PHILOSOPHICAL TERMINOLOGY.A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF “THE CATHOLIC WORLD.”Thesuggestion often made in your excellent magazine, that Americans in general, and American Catholics in particular, should be supplied with some means of acquiring sound knowledge of philosophical truth, led me to consider what particular plan might be most adapted to this end, and what resources were at our disposal for carrying out successfully such a praiseworthy undertaking. The result of this my investigation is not calculated, perhaps, to excite that degree of interest which the subject deserves; yet, as it may be the occasion of other useful reflections on the part of those who wish to promote this enterprise, I have decided to offer it to your philosophical readers.I assume that our plan should unquestionably embrace either all that is worth knowing in philosophy, or at least all that is needed for the explanation and vindication of all important truths, as well as for the radical refutation of all modern errors.To carry out such a plan, a writer would need an extensive knowledge and a keen appreciation of the teachings of the scholastic philosophers and theologians, and especially a masterly comprehension of the general principles on which those teachings have their rational foundation. Such a writer, I think I may safely add, should be of that sort of men who not only know the doctrines of the great masters of the old school, but who also feel the greatest respect for those eminent thinkers; and he should be prepared boldly to follow their leadership in all fundamental questions concerning principles, without the least regard for what is now circulated as “modern thought.” His style should be modern, but his principles should be the principles sanctioned by the wisdom of all past ages.Every one, of course, will allow that we modern men, in many branches of natural science, have attained to a degree of information vastly superior to what the ancients even dreamed of. Accordingly, we may not improperly consider ourselves better qualified than they were for the solution of a great number of physical questions, of which they are known to have either overlooked the very existence, or missed the true interpretation. It is quite certain, however, at the same time, that we are immensely inferior to them with regard to strictly philosophical knowledge; and this is the more surprising as one would suppose that our superior information concerning the laws of nature would have enabled us to reach truth from a higher standpoint, and to correct and improve, even to perfection, the philosophical theories of the old school. Yet the fact is certain and notorious: we have only a few good philosophers, while we need a great many to stand against the torrent of infidelity.As it is, I think that no man of judgment will deny that we cannot raise ourselves to a competent philosophical level and secure the triumph of truth unless we learn again, andturn to account in our war against our modern barbarians, those doctrines that triumphed over the barbarians of old, and made Europe remain for centuries the shining centre of the civilized world. Wisdom was not born yesterday, and philosophical principles are as old as mankind; hence, new facts may be seen, but no new principles of philosophy can be invented.It therefore remains for us, if we wish to spread sound knowledge and foster true wisdom, to cling to the old philosophical principles, to vindicate them so far as in our present struggling condition it may be necessary, and to apply them judiciously to the close discussion and consistent settlement of arising questions. This is the road that will lead us to the goal; and it is a short and easy one, too; for the first principles of all things are not very many, and can be mastered with ease, while their application needs only two conditions, namely, first, a sufficient knowledge of the primitive facts and laws of the physical order; and, second, a rigorous logic.As the main object we should have in view is the improvement of American thought concerning moral and social truths, it might seem that the work of which I am speaking should mainly be a work of moral philosophy, comprising the treatment of all natural rights and natural duties whether of individuals or of societies, and leaving dialectics and metaphysics mostly in the background as idle speculations, or at least as teaching nothing that is essential to the happiness and prosperity of private and public life. It is a fact that the general reader is inclined to look upon all logical and metaphysical subtleties as a string of mere quibbles or an array of unsubstantialities. Though I am sure that, in the present wretched state of our public education, many would be found, even among our best citizens, ready to adopt and countenance such a view of the subject, I must say that the view is intrinsically wrong.Philosophy is a whole whose parts are not merelyintegrant, butconstituent; for each of these parts is essentially linked with the others. As time cannot exist without motion, so neither can moral philosophy without logic and metaphysics; and so sure as no velocity can exist apart from a moving body, even so rational philosophy cannot exist apart from all metaphysical truth. To see this the more clearly, let us examine what are the relations that bind together the parts of philosophy.The old division of this science intorational,real, andmoral, which we find to have been given by Plato,[147]is drawn from the inmost nature of things and the very constitution of philosophy. Everything that is perfect, whether it has an existence in the fields of reality, or only in the region of thought, is found to involve in its constitution, 1, something competent to give a certain determination; 2, some other thing liable to receive such a determination; 3, some third thing which is the immediate result of the concurrence of the other two. That which gives a determination is called the “formal” constituent of the thing; that which receives such a determination is called the “material” constituent of the same thing; finally, that which results is called the “formal complement,” and is the actual constitution or the very actuality of the thing thus constituted.Thus, for example, the human soul, inasmuch as it gives life to the human body, is the formal constituent of man; the organic body, inasmuch as it receives life through the soul, is his material constituent; and actual conscious life, which is the immediate result of the concurrence of soul and body in one compound nature, is the actuality of the being thus constituted, and makes it formally complete in its individual reality.Now, philosophy is similarly made up of three such constituents. The formal constituent and, as it were, the soul of philosophy (and of all other sciences, too) is logic, orrational philosophy. Its duty is to impress a kind of rational stamp on the objects of science by applying to them the process of definition, division, and argumentation, which is the scientific process, and constitutes the “form” of science. For this reason, logic holds that place in regard to any object of science which the soul holds in regard to its body, and is therefore to be considered as the formal constituent of philosophy.The material part, or the body, of philosophy is “all real being as such,” or, in other terms, all the subject-matter of metaphysics, orreal philosophy; for metaphysics is nothing but the knowledge of real things acquired through the consideration of their intrinsic constitution; hence, all reality, be it created or uncreated, matter or spirit, substance or accident, is the “material” constituent of philosophy inasmuch as it is subjected to the scientific form by the application made to it of the logical process. The objective truth of things, so long as it is not subjected to the searching scrutiny of speculative reasoning, mostly belongs to the lower region of experimentalism, which scarcely deserves, though it has usurped, the high name of science; but, when pervaded by intellectual light, rises suddenly as vivified by it, and takes up its place in the serene region of metaphysics, where it shows itself in all the glory of its ontological beauty. Hence it is that metaphysics may be compared to a living body, of which logic is the soul.Finally, by the application of logic to objective realities, namely, by the study of metaphysics, a wonderful bond is established between the rational faculty and objective truth, the first getting hold of the second, and the second reacting after its own manner on the first; so that reason, enlightened by objective truth, knows how to pronounce a right judgment on the merit of things, and in its natural rectitude feels compelled to give them that relative place in its estimation to which each of them is reasonably entitled. As the soul, therefore, owing to its intimate connection with the body, “feels” what suits or suits, not the requirement of the animated organism, and is pleased with the one, and displeased with the other, so also reason, owing to its clear possession of objective truth, “perceives” what agrees and what clashes with: the objective order of things, and, with the authority of a judge, pronounces its sentence that the first must be approved, and the second condemned. Such dictates of reason form the object ofmoral philosophy; and it is through them that the moral law is naturally communicated and promulgated to all rational creatures.Hence, it is evident that the knowledge of morality is the result of an intellectual knowledge of the real nature of things, and of their intrinsic perfection, exigencies, and manifold relations. Hence, also, the conclusion that the rational, the real, andthe moral order, though distinct objects of knowledge, are so bound together in one general science that it would be scarcely possible to speak of the one without referring to the other. Hence, finally, the further conclusion that the greater the importance of a true and thorough knowledge of morality, the more stringent is the necessity of securing to it the foundation of good, sound, and intelligible metaphysics. To neglect the latter would be to tamper with the most vital interests of the former.Perhaps I might go even further, and say that what we need just now is not so much a new book of logic or of ethics as of metaphysics. A good metaphysical work is the