EX LIBRIS 1 1 *^p;x*'great service, there was established another Bene- dictine congregation, which renewed that famous rule: the order of Citeaux in Burgundy, which im- mediately spread throughout all France, and Eu- rope generally, in the twelfth century. This new order, commonly called Cistercian, was also a fed- eration of Benedictine houses, although /each of them was more independent than was the case in the 9 Cf. Laraprecht, Deutsche Geschichte, III, pp. 192 and 193. "i^o Millenaire de Cluny, Academic de Ma^on, 1910, vol. XV, p. Ixxiv. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 31 system of Cluny. The congregation of Citeaux continued the work of reformation, moral and rehgious, with which Cluny had occupied itself ; but it attached more importance to that part of the rule which called for manual labour, — and, indeed, by undertaking works of public utility, such as drain- ing swamps and clearing vast expanses of territory, the Cistercians changed the agricultural map of Europe. At the same time, they did much to abolish serfdom. The religious and social spirit of Citeaux is most apparent in the authoritative and energetic figure of St. Bernard, who dominated the whole twelfth century. Abbot of Clairvaux — a monastery founded by him and a dependent of Citeaux — this extraordinary monk was not only saint, and ascetic, but he was surprisingly man of action as well. He was a leader, an eloquent orator whose sermons moved multitudes, and he dared to reprove the great and the humble alike. Thus, he criticizes the monks of Cluny as men "whose cowl is cut from the same piece of cloth as the dress of the knight," and whose churches are decorated with useless luxury. He criticizes the abuses of the Roman court, and he has no eye for the successor of Peter adorned with silk and borne upon a white palfrey and escorted by clamorous ministers. He criticizes the abuses in the lives of the clerics, and he cries out to their teachers: "Woe betide you who hold the keys not only of knowledge but also of power." He dares 32 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION to correct the most renowned professors, like Abae- lard and Gilbert de la Porree, and summons them to ecclesiastical comicils. He urges men and wo- men alike to crowd into the monasteries; he pro- motes the Second Crusade; he encourages the ris- ing order of the Templars, that military order whose members were at once monks and warriors, and who added to the vows of religion those of de- fending the Holy Land and the pilgrims ; he takes interest in the founding of the order of the Car- thusians, in 1132, and of the Premonstratensians, in 1120; he dreams of moulding all society after the plan of an ascetic ideal. His own ideal was even more lofty than that of his age ; and when he died, in 1153, mediaeval society had already achieved the height of its monastic ideal/^ But our picture of the mentality of the period would be incomplete if we rested simply with the activities of the Benedictine orders; in addition we must point out briefly the activities of bishops and Pope. The bishops were involved more intimately in the working of the feudal machinery than were the monasteries ; for they were temporal princes within the limits of their fiefs and prelates in their dioceses. They owed to their overlords support in time of war, and such bishops as Hugh of Noyers, at Aux- erre, or Mathew of Lorraine, at Toul, were war- riors of a rough and primitive type. Others, like 11 See Vacandard, Vie de S. Bernard, 2 vol. Paris, 1902. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 33 Etienne of Tournai, Peter of Corbeil, William of Champagne, were humanists and men of letters. Maurice of Sully, elected bishop of Paris in 1160, was a model administrator in the days of the great changes in studies effected at Paris. The bishops of Chartres, of Laon and of Tournai play no less important a part in the domain of letters. Finally, we could not understand the political and social spirit of Europe, in the twelfth century, without taking into account the growing prestige of the Papacy. After having been freed, by the action of Cluny, from the humiliation of the Ger- man Emperor, the way was open to the Papacy of becoming the greatest moral force in the world. During the twelfth century it was in process of or- ganizing the theocracy, which was to reach its zenith in the following century, under Innocent III. On those pious Christian kings of France, the action of the Papacy exerted always a power- ful political influence. "In the Middle Ages, the French crown and the Papacy could be near to falling out with each other, but they were never separated."^^ 12 Luchaire, op. cit., p. 149. The bourgeoisie of the towns, or com- munes, should be mentioned also in this connection. The towns first rose, in Italy and elsewhere, at the beginning of the eleventh cen- tury, and during the twelfth century they became real factors in the general progress. The bourgeoisie, or body of merchants, assumed organized form, and it adapted itself to feudalism. "L'air de la ville donne la liberty," since a serf who lived in a town for a year and a day secured thereby his freedom and retained it. In the 34 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION III We have now seen how a new spirit was in process of formation. What then constitutes the essence of this spirit — the spirit which arose from the depths of the mediaeval soul, and which became impregnated with Christianity, and which, from England and France, penetrated the whole of western Europe? The feudal sentiment par excellence, which is still so deeply embedded in our modern conscience, is the sentiment of the value and dignity of the in- dividual man. The feudal man lived as a free man ; he was master in his own house; he sought his end in himself; he was — and this is a scholastic expres- sion — pro2)ter seipsum existens; all feudal obliga- tions were founded upon respect for personality and the given word. The scrupulous observance of feudal contract engendered the reciprocal loyalty of vassal and lord ; fraternal feelings and self-sacri- fice among men belong also to this class. Under the influence of Cluny, this feudal senti- ment became Christian in character, because Chris- tianity placed upon each soul purchased by Christ's sacrifice an inestimable worth, and it furnished the poor and the rich and the great and the small with the same standard of value. The scrupulous ob- servance of the feudal contract engendered loyalty. thirteenth century the nouveaux riches of the merchant class laid the foundations of a "patriarcat urbain" which was destined to rival the nobility in wealth. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 35 Wlien loyalty became a Christian virtue, it in- creased respect for women and probity in the poor, — that probity which St. Louis IX said was like sweet honey to his lips. Honour became the pass-word of chivalry — a sort of moral institution supeHmposed on feudalism. The social habits of educated laymen were made gentler by the warm contact of chivalry, and courteous manners spread far and wide. IV But the twelfth century gave birth also to en- tirely new forms of art, — and, indeed, in a marvel- ous way. All branches on the tree of art began quickly to flower under the grateful zephyrs of the new spring that was come: cka7isons de geste, or romances invented by the troubadours; the letters of Abaelard and Heloise, which, however restrained, reveal all the fervour of human love; those hymns of purest Latin writen by men like St. Bernard, — whose flow suggests now the murmuring of a brook and anon the roaring of a river in flood — or those stanzas penned by Adam of St. Victor, that won- derful poet who, in the silence of his cloister at Paris, sang the festivals of divine love in most perfect Latin form.^^ But, above all, there were built at that time those magnificent Romanesque abbeys and 13(7/. Henry Adams, Mont St. Michel and Chartres, ch. XV: "The Mystics." 36 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION churches with their varied new forms, — such as barreled vaults, towers, doorways, cruciform ground-plan, choirs with surrounding ambulatories and radiating chapels. In these forms the func- tions of the Church shine forth with marvelous clarity, and yet in them the virile power of the period is harmoniously revealed. Local schools of architecture appeared, such as those of Normandy, of Auvergne, of Poitou, of Burgundy; and the Benedictine abbots were promoters of the new stan- dard of architecture. They did not adopt a uni- form Romanesque style ; rather they took over and developed the architecture of the region in which they happened to be. At the same time, they pressed into the service of architecture all the de- vices of ornamentation. The bare pillars were clothed with life, their capitals were covered with flowerings in stone; the portals were peopled with statues; painted glass was put in the windows of the sanctuaries ; frescoes or mural paintings covered the walls and concealed the nakedness of the stone : the whole church was covered with a mantle of beauty. Artist-monks were trained in sculpturing columns and statues and they travelled from one workshop to another, while yet others opened schools of painting, as in St. Savin near Poitiers where the twelfth century frescoes still retain their bright colouring." 14 In these frescoes the "courtesy" of the time is very striking, especially in the bearing of ladies and knights, so full of elegance. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 37 V It is generally admitted that the feudal customs and the manifestations of art born in France spread thence into other countries, — and the Benedictines of Cluny and of Citeaux were the principal agency in this diffusion. In England the infiltration of feudal customs is easily explained by the close re- lations existing between the two countries; and the orders of Cluny and Citeaux swarmed thither like bees from a hive. The abbey churches of St. Al- bans and Malmesbury and Fountains Abbey were built upon principles brought over from Nor- mandy. But for all their borrowing, whatever it may have been, they certainly possess the charm of originality. Epic literature, however, which at- tained such a high degree of perfection in Chaucer, shows still the influence of the French fabliauoo. For, in the twelfth and in the thirteenth centuries "France, if not Paris, was in reality the eye and brain of Europe, the place of origin of almost every literary form, the place of finishing and polishing, even for those forms which she did not originate. "^^ German historians, such as Lamprecht and Steinhausen, recognize the same hegemony of French ideas in Germany.^^ The Cistercians, who poured forth from France, undertook in Germany 15 Saintsbury, The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Alle- gory, London, 1897, p. 266. 16 Steinhausen, Geschichte der deutschen Kultur, Bd. I, 1913, p. 312: "Frankreich wird das kulturell-fiihrende Land." 38 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION and Bohemia and Hungary the work of clearing the forests — which so changed the economic face of Central Europe. But it was also Frenchmen who introduced at the Swabian court the habits of cour- tesy, — from the manner of greeting and the way of comporting oneself at table to the habit of con- trol and moderation in all things. The monks of Cluny carried Romanesque architecture along the Rhine, while the Cistercian monks became later the propagators of Gothic architecture. Finally, Romanesque architecture borne on the wings of French influence was carried, together with chivalry, across the Alps. They crossed the Pyrenees as well, and the Moorish genius imparted its smile to the severer forms of Occidental art. So, turn where we will, the twelfth century is a constructive one; great forces are in the making, though their action is not yet a combined one. The local spirit, which splits France, England, and the other countries into small feudal municipalities, and is revealed even in the separate workshops of the artists, appears in every detail of the organized social and religious life. CHAPTER THREE The Civilization as Reflected in Philosophy i. Location of philosophical schools; invasion of French schools by foreigners, ii. Delimitation of the several sciences ; philosophy distinct from the seven liberal arts and from the- ology, iii. Harmony of the feudal sense of personal worth with the philosophical doctrine that the individual alone exists, iv. The feudal civilization and the anti-realistic solu- tion of the problem of universals. Such a civilization was ripe for the things of the spirit. And so it came about that culture, both intellectual and philosophical, burst into bloom in this flowering season of things mediaeval. As a plant of rare nature, it shot up in the midst of an exuberant garden. We shall limit ourselves to a threefold consideration of the reflection of civiliza- tion in philosophy during the twelfth century: namely, the localization of schools; the definite dis- tinction of the several branches of learning; the affirmation in philosophical terms of the worth of human personality. First, it was quite natural that 'philosophical life should be subjected to the confinement of that same local spirit which appeared everywhere. 39 40 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION All over France numerous independent schools were gathered about the cathedrals and the abbeys. Each was a child of liberty, a literary republic, de- pending only on bishop or abbot ; for in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was no government control of education. Each school sought to out- rival the others by increasing its library, by attract- ing professors of renown, and by drawing students to its intellectual tournaments. This educational regime was salutaiy, for it pro- moted the study of the sciences and raised a legion of remarkable humanists, theologians, lawyers, and philosophers. We need but cite the schools of Cluny and Citeaux in Burgundy; of Bee in Nor- mandy ; of Aurillac and of St. Martin at Tours ; of Lobbes; of St. Omer; the cathedral schools of Laon, of Chartres, of Rheims, of Paris; and many others. All of them developed in the midst of feudal principalities, in spite of the fact that the overlords were generally at war. This was possi- ble at that time because war interested only the professional fighting men, and did not affect the living conditions of any country as a whole. Among the most famous teachers of the twelfth century were Anselm of Laon, William of Champeaux, Abaelard, Hugo and Richard of St. Victor, Adel- ard of Bath, Alan of Lille, and the scholars of Chartres ; but there were many others, whose names will appear as we proceed. They liked to go from one place to another, and we see a certain system of IN THE MIDDLE AGES 41 exchange professors in vogue. William of Cham- peaux taught philosophy successfully in the cathe- dral schools of Laon and of Paris, and in the abbey of St. Victor in Paris; Theodoric of Chartres was professor at Chartres, and also at Paris; William of Conches and Gilbert de la Porree went to Char- tres and to Paris; Adelard of Bath was at Paris and at Laon ; Peter Abaelard — the knight-errant of dialectics, who summoned to the tourney of syllo- gisms as others of his family summoned to the tourney of arms — lectured in Melun, in Corbeil, in his private school at the Paraclete, and he returned several times to the cathedral schools in Paris. In the time of Abaelard, the invasion of the French schools by foreigners had reached its height. Above all, the influx of English students was ever increasing. This was due to the close relations ex- isting between both countries and to the lack of educational centres in the British Isles. More than one remained to teach where he himself was taught. For example, there was Adelard of Bath, who speaks of the Gallicarum sententiarum constantia, and who left his nephew at Laon to master the Gallica studia while he himself travelled in Spain ;^ 1 "Meministi nepos, quod septennio jam transacto, cum te in gallicis studiis pene parvum juxta Laudisdunum una cum ceteris auditori- bus in eis dimiserim, id inter nos convenisse, ut arabum studia ego pro posse meo scrutarer, gallicarum sententiarum constantiam non minus adquireres." Adelardi Batensis de quihusdam naturalibus quaestionibus, Man. lat. Escorial, O III, 2, fol. 74 R^ Cf. P. G. Antolin, Catalogo de los codices latinos de la real Bibl. del Escorial, 42 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION also there was the Scotchman Richard of St. Vic- tor in the mystic cloister of St. Victor in Paris; and there was Isaac of Stella, also an Englishman, in the abbey of Stella close to Poitiers; and the most famous of all was John of Salisbury, who became bishop of Chartres after having taught in its cathe- dral school. Others settled in their native country, after having studied at Paris, such as Walter Map and Alexander Neckham. Meanwhile, French scholars also went to England and settled there; such were, for example, Peter of Blois and Richard Dover.^ All of these men agree in recognizing the importance of the training afforded by the French schools. As for Germany, the attraction of French learn- ing was no less irresistible. Even in the tenth century the German Emperors recognized this su- periority, and summoned to their court French vol. Ill, p. 226. I have not succeeded in finding a copy of the in- cunabel edition of this interesting treatise. With the above compare the expression: "Franci(a)e magistri," in an unpublished thirteenth century manuscript, in connection with the difficulty of translating Aristotle's Posterior Analytics (C. H. Raskins, "Mediaeval Versions of the Posterior Analytics." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 1914, vol. XXV, p. 94.) "Nam trans- latio Boecii apud nos Integra non invenitur, et id ipsum quod de ea reperitur vitio corruptionis obfuscatur. Translationem vero Jacobi obscuritatis tenebris involvi silentio suo peribent Francie magistri, qui quamvis illam translacionem et commentarios ab eodem Jacobo translatos habeant, tamen noticiam illius libri non audent profiteri." 2 J. E. Sandys, "English Scholars of Paris and Franciscans in Ox- ford," in The Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. I, pp. 199 ff. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 43 masters. Thus, the Emperor Otto III wrote a let- ter to the famous Gerbert, professor in Rheims and who later became Pope Sylvester II, in which he said: "We heartily desire your presence here, dis- tinguished man, that you may relieve me of my Saxon rusticity, Saxonica rusticitas/''^ Otto was successful in creating an interesting intellectual movement within the confines of his country. But this renaissance of learning was not of long dura- tion; and from the eleventh century on the schools of Fulda and Reichenau and St. Gall fell into de- cline and decay. In the twelfth century the same fate befell the schools at Liege, which were depen- dent on the Empire.* The German clerics also went to French schools, — to Rheims, Chartres, Laon, Paris, Le Bee — and the young barons con- sidered it a privilege to be educated at the court of Louis VII. Otloh of St. Emmeram, Otto of Frei- singen, Manegold of Lautenbach, Hugo of St. Victor, in fact all German theologians and philoso- phers and humanists of repute in that century, were educated in French schools. Paris is the source of all science, writes Cesaire of Heister- bach;^ scientists, adds Otto of Freising, have emi- grated to France, — and both chronicles merely reecho the saying of the time: "To Italy the ^Lettres de Gerbert (983-997), ed. Havet, Paris, 1889, p. 172. 4 Cf. my Histoire de la Philosophie en Belgique, Louvain, 1910, pp. 18-22. 5 Steinhausen, oj). cit., p. 355. 44 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION Papacy, to Germany the Empire, and to France learning." Italy also sent men in no small numbers. In the eleventh century the monk Lanfranc, a type of wandering professor, serves as an example. From Pavia and from Bologna he went to the abbey of Bee, and there was joined by another Italian, the Piedmontese Anselm of Aosta. In the twelfth century, Peter Lombard and Peter of Capua, and Praepositinus of Cremona all taught at Paris. Ro- lando Bandinelli, the future Pope Alexander III, pursued his studies under Abaelard; and he who was to become Innocent III learned his theology and his grammar at Paris. It must be said, how- ever, that in Italy more than in England and in Germany, there were independent centres of intel- lectual life. Suffice it to mention the schools of Bo- logna, whence arose a university as ancient and as influential as that of Paris, and the Benedictine schools of Monte Cassino, where in the eleventh cen- tury Constantine of Carthage established one of the first Occidental contacts with the world of Arabian learning, and where later on Thomas Aquinas re- ceived his early education. But not all French schools enjoyed equal celeb- rity ; they were rated according to the fame of their professors, just as today a school's reputation and its worth depend upon the excellence of its teaching staff. Hence, we can understand the change in the fame of the schools. Thus, for example, with IN THE MIDDLE AGES 45 the opening of the twelfth century, the cathedral schools of Tournai (Odon of Tournai), of Rheims (Alberic of Rheims and Gauthier of Mortagne), of Laon (Anselm of Laon), had shed their last splendor. For they were eclipsed by the cathedral schools of Chartres, founded by Fulbert, at which there developed during the first half of the twelfth century a humanist movement, which devoted it- self to achieving a Latin style of rare elegance, a perfect knowledge of the classics, and an acquain- tance with the complete Organon of Aristotle. Bernard of Chartres, in 1117, became the first of a line of famous masters; and Thierry of Chartres, about 1141, wrote his celebrated treatise on the liberal arts, the Heptateuchon, — written just as the south portal of the cathedral was receiving its ornamentation, with its detail of sculptured figures which represent the trivium and quadrivium. But even before this Paris had been in position to assert the superiority of her schools. The fame of Abaelard at the schools of the cathedral and of St. Genevieve drew a host of students and masters to Paris; the monastery of St. Victor, where Wil- liam of Champeaux founded a chair of theology, became a centre of mystical studies; and the uni- versity was all but born. The localism of these schools did not, however, prevent a certain uniformity in method of teach- ing and in curriculum and in scholarly practise ; and this uniformity helped to pave the way for the cos- 46 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION mopolitan character of the teaching of philosophy in the universities. The locaHsm and the centrahz- ing tendency commingled, — very much as the au- tonomy of the feudal barons and the unifying policy of the kings did in the political realm. Studying and teaching were monopolized by one social class, the clergy. The international hier- archy of the Church, and the universal use of Latin as the scientific language established a natural union among the masters of the West ; the frequent migration of students and scholars, from school to school, facilitated the spread of every innovation in method, program, and vocabulary. II The twelfth century remained faithful to the traditional program of the seven liberal arts, but the frame was enlarged in every direction. This brings us to a second group of ideas connected with the spirit of the civilization, and which I call the demarcation of boundaries between the sciences. In the early centuries of the Middle Ages, the pro- gram of studies included grammar-rhetoric-dia- lectic (logic), which comprised the tiivium, and arithmetic-geometry-astronomy-music, which com- prised the quadrivium; in this program one readily recognizes the beginnings of our modern secondary education. Grammar included not only the study of the ancient and mediaeval grammarians (Donatus, IN THE MIDDLE AGES 47 Priscian, and Remi of Aiixerre), but also a study of the classics themselves, — such as Virgil, Seneca, Horace, and others. Cicero and Quintilian and Marius Victorinus are mentioned as among the authors preferred for instruction in rhetoric.^ For a long time law was also regarded as a branch of rhetoric; and it was not until the time of Irnerius of Bologna that law was taught as a branch dis- tinct from the liberal arts course.^' About the mid- dle of the twelfth century the study of dialectics in- cluded all the Organon of Aristotle. As for the teaching of the quadrivium, it always lagged behind that of the trivium, Euclid is the master in mathe- matics. The study of astronomy was given a cer- tain impulse by Adelard of Bath, who was initiated into the Arabian science in Spain about the middle of the twelfth century. But such a program was felt to be too narrov/ in the twelfth century, and philosophy notably re- ceived a definite place outside the liberal arts, — which it leaves below, with theology above. It has been long supposed, and people still say, that philosoplty in the Middle Ages was confused with dialectics (one of the three branches of the trivium above described) ; that it reduced to a hand- ful of arid disputes quarrels on the syllogism and 6 Clerval, Les ecoles de Chartres du moyen age du V'e au XVI'e sUcles, pp. 221 ff. 6" Be it observed, however, that the study of Roman law had never been wholly abandoned in Western Europe. 48 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION on sophisms. This thesis has a seeming founda- tion, thanks to certain dialectical acrobats who, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, emptied philoso- phy of all ideas and rendered it bloodless and bar- ren {''exsanguis et sterilis/' are John of Salisbury's words). But the truth is quite otherwise. These "virtuosi," with their play on words and verbal discussions, were strongly combated; and the men of real worth — such as Anselm of Canterbury, Abaelard, Thierry of Chartres, John of SaHsbury, and others — not only practiced dialectics or formal logic with sobriety and applied it in accordance with doctrine, but they created a place for philoso- phy separate from and beyond the liberal arts, and consequently beyond dialectics. Their writings treat of the problems of metaphysics and psychol- ogy, which is matter quite different from formal dialectics. While it hardly exists in the "glosses" of the Carlovingian schools, philosophy rapidly progresses towards the end of the eleventh century, and in the middle of the twelfth century consists of a con- siderable body of doctrine, which the following centuries were to make fruitful. Now when philosophy had gained its distinct po- sition, the propaedeutic character of the liberal arts became evident: they serve as initiation to higher studies. Men of the twelfth century take them into consideration, and the first who are en- gaged with the classification of the sciences ex- IN THE MIDDLE AGES 49 press themselves clearly on this subject. Speak- ing of the liberal arts, Sunt tanquam septem viae" says a codex of Bamberg; they are, so to speak, the seven ways that lead to the other sciences — physics (part of philosophy), theology, and the science of law/ *Hugo of St. Victor and others speak in the same sense. At the end of the twelfth century, the iconography of the cathedrals, the sculptures, and the medallions in the glass windows, as well as the miniatures in manuscripts, confirm this thesis. The philosophy which inspired artists is represented as existing apart from and by the side of the liberal arts; for instance, at Laon and at Sens, and much more so in the window at Auxerre placed above the choir. The copy, still preserved at Paris, of the Hortus Deliciarum by Herrad of Landsberg (the original at Strasburg was burnt during the bom- bardment in 1870) places philosophy in the centre of a rose with seven lobes disposed around it,^ and in the mosaic pavement of the cathedral of Ivrea, philosophy is seated in the middle of the seven arts.^ 7 "Ad istas tres scientias (phisica, theologia, scientia legum) paratae sunt tanquam viae septem liberales artes que in trivio et quadrivio continentur." Cod. Q. VI, 30. Grabmann. Die Geschichte der scholastichen Methode., 1909, Bd. II, p. 39. 8 E. Male, L'art religieux du Xllle siecle en France, Etude sur I'iconographie et sur ses sources d'inspiration. Paris, 1910, pp. 112 S. Cf. L. Br6hier, L'art chretien. Son developpement iconographique des origines a nos jours. Paris, 1918. 9 A. K. Porter, Lombard Architecture, New Haven, 1907, vol. I, p. 347. 50 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION But the twelfth century did more than clearly distinguish the liberal arts from philosophy; it also inaugurated a completer separation between phi- losophy and theology. And the establishment of this doctrine of scientific methodology is of the highest importance in the study in which we are engaged. The question of the existence of philoso- phy as distinct from theology is, for philosophy, a matter of life or death; and it is now definitely answered, we may say unhesitatingly. But here also there are historical stages, and their study is illuminating and suggestive. The Middle Ages, in the beginning, took up the Neo-Platonic and Au- gustinian idea of the entire identification of philos- ophy with theology. Thus it is that John Scotus Eriugena wrote in the ninth century: ''Quid est aliud de philosophia tract are nisi verae religionis, qua summa et principalis omnium rerum causa Deus et humiliter colitur et rationabiliter in- vestigatur, regulas eooponere/'^'' But at the end of the eleventh century, and especially after St. Anselm had given his solution of the problem of the relation between faith and reason, the distinction between the two sciences was practically accepted; and it is easy to see that St. Anselm, for example, speaks sometimes as a philosopher and sometimes as a theologian. The twelfth centur}^ advances a step further, and the distinction between philoso- phy and theology becomes one of its characteristic 10 De divina praedestinatione, I, 1 (Patr. lat. vol. 122, c. 357-358). IN THE MIDDLE AGES 51 declarations. A codex of Regensburg of the twelfth century clearly distinguishes philosophers, ''humanae videlicet sapientiae amatores/' from the- ologians, "divinae scripturae doctores/'^^ I am of course aware that besides these texts there are others in which philosophy is abused or misunderstood; that reactionary minds, narrow the- ologians or disdainful mystics, condemned profane knowledge as useless, or if they admitted philoso- phy, they reduced it to the rank of a vassal and a serf of theology. In the eleventh century Otloh of St. Emmeram forbade monks the study of it; they, he said, having renounced the world, must occupy themselves only with divine things. Peter Damien wrote concerning dialectics, that even though sometimes (quando), by way of exception, it is allowed to occupy itself with theological mat- ters and with mysteries of divine power {mysteria divinae virtutis) , it should nevertheless renounce all spirit of independence (for that would be arro- gance), and like a servant place itself at the ser- vice of its mistress, theology: Velut ancilla domi- nae quodam famtdatus ohsequio suhservire^^ Here for the first time this famous phrase ap- pears. It is repeated in the twelfth century by a united group of so-called "rigorist theologians" — Peter of Blois, Stephen of Tournai, Michael of Corbeil, and many others. The lofty mystics of the 11 Grabmann, op. cit., I, 191. cod. Clm. No. 14'401. 12 Be divina omnipotentia, c. 5 Patr. lat. vol. 14, c. 603. 52 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION convent of St. Victor at Paris — Walter and Absa- lon of St. Victor — went so far as to say that phi- losophy is the devil's art, and that certain theolo- gians who used it were *'the labyrinths" of France. But one must not forget that these detractors of philosophy were a minority, just as the quibbling dialecticians formed an exceptional class also, and that already in the eleventh and the twelfth century the best minds rejected the unhappy phrase of Damien. St. Anselm had disavowed it. The Char- trains, John of Salisbury, Alan of Lille, either ex- pressly oppose it or show by their writings that they reject it. Moreover, the speculative theologians who appeared at the beginning of the twelfth cen- tury and almost immediately formed three great schools — Abaelard, Gilbert de la Porree, Hugo of St. Victor — condemned the timidity of the "rigor- ists," and the apologetic which they created (of which we shall speak further on)^^ is an effectual counterpoise to the tendencies of Damien. Peter Lombard himself, in spite of his practical point of view, protests against such excessive pretensions. The formula is condemned by the majority of intel- lectual philosophers and theologians. Hence it is very unfair to judge the philosophers of the Mid- dle Ages by the doctrines of a minority — and that in the twelfth century — against which the best openly rebel. To make clear the origin of the formula, that philosophy is the handmaiden of the- 13 See ch. VII, iv. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 53 ology, should suffice to do justice in the matter. This consideration should relieve the philosophy of the Middle Ages of that grave contempt which has weighed upon it so long, — a contempt resting upon the belief that it had no raison d'etre, no proper method, no independence! To say that philosophy, by the twelfth century, had become clearly distinguished from the liberal arts on the one hand and from theology on the other hand, is to recognize that its Jimits were clearly defined and that it had become conscious of itself. Now this great first step in organization had been made simultaneously by other sciences as well, and they were thus all given independence, though in different degrees. For example, there was the development in dogmatic theology, which progressed rapidly, as we have just said, and spread widely in the great schools of Abaelard, of Gilbert de la Porree, of Hugo of St. Victor, and of Peter Lombard. It appeared also in the liberal arts, of which one branch or another was more espe- cially studied in this school or that; for example, grammar at Orleans and dialectics at Paris. It was evidenced, moreover, in the appearance of medicine, as a separate discipline, and especially of civil (Roman) and canon law. Thus the impor- tant mental disciplines, on which the thirteenth century was to thrive, had asserted their indepen- dence and intrinsic worth. These demarcations, which seem to us so natural 54 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION and matter of course, have come at the cost of great effort in every period of history which has attempt- ed their estabhshment — and necessarily so. Thus the first Greek philosophers encountered the same difficulty in this regard as did the scholastics of the twelfth century. Even today, when classification is so far advanced, discussions arise in fixing the limits of new sciences ; witness the example of soci- ology. But this delimitation of philosophy in the twelfth century was only one aspect of a rapidly developing civilization. Do we not see a similar movement in the political, the social, the religious, and the artistic life? The royal prerogatives, the rights and duties of vassals, the status of the bour- geoisie and of the rural population, the distinction between temporal charge and spiritual function of abbots and prelates, the monastic and episcopal hierarchy, the clear establishment of new artistic standards, — all of these are features of an epoch in process of definition. The chaos and the hesitation of the tenth and the eleventh centuries have disap- peared. The new era exhibits throughout a sense of maturing powers. Ill We may now penetrate more deeply, and con- sider the mass of philosophical doctrines which is- sued out of the efforts of the twelfth century. As one does this, one cannot help noting how the chief doctrines of the developing metaphysics harmo- IN THE MIDDLE AGES 55 nize with the predominant virtues of the feudal spirit. And this brings us to our third point, and indeed the most interesting one, concerning the re- flection of the civilization in the philosophy: name- ly, the harmony of the feudal sense of personal worth with the philosophical doctrine of the reality of the individuaL The feudal man was athirst for independence, his relations with his overlord being determined by free contract; moreover, by a kind of contagion, the desire for a similar independence spread to the townspeople and to the rustic population. This natural disposition took on a Christian tone by vir- tue of the Church teaching concerning the value of the individual life, — the individual soul bought at a price. It was according to this humanitarian prin- ciple that Peter the Venerable called the serfs his brothers and sisters."^* Roman civil law and canon law and feudal law — the three forms of jurisprudence which developed so rapidly from the eleventh century onward — had come to remarkable agreement regarding the ex- istence of natural right; and in the name of this right, based on human nature, they had proclaimed the equality of all men. With this beginning, they came to regard all differences of rank as conven- tional; and slavery and serfdom were declared to be contrary to natural law. If, however, the three forms of law recognized the legitimacy of serfdom, 14 See above, p. 36. 56 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION it was because of the special conditions of the time. Serfdom was considered a social necessity. Under the influence of Christianity, all three systems of law sought to mitigate serfdom ; and this was espe- cially true of the civil lawyers and the canonists, who put into effect a series of measures for the benefit of the serf, which guaranteed the indissolu- bility of his marriage, assured him his right of sanctuary, encouraged his emancipation, and pre- scribed rules in regard to his ordination and his entry into a monastery. These ideas made head- way, — slow, to be sure, but steady — toward that state of society wherein the serf could be set free with the liberty which is due all human beings.