of which were made, as we know (v. A. Jourdain, p. 123 and seq.), by Gerard of Cremona (d. 1187). Alexander’s more material interpretation of ὕλη involved the return of All into God; hence no resurrection, no future life. In his followers these doctrines become grosser and grosser, and, fused with other Arabian doctrine, prepared for and afterwards strengthened the Averroism of Padua, in the xv-xvith century, in which system it was taught that the universal soul, dipping for the time into the individual man, is at death resumed into the universal soul. This virtual denial of personal immortality was of course bitterly resented by the Church. (Vid. p. 68, note.) Thus from the thirteenth century onwards pantheistic infidelity survived and even defied the menaces and the punishments of the Church.

Both Albert and Aquinas were inconsistent. Hauréau points out that St Thomas was a vitalist in physics, an animist in metaphysics, a nominalist in philosophy, and a realist in theology. “Il a cherché à reconcilier des morts (i.e. Plato and Aristotle) qui, toute leur vie, se sont contredits.” But even sceptics contradict themselves; and it is fair to add that St Thomas pushed universals back to immanence in the Divine mind. For Plato the ideas are thoughts of universal mind; for Aristotle God, or Nature by its thoughts or plans determines the lines of phenomena: thus Plato and Aristotle were more alike than Thomas knew, or Hauréau admits. There was no such thing of course as The Scholastic Philosophy, of which I read again but the other day in a modern work. Scholasticism is the very various teaching of the schools of the xi-xvth centuries; though its general tendency was to search rather into the origin and nature than into the functions of being. The philosophy of the thirteenth century on the whole was eclectic; – though perhaps eclectic by confusion rather than by reconciliation. The rule of authority prevented an appreciation of the relative values of opinions; the recognised authorities were equally true, and had to be dovetailed together somehow. Critical interpretation had not begun.

The objection should not lie against hair splitting, for thought cannot be too penetrating; but against the splitting of imaginary hairs.

M. Charles Jourdain thus describes the procession of Rector, doctors and disciples of the University of Paris at the beginning of the fourteenth century. At the end of this century its decay began.

For Aristotle the principle of individuation was matter and form (vid. note, p. 33); for Averroes it was form; for St Thomas it was matter. For all “vitalists” the identity of form, soul and life is essential; thus Stahl regarded soul as bestowing on body all activity, as determining all vital functions. In Aristotle ψυχή is untranslatable = anima and animus – soul and vital principle. Πνεῦμα again in various writers may mean anything, from air to spirit or other essence; cf. Arist. De Generat. An. ii. 3, and the “aura” of Harvey, and even of Haller in the same connexion as the fertilising element.

Not for all, not for the greatest of them! Aristotle, in vain, warned later generations against prophesying what seems likely, instead of looking to see how things come about: – “οὐκ ἀληθῆ λέγοντες, ἀλλὰ μαντευόμενοι τὸ συμβησόμενον ἐκ τῶν εἰκότων, καὶ προσλαμβάνοντες ὡς οὕτως ἔχον πρὶν γινόμενον οὕτως ἰδεῖν.” (De Gen. Anim. IV. i.) “Croire tout ce qu’on rêve,” if useful and possibly admirable in its day, in “neo-Hegelians” is a little stale.

Thus, in ascending from general to more general, in the most general will be sought unique and perfect being; the primary cause and sole object of science – the αὐτοζῷον of the Alexandrians: whereas by successive eliminations utter abstractions would become utter vacuity. To such realists all subordinate beings are integral parts of the primary being. It would serve no useful end here to analyse these doctrines, or to indicate the pythagorean or stoical elements of them; for platonists and realists had their schools and degrees of subtlety; and Plato himself was inconsistent. Some brought secondary agents – demiurges or angels – into more creative activity, others carried creative reason back to the ideal good, and so on.

Held by Gilbert, and attributed to Averroes; but older than Averroes. In turning to Francis Bacon’s hypothesis I read (Ed. E. and S. ii. 263. Hist. Densi et rari – chapter, “Dilatationes per spiritum innatum se expandentem,” a Paracelsian sort of chapter) “Pulsus cordis et arteriarum in animalibus fit per irrequietam dilatationem spirituum, et receptum ipsorum, per vices.” The muscular quality of the heart was known to Galen, forgotten, and rediscovered. Spiritus vitalis, for Bacon, was “aura composita ex flamma et aere” (cf. Æn. vi. 747). Glisson has been fortunate in two generous judges, in Haller and Virchow; it would ill become me to depreciate a distinguished Fellow of my own College, and as a clinical observer Glisson had considerable merits; but as a physiologist he was sunk in realism. He was happy in the invention of the technical term “irritability,” but for him this virtue was as metaphysical an essence as the vital spirit; his prime motor was not physical. As a philosopher I fear the independent reader of his works will find him fanciful and wearisome.

Herein Harvey’s sagacity brought him towards the truth. “Air,” he says in the De generatione, “is given neither for the cooling nor the nutrition of animals … it is as if heat were rather enkindled within the fœtus (at birth) than repressed by the influence of the air.” Boyle (who says that he worked under the influence of Harvey’s discoveries) carried this matter forward by most interesting and sagacious experiments with his air-pump. For the layman, I may add that (to speak generally) before Harvey’s time respiration was regarded not as a means of combustion but of refrigeration. How man became such a fiery dragon was the puzzle!

Perfection was attributed, not only by medieval philosophers but also by Plato and Aristotle, to the circle. Circular movement was therefore the most perfect, and therefore again must be that of the planets. This is a good illustration of the almost necessary tendency in the earlier excursions of thought to equate incoordinates, and to fill gaps in reasoning from alien sources.