surest foundation both of a good logic and of a good moral philosophy. The laws of thought and the laws of morality must be explained in accordance with the laws of real being; and the better we understand these last, the more truly conversant shall we become with the first. Besides, with respect to logic and ethics, we have no new doctrines to teach, whilst in metaphysics we have to settle a number of old and new questions regarding the constitution of natural things, and their causality, and their mutual connection, as we find that such questions are not satisfactorily treated either by the ancient metaphysicians or by our modern unphilosophical physicists. Such questions regard, as I said, natural things; but their solution has a bearing on many other philosophical doctrines, because it materially effects the terminology by which those doctrines are to be expounded.I do not wish, nor would this be the place, to enter into particulars with regard to the method which might be followed in the treatment of different philosophical subjects; yet I think it worth remarking in general that the fewer the principles on which a philosopher shall build his reasonings, the more clear, uniform, and satisfactory will his demonstrations generally prove; and, on the other hand, in proportion as these principles shall be higher, the fewer will be needed. This leads me to believe that one of the best means which could be made available for the much-desired success of the undertaking would be to take our standpoint as high as possible (according to the very nature of philosophy, which isscientia per summas causas), and to base our demonstrations on the very first constituent principles of being. Looking down from such a height, we could easily dissipate the vague phantasmagory, and control the dangerous influences of many other so-called principles or axioms whose intrusion into the body of philosophy is due to ignorance or wrong interpretation of the facts and laws of the physical world. It is through these assumed principles that a very lamentable discord has been fostered and perpetuated between the votaries of physics, on the one hand, and those of metaphysics, on the other; and it is through the same cause, that even now the same student, after learning one thing as true in his class of metaphysics, is obliged to hear it declared false in his class of natural philosophy. This should not be; and we may hope that it will not be when our philosophical reasonings are ultimately grounded on first principles, and when no secondary principles are admitted which are not demonstrated, or corrected, or restricted by some evident and adequate reduction to first principles.But now a question is to be answered which professors of philosophy will perhaps be the first to propose. The question is this: Can asound and thorough work of philosophy, such as we want, be written in common and popular English, so as to prove easy reading for the average American student? Or must a special language be used which none but trained philosophers will understand?Every one who knows how peculiar is the language of other sciences and arts will anticipate the answer. Of course, the English tongue is as fit as any other to express common thoughts; but common thoughts are the thoughts of common people, who do not commonly think with the utmost philosophical precision, nor talk of matters (of which there are many in philosophy) that transcend the common wants of their ordinary avocations. This being the case, it is obvious that, in writing a philosophical work (especially if it be intended to serve as a text-book for our higher Catholic institutions), it will be necessary to make use of a special language, which, though English, cannot be that easy-going and popular English which we find in common use, but must be a precise, guarded, dry, methodic, abstract, and perhaps stiff language, such as the gravity, subtlety, and difficulty of philosophical investigations often require.I said, “Especially if the work is intended to serve as a text-book,” because, in this case, it will be absolutely necessary to adopt in it the whole of the philosophical terminology that has been handed down to us by our Catholic ancestors. Terminology, in all branches of study, is the faithful exponent of the various achievements of science, and contains, as it were, a summary of all that mankind has succeeded in learning in the course of centuries. To ignore more or less the philosophic terminology is therefore to ignore more or less the wisdom of all past ages. Moreover, it is only by means of an exact terminology that a teacher can convey the knowledge of exact truth to his pupils’ minds; and accordingly, all who study philosophyex professoneed to be well acquainted with its language, that they may acquire a clear, distinct, and precise knowledge of things; so that, when called upon in after-life to discuss or expound philosophical matters in a plain and popular way for the benefit of the unlearned, they may use such circumlocutions as will not essentially conflict with the truth of things. Experience shows that those who have not a clear and distinct conception of things, however much they may try to explain themselves, are never well understood.But what if our work be not especially intended for the class-room, but only for common reading? Would it still be difficult to have it written in a plain and intelligible manner? I think it would, unless, indeed, we leave out the most fundamental questions of metaphysics. If we were asked only to write a few “academical” essays on philosophical subjects, without concerning ourselves with the intimate nature of things, it would not be very difficult to perform such a task in tolerably readable and popular English; but if we are asked to go to the root of things, and to give a consistent, clear, accurate, and radical account of them and of their objective relations; if we are expected to lay down and explain those grounds of distinction between similar things that will enable us to avoid latent equivocations, to detect paralogistic inferences, and to expose the sophistry of our opponents; if, in short, we must prepare a standard work which will create a deep and lasting interest, and take hold of the public mind by its fitness to uprootprejudice, to confound error, and to silence, if possible, all philosophical knavery, then, I say, we cannot do this in the language with which people are generally familiar, without filling it with a number of other words, phrases, and formulas of our own. This, however, should not be looked upon as discouraging; for the popularity to which a work on philosophy aspires is not the general popularity of the newspaper or the novel, but a popularity confined within the range of deep-thinking minds. Philosophy is not intended for blockheads nor for the general reader; hence, if these have no relish for our philosophical style, we shall not, on that account, complain of any want of popularity.We must own, however, that a number of philosophical words have become popular in other modern languages which are still above popular comprehension in the English; and on this account the range of popularity of a philosophical work will be less in our country than it would, all other things being equal, in France, Italy, or Spain. In these last countries, where languages are so nearly akin to the philosophic Latin, and where the study of philosophy under the supervision of the Catholic Church formed for centuries a prominent part of public education, every educated person soon learned how to express in his national idiom what he had been taught in the Latin of the schools. It is through this process that the language of philosophy gradually became, in those countries, the language of all educated people. In England, the same process was going on up to the XVIth century, and, if continued, would have led to the same results; but it was checked at the time of the Reformation, to the unphilosophical and maleficent genius of which it must therefore be ascribed that all further popular development of the philosophic language has been arrested for three centuries in the Anglo-Saxon race.Had England remained Catholic, and continued, like her sister nations, to cultivate the fields of speculative knowledge, there is little doubt that English writers, and the clergy in particular, would have popularized and brought into common use those philosophical and theological expressions which had been received already in their dictionaries, and might have been a most valuable instrument for improving the intellectual education of the country. But while this process of familiarizing speculative knowledge was carried on throughout Catholic Europe, England had something else more pressing to do: she busied herself with tearing to pieces and burning the metaphysical and theological books she had inherited from the great Catholic founders and luminaries of her universities. How could the Anglo-Saxon race attain to even a common degree of philosophic development under the sway of a system which was the very negation of philosophy? Could any one be a philosopher, and yet “protest” against conclusions of which he had to concede the premises? Protestantism was not the offspring of reason, but of passion and tyranny; it is carnal, not intellectual; it popularizes matter, and studies material comfort, but cannot raise the people to the contemplation and appreciation of eternal and universal truth. Hence, whilst in all the branches of knowledge which are connected with their senses the English people made remarkable strides, in philosophy they remained infants; and it was only by rowing the boat against the stream that a few privileged beings saved some relics fromthe great national wreck. Even now the Anglo-Saxon Protestant is fated to admire Hume and Bain, Darwin and Huxley, Mill and Herbert Spencer; and it will be long before he realizes that it is a shame to talk of these sophists as “our great national philosophers.”The same evil that stayed in England the process of popularization of the philosophical language, caused this language to remain deficient in many useful and some necessary words wherewith other nations wisely enriched their vernacular tongues. This is equivalent to saying that the English idiom, even as used by the learned, does not always afford sufficient facilities for the exact expression of metaphysical relations, and