^^ Now the scholastic philosophy of the twelfth century based these juridical declarations upon metaphysical foundations ; and they came, after the many centuries of discussion, to this important con- clusion — a conclusion no longer doubted — that the only existing reality is individual reality. Indi- viduals alone exist ; and only individuals ever could exist. The thesis was general in its application. Whether man or animal or plant or chemical body or what not, a being must exist as an individual, incommunicable, and undivided in itself. Simi- larly, everything that affects an existing being is 15 For the conceptions of natural right and of serfdom among the feudal theorists of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, see Carlyle. A History of Mediaeval Political Theory in the West, vol. Ill, Part II, ch. I; among the civil lawyers, ibid., vol. II, Part I, ch. IV; among the canonists, ibid., vol. II, Part II, ch. V. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 57 particularized; man's act of thinking, the shape of an animal, the height of a plant, the activity of a chemical molecule, — everything that exists, exists in the condition of particularity. Scholastic philoso- phy^ is pluralistic; it regards the real world as a collection of individuals and particulars/^ Individuality when applied to a human being is called personality. Throughout the twelfth cen- tury the philosophers are unanimous in repeating the words of Boethius: persona est rationalis na- turae individua substantial'^ For a long time, the schools had oscillated be- tween the extreme realism which taught with Plato that universal essences, such as humanity, have a real existence, and the anti-realism which denied the existence of such realities. But by the twelfth century the debate had been closed in favor of anti- realism. Notwithstanding their various shades of difference,^^ the theory of respectus advanced by Adelard of Bath in Laon and in Paris, the doctrine of status taught by Walter of Mortagne, the so- called "indifference-theory" and the "collection- theory" reechoed by the anonymous author of the De Generihus et Speciehus, — all of these theories, mentioned by John of Salisbury in his Metalogi- cus,^^ agree in maintaining that universal essences i« See below, Chapter IX. 17 Boethius, De dtiabus naturis. 18 Cf. my Hiatoire de la Philosophie Medievale, pp. 217-221. 19 II, 17. 58 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION could not exist, and that only the individual pos- sesses real existence. Hence, the human perfection which constitutes human reality is of the same kind in each person, — king or subject, seigneur or vassal, master or ser- vant, rich or poor, these all have a similar essence. The reality that constitutes the human person ad- mits of no degrees. According to scholastic philos- ophy, a being is either man or not man. No one man can be more or less man than another, al- though each of us possesses more or less powerful faculties which produce more or less perfect acts.^° In this sense Abaelard and Gilbert de la Porree, and scores of others, agree with Peter the Venerable and declare in philosophical terms, based on meta- physical principles, that "serfs are no less and no more human beings than are their masters." But Abaelard went a step further. As has been only recently disclosed by the important discover}^ of his Glossulae super Porphyrium,"^ we can now say definitely, that to Abaelard belongs the great credit of having solved the problem of the universal in the form that was followed throughout the twelfth, the thirteenth, and the fourteenth centuries. Indeed, to the metaphysical doctrine, Abaelard adds 20 See ch. IX. 21 By Grabmann and Geyer in the libraries of Milan and Lunel. For the publication of this important text, see Bernhard Geyer, "Peter Abaelards philosophische Schriften. I. Die Logica Ingredi- entibus. 1. Die Glossen zu Porphyrius," (Beitrdge zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, Bd. XXI, Heft 1, Miinster, 1919). IN THE MIDDLE AGES 59 the psychological, which may be briefly summar- ized as follows: Although there exist only individ- ual men, although each one is independent of the other in his existence, the mind nevertheless pos- sesses the general notion of humanity which belongs to each of them; but this form of generality is a product of our conceptual activity and does not affect the real existence.^^ Therewith was given in compact form essentially the scholastic solution of the famous problem of the relation between the uni- versal and the particular. This doctrine had grown up gradually, and its formation runs parallel with that of the feudal sentiment. Even while it is being clearly expressed in the various philosophical works, the feudal feel- ing of chivalry appears in all its purity and strength in the Chansons de Geste. The most ar- dent defenders of the philosophical solution are the sons of chevaliers, — the impetuous Abaelard, heir of the seigneurs of Pallet; Gilbert de la Porree, bishop of Poitiers; the aristocratic John of Salis- bury, who writes concerning this question: "The 22 "lUud quoque quod supra meminimus, intellectus scilicet universa- lium fieri per abstractionem et quomodo eos solos, nudos, puros nee tamen cassos appelemus . . ." Edit. Geyer, pp. 24> ff. The epistemo- logical solution appears clearly in the following text: "Cum enim hunc hominem tantum attendo in natura substantiae vel corporis, non etiam animalis vel hominis vel grammatici, profecto nihil nisi quod in ea est intelligo, sed non omnia quae habet, attendo. Et cum dico me attendere tantum eam in eo quod hoc habet, illud tantum ad at- tentionem refertur, non ad modum subsistendi, alioquin cassus asset intellectus." Ibid., p. 25. 60 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION world has grown old treating of it, and has taken more time for its solution than the Caesars took to conquer and govern the world. "^^ The great scholastics of the thirteenth century will appropriate this doctrine to their purposes, bringing it into harmony with psychology and ethics and social and political theories; and they will incorporate it in that great synthesis which is the most commanding product of the mediaeval mind, — that is, scholasticism. To sum up. The twelfth century witnesses a new civilization established in a striking form. The struggles of kings with vassals, the coming of the communes, the establishment of citizenship, the freedom of the serfs, — all of these facts are evi- dence that the balance is being established among social forces. New habits, based upon the dignity and the self-respect of the individual, were born out of feudalism, and the Church impressed upon them the stamp of Christianity. A new art springs into life, and intellectual culture makes noteworthy progress. The spirit of localism, which was the result of split-up feudalism, breaks out in the nu- merous schools of the West; and herein appears first the reflection of the age in its philosophy. The demarcation of boundaries between philosophy and all other disciplines discloses a further harmony be- tween its philosophy and the general spirit of the age, — an age which constructs in all departments 2S Polycraticus, VII, 12. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 61 and destroys in none. Finally, the fundamental quality of feudalism is reflected in one of the chief doctrines of their metaphysics: the self-sufficiency of the individual, whether thing or person, is pro- claimed in the schools of France and of England; and 'the French and the English have never for- gotten this proud declaration of their ancestors, the scholastics of the twelfth century. CHAPTER FOUR The Great Awakening of Philosophy in the Thirteenth Century i. The causes : The acquired momentum, ii. The rise of the Universities (Paris and Oxford), iii. The establishment of the mendicant orders (Dominicans and Franciscans), iv. The acquaintance with new philosophical works; translations, v. General result: among the numerous systems the scholastic philosophy issues as dominant, vi. The comprehensive classi- fication of knowledge. It is now generally agreed, that the thirteenth century marks the climax in the growth of philo- sophical thought in western Europe during the Middle Ages. With the decade 1210-1220 begins a development of extraordinary vitality which ex- tends over a period of one hundred and fifty years. Let us examine the causes and the results of this movement of thought. What are the causes of this remarkable develop- ment of philosophical thought? How does it hap- pen that we see the appearance of so many vigor- ous systems, as though the seed had been thrown with lavish hand upon the fertile soil of western Europe? 62 IN THE MIDDLE AGES 63 The first cause is what I shall call the acquired momentum. The intellectual labours of the twelfth century gave the initial impulse. We have already observed some of their achievements; for example, their contributions in methodology, by which the limits of each science and discipline were estab- lished, and without which no intellectual progress would have been possible. We have noted also the deliberate and unanimous declaration, that the indi- vidual alone can be endowed with actual existence and substantiality. To the individual man, — lord or vassal, freeman or serf, clergyman or layman, rich or poor — philosophy spoke these bold words: "Be yourself; your personality belongs only to yourself, your substance is an independent value; keep it ; be self-reliant ; free contract alone can bind you to another man." There are many other philosophical theories which the twelfth century contributed to later gen- erations. Among them are the distinction between sense perception and rational knowledge, and the "abstraction" of the latter from the former; the many proofs of the existence of God, the studies in his Infinitude, and the essays in reconciling Provi- dence and human freedom ; the relation between es- sence and existence ; the views on the natural equal- ity of men and the divine origin of authority. But these doctrines had not been combined into an inte- gral whole; and therefore the philosophers of the 64 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION thirteenth century used them as material in the con- struction of their massive edifice of knowledge. But not alone in philosophy was the growth ex- traordinary and the ripening rapid; the same was true of all domains. The constitution of the Magna Charta (1215), the granting of privileges by Philip Augustus to the University of Paris, the birth of St. Louis and of Thomas Aquinas, the death of St. Francis, — these are all events closely coinciding in time; and the height of development in scholastic philosophy followed closely upon the height of development in Gothic architecture. The best proof, however, of the value of the work already accomplished lies in the very celerity of the development during the thirteenth century ; for the succeeding generations of that century took swift advantage of the favourable conditions which had already been created for them. Thus, a few years after these happy conditions obtained, that is about 1226-30, William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, and the Franciscan Alexander of Hales conceived their great systems of thought; and then almost immediately there appeared such men as Roger Bacon, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and Ray- mond Lully. What they did would not have been possible if their age had not been prepared to ac- cept their work, — a preparation already assured in the twelfth century leaven of doctrine, with its promise of growth and of increase. But there were also external causes which hast- IN THE MIDDLE AGES 65 ened this elaboration of doctrine. Among these there are three to be especially noted. Namely, the rise of the University of Paris; the establishment of the two great religious orders, both of them de- voted to learning; and the circulation of a large number of new philosophical works, which were brought from the Orient and which had been un- known to the Occident before that time in the Mid- dle Ages. These three causes cooperated in a unique manner. For, the University of Paris was the centre of learning; the new orders supplied the same University with professors; and the books brought from the Orient made a notable increase in its working library. II During the last years of the twelfth century, the French metropolis monopolized, to its advantage, the intellectual activity which previously had been scattered in the various French centers. The Uni- versity eclipsed the episcopal and monastic schools, and thereby replaced the spirit of localism with that of centralization in study.^ Towards the middle of the twelfth century the schools of Paris were divided into three groups: (a) the schools of the cathedral of Notre Dame, under the authority of the chancellor and, through him, of 1 See Rashdall's excellent work: The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1895. Cf. H. Denifle, Die Universitdten des Mittelalters bis I4OO, Berlin, 1885. 66 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION the bishop of Paris; (b) the schools of the canons of St. Victor, which had become the throbbing cen- tre of mysticism, but where also William of Cham- peaux had opened a school in which he had been teaching philosophy for some time; (c) the outside schools of the abbey of St. Genevieve. But the schools of Notre Dame occupied the foremost place, and it was from them that the University sprang. It arose not indeed through a decree of the govern- ment or a committee of trustees, but as a flower grows from its stem, by a natural convening of masters and pupils; for their number had multi- plied as a result of the constant development of studies. Masters and pupils were grouped in four faculties according to their special interests — the University documents compare them to the four rivers of Paradise, just as the iconography of the cathedrals symbolically represents the four evange- lists as pouring water from urns toward the four points of the compass. These are the faculties of Theology, of Arts (thus called in memory of the liberal arts of the early Middle Ages) , of Law, and of Medicine. The program of studies in the University is a living and moving thing. It takes form in the second half of the thirteenth century, and at that moment it is revealed in great purity of outline, like something new and fresh, a distinctive and pleas- ing product of the Middle Ages. If one should take, as it were, a snap-shot of the faculty of arts — IN THE MIDDLE AGES 67 or of philosophy — as it was about 1270, he would find that it is entirely distinct from the other fac- ulties, even from that of theology, as in our own day. But the studies under its control fill a very special place in the University economy, because they are the usual, or even required, preliminary to studies in the other faculties. They have a forma- tive and preparatory character, and for this reason the faculty of arts appears in the documents with the title of inferior faculty, facultas inferior, in dis- tinction from the three other faculties which are placed over it and hence are called superior, facili- tates superiores.^ On this account the student popu- lation of the faculty of arts was young and numer- ous, a population of adolescents — pueri, the char- ters say. They entered at fourteen years ; at twenty they might have finished their course in arts and graduated. Then usually they entered another fac- ulty. But they had received the imprint of their masters ; and the impressions given by philosophical teaching are indelible, be it remembered. On their side the masters or professors of the faculty of arts, recruited from among the graduates in arts by a curious custom of which we will speak in a moment, also constituted the youthful, and therefore stir- ring, element in the teaching staff. It is easy to distinguish in the faculty of arts the two main features which characterize the entiie 2 Denifle et Chatelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, I, p. 600. 68 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION University: the corporate spirit and the extension of instruction. The University as a whole is a cor- poration, or group of masters and scholars. It is even nothing but that ; the word ''universitas'' is taken from the Roman law and means corporation or group; and the mediaeval period applies this term to every kind of grouping, to the city, to the parish, even to the universal Church; while docu- ments name the University proper, a general centre of studies, — ''studium generalef The corporation idea appears therefore in the organization of facul- ties, and gives to the faculty of arts or philosophy a characteristic meaning. It includes masters and apprentices. Indeed, the student at Paris is an apprentice-professor, a candidate for the master- ship. His career is normally crowned, not by re- ceiving a diploma — which is simply the recognition of knowledge — but by teaching in the corporation of his masters. The studies, too, constitute simply a long apprenticeship for the mastership or the pro- fessorship. He becomes a professor by doing the work of a professor, as a blacksmith becomes a blacksmith by forging. Indeed, the whole situa- tion strongly resembles the organization of work- men, of stonecutters and masons, who about this time were building and carving the great cathedrals of France. They, too, had their working-men's syn- dicates; and professional schools were organized in their midst. The apprenticed workman was sub- jected to a severe and long initiation, and worked IN THE MIDDLE AGES 69 under the direction of a master. To become master in his turn, he must produce a work judged worthy and called a masterjnece. The process was none other for the future professors of philosophy at the University of Paris. Ouring his six years of attendance, the pupil cleared the three stages of baccalaureate (baccha- laureus), licentiate (licentiatus) , and mastership (magister). But the tests for the baccalaureate had already included an attempt at public lecture. After the new member had been subjected to some preliminary examinations {responsiones et eoo- amen), he was required to mount a platform, and invited to defend a systematically prepared thesis — a process which sometimes lasted all through Lent — and to answer the objections of those present. This public defense was called determination and the student left it as a bachelor, — a term which was employed by the corporation of workmen in a special sense, the bachelors being "those who have passed as masters in the art but who have not been sworn in." The examination for the baccalaureate is surrounded with the corporate ceremonial so dear to the thirteenth century. The student puts on a special cap. Then, the seance ended, wine is served and a banquet arranged. Youth is everywhere the same — the great days of university life must be gaily celebrated. Between the baccalaureate and licentiate there was a period of variable length, dur- ing which the bachelor was at once student and ap • 70 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION prentice-professor. As student, he followed the master's lessons and continued to acquire knowl- edge; as apprentice-professor, he himself explained to others certain books of Aristotle's Organon, When his term of six years had rolled around and he had reached his nineteenth or twentieth year, the bachelor could present himself before the chan- cellor to be admitted to the licentiate. Cerernonies multiply: thus, the new examination to be under- gone before some of the professors of the faculty (temptatores) , and then before the chancellor as- sisted by four examiners chosen by him and ap- proved by the faculty; the public discussion at St.-Julien-le-Pauvre upon a subject left to the choice of the bachelor; and finally, amid great pomp, the conferring of the long-coveted right to teach and to open his own school. There was still the third step to be taken — the. mastership; and here we are taken back to the purest conceptions of the mediaeval corporation. The mastership is the enthroning of the newly li- censed member before the faculty or society of masters — that close organization, so jealous of its monopoly, to which one had access only through the agreement of all the members, and after having given a pledge of fidelity to the rector and to the faculty which bound the master for life. The mastership was in principle a ft^ee profes- sion, with no rules except the rules applying to the organization as a whole, and with no limit upon the IN THE MIDDLE AGES 71 number of the members. In consequence of this arrangement, there was a great increase in the teaching profession. The right to teach could not be withheld from any student who had completed the regular course of studies; and the number of masters of arts incorporated in the faculty was theoretically unlimited. We readily recognize cer- tain characteristic features in this system of uni- versity instruction of the thirteenth century: free competition in teaching among all those who have taken their degree; freedom of the students who have become doctors, or "masters," to open schools beside their former masters; and freedom of the students to select their own masters, — the clearest in exposition, the most eloquent in delivery, the most profound in thought — entirely according to choice. This freedom in the teaching career was reflected in the teaching itself, — in the spirit and action of the masters. There was really great freedom of thought and of speech in the thirteenth century, — notwithstanding what is now commonly believed on this subject. A very striking example may be taken from the end of the century, in the person of the philosopher Godfrey of Fontaines, — who was also a "Doctor in Theology." From the teacher's chair, — and aware of his privilege and responsibil- ity — he directs the severest criticism against his su- 72 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION perior, the Bishop of Paris, Simon of Bucy.^ He justifies his audacity by invoking the principle that a Doctor of the University is bound to declare the truth, however his speech may offend the rich and the powerful. "Few there are to be found," he says, "who can be blamed for excess of frankness; but many indeed for their silence." Pauci inveni- untur qui culpari possunt de excessu in veritate di- cenda, plurimi vero de taciturnitate.^ One could cite many more examples of this great freedom of speech among the masters ; the University sermons especially are full of it.^ Although the University of Paris possessed four faculties, it was especially famous for its teaching of philosophy and theology, just as Bologna, the twin sister of Paris, was famed for its juridical learning. Paris outstripped by far the University of Oxford, which was its only rival in this particu- lar field.^ Thus Paris became the philosophical 3 For details see my study of Godfrey of Fontaines; Etudes sur la vie, les oeuvres et Vinfluence de Oodefroid de Fontaines, Louvain, 1904. 4 Godefridi de Fontibus Quodlibeta, XII, q. vi, (fol. 278 Rb), Latin MS. No. 15842, Bibl. Nat. I am editing these Quodlibeta, with the aid of former pupils; three volumes have appeared (in the series: Les Philosophes Beiges, vols. II and III, Louvain, 1904 and 1914), and two or three more will follow. 5 See, for example, C. Langlois : "Sermons parisiens de la pre- miere moiti^ du Xlll'e s. contenus dans le Ms 691 de la Bibl. d' Ar- ras" {Journal des Savants, 1916, pp. 488 and 548). 6 Many other universities were established on the model of Paris and Bologna; for instance, Cambridge, Montpellier, Toulouse, Sala- manca, Valladolid, Naples, — all of the thirteenth century. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 73 centre of the West, the international "rendez-vous" for all those who were interested in speculative thought, — and their name was legion. By way of glorifying this philosophical speculation at the University, the documents refer to Paris in the most pompous terms : parens scientiarum, the alma mater of the sciences; sapientiae fons, fountain of wisdom, that is, the fountain of philosophy. Paris drew to itself an endless stream of strangers interested in these subjects. During the thirteenth century all of those who have a name in philosophy or in theology come here, sooner or later, for a more or less prolonged sojourn. Ital- ians such as Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Peter of Tarantaise, Gilles of Rome, James of Viterbo, meet with masters from German provinces such as Albert the Great, Ulric of Strasburg, Thierrj^ of Freiburg. From the region of Flanders or from the Walloon country come Gauthier of Bruges, Siger of Brabant, Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines, and they meet Danes, such as Boethius the Dacian, and especially the English masters, such as Stephen Langton, Michael Scot, Alfred Anglicus (of Sereshel), William of Meliton, Alex- ander of Hales, Richard of Middleton, Roger Bacon, Robert Kilwardby, Walter Burleigh, Duns Scotus and William of Occam. Spain also is rep- resented by notable men, such as Peter of Spain, Cardinal Ximenes of Toledo, and Raymond Lully. Indeed, one can count on one's fingers the philoso- 74 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION phers of the thirteenth century who were not trained at Paris, such as the Silesian Witelo or Robert Grosseteste, the organizer of the University of Ox ford, — and even the latter was indirectly influenced by Paris. All of these strangers mingle with the masters of French origin, William of Auxerre, Bernard of Auvergne, William of St. Amour, Wil- liam of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, John of La Rochelle, and Vincent of Beauvais. From their midst are recruited the artificers of that great cos- mopolitan philosophy which is to mould the minds of the educated classes. Ill The vigorous growth of the philosophical and theological schools of Paris was singularly quick- ened by the rise of the two new religious orders, — the Dominicans and the Franciscans — and by their incorporation in the University. This stimulus was so important that it justifies treating these or- ders as a further cause of the rapid development of philosophy in the thirteenth century. The Benedictine monasteries had fallen into de- cline, chiefly through excess of wealth which had finally weakened their austerity. Francis of Assisi and Dominic, who founded the two celebrated or- ders of Franciscans and Dominicans at about the same time, effected a return to evangelical poverty by forbidding the possession of this world's goods, — not only to each of their disciples, but also to the IN THE MIDDLE AGES 75 religious communities themselves. Hence their name of "mendicant" orders; and Francis, called // poverino, spoke of poverty as his bride. It was because they wished to preach to the multitudes and to mingle more intimately in public and social life*that the Franciscans and the Dominicans estab- lished themselves in the town, whilst the Benedic- tines and the Carthusians had settled in the country. At the same time the Dominicans and the Fran- ciscans were not slow in forming an intellectual elite. For both orders, each in its own way, fos- tered learning in their members; and so they be- came, almost on the day of their inception, nurseries of philosophers and theologians. It is really very wonderful to follow the intense intellectual life which is developed in the midst of these vast corpo- rations of workers. Hardly are they founded be- fore they establish themselves at Paris, in 1217 and 1219 respectively; they create in the young Uni- versity centre separate establishments of advanced studies, ''studia generalia/' for their own members. But at the same time, they are engaged in incorpo- rating themselves in the intellectual life of the Uni- versity, by obtaining chairs in the faculty of The- ology. Fortune favoured the rapid rise of the or- ders in the University faculty. In 1229 a strike of the secular professors, at the schools of Notre Dame, gave them their initial opportunity. The voice of Parisian learning had become silent, as the documents put it, — in omni facultate diet Parisien- 76 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION sis vooo doctrinae. At this juncture the Dominicans and the Franciscans offered their services to the chancellor, and they were accepted. When later the strike was concluded, the orders succeeded in maintaining themselves in the faculty of Theology, in spite of the opposition from the other members of the faculty. The Dominicans had obtained two chairs (one in 1229 and one in 1231), and at the same time the Franciscans had secured a chair, of which Alexander of Hales was the first incumbent. The burning fever for work and the need of re- considering doctrine, in the hght of the new philoso- phies brought from Arabia and Spain and Byzan- tium, created among the Franciscans and the Dominicans a unique spirit of emulation and served as a spur to zealous discussion. In every branch of their activities and in every country the rivalry be- tween the two great orders breaks out. In religious matters, they discuss the merits of their respective ideals; in matters of art, their best artists glorify the remarkable men of their own orders, — thus, fol- lowing a capricious impulse intelligible in artists, the Dominican Fra Angelico shows in his pictures of the Last Judgment certain Franciscans tumb- ling toward hell, while the Dominicans are received into heaven! But nowhere are they more eager to surpass each other than in the realms of philosophy and theology. Those who would hold back are shaken from their torpor; thus, in the vigorous though rude style of the day, Albert the Great IN THE MIDDLE AGES 77 speaks of the reactionaries of his order as "stupid animals who blaspheme philosophy without under- standing it."^ In 1284 the Franciscan John Peck- ham, — who reminds one of Roger Bacon, in his im- pulsive character and in his tendency to exagger- ate-^— writes to the Chancellor of the University as follows: "Certain brothers of the Dominican order boast that the teaching of truth has a higher place of honor among them than in any other existing order."^ On the other hand, a certain blind rivalry per- sists between the "regulars" (those subjects to Dominican or Franciscan rule), and those who call themselves "secular" teachers (seculares) . The latter could not conceal their animosity toward their monkish colleagues : and the University writ- ings of the period are full of the quarrels which re- sulted. Thus, as Dominicans and Franciscans op- posed each other on points of doctrine, the seculars reveal their malice by comparing the twin orders to Jacob and Esau who quarreled in the very womb of their mother. However, these twin brothers ac- complished great things, and Roger Bacon, the en- fant terrible of his time, in spite of his quarrels with his fellow friars could not refrain from writing in 7 ". . . tanquam bruta animalia blasphemantia in iis quae igno- rant," In Epist. Beati Dionysii Areopagitae, Epist. VIII, No. 2. 8 "Quidam fratres ejusdem ordinis praedicatorum ausi sunt se publice jactitari doctrinam veritatis plus in suo ordine quam in alio contemporaneo viguisse." Epistola ad cancellarium. Oxon., Decemb., 1284. 78 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION 1271, with his usual exaggeration, that in forty years no "secular" had written anything of any value either in Philosophy or in Theology/ IV The extreme fondness for philosophy, however, which appears in the University of Paris during the thirteenth century, is explained only in part by the acquired momentum, the influx of foreigners to Paris, the place given to philosophy and theology in the program of studies, and the feverish activity of the impressive Dominican and Franciscan cor- porations with their remarkable masters. In addi- tion, and finally, we must consider the introduction of new philosophical texts, which served as food for individual reflection and for discussion and for writing. It is hard for us adequately to realize what this enrichment must have meant at that time. The great treatises of Aristotle, — his Metaphysics, his Physics, his Treatise on the Soul, works of which doctors had spoken for five hundred years, but which no westerner had read since the days of Boethius — were brought to them from Greece and from Spain. Neo-Platonic works were added to these, — principally the ''Liber de Causis/' written by a compiler of Proclus, and the ''Elementa The- ologiae" of Proclus himself. Henceforth the West knows the best that Greek thought had produced, 9 Compendium Studii, cap. V, ed. Brewer p. 428. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 79 Nor is that all. Along with these works, the Paris- ian doctors receive a vast number of commentaries, made by the Arabs of Bagdad and of Spain. Fi- nally, they also come into possession of a large col- lection of Arabian and Jewish works, having their sources in Alfarabi, Avicenna, Averroes, Avice- bron, not to mention others. All of these riches, in Latin translation, were brought to Paris, to France, to England, to Italy, to Germany ; and the study and evaluation of these translations is one of the most difficult and far- reaching problems connected with the history of that age. In the last century, work on this great problem was begun by eminent scholars; nor can we even now say that it is solved. Will it ever be solved? For, it continually enlarges as further in- sight into it is gained. But results have been ob- tained; and within recent years specialists of all nationalities have taken the work in hand.^" We get some idea of the difficulties, with which these scholars have to deal, when we recall that the work of translation was accomplished in a century and a half; that the Latin translations were made from Greek works, pseudo-Greek works, and books of the Jews and Arabs ; that the Greek works were 9=* Menendez y Pelayo in Spain, Marchesi in Italy, Vacant in France, Mandonnet in Switzerland, Little in England, Charles Ras- kins at Harvard, Pelzer in Rome, besides a number of Germans (such as Rose, Wiistenfeld and Grabmann). 80 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION nearly all twice translated into Latin and in two different ways, the one including the direct transla- tions from the Greek and the other the translations by a sort of cascade of intermediate languages (Arabic and Hebrew and even the vernacular) ; and, finally, that it was carried on in three main centres, — in Greece itself, in the Greek speaking countries of southern Italy (The Sicilies), and in Spain. Often the same work was translated many times and at different places; many were anony- mous or undated. Through the three great frontiers raised between West and East — Spain, Byzantium, Sicily — the influence of these ideas is set in motion; but it is especially through Spain that the influx is the greatest. It is at Toledo, indeed, the most ad- vanced post of Christianity, and where the kings of Castille are contending against the ever-menacing invasion of the Mussulmans, that Christian civiliza- tion gives welcome to the science and philosophy and art of the Arabs. There, in the Archbishop's palace, was founded a college of translators who, for three-quarters of a century, carried on this formidable task, and indeed to a happy conclusion. Englishmen, Italians, Frenchmen, and Germans worked side by side with Jews and christianized Arabs, under the encouragement and stimulus of the two learned Archbishops, whose names are IN THE MIDDLE AGES 81 worthy of being engraved on tablets of bronze, — Raymond of Toledo and Rodriguez Ximenes. The actual acquisition of so much new knowledge was made by the masters of Paris in comparatively rapid stages. Its elaboration, however, took longer. The first who came in touch with it were dazed. In addition to the Greek thought, which took time to master, there was that further world swimming into ken, so new and enchanting, the Oriental phi- losophy of the Arabian people; born of Neo- Platonism, with its mystical, misleading concep- tions, and its profound idealism, this philosophy was very different from the cold, clear speculation of the Neo-Latins and Anglo-Celts. It was not until 1270, or thereabouts, that the West completed its elaboration of these foreign treasures, and the initial chaos gave place to order and equilibrium ; it was then that Thomas Aquinas, the great systematizer among the intellectual giants of that age, laid hold of his opportunity and won his secure place in the history of thought. We are now ready to enumerate the general re- sults of the great network of causes which func- tioned in the philosophical development of the thir- teenth century. Among these general results we shall confine our attention to two outstanding facts which dominate the entire thought of the thirteenth century, — like two high peaks towering above the /7«f/osr 82 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION rest in a mountain range. On the one hand, there is the predominance, in western Europe, of a great system of philosophy, — the scholastic philosophy; on the other hand, there is the impressive classifica- tion of human knowledge. It is important now to note carefully the significance of these facts; we shall seek to analyze them in the chapters that fol- low. First, then, the scholastic philosophy. Numer- ous philosophical systems rose up on every side as if, as I said at the outset, a great variety of seed had been scattered on fertile soil by some generous hand. The thirteenth century is rich in personali- ties. But, among the numerous philosophical sys- tems to which the century gave birth, there is one which overshadows and surpasses all others in its influence. It is the scholastic philosophy. This is the system of doctrines which attains the height of its perfection in the thirteenth century, and to which the majority of the ablest minds subscribe, — such as William of Auvergne, Alexander of Hales, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Duns Scotus, to mention no others. There is a great fund of common doctrines, which each interprets in his own way, following his individual genius; just as there is also a common Gothic architecture, which appears in a great many cathedrals, each of which expresses its own individuality. This system of doctrines constitutes the binding tie in an important school of masters, who are thereby united like the mem- IN THE MIDDLE AGES 83 bers of a family. They themselves call it, in the manuscripts of the period, the ''sententia com- munis/' the prevalent philosophy. This common fund of doctrine, to which I was the first to limit the name of "scholastic philosophy"^" presents an imposing mass of ideas. To be sure, there were rival and opposing phi- losophies. Never, at any time in the history of mankind, has contradiction lost its right. The thirteenth century is full of clashes of ideas and conflicts issuing therefrom. For instance, they ex- perienced the shocks of materialism, of Averroism, and of Latin Neo-Platonism. Thus, Latin Averro- ism, which caused so much disturbance at the Uni- versity of Paris, about 1270, denies the individual- ity of the act of thinking, by asserting that all men think through the instrumentality of a single soul, the soul of the race.^^ Again, the Neo-Platonic philosophies, which appear in the schools of Paris, deny all real transcendence of God by making crea- tion an emanation from God, that is to say a part of God Himself.^^ Very naturally, therefore, against this common peril a coalition was formed, both defensive and offensive; and a legion of war- riors, — such men as Roger Bacon, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus — forgot their quar- rels and faced the common foe. 10 Cf. my Histoire de la Philosophie Medievale, pp. Ill flf. 11 See ch. XIII, iv. 12 See ch. XIII, v and vi. 84 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION The scholastic pliilosophers of the thirteenth century also exhibits reasoning superior to all the systems which were trying to batter a breach in their systems of thought. A celebrated painting of the beginning of the fourteenth century, which is preserved at Pisa, furnishes a striking confirmation of this fact ; for it reveals the recognition in society at large that the scholastic philosophy was the pre- dominating philosophy of the time. The painter, Traini, represents Thomas Aquinas as crowned in glory and with Averroes at his feet crouching in the attitude of a defeated warrior. The triumph of Aquinas is the triumph of scholasticism, and the defeat of Averroes indicates the defeat of the entire Oriental and Arabian mentality. This painting of Traini, celebrating the triumph of Thomism, be- came a theme of the studio, that is to say a common opinion, a recognized fact.^^ It is reproduced in a host of well-known paintings. We find it splen- didly developed, by an unknown painter of the Sienna school, in the Capitular Hall built by the Dominicans in 1350, at Florence (Chapel of the Spaniards). The subject attracted Gozzoli (in the Louvre) ; the Spaniard Zurbaran (Museum of Seville) ; then Fihppino Lippi (Church of Mi- nerva, Rome), who in turn directly inspired Ra- phael's "Dispute of the Blessed Sacrament." 13 See below ch. VII, ii, and ch. XIII, iv. 1* Gillet, Histoire artistique des ordres mendiants, Paris, 1912, pp. 139 if. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 85 VI The second great fact resulting from the intel- lectual life of the thirteenth century is the classifi- cation of human knowledge. All of the philosophi- cal systems, — not only the dominating or scholastic philosophy, but also those anti-scholastic systems with which it was in perpetual struggle and con- tradiction — rested upon the conception of a vast classification, a gigantic work of systematization, the fruit of many centuries of speculation, and one of the characteristic achievements of the mediaeval mind. For more than a thousand years it has satis- fied thinkers athirst for order and clarity. In what does it consist? One may compare it to a monumental structure, to a great pyramid consisting of three steps, — with the sciences of observation as the base, with philoso- phy as the middle of the structure, and with theol- ogy as the apex.^*" Let us consider each of these in order. i*** The general scheme is: I. Particular sciences, such as botany, zoology, etc. II. Philosophy. A. Theoretical a. Physics b. Mathematics c. Metaphysics B. Practical a. Logic b. Ethics c. Social and political philosophy III. Theology. C. Poetical A. Doctrinal B. Mystical a. Scriptural (auctoritates) b. Apologetical (rationes) 86 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION At the base are the natural sciences such as as- tronomy, botany, physiology, zoolog}^ chemistry (elements), physics (in the the modern sense of the word) ; and instruction in these precedes in- struction in philosophy. In this there is a very in- teresting pedagogical application of a ruling prin- ciple in the philosophical ideology of the Middle Ages; that is that since human knowledge is con- tained in the data of sensation, the cultivation of the mind must begin with what falls under the ob- servation of the senses; nihil est in intellectu quod non piius fuerit in sensu.^'^ But more especially there is implied, in this placing of the experimental sciences at the threshold of philosophy, a concep- tion which inspires the scientific philosophies of all times; namely, that the synthetic or total concep- tion of the world furnished by philosophy must be founded on an analytic or detailed conception yielded by a group of special sciences. These lat- ter study the world minutely; and for this reason they are called special sciences. They investigate the world in one domain after another; the phi- losophers of the thirteenth century speak clearly concerning this method — the basis of the particu- larity of a science. In every science, say the scholars of the thir- teenth century,^^ it is necessary to distinguish the 15 See ch. VIII, i. 16 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., 1* q. I, arts. 1-3, passim; Contra Gentiles, II, 4; Henricus Gandavensis, Summa Theolog., art. 7, q. I-VI. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 87 objects with which it is concerned {mateiia) from the point of view from which these objects are con- sidered {ratio formalis). The objects with which a science is concerned are its material ; for example, the human body constitutes the material of an- atomy and of physiology. But every science takes its material in its own way; it treats this material from some one angle, and this angle is always a point of vietc upon which the mind deliberately centers, an aspect of things which the mind sepa- rates out, — "abstracts" (ahstrahit) from its ma- terial. Thus the point of view of anatomy is not that of physiology; for anatomy describes the or- gans of the human body, while physiology, is con- cerned w^th their functions. The point of view of the one is static and of the other dynamic. From this it obviously follows that two sciences can be engaged with the same material, or — to bor- row the philosophical terminology of the Middle Ages — possess a common material object (ohjec- turn materiale) ; but they must possess in each case, under penalty of being confused, a distinct point of view, a unique formal object {objectum for- male) , which is the special "good" of each science. And, indeed, w^hatever group of sciences we may consider, we do, in fact discover everywhere the operation of this law, regulating the distinctions among the sciences; geology, inorganic chemistry, and physics are concerned with the sajne object — the inanimate world — but from different points of 88 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION view. Biology, paleontology, anatomy, and physi- ology study the organism but in its different as- pects. The material common to political economy, civil law, and criminal law is human action, but each of these sciences regards the complete reality of human action from a special angle. From this intellectualistic conception of the sciences, which bases the specific character of the science upon the point of view, it follows that a new science must be born whenever research and discovery reveal a new aspect, a point of view hitherto unsuspected in the unending pursuit of reality; the further the mind extends its view of things, the further does it pene- trate into the secrets of reality. This theory of science helps us to understand what makes a science "special," and how in the thir- teenth century "special" sciences are opposed to "general" science. The particularity of the sciences rests upon two considerations which supplement each other, and an examination of a few of the sci- ences which we have named as examples will suffice to show in the concrete the value of these consider- ations. Anatomy and physiology, we said, are con- cerned with the human body, but they are not con- cerned about geological strata or stars. The ma- terial studied is a particular bit of reahty; a re- stricted, specialized department or — to use again the mediaeval terminology — their material object (objectum materiale) is restricted. On the other hand, precisely because anatomy and physiology IN THE MIDDLE AGES 89 are concerned with only a particular group of ex- istences, the point of view {objectum formale) un- der which they include this group of existences is also restricted; it is not applied to other categories of the real. But, — and this is the second point — the detailed examination of the world for which the special sci- ences take up particular positions does not suffice to satisfy the mind ; after the detail it demands total views. Philosophy is simply a survey of the world as a whole. The man of science is like a stranger who would explore a city bit by bit, and who travels through its avenues, promenades, museums, parks, and buildings one after the other. When at last he has wandered over the city in all directions, there will still remain another way for him to be- come acquainted with it ; from the height of a plat- form, from the summit of a tower, from the basket of a balloon, from an aviator's seat, the city would disclose to him another aspect, — its framework, plan, and relative disposition of parts. But that way is the way of the philosopher, and not of the scientist. The philosopher is thus the man who views the world from the top of a lookout and sets himself to learn its structure; philosophy is a syn- thetic and general knowledge of things. It is not concerned with this or that compartment of exis- tence, but with all beings existent or possible, the real without restriction. It is not a particular but a general science. General science or philosophy 90 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION constitutes the second stage of knowledge. It is human wisdom {sapientia) , science par excellence, iirKTTrjfiT], This generality has a twofold aspect; for in two ways the general character of philosophy is op- posed to the special character of the particular sciences. In the first place, instead of dealing with one department of reality, philosophy plunges into the immensity of the real, of all that is. Its mat- ter (material object) is not general of course in the sense of an encyclopedia (as was supposed in the early Middle Ages by Isidore of Seville and by Rhabanus Maurus, or by Vincent of Beauvais in the thirteenth century) into which is thrown pell- mell, and in a purely artificial order, a formidable array of information in regard to all that is known and knowable. An encyclopedia is not a science and does not pretend to be. If philosophy deals with all reality it does so by the way of viewing things in their totality. But, in the second place, these total views are possible only when the mind discovers, in the totality of reality, certain aspects or points of view which are met with everywhere and which reach to the very depths of reality. To return to the technical scholastic language, with which we are familiar, its formal and precise object is the study of something that is found everywhere and which must be general because it is common to everything. Philosophy is defined as the under- IN THE MIDDLE AGES 91 standing of all things through their fundamental and universal reasons/^' The thirteenth century directs us to the signifi- cance of synthesis or generality which belongs to philosophy, by taking up and completing Aristo- tle's famous division of philosophy, which was ac- cepted as valid down to the time of Wolff in the seventeenth century. Philosophy is first, theoreti- cal, second, practical, and third, poetical. This threefold division of philosophy into speculative, practical, and poetical is based upon man's differ- ent contacts with the totality of the real, or, as it was put then, with the universal order. Speculative or theoretical (^cw/jctv, to consider) philosophy gives the results of acquaintance with the world in its objective aspect; it includes the phi- losophy of nature, mathematics, and metaphysics, which consider {consider at sed non facit) change, quantity, and the general conditions of being, re- spectively, in the material world. There are three stages through which the mind passes in order to secure a total view of the world of which it is spec- tator. The Middle Ages defines physics, or the philosophy of nature, as "the study of the material world in so far as it is carried in the stream of change, motus/' Change! Whether, indeed, it is a question of the inorganic kingdom or of the realm of the living, of plants or of human life, of the 16* Thomas Aquinas, In Metaph. 1, lect. 2. "Sapientia est scientia quae considerat primas et universales causas." 92 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION atom or of the course of the stars : all that is in the sensible world, becomes, that is to say, changes, evolves; or, to use the expression of the Middle Ages, everything is in motion {movere). To study, in its inmost nature, change and its implica- tions, in order to explain the movements of the ma- terial world, — this is the task of the philosophy of nature/^ It is easy to see that this study is of a regressive and synthetic kind, that it is general, that is to say, philosophical, on account of the gen- eral character of the material investigated (ma- terial object), and the generality of the point of view from which the inquiry is undertaken ( formal object). But through all their changes and trans- formations bodies preserve a common attribute, the primary attribute of body — quantity — so that the study of quantity forces us to penetrate reality still further. Mathematics, which studies quantity as regards its logical implications, was for the ancients a philosophical and therefore a general science, and in our day many scientists are tending to return to this Aristotelian notion. Metaphysics enters deep- est of all into reality and deals with what is beyond motion and quantity, — for the sole purpose of con- sidering the general determinations of being. But practical philosophy is no less general in character, although it is not concerned with the uni- versal order in its objective reality, but with the 17 Be it observed that, since man is a part of the world of sense- perception, psychology also belongs to physics. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 98 activities (TrpaTreiv) of conscious life, through which we enter into relation with that reality {considerat faciendo). Hence, as Thomas Aquinas explains, practical philosophy is occupied with an order of things of which man is at once spectator (since he examines it by turning upon himself) and maker (since he forms it through his conscious function, that is, knowing and willing). Practical philos- ophy includes logic and ethics and politics. Logic sets up a scheme of all that we know, of the method of constructing the sciences; and there is nothing that the human mind cannot know in some imperfect way. Ethics studies the realm of our acts, and there is nothing in human life that cannot become the material of duty. Politics is concerned with the realm of social institutions, and there is nothing which has not its social side, since man is made to live in society {animale sociale) , Going more deeply into the analysis of practical philos- ophy, one might show that logic draws in its train speculative grammar, for it invades the fields of grammar and rhetoric — its former associates in the trivium — to draw thence material for controversy. Furthermore, Paris saw the birth of some true phi- losophers of language, in the speculative grammars of Siger of Courtrai and of Duns Scotus;^^ and the lexicographical codes of Donatus and Priscian 18 The authenticity of the Grammatica specnlativa, attributed to Duns Scotus, has been doubted. However this may be, it is a re- markable work. 94 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION which had satisfied the twelfth century were finally rejected with scorn. Logic, ethics, and politics all claim to be in touch with the immensity of the re- ality with which man enters into relation. The same quahty of universality should pertain to the third group of the philosophical sciences, the poetical ( Trout*', to make) sciences, which study the order achieved by man externally through the guidance of reason. Man is at once the spectator and maker of an order which he creates. But this order is outside of him, in matter.''' This third group is the least developed of all. It would seem as if the human product par excellence, the work of art, endowed with beauty, should here occupy a large place. But the thinkers of the thirteenth cen- tury regard the productive activity of the artisan, — maker of furniture or builder of houses — as on the same level with the human creative activity which inspires epics and which makes cathedrals to rise and stained windows to flame and granite statues to live. Dante has no special thought of beauty, when he speaks of the work of art, as "the grandson of God.""" The professional philosophers bury their reflections on beauty in metaphysical studies; hence the fragmentary character of their thought in that realm. Possibly this omission as regards aesthetic theory has its explanation in the corporate character of their labors. The artisan was devoted 19 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, In Ethic. Nicom., I, 1, 20 The Inferno, XT, 103, "... a Dio quasi nepote." IN THE MIDDLE AGES 95 to his calling; and this devotion was such that every artisan was, or might hecome, an artist. The dis- tinction between artes liber ales and artes mechani- cae did not rest upon any superiority of the artistic activity as such, but upon the difference in the pro- cesses employed; both were possessed of the ratio artis in like manner."^" Furthermore, we must bear in mind that the contemporaries of an artistic apo- gee do not realize the significance of the develop- ment witnessed by them ; theories always come later than the facts which they are meant to explain. In any event, we should note how large and human is the philosophical conception of art in the Middle Ages; there is no work of man which it cannot clothe in the royal mantle of beauty. It remains only to mention the last order of stud- ies which is placed above philosophy, and which cor- responds, in the comparison that we have been mak- ing, to the highest part of the structure, to the apex of the pyramid. This is theology ^ doctrinal and mystical. ^^ The part relating to doctrines is an ar- rangement of dogmas founded upon the Christian revelation, and we shall see later^^ that it takes a double form, — being both scriptural and apolo- getical. Theology aside, this classification of human 2oa "Nec oportet, si liberales artes sunt nobiliores, quod magis eis conveniat ratio artis." Summa Theol., la 2ae, q. LVII, art. 3, in fine. 21 For its place in the general scheme see above, p, 85. 22 See ch. VII. 96 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION knowledge is Aristotelian in origin. The Aristo- telian spirit appears not only in the very notion of "science," which aims at unity; but also in the rela- tion between the particular sciences and philos- ophy. Since the latter rests upon the former, it re- mains in permanent contact with the facts ; indeed, it is anchored to the very rocks of reality. The abundant harvest of facts, supplied by Greeks and Arabians, was enriched by fresh observations in physics (in the modern sense of the word), chem- ii^try (elementary), botany, zoology and human physiology. Moreover, Thomas Aquinas and God- frey of Fontaines and others borrowed material from the special sciences which were taught in the other university faculties, notably from medicine and from law (civil and canon). Facts about na- ture and about the physical and social man, — in- deed, observations from all sources — are called upon to supply materials for the synthetic view of philosophy. They all claim with Dominicus Gun- dissalinus, that there is no science which may not contribute to philosophy. Nulla est scientia qiuie non sit aliqua j^hHosopJiiae imrs."^^ Scholastic phi- losophy is thus a philosophy based upon science, and it is perhaps not superfluous to observe that we are now more than ever returning to these con- ceptions. But in order to appreciate at their true worth the 23 De divisione Philosophiae, Prologus, p. 5, edit. Baur (Baiim- ker's-Beitrage, IV, 2-3). IN THE MIDDLE AGES 97 applications made by the scholastics, we must make a twofold reservation. First, facts were studied much more for the purpose of furnishing material for philosophy than for their own sake; hence the Middle Ages never recognized the distinction be- tween common experience and scientific experi- ment, which is so familiar to us. Second, this ma- terial secured out of observation and experience, represented a mixture, — a mixture of facts artifi- cially obtained and of exact observation. The former necessarily lead to erroneous conclusions, examples of which we shall see later.^* The latter, however, were adequate for establishing legitimate conclusions. Finally, the Aristotehan spirit appears also in the inner articulation of philosophy itself. During the first centuries of the Middle Ages the Platonic division of philosophy into physics, logic, and ethics had been in vogue ; and for a long time it persisted. The thirteenth century definitely rejects it, or rather absorbs it into new classifications. Com- pared with Aristotle — the most brilliant teacher whom humanity has known — Plato is only a poet, saying beautiful things without order or method. Dante was right when he called Aristotle 'HJie master of those who know/' But to know is above all to order; sapientis est ordinare, — it is the mission of the wise man to put order into his knowl- edge. Even those who do not accept the ideas of the Stagy rite acknowledge his kingship when it is 24 See ch. V, ii. 98 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION a question of order or clearness. "Three-quarters of mankind," writes Taine," "take general notions for idle speculations. So much the worse for them. What does a nation or an age live for, except to form them? Only through them does one become completely human. If some inhabitant of another planet should descend here to learn how far our race had advanced, we would have to show him our five or six important ideas regarding the mind and the world. That alone would give him the measure of our intelligence." To such a question the scho- lars of the Middle Ages would have replied by ex- hibiting their classification of knowledge, and they would have won glory thereby. Indeed, it consti- tutes a remarkable chapter in scientific methodol- ogy, a kind of "introduction to philosophy," to use a modern expression. Whatever may be one's judgment regarding the value of this famous classi- fication, one must bow in respect before the great ideal which it seeks to promote. It meets a need which recurrently haunts humanity and which ap- pears in all great ages : the need for the unification of knowledge. The thirteenth century dreamed of it, as Aristotle and Plato did in ancient times, and as Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer have done in our day. It is a splendid product of greatness and power, and we shall see in the chapters that follow how closely bound up it is with the civiliza- tion to which it belongs. 25 Le positivisme anglais, Paris, 1864, pp. 11, 12. CHAPTER FIVE Unifying and Cosmopolitan Tendencies i. Need of universality; the "law of parsimony." ii. Excess resulting from the felt need of simplifying without limit; the geocentric system and the anthropocentric conception, iii. The society of mankind {"universitas humana") in its theo- retical and practical forms, iv. Cosmopolitan tendencies. We have seen that there are two outstanding re- sults of the various causes that make for the great development of philosophy in the thirteenth cen- tury. On the one hand, there is the great classifica- tion of human knowledge, in which each science had its own particular place — a pyramid of three stages, or if one prefers the figure employed by Boethius/ a ladder for scaling the walls of learning. On the other hand, among all the clashing systems which rest upon that classification, there is one system of thought which prevails, — that is scholasticism; and it wins widest acceptance because it succeeds in re- ducing to one harmonious whole all of the problems and their solutions. Bearing in mind these two great facts, we shall 1 Boethius, De Conaolatione Philosmma. Theol, X, 3, No. 4. 19 Chartularivm Univers. Parisiensis, ed. Denifle et Chatelain, I, 499. 20 Mundum non semper fuisse sola fide tenetur et demonstrative probari non potest. . . . Demonstrari non potest quod homo aut caelum aut lapis non semper fuit . . . unde non est impossible quod homo generetur ab homine in infinitum. Summa Theol., 1*, q. XLVI, art. 2. 170 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION ophy, this prohibition applies only to matters ex- pounded by both philosophy and theology. The in- terdiction has no force unless both domains are in- volved; therefore philosophy was affected only to a very limited extent. With this understanding of the scholastic con- ception before us, we might seek to estimate the truth of their view concerning the relation of phi- losophy to theology. The result would of course vary, according to the acceptance or rejection of Christianity and the particular meaning given to the idea of revelation. But we are here concerned with an historical problem. Certainly, from that point of view, there can be no doubt concerning the position in fact taken by the scholastics of the thir- teenth century. VI We are now in position to evaluate the commonly accepted view of scholastic philosophy, which was given at the outset of this lecture. The definition which was then quoted, — accepted by most his- torians of mediaeval philosophy — conceives of scholastic philosophy as essentially religious. Of course, one can say of scholastic philosophy that it is largely inspired by religion. However, this is true in so general a sense that the fact turns out to be irrelevant for purposes of definition. Their philosophy evolved in a social atmosphere in which religion was dominant. Under the spell of IN THE MIDDLE AGES 171 this mentality theological studies enjoyed a pres- tige superior to that which was granted to philo- sophical studies. The proximity of the faculties of theology and philosophy introduced a kind of pas- sion for combining (but not confusing) philosophi- cal* and theological questions in the same work. Finally, as regards the realm of morals, philosophy was regarded by the intellectuals of the Middle Ages as a preliminary step in aspiring to happi- ness. But this religious inspiration affects all the other activities that make up the civilization of the thirteenth century — politics, art, morals, family, work. The religious inspiration is a relational characteristic along with many others ; but precisely because this characteristic belongs to the civiliza- tion, it belongs to all its factors and is not peculiar to philosophy, which is only one factor. Hence it is as inadequate to the definition of their philosophy as would be, for example, the description of the oak by reference merely to the nature of the soil, which its roots share with those of the elm and the beech and the other trees of the forest. One can under- stand why historians who study expressly the civi- lization of the Middle Ages,^^ should single out for criticism the dominant preoccupation with salva- tion, in the thirteenth century scholasticism, and should regard this as sufficiently characteristic. But it seems incredible that works which treat 21 As does, for example, H. O. Taylor in his remarkable work, The Mediaeval Mind, vol. II, ch. XXXV. 172 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION solely of the historical exposition of philosophical doctrines should be content with such a superficial judgment; and the procedure seems to me inadmis- sible. In addition to the general criticism which we have just made of this definition, on the ground of insufficiency, some special criticisms may be con- sidered on the basis of our preceding study. Scholasticism, others say, is philosophy placed in the service of doctrine already established by the Church. Not at all. To place philosophy in the service of theology is to use apologetic ; and apolo- getic, which proposes to show the rational character of dogmas fixed beforehand, comes from scholastic theology and not from scholastic philosophy. To define, according to the expHcit procedure of Aris- totle, is to say what a thing is, and not only what it is not. Is scholasticism, then, placed in such dependence on theology as to follow it without any contradic- tion whatever? The reply to this question is in the affirmative, provided the groiind is a common one. But the question is whether this dependence is enough to constitute a complete definition, and one must reply in the negative. In the first place, be- cause this dependence simply places boundaries or limits beyond which one cannot pass. It does not treat of what is beyond, or of numerous philosophi- cal doctrines in which theology is not interested, but in which our definition should be interested. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 173 Scholastic philosophy includes vast domains which are not in conflict with the realm of theology/" Now definition involves not merely the outlining of limits, but also the penetrating of the field itself. We object further, because this dependence does not establish any doctrinal content, but simply for- bids contradiction. It can therefore only establish a negative — that is to say, an imperfect — definition of philosophical doctrine, which is the thing itself to be defined. VII We conclude then that need of universal order, cosmopolitan value, optimism, impersonality, and religious spirit are so many harmonious relations which exist between scholastic philosophy and all the other spheres of the civilization in which it ap- pears. But in addition to these harmonious relations, which reveals this civilization rather in its static aspect, there are also relations which are distinctly dynamic. For, scholasticism had a very profound 22 Even Mr. Taylor {oy. cit.) recognizes that scholastic philoso- phers are devoted to the pursuit of knowledge for itself. Beside the joy of working for their salvation, they have the joy of study. Men like Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas, could not have done what they did, says he, without the love of knowledge in their souls. Similarly, it has been shown by Male, that in addi- tion to the symbolic sculpture, which is based on religious doctrine, there are many sculptural designs and motives in the Gothic cathe- drals which are introduced solely for the sake of artistic beauty. See E. Male: L'art religieux du IS'e s. en France, pp. 70 ff. 174 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION influence within the various departments of psy- chical hfe; and from this angle of its efficacy it acquires a new value for our consideration. What has been said concerning mediaeval apolo- getics constitutes an example of the penetration of philosophic doctrine within the domain of theology. In the same way one can show that this doctrine re- acted in the spheres of canon law and of civil law and of political economy and of mysticism. More- over, like a musical sound in its harmonic scale, the same doctrine reverberates throughout the forms of artistic and common life. And it could be pointed out readily how the literature of the period is per- meated with it, — how the Roman de la Rose read in the feudal castles ; how great didactic poems such as the Bataille des Septs Arts of Henri d'Andeli, the Renart Contrefait, the Manage des Septs Arts et des Septs Vertus; how Chaucer's Parlement of Foules or his Canterbury Tales are filled with philosophical theories borrowed from Alan of Lille, Avicenna, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Bradwardine and others."^ The same may be said of the Canzone of Guido Cavalcante^* and of the poems of Dante. Thus, for example, Dante's De Monarchia draws its inspiration from the theory of the four causes; it invokes the scholastic theory of the proprium, in 23 For instance, Chaucer's "Nun's Priest Tale" reproduces the theological determinism of Thomas Bradwardine. 24 For instance, Canzone, p. 123, ed. Ercole Rivalta: La Rime di Ouido Cavalcante, Florence, 1902. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 175 order to justify its claim that man's good consists in the development of his intelligence;'' it takes as its authority Gilbert de la Porree, ''magister sea? principioruvfi' \ it constructs "polysyllogisms in the second figure";"^ it sets forth at length the theory of liberty for which it employs a definition which expresses the feudal mentality {suimet et non al- terius est) ; it observes that it is easier to teach phi- losophy to one who is utterly innocent of knowledge about it than to those who are replete with erron- eous opinions; it rests at one point, on the precept which expresses so admirably the unifying tendency of the time : ''quod potest fieri per unum melius est fieri per unum quam, per plura' f it likens the rela- tion of petty prince and monarch to that of the practical and the speculative intellect, inasmuch as directions for conduct pass to the former from the latter. As for the Divine Comedy, it is full of phi- losophy, notwithstanding the poetical transforma- tion which suffuses the thought with its magical charm. While Dante is no systematic philosopher, nevertheless he is eclectic and the influence of philosophical systems is everywhere evident in his thought ; in hands so expert the work of art receives every doctrinal impression like soft and pliable wax. One could show how the statues of the cathedral churches of Chartres or of Laon or of Paris, for ex- 25 Pars Prima. 26 "Iste polysyllogismiis currit per secundam figuram." 27 See above, p. 110. 176 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION ample, and the frescoes and miniatures of the thir- teenth century generally, reflect in design and in color the philosophical thought of the period; how the great painters from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth century owe much of their artistic inspiration to scholastic themes; how the termin- ology of that same philosophy makes no small con- tribution to the ever increasing modern vocabulary, especially in philosophy f^ how scholastic definitions have entered into English literature and French literature ; how some of the thirteenth century hagi- ographers make use of the methods of division and the technical terms of scholasticism; and how en- tire doctrines drawn from scholasticism are con- 28 The scholastic terms become "current coin," as Saintsbury ob- serves; and he adds: "Even the logical fribble, even the logical jargonist was bound to be exact. Now exactness was the very thing which languages, mostly young in actual age . . . wanted most of all." Periods of European Literature, vol. II (The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory), p. 16, cf. pp. 20, 21. Cf. Brune- ti^re: "Les definitions de la scholastique n'ont rien de scientifique au sens veritable du mot; mais eUes n'en ont pas moins discipline I'esprit fran^ais en lui imposant ce besoin de clarte, de precision et de justesse qui ne laissera pas de contribuer pour sa part a la fortune de notre prose ... A coup sur, nous ne pourrons pas ne pas lui etre reconnaissants de nous avoir appris a composer; et 1^, comme on salt, dans cet equilibre de la composition, dans cette subordination du detail a I'idee de I'ensemble, dans celte juste pro- portion de parties, la sera I'un des traits eminents et caract^ris- tiques de la litt6rature fran9aise." Manuel de Vhistoire de la lit- erature franqaise, Paris, 1898, pp. 24-25. Shakespeare is acquainted with scholastic doctrines. For example, the "quiddities" of Hamlet (Act V, sc. i, "Where be his quiddities IN THE MIDDLE AGES 177 densed in the terse sayings of popular speech. In- deed, these influences are so far reaching and so di- verse that no student of history or of political and social science or of art or of literature in the Mid- dle Ages can safely ignore the philosophy of that period. But however important and interesting these in- fluences (the dynamic relations) may be, they are not more significant for our proper understanding of the scholastic philosophy than is the harmonious equilibrium (the static relations) considered in the preceding chapters. And hence, to comprehend fully and to estimate that philosophy aright we must proceed to consider what belongs to it in its own constitution. To that end we shall enter into its doctrinal content. It will be impossible of course to consider all of the manifold and extensive doctrinal realms which scholastic philosophy covers. We shall therefore limit ovu'selves to those doctrinal realms which are now?") is a scholastic term; it means 'realities' and not 'subtilities' (common glossary). Again Hamlet (Act I, sc. v) speaks of "table of my memory" and "All forms, all pressures past That youth and observation copied there." This is an allusion to the "formae et species impressae." And again, he is using scholastic thought when he says: "Sense sure you have, Else could you not have motion." (Act III, sc. iv) recalling the doctrine that movement presupposes sense-perception. That "godlike" reason differentiates man from beast (Act. IV, sc. iv) is also scholastic doctrine. 