that, therefore, a writer who wishes to be quite correct in treating of them will be tempted to take liberties with the language, and will yield to the temptation.As an example of this, suppose we wish to say in plain English what S. Thomas Aquinas teaches in the following sentence (in 1.Sentent. Dist. 2. q. 1, a. 2): “In Deo est sapientia, et bonitas, et hujusmodi, quorum quodlibet est ipsa divina essentia; et ita omnia sunt unum. Et quia unumquodque eorum est in Deo secundum sui verissimam rationem, et ratio sapientiæ non est ratio bonitatis in quantum hujusmodi, relinquitur quod sunt diversa ratione non tantum ex parte ipsius ratiocinantis, sed ex proprietate ipsius rei.”How should we here translate the word ratio? Andrews’Dictionarygivesreason,account,business,relation,regard,concern,care,manner,plan,reasonableness,proof, and such like; to which we may add the very word “ratio” used by the English geometricians to express the quotient of a quantity divided by another of the same kind. Now, which of these terms can we employ in the present case? There is not one of them which would not transform this beautiful and important passage of the angelic doctor into a clumsy piece of nonsense. To speak of thereasonof wisdom, of theconcernof goodness, of themannerof eternity, or of thebusinessof immensity would be absurd. The temptation to infringe on the rights of lexicographers is therefore evident. But what other English word can we employ? Should we translate,the conceptof wisdom, andthe conceptof goodness? By no means. Not that this last meaning of the wordratiois not legitimate, but because it is not what we need in the present case; for the holy doctor does not say that God’s wisdom and goodness are distinct only on account of our conceptions, but explicitly teaches that they are distinct on their own grounds, “ex proprietate ipsius rei.” Hence, “concept” is not the right word; and, instead of “concept,” we should rather say “that which is the ground of the concept.” Yet this circumlocution, besides being too long to replace a single word, does not exactly correspond to it, as every intelligent reader will easily perceive. The force of the wordratiomight be sufficiently rendered by the compound expression “objective notion”; but this is forbidden by our dictionaries, according to which the word “notion” has only a subjective sense. We cannot translate “the nature” of wisdom and “the nature” of goodness, because it would then seem that divine wisdom and divine goodness are of a different nature objectively, and thereforereallydistinct; which is not the case, as they are onlymentallydistinct, though on their ownrealgrounds. Perhaps, to avoid misconceptions, we might add an epithet to the word “nature,” andtranslateratio sapientiæas “the notional nature of wisdom,” that is, as that formality which is distinctly represented by the notion of wisdom. This last expression might be considered tolerably correct; yet I should prefer to stick to the Latinratio, which is so much simpler and clearer, and which has, moreover, a general and uniform application to all objects of thought; as we everywhere findratio intelligibilis,ratio entitativa,ratio generica,ratio specifica,ratio personæ,ratio substantiæ, and a great number of similar ratios. And, again, the wordratiohas another very superior claim to adoption, inasmuch as it is the only word that exactly expresses the transcendental unity resulting from the conspiration of a material with a formal principle, and implies in its concrete meaning the two principles from which it results as actually correlated; for, as the geometric ratio implies a numerator and a denominator correlated as “that which is mensurable” and “that by which it is measured,” so theratio intelligibilis, theratio entitativa, and all the others, imply and exhibit a potential and a formal principle, correlated as “that which is determinable” and “that by which it is determined”; and as the terms of a geometric ratio, inasmuch as they are correlated, give rise to a simple result which is the value of the ratio, so also the constituent principles of all beings, inasmuch as they are correlated according to their mutual ontological exigency, give rise to the actuality of the ontologicalratio. It would therefore appear that, if mathematicians are allowed freely to use the word “ratio,” as they do, in the peculiar sense just stated, metaphysicians too,a fortiori, may be allowed the free use of the same word in that general sense which I have pointed out, and which, solely through English philosophical apathy, was unduly restricted to its present narrow mathematical meaning.What I have said of this word may suffice as an instance of the poverty of our philosophical language. There are other words which philosophers are sometimes disappointed not to find in our dictionaries, and which it will be necessary to borrow from other sources, or to translate from the works of the schoolmen; but, as I cannot come to particulars without entering into discussions which would lead me much further than I at present intend to go, I will say nothing more on this point.I beg to conclude with a last remark which some readers may deem superfluous, but which should not be overlooked by the teachers or the friends of philosophy. It is not so much the want of proper words as the vague and improper use of the words which we already possess that is calculated to impair the merit and mar the usefulness of an English work of philosophy. If I knew that any one was engaged in such a work, I would earnestly entreat him to spare no efforts to the end that all indefiniteness or looseness of expression may be excluded from it, and to take care that his philosophic language be, if possible, as precise and as carefully wielded as that of the mathematician. In philosophy, nothing is so dangerous as loose reasoning; and loose reasoning is inevitable with a loose terminology. Truth, by careless wording, is often changed into error, and even great heresies are frequently nothing but the incorrect expression of great truths; according to the remarkable sentence of S. Thomas:Ex verbo inordinate prolato nascitur hæresis.Hence, all those terms which in the popular language have a vague meaning should inphilosophy be either avoided or strictly defined, and constantly taken in the strict sense of the definition.I remember having found years ago, in the works of an Italian philosopher whose celebrity has since vanished, nine or tendifferentdefinitions of the wordidea. Which of such definitions he adopted as his own I could not discover; but it seemed to me that he adopted them all in succession, according as they suited the actual needs of his multiform argumentation—a proceeding which, while confounding the minds of his readers, was certainly not calculated to give weight to his conclusions. This same wordideain our popular English is extremely indefinite; it stands forobject of thought,plan,judgment,opinion,purpose, andintention, none of which would be the correct philosophical meaning of the word; for “idea,” in all the approved treatises of psychology, means the knowledge of a thing directly perceived in any object of first apprehension. Hence, no accurate philosopher would say that we have an “idea” of God, or of his immensity, or of virtue, but only that we have a “concept” of God, of his immensity, of virtue, and of all those other things that are not objects of first apprehension, and the notions of which can be acquired only by a special operation of the intellect on pre-existing ideas. This distinction between “idea” and “concept” is very important in psychology, and should therefore be adopted in a philosophical work at the very first beginning of logic, as a first precaution against the equivocations of the ontologists.It is not my intention to point out other words the popular meaning of which must be sharply looked into by a philosopher before he makes use of them; I will only add, in connection with the word “idea,” that, in the classical books of philosophy, the direct knowledge of the existence of a thing was not called “idea,” butnotitia. In English, we have the word “notice”; but this word means, according to Webster,the actby which we have knowledge of something within the reach of our senses, whilst the Latin wordnotitiameans rather the permanentknowledgeacquired by that act; whence we see that the Latinnotitia facticannot be translated “the notice of the fact,” and yet why should not a philosopher be allowed to use the word “notice” in the sense of the Latinnotitiawhen he wishes to contrast the knowledge of the existence of a thing with the knowledge of its properties? This would be, after all, only a late justice done to the word by again recognizing its primitive legitimate meaning.On the contrary, the wordconscientia, which in Latin has two distinct meanings, the psychological and the moral, in English has been represented by two distinct words, “consciousness” and “conscience.” This is a real improvement, so far as it goes. But the word “consciousness,” which properly expresses the knowledge of self and of the affections of self, has already acquired, as used by modern authors, a very indefinite meaning, inasmuch as it already replaces not only the Latinconscientia, but every kind of knowledge as well; so that our educated men do not scruple to declare their consciousness of the rotation of the earth, or their consciousness of your presence in the room. In philosophy, where no word should be liable to two interpretations, such a promiscuous and illogical use of the word is really intolerable; and I respectfully submit that the word should by all means be again restricted to its natural signification.Not to tire the reader with other considerations of a similar nature, I will come to an end. My object has been to point out in a general manner what I considered to be most needed in a good English philosophical work. Certainly, a work based on unobjectionable principles, ample in its scope, complete in its parts, and precise in its terminology, would be a great boon to the higher classes of American society. Let a writer come forward who, besides a sound knowledge of philosophical truths, possesses the rare art of expressing them correctly and forcibly in plain language, and he will see his efforts so fully rewarded that he will never regret the labor he may have endured in such a difficult undertaking.A Friend of Philosophy.