178 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION most intimately connected with the civilization. Namely, intellectualism because it permeates the entire life of the century, although it belongs prop- erly to psychology (Chapter VIII) ; metaphysics, because it is the foundation of the whole scholastic philosophy (Chapter IX) ; social philosophy be- cause it is intimately bound up with the political and rehgious life (Chapters X and XI) ; and, finally, the conception of human progress, because for them as for all energetic humanity it is the mainspring of life (Chapter XII). CHAPTER EIGHT Intellectualism i. Intellectualism in ideology, ii. In epistemology. iii. In psychology (free volition), iv. More generally (psychol- ogy, logic, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics), v. In other forms of culture. Intellectualism is a doctrine which places all the nobility, all the intensity, the whole value of psychi- cal life in the act of knowing. No philosophy is more "intellectualistic" than mediaeval scholasti- cism. It is a doctrine of light. Long before Des- cartes, — but from another point of view — Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus emphasized the impor- tance of clear intellectual insight. The scholastic conception of clear knowledge is not only promi- nent in their psychology; it also penetrates all the other departments of their philosophy, so that intel- lectualism is at the same time a doctrine and a method. Considered in its ideological aspect, scholastic in- tellectualism is a brilliant form of idealism,^ and 1 With the term, idealism, I refer to the ideological conception which establishes a difference in kind between sense perception and intellectual knowledge. 179 180 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION places the philosophers of the Middle Ages in the family of Plato, Plotinus, Descartes, Leibnitz, and Kant. This will appear from a simple example. I look at two black horses drawing a carriage. All that my senses perceive in these external data re- ceives a particular dress, which is temporal and spa- tial.^ But I possess another power of representing to myself the real. The intellect draws out of this sensible content the ideas of motion, of muscular force, of horse, of life, of being. It does away with the concrete conditions which, in the sensible per- ception, bind the real to a particular state; it "ab- stracts" the ''quod quid est'' the what of a thing. One might multiply examples at will; but they would only bring out the more clearly that we have abstract ideas without number, — ideas, for ex- ample, of qualities and forms and quantities and action and passions and so on. Indeed one pos- sesses a very treasure of these abstract ideas; they are as manifold as the kinds of reality implied in the complex data of sense perception, — out of which the abstract idea is always drawn. Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu. For, in the scholastic view, to abstract is the law of the intellect; its function of abstraction is as normal as is the bodily process of digestion. The moment the intellect enters into contact with reality, it re- acts upon that reality, — its food, as it were — by as- 2 Sensus non est cognoscitivus nisi particularium. Thomas Aqui- nas, Summa Contra Gentiles, lib. II, cap. LXVI. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 181 similating it to itself and therefore by divesting it of every particularized condition. The question naturally arises, just how does the intellect form these abstract ideas through contact with concrete objects of sense? The scholastic would reply by reference to his theory of the intel- lectus agens. But this would take us too far afield for our purposes here.^ Their conclusion alone is significant for our present study; namely, abstract knowledge differs from sense perception not in de- gree but in kind. For, the content of our abstract ideas, — the motion and force and life of our horses and carriages, in the above illustration — is quite in- dependent of the particular ties of time and space, and of all material conditions in which reality as perceived by the senses is involved. Consequently, abstract knowledge is superior to sense perception ; abstraction is the royal privilege of man. This superiority of intellect is as much a matter of grate- ful pride to the scholastics as it was to Plato and to Aristotle. II Intellectualism furnishes also a solution in the field of epistemology, — the problem of the value of knowledge; for it establishes truth on a firm foun- dation, while at the same time it fixes the limits of reason. Truth is something which pertains to the 3 For detailed account of this conception see D. Mercier, Psychol- ogie, Louvain, 1912, vol. II, pp. 39 ff. 182 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION intellect. "For truth consists in saying that a being is when it is, or that it is not when it is not."* Con- sequently certitude, which is nothing but a firm assent to truth, is a possession of understanding and reason; it does not depend on will or on sentiment or on pragmatical efficiency. Here is one of the basic differences between scholastic philosophy and an important contemporary tendency in epistemol- ogy, which insists on some "non-intellectualistic" criterion of certitude.^ The intellect grasps "being"; it can somehow as- similate all that is: intellectus potest quodammodo omnia fieri. Moreover, when it grasps being, it is infallible. "In the figure of Ezekiel, "writes Meis- ter Eckhart, who with his wonderful power for imagery expresses splendidly this particular idea, "the intellect is that mighty eagle, with wide reach of wing, which descended upon Lebanon and seized the cedar's marrow as its prey, — that is to say, the constitution of the thing — and plucked the topmost bloom of foliage."'' There is no error in the under- standing itself; it is always true as regards being, 4 Thomas Aquinas, Perihermeneias, I, 3. 5 For fuller details, see my Histoire de la Philosophie Medievale, p. 2'46. 6 Intellectus enim est in figura aquila ilia grandis Eze. 17 longo membrorum ductu, que venit ad Lybanum et tulit medullam cedri, id est, principia rei, et summitatem frondium ejus avulsit. Edit. Denifle (Archiv fiir Litteratur und Kirchengeschichte des Mittel- alters, 1886, p. 566). IN THE MIDDLE AGES 183 its object proper/ Error lies only in the judg- ment, when we combine two concepts and declare that their contents coincide, although in reality they are in disagreement. It follows from this that reason in our life has genuine worth ; it is not a way- ward will-o'-the-wisp which leads him astray who trusts to it, — it is a torch which illumines. But that which the intellect understands is only a small measure of reality; therefore, one must un- derstand the limits of reason. Intellectual knowl- edge is imperfect and inadequate. First, because our ideas are derived from the content of sense-per- ception, from which follows that we cannot know properly more than the realities of sense; accord- ingly, the supersensible can be known only by an- alogy. From this point of view, the human intelli- gence is no longer the powerful eagle, but the winged creature of night, the bat {noctua), which faces with difficulty the full light of the sun, — the supersensible realm. Moreover, even the corporeal reality is apprehended by imperfect processes. We know only the general determinations of being, no- tions of what is common, for instance, to live or to move in various living or moving beings. The na- ture of the individual as such escapes us, — even though, with Duns Scotus, we derive a kind of con- 7 Intellectus circa proprium objectum semper verus est; unde et seipso numquam decipitur; sed omnis deceptio accidit in inteUectu et aliquo inferiori, puta phantasia vel aliquo hujusmodi. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., 1*, q. XCIV, art. 4. 184 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION fused intuition of the concrete and singular. Fur- thermore, these general notions do not even mani- fest what is specific in the essences which are known ; indeed, we employ the same common notion of life for plants and animals and men, and we are condemned to ignorance of the innermost reality peculiar to the life in each class of these living be- ings. On all sides, therefore, reality surpasses knowledge; the unknowable encompasses us round about. Ill Yet this very same reason, at once so glorified and humbled, is the queen of conscious life. It rules the appetitive life, by restraining the passions and lower appetites. Reason shines as a torch which lights and directs the will, necessary or free. We will only what we know as good — nihil volituin nisi cognitum — and already this precedence of in- tellect over will establishes a dependence of the will on the intellect. It is because we are reasonable beings that free volitions are psychologically possible. Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus too^ — so long regarded as holding here a different view — gives a remark- able intellectual explanation of liberty which is not found in any preceding system. 8 See P. Minges, 1st Duns Scotus Indeterminist? Baiimker's- Beitrage, 1905, V, 4. Cf. my Histoire de la Philosophie MSdievale, p. 460. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 185 We are drawn to the good. This means that we are inchned to will whatever reality is presented as capable of satisfying a certain indwelling tendency, — our tendency, namely, toward what is considered to be suitable to us. Just as the intellect conceives being in the abstract, as integral being, so it con- ceives the good as such, the general good. For when the intellect acts, it obeys the law of its activi- ty; and in doing so it abstracts the good as such, and sees in this (or any) being the good which it contains. Only the complete good can draw us ir- resistibly, because it alone satisfies this intellectual tendency of our nature.^ It is then impossible for the will not to will it. If the Infinite Good should manifest Himself, the soul would be drawn towards it, as iron is attracted by the magnet. The attrac- tions which the martyrs felt for the benefits of this life, at the very moment when they preferred to die, remarks Duns Scotus, is the sign and effect of this necessary tendency toward the good, the good as a totality. But during our earthly life the good never ap- pears to us unadulterated ; for every good is limited. The moment we reflect, the limitation is perceived; every good is good only under certain aspects; it contains deficiencies. Then the intellect places me before two intellectual judgments. For example, 9 Objectum autem voluntatis quae est appetitus humanus, est uni- versale bonum, sicut objectum intellectus est universale verum. Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theol, la2ae, q. II, art. 8. 186 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION it is good for me to undertake a journey; not to un- dertake it contains also some good. Behold, I am called upon to judge my own judgments. Which judgment shall I choose? The will must decide, — and it decides freely, for neither judgment enjoins a necessary adhesion. We will freely the good which we choose, not because it is the greater good, but because it is some good. In a sense we may say that our choice stops with the good which we consider the best. But, in the last analysis, this is true only if we add, that the will freely intervenes in the decision. In other words, it is under the in- fluence of the will that the practical intellect makes its judgment, that the one or the other course of ac- tion is the better. The will can in reality give its preference to either of the alternatives. At the moment of definite choice, deliberation ceases and gives place to decision. So Thomas and Duns Scotus avoided the psychological determinism which puzzled other scholastics, — such as Godfrey of Fontaines and John Buridan. Thus, liberty resides in the will, but it has its roots in the judgment. Consequently, a free act is a deliberate act, and entirely reflective. An act of this kind is not a common thing. Indeed, whole days pass during which we do not make intellectual decisions, — that is, in the scholastic meaning of the word. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 187 IV Scholastic intellectualism is quite evident, not only in the remaining branches of psychology, but also in logic, in metaphysics, in aesthetics, and in morals. Abstraction, which is the fundamental operation of the intellect, establishes the spirituality of the soul; for a being capable of producing thoughts, the content of which is free from the chains of matter, is itself above matter.'^ It justifies the natural union of soul and body, because the normal func- tion of the organism cannot be dissociated from the act of thinking. It furnishes an argument in fa- vour of a new union of the soul with the body in the resurrection, because the body is the indispen- sable instrument of intellectual activity. Is it necessary to observe that every theory of science, or scientific logic, is incomprehensible with- out intellectualism? Scientific judgments are necessary judgments, laws; and they are not of necessity without abstraction and generalization. On abstraction is based the theory of the syllogism, the value of first principles, of definitions, of di- visions, and of everything which enters into con- structive procedure. Before Henry Poincare, the scholastics had said, "Science will be intellectual or it will cease to be." The perception of a work of art, and of its beauty, 10 Thomas Aquinas, De Anima, lib. Ill, lect. vii. 188 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION is also an act of the intellect. Beauty ought to be resplendent, claritas jpulchri, it ought to reveal, and in a striking way, the internal order that governs beauty. It speaks to the faculty of knowing, and above all to the intellect. What is true of the perception of a work of art is true also of its production. Man's artistic fac- ulty, — by virtue of which the carpenter and the sculptor achieve their results — consists in a right use of reason; for the reason alone can subordi- nate the means to the end. Ars nihil aliud est quam ratio recta aliquorum operum faciendorum. The "virtue of art," virtus artis, — for the humble artisan as for the gifted artist — consists far more in a per- fection of the spirit than in any virtuosity or muscu- lar dexterity."'' A like sovereignty obtains in the moral realm. Reason teaches us our duties and guides our con- science. Reason gives a characteristic significance to destiny and happiness. To be happy is above all to know, because happiness consists in the high- est activities of our highest psychical power, which is understanding.'^ Even in this life, knowledge is a great consolation. Beatitude, or the perfect ^0=^ Swmma Theol, lagae, q. LVII, art. 3: Utrum habitus intel- lectualis qui est ars, sit virtus. Read all of arts. 3, 4, and 5, for in- teresting suggestions on the intellectualistic theory of art. Cf. my study, L'Oeuvre d'art et la Beaute, Louvain, 1930, ch. VI. 11 Oportet quod (beatitudo) sit optima operatic hominis. Optima autem operatio hominis est quae est optimae potentiae respectu optimi objecti. Optima autem potentia est intellectus, etc. Summa Theol, lagae, q. HI, art. 5. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 189 goodness destined for man, — that alone which phi- losophy considers — would be a "happiness of ab- stractions," a goodness founded on abstract knowl- edge of the laws and the being of the sensible world, a knowledge and love of the Creator in His works. '^ The supremacy of reason appears also in meta- physics, where it explains the fundamental order of things, which rests entirely on Divine Reason. It manifests itself in the immutability of natural as well as moral law, which God could not change, without contradicting Eternal Reason, that is to say, without destroying Himself. No will, not even the will of God, can change the nature of truth ; and truth can no more contradict truth than a circle can be quadrate. Finally, this same supremacy of reason is appar- ent in their whole theory of the state, where gov- ernment is conceived as being properly a govern- ment of insight; from whose laws everything arbi- trary ought to be excluded; where the elective sys- tem is justified because it favours the exercise of reason. 12 Compare the following excerpt from an unedited text of the thirteenth century (as in Grabmann, "Forschungen iiber die latein- ischen Aristoteles-Uebersetzenigen d. XIII Jhr.," p. 76 in Baiim- ker''s-Beit7-dge, 1916, XVII, 5-6) : "Cum omne desiderii com- pos et maxime creatura rationalis appetat suam perfectionem, sum- ma vero et finalis perfectio hominis sit in cognitione unius intellec- tualis veri et in amore unius incommutabilis boni, quod est nosse et amare suum creatorem, et medium praecipue inducens ad cog- noscendum et amandum creatorem sit cognitio consideratione operum creatoris, etc." 121" s See ch^ XI. 190 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION But this clear-cut intellectualism and love of pre- cision, appears also in other forms of culture of the thirteenth century. It inspires even the smallest detail of that doctrinal structure elaborated by the doctors of theology, giving to each element of be- lief an apologetic and rational interpretation. It is found in the works of canonists, who reason out the ecclesiastical law, just as jurists reason out the Roman law. Intellectualism is found also in the explanation of rites and symbols, the manifold meanings of which such a man as William of Mende endeavoured to unfold in his Rationale Divinorum, It is further found in the Roman de la Rose of the poet Jean de Meung, where Reason is personified and fills the poem with long discourses, as she filled with her dictates the lives of mediaeval men.^^ The same intellectualism and the same clearness appears also in the Gothic architecture and sculp- 13 It is, then, not surprising that Dante, educated in scholastic circles, wrote these words in his De Monarchia (lib. 1): "Reason is to the individual what the father is to the family, or what the mayor is to the city. It is master. In all matters reason makes its voice heard." The Banquet, or Convito, addresses itself to those who hunger for knowledge, and contemplates making all humanity par- ticipate in knowledge, — that "good desired of all," that supreme form of happiness. In the Divine Comedy Dante exalts the man who sacrifices his life in the promotion of knowledge. Virgil represents human knowledge, which the soul must acquire in its plentitude be- fore being admitted to the divine mysteries. And in the Paradiso, each of the elect enjoys to the full that beatitude "which he can IN THE MIDDLE AGES 191 ture, where everything is reasoned and rational. Has it not been said with justice that Gothic archi- tecture is an appHcation of logic in poems in stone, that it speaks as forcibly and clearly to the mind as to the eye? It is nothing more than the most logi- cal application of the laws of gravitation. The pointed arch windows and the double arched vaults express their function admirably, as do also the sup- ports and the buttresses. Everywhere we find beauty rationalized; no superfluous ornaments, nothing of that fantastic decoration which spoiled the Gothic idea in the fifteenth century. In those lines of clearness and purity which we see in the naves of the cathedral of Rheims, Paris, Amiens, and Chartres all is sober and reasonable. The walls have let themselves be cleft in order to admit the light, — the light filled first, however, with those dreams imparted by the glass ; and the felt need of light issued finally in creating churches that are transparent, as it were, where all is subordinated to the idea of illumination. Nor is it otherwise with the sculpture of the thir- teenth century, the form of which is vivified by clear and severe concepts. "The iconography of the thirteenth century," writes M. Male, "aims to speak to the intelligence and not to the feelings. It is doctrinal and theological, that is to say, logical and rational; but there is nothing pathetic or tender about it. The great religious compositions speak to the mind, and not to the heart. Consider, for 192 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION instance, how the artists of the thirteenth century conceive the Nativity: Mary rechnes on a couch with head averted; the Child is not in a crib, but upon an altar; a lamp is suspended over His head between parted curtains."^* Every point directs the mind to dogma and to doctrine. Human emo- tion is silent before such a conception, and the same is true when the tranquil Virgin bears in her arms, or upon her knees, the Infant Saviour; or when she assists, in her grief, but without weakness, at the crucifixion of her Son. It is only after the fourteenth century that art becomes tender, that the Virgin smiles and weeps, and "the symbolic apple which the serious Virgin of the thirteenth holds in her hand to remind us that she is the sec- ond Eve, becomes a plaything to prevent the child Jesus from crying. "^° Society is also intellectualized, in its entirety, in the sense that the whole age craves for order. Of course the thirteenth century is filled with quarrels and revolts, and hostilities break out everywhere; this signifies only that it was no more possible to realize fully a social ideal in that age than in any other. But the ideal existed none the less and it was efiicacious. The relations of vassals and suze- rains and of the subjects and kings, the participa- tion of the feudal classes in the prerogatives of gov- ernment, the establishment of national parliaments, 14 Male, L'art religieux du 13'e sUcle en France, 1910, p. 221. 15 Ibid., p. 239. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 193 the codification of civil and canon law, the organi- zation of crafts and guilds, the absolute and inter- national hierarchy of the Church, the subordination of states to the moral authority of the Pope, — all of these were regarded by the intellectual classes as the Ibest means of establishing things in their proper places. Order, said Thomas Aquinas, reveals in every case the intervention of mind. '' Intellectus solius est ordinaref'^^ Only the mind is able to set things in order. Naturally, therefore, intellectual- ism makes its appearance in everything. 16 7w Ethic, ad Nicomach., Lect. I, 7. CHAPTER NINE A Pluralistic Conception of the World i. What metaphysics is. ii. Static aspects of reality, iii. Dynamic aspects; the central doctrine of act and potency, iv. Application to substance and accident; to matter and form. V. The problem of individuation. vi. Human personality, vii. God: as pure existence. To inquire into the conception of the world of- fered by the scholastics is to enter into the realm of their metaphysics. Real beings exist outside of us. We know them first by means of sense-per- ception. Then the intellect divests the realities of- fered by sense-perception of their individualizing and particular features, so that the object is laid hold of as abstract and permits generalization. Metaphysical inquiry is thus based upon abstract knowledge both of what lies at the heart of cor- poreal beings and of determinations which belong to all being. What is reality? To make clear the scholastic answer to this question, I propose to consider re- ality successively under two aspects : first, the static aspect, or reality in the state of repose ; second, the 194 IN THE MIDDLE AGES 195 dynamic aspect, or reality in the state of change. I use these technical expressions provisionally ; they will become clearer as we proceed. II tet us suppose for the moment an impossibility ; namely, that the whirling universe in the midst of which we live should stop suddenly, and that in this state of universal repose we could take a snap-shot of this static universe. In this state, of what would the real world consist? Scholasticism would reply: of an indefinite number of beings^ independent, in their eodstence, each froin the other. Each man, each animal, each plant, each mono-cellular organ- ism, each particle of matter exists by itself, in its impenetrable individuality. The individual alone eooists. Such is the fundamental doctrine of schol- astic metaphysics and it was inherited from the twelfth century. It belongs to natural science, and not to philosophy, to tell us what that individual is. Is it the atom, the ion, the electron? Scholastic metaphysics would follow modern science to the innermost division of reality. Whatever it may be, it is only the individual that exists. Thus, scholasticism is a pliu'alistic philosophy, and the sworn enemy of monism, which teaches the fusion of all realities in one. Accordingly, Thomas Aquinas speaks of the Fons Vitae of Avicebron, an apologetic of Neo-Platonic and Arabian panthe- 196 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION ism, as being a poisoned well rather than a fountain of life. Let us consider more closely one of these myriad individual realities, which surround us on all sides, — for example, that oak-tree planted yonder. The individuality here presented includes many ele- ments: it has a determinable thickness and height, a cylindrical form of trunk, a roughness of bark, a somber color of foliage, a place which it occupies in the forest, a certain action of its foliage upon the ambient air, a specific subjection to influence as it absorbs the nourishing sap from the ground. These are all so many determinations of being or, to use the scholastic language, so many classes, categories, — categories of quantity, quality, action, passion, time, space and relation. Now, all of these classes, or categories, presup- pose a yet more fundamental one. Can you con- ceive, asks Aristotle, the reality of walking with- out some one who walks? Can you conceive quan- tity, thickness, and the rest, without something, — our oak-tree above — which possesses it? Neither the action of walking nor the extension of quantity can be conceived apart from a subject in which they exist. And it is such a subject which Aristotle and the scholastics call substance, — the fundamental category, as distinguished from the other classes, which they call accidents {accidentia). Not only do we conceive corporeal realities in terms of substance and accidents, — and no philos- IN THE MIDDLE AGES 197 ophy denies the existence in our minds of these two concepts — but also the substance and the accidents exist independently and outside of our minds. In the order of existence, as in the order of our thought, substance and accident are relative to each other. One who succeeds in proving the external existence of the accident^ (for instance, the thick- ness of the tree), also proves the existence of the substance (that is, the tree) . If the act of walking is not an illusion but something real, the same must be equally true of the substantial being who walks, without whom there would be no act of walk- ing. The substance, or subject, exists in and by it- self; it is self-sufficient. But it is also the support of all the rest, which therefore are called accidentia (id quod accidit alicui rei) . As for my own substance, the substance of my- self as a human being, — that is personality — there is the witness of consciousness, by its several ac- tivities, to the existence of just such a substantial Ego. In thinking and speaking, and so on, I at- tain to my own existing substance. The scholastics were essentially familiar with the cogito ergo sum. Without permanence of personality, memory would be inexplicable. If I were only a collection of 1 Scholasticism proves the objectivity of our external sense-per- ception by the mark of passivity (of which we are conscious) and by the principle of causality: quidquid movetur ab alio movetur. We are conscious of being passive in external sensation; conse- quently we do not create it, — therefore it must come from a non-ego. 198 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION ephemeral activities, what Taine calls a collection of shy-rockets of consciousness {''gerhes lumineu- ses"), how could one sky-rocket remember an- other? How could I then remember in maturity the acts of my boyhood? But, not only do I re- member such acts, I am also conscious of being the same personality; my acts disappear, my body changes, but I remain a subject independent of these acts and changes. The frequent misunderstanding of the scholastic theory of substance rests upon two misconcep- tions of what that theory involved: first, that one knows wherein one substance differs from another; second, that substance is something underlying ac- cidental realities. Now, as regards the former, scholastic philosophy never pretended to know wherein one substance differed from another in the external world. It thought of substance as an idea resulting from reasoning, which does not instruct regarding what is specific in each of the substances f one knows that they are and must be, but never what they are. Indeed, the idea of substance is es- sentially thin. And the same may be said of the Ego, as the substance best known to each individual person; consciousness witnesses to its existence, but never to its nature, — as Descartes erroneously sup- posed. A proof that consciousness alone does not instruct us regarding our own nature, says scholas- ticism, is the discussion among philosophers on 2 See above, p, 184. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 199 the nature of the soul. The second misconception above mentioned, may be readily disposed of. To imagine that something lies behind or underneath the accidents, as the door underlies the painted color, is simply a misinterpretation of the scholastic theory, Locke especially was here in error; of course he had no difficulty in criticizing this concep- tion as ridiculous. But this interpretation is totally wrong. In the scholastic view, substance and ac- cidents are really one and the same concrete exist- ing thing. Indeed, substance is that which confers individuality upon the particular determinations, or accidents. It is therefore the substance of the oak- tree which constitutes the foundation of its individ- uality, and which thus confers individuality upon its qualities, the dimensions of the oak and all the train of accidental determinations which belong to its concrete individuality. This ''tout ensemble'' of substance and accidental determinations, both taken together, exists by vir- tue of one existence alone, the existence of the con- crete oak-tree which we have considered as fixed and motionless in the static instant above described. Ill But such a picture of the world is not a possible picture; for nothing is motionless. Reality is in- volved in change and in evolution. Chemical bod- ies are in constant change, in all stages of their ex- istence, be it liquid or gaseous or solid; living or- 200 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION ganisms are changing; our globe as a whole is ceaselessly borne along in a twofold movement ; the sun with its train of planets is subject to the law of change, and the same is true of the stars scattered throughout the immensity of space. Substance and accident: all is becoming. The oak springs from the acorn, it becomes tall and massive, its vital activities are forever changing, and the tree itself will disappear. In order to understand the full meaning' of metaphysics, it is necessary to throw being into the melting j)ot of change. Thus the static point of view, or the world con- sidered in the state of repose, must be supple- mented by the dynamic point of view, or that of the world drawn into becoming. Here appears a further scholastic conception; namely, the well- known theory of act and potency , which forms, in my opinion, the key-stone in the vault of the meta- physical structure. This theory is a general analy- sis of what change implies. The scholastics get it from Aristotle, but give to it a breadth and exten- sion unknown to the Greek philosopher. What is change, any change? It is the real passage from one state to another. Now, they observe, when one being passes from state A to state B, it must al- ready possess in A the germs of its future determi- nation in B. It has the power, the potency, to be- come B before it actually does so. This is demanded by the principle of sufficient reason — an absolute principle to which all that is must be obed- IN THE MIDDLE AGES 201 lent, under penalty of not being at all. To deny this sort of preexistence is equivalent to denying change from one state to another, the evolution of reality. What we call change would then be a series of. instantaneous appearances and disappearances of substances, having no internal connections what- ever, each with duration infinitesimally small. The oak is potentially in the acorn; if it were not there potentially, how could it ever issue from it? On the other hand, the oak is not potentially in a peb- ble, rolled about by the sea, and which outwardly might present a close resemblance to the acorn. Act or actuality (the evreAe'xeta of Aristotle, the actus of the scholastics) is any present sum-total of per- fection. Potency (8wa/zt? potentia of the scholas- tics) is the aptitude to become that perfection. It is imperfection and non-being, if you will ; but it is not mere nothing, because non-being considered in an already existing subject is endowed with the germ of future actualization. The coupling of act and potency therefore pene- trates reality in its inmost depths. It explains all the great conceptions of scholastic metaphysics. Especially does it explain those two great doctrines, in which we shall follow the play of act and po- tency, — namely, the doctrine of substance and ac- cident, and the doctrine of matter and form. 202 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION IV The doctrine of substance and accident is thus rounded out and clarified by the coupling of act and potency; indeed, an adequate understanding of the former requires the latter. Thus, to say that a being already constituted in its substantial de- termination is changing, means that it is actually realizing its 'potentialities. A child is already po- tentially the powerful athlete he will some day be- come. If he is destined to become a mathematician, then already in the cradle he possesses this power, or predisposition, whereas another infant is de- prived of it. Quantitative and qualitative change, change in the activities brought about by actual being and in the activity undergone, — all of this was able to he before being in fact. Considered in the light of this theory, the doc- trine of substance and accident loses its naive and false significance. A growing oak, a living man, a chemical individuality of any kind, each of the myriad individual beings, is indeed an individual substance becoming, because its quantity, qualities, activities, relations are the becoming of its poten- tialities. Leibnitz was really following this thomis- tic doctrine when he said: "The present is preg- nant with the future." But more than this. While Leibnitz also taught the eternity and the immuta- bility of substances, which he called monads, Thomas and the scholastics go further into the IN THE MIDDLE AGES 203 heart of change. It is not only the accidents which change when, for example, the oak grows, or its wood becomes tougher, or its place changes when it is transplanted, or its activities are re- newed as it develops ; but the very substances them- selves are carried into the maelstrom of change, and nature makes us witness to the unceasing spec- tacle of their transforaiations. The oak dies; and from the slow work of its decomposition are born chemical bodies of most diverse kinds. An electric current traverses the molecule of water; and behold hydrogen and oxygen arise. All of this is essentially scholastic doctrine. When one substance changes into another, each has a quite different specificity. Substances differ not in degree but in kind. An oak never changes into another oak, nor a particle of water into an- other particle of water. But out of a dying oak, or a decomposed particle of water, are born chemical bodies, which appear with quite different activities, quantities, relations, and so on.^ The differences of all these activities, quantities, and the rest, are for us the only means of knowing the substances of things, because the activity of a thing gives its measure of perfection and springs out of it : ''agere sequitur esse/' And hence corresponding to irre- 3 "There is not the slightest parity between the passive and the active powers of the water and those of the oxygen and the hydrogen which have given rise to it," says Huxley in Lay Sermons, ("The Physical Basis of Life"), New York, 1874, p. 136. 204 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION ducible activities and qualities there must be irre- ducible substances. Of course, the scholastics were unable to observe, as we can, the chemical activities of corporeal bodies. But this is simply a matter of application and the principle remains. The sub- stance of hydrogen is quite different from that of water; this is what I have called the specificity of objects. A corporeal substance cannot be more nor less than what it is. Water is plainly water or it is something quite different; it cannot have degrees of being water. Just as a person cannot be more or less man than another man. ''Essentia non suscipit plus vel minus/' Accordingly, the world offers the greatest diversity of irreducible substantial perfections. But let us consider more closely this phenome- non of basic change, from one substance into an- other or into several other substances, — for in- stance, water becoming hydrogen and oxygen. If Thomas had been invited to interpret this phenome- non, he would have said: that the substance of the water transformed itself into new substances, hy- drogen and oxygen, and that the hydrogen was in the water potentially, or in promise. But then, he would add, every substance that comes into being consists at bottom of two constituent elements; on the one hand, there must be something common to the old state and to the new, and on the other hand there must be a specific principle. That which is common to the two stages of the process is an in- IN THE MIDDLE AGES 205 determination found equally in the water and in the hydrogen-oxygen. Otherwise the one could not change into the other; no transformation of water into its component parts would occur, but instead there would be annihilation (of the water) followed by creation (of the hydrogen-oxygen). As for the specific principle, this must exist at each stage of the process as a peculiar and proper factor whereby the water as such differs from the hydro- gen-oxygen as such. With this we come to the theory of primary matter and substantial form, — so often misunder- stood. This is really nothing but an application of the theory of act and potency to the problem of the transformation of bodies. Primary matter is the common indeterminate element or substratum, capable of receiving successively contrary deter- minations. The substantial form determines this unformed and potential fundament, and fixes the being altogether in its individuality and in its spe- cific mode of existence. Each man, each lion, each oak, each chemical individual, possesses its form; that is, its principle of proper perfection. And the principle of perfection, or of the form which is immanent in the oak, is not reducible to that which belongs to the man, or to the molecule of hydrogen. All that belongs to the perfection of a being (its existence, its unity, its activities) is more closely related to the form, while all that belongs to its 206 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION imperfect state (its indetermination) is more close- ly related to the matter, — and especially is this true of the quantitative extension of corporeal being. To be extended in space, in divisible quantity, is an imperfection ; and no really distinct beings could exist, were it not for the unifying function of form assembling the scattered elements of extend- ed matter. No doctrine really better explains the mixture of perfection and imperfection, of good and evil, which are rooted in the depths of all corporeal being. Thus the corporeal world mounts stage by stage from one species to another, nature passes from one step to another, from one species to another, fol- lowing a certain definite order. Nature changes water into hydrogen and oxygen, but it does not change a pebble into a lion ; nor can one make a saw out of wool. It evolves bodies according to affini- ties and successive progressions, the deciphering of which is the mission of the particular sciences, which we can know only by patient observation. If there are any saltations in nature, they are never capri- cious. In every corporeal substance, at every stage and at every instant, the germs of the substantial states are found which are to be born out of it. This is the meaning of the formula repeated by the scholastics, "that primary matter contains poten- tially, or in promise, the series of forms in which it must dress and redress itself, in the course of its becoming." To ask, as some do, where the forms IN THE MIDDLE AGES 207 are before their appearance and after their disap- pearance, is to reveal a complete misunderstanding of the scholastic system. One has no right to re- quire of a doctrine a solution which it does not pre- tend to give. We simply know, by reasoning, that there must be matter and form, — just as we know that there must be substances and accidents. In their explanation of facts, the scholastics taught that a given thing must be ; but they did not always teach what that thing is. This doctrine represents a definitely teleological interpretation of the universe. For, the successive stages of change in each of the becoming sub- stances, and the recurrence of the same transfor- mations in the corporeal world, require the inclina- tion on the part of each being to follow a definite order in its activity.^" Such inclination in each sub- stance is immanent finality. To sum up. Two kinds of change suffice to ex- plain the corporeal world. First the becoming of constituted substance ; thus, an oak is in process of becoming, in its activities, its quantity, its qualities, its relations, but it retains the same substance. Second, a change of one substance into another (or into many other substances) ; such as the change of an oak into a collection of chemical bodies, when, under external influences, the disposition of the 3»The term natura is used to signify the individual substance as far as it possesses such definite inclination. 208 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION primary matter requires a new substantial becom- ing of the whole. V It is impossible here to give a detailed survey of such an interpretation of the corporeal world. Let us merely apply this conception of the world to the famous scholastic problem of "individuation," and show how all of these doctrines are employed for an explanation of humanity. The problem of individuation (individuatio) in the scholastic philosophy has a peculiar but re- stricted significance. The problem is: How can so many distinct individualities of the same sub- stantial perfection, and therefore of the same kind, exist? Why are there millions and millions of oaks, and not only one oak, one forma querci? Why should there be millions and millions of human be- ings, and not only one man? Why myriads of molecules of water, and not only one molecule of water? Why not one molecule or ion or electron of each kind? If this were in fact the case, the world would still represent a scale of perfection, differing degree by degree; but there would be no two cor- poreal beings of the same kind. One thing would differ from another, as the number three differs from the number four. The monads of Leibnitz realize in some aspects such a conception of the world. But the thomistic solution is more profound and lies in this thesis: IN THE MIDDLE AGES 209 That extended matter, materia signata, is the prin- ciple of individuation. In other words, without ex- tension, and extended matter, there would be no reason why several individuals of the same kind should exist. Indeed, a substantial form as such, is foreign to and indifferent to reduplication ; and, as long as one considers form, one cannot find any reason why there should be two identical forms, why one form should limit itself, instead of retaining within itself all the capacity of realization. Forma irr^ecepta est illimitata. But the question takes on a new aspect when this form must unite with matter, in order to exist, and so take on extended existence. My body has the limitation of extension, and therefore there is place for your body and for millions of bodies be- sides yours and mine. An oak has a limited exten- sion in space, and at the point where it ceases to fill space there is also place for many more. And the same may be said of all corporeal beings in the end- less species within the cosmos. There is an important consequence, which fol- lows directly from this philosophy. If there exist some limited beings which are not corporeal beings, and therefore are pure perfections, pure forms, (pure Intelligences for instance), then no redupli- cation is possible in that realm of being. They dif- fer from one another as the oak-form differs from the beech-form or the hydrogen-form. This last consideration explains why the problem 210 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION of individuation is different from the problem of individuality. Each existing being is an individual- ity; and therefore a pure Intelligence, if existent, is an individuality.^ But individuation means a special restriction of individuality, that is to say a reduplication of several identical forms in 07ie group, — hence called specific groups, species. VI All the doctrines which we have sought to explain are to be apphed to human beings or human per- sonalities. We are impenetrable and incommuni- cable substances, or personalities. No philosophy ever insisted more than did the scholastic philos- ophy upon this independence, and upon the dignity and value of human life, — by virtue of this doctrine of personality. All kinds of relations exist between men; for instance, — the family and political rela- tions. But, as we shall see,^ they do not touch di- rectly our innermost substance, which with Leib- nitz we may call "ferociously independent." A human personality is composed of body and 4 This theory is all too frequently misunderstood. Thus Henry Adams erroneously writes as follows: "Thomas admitted that the angels were universals" (Mont St. Michel and Chartres, p. 364), This is of course a misunderstanding; incorporeal beings are not deprived of individuality because they are without matter. Thomas Aquinas seems to have written the following in direct contradiction: "Non est verum quod substantia separata non sit singularis et indi- viduum aliquod; alioquin non haberet aliquam operationem." See his De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas, edit. Parme, 1865, vol. XVI, p. 22L 5 Ch. X, v. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 211 soul, and the most inward unity of man results from this combination; the body is primary matter, the soul is substantial form, and each completes and permeates the other. Therefore, our soul is not at all in an unnatural state, when united to our body. The soul is not to be compared, as does Plato in the Republic, to the sea-god Glaucus, as impossible to recognize under the grimy accretions of the sea- shells and creeping things. On the contrary the union of soul and body is such that the former re- quires aid from the latter in all her activities. The becoming of human beings, and their indi- viduation in mankind, must also be explained by the doctrines already exposited. The generation of a child is the becoming of a new substance; but it includes several stages of a specific kind, each more perfect than the preceding. The soul is united to the embryo only when the dispositions of the new organism are sufficiently perfect to require union with a human soul. Thus, in the scholastic phi- losophy, it is really the human body, as a product of human generation, which is the principle of indi- viduation; it is indeed the precise reason why such and such a soul, with its greater or lesser treasure of potentialities, is united to such and such a body. And although the spiritual and immortal soul is not a product of generation, nevertheless the parents as givers of the body to the child assume the responsibility of fixing the potentialities of the whole being. The soul may be compared to the 212 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION wine which varies in quantity according to the size of the cup. There is, however, one very important difference between the human soul and the form of other be- ings in the corporeal world. For reasons which we cannot develop here, founded especially upon the superiority of human knowledge, the human soul is of a spiritual nature, that is, it is superior to corporeal things and therefore immortal. Accord- ingly, a human soul, although it constitutes a whole with the body, is not the result of the chemical, physical, and biological activities which explain or- ganic generation. Aristotle had said that the in- tellect came from without (OvpaOev) , Thomas adds: the soul is created by God. VII We shall now consider, in conclusion, the place given to the idea of God in the scholastic meta- physics. Their natural theology, or theodicy, is closely connected with their conception of the world. It is drawn from the theory of change, which has been explained above. It is intimately connected with their whole idea of change, — but especially with the doctrine of efficient causality. Change, as we have seen, is the passage from one state to another, a sort of oscillation by which the real in potency becomes the real actually, and so obtains a new perfection. Now the principle of efficient causality says: No being which changes IN THE MIDDLE AGES 213 can give to itself, without some foreign influence coming from without, this complement of reality, by virtue of which it passes from one state into another. Quidquid movetur ah alio movetur. The principle of contradiction requires this; and the principle of contradiction, according to which a thing cannot in the same aspect both be and not be. is a law of mental life, as well as a law of reality. For, if a thing could change its own state (whether substantial or accidental) unaided from without, it would possess before acquiring, — it would alreadj^ be what is not yet. This is of course absurd. The water is in potency of changing into oxygen; but without the electric current, — without the interven- tion of something else — the water could not, by it- self, give to itself new determinations. This other thing by which water changes into oxygen and hydrogen is called the efficient cause. However, this active cause is itself carried into the nexus of becoming. The electrical energy could not appear without undergoing, in its turn, the action of other efficient causes. The whole process expands, very much as when a stone is thrown into still water the waves spread out from the centre, each acting upon the next in succession. Moreover, the process becomes complicated, for every action of a being A on a being B is doubled by a reaction of B on A. Nature is an inextricable tissue of effi- cient causes, of becomings, of passages from po- 214 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION tency to act. Newton's law of gravitation, the law of the equilibrium of forces, the law of the conser- vation of energy, — ^these are all so many formulas which state in precise form the influence of one be- ing upon another. But, — and there is of course a but — we cannot continue the process to infinity. For, in that case, change would be an illusion, and this would involve denying the very evidence itself. The initial motion demands a starting point, an original im- petus. This absolute beginning is possible only on the condition that a Being exists who is be^^ond all change, — in whom nothing can become, and who is therefore immutable. That being is God. Now, God cannot set in motion the series of changes, constituted of act and potency, except by an impulse which leaves free and undisturbed His own impassibility. For, however slight the modi- fication which one supposes this act (of changing others) to cause in Him, it would still be a change, and hence something new and requiring explana- tion afresh, — by recourse to the intervention of a still higher being. Thus the process would be end- less, unless God is the "prime mover unmoved." Let us suppose that one decides to build a house, and that one wants it to be supported solidly. To this end he lays deep the foundations which must support the building. Deep he digs, and still deeper, and ever deeper, in order to obtain a base IN THE MIDDLE AGES 215 of absolute fixity. But he must finally call a halt in this work of excavation, under penalty of not ever beginning the work of building. Thus we must conclude, from the very existence of the house, that the builder did in fact halt at some point in the earth, there to set his first stone. Just so with the scholastic argument which we are considering. Change exists as a fact even as the house exists as a fact. The fact is there; it stares us in the face; it fills the universe. If there were not a halting place in the chain of efficient causation, the change itself could not exist. One is in no position to choose whether the world shall evolve or not; for evolution is the law of the uni- verse itself. To conceive that one may make an endless regressus in the causal nexus, would be like conceiving that he might suspend a weight to the one end of a chain whose other end requires the ceaseless adding of link upon link, to lengthen out the chain to infinity! It all comes then to this: if any fact is real, the totality of things, without which the reality of that fact would be compromised, is no less real. It fol- lows, therefore, that scholastic philosophy dem- onstrates God's existence by making His existence a necessary condition of the explanation of reality. Accordingly, from the standpoint of metaphysics. He exists only for the world. Hence God is not, as one might suppose, a further mystery requiring 216 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION explanation, in addition to the general mystery of the world. The scholastic argument for the exis- tence of God has just the value of the principles of contradiction and of efficient causation. The first is a point of support; the second is a lever which thought employs to lift the things which change to the plane of the Being who changes not. Remove the point of support or destroy the lever, and thought falls impotent before the world's enigma. God, adds Thomas Aquinas, having in Himself no potentiality, is infinitude, absolute perfection; and at this point his mind is suddenly lifted and borne upwards, and it attains to the most penetrat- ing insight concerning divinity. In order to bring this home to our full realization, I shall avail my- self of a simile, — although in such matters com- parison is inadequate. Imagine a series of vessels, with different capa- cities, which are to be filled with water; let there be tiny vessels, and vessels that will contain gallons, and great receptacles which are to serve as reser- voirs. Clearly the volume of water, which may be stored in each vessel, must be limited by the capa- city of the vessel itself. Once a vessel is filled, not a drop can be added to its content; were the very ocean itself to flow over it, the contents of the ves- sel would not increase. Now eocistence in a finite being may be likened to IN THE MIDDLE AGES 217 the water, in our simile ; for existence too is limited by the capacity of every recipient being. This ca- pacity is the sum total of the potentialities which from moment to moment become actual reali- ties, by being invested with existence. That oak of -the forest which is invested with the most beauti- ful qualities of its species, and with the most per- fect vital forces ; that man of genius who is endowed with the most precious gifts of mind and body, — these possess the maximum of eooisteyice that can possibly be found in the species of oak and of man. But, be it remembered, the capacity for existence in each of these is limited and circumscribed by the very fact of the apportioned potentiality, or "es- sence." In this beautiful conception of Thomas, a vigorous oak has a larger measure of existence than a stunted one; a man of genius possesses existence in a larger sense than a man of inferior mind, — because the great man and the vigorous oak possess a larger measure of powers and activities, and be- cause these powers and activities exist. But, once more, there is a limit even to their existence. On the other hand, to return to our simile, let us picture to ourselves an existence indefinitely uncir- cumscribed, say the ocean, without shore to confine or to limit it. Such existence, pure and unqualified, is that of God. God is existence ; He is nothing but the plentitude of existence ; He is the one who is, — Ego sum qui sum — whose very essence is His ex- 218 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION istence. All other beings receive some degree of existence, — the degree increasing in measure with their increasing capacity. But they receive, in each instance, this degree of existence from God. The created agents, or secondary causes, determine the capacity of the vessel, and the size varies unceas- ingly; God alone fills it to the full capacity of ex- istence. It is God who is the direct dispenser of exis- tence, from that of pure spirits to that of atoms. It is He who sustains everything, that is anything, short of pure nothing. It is He who directs the world toward the goal, which is known to Him alone; and presumptuous, nay rash, would it be for men to seek to penetrate the mystery. In short, God is existence ; other beings receive existence — an existence distinct from His own — just in propor- tion as they have the power to receive it. No one can say what Infinity implies. "The highest knowl- edge which we can have of God in this life," writes Thomas Aquinas, "is to know that He is above all that we can think concerning Him."^ Scholastic metaphysics thus finds its culmina- tions in theodic3^ Starting out from the study of the changing corporeal world, it rises to the Being without whom change would be inexplicable. But its main object is none the less a study of the cor- poreal beings which surround us. Hence one may tt De Veritate, q. II, art. 3. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 219 say that it is based on observation and anchored to the very rock of reahty/ 7 The following schema may aid in clarifying the metaphysical doctrines and the relations explained in this chapter: {Prime matter (materia prima) Substantial form (forma sub- stantialis) Qualities, for instance: shape, power, habit (habitus) Quantity Action Passion Relation Time Space Posture (se habere) tate Essence (essentia) Substance (substantia) Accidents (accidentia) Existence (esse) IS CHAPTER TEN Individualism and Social Industry i. Social theory the last addition to scholastic philosophy, ii. Fundamental principle: the group exists for its members, and not conversely, iii. Ethical foundation of this principle, iv. The idea of the group in the teaching of canonists and jurists. V. Metaphysical basis: the group not an entity out- side of its members, vi. Comparison of the group with the human body. vii. Conclusion. Social philosophy is the last addition to the edifice which the scholastic thinkers reared. In point of fact, it is unhistorical to speak of a social philosophy before 1260, the year in which William of Moerbeke's translation of the Politics of Aris- totle came into circulation among scholars. Prior to that time we find, to be sure, discussions on iso- lated questions, such as natural law or the divine origin and the moral function of political authority. But these questions were not combined in any phil- osophical system, — although they received remark- able elaboration in the works of Manegold of Lau- tenbach and of John of Salisbury especially (in his Polycraticus, 1159). However, in saying that social philosophy is 220 IN THE MIDDLE AGES 221 one of the last additions to the scholastic edifice, some explanation is necessary, in order to make valid this temporal comparison. A philosophy does not grow as a house, to which a wing is added from time to time, nor as a landed estate to which one adds gradually adjoining fields. For, new doc- trines that are introduced in philosophy must not destroy those which have been already adopted; on the contrary, they must be suited to form with the doctrines adopted a coherent whole, and to this end each and every addition must be carefully re- thought. The systematic character of scholastic social philosophy is striking in the works of Thomas Aquinas. He is the first to succeed in constructing, out of the new material, a doctrine in which every- thing holds together, and which is entirely impreg- nated with the social mentality of the thirteenth century. This doctrine appears in his Summa The- ologica and in his commentary on the Politics of Aristotle; we know that he also intended to write a treatise De Regimine Principum, for the educa- tion of a ruling prince, Hugh II of Lusignan, king of Cyprus.^ Other philosophers followed his ex- iSee Summa Theol, la 2ae, qq. XCIII-CV. Thomas himself com- mentated only Books I and II and III (part only chs. 1-6) of Aris- totle's Politics. This is now clear from an ancient MS cited by Grabmann (See "Welchen Teil der Aristotelischen Politik hat der hi. Thomas selbst Kommentirt?" in Philos. Jahrbuch, 1915, pp. 373-5). As for the De Regimine Principum, only Book I and part of Book II (chs. 1-4) were written by Thomas. The authenticity of 222 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION ample and his teachings; they addressed their works to princes and kings, in order to enhghten them regarding both their rights and their duties. Thus, for instance, the Franciscan Gilbert of Tournai wrote, at the request of Louis IX of France, a treatise Eruditio Regum et Principum, which has been recently published;^ and Gilles of Rome composed a similar work for the king's son. II As preliminary to a discussion of the more im- portant questions with which scholastic social philosophy concerned itself — a subject which we reserve for the next chapter — I wish here to ex- amine its basic principle. This principle consti- tutes the broad foundation of political and so- cial theory, and upon it the superstructure of the state was laid, very much as the stories of a house are made to rest upon the main floor. The principle may be briefly stated as follows: The State eccists for the good of the citizen, or obversely, it is not the even so much has been doubted by J. A. Endres ("De regimine prin- cipum des hi. Thomas von Aquin," in Baeumker's Beitrdge, Fest- schrift, 1913, pp. 361-267). However, his reasoning is not at all con- clusive; and the oldest and best catalogues attribute this portion to Thomas himself. It is my own opinion that Thomas was the author of the beginning of the work (Bks. I and II, chs. 1-4), and that the remainder was inspired by his doctrine. 2 A. De Poorter, — in the series : Les Philosophes Beiges, collection de textes et d'Hudes, vol. IX, Louvain, 19r4.. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 2^3 citizen who is for the good of the state. This state- ment is susceptible of enlargement. Any group whatever, — be it family, village, city, province, kingdom, empire, abbey, parish church, bishopric, or even the Catholic Church — justifies itself in the good which it accomplishes for its members. In other words, the members do not exist for the good of the group. The question is the more interesting because the professors of Roman law at Bologne and the other jurists, who argued on behalf of the sovereigns (the Hohenstaufen, and the kings of England and France), and the canonists, follow- ing the Decretum of Gratian, had touched upon these delicate questions; but the philosophers at- tained to a clearness and precision which had been denied to experts in law on the same questions. In very fact, this principle — that the state exists only for the good of the citizen, or obversely, that it is not the citizen who exists for the good of the state — is closely connected with the whole scholastic system. While it is a foundation for the doctrine of the state, this principle itself rests upon an ethical ground. In its turn, this ethical ground rests upon the deeper lying basis of metaphysical doctrine. Thus, social philosophy in reality rests upon a twofold basis, the ethical and the metaphysical. Let us consider briefly the part played by each of these bases. 224 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION III First, the ethical foundations of the principle. Why should the group, in particular the state, be subordinated to the good of the citizens? Is not the citizen an instrument for the good of the state? Scholastic ethics replies: because every human be- ing has a certain sacred value, an inviolable indi- viduality, and as such he has a personal destiny, a happiness, which the state must aid him to realize. Let us see more fully what this means. Each man seeks in his life to attain some end. Our activities would lack even ordinary meaning, if they did not reach forward to a goal, if they did not aim — consciously or unconsciously — to realize the good, that is to say the perfection of the indi- vidual who is the source of the activities involved. This is true not only for man, but for all created things. Human finality is simply an application of universal finality; and therefore the scholastics re- peat with Aristotle: "That is good which each thing seeks" {Bonum est quod omnia apjjetunt) , Man's possession of his good means human happi- ness. As a matter of fact, men seek the good in the most diverse objects, and they frequently deceive themselves; but that is only a question of applica- tion, which does not affect the main thesis. Even the man who hangs himself is yielding to inclina- tions which he believes will issue in his benefit. But IN THE MIDDLE AGES 225 this illustration only shows that one should pursue one's good according to rational judgments, and follow where they lead him, without letting himself be deceived by appearances. Man, indeed, is dis- tinguished from the stone which falls, or from the wild beast which follows its instincts, by the fact that he has the privilege of reflecting on his ways and choosing them freely ; he has the power of mis- taken choice. Man's counsels lie in his own hands. The philosophers of the thirteenth century have no difficulty in proving, that neither riches nor honour, nor glory, nor power, nor sensual indulgence can satisfy the demands of the good, the summum ho- num for men; there he is free to seek or not to seek them as the chief end of life.^ Moreover, every destiny is necessarily personal; the good is my good. If, for example, I make it to consist in pleasure, it is quite evident that the pleasure is my pleasure. A fortiori must destiny be personal for the scholastic ethics which maintains that happiness results from the employment of that which is the noblest and the highest in human life, — namely, knowledge and love. Nothing is more per- sonal than knowing and loving. Happiness is so personal a matter, that the good of another only enters into it incidentally, and not essentially. It takes a noble soul to include the destinies of others within the domain of his own preoccupations. Now, the individual left quite to himself, as a 3 See above, p. 186. 226 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION solitary being, is not sufficient to attain to his proper end. He will find himself deprived of material means, of intellectual directions, of moral support. This impotence of the solitary individual, says Thomas Aquinas, is the sole reason for the ex- istence of society. "Man is called by nature" he writes* "to live in society; for he needs many things which are necessary to his life, and which by him- self he cannot procure for himself. Whence it fol- lows that man naturally becomes part of a group {pars multitudinis) , to procure him the means of living well. He needs this assistance for two rea- sons. First, in order that he may obtain the ele- mentary necessities of life; this he does in the do- mestic circle of which he is a part. Every man re- ceives from his parents life and nourishment and education; and the reciprocal aid of the family members facilitates the mutual provision of the ne- cessities of life. But there is a second reason why the individual is helped by the group, of which he is a part, and in which alone he finds his adequate well being. And this is, that he may not only live but live the good life, — which is enabled by the op- portunities of social intercourse. Thus civil society aids the individual in obtaining the material neces- sities, by uniting in the same city a great number of crafts, which could not be so united in the same family. And civil society also assists him in the moral life." ^Comment in Ethic. Nicom., lib. I. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 227 The scholastic philosophers of the thirteenth cen- tury unanimously agree with Aristotle and Augus- tine that it is a natural necessity for man to live in society, naturalis necessitas. This social life in- volves degrees. There are groups, more or less ex- tensive, which are logically and chronologically an- terior to the state. Man is of necessity born into a family {doinus) , Several families grouped under a chief constitute a village— community, vicus, whose raison d'etre, says Dante,^ is to facilitate an exchange of services between men and things. The city (cititas), continues Dante, is a wider organi- zation, which allows one to live with moral and ma- terial sufficiency, bene sufficienterque vivere. But, whereas Aristotle had stopped with the city, Thomas considers (in the De Regimine Principum) a wider group, the province, — which corresponds to Dante's kingdom (regnum), Perhays we may see in the province those large feudal fiefs, which were important units, such as the Duchy of Normandy or the Duchy of Brabant, with which Thomas was actually acquainted. As regards states, some were growing up under his very eyes, notably in Italy, where the princes of the house of Anjou were gov- erning the Two Sicilies, while the main European states, France, England, Spain, and Germany were taking on their various characteristic features. A kingdom {regnum particulare) , writes Dante, pro- vides the same advantages as the city, but gives a 5 De Monarchia, lib. I. 228 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION greater feeling of security, cum majori fiducia suae tranquilitatis. In this Dante repeats the thomistic thought that the kingdom, better than the city, re- sponds to the needs of war, when it is attacked by enemies.® Now, since the group exists only for the benefit of its individuals, the good of the group will not be of any other kind than that of the individuals. Thus Thomas says: "The end of the group is necessarily the end of each individual who com- poses the group," — oportet eundem jinem esse mul- titudinis humanae qui est hominis uniusJ And Dante, in a similar vein, writes: "Citizens are not for consuls or kings, but kings and consuls are for citizens," — non enim cives propter consules nee gens propter regem, sed e converso.^ The group would be an absurdity, if the roles were reversed, and the state or any other group should pursue a course, which no longer coincided with the happi- ness of each of its subjects; and if the individual be treated as a worn-out machine, which one scraps when it has become useless. This conception is at once new and mediaeval. For, while the city or the state appears in Aristotle as an end in itself, to which the individuals are sub- ordinated, the scholastic philosophy, on the con- trary, conceived of the states as subordinated to the 6 De Regimine Principum, lib. I, cap. 1. De Monarchia, lib. I. 7 De Regimine Principum, lib. I, cap. 14. ^ De Monarchia, lib. I. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 229 good of the individuals. For Aristotle the prime duty is to be a good citizen, and to increase one's civic virtue. But for the scholastic philosopher the prime duty is to give to life a human value, to be a good man, and the state should help each of its members to become such. It follows from this teaching that as against the state the individual should hold himself erect, con- scious of his crown of rights, which the state can- not infringe upon, because their validity is derived from the worth of personality itself. These are "the rights of man." Their foundation is the law of nature, that is to say, the essence of man and the eternal law, — the eternal relations which regulate the order of beings in conformity with the decrees of uncreated wisdom. These are the right to pre- serve his life, the right to marry and to rear chil- dren, the right to develop his intellect, the right to be instructed, the right to truth, the right to live in society. These are some of the prerogatives of the individual which appear in the thirteenth century declaration of the rights of man.^ Thus, scholastic philosophy justifies from an ethical point of view the conception of the worth of the individual, as against the central power. But we see at once how it also conforms to the feudal temperament. For, knight and baron and vassal and citizen had all been consumed for two centu- ries past with the idea of living each his own life. 9 Thomas Aquinas, Swmma TheoL, lagae, q. XCIV, art. 2. 230 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION IV But, in its turn, the ethical doctrine rests upon a metaphysical foundation. Why, indeed, does the human person possess the right to realize his happi- ness, of which no state can deprive him? Meta- physics replies: because human personality alone is a genuine substantial reality. On the other hand, any group whatever, the state included, is not a real being ; it is simply a group of human per- sons {multitudo hominum) , This doctrine interested the jurists and the can- onists as much as it did the philosophers. Since its nature is such as to throw light upon the political mentality of the period, let us consider briefly the conceptions of the jurists and theorists in civil and canon law. This will be a helpful preliminary to dispose of, before passing to the conclusions of the philosophers. The legalistic theorists simply took over from Roman law the concept of the corporation {uni- versitas) and applied it, — as civil theorists to the state, and as canonists to the Church. Now, the Roman corporation (universitas) is nothing but an association of individuals. To be sure, it is the seat of private rights, and it can possess and acquire property; but, as Savigny has emphasized, it is not a real person, and in consequence it has no soul, no intelligence, no will. The Roman jurists were too realistic, too amenable to common sense logic, to IN THE MIDDLE AGES 231 conceive of a collective soul, — a reality distinct from the individuals — in these associations, whose purposes were plainly commercial and industrial. Similarly, the parish churches and the monasteries and the universal Church had not been regarded by the canonists as real entities^ as beings distinct from the members who compose them. Innocent IV, who had the name of being an eminent jurist, is the first who would have spoken of the corporation as a "pei'sona ficta' a fictitious person — an excellent formula, which is not found in the Digest of Jus- tinian, but which expresses admirably the thought of the thirteenth century. Gierke calls him the "father of the fictitious person theory. "^^ There- after the corporation is definitely no thing-in-itself , no living organism, in the real sense of the word, since it has neither intelligence nor will. The can- onists, indeed, declare that it cannot commit crime or misdemeanour of any kind; hence a political group as such need not fear hell or wrath to come. Nor do the mediaeval lawyers conceive otherwise of the state-corporation. In the same manner they explain the artificial personality of the kingdom or of the empire. The state {universitas) is the col- lective mass of individual men, who constitute the populus; and its functions, — says the author of a 10 otto von Gierke, Die Staats- und Korporations- lehre des Alter- tums und des Mittelalters und ihre Aufnahme in Deutschland, Ber- lin, 1881, p. 279, n. 102: "cum collegium in causa universitatis fingor- tur una persona" (Innocent IV). 