PHILOSOPHICAL TERMINOLOGY.A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF “THE CATHOLIC WORLD.”Thesuggestion often made in your excellent magazine, that Americans in general, and American Catholics in particular, should be supplied with some means of acquiring sound knowledge of philosophical truth, led me to consider what particular plan might be most adapted to this end, and what resources were at our disposal for carrying out successfully such a praiseworthy undertaking. The result of this my investigation is not calculated, perhaps, to excite that degree of interest which the subject deserves; yet, as it may be the occasion of other useful reflections on the part of those who wish to promote this enterprise, I have decided to offer it to your philosophical readers.I assume that our plan should unquestionably embrace either all that is worth knowing in philosophy, or at least all that is needed for the explanation and vindication of all important truths, as well as for the radical refutation of all modern errors.To carry out such a plan, a writer would need an extensive knowledge and a keen appreciation of the teachings of the scholastic philosophers and theologians, and especially a masterly comprehension of the general principles on which those teachings have their rational foundation. Such a writer, I think I may safely add, should be of that sort of men who not only know the doctrines of the great masters of the old school, but who also feel the greatest respect for those eminent thinkers; and he should be prepared boldly to follow their leadership in all fundamental questions concerning principles, without the least regard for what is now circulated as “modern thought.” His style should be modern, but his principles should be the principles sanctioned by the wisdom of all past ages.Every one, of course, will allow that we modern men, in many branches of natural science, have attained to a degree of information vastly superior to what the ancients even dreamed of. Accordingly, we may not improperly consider ourselves better qualified than they were for the solution of a great number of physical questions, of which they are known to have either overlooked the very existence, or missed the true interpretation. It is quite certain, however, at the same time, that we are immensely inferior to them with regard to strictly philosophical knowledge; and this is the more surprising as one would suppose that our superior information concerning the laws of nature would have enabled us to reach truth from a higher standpoint, and to correct and improve, even to perfection, the philosophical theories of the old school. Yet the fact is certain and notorious: we have only a few good philosophers, while we need a great many to stand against the torrent of infidelity.As it is, I think that no man of judgment will deny that we cannot raise ourselves to a competent philosophical level and secure the triumph of truth unless we learn again, andturn to account in our war against our modern barbarians, those doctrines that triumphed over the barbarians of old, and made Europe remain for centuries the shining centre of the civilized world. Wisdom was not born yesterday, and philosophical principles are as old as mankind; hence, new facts may be seen, but no new principles of philosophy can be invented.It therefore remains for us, if we wish to spread sound knowledge and foster true wisdom, to cling to the old philosophical principles, to vindicate them so far as in our present struggling condition it may be necessary, and to apply them judiciously to the close discussion and consistent settlement of arising questions. This is the road that will lead us to the goal; and it is a short and easy one, too; for the first principles of all things are not very many, and can be mastered with ease, while their application needs only two conditions, namely, first, a sufficient knowledge of the primitive facts and laws of the physical order; and, second, a rigorous logic.As the main object we should have in view is the improvement of American thought concerning moral and social truths, it might seem that the work of which I am speaking should mainly be a work of moral philosophy, comprising the treatment of all natural rights and natural duties whether of individuals or of societies, and leaving dialectics and metaphysics mostly in the background as idle speculations, or at least as teaching nothing that is essential to the happiness and prosperity of private and public life. It is a fact that the general reader is inclined to look upon all logical and metaphysical subtleties as a string of mere quibbles or an array of unsubstantialities. Though I am sure that, in the present wretched state of our public education, many would be found, even among our best citizens, ready to adopt and countenance such a view of the subject, I must say that the view is intrinsically wrong.Philosophy is a whole whose parts are not merelyintegrant, butconstituent; for each of these parts is essentially linked with the others. As time cannot exist without motion, so neither can moral philosophy without logic and metaphysics; and so sure as no velocity can exist apart from a moving body, even so rational philosophy cannot exist apart from all metaphysical truth. To see this the more clearly, let us examine what are the relations that bind together the parts of philosophy.The old division of this science intorational,real, andmoral, which we find to have been given by Plato,[147]is drawn from the inmost nature of things and the very constitution of philosophy. Everything that is perfect, whether it has an existence in the fields of reality, or only in the region of thought, is found to involve in its constitution, 1, something competent to give a certain determination; 2, some other thing liable to receive such a determination; 3, some third thing which is the immediate result of the concurrence of the other two. That which gives a determination is called the “formal” constituent of the thing; that which receives such a determination is called the “material” constituent of the same thing; finally, that which results is called the “formal complement,” and is the actual constitution or the very actuality of the thing thus constituted.Thus, for example, the human soul, inasmuch as it gives life to the human body, is the formal constituent of man; the organic body, inasmuch as it receives life through the soul, is his material constituent; and actual conscious life, which is the immediate result of the concurrence of soul and body in one compound nature, is the actuality of the being thus constituted, and makes it formally complete in its individual reality.Now, philosophy is similarly made up of three such constituents. The formal constituent and, as it were, the soul of philosophy (and of all other sciences, too) is logic, orrational philosophy. Its duty is to impress a kind of rational stamp on the objects of science by applying to them the process of definition, division, and argumentation, which is the scientific process, and constitutes the “form” of science. For this reason, logic holds that place in regard to any object of science which the soul holds in regard to its body, and is therefore to be considered as the formal constituent of philosophy.The material part, or the body, of philosophy is “all real being as such,” or, in other terms, all the subject-matter of metaphysics, orreal philosophy; for metaphysics is nothing but the knowledge of real things acquired through the consideration of their intrinsic constitution; hence, all reality, be it created or uncreated, matter or spirit, substance or accident, is the “material” constituent of philosophy inasmuch as it is subjected to the scientific form by the application made to it of the logical process. The objective truth of things, so long as it is not subjected to the searching scrutiny of speculative reasoning, mostly belongs to the lower region of experimentalism, which scarcely deserves, though it has usurped, the high name of science; but, when pervaded by intellectual light, rises suddenly as vivified by it, and takes up its place in the serene region of metaphysics, where it shows itself in all the glory of its ontological beauty. Hence it is that metaphysics may be compared to a living body, of which logic is the soul.Finally, by the application of logic to objective realities, namely, by the study of metaphysics, a wonderful bond is established between the rational faculty and objective truth, the first getting hold of the second, and the second reacting after its own manner on the first; so that reason, enlightened by objective truth, knows how to pronounce a right judgment on the merit of things, and in its natural rectitude feels compelled to give them that relative place in its estimation to which each of them is reasonably entitled. As the soul, therefore, owing to its intimate connection with the body, “feels” what suits or suits, not the requirement of the animated organism, and is pleased with the one, and displeased with the other, so also reason, owing to its clear possession of objective truth, “perceives” what agrees and what clashes with: the objective order of things, and, with the authority of a judge, pronounces its sentence that the first must be approved, and the second condemned. Such dictates of reason form the object ofmoral philosophy; and it is through them that the moral law is naturally communicated and promulgated to all rational creatures.Hence, it is evident that the knowledge of morality is the result of an intellectual knowledge of the real nature of things, and of their intrinsic perfection, exigencies, and manifold relations. Hence, also, the conclusion that the rational, the real, andthe moral order, though distinct objects of knowledge, are so bound together in one general science that it would be scarcely possible to speak of the one without referring to the other. Hence, finally, the further conclusion that the greater the importance of a true and thorough knowledge of morality, the more stringent is the necessity of securing to it the foundation of good, sound, and intelligible metaphysics. To neglect the latter would be to tamper with the most vital interests of the former.Perhaps I might go even further, and say that what we need just now is not so much a new book of logic or of ethics as of metaphysics. A good metaphysical work is the surest foundation both of a good logic and of a good moral philosophy. The laws of thought and the laws of morality must be explained in accordance with the laws of real being; and the better we understand these last, the more truly conversant shall we become with the first. Besides, with respect to logic and ethics, we have no new doctrines to teach, whilst in metaphysics we have to settle a number of old and new questions regarding the constitution of natural things, and their causality, and their mutual connection, as we find that such questions are not satisfactorily treated either by the ancient metaphysicians or by our modern unphilosophical physicists. Such questions regard, as I said, natural things; but their solution has a bearing on many other philosophical doctrines, because it materially effects the terminology by which those doctrines are to be expounded.I do not wish, nor would this be the place, to enter into particulars with regard to the method which might be followed in the treatment of different philosophical subjects; yet I think it worth remarking in general that the fewer the