232 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION treatise De Aequitate which is ascribed to Irnerius, — is to care for the individual men who are its members/^ Likewise, the society of states is con- sidered by Dante as a grouping of individuals, a respublica humana rather than as a group of gov- ernments. The universal monarch is the servant of all, minister omnium, precisely as the Pope is the servant of the servants of God. He wills the wel- fare of each man; he is nearer to each citizen than is any particular sovereign. ^^ And in the four- teenth century Baldus writes: ''Imperium non habet animum, ergo non habet velle nee nolle quia animi suntJ"^^ Does this conception of the state (as being no entity outside of the members who constitute it) really represent a failure" of the mediaeval jurists and canonists? Is it not rather the triumph of good sense and healthy thinking of men who were seeking loyally for truth and not for originality? Personally I do not believe that the state is a real being, a real substance outside of its citizens, and I agree with Paul Bourget in one of his latest novels {Le Sens de la Mort) , when he places in the mouth 11 Irnerius, De Aequitate, 2: universitas, id est populus, hoc habet oflficium, singulis scilicet hominibus quasi membris providere. Of. Carlyle, op. cit., vol. II, p. 57. 12 De Monarchia, I. Cf. above, ch. V, 111. 13 Cited by Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Ages, (English translation by Maitland), Cambridge, 1900, p. 70. This translation is only a small part of Gierke's work cited above. 14 Gierke, Ibid. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 233 of Doctor Marsal these suggestive words: To die for France is not to die for a collective entity, but for all Frenchmen present and to come. To climb the ladder and go over the top, is to mount the scaffold. They did it. For whom? For France. But France is the sum total of all those who are destined to be Frenchmen. It is our very selves, you and I, — we Frenchmen, I repeat.^^ The underlying reason for this doctrine, — that the state large or small is not a "thing-in-itself," an entity distinct from the citizens who compose it — is furnished by the scholastic philosophy itself, and we have already seen what it is. For scholastic philosophy the world is pluralistic, the only real beings existing are individual beings, — for instance, such and such oak, such and such bee, such and such man.^*^ And since unity follows being {ens et unum convertuntur) , individuals alone have a physical and internal unity. A forest of oaks, a hive of bees, a team of horses, a steamboat, a house, an army, a parish, a city, a state, — none of these desig- nate real, physical beings ; in consequence they have not the unity that belongs to a real substance. 15 Sortir de la tranchee, sur I'echelle, c'est monter a Pechafaud. lis y montent. Pour qui? Pour la France. Mais la France, c'est la somme des destinees frangaises. C'est nous, je vous repete," p. 173, edit. 1915, Paris, Plon. 16 See ch. IX, ii. 234 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION In what then does this unity of the group con- sist? The metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas give us light on this subtle question. After having shown why the individual must become a member of a family and of a civic community, he writes: "Now we ought to know that this totality, of the civil or the domestic group, possesses only the unity of {external) order, and consequently it is not en- dowed with the unity that belongs to a natural sub- stance. This is the reason why a portion of this totality can carry on activities which are not the act of the group. A soldier, for example, carries out actions which do not belong to the army; but such actions of the soldier do not prevent the group from carrying on its activities, — activities which do not belong to each part but to the whole. Thus, a battle is the activity of the whole army ; the tow- ing of a barge is the activity of the totality of the men who pull on the rope."" There is then a profound difference between the 17 "Sciendum est autem quod hoc totum, quod est civilis multitude vel domesticia familia, habet solam unitatem ordinis, secundum quam non est aliquid simpliciter unum. Et ideo pars ejus totius potest habere operationem quae non est operatio totius, sicut miles in exer- citu habet operationem quae non est totius exercitus. Habet nihil- ominus et ipsum totum aliquam operationem, quae non est propria alicujus partium, puta conflictus totius exercitus. Et tractus navis est operatio multitude trahentium navem." In Ethic. Nicom., L. I. I understand "unitas ordinis" to mean the unity resulting from a combination of independent beings, realizing an external order, as dis- tinguished from the physical unity which results from internal order, in a being where there is a plurality of elements. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 235 unity of the individual, — the organic and internal ''indivision' {unu7n simpliciter) which belongs to the human person — and the external unity which is the outcome of social grouping among a certain number of individuals. Internal unity introduces coherence within the individual substance, so that all of its constituent parts or elements have neither independent value nor existence of their own. Hence there is a contradiction in the very idea of a collective-person. Either the members who are supposed to compose such a collective person, re- main substantially independent, — in which case there is no one person but a collection of persons — or they are dependent of the whole, and then each member loses his individuality. It is quite different in the case of the external unity that appears in a group of persons, since this unity does not affect the individuality that belongs to each member. You will ask then: Is the family or the state a mere nothing? To make such an assertion would be to overstate the doctrine. For, the unity of the group, of which Thomas speaks, is functional in character and rests on performing in common cer- tain human activities, of which each member con- tributes his share. Such activities are endowed with reality, but a reality different from the incommuni- cable and inalienable substantial being which each member preserves. In towing a barge, the muscu- lar activities of the men who tow are directed in common; in a game or a club or any friendly asso- 236 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION ciation, each member places a portion of his activi- ties at the disposal of the common life, — and in all of these cases withdrawal is always possible. But in the family or the community, on the con- trary, this mutual pooling of activities is imposed by nature; there can be no such withdrawal, for certain basic activities of the individual are ab- sorbed by the community. Indeed, in certain crises, for the common good and the common safety, the family or the state can demand the entire activity of its members. But even so, the man who gives all his activities nevertheless preserves his individual- ity. The individual man never surrenders the sovereignty of his own personality. This doctrine could not have been stated more clearly than it was by Thomas Aquinas in these fine words: "The law should take account of many things as to persons, as to affairs, and as to times. For, the community of the state is composed of many persons, and its good is procured by varied activities /'^^ Accordingly, from the point of view of scholastic metaphysics, there is no difference between the imity of a group of men towing a barge and the unity of the family or of the state or even of a whole 18 Bonum autem commune constat ex multis, et ideo oportet quod lex ad multa respiciat et secundum personas et secundum negotia et secundum tempora. Constituitur enim communitas civitatis ex multis personis et ejus bonum per multiples actiones procuratur. Svmma Theol, la^ae, q. XCVI, art. 1. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 237 civilization. The only question of difference is that which attaches to the excellence of the activities displayed. The proper functioning of the state de- pends upon the diversity of activities, and a state becomes more perfect, as does a whole civilization, in - proportion as these activities are more com- plete, more varied, and more intense. The bonum cominune, the commonwealth which the state has to provide, results from the sum total of activities performed to unite and to harmonize. These considerations make clear how one can speak at the same time of the unity of the civiliza- tion of the thirteenth century and of the plu7^alism which is so basic in their thought. The unity of a civilization is the result of common aspirations, common beliefs, common sentiments both moral and artistic, common language, common organiza- tion of life ; and such a uility is no more than a com- munity of activities. At the same time, unity of substance, or physical unity, belongs to each of the numerous personalities which are the agents of this civilization, and to them only.^^ 19 Through failure to perceive this distinction between the unity of order and the physical unity, many historians deny individualism in the Middle Ages, and misconceive that fundamental teaching of thirteenth century metaphysics, — ''nihil est praeter individuum." Thus, struck by the unitary character of the civilization, Mr. E. Bar- ker writes: "We can hardly say that the Middle Ages have any con- ception of the state. The notion of the state involves plurality, but plurality is ex hypothesi not to be found." See, "Unity in the Middle Ages," in The Unity of Western Civilization, p. 112, ed. 238 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION In this thomistic and scholastic view, the group life acquires dynamic meaning. It rests upon a sharing of activities for the good of all. Possessing all a similar human nature, with its train of inalien- able rights, the individuals present the greatest di- versity in their talents, their faculties, and the ac- tivities which result from them. Equal in huma7i nature^ men are unequal in capacity for action;^^ such is the metaphysical law which governs the play of the social group, in all of its degrees. VI After this precise and substantial argument, to which the whole body of scholastic philosophers of the thirteenth century subscribe, it is easy to give just value to a certain favourite comparison of that age, — a comparison to which publicists, canonists, legalists, theologians, and even poets, frequently recur, for the purpose of explaining the problem of the individual in relation to the group. It is the comparison of the state with the human body. John of Salisbury works out the comparison in de- tail, and he likens each member of the human body Marvin, Oxford, 1915. This statement is preceded by this other erroneous assertion: "The prevalence of Realism, which marks mediaeval metaphysics down to the end of the thirteenth century, is another Platonic inheritance, and another impulse to unity. The universal is and is a veritable thing in which the particular shares and acquires its substance by its degree of sharing." Nothing is more contrary to scholastic philosophy of the thirteenth century. 20 Of, ch. IX, iv and vii. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 239 to some part of the state. The prince is the head; the senate is the heart; officers and judges are the eyes, ears, and tongue; officials are the hands; the peasants and the workers are the feet of the state, — so that, remarks this Enghsh writer, the state has more feet than a centipede or a scolopendra. The function of protecting the people becomes the "footwear" of the state. Indeed, there is no reason why one might not continue this little game of anthropomorphic comparison without end.^^ The idea is no discovery of John of Salisbury's. He himself refers it to a letter written by Plutarch to Trajan (falsely so far as we yet know). The comparison is repeated in the thirteenth century, but it has lost its literal value. Each state, each church, each city, even each guild, is compared to a natural body. But the philosophers of that cen- tury are not misled by its purely figurative value, and Engelbert of Volkersdorf, abbot of Admont, who writes about 1290 a treatise concerning the rule of Princes, speaks of a moral and political body, in contrast with the body of nature.^^ Fur- ther, when Thomas Aquinas calls the collectivity of the citizens a public person, persona publicaj^^ there is no doubt possible about his true meaning. Reduced to the role of an imaginative instru- ment, the comparison is not wanting in elegance; 21 Polycraticus, lib. V, cap. 1 and 2. 22 Gierke, op. cit., p. 24. zsSumma Theol lagae, q. XC, art. 3. 240 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION it shows in a striking way that, in a political or ec- clesiastical organism, the members do not occupy the same place; that there are diversities of func- tions; that there are intermediate articulations; that a healthy organ can help or supply a weak or defective organ. The comparison is well suited to the mediaeval mind with its delight in symbols, and to an age which speaks of the mystical marriage of Christ with the Church and of the bishop with his diocesan church, and which likens to daughters the various abbeys which have grown out of the mother abbey. Such symbols, and many more, deceived no one. Nor do we today take literally Tennyson's comparison of "the million-footed mob,"~* or the expression "adopted towns," which was given to certain cities crushed during the war, or "mother- towns" as the name proudly assumed by certain other cities which undertook the adoption. The philosophers of the thirteenth century did not mis- take the straw of words for the grain of ideas. The organic theory, made fashionable today by certain German philosophers is contrary to the genius of scholastic philosophy, as it is opposed to the juri- dical doctrine of the thirteenth century ; both would have regarded it as a seductive mirage, VII A short time before the war, I made a brief stay at Strasbourg. In visiting its magnificent cathe- 24 The Fleet. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 241 dral, I observed that a crack had appeared in one of the walls of the finished tower, and that it had been necessary to erect a support, in order to pre- vent the tower from collapsing. A friend ex- plained to me that the architects of the thirteenth century had erected the cathedral on a foundation of strong oak piles, which had lasted for centuries because they were driven into marshy ground, but that the recent drainage works in the city had brought about the unforeseen consequence of drying out these ancient water-soaked timbers, and so un- dermining the cathedral. Invisible and under- ground, up to that time they had sustained the f a9ade of this marvelous Gothic gem, without any- one realizing how fundamental was their presence and their function. So it is with the metaphysical doctrine, which may be called the invisible and underlying support of the social philosophy of the thirteenth century. Upon this foundation reposed morals, as upon mor- als is based the guiding principle that the state is made for the citizens, the group for its members. If the metaphysics of the scholastics should settle or fall, then in turn their ethics would be compro- mised, and an ominous cleft would appear in their social philosophy. This close interdependence of doctrines furnishes a striking example of the co- herence and unity of the scholastic system, which we have above pointed out.^^ 25 See ch. V, i. CHAPTER ELEVEN The Theory of the State i. Sovereignty from God. ii. It is a function; morality of governors not different from that of the governed; what the function implies, iii. Sovereignty resides in the people who delegate it. iv. The best form of government according to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, v. Making of laws the essential attribute of sovereignty; natural law and human law. vi. This form of government compared with the Euro- pean states of the thirteenth century ; with the modern nation- alities; with the theories of preceding centuries. The state exists for the good of the individuals, and not conversely. It is in the light of this prin- ciple that all the problems, which the study of state organization raises, are solved; and, as thinkers are agreed on the principle, so they will be agreed also upon the majority of solutions which issue from it, by way of application or of corollary. These prob- lems can all be arranged under some aspect of the notion of sovereignty or power. No social life is possible, — whether in the family, the village com- munity, the state, the monastery, the parish, the diocese, the universal Church — unless there exists an authority to which the members owe obedience. 242 IN THE MIDDLE AGES 243 What then is the source of sovereignty, in what does it consist, to whom does it belong, what are its attributes ? These are some of the specific problems in the philosophical discussion of political life. Whence comes sovereignty, this superiority of one man, who rules over his fellow men? Like their predecessors of the preceding centuries, the thir- teenth century philosophers answer: All power comes from God. And their reasoning is as fol- lows. The entire universe is under a providential plan; it is governed by an eternal law {lea: aeterna), which is nothing but the order of things, the sum of relations which result from the nature of beings.^ To realize his end as a rational being, and to attain to his happiness, is man's unique part in cooperating with the universal cosmic finality, ordained by God. Now, the rationale of governing others, ratio guhernationis, is instituted to make easy for each person the realization of his end. It must therefore be, in the final analysis, a divine delegation, a command according to which the rul- ers carry out those necessary functions which will enable the individual members to occupy their as- signed places in the divine economy.^ Accordingly, rulers hold divine power by dele- 1 See below v of this chapter. 2 "Cum ergo lex aeterna sit ratio gubernationis in supremo guber- nante, necesse est quod omnes rationes gubernationis quae sunt in inferioribus gubernantibus a lege aeterna deriventur." Thomas Aquinas, Sumrna TheoL, lagae, q. XCIII, a. 3. 244 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION gation. This theory is independent of the further question: In what way does this power, divine in its essence, come to those who hold it, and to whom is it given? Let the rulers hold this power from God directly, as the legalists and the De Monarchia teach, or let the delegation of temporal power pass through the Papal channel, as the partisans of mediate divine power maintain; let sovereignty be in the hands of a monarch or a representative re- pubhc, — in any case, it always derives back to God as its source. The demands of metaphysics link it up with God. II The raison d'etre of sovereignty therefore fixes its nature. And this brings us to our second ques- tion: In what does sovereignty consist? Legal- ists and canonists and philosophers all agree in the reply. Sovereignty is a utility, a function, an of- ficium; it is dedicated to the well-being of all. The applications of the leading principle, already ex- plained, are easy to understand. Since the state is made for the individual, sovereignty in the state can be only an advantage for its members. Princes of the earth, according to Thomas Aquinas, are insti- tuted by God, not for their own advantage, but in order that they may sei-ve the common good.^ The kingdom, says Ptolemy of Lucques, is not made 3 De Regimine Principum, I, c. 1-3. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 245 for the king, but the king for the kingdom.* Even under the theocratic papal rule, the idea persisted of an officium, duty, fused with that of power. The Pope is the servant of the servants of God, servus servorum Dei. It is just because the state is an association of individuals, and instituted for their welfare, that there is no difference between the morality of the governors and that of the gov- erned. For instance, fideHty to treaties and obser- vance of the precepts of loyalty are required; they constitute the very foundation of the jus gentium. Or, again, war of conquest is forbidden, because it prevents the state from watching over the welfare of individuals. But how will the government fulfill its function? How will it aid the individual to attain his end, — which is above all a certain moral happiness, re- sulting from the facultas conternjjlandi veritatem?" The answer is this: By realizing the unitas inulti- tudinis, a unity which is accidental and external, by realizing a bonum commune, which results from the harmonious and convergent activities expended by the citizen, — activities which the De Regimine is so careful to distinguish from the unitas hominis of each individual.^ 4 Regnum non propter regem, sed rex propter regnum. De Regi- mine Principum, III, c. 11. 5 See Thomas Aquinas, Comment in Ethic. Nicom., X, 11. 6 Ipsa tamen hominis unitas per naturam causatur ; multitudinis autem unitas quae pax dicitur, per regentis industriam est pro- curanda. De Regimine Principum, lib. I, cap. 15. 246 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION Government is charged with a threefold partici- pation in the affairs of our common life/ First, it must establish (instituere) the common weal by guarding the peace within its bounds, sometimes referred to as convenientia voluntatum,^ by inciting the citizens to lead a moral life, and by providing for a sufficient abundance {sufficiens copia) of the necessities of life. The public weal once estab- lished, the next duty is to conserve it. This is ac- complished by assuring a recruitment of the agents of administration; by repressing disorder; by en- couraging morality through a system of rewards and punishments; and by protecting the state against the attacks of enemies from without. Fi- nally, the government is charged with a third mis- sion, more vague, more elastic; to improve {ut sit de promotione solicitus) , to rectify abuses, to make up for defects, to work for progress. The bonum commune to be established and main- tained by the government is based upon a splendid conception of solidarity: every good and virtuous act performed by the individual man is capable of benefitting the community, — the community in which he has membership, as a part of the whole. Hence it follows that, in the state, the individual good can be referred always to the common wel- fare : the scholar who studies and teaches, the monk who prays and preaches, these render service to the 7 De Regimine Principvm, lib. I, cap. 15. 8 Thomas Aquinas, In Ethic. Nicom., Ill, 8. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 247 community as much as do the artisan and the farmer and the common laborer. Thomas Aquinas expressly teaches that every virtuous action (in the realm of nature or of grace ) can enter into the con- stitution of general or legal justice {justitia gener- alis 'vel legalis) ; for virtue here adjusts, with an eye to the common welfare, the relations of order maintaining in the conduct of the various members of the community.^^ This conception assumes special significance, — a significance characteristic of the social order in the thirteenth century — when one reflects upon the Prince as charged with making effectual this virtue in the justitia legalis. It is he who possesses the virtue of justice by right of headship {architect- onic e) , and in an eminent manner, whereas his 8=1 See Summa Theol., 2^-2^% q. LVIII, art. 5, for the important text in this connection. "Manifestum est autem quod omnes qui sub communitate aliqua continentur, comparantur ad communitatem sicut partes ad totum; pars autem id quod est, totius est; unde et quodlibet bonum partis est ordinabile in bonum totius. Secundum hoc ergo bonum cujuslibet virtutis, sive ordinantis aliquem homlnem ad seipsum, sive ordinantis ipsum ad aliquas alias personas singu- lares, est referibile ad bonum commune, ad quod ordinat justitia. Et secundum hoc actus omnium virtutum possunt ad justitiam perti- nere, secundum quod ordinant hominem ad bonum commune. Et quantum ad hoc justitia dicitur virtus generalis. Et quia ad legem pertinet ordinare ad bonum commune, . . . inde est quod talis justitia praedicto modo generalis dicitur justitia legalis, quia scilicet per eam homo concordat legi ordinanti actus omnium virtutum in bonum commune." 248 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION subordinate possesses it only in administrative de- pendence and secondarily.^" The Prince is custos justi, the guardian of what is just; he is ju^tum ani- matum, the personification of what is just.^*" He is the peace-maker of society. By virtue of this title he is qualified to direct the activities of his subordi- nates, to bid men to pray or to battle or to build or to farm, — always for the greatest common good.^* If, nevertheless, he who governs fails to be in- spired with this sense of the public good and aban- dons himself to a selfish and capricious use of power, then he must be regarded as a tyrant. Every treatise, written for the use of princes and future kings, exhibits a dread of the tyrant who allows his own personal advantage to override the good of the group. Dante reserves a special place in his hell for tyrants, by the side of brigands and assassins. Each establishes an entire system of guarantees to preserve the state against tyranny, which is so opposed to its nature. Some of these guarantees are preventive. Thus, Thomas in the De Regi- mine Principum, would have the people, — for the ^^ Ibid., art. 6. "Et sic est (justitia legalis) in principe prin- cipaliter et quasi architectonice ; in subditis autem secundario et quasi administrative." &" Ibid., art. 1, ad quintum. s** The same principle was invoked by ecclesiastical authority in laying upon the Prince the duty of suppressing heresy. The bonum commune, as it was understood in the thirteenth century, required that man's end in the divine economy should be safeguarded and that therefore the Prince should rigorously check any error which might lead astray the members of the community. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 249 thirteenth century, be it remembered, maintains the thesis of the sovereign people — at the moment of the choice of their rulers, inquire into their char- acter, and find out whether they have a despotic temperament. "Look out for your king," he says (providendum de rege).^ Some of these guaran- tees are intended to last throughout the period of their rule; for his power must be controlled and balanced by others, — wheels within wheels, as we shall show later. Finally, some of these guarantees are repressive. Resistance is not only permitted to unjust orders of the tyrant, but it is enjoined; and in extreme cases the people who have chosen can depose. While John of Salisbury considers tyrannicide as lidtum, aequum and justum^^ Thomas Aquinas expressly condemns tyrannicide. He desires that that people should do their best to endure an unjust ruler; but if the government be- comes quite unendurable, he allows the right of de- posing an unworthy ruler, which indeed is the nec- essary corollary of the power of choosing him." While it is clear that the philosophers of the thirteenth century were keenly sensitive to the pic- tures of tyrants, which they found in the Politics of Aristotle, it is no less clear that the public life of their own age afforded them actual illustrations of tyranny, which helped to provide an inspiration 9 Lib. I, cap. 6. Cf. his Comment Polit. lib. Ill, lectio 14. 10 Polycraticus III, 15. 11 De Regimine Princ, lib. I, cap. 6, 250 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION for their theory. Ptolemy of Lucques, who com- pleted the De Regimine Principium begun by Thomas, poured contempt on the tyrants of the minor Italian republics of his day {hodie in Italia) , who exploited the state for their own personal bene- fit. Perhaps he had in mind the Podestas, who were called from abroad to carry on the administra- tion of the Italian republics, and who, once they had secured the position, thought only of advanc- ing their own interests. Thomas Aquinas must surely have known cases of feudal tyrants, sover- eigns who abused their power. The thirteenth cen- tury witnessed more than one royal deposition. It suffices to recall how the barons of John Lackland declared against him. Ill But their doctrine is self-consistent, no matter who is entrusted with authority. And this brings us to the third question, which is the most interest- ing of all. Where does sovereignty reside, — this sovereignty which has its origin in divine delega- tion and its raison d'etre, its delimitation, in the so- cial good? While the jurists and canonists are occupied only with the Roman Empire, the existing monarchies, and the Papacy,^^ the philosophers take a more general view. The most striking is Thomas Aqui- 12(7/. Gierke, op. cit. (Maitland's transl.), pp. 30 and 70, — notes 131 and 174. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 251 nas, who gave to the droit social of the thirteenth century a remarkable consistency, — which he im- posed on his contemporaries and his successors. It was Thomas who also influenced his friend, Wil- liam of Moerbeke, to translate into Latin the Poli- tics of Aristotle. To understand the political system of Thomas, we must distinguish two distinct aspects of the problem. On the one hand, in any state, — what- ever its degree of perfection — there is the question of the seat of sovereignty. On the other hand, there is the question of this same sovereignty in the state which he believes to be the most perfect. As regards the first question. In any state sovereignty arises from collectivity and belongs to all the people, that is to say, to the masses made up of individuals. Since it is the people who con- stitute the state, and it is for the good of all the citizens that sovereignty should be exercised, it is logical to conclude that God has entrusted to the collectivity itself the power of ruling and legislat- ing. Thus the doctrine of the "sovereignty of the people" is not a modern discovery at all; it is in di- rect harmony with the leading idea of the scholas- tic political philosophy, that individuals are the only social realities, and that therefore, the state is not an entity outside of them. By a new link, then, this doctrine binds the droit social to metaphysics and ethics. But the body of citizens is too numerous, too un- 252 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION formed, too fickle, to exercise by itself the power which has been assigned to it b}^ divine decree. Ac- cordingly, it in turn, delegates this power. Usu- ally they commit it to a monarch; but not neces- sarily, — for the people may also delegate it to an aristocratic or to a republican form of government. If the people delegate it to a monarch — and that is the common mediaeval illustration — he repre- sents the group and holds power for the group; ordinare autem aliquid in honum commune est vel totius multitudinis, vel alicujus gerentis vicem to- tins multitudinis,^^ The monarch, therefore, is only a vice-regent. This is so literally true that (as we have already seen in the De Regimine Principum) precautions were usually recommended, when a vice-regent was to be selected. Indeed, as Thomas says," "among a free people who can make laws for themselves, the consent given popularly to certain practices, constantly made clear by custom, has more weight than the authority of the prince ; for the latter holds the power of legislating only so far as he represents the will of the people." So, the power is transmit- ted, by this successive delegation from God to the people and from the people to the monarch. It is the entire collectivity which is the original subject of the power. The people possess it by a certain natural title, which nothing can destroy; but the 13 Summa. Theol., lagae, q, XC, art. 3. ^4: Ibid., q. XCVII, art. 3, ad tertium. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 253 king holds it subject to the will of the people, which of course may change. There is, then, at the soui^e of the delegation made by the people to the king, a contract; in the less developed states this is a rudimentary or im- plrcit will, but in states which have arrived at a high degree of organization the will is exphcit. This will can give expression to itself, in a thousand different ways, each one of them sufficient to render legitimate the holding of power. This mediaeval principle of the acquisition of power by contract is in admirable agreement with the metaphysical doctrine that the individual alone is a real substance. Since the state is not an en- tity, the will of a state is nothing but the result of the will of all its members; and the state cannot exist without the mutual trust of the members and those who are appointed to direct them. Again the principle is in admirable agreement with feudal so- ciety and feudal monarchy, which rests entirely upon the pact, pactum; upon the oath of fealty which is the religious guarantee of fidehty to the given word. Are not the pacts between kings and burgesses, barons and prelates, foundation princi- ples of the institutions which envelop and assist in constructing the feudal monarchy? When one of the contracting parties breaks his agreement, the other at once withdraws his part in the bargain and resists. The history of the relations between the 254 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION kings and their feudatories and towns is full of in- stances of such resistance. In principle, — as we have said, the delegation of sovereignty by the people is of the same nature, whether it be made to a monarch, or to an aristoc- racy, or to a republic. In a monarchy, there is the advantage that the power is concentrated; and, as Thomas points out, the absence of diffusion is more efficacious ( for both good and evil purposes ) : Vir- tus unitiva magis est ejficaoc quam dispersa et di- visa.^^ But, he goes on to say, circumstances them- selves must decide, at any given moment in the po- litical life of a people, which is the best form of government; and this supplementary statement gives to his theory that elasticity which renders it adaptable to any set of conditions. IV Thomas himself, however, shows very marked preference for a composite form of government, which he considers the most perfect realization of this popular delegation, — and we have already con- sidered that form in general. This mixed system is that in which the sovereignty belongs to the peo- ple, but at the same time it is combined with both an elective monarchy and also an oligarchy to cur- tail the exercise of power by the monarch. The general plan of his system is outlined from this classic text: "Whereas these (that is, the various 15 De Begimine Principum, lib. I, cap. 3. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 255 forms of government) differ in kind . . . neverthe- less the first place is held by the "kingdom," where the power of government is vested in one, an "aris- tocracy," which signifies government by the best, where the power of government is vested in a few. Accordingly, the best form of government is in a state or kingdom, wherein one is given the power to preside over all ; while under him are others hav- ing governing powers. And yet a government of this kind is shared hy all, both because all are eligi- ble to govern, and because the rulers are chosen by all. For this is the best form of polity, being partly kingdom, since there is one at the head of all; partly aristocracy, in so far as a number of persons are set in authority ; partly democracy, i.e., government by the people, in so far as the rulers can be chosen from the people, and the people have the right to choose their rulers."'*' In this passage, written about 1250, the follow- ing political principles are affirmed: universal suf- frage, the right of the humblest citizen to be raised to the highest power, the consecration of personal worth and virtue, a representative and elective monarchy, and the right of the people to delegate, to those who are most worthy of it, that sacred gift of God called power. This pregnant text contains in a condensed form, 1-QSumma Theol. lagae, q. CV, art. 1. English translation (Domi- nicans), Part II (First Part), Third Number, p. 250, Benzinger, 1915, New York. 256 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION in '''latin lapidaire/^ a considerable number of prob- lems, of which we shall consider only a few. First, since the state must serve the good of the individual, it is necessary that those whom the popular will places at the head shall have intelli- gence, and sufficient moral integrity, to see and un- derstand the public interest and to promote it. Thus, government by insight is necessary. Reason, which is given such a high place in the economy of individual life," is also the sovereign guide in social life. The system of delegated power will be the more perfect in proportion as it sees to it that power shall be placed in the hands of the most de- serving, — or, rather, the most virtuous, to use the mediaeval phrase. Again, men of action ought to be under the direction of men of insight; for, "in the direction of human affairs, excess arises from the fact that the man at the head really has no head. Those who excel in powers of understanding are natural leaders," — in regimine humano inordinatio provenit eoc eo quod non propter intellectus prae- eminentiam cdiquis praeest,^^ This is why the most perfect form of delegation of power is the elective system; for as Thomas writes in his commentary on the Politics of Aris- totle, election is a work of reason^^ and the means 17 See above ch. VIII, iii and iv. 18 Contra Gentiles, lib. Ill, cap. 78. Illi qui intellectu praeeminent naturaliter dominantur. 19 Electio per se est appetitus ratione determinatus Com. in Politic, lib. Ill, lectio 14. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 257 of choosing the most worthy. Such election appUes to the monarch, and also to his ministers in the gov- ernment, whom Thomas includes in his composite form of government without defining their func- tions. Finally, Thomas lays down a condition for the exercise of popular election : it is necessary that the people be sufficiently informed on the issues at stake, and in consequence they must undergo a political education, an education in citizenship. Thus, in agreement with Augustine, he says: "If the people have a sense of moderation and respon- sibility, and are most careful guardians of the com- mon weal, it is right to enact a law allowing such a people to choose their own magistrates for the gov- ernment of the commonwealth. But if, as time goes on, the same people became so corrupt as to sell their votes, and entrust the government to scoundrels and criminals, then the right of appoint- ing their public officials is properly forfeited by such a people, and the choice devolves upon a few good men."^*^ We see here again, as always, how our fundamental principle comes into play: popu- lar suffrage must contribute to the realization in the state of the good of all. If popular suffrage itself is detrimental, its exercise must be sus- pended. 20 Summa Theol, la^ae, q. XCVII, art. 1. 258 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION How does the sovereign power, whatever it be, carry out its functions? According to scholastic philosophy, the essential attribute, which enables a government to fulfil its mission, is the power to establish laws. To establish laws for others is, in- deed, the most natural form of order. The theory of human law, in the page of Thomas Aquinas, is intimately bound up with his psychol- ogy and ethics and metaphysics; and it forms part of an original whole which can be called briefly "the system of laws."^^ Human or positive law, leoc humana sen positiva, has a twofold aspect; namely, the jus gentium, which belongs to all peo- ples alike, and the jus civile, civil law, which be- longs properly to a single state as such. In either case, this human law is simply a derivative from natural law; and natural law in turn is only the application — to man as a natural creature — of the eternal decree of the uncreated wisdom, lea^ aeterna. With regard to the question now before us, it will be sufficient to say that the law of nature, or natural human right, is that totality of regulations which rests upon the fundamental perfection of the human being; this does not change and cannot change, because it abides in the mutual relationship between the essence of God (the solitary support of all reality) and His creatures. Thomistic phi- 21 Summa Theol, la^ae, qq. XC-C. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 259 losophy sums it all up in this formula: the natural law is a participation in the eternal law, — le^c nat- uralis est participatio quaedam legis aeternae.^^ It follows, then, that each human individual bears in himself a totality of rights and of duties, which are the expression of his nature, — that is to say, of his status as a reasonable being. It also follows that the natural precepts of this law, the principles of social order, are the same for all men and for all time, and that to destroy them would mean the de- struction of man himself. Positive, or human, law cannot violate them. For, as Thomas says, in so far as human law disagrees with the law of nature, it is no longer a law, but a corruption of the law;^^ it is placed outside the scope of human legislation. The human law, indeed, draws its strength, its raison d'etre, only from natural law, — of which it is the echo, so to speak, the lengthening out, the ful- filling. Direct applications, evident corollaries of the social nature of man, belong to the jus gentium, (that which is right for all nations) such as "justice in buying and selling and other similar things, with- out which social life would be impossible.""* But there are less obvious and more remote con- sequences of the natural law; and there are appli- cations which vary J according to the concrete cir- cumstances peculiar to each state. It rests with 22 Ibid., q. XCI, art. 2. 23 Ibid., q. XCV, art. 2. 24 Ibid. 260 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION the government of particular groups, to determine these; and this is done under the form of positive law. For example, the natural law demands that the malefactor be punished; but it does not indicate the method or form of punishment, — whether he ought to be punished by fine or by prison or by death.^' It is left to the wisdom of human law to set right the implications of natural law. Thus, securely linked with the law of nature, all human law is bound up with reason, which is the basis of being human. "Human law is an ordi- nance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community, and promulgated."^^ VI To be sure, the state described by Thomas Aqui- nas is an ideal, or theoretical conception. As such of course it could not be realized in practice in any complete sense; for real societies are too complex to conform to any set or uniform scheme. But with this reservation, it seems fair to say that the great European states, which were all then in process of formation, attempted from their several angles to reahze in fact some such system of "limited mon- archy" as Thomas outlines. For example, the France of Louis IX, in which the transmission of power, resting upon the popular will, was modify- 25 Ibid. 26 Quaedam rationis ordinatio ad bonum commune et ab eo qu' curam commimitatis habet, promulgata. Ibid., q. XC, art. 4. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 261 ing the growing power of the king by a certain sys- tem of control, the England of the thirteenth cen- tury and a little later, was bringing its kings face to face with national parliaments; about the same time Spain also achieves its Cortes, a popular as- sembly raised up in the midst of the centralized government of Castile and Aragon.^^ Everywhere, the supreme prerogative of sovereignty lay in the exercise of the judicial power, which was nothing but the logical consequence of the power to give orders and to enforce them. Everywhere were manifest those efforts towards a more perfect con- sistency. But on the other hand, these efforts never attained to that form of administrative centraliza- tion which we have come to know in the modern state. Then again it is important to note that the Tho- mistic doctrines applied to states and not to na- tions. The sentiment of love for fatherland, which appeared in the Chanson de Roland — where la douce terre de France is spoken of — found its place in the moral system of Thomas Aquinas. He speaks of the pietas which we owe to our natal soil, 27 Concerning the historical origin of the divers political functions in Capetian France (the notion of the royal offlcium, the role of justicier played by the sovereign, the oath of fidelity from subjects, the importance of the elections and of the "sacre" and coronation, the designatio of the heir apparent before Louis VII), see Luchaire, Histoire des institutions monarchiques sous Us premiers capStiens (987-1180), vol. I, Paris, 1891. Of. Zeiller, L'idee de VEtat dans St. Thomas, Paris, 1910. 262 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION — in qua nati et nutriti sumus; and he considers the citizen to be a debtor to his fatherland, ''debitor patriae/'^^ But nation means more than state and father- land. In om- modern conception, a nation presup- poses a strongly organized state, — with an accumu- lation of traditions behind it, with institutions, rights and feelings, with victories and sufferings, and with a certain type of mind (religious, moral, and artistic). These are its elements. The result is that the bond which unites the nation is above all psychical in character (intellectual and moral), rather than territorial or racial. Now the European nations, thus defined, did not exist in the thirteenth century : they were in process of formatio7i. The monarchical states were to be- come the nuclei of the nations of modern times. War was not then a contest between two nations, but a struggle between two members of a single family, or two kings, or two vassals, or between the vassal and the lord. It retained the character of a private feud; and the same is true of the quarrels between towns and between classes in the same town. Hence, in his philosophical doctrine of war, Thomas Aquinas insists that a war, to be just, must be declared by the legitimate authority. It was just because the states of the thirteenth century were not formed into clearly defined na- tions, that they had more traits in common than 28jSftmwa Theol, 2a2ae, q. CXXII, art. 5; q. CI, art. 1. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 263 those of today. But they were on the point of be- coming diversified. The thirteenth century was like a central plateau, and the streams which flowed from it, cut their beds in different directions. The Thomistic theory of the state represents the cryistallization of the political experiences of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; but it also repre- sents conformity with the feudal and civil and canon law, which was making no little progress during this time. Consequently the three systems of legislation (feudal, civil, canon) are at one on so many important points, such as the divine origin of power, the subordination of the king to law, the king's character as servitor of justice, the force of custom, the intervention of the community in the delegation of power to the prince, and the participation of the people in government. In the same way natural law is for the legists and canon- ists an ideal to which positive (human) legislation must approach ; and the prescription of the natural law must be adopted in so far as it is possible in existing circumstances.^^ Finally, the thirteenth century theory of the state takes up and completes various philosophic doctrines which had found credit among former philosophers such as Manegold of Lautenbach, and 29 Cf. Carlyle, o'p. cit. For the civilian lawyers, vol. II, pp. 27, 49, 75; for the canonists, ibid., pp. 110, 145, cf. VIII, and p. 2'42; for the feudal lawyers, vol. Ill, pp. 32, 34, 44, 51, 100, 106, 116, 125, 137, 147, 162, and the conclusion. 264 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION John of Salisbury. But it has become a social phi- losophy, and it dresses all in a synthesis which is found neither among the f eudal^Jheorists nor among the legists, nor among the canonists, nor among the philosophers of the preceding centuries. It co- ordinates all, and attaches the doctrines which it establishes to a system of psychology, of morals, of logic, and of metaphysics. It is a kind of democ- racy, conceived in moderation^ and based upon the pluralistic conception of the world and of life. CHAPTER TWELVE The Conception or Human Progress i. The constant and the permanent, ii. Progress in science, in morals, in social and political justice, in civilization. Is there a place in the scholasticism of the thir- teenth century for a theory of progress ? The ques- tion concerns not only the system of human laws; it is a general problem, and therefore, it must be solved according to general principles. Let us ob- serve briefly how scholasticism succeeded in recon- ciling the constant and the variable, and in what degree it admits the possibility of change for the better. We have already seen^ what a capital role the stable and the permanent played in the thirteenth century conception of the world. Essences are un- changeable, and by them the natural species are fixed; they are imitations of the essence of God; and the degree of imitability does not change. From this it follows that what constitutes man, his quiddity as they then said, is everywhere and al- 1 Ch. IX, iv. 265 266 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION ways the same. One is either a man or not a man. Essentia non suscipit plus vel minus. Similarly, the first principles of reason — that is to say, the judgments which express the fundamental relations of all being, the prerequisites of whatever reality may come into actual existence — are stable and per- manent; their necessity and their universality are absolute. Take, for example, the principle of con- tradiction: "that which is cannot not be," or the principle of causality: quidquid movetur ah alio movetur. The scholastics referred to these princi- ples as per se notae, knowable of themselves; for, merel)^ by understanding the subject and predicate one can grasp the absolute necessity of the relation which unites them, independently of all experience, and in consequence independently of all existence. The first principles of mathematics, although less general in that they have to do only with quantity, express in the same way invariable relations. Nor is it otherwise with the principles of moral and social order. That good must be done and wrong avoided, that the state is for the good of individuals, are principles necessary and fixed; and we have seen that there exist rights derived from nature, which no human legislation can violate. However, the necessity of these moral and social principles is of a different kind from that of mathe- matical propositions, and of the principles of rea- son. These moral principles imply a condition; namely, the existence of humanity in its actual IN THE MIDDLE AGES 267 state, — the fact of creation. The same also holds true concerning the principles of the natural sci- ences. Hence, such principles are not knowable by mere analysis and comparison of their subject and their predicate {per se notae) ; they manifestly rest on observation and on experience {per aliud nota) .^ II On the other hand, the world of limited existence involves change, and scholasticism studied with care the problem of change. The doctrine of act and potency, — the actuality and potentiality in each changing being — is nothing but their solution of this problem.^ Change appears everywhere in the physical world. But change itself follows cer- tain imif ormities ; it is dominated by finality. The unvarying return of the seasons, the movements of the planets, the cycle of physical and chemical laws, the recurrence of vital phenomena in plants and animals, — all of these exhibit the striking regular- ity which is inherent in the realm of change. In so far as one considers inorganic beings, the vegetable and animal world, this same recurrence admits of no exception. It is not only the species which are fixed; the activities exhibited by the most diverse 2 On the scholastic distinction between judgments 'per se nota and per aliud nota {aliud here means observation and experience), see Mercier, Logique, Louvain, 1919, pp. 135 flf. Cf. Thomas Aquinas, De anima, II, 14. 3 See above ch. IX, iii. 268 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION individuals beings do not vary. In regard to evolu- tion, as we understand it today, the dynamic meta- physics of scholasticism neither includes nor ex- cludes the change of one species into another. The problem did not present itself in the thirteenth century. Neither the theory of transformism nor the theory of mutation is irreconcilable with the scholastic theory of the world. Indeed, as we have seen above, a substance transforms itself always into another species of substance, — it does not mat- ter how. But human acts, are they bound by the same uni- formities, — or, on the contrary, is human progress really possible? The question is the more interest- ing because the thirteenth century believed that it had realized a state of stable equilibrium, and be- cause their extraordinary optimism lead them to believe that thej^ had arrived at a state close to perfection. Accordingly it is necessary to explain how they conceived of humanity as having tra- versed the lower stages in order to arrive at this degree of perfection. A precise formulation is furnished by their meta- physical psychology. Human nature is the same in all men, and whatever rests on this nature is stable and uniform. But the faculties, — the direct source of activities — differ from man to man, in power and in flexibility. The intelligence and the will are energetic in a greater or a less degree ; they are sus- ceptible of being perfected by education, and this IN THE MIDDLE AGES 269 perfecting itself is indefinite. The repetition of activities engenders permanent dispositions (habi- tiis) , which intensify effort. So it is that there is a place for progress in science. That which men have not been able to discover up to any given time, ma}^ some day be discovered by a genius more pene- trating. Thomas Aquinas apphes this to the geo- centric hypothesis of which he foresees the possible supplanting.* Science, moreover, is regarded as a collective treasure, which is unceasingly increased by the contributions of succeeding generations.^ In the domain of morals and of social- justice, the place accorded to change (of course change for the better) is much more important. The concern here is not with the increase of moral or social judg- ments, as was the case with science; but real trans- formation, and adaptation, is involved, and the un- derlying reason for this is found in human liberty. Aside from the immutable principles (the point of departure and the standard of morality), scholasti- cism recognizes that there are applications of these principles more or less distinct, and more or less variable.*^ These principles govern the majority of cases, but they admit of exceptions. Reason has to weigh the value of all the circumstances which envelop a concrete and practical application of a moral law. The more numerous these circuin- 4 0/. above, p. 113. 5(7/. above, pp. 139 ff. « Cf. above, p. 259. 270 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION stances become, the greater is the elasticity of the law. The matter is well and clearly put by Thomas Aquinas' as follows: "As to the proper conclu- sions of the practical reason, neither is the truth or rectitude the same for all, nor, where it is the same, is it equally known by all. Thus it is right and true for all to act according to reason, and from this principle it follows as a proper conclusion, that goods entrusted to another should be restored to their owner. Now this is true for the majority of cases; but it may happen in a particular case that it would be injurious, and therefore unreasonable to restore goods held in trust; for instance, if they are claimed for the purpose of fighting against one's country. And this principle will be found to fail the more, according as we descend further into detail, e.g., if one were to say that goods held in trust should be restored with such and such a guar- antee, or in such and such a way; because the greater the number of conditions added, the greater the number of ways in which the principle may fail, so that it be not right to restore or not to restore." The fundamental inclination towards good abides in the depths of human conscience; it can be dark- ened, ohtenebrari, but not extinguished. In the worst men, human nature remains good and retains the indelible imprint of the eternal law.^ As for social truths and social laws, these are T Summa Theol., la^ae, q. XCIV, art. 4. Dominican trans., p. 48. s Ibid., q. XCVI, art. 6. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 271 even more subject to the conditions of temporal of negotia, of personae than are the laws of the moral individual.'' They vary with them ; they are not en- dowed with infallibilities.^'' Hence progress in hu- man legislation is possible. It is certain that the system of limited monarchy, to which Thomas Aquinas gives his preference, constituted in his eyes a step forward from the primitive forms of government which he enumerates. In the follow- ing fine passage Thomas shows how law, as well as science, is capable of progress. "Thus there may be two causes for the just change of human law: one on the part of reason; the other on the part of man whose acts are regulated by law. The cause on the part of reason is that it seems natural to human reason to advance gradually from the imperfect to the perfect. Hence, in speculative sciences, we see that the teaching of the early philosophers was im- perfect, and that it was afterwards perfected by those who succeeded them. So also in practical matters : for those who first endeavoured to discover something useful for the human community, not being able by themselves to take everything into consideration, set up certain institutions which were deficient in many ways; and these were changed by subsequent lawgivers who made insti- tutions that might prove less frequently deficient in ^Ibid., lagae, q. XCVI, art. 1. Cf. the whole of q. XCVII («De mutatione legum"). ^olbid., q. XCI, art. 3, ad tertium. 272 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION respect of the common weal. On the part of man, whose acts are regulated by law, the law can be rightly changed on account of the changed condi- tion of man, to whom different things are expe- dient according to the difference of his condition."^^ Thus the Thomistic theory opens the way for progress in human legislation ; and since legislation is the attribute of sovereignty, it opens the way likewise for progress in the government of states. But forthwith Thomas adds this counsel of wis- dom: not without good reasons, should human law be changed. For, any change in the law is made at the expense of the power and majesty that reside in the legislative power, — quando lex mutatur, dimi- nuitur vis constructiva legis.^^ On the basis of Thomistic principles, it is there- fore possible to justify a series of progressive measures. The thirteenth century could of course not envisage them; but they are in the logic of its system. For, whatever the government may be, it must look ever towards betterment {ut sit de pro- motione solicitus) ; it must put at the disposal of individuals the means of perfecting their person- ality. It must assure, for example, all that con- cerns education of the physical faculties, of the in- telligence, and of the moral will; it must organize the conditions of production and of work." A like ^^Ibid., q. XCVII, art. 1. Dominican trans., p. 77. 12 Ibid., q. XCVII, art. 2. 13 Cf. above, p. 246. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 273 mission belongs to the social authority, whatever may be the form of this authority. Following the fine and judicious distinction of Thomas, one must determine in varying circumstances, just what form of government is most propitious to the realization of its social mission. Finally, like the state and the collective life, hu- man civilization in its entirety is capable of prog- ress; for it is the result of human activities which are always perfectible. Education, heredity, the influence of authority, can all act on the develop- ment of the artistic faculties, of scientific labors, of customs, of religious practice. To sum up, then. Fixity of essences and essen- tial relations; act and potency; perfectibility of faculties; liberty and adaptability of the collective life to circumstances and needs, — these are the principles by which scholasticism solved the prob- lem of progress. They did so by answering in their way the ancient Greek query; How reconcile the fixed and the changing? CHAPTER THIRTEEN Philosophy and National Temperament in THE Thirteenth Century i. Scholastic philosophy reflected in the temperament of the peoples who created it. ii. Three main doctrines: the value of the individual; intellectualism ; moderation, iii. Scholastic philosophy the product of Neo-Latin and Anglo- Celtic minds; Germanic contribution virtually negligible, iv. Latin Averroism in the thirteenth century, v. The lure of Neo- Platonism to the German, vi. The chief doctrines opposed to the scholastic tendencies: lack of clearness; inclination to pantheism; deductive method a outrance; absence of moder- ation. Scholastic philosophy is the dominant philosophy of the thirteenth century. Such is the outstanding fact, the significance of which we have attempted to estimate by correlating it with the other factors of that civilization. This philosophy is the result of a slow and pro- gressive development, and it follows the general trend of western civilization. The doctrinal fer- mentation, rather slow in its beginning, becomes in- tensified in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as the social and political structure is taking its feudal 274 IN THE MIDDLE AGES 275 form; and it reaches its most fruitful period just as the distinctly mediaeval mode — of life and of thought and of feeling — is revealing itself clearly in every department of human activity. This great philosophical system reflects the unifying tenden- cies of the time: its influence is cosmopolitan; its optimism, its impersonality, and its religious ten- dencies place it in accord with the entire civiliza- tion; and its doctrines exert a profound influence on art and on literature, and on social habits. As scholastic philosophy is the work of western races, it is likewise an original product. In it the western peoples reproduce, to be sure, the prob- lems of the Greek and the Oriental worlds. But the solutions of these problems are cast in a new mould, they are imbued with a new mentality. Herein lies the secret of the wonderful growth and expansion of the scholastic philosophy in the West. Seeing that the peoples of the West were con- stantly preoccupied with it, there is little wonder that this philosophy should have played a part in moulding philosophical temperament ; that it should have given them an intellectual bent, a specific turn of mind. We need not be surprised then to find, — in that unique period of history when the minds of the various European peoples were taking on their several casts, — the development of certain general characteristics, whose influence survived in philos- ophy after the thirteenth century, and even the whole Middle Ages. 276 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION Economic forms, political organization, structure of social classes, artistic culture, — these all disap- pear, or are transformed ; indeed, by the end of the fourteenth century, these elements of the civiliza- tion have lost their distinctly mediaeval signifi- cance. But moral and philosophical temperaments endure, because they belong to the deeper lying- emanations of human spirit. In the individual man, the bodily temperament, which depends upon physiological conditions, persists throughout his en- tire life. Similarly, in a group of individuals the mental temperament, which finds its support in common ideals, both intellectual and moral, sur- vives in the race. Thus, the habits of honor and courtesy, under the combined influence of Church and feudal society, were transmitted through suc- ceeding generations as staple realities, — which we find even today in our modern conscience. In like manner, the philosophical temperament of the thirteenth century, — I mean the setting in opera- tion of certain methods and doctrines — entered into the modern epoch and even now directs our mode of thought. Indeed, scholastic philosophy set in operation three main doctrines, — which may also be called methods — which have become our common approach to problems and their solutions. II The first of these doctrines lays emphasis upon the worth of the individual, or person, as the only IN THE MIDDLE AGES 277 human reality. Scholastic philosophy, being a pluralistic conception of the world, makes of each man an autonomous agent, having a body and an intelligence and a will and a liberty all his own. Each hmuan individual possesses abilities which give to him as a representative of the race a purely personal power of action; and this inequality of faculties explains the several capacities of various individuals for artistic or scientific or professional or public life. The human individual has a right to personal happiness and is called after death to enjoy personal blessedness. He is protected against the state, or the group, by a whole system of intangible rights.^ Accordingly, the philosophy of the thirteenth century is opposed to everything that resembles the subjugation of one man to an- other. For the same reason, it exhibits a profound dislike for monism and pantheism; it was at great pains, and this cannot be too strongly emphasized, to eliminate every pantheistic tendency from its teaching. Indeed it developed a horror for any doctrine which fuses in one sole being some or all beings, — in particular, which makes all men parts or becomings of a great whole, of one Being, and which therefore suppresses their individuality. This doctrine, that the individual alone is sub- stantial reality, and alone has real value in the uni- verse, is of course Aristotelian in origin. It is written on the first page of his Metaphysics, that 1 Cf. chs. IX and X. 278 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION splendid book of common-sense which has nour- ished the thought of men for two thousand years. But with their special concern for the natural equality of human beings, the scholastics went much further than did Aristotle. While he stated that men are naturally unlike, and that nature made freemen of some and slaves of others, the scholastics regarded slavery and serfdom as con- ventional, — not as natural. And we may be sure that if this turn of thought — a turn toward en- hanced value of the individual — had not been in accord with the deepest aspirations of the mediaeval civilization (in the peoples who were its supreme representatives), it would never have found en- trance into their marrow, and into their blood. For, the western minds took only what suited them, — whether from Aristotle or Plato or Augustine or Avicenna or Averroes — and they took it because it suited them. Nothing is more false than the judgment, which finds credit among so many historians, that one must await the Renaissance to see human person- ality appraised at its true worth. There are few philosophers who have accentuated the metaphysi- cal, the psychological, the moral, and the social value of the individual so much as did the schol- astics. And just as the thirteenth century is a century of striking personalities, it is also a cen- tury of discussions on all the problems which the question of personality raises. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 279 There is a second doctrine which also involves the philosophical mentality, and which is closely connected with that which we have just exposited. This is intellectualism, or the royal rule of reason in man, and in all that concerns human life. It introduces the supremacy of reason into all depart- ments of human activity.^ Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus are its striking representatives; but it is also found though in a lesser degree, in all of the scholastic philosophers. It is because the dominant philosophy of the thirteenth century was an intellectual philosophy, that it promoted a love of clearness and precision; that it struggled against the perplexing vagueness of Arabian mysticism; that it introduced into dis- cussions an atmosphere of precision and exactness which exercised on the formation of the developing minds the most beneficent influence. It is to this mental discipline that the philosophical Latin of the masters owes its pliability, — and to the same source the modern languages are indebted for large portions of their vocabularies.^* We have already seen how this intellectualism and love of clarity are revealed in the most important forms of thirteenth century culture.^'' But, in addition to individualism and intellec- tualism, there is a third deep lying character which 2 Cf. ch. VIII. 2a Cf. above, p. 176. 2" See ch. VII, v. 280 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVH.IZATION enters into the temperament of those who framed and developed scholastic philosophy. And this is their spirit of moderation, — a moderation revealed in considered choice. Their philosophy is the via media between the views of Plato and of Aristotle ; it tempers the naturalism of the latter with the ideaUsm of the former. Thus the equilibrium which appears in all the social forces of that age manifests itself in their dominant philosophy. We have seen^ how scholastic metaphysics is a dynamic philosophy; but its dynamic character is moderate, — because the form or the principle of any given perfection, that may reside in each be- ing, unfolds in matter. It gives the corporeal world an evolutionary interpretation; but this is a mitigated evolution, since it does not apply to the essences themselves. Thus, for example, their con- ception of evolution combines efficient causality and finality; it furnishes a moderate realistic solu- tion, by reconcihng the individual nature of ex- ternal reaUties with the abstract character of our corresponding concepts.* Scholastic psychology is a moderate form of idealism, since abstract ideas arise in sense-percep- tion,^ and man is regarded as a unitary combination of both soul and body. Similarly, this moderation finds expression in their ethics, which explains the 3 See ch. IX, iii and iv. * See above, pp. 59 and 181. 5 Cf. ch. VIII, i. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 281 compatibility of duty with pleasure, and of varia- ble moral laws with its unchangeable principles.^ The same is true of their aesthetics, since the beau- tiful is at once subjective and objective. And again in their logic this same spirit appears, as they estab- lish the right of both deduction and induction. This moderation appears also in their social phi- losophy; for sovereignty in the state belongs both to the people and to those who receive power, by delegation from the people.^ Moderation is like- wise found in their theory of progress and culture, which takes account of both that which is fixed in human nature and that which is changeable and perfectible.^ Thus, in all of its reflection scholasticism seeks the golden mean and avoids extremes ; it delights in the solution that mediates between opposing views. For all these reasons it is a profoundly human phi- losophy, — ^that is, a philosophy which is fitted for beings bound by corporeal conditions and yet also participating in the spiritual realm. The importance of personality, the supremacy of reason and of clear ideas, a sense of measure and of moderation in the doctrines which constitute it; these three characteristics of scholastic philosophy are in perfect accord with the western civilization of the thirteenth century. 6C/. ch. XII, ii. 7 Cf. ch. XII. 8C/. ch. XI, iii. 282 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION III And now we must consider a further fact — one of central importance. This civihzation is above all the product of French influence; France is the centre from which it casts its light everywhere.^ From this angle, it is interesting to note how the masters of scholastic philosophy, those who brought it to its full development and who affixed to it the imprint of their genius, were all educated in France, — whether French or Italian or English or Flem- ish, or Walloon. Thomas Aquinas and Bonaven- ture belong to great Italian families ; Alexander of Hales, Duns Scotus, William of Occam, and many more, are Anglo-Celts; Gerard of Abbeville, Wil- liam of Auvergne, William of Auxerre belong to France; Henry of Ghent, Siger of Courtrai are natives of Flanders; Godfrey of Fontaines is of the nobility of Liege. All of these masters met in Paris, where they resided and taught ; and they are therefore French by education. Scholastic philos- ophy in the thirteenth century is even more a sys- tem of Gallicae Sententiae than it was in the time of Adelard of Bath.^^ On the other hand, the role of the Germans is surprisingly negligible. The only personality of note that comes from beyond the Rhine is Swabian, Albert the Great, Count of Bollstadt. His contri- bution to scholastic philosophy is deserving of the 9 See chs. II, ii; III, i; IV, ii, iii; V, iv. 10 Cf. above, p. 41. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 283 closest attention; but his services are of a very spe- cial kind. Albert the Great was an indefatigable compiler of texts, a tireless commentator, an ob- server of facts, an excellent encyclopedist; but he was not a profound philosopher/^ I do not mean, of course, that the Germans had no share in the philosophy of the thirteenth cen- tury; for they produced some men whose thought is of the greatest significance in respect to civilization. But their philosophy is not scholastic philosophy, as we have been at pains to outline it in these pages. Their system of thought contained seeds which were foreign to the scholastic genius; and therein are found the beginnings of their later deepest aspirations. This contrast between the two types of mind is both striking and instructive. We may therefore profitably consider it more closely in concluding our study. IV What is this philosophy to which the Germans so generally gave preference ? To understand the full significance of this question, it is necessary to con- sider the non-scholastic philosophies of the thir- teenth century. 11 Cf. Schneider, "Beitrage zur Psychologie Alberts des Grossen," Baiimker's-B et7ra^e, IV, 5, 1903. Albert in de animaUbus is fond of distinguishing the Germani and the Galli. Cf. H. J. Stadler, Al- bertus Magnus de animalibus L. XXVI. BsLumker's-Beitrdge, XV- XVI, 1916 and 1921. Incices, verbis Galli, Germania, Germani. 