principles on which a philosopher shall build his reasonings, the more clear, uniform, and satisfactory will his demonstrations generally prove; and, on the other hand, in proportion as these principles shall be higher, the fewer will be needed. This leads me to believe that one of the best means which could be made available for the much-desired success of the undertaking would be to take our standpoint as high as possible (according to the very nature of philosophy, which isscientia per summas causas), and to base our demonstrations on the very first constituent principles of being. Looking down from such a height, we could easily dissipate the vague phantasmagory, and control the dangerous influences of many other so-called principles or axioms whose intrusion into the body of philosophy is due to ignorance or wrong interpretation of the facts and laws of the physical world. It is through these assumed principles that a very lamentable discord has been fostered and perpetuated between the votaries of physics, on the one hand, and those of metaphysics, on the other; and it is through the same cause, that even now the same student, after learning one thing as true in his class of metaphysics, is obliged to hear it declared false in his class of natural philosophy. This should not be; and we may hope that it will not be when our philosophical reasonings are ultimately grounded on first principles, and when no secondary principles are admitted which are not demonstrated, or corrected, or restricted by some evident and adequate reduction to first principles.But now a question is to be answered which professors of philosophy will perhaps be the first to propose. The question is this: Can asound and thorough work of philosophy, such as we want, be written in common and popular English, so as to prove easy reading for the average American student? Or must a special language be used which none but trained philosophers will understand?Every one who knows how peculiar is the language of other sciences and arts will anticipate the answer. Of course, the English tongue is as fit as any other to express common thoughts; but common thoughts are the thoughts of common people, who do not commonly think with the utmost philosophical precision, nor talk of matters (of which there are many in philosophy) that transcend the common wants of their ordinary avocations. This being the case, it is obvious that, in writing a philosophical work (especially if it be intended to serve as a text-book for our higher Catholic institutions), it will be necessary to make use of a special language, which, though English, cannot be that easy-going and popular English which we find in common use, but must be a precise, guarded, dry, methodic, abstract, and perhaps stiff language, such as the gravity, subtlety, and difficulty of philosophical investigations often require.I said, “Especially if the work is intended to serve as a text-book,” because, in this case, it will be absolutely necessary to adopt in it the whole of the philosophical terminology that has been handed down to us by our Catholic ancestors. Terminology, in all branches of study, is the faithful exponent of the various achievements of science, and contains, as it were, a summary of all that mankind has succeeded in learning in the course of centuries. To ignore more or less the philosophic terminology is therefore to ignore more or less the wisdom of all past ages. Moreover, it is only by means of an exact terminology that a teacher can convey the knowledge of exact truth to his pupils’ minds; and accordingly, all who study philosophyex professoneed to be well acquainted with its language, that they may acquire a clear, distinct, and precise knowledge of things; so that, when called upon in after-life to discuss or expound philosophical matters in a plain and popular way for the benefit of the unlearned, they may use such circumlocutions as will not essentially conflict with the truth of things. Experience shows that those who have not a clear and distinct conception of things, however much they may try to explain themselves, are never well understood.But what if our work be not especially intended for the class-room, but only for common reading? Would it still be difficult to have it written in a plain and intelligible manner? I think it would, unless, indeed, we leave out the most fundamental questions of metaphysics. If we were asked only to write a few “academical” essays on philosophical subjects, without concerning ourselves with the intimate nature of things, it would not be very difficult to perform such a task in tolerably readable and popular English; but if we are asked to go to the root of things, and to give a consistent, clear, accurate, and radical account of them and of their objective relations; if we are expected to lay down and explain those grounds of distinction between similar things that will enable us to avoid latent equivocations, to detect paralogistic inferences, and to expose the sophistry of our opponents; if, in short, we must prepare a standard work which will create a deep and lasting interest, and take hold of the public mind by its fitness to uprootprejudice, to confound error, and to silence, if possible, all philosophical knavery, then, I say, we cannot do this in the language with which people are generally familiar, without filling it with a number of other words, phrases, and formulas of our own. This, however, should not be looked upon as discouraging; for the popularity to which a work on philosophy aspires is not the general popularity of the newspaper or the novel, but a popularity confined within the range of deep-thinking minds. Philosophy is not intended for blockheads nor for the general reader; hence, if these have no relish for our philosophical style, we shall not, on that account, complain of any want of popularity.We must own, however, that a number of philosophical words have become popular in other modern languages which are still above popular comprehension in the English; and on this account the range of popularity of a philosophical work will be less in our country than it would, all other things being equal, in France, Italy, or Spain. In these last countries, where languages are so nearly akin to the philosophic Latin, and where the study of philosophy under the supervision of the Catholic Church formed for centuries a prominent part of public education, every educated person soon learned how to express in his national idiom what he had been taught in the Latin of the schools. It is through this process that the language of philosophy gradually became, in those countries, the language of all educated people. In England, the same process was going on up to the XVIth century, and, if continued, would have led to the same results; but it was checked at the time of the Reformation, to the unphilosophical and maleficent genius of which it must therefore be ascribed that all further popular development of the philosophic language has been arrested for three centuries in the Anglo-Saxon race.Had England remained Catholic, and continued, like her sister nations, to cultivate the fields of speculative knowledge, there is little doubt that English writers, and the clergy in particular, would have popularized and brought into common use those philosophical and theological expressions which had been received already in their dictionaries, and might have been a most valuable instrument for improving the intellectual education of the country. But while this process of familiarizing speculative knowledge was carried on throughout Catholic Europe, England had something else more pressing to do: she busied herself with tearing to pieces and burning the metaphysical and theological books she had inherited from the great Catholic founders and luminaries of her universities. How could the Anglo-Saxon race attain to even a common degree of philosophic development under the sway of a system which was the very negation of philosophy? Could any one be a philosopher, and yet “protest” against conclusions of which he had to concede the premises? Protestantism was not the offspring of reason, but of passion and tyranny; it is carnal, not intellectual; it popularizes matter, and studies material comfort, but cannot raise the people to the contemplation and appreciation of eternal and universal truth. Hence, whilst in all the branches of knowledge which are connected with their senses the English people made remarkable strides, in philosophy they remained infants; and it was only by rowing the boat against the stream that a few privileged beings saved some relics fromthe great national wreck. Even now the Anglo-Saxon Protestant is fated to admire Hume and Bain, Darwin and Huxley, Mill and Herbert Spencer; and it will be long before he realizes that it is a shame to talk of these sophists as “our great national philosophers.”The same evil that stayed in England the process of popularization of the philosophical language, caused this language to remain deficient in many useful and some necessary words wherewith other nations wisely enriched their vernacular tongues. This is equivalent to saying that the English idiom, even as used by the learned, does not always afford sufficient facilities for the exact expression of metaphysical relations, and that, therefore, a writer who wishes to be quite correct in treating of them will be tempted to take liberties with the language, and will yield to the temptation.As an example of this, suppose we wish to say in plain English what S. Thomas Aquinas teaches in the following sentence (in 1.Sentent. Dist. 2. q. 1, a. 2): “In Deo est sapientia, et bonitas, et hujusmodi, quorum quodlibet est ipsa divina essentia; et ita omnia sunt unum. Et quia unumquodque eorum est in Deo secundum sui verissimam rationem, et ratio sapientiæ non est ratio bonitatis in quantum hujusmodi, relinquitur quod sunt diversa ratione non tantum ex parte ipsius ratiocinantis, sed ex proprietate ipsius rei.”How should we here translate the word ratio? Andrews’Dictionarygivesreason,account,business,relation,regard,concern,care,manner,plan,reasonableness,proof, and such like; to which we may add the very word “ratio” used by the English geometricians to express the quotient of a quantity divided by another of the same kind. Now, which of these terms can we employ in the present case? There is not one of them which would not transform this beautiful and important passage of the angelic doctor into a clumsy piece of nonsense. To speak of thereasonof wisdom, of theconcernof goodness, of themannerof eternity, or of thebusinessof immensity would be absurd. The temptation to infringe on the rights of lexicographers is therefore evident. But what other English word can we employ? Should we translate,the conceptof wisdom, andthe conceptof goodness? By no means. Not that this last meaning of the wordratiois not legitimate, but because it is not what we need in the present case; for the holy doctor does not say that God’s wisdom and goodness are distinct only on account of our conceptions, but explicitly teaches that they are distinct on their own grounds, “ex proprietate ipsius rei.” Hence, “concept” is not the right word; and, instead of “concept,” we should rather say “that which is the ground of the concept.” Yet this circumlocution, besides being too long to replace a single word, does not exactly correspond to it, as every intelligent reader will easily perceive. The force of the wordratiomight be sufficiently rendered by the compound expression “objective notion”; but this is forbidden by our dictionaries, according to which the word “notion” has only a subjective sense. We cannot translate “the nature” of wisdom and “the nature” of goodness, because it would then seem that divine wisdom and divine goodness are of a different nature objectively, and thereforereallydistinct; which is not the case, as they are onlymentallydistinct, though on their ownrealgrounds. Perhaps, to avoid misconceptions, we might add an epithet to the word “nature,” andtranslateratio sapientiæas “the notional nature of wisdom,” that is, as that formality which is distinctly represented by the notion of wisdom. This last expression might be considered tolerably correct; yet I should prefer to stick to the Latinratio, which is so much simpler and clearer, and which has, moreover, a general and uniform application to all objects of thought; as we everywhere findratio intelligibilis,ratio entitativa,ratio generica,ratio specifica,ratio personæ,ratio substantiæ, and a great number of similar ratios. And, again, the wordratiohas another very superior claim to adoption, inasmuch as it is the only word that exactly expresses the transcendental unity resulting from the conspiration of a material with a formal principle, and implies in its concrete meaning the two principles from which it results as actually correlated; for, as the geometric ratio implies a numerator and a denominator correlated as “that which is mensurable” and “that by which it is measured,” so theratio intelligibilis, theratio entitativa, and all the others, imply and exhibit a potential and a formal principle, correlated as “that which is determinable” and “that by which it is determined”; and as the terms of a geometric ratio, inasmuch as they are correlated, give rise to a simple result which is the value of the ratio, so also the constituent principles of all beings, inasmuch as they are correlated according to their mutual ontological exigency, give rise to the actuality of the ontologicalratio. It would therefore appear that, if mathematicians are allowed freely to use the word “ratio,” as they do, in the peculiar sense just stated, metaphysicians too,a fortiori, may be allowed the free use of the same word in that general sense which I have pointed out, and which, solely through English philosophical apathy, was unduly restricted to its present narrow mathematical meaning.What I have said of this word may suffice as an instance of the poverty of our philosophical language. There are other words which philosophers are sometimes disappointed not to find in our dictionaries, and which it will be necessary to borrow from other sources, or to translate from the works of the schoolmen; but, as I cannot come to particulars without entering into discussions which would lead me much further than I at present intend to go, I will say nothing more on this point.I beg to conclude with a last remark which some readers may deem superfluous, but which should not be overlooked by the teachers or the friends of philosophy. It is not so much the want of proper words as the vague and improper use of the words which we already possess that is calculated to impair the merit and mar the usefulness of an English work of philosophy. If I knew that any one was engaged in such a work, I would earnestly entreat him to spare no efforts to the end that all indefiniteness or looseness of expression may be excluded from it, and to take care that his philosophic language be, if possible, as precise and as carefully wielded as that of the mathematician. In philosophy, nothing is so dangerous as loose reasoning; and loose reasoning is inevitable with a loose terminology. Truth, by careless wording, is often changed into error, and even great heresies are frequently nothing but the incorrect expression of great truths; according to the remarkable sentence of S. Thomas:Ex verbo inordinate prolato nascitur hæresis.Hence, all those terms which in the popular language have a vague meaning should inphilosophy be either avoided or strictly defined, and constantly taken in the strict sense of the definition.I remember having found years ago, in the works of an Italian philosopher whose celebrity has since vanished, nine or tendifferentdefinitions of the wordidea. Which of such definitions he adopted as his own I could not discover; but it seemed to me that he adopted them all in succession, according as they suited the actual needs of his multiform argumentation—a proceeding which, while confounding the minds of his readers, was certainly not calculated to give weight to his conclusions. This same wordideain our popular English is extremely indefinite; it stands forobject of thought,plan,judgment,opinion,purpose, andintention, none of which would be the correct philosophical meaning of the word; for “idea,” in all the approved treatises of psychology, means the knowledge of a thing directly perceived in any object of first apprehension. Hence, no accurate philosopher would say that we have an “idea” of God, or of his immensity, or of virtue, but only that we have a “concept” of God, of his immensity, of virtue, and of all those other things that are not objects of first apprehension, and the notions of which can be acquired only by a special operation of the intellect on pre-existing ideas. This distinction between “idea” and “concept” is very important in psychology, and should therefore be adopted in a philosophical work at the very first beginning of logic, as a first precaution against the equivocations of the ontologists.It is not my intention to point out other words the popular meaning of which must be sharply looked into by a philosopher before he makes use of them; I will only add, in connection with the word “idea,” that, in the classical books of philosophy, the direct knowledge of the existence of a thing was not called “idea,” butnotitia. In English, we have the word “notice”; but this word means, according to Webster,the actby which we have knowledge of something within the reach of our senses, whilst the Latin wordnotitiameans rather the permanentknowledgeacquired by that act; whence we see that the Latinnotitia facticannot be translated “the notice of the fact,” and yet why should not a philosopher be allowed to use the word “notice” in the sense of the Latinnotitiawhen he wishes to contrast the knowledge of the existence of a thing with the knowledge of its properties? This would be, after all, only a late justice done to the word by again recognizing its primitive legitimate meaning.On the contrary, the wordconscientia, which in Latin has two distinct meanings, the psychological and the moral, in English has been represented by two distinct words, “consciousness” and “conscience.” This is a real improvement, so far as it goes. But the word “consciousness,” which properly expresses the knowledge of self and of the affections of self, has already acquired, as used by modern authors, a very indefinite meaning, inasmuch as it already replaces not only the Latinconscientia, but every kind of knowledge as well; so that our educated men do not scruple to declare their consciousness of the rotation of the earth, or their consciousness of your presence in the room. In philosophy, where no word should be liable to two interpretations, such a promiscuous and illogical use of the word is really intolerable; and I respectfully submit that the word should by all means be again restricted to its natural signification.Not to tire the reader with other considerations of a similar nature, I will come to an end. My object has been to point out in a general manner what I considered to be most needed in a good English philosophical work. Certainly, a work based on unobjectionable principles, ample in its scope, complete in its parts, and precise in its terminology, would be a great boon to the higher classes of American society. Let a writer come forward who, besides a sound knowledge of philosophical truths, possesses the rare art of expressing them correctly and forcibly in plain language, and he will see his efforts so fully rewarded that he will never regret the labor he may have endured in such a difficult undertaking.A Friend of Philosophy.
A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF “THE CATHOLIC WORLD.”
Thesuggestion often made in your excellent magazine, that Americans in general, and American Catholics in particular, should be supplied with some means of acquiring sound knowledge of philosophical truth, led me to consider what particular plan might be most adapted to this end, and what resources were at our disposal for carrying out successfully such a praiseworthy undertaking. The result of this my investigation is not calculated, perhaps, to excite that degree of interest which the subject deserves; yet, as it may be the occasion of other useful reflections on the part of those who wish to promote this enterprise, I have decided to offer it to your philosophical readers.
I assume that our plan should unquestionably embrace either all that is worth knowing in philosophy, or at least all that is needed for the explanation and vindication of all important truths, as well as for the radical refutation of all modern errors.
To carry out such a plan, a writer would need an extensive knowledge and a keen appreciation of the teachings of the scholastic philosophers and theologians, and especially a masterly comprehension of the general principles on which those teachings have their rational foundation. Such a writer, I think I may safely add, should be of that sort of men who not only know the doctrines of the great masters of the old school, but who also feel the greatest respect for those eminent thinkers; and he should be prepared boldly to follow their leadership in all fundamental questions concerning principles, without the least regard for what is now circulated as “modern thought.” His style should be modern, but his principles should be the principles sanctioned by the wisdom of all past ages.
Every one, of course, will allow that we modern men, in many branches of natural science, have attained to a degree of information vastly superior to what the ancients even dreamed of. Accordingly, we may not improperly consider ourselves better qualified than they were for the solution of a great number of physical questions, of which they are known to have either overlooked the very existence, or missed the true interpretation. It is quite certain, however, at the same time, that we are immensely inferior to them with regard to strictly philosophical knowledge; and this is the more surprising as one would suppose that our superior information concerning the laws of nature would have enabled us to reach truth from a higher standpoint, and to correct and improve, even to perfection, the philosophical theories of the old school. Yet the fact is certain and notorious: we have only a few good philosophers, while we need a great many to stand against the torrent of infidelity.
As it is, I think that no man of judgment will deny that we cannot raise ourselves to a competent philosophical level and secure the triumph of truth unless we learn again, andturn to account in our war against our modern barbarians, those doctrines that triumphed over the barbarians of old, and made Europe remain for centuries the shining centre of the civilized world. Wisdom was not born yesterday, and philosophical principles are as old as mankind; hence, new facts may be seen, but no new principles of philosophy can be invented.