284 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION It should be stated at once that we must disre- gard the unusual; for our study is one of general tendencies. In that century, which was so rich in important personalities there were certain isolated but brilliant thinkers, who swept the philosophic sky in meteor-like fashion, — leaving little trace of real influence on their environment. Roger Bacon is perhaps the most fascinating of these men. But while he was far beyond his day in all matters touching mathematics and natural science, he fell just as far behind in his view of philosophy itself, — as mere apologetics in furthering religion. Thus he represents a twofold anachronism, — not only in science, but in philosophy as well! Hence, how- ever interesting this personality of the thirteenth century may be, he remains none the less an ex- ception, and deserves only a secondary place in our study. Aside from scholastic philosophy, two principal currents of thought manifest themselves, — namely, latin Averroism and Neo-Platonism. These are all the more marked by the upheaval which they occa- sioned; nevertheless, in contrast with the great river of scholasticism, they are really mere rivulets. The first emerges suddenly ; but it disappears grad- ually from view, in the fifteenth century, — like a stream which sinks into some subterranean channel. The second, on the other hand, arose slowly, but it widened its channel and deepened its current; and, IN THE MIDDLE AGES 285 as it did so, it carried with it the German genius. Let us consider each of these in turn. Latin Averroism differs from scholastic philos- ophy as the Gothic cathedral differs from the Ara- bian mosque, — and not as the Cathedral of Amiens differs from that of Chartres. The conflict be- tween the one and the other presents two distinct conceptions of the world and of life, two systems of metaphysics and of psychology. The researches of Mandonnet have served to en- rich our acquaintance with the origin and nature of these Averroistic doctrines.^^ That they appeared at Paris about 1256, and that between 1260 and 1270 they were the source of much disturbance to the Faculty of Arts of the University, are now clearly established facts. In the philosophic duel which then was waged between scholasticism and Latin Averroism, there appeared Thomas Aquinas as the champion of the former, and Siger of Bra- bant, a Fleming who championed the latter and gathered about him a small number of admiring followers. To combat the Averroistic doctrines, all the scholastics united in an alliance, both of- fensive and defensive, — including also such men as Roger Bacon.^^ 12 See P. Mandonnet, "Siger de Brabant et I'Averroisme latin au XIII°>« s." in Les Philosophes Beiges, vol. VI (1911) and VII (1908), Louvain. 13 Thomas Aquinas wrote a special treatise entitled De imitate in- tellectus contra Averroistas. Duns Scotus speaks of Averroes as "maledictus ille Averroes" (Oxon. IV, d. 43, q. 2, no. 5). 286 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION In this contest we may confine our attention to two principal doctrines, which the scholastics never tired of attacking, — namely, the theory of one single soul for all mankind, and the theory of the twofold truth. The former has to do with an im- portant aspect of psychology, and it has signifi- cant bearings on religion; the latter involves the relation of philosophy and theology. We shall treat briefly of each. This theory of the single intelligence in men teaches, that all human thoughts occur by virtue of a single intelligence, which belongs to the race, — and, as substance, remains in a state of isolation from the individual human beings. Our personal thoughts arise, when our individual sense percep- tions and imaginations are illuminated by this single intelligence, by virtue of its momentary ac- tion in union with the sensitive soul (anima sensi- bilis) in each of us. Furthermore — and as a con- sequence of this — the soul of mankind is alone en- dowed with immortality, and the soul or form that is individual in each of us passes away at death. Men die; the soul of the race is immortal. Such a doctrine runs counter to any deep sense of human personality, by minimizing the individ- ual aspects of thinking and of religious experience, — and by eliminating personal immortality. The bitter struggle of the scholastics against this doc- trine is therefore readily intelligible as a register- ing of their profound yearning for, and emphasis IN THE MIDDLE AGES 287 upon, the value of human personality. Traini's" portrayal of the defeat of Averroes (and the other productions inspired by Traini's great work) re- flect also this same sense of personal worth em- bedded in the wider complex of that civilization, society at large, of which philosophy is a part. The theory of the twofold truth^^ asserts, that a doctrine may be true in philosophy but false in theology, and conversely. This pragmatic doctrine enabled the harmonizing with Catholic dogma of ideas which were utterly foreign to its spirit and subversion of its teachings. Setting timth over against itself, it contravenes the principle of contra- diction, — indispensable not only to the preserva- tion of theology, but also to the principles of moral and social order. The deepest lying tendencies of that civilization and the fundamental doctrines of their logic and theology are alike incompatible with the theory of the twofold truth. It was just this incompatibility which lead to its formal condemna- tion in 1277 (as is clear from the beginning of that interesting document) ;'' and the same is evident in the work of Thomas against the Averroists. Hence one can understand the intensity of the struggle which the doctrine aroused in the schools. Latin Averroism is not a product of occidental thought, but an exotic importation. Its protagon- 14 0/. above, pp. 84 and 154. i'^ Cf. above, p. 165. 16 Denifle-Chatelain, Chartul. Univers. Paris. Vol. I, p. 543. 288 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION ists proclaimed the philosophical infallibility of Averroes, and it was their constant concern to avoid betraying him. The motives which prompted this occidental affiliation with the oriental interpre- tation of Aristotehan naturalism remain a matter of conjecture. It may have been sincerity or con- viction; or, it may have been the desire to justify the relaxation of faith and of morals, as Mandonnet believes. But, in any event, it is certain that Latin Averroism did not penetrate the mass of the intel- lectuals. At Paris it was the creed of a small group ; and when the condemnation of 1277 checked the professional career of Siger of Brabant, its ex- pansion was arrested, — though it did not entirely disappear. Indeed, at the court of Frederic II, Eang of The Sicilies, Averroism scored a local triumph. But that court reflected the spirit of the Orient far more than it did that of the Occident; Frederic II being an Oriental prince both in caste and in manners. If Averroism did not penetrate the spirit of men of learning in the western world, still less did it penetrate into the channels of ordinary life." Be- ing, as a whole J alien to occidental civilization, it is necessary to seek elsewhere the influence of the Averroistic doctrines upon the civilization which we have studied. First of all, it kindled an atmo- sphere of conflict; and thus it obliged scholastic 17 Alphand^ry, "Y-a-t-il eu un Averroisme populaire aux XIII'* et XI V" s.?" {Revue de I'histoire des religions, 1901, p. SO"*.) IN THE MIDDLE AGES 289 philosophy to formulate its position with greater precision, and it united on fundamentals, those who otherwise were divided. Furthermore, a few detached theories of Averroism, by virtue of their inherent force, continued their influence, — an in- fluence which increased during the centuries that followed. For instance, the doctrine of the twofold truth gradually undermined the Catholic faith ; and certain Averroists of the fourteenth century lent their support to the legists, who were engaged in subordinating the Papacy to the State. Finally, certain elements of Averroism contributed to rein- force another current of ideas born in the thir- teenth century, the Neo-Platonic current which we must now consider. Occidental Neo-Platonism could no more com- pete in influence with the scholastic philosophy of the thirteenth century than could Latin Averroism. The doctrines of emanation and the vaporous mys- ticism of Proclus, — especially as contained in the Liber de Causis — were in direct opposition to the temper of scholasticism. But Neo-Platonism suc- ceeded in alluring a group of German philosophers ; and in view of its contribution to the tendencies which developed in Germany, especially during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, its study is of the greatest historical interest. It is not within the scope of the present work to examine in detail the 290 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION Neo-Platonic movement of the thirteenth century, which would involve a separate study; we shall therefore touch upon it only, and give in outline certain general results. The first translators of Neo-Platonic works — such as Robert Grosseteste, Alfredus Anglicus, and William of Moerbeke — had no sympathy with Neo-Platonism, other than the special fondness which every translator of that age felt for the work which he translated. And the same may be said of Albert the Great as commentator, for, in com- mentating Aristotle and Neo-Platonic writings, re- spectively, he inclines toward each in turn. But in the second half of the thirteenth century a group of German philosophers turn deliberatively to certain Neo-Platonic theses. These men are contemporaries of, or immediate successors to, Albert the Great; and several of them, hke Albert himself, are dignitaries of the Dominican order in Germany. I refer to Ulric of Strasburg, the im- mediate disciple of Albert, to the Silesian Witelo, to Thierry of Freiburg (in Germany), to Berthold of Mosburg, perhaps a disciple of Albert, and to Meister Eckhart, the most celebrated of all. These thinkers succeed in coordinating the whole of their doctrines, in organic unity, on the basis of Neo- Platonic thought. In different degrees, their works combine the emanational view of reality, the ten- dency to make knowledge arise in the soul indepen- IN THE MIDDLE AGES 291 dent of the external world, and the mystic impulse toward the infinite. VI Now, if we confine our enquiry to Thierry of Freiburg and Meister Eckhart — the striking per- sonalities of the group — it is very remarkable that these men (whose works are now published or well known) ^^ part deliberately with the scholastic phi- losophy, — the philosophy which dominates the minds of Neo-Latins and the Anglo-Celts, and with which the German thinkers are thoroughly familiar. Thus, Thierry of Freiburg says expressly, that he wished to separate himself from those who taught the common philosophy, — from the communiter lo- quentes — and he boasts of it.^^ The same sense of 18 I here give the works of these men. The bibliography, at the end of these lectures, may be consulted for details. Ulric of Strasburg is the author of a treatise entitled De Summo Bono, of which brief fragments have been published (c/. Ueberweg-Baum- gartner, op. cit., p. 4-62). Witelo wrote a work on Optics (De Per- spectiva), and he is probably the author of the treatise De Intelli- gentils. The works of Thierry of Freiburg have been published by Krebs. Berthold of Mosburg wrote a commentary on the Elementa Theologica of Proclus. According to Dyroff ("Ueber Heinrich und Dietrich von Freiburg," Philos. Jhrb., 1915, pp. 55-63), the Henry of Freiburg ("de Uriberch"), — who probably belonged to the same family as Thierry of Freiburg, and lived at the same time — translated into German verse the mystical and Neo-Platonic discourses of Thierry of Freiburg. The German works of Eckhart have been published by Pfeiffer (1857), and fragments of his Latin works by Denifle (Archiv f. Litt. u. Kirchengesch. d. Mittelalt., 1886). IS See above, Sententia communis, p. 83. Cf. E. Krebs, "Meister 292 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION difference appears in Eckhart, who says concerning some of his own doctrines : primo aspectu monstruo- sa, duhia aut falsa apparebunt, secus autem si soh lerter et studio sius pertractantur,"'^^ Both of these thinkers take over certain characteristics and ten- dencies which are diametrically opposed to the ten- dency of thought of the Neo-Latins and the Anglo- Celts, which we have pointed out. The first character is a lack of clearness in thought and of precision in language. Although he uses the fixed terminology of the scholastics, the celebrated Eckhart is an obscure thinker, — "Ein unklarer Denker" said Denifle,^^ his best historian and himself a German. To the clear ideas and pre- cise expressions of scholastic philosophy, Neo-^ Platonic Germans oppose ambiguous theories and misleading comparisons. Their thoughts do not seek the clear light, and they are satisfied with ap- proximations. Their imaginations delight in an- alogies, notably in the comparison of emanation with radiation or flowing, by which they represent creation as a stream of water which flows from the divine source and as a light which shines forth from the luminous hearth of the Divinity. Thierry speaks of the creative act by which God produces Intelligences, as an ebullitio, an interior transfusion Dietrich, s. Leben, s. Werke, s. Wissenschaft," Baiimker's-Bei^ra^re, V, 5-6, 1906, pp. 150, 151. 20 Denifle, Meister Eckharts lateinische Schriften, p. 535. 21 Edit., Denifle, p. 459. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 293 by which His nature, sovereignly blessed and fer- tile, pours itself out.^^ This brings us to a second characteristic, very much more important, in which the philosophy of the Germans of the thirteenth century is opposed to ^scholastic philosophy. This is the leaning to- wards pantheism, which unites men with God even to the point of fusion; the carrying of the soul for commerce with the Divinity, a mystic communion so intimate that every distinction between God and the soul disappears. In the whole group of Ger- man thinkers of the thirteenth century it is Eck- hart who shows this tendency most strongly, and it is also he who exerts the greatest influence upon the German mind. He boldly teaches that the ex- istence of God is also the very eooistence of crea- tures.^^ In this he differs totally with the schol- astic philosophy, which gives to each person (as to each individual being) not only his own essence, but an eooistence distinct from the existence of every other being, and also from that of God.^* He thus maintains a fusion of God and His creatiu^es, since the same single existence envelops them both. One understands, therefore, how he can say that God is like an infinite sphere, whose centre is everywhere 2^ Edit., Krebs, pp. 129 and 133. 23 Ens tantum unum et Deus est. Extra primam causam nichil est; quod enim est extra causam primam, deum scilicet, est extra esse, quia deus est esse. Edit., Denifle, p. 549. 24 See above, pp. 195, 218. 294 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION and whose circumference is nowhere,^^ and that every creature has a lasting hunger and thirst for God: qui edimt me adhuc esuriunt. The animals, he writes, cease to nourish their young as soon as these have their fill; but beings are insatiable of God, for they exist in Him."^® On the basis of this metaphysics, Eckhart elabo- rates a mysticism wherein the soul contracts a union with God which would bridge the gulf between in- finite and finite. The description which he makes of this mystic union makes one tremble. That which God loves in us is Himself, His very own existence; the soul is the sanctuary of God where He finds Himself! But God does not enter into the sanctuary unless the soul is prepared, it must have renounced everything, — not only all external things, but also its very self, its knowledge, its will, its feelings, its strivings, its personality. In short, God enters in only if the soul is in a state of abso- lute renunciation, of complete passivity, {abge- schiedenheit) ,^^ And then the miracle takes place; God discloses the unity and the infinity of His na- ture. The soul is transported into the silent desert where there is neither effort, nor doubt, nor faith: where, in order to know, there is no further need of images, of similitudes, of interpretation, of writ- ing, or of dogma. God is found in me; He is not 25 76,U, p. 57L 26 Ibid., p. 582. 27 Edit., PfeifFer, pp. 650 flf. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 295 complete without my soul.^^ As I am immanent in the being of God, He accomplishes all His works by me. God is made man in order that man may become God. This is the mystic deification; it is the return of man into the infinite, and with man the .return into God of all creation, the iTnarpot^ of Proclus.^^ It is indeed difficult to clear such a doctrine of the charge of pantheism, — however Eckhart may protest against such interpretation of his doctrine. But here again, as in another connection,^^ we must bear in mind that the intention of a man rests with his conscience ; it has nothing to do with his doctrine as expressed, — which is what it is. Thierry of Freiburg writes against the panthe- ism of the Liber de Causis and the Elementa The- ologica of Proclus. But he shares that deductive method a outrance, which was borrowed from Neo- Platonism, in common with Eckhart and Ulric of Strasburg and Witelo and the whole German group. This leads us to a further characteristic of the trend of thought which we are studying: the 2&Ibid., pp. 382, 458, passim. 29 In contrast with the above, the truth of Henry Adams' state- ment appears, when he says of the mystics of St. Victor in the twelfth century: "The French mystics showed in their mysticism the same French reasonableness; the sense of measure, of logic, of science; the allegiance to form; the transparency of thought, which the French mind has always shown on its surface like a shell of nacre." Op. cit., p. 304. 30 See above, p. 167. 296 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION philosophy of the Germans in the thirteenth cen- tury lacks the moderation and equilibrium which is so beautiful a triumph of scholastic philosophy. In proof of this one example will suffice. Thus, schol- astic method starts with facts, with observation of the senses and the testimony of consciousness, in order to discover the role of general notions and the operation of principles or laws. It is only after this work of analysis that it authorizes its de- duction of all reality as dependent on God.^^ The German Neo-Platonism of the thirteenth century takes the opposite course. It does not begin with facts. It begins with the notion of God, or even with that of being in general, and traces out the emanation of all, step by step. Here again Eck- hart represents best the spirit of the group. No person takes more delight than he in the majestic tranquillity and impenetrable mystery of the Di- vinity; in the obscure and fathomless abyss of its reality; in the effusion of the soul, passive and stripped of self, in that ocean of reality. Eckhart does not pause, as does Bonaventure, to mark the lower stages of the journey of the soul to God; his thought leaps to God Himself, towards the Being which alone is of interest to him. Thus, in the speculation of Eckhart we have the prototype of that strain of metaphysics which hurls speculation with dizzy speed into the abyss, without imposing on itself the restraint of actual experience. 31 C/. Ch. IX, vii. IN THE MIDDLE AGES 297 This lack of moderation, which affects the philo- sophical method of the Germans, affects also each of their metaphysical, psychological, and moral doc- trines. Moreover, it is extended by Eckhart to the facts of religious experience and the interpre- tation of dogma. His scorn for the external act, his exaggeration of the internal aspect of religious experience, the small place which he gives to the authority of Scripture, — all of this prepares the way for the Reformation, to be sure; but it stands in great contrast with the dogmatic and mystical and moral theology of Thomas of Aquin, To sum up. Endowment of the personal worth of the individual with metaphysical support; devo- tion to clear ideas and their correct expression; moderation in doctrine and observance of a just mean between extremes; the combination of ex- perience and deduction, — these are the characteris- tics, or, if you will, the tendencies, of the scholastic philosophy as it was elaborated by Neo-Latins and Anglo-Celts. But, in the Neo-Platonic group of German thinkers in the thirteenth century, all of this is replaced by very different characteristics, — fascination for monism and pantheism ; mystic com- munion of the soul with Deity ; craving for extreme deduction ; predilection for the study of Being, and of its descending steps; aversion to clarified intel- lectualism; delight in examples and metaphors, which are misleading and equivocal; and above all the want of balanced equilibrium, in exaggerating certain aspects and doctrines regardless of all else. CHAPTER FOURTEEN Epilogue i. Influence of thirteenth century philosophical systems on later thought in the West. ii. Pedagogical value of scholastic- ism for the history of modern philosophy. The unifying ideas of the thirteenth century had disappeared by the middle of the fourteenth cen- tury. As the European states advanced in stabil- ity, the spirit of nationalism became increasingly diversified. The University of Paris lost its cos- mopolitan character, as a centre of learning, and became simply a national institution. Further- more, the authority of the Popes declined in the domain of politics. Thus, in the quickened and complicating course of events, certain specific char- acteristics of the mediaeval civilization passed out of existence. But the philosophical systems of the Middle Ages had left their imprint on the western minds. The contrasts between the philosophers of Neo- Latin and Anglo-Celtic extraction, on the one hand, and the philosophers within the Germanic group, on the other hand, survived the thirteenth 298 IN THE MIDDLE AGES 299 century. Descartes and Locke are much more in- debted to scholasticism than is commonly sup- posed*/ and the Germans have good reason for re- garding Meister Eckhart as the first philosopher in their line. This takes us back, then to our point of depar- ture. For, it justifies our view of the thirteenth century as the watershed of European genius in its diverging flow. II If our reflections in these lectures have been cor- rect, the study of the philosophic systems of the Middle Ages, and of scholasticism in particular, must take on new meaning and value for all those who prize the western mode of thought. Even as the study of Greek and Latin classics is an indispensable preliminary to our literary cul- ture ; and as the study of antique statuary and me- diaeval architecture and the painting of the Renais- sance possesses inestimable power in forming the minds of our future sculptors, architects, and paint- ers, and conditions the very flight of originality, — just so the study of modern philosophy must lean not alone upon Greek philosophy, but equally on 1 For recent works on the indebtedness of later thinkers to mediaeval thought, see, for example: E. Gilson, La liberty chez Descartes et la theologie, Paris, 1913. E. Krakowski, Les Sources medievales de la philosophie de Locke, Paris, 1915 — P. Ramsay,' Les doctrines medievales chez Jean Donne, le poHe-metaphysicien d'Angleterre, Oxford, 1916. 300 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION the conceptions of the world and of life which formed the temperaments of our very own ances- tors. 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Meister Dietrich (Theodoricus Teutonicus de Vriberg), sein Leben, seine Werke, seine Wissenschaft, Baiimker-Beitrage, Bd. V, H. 5-6, Miinster, 1906. . Le traite de ente et essentia de Thierry de Fri- bourg, in Revue Neo-Scolastique de Philosophie, 1911, pp. 519-536. KuRTH, G. Les origines de la civilisation modeme. Brux- elles, 1903. Lamprecht, K. Deutsche Geschichte, Bde II-III, Ber- lin, 1892-3. Langlois, C. La vie en France au moyen age d'apres quelques moralistes du temps. . La societe fran9aise au Xlll'e s. d'apres dix romans d'aventure. . La connaissance de la nature et du monde au moyen age d'apres quelques ecrits fran9ais a I'usage des laics, Paris, 1911. BIBLIOGEAPHY 305 Lemaire, R. La logique de Part gothique. Revue Neo- scolastique de Philosophie XVII, p. 234. LucHAiRE, A. Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers Capetiens (987-1180), torn. I, Paris, 1891. . Louis VII, Philippe-Auguste, Louis VIII, torn. 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The Battle of the Seven Arts, a French Poem by Henri d'Andeli, Berkeley, University of Cali- fornia Press, 1914. Pfeiffer, F. Deutsche Mystiker des vierzehnten Jahr- hunderts. Meister Eckhart. Bd. II, Leipzig, 1857. 306 BIBLIOGRAPHY PiCAVET, F. Essais sur I'histoire generale et comparee des theologies et des philosophies medievales, Paris, 1913. Poole, R. L. Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought and Learning, London, 2d ed. 1920. Rashdall, H. The Universities of Europe in the Mid- dle Ages, Vol. I-III, Oxford, 1895. Reynaud, L. Les origines de I'influence fran9aise en Allemagne. Etude sur I'histoire comparee de la civili- sation en France et en Allemagne pendant la periode precourtoise (950-1150). Tome I (L'ofFensive poli- tique et sociale de la France), Paris, 1913. RocQUAiN. La papaute au moyen age, Paris, 1881. . La cour de Rome et I'esprit de reforme avant Luther. Tome I (La theocratic, apogee du pouvoir pontifical), Paris, 1893. RoussELOT, P. L'intellectualisme de Saint Thomas, Paris, 1908. Saintsbury, G. Periods of European Literature, Vol. II (The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Alle- gory), London, 1897. Sandys, J. S. English Scholars of Paris and Franciscans of Oxford, in The Cambridge History of English Lit- erature, Vol. I, Cambridge. Smith, A. L. Church and State in the Middle Ages, Oxford, 1913. Steinhausen, Geschichte der deutschen Kultur, Bd. I, Leipzig, 1913. Taylor, H. O. The Mediaeval Mind, 2 vol., 3'rd ed.. New York, 1919. Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologica, English transla- tion by Fathers of the English Dominican Province, London, 1911 fF. See especially Pars Fa, QQ. 75-90 (Theory of Knowledge); Pars I'a 2'ae, QQ. 1-25 (Ethics); and QQ. 90-97 (Law); Pars 2'a 2'ae, QQ. 57-61 (Justice). BIBLIOGRAPHY 307 Thomas Aquinas. Summa contra Gentiles. Partly trans- lated by S. Rickaby under the title: of God and His Creatures, London, 1905. . Commentaria in Ethicorum lib. 10. . Commentaria in Politicorum lib. . De anima; de regimine principum; de unitate ' intellectus contra averroistas. Thurot, C. De I'organisation de I'enseignement dans I'universite de Paris, Paris, 1850. Traill. Social England. A record of the progress of the people. Vol. MI. London, 1901. Tribbechovius, a. De doctoribus scolasticis et corrupta per eos divinarum humanarumque rerum scientia, Jena, 1719. Troeltsch, E. Die Sociallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen. Tubingen 1912. Ch. II, Der mittel- alterliche Katholicismus. Truc, G. Le retour a la scolastique, Paris, 1920. Ueberweg-Baumgartner. Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie II. Die mittlere oder die patristische und scholastische Zeit, lO'te Aufg, Berlin, 1915. Vacandard, E. Vie de St. Bernard, Abbe de Clairvaux, 2 vol., 3'e ed., Paris, 1902. Walsh, J. The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries, New York, 1912. Webb, C. J. Studies in the History of Natural Theology, Oxford, 1915. WiCKSTEED, Ph. H. The Reactions between Dogma and Philosophy illustrated from the works of S. Thomas Aquinas, London, 1920. Zeiller, L'idee de I'Etat dans St. Thomas d'Aquin, Paris, 1910. 308 BIBLIOGEAPHY BY THE SAME AUTHOR Histoire de la PhUosopJiie scolastique da/ns les Pays-Bas et la Prmcipaute de Liege (Louvain, et Alcan, Paris, 1895). Mem. couronne par PAcademie de Belgique, 404 p. Epuise. ^Ettides sur Henri de Gand (Louvain, et Alcan, Paris, 1895). Extrait du precedent. Prix: 2.50 fr. *Le traite des formes de GUles de Lessines, (Texte inedit et etude.) 1901. xvi, 122, 108 p., gr. in-jesus, edit, de luxe. Introduction a la philosophie neo-scolastique, 1904. xvi, 350 pages. Epuise. Scholasticism old amd new. Translated by P. Corey, (Dublin, 1907), 328 pages. ^ Etude sur la vie, les oeuvres et V influence de Godefroid de Fontaines (Memoire couronne par I'Academie de Belgique). 1904. *Les quatre premiers quodlibets de G. de Fontaines (en collaborat. avec A. Pelzer). 364 pages, grand in- jesus. Edit, de luxe. * Histoire de la Philosophie en Belgique. (Louvain, et Al- can, Paris, 1910) xii, 378 p., 18 gravures hors texte. *Histoire de la Philosophie medievale (Louvain, 1912). *Les Quodlibets V-VII de Godefroid de Fontai/nes. (Tex- tes inedits). En collaboration avec J. HofFmans). (Louvain, 1914). *Voeuvre d'art et la Beaute; Conferences philosophiques faites a Poitiers (Louvain, 1920). Mediaeval Philosophy illustrated from the System of Thomas Aquinas (Harvard University Press, 1922). * For books so marked apply at Institut de Philosophie, 1 rue des flamands, Louvain, Belgium. INDEX OF NAMES* Abaelard, 1, 32, 40, 44, 48, 52, 53; Glossulae super Porphyrium, 58, 59; apologetic method of, 162; autobiography of, 140; and He- loise, 35; on revelation, 164; on universals, 58-59. Absalon of St. Victor, 52. Accursius, 107. Adam of St. Victor, 35. Adams, Henry, 35, 104, 210, 295. Adelard of Bath, 40, 41, 47, 57, 142, 282. Agricola, 7. Alan of Lille, 40, 52, 142, 174. Alberic of Rheims, 45. Albert the Great, 1, 73, 76, 173, 283, 290. Alcher of Clair vaux, 143. Alexander III (Rolando Bandinel- li), 44, 121. Alexander of Hales, 1, 64, 73, 76, 82, 109, 130, 166, 282. Alexander Neckham, 42. Alfarabi, 79. Alfred Anglicus (of Sereschel), 73, 289. Alphandery, P., 288. Alphonso, X, 101. Altamira, R., 102. Anselm of Canterbury, 1, 3, 44, 48, 52, 141, 164. Anselm of Laon, 40, 85. Ampere, 137. Antolin, 41. Antoninus of Florence, 122. Aristotle, 2, 11, 97 sq., 128, 141, 153 sq., 181, 212, 280, de Anima, 78; Metaphysics, 78, 139; Or- ganon, 45, 47, 70; Physics, 78; Politics, 220 sq., 249, 251, 256; actuality and potentiality, 200 sq., astronomy, 112; and city state, 227 sq., definition of good, 224, divisions of philosophy, in, 91; on slavery, 278; on state and society, 227 sqq., substance, 196. Augustine (St.), 11, 141, 251, 278; De Civitate Dei, 115, sq., 126; Confessions, 140; on society, 227. Augustus, 127. Averroes, 79, 84, 139, 278, 288. Avicebron, 79, 195. Avicenna, 79, 174, 278. Bacon, Francis, 3. Bacon, Roger, 1, 64, 73, 77, 83, 129; Opus Ma jus, 139; apologetics of, 164, 284; astrology of, 113; and Averroism, 285, character of, 78, and natural science, 284. Baker, E., 104. Baumker's-Beitrage, 58, 128, 184, 189, 222, 283, 292. Baldus, 232. Bandinelli Rolando, see Alexander III. Barker, E., 237. Bartholomeus Anglicus, 106. Baur, L., 96, 128. Baumgartner, M., 150. Bede the Venerable, 141, Benedict (St.), 24 sq., 147. * I want to express my thanks to my pupil, Mr. J. L. Zimmerman, who made this index. 309 310 INDEX OF NAMES Bernard of Auvergne, 74. Bernard of Chartres, 45. Bernard (St.), 31, 35. Berthold of Mosburg, 290 sq. Binder, 155. Boethius, 57, 78, 99. Boethius the Dacian, 73. Bonaventure, 1, 64, 73, 82 sq., 109, 129 sq., 282, 296. Bourget, Paul, 232. Bradwardine, Thomas, 174. Brehier, L., 49. Bruneti^re, 176. Brunschvigg, 140. Buridan, John, 186. Burleigh, Walter, 73. Busse, 155. Caesar of Heisterbach, 156. Can Grande della Scala, 158. Carlyle, A. J., 56, 263. Catherine of Pisa, 154. Cavalcante, Guido, 174. Chambon, F., 161. Charlemagne, 22, 117, 119, 121 sq. Chatelain (see Denifle-Chatelain). Chaucer, 37, 174. Cicero, 47, 146. Clerval, 47. Comte, Auguste, 98, 127. Constantine of Carthage, 44. Dante, 114, 121 sq.; Divine Comedy, 9, 105 sq., 137, 166, 175, 190; Epistolae, 158; Inferno, 94; Paradiso, 190; de Monarchia, 115 sqq., 129, 146, 174, 227 sq., 232, 242; on Aristotle, 97; on beauty, 94; and Can Grande della Scala, 158; on the divisions of philoso- phy, 129; on peace, 119; principle of parsimony in, 110; theory of the state of, 115 sqq., 227, 232, 248; on tyranny, 248; on war, 228. d'And61i, Henri, 174. Denifle, 65, 161, 182, 291 sq. Denifle-Chatelain, 67, 169, 287. de Meung, Jean, 190. De Poorter, A., 222. Descartes, 11, 154, 198, 299. Dionysius the Areopagite, 77. Dominic, (St.), 74 Donatus, 46, 93. Dover, Richard, '42. Duhem, P., 113. Duns Scotus, 1, 73, 82 sq., 109 sq., 129 sq., 144, 282, 285. Grammati- ca Speculativa, 93; on freedom, 184; the good and martyrdom, 185; intuition in, 183; on philos- ophy and theology, 164; principle of parsimony in, 110; avoids psy- chological determinism, 186. DyroflF, A., 291. Eckhart (Meister), 182, 290 sqq.; 293 sqq.; 296 sqq. Edward I, 100, 102, 107, 157. Eleanor of Aquitaine, 20. Endres, J. A., 222. Engelbert of Volkersdorf, 239. Etienne of Tournai, 33. Euclid, 47, 146. F6nelon, 8. Ferdinand III, 100, 102. Ferdinand of Castile, 157. Era Angelico, 76. Francis (St.), 9, 11, 64, 74 sq., 137. Frederic Barbarossa, 103, 121. Frederic II, 100, 103, 122, 157, 288. Fulbert, 45. Gauthier of Bruges, 73. Gauthier of Mortagne, 45. Gerard of Abbeville, 282. Gerbert, 43. Geyer, B., 58 sq. Gierke, O. (von) 120, 231 sq., 239, 250. Gilbert de la Porree, 32, 41, 52 sq., 58 sq., 175, 182. Gilbert of Tournai, 222. Gilles of Lessines, 113. Gilles of Rome, 73, 222. INDEX OF NAMES 311 Gillet, 84. Gilson, E., 299. Giotto, 158. Giuliani, G., 158. Godfrey of Fontaines, 71 sqq., 96, 186, 282. Goethe, 8 sq. Gozzoli, 84. Grabmann, M., 49, 51, 58, T9, 128, 163, 189, 221. Gratian, 107, 223. Gregory VII (Hildebrand) 16, 29, 121 123. Grosseteste, Robert, 74, 129, 151, 290. Gui of Hainaut, Count, 129. Gundissalinus, Dominicus, 96, 128, 143, 151. Harrison, F., 101. Haskins, C. H., 42, 79. Heloise, 35". Henry II, 20 sq., 132. Henry IV, 29 sq., 121. Henry Bate of Malines, 129. Henry of Ghent, 73, 86, 130, 144, 152, 165 sq., 168, 282. Herrad of Landsberg, 49. Hobbes, 3. Horace, 47. Hugh of Cluny, 30. Hugh II, of Lusignan, 221. Hugh of Noyers, 32. Hugo of St. Victor, 1, 40, 49, 52 sq., 127, 151, 162. Hume, 136. Huxley, 203. Innocent III, 33, 44, 103, 121 sqq. Innocent IV, 114, 119, 231. Trnerius of Bologna, 47, 232. Isaac of Stella, 42. Isidore of Seville, 90, 141. Jacopo de Voragine, 106. James I (of Aragon) 107. James of Viterbo, 73. Janet, P., 125. Johannes Andreae, 119 sq. John of La Rochelle, 74. John of Salisbury, 1, 42, 48, 52, 141, 238, 264; Metalogicus, 57; Polycraticus 59 sq., 220, 239, 249 ; state compared to human body, in, 240; on tyrannicide, 240. John Scotus Eriugena, 1, 50. Kant, 154. Kilwardby, Robert, 73, 128. Krakowski, 299. Krebs, E., 293. Lackland, John, 101, 250. Lamprecht, 30, 37. Lanfranc, 44. Ivanglois, 72. Leibnitz, 11, 202, 208, 210. Lippi, Filippino, 84. Little, A. G., 79. Locke, 199, 299. Louis VII, 20, 122, 132. Louis IX, 35, 100 sqq., 222, 260. Louis XIV, 127. Luchaire, A., 20 sq., 33, 101, 157, 261. Lully, Raymond, 6*4, 73, 130, 164. Maitland, F. W., 120. Male, E., 49, 132, 173, 191 sq. Mandonnet, P., 79, 285, 288. Manegold of Lautenbach, 220, 263. Map, Walter, 42. Marchesi, 79. Marius Victorinus, 47. Marvin, F. S., 238. Mathew of Lorraine, 32. Maurice of Sully, 33. Mendenez y Pelayo, 79. Mentellini,'l06. Mercier, D., 181, 267. Michael Scot, 73, 128. Michael of Corbeil, 51. Migne, 26. Mill, John Stuart, 150. Minges, P., 184. Montesquieu, 8. 312 INDEX OF NAMES Newton, 214, Nicholas of Autrecourt, 136. Nicholas of Oresmes, 113. Nizolius, 7. Odon of Tournai, 45. Otloh of St. Emmeram, 43, 51. Otto I, 29. Otto III, 43. Otto of Freising, 43. Pascal, 140. Peckham, John, 77. Pelzer, A., 79, 110, 143. Peter Damien, 51 sq. Peter Lombard, '44, 52 sq. Peter of Blois, 42, 51. Peter of Capua, 44. Peter of Corbeil, 33. Peter of Poitiers, 163. Peter of Spain, 73. Peter of Tarantaise, 73. Peter the Venerable, 26, 55, 58. Petrus Petri, 147. PfeiflPer, F., 291, 294. Philip Augustus, 64, 100 sq., 107, 125, 132, 157. Philip the Fair, 21. Philo, 162. Plato, 2, 11, 97 sq., 118, 141, 154, 211, 278, 280. Plutarch, 239. Poppo of Stavelot, 24. Porphyry, 58. Porter, A. K., 49. Praepositinus of Cremona, 4*4. Priscian, 47, 93. Proclus, 78, 289, 291, 295. Ptolemy of Lucques, 244, 250. Quintilian, 47. Rabelais, 155. Radulfus Ardens, 127. Ramsay, P., 299. Rashdall, H., 65. Raymond of Toledo, 81. Remi of Auxerre, 47. Reynaud, 24. Rhabanus Maurus, 90. Richard of Middleton, 73. Richard of St. Victor, 40, 42. Rivalta, Ercole, 174. Robert of Sorbonne, 161. Rocquain, 123 sq., 126. Rose, 79. Rudolph of Habsburg, 157. Sandys, 42. Savigny, 230. Saintsbury, 37, 176. Schneider, 283. Seneca, '47. Shakespeare, 176 sq. Siger of Brabant, 1, 73, 129, 285, 288. Siger of Courtrai, 93, 282. Simon of Bucy, 72. Simon of Montfort, 157. Spencer, Herbert, 98, 127. Stadler, H. J., 283. Steinhausen, 37, 43. Stephen Langton, 73. Stephen of Tournai, 51. Sylvester, II. Taine, 97, 198. Taylor, H. O., 171, 173. Tennyson, 240. Theodoric of Chartres, 41. Thierry of Chartres, 45, 48. Thierry of Freiburg, 1, 73, 290 sqq., 295. Thomas Aquinas (St.), 1, 3, 64, 73, 81 sqq., 109, 114, 130, 144 sq., 155, 195, 210, 242, 256, 261, 272, sqq., 278, 282, 285, and passim. De Anima, 187, 267; De Coelo, 113; Contra Gentiles, 86, 110, 143, 166, 256; Ethica Nichom., 94, 193, 226, 234, 245 sq.; Metaphys- ica, 91, 139; Perihermeneias 182; In Politic, comm., 249, 256 ; de Re- gimine Principum, 221, 227 sq., 244 sqq., 248, 250, 252, 254; de unitate intellectus, 140, de veri- tate, 218; aesthetics of, 187 sq., artes liberales and artes mechan- INDEX OF NAMES 313 icae, 95; astronomy, 112 sq., 269; on authority, 142; and Meister Eckhart, 297; epistemology, 182 sqq., ethics, 93 sq., on eternity of the world, 169; God, 216 sqq., law in, 129, 236, 248 sqq., 243, 271 sq., and Leibnitz, 202; logic, 93; and Monte Cassino, 44; on music, 168; on order, 193; po- ntical philosophy, 93, 242 sqq., theory of progress, 366 sqq., 271 sq., psychology, 187 sq., and science, 86, 96, 187, social philoso- phy, 221 sqq., on sovereignty, 244, 249, 254; on the soul, 212; on substance, 204; theology and philosophy, 95, 152 sq., on war, 262; divisions of philosophy, 91; theory of justice, 247 sqq., on tyrannicide, 249. Thorburn, W. M., 110. Traini, 84, 154, 287. Trajan, 239. Tribbechovius, 155. Vincent of Beauvais, 74, 90, 106. Virgil, 47, 190. Vives, L., 7. Walter of Mortagne, 57. Walter of St. Victor, 52. William of Aquitaine, 24. William of Auvergne, 64, 74, 82, 143, 282. William of Auxerre, 74. William of Champeaux, 40 sq., 45, 65. William of Conches, 41. William of Meliton, 73. William of Mende, 106, 158, 190. William of Moerbeke, 220, 251, 290. William of Occam, 1, 3, 73, 110, 282. William of St. Amour, 74. William the Conqueror, 21. Witelo, 74, 290 sq., 295. Wolff, 91. Wustenfeld, F., 79. Ueberweg-Baumgartner, 150, 291. Ulric of Strasburg, 73, 290 sq., 295. Urban, II, 28. Vacandart, 32. Vacant, 79. Ximines, Rodriguez (Cardinal), 78, 81. Zeiller, 261. Zurbaran, 84. ttt;:JCV)