It therefore remains for us, if we wish to spread sound knowledge and foster true wisdom, to cling to the old philosophical principles, to vindicate them so far as in our present struggling condition it may be necessary, and to apply them judiciously to the close discussion and consistent settlement of arising questions. This is the road that will lead us to the goal; and it is a short and easy one, too; for the first principles of all things are not very many, and can be mastered with ease, while their application needs only two conditions, namely, first, a sufficient knowledge of the primitive facts and laws of the physical order; and, second, a rigorous logic.
As the main object we should have in view is the improvement of American thought concerning moral and social truths, it might seem that the work of which I am speaking should mainly be a work of moral philosophy, comprising the treatment of all natural rights and natural duties whether of individuals or of societies, and leaving dialectics and metaphysics mostly in the background as idle speculations, or at least as teaching nothing that is essential to the happiness and prosperity of private and public life. It is a fact that the general reader is inclined to look upon all logical and metaphysical subtleties as a string of mere quibbles or an array of unsubstantialities. Though I am sure that, in the present wretched state of our public education, many would be found, even among our best citizens, ready to adopt and countenance such a view of the subject, I must say that the view is intrinsically wrong.
Philosophy is a whole whose parts are not merelyintegrant, butconstituent; for each of these parts is essentially linked with the others. As time cannot exist without motion, so neither can moral philosophy without logic and metaphysics; and so sure as no velocity can exist apart from a moving body, even so rational philosophy cannot exist apart from all metaphysical truth. To see this the more clearly, let us examine what are the relations that bind together the parts of philosophy.
The old division of this science intorational,real, andmoral, which we find to have been given by Plato,[147]is drawn from the inmost nature of things and the very constitution of philosophy. Everything that is perfect, whether it has an existence in the fields of reality, or only in the region of thought, is found to involve in its constitution, 1, something competent to give a certain determination; 2, some other thing liable to receive such a determination; 3, some third thing which is the immediate result of the concurrence of the other two. That which gives a determination is called the “formal” constituent of the thing; that which receives such a determination is called the “material” constituent of the same thing; finally, that which results is called the “formal complement,” and is the actual constitution or the very actuality of the thing thus constituted.Thus, for example, the human soul, inasmuch as it gives life to the human body, is the formal constituent of man; the organic body, inasmuch as it receives life through the soul, is his material constituent; and actual conscious life, which is the immediate result of the concurrence of soul and body in one compound nature, is the actuality of the being thus constituted, and makes it formally complete in its individual reality.
Now, philosophy is similarly made up of three such constituents. The formal constituent and, as it were, the soul of philosophy (and of all other sciences, too) is logic, orrational philosophy. Its duty is to impress a kind of rational stamp on the objects of science by applying to them the process of definition, division, and argumentation, which is the scientific process, and constitutes the “form” of science. For this reason, logic holds that place in regard to any object of science which the soul holds in regard to its body, and is therefore to be considered as the formal constituent of philosophy.
The material part, or the body, of philosophy is “all real being as such,” or, in other terms, all the subject-matter of metaphysics, orreal philosophy; for metaphysics is nothing but the knowledge of real things acquired through the consideration of their intrinsic constitution; hence, all reality, be it created or uncreated, matter or spirit, substance or accident, is the “material” constituent of philosophy inasmuch as it is subjected to the scientific form by the application made to it of the logical process. The objective truth of things, so long as it is not subjected to the searching scrutiny of speculative reasoning, mostly belongs to the lower region of experimentalism, which scarcely deserves, though it has usurped, the high name of science; but, when pervaded by intellectual light, rises suddenly as vivified by it, and takes up its place in the serene region of metaphysics, where it shows itself in all the glory of its ontological beauty. Hence it is that metaphysics may be compared to a living body, of which logic is the soul.
Finally, by the application of logic to objective realities, namely, by the study of metaphysics, a wonderful bond is established between the rational faculty and objective truth, the first getting hold of the second, and the second reacting after its own manner on the first; so that reason, enlightened by objective truth, knows how to pronounce a right judgment on the merit of things, and in its natural rectitude feels compelled to give them that relative place in its estimation to which each of them is reasonably entitled. As the soul, therefore, owing to its intimate connection with the body, “feels” what suits or suits, not the requirement of the animated organism, and is pleased with the one, and displeased with the other, so also reason, owing to its clear possession of objective truth, “perceives” what agrees and what clashes with: the objective order of things, and, with the authority of a judge, pronounces its sentence that the first must be approved, and the second condemned. Such dictates of reason form the object ofmoral philosophy; and it is through them that the moral law is naturally communicated and promulgated to all rational creatures.
Hence, it is evident that the knowledge of morality is the result of an intellectual knowledge of the real nature of things, and of their intrinsic perfection, exigencies, and manifold relations. Hence, also, the conclusion that the rational, the real, andthe moral order, though distinct objects of knowledge, are so bound together in one general science that it would be scarcely possible to speak of the one without referring to the other. Hence, finally, the further conclusion that the greater the importance of a true and thorough knowledge of morality, the more stringent is the necessity of securing to it the foundation of good, sound, and intelligible metaphysics. To neglect the latter would be to tamper with the most vital interests of the former.
Perhaps I might go even further, and say that what we need just now is not so much a new book of logic or of ethics as of metaphysics. A good metaphysical work is the surest foundation both of a good logic and of a good moral philosophy. The laws of thought and the laws of morality must be explained in accordance with the laws of real being; and the better we understand these last, the more truly conversant shall we become with the first. Besides, with respect to logic and ethics, we have no new doctrines to teach, whilst in metaphysics we have to settle a number of old and new questions regarding the constitution of natural things, and their causality, and their mutual connection, as we find that such questions are not satisfactorily treated either by the ancient metaphysicians or by our modern unphilosophical physicists. Such questions regard, as I said, natural things; but their solution has a bearing on many other philosophical doctrines, because it materially effects the terminology by which those doctrines are to be expounded.
I do not wish, nor would this be the place, to enter into particulars with regard to the method which might be followed in the treatment of different philosophical subjects; yet I think it worth remarking in general that the fewer the principles on which a philosopher shall build his reasonings, the more clear, uniform, and satisfactory will his demonstrations generally prove; and, on the other hand, in proportion as these principles shall be higher, the fewer will be needed. This leads me to believe that one of the best means which could be made available for the much-desired success of the undertaking would be to take our standpoint as high as possible (according to the very nature of philosophy, which isscientia per summas causas), and to base our demonstrations on the very first constituent principles of being. Looking down from such a height, we could easily dissipate the vague phantasmagory, and control the dangerous influences of many other so-called principles or axioms whose intrusion into the body of philosophy is due to ignorance or wrong interpretation of the facts and laws of the physical world. It is through these assumed principles that a very lamentable discord has been fostered and perpetuated between the votaries of physics, on the one hand, and those of metaphysics, on the other; and it is through the same cause, that even now the same student, after learning one thing as true in his class of metaphysics, is obliged to hear it declared false in his class of natural philosophy. This should not be; and we may hope that it will not be when our philosophical reasonings are ultimately grounded on first principles, and when no secondary principles are admitted which are not demonstrated, or corrected, or restricted by some evident and adequate reduction to first principles.
But now a question is to be answered which professors of philosophy will perhaps be the first to propose. The question is this: Can asound and thorough work of philosophy, such as we want, be written in common and popular English, so as to prove easy reading for the average American student? Or must a special language be used which none but trained philosophers will understand?
Every one who knows how peculiar is the language of other sciences and arts will anticipate the answer. Of course, the English tongue is as fit as any other to express common thoughts; but common thoughts are the thoughts of common people, who do not commonly think with the utmost philosophical precision, nor talk of matters (of which there are many in philosophy) that transcend the common wants of their ordinary avocations. This being the case, it is obvious that, in writing a philosophical work (especially if it be intended to serve as a text-book for our higher Catholic institutions), it will be necessary to make use of a special language, which, though English, cannot be that easy-going and popular English which we find in common use, but must be a precise, guarded, dry, methodic, abstract, and perhaps stiff language, such as the gravity, subtlety, and difficulty of philosophical investigations often require.
I said, “Especially if the work is intended to serve as a text-book,” because, in this case, it will be absolutely necessary to adopt in it the whole of the philosophical terminology that has been handed down to us by our Catholic ancestors. Terminology, in all branches of study, is the faithful exponent of the various achievements of science, and contains, as it were, a summary of all that mankind has succeeded in learning in the course of centuries. To ignore more or less the philosophic terminology is therefore to ignore more or less the wisdom of all past ages. Moreover, it is only by means of an exact terminology that a teacher can convey the knowledge of exact truth to his pupils’ minds; and accordingly, all who study philosophyex professoneed to be well acquainted with its language, that they may acquire a clear, distinct, and precise knowledge of things; so that, when called upon in after-life to discuss or expound philosophical matters in a plain and popular way for the benefit of the unlearned, they may use such circumlocutions as will not essentially conflict with the truth of things. Experience shows that those who have not a clear and distinct conception of things, however much they may try to explain themselves, are never well understood.
But what if our work be not especially intended for the class-room, but only for common reading? Would it still be difficult to have it written in a plain and intelligible manner? I think it would, unless, indeed, we leave out the most fundamental questions of metaphysics. If we were asked only to write a few “academical” essays on philosophical subjects, without concerning ourselves with the intimate nature of things, it would not be very difficult to perform such a task in tolerably readable and popular English; but if we are asked to go to the root of things, and to give a consistent, clear, accurate, and radical account of them and of their objective relations; if we are expected to lay down and explain those grounds of distinction between similar things that will enable us to avoid latent equivocations, to detect paralogistic inferences, and to expose the sophistry of our opponents; if, in short, we must prepare a standard work which will create a deep and lasting interest, and take hold of the public mind by its fitness to uprootprejudice, to confound error, and to silence, if possible, all philosophical knavery, then, I say, we cannot do this in the language with which people are generally familiar, without filling it with a number of other words, phrases, and formulas of our own. This, however, should not be looked upon as discouraging; for the popularity to which a work on philosophy aspires is not the general popularity of the newspaper or the novel, but a popularity confined within the range of deep-thinking minds. Philosophy is not intended for blockheads nor for the general reader; hence, if these have no relish for our philosophical style, we shall not, on that account, complain of any want of popularity.
We must own, however, that a number of philosophical words have become popular in other modern languages which are still above popular comprehension in the English; and on this account the range of popularity of a philosophical work will be less in our country than it would, all other things being equal, in France, Italy, or Spain. In these last countries, where languages are so nearly akin to the philosophic Latin, and where the study of philosophy under the supervision of the Catholic Church formed for centuries a prominent part of public education, every educated person soon learned how to express in his national idiom what he had been taught in the Latin of the schools. It is through this process that the language of philosophy gradually became, in those countries, the language of all educated people. In England, the same process was going on up to the XVIth century, and, if continued, would have led to the same results; but it was checked at the time of the Reformation, to the unphilosophical and maleficent genius of which it must therefore be ascribed that all further popular development of the philosophic language has been arrested for three centuries in the Anglo-Saxon race.
Had England remained Catholic, and continued, like her sister nations, to cultivate the fields of speculative knowledge, there is little doubt that English writers, and the clergy in particular, would have popularized and brought into common use those philosophical and theological expressions which had been received already in their dictionaries, and might have been a most valuable instrument for improving the intellectual education of the country. But while this process of familiarizing speculative knowledge was carried on throughout Catholic Europe, England had something else more pressing to do: she busied herself with tearing to pieces and burning the metaphysical and theological books she had inherited from the great Catholic founders and luminaries of her universities. How could the Anglo-Saxon race attain to even a common degree of philosophic development under the sway of a system which was the very negation of philosophy? Could any one be a philosopher, and yet “protest” against conclusions of which he had to concede the premises? Protestantism was not the offspring of reason, but of passion and tyranny; it is carnal, not intellectual; it popularizes matter, and studies material comfort, but cannot raise the people to the contemplation and appreciation of eternal and universal truth. Hence, whilst in all the branches of knowledge which are connected with their senses the English people made remarkable strides, in philosophy they remained infants; and it was only by rowing the boat against the stream that a few privileged beings saved some relics fromthe great national wreck. Even now the Anglo-Saxon Protestant is fated to admire Hume and Bain, Darwin and Huxley, Mill and Herbert Spencer; and it will be long before he realizes that it is a shame to talk of these sophists as “our great national philosophers.”
The same evil that stayed in England the process of popularization of the philosophical language, caused this language to remain deficient in many useful and some necessary words wherewith other nations wisely enriched their vernacular tongues. This is equivalent to saying that the English idiom, even as used by the learned, does not always afford sufficient facilities for the exact expression of metaphysical relations, and that, therefore, a writer who wishes to be quite correct in treating of them will be tempted to take liberties with the language, and will yield to the temptation.
As an example of this, suppose we wish to say in plain English what S. Thomas Aquinas teaches in the following sentence (in 1.Sentent. Dist. 2. q. 1, a. 2): “In Deo est sapientia, et bonitas, et hujusmodi, quorum quodlibet est ipsa divina essentia; et ita omnia sunt unum. Et quia unumquodque eorum est in Deo secundum sui verissimam rationem, et ratio sapientiæ non est ratio bonitatis in quantum hujusmodi, relinquitur quod sunt diversa ratione non tantum ex parte ipsius ratiocinantis, sed ex proprietate ipsius rei.”
How should we here translate the word ratio? Andrews’Dictionarygivesreason,account,business,relation,regard,concern,care,manner,plan,reasonableness,proof, and such like; to which we may add the very word “ratio” used by the English geometricians to express the quotient of a quantity divided by another of the same kind. Now, which of these terms can we employ in the present case? There is not one of them which would not transform this beautiful and important passage of the angelic doctor into a clumsy piece of nonsense. To speak of thereasonof wisdom, of theconcernof goodness, of themannerof eternity, or of thebusinessof immensity would be absurd. The temptation to infringe on the rights of lexicographers is therefore evident. But what other English word can we employ? Should we translate,the conceptof wisdom, andthe conceptof goodness? By no means. Not that this last meaning of the wordratiois not legitimate, but because it is not what we need in the present case; for the holy doctor does not say that God’s wisdom and goodness are distinct only on account of our conceptions, but explicitly teaches that they are distinct on their own grounds, “ex proprietate ipsius rei.” Hence, “concept” is not the right word; and, instead of “concept,” we should rather say “that which is the ground of the concept.” Yet this circumlocution, besides being too long to replace a single word, does not exactly correspond to it, as every intelligent reader will easily perceive. The force of the wordratiomight be sufficiently rendered by the compound expression “objective notion”; but this is forbidden by our dictionaries, according to which the word “notion” has only a subjective sense. We cannot translate “the nature” of wisdom and “the nature” of goodness, because it would then seem that divine wisdom and divine goodness are of a different nature objectively, and thereforereallydistinct; which is not the case, as they are onlymentallydistinct, though on their ownrealgrounds. Perhaps, to avoid misconceptions, we might add an epithet to the word “nature,” andtranslateratio sapientiæas “the notional nature of wisdom,” that is, as that formality which is distinctly represented by the notion of wisdom. This last expression might be considered tolerably correct; yet I should prefer to stick to the Latinratio, which is so much simpler and clearer, and which has, moreover, a general and uniform application to all objects of thought; as we everywhere findratio intelligibilis,ratio entitativa,ratio generica,ratio specifica,ratio personæ,ratio substantiæ, and a great number of similar ratios. And, again, the wordratiohas another very superior claim to adoption, inasmuch as it is the only word that exactly expresses the transcendental unity resulting from the conspiration of a material with a formal principle, and implies in its concrete meaning the two principles from which it results as actually correlated; for, as the geometric ratio implies a numerator and a denominator correlated as “that which is mensurable” and “that by which it is measured,” so theratio intelligibilis, theratio entitativa, and all the others, imply and exhibit a potential and a formal principle, correlated as “that which is determinable” and “that by which it is determined”; and as the terms of a geometric ratio, inasmuch as they are correlated, give rise to a simple result which is the value of the ratio, so also the constituent principles of all beings, inasmuch as they are correlated according to their mutual ontological exigency, give rise to the actuality of the ontologicalratio. It would therefore appear that, if mathematicians are allowed freely to use the word “ratio,” as they do, in the peculiar sense just stated, metaphysicians too,a fortiori, may be allowed the free use of the same word in that general sense which I have pointed out, and which, solely through English philosophical apathy, was unduly restricted to its present narrow mathematical meaning.
What I have said of this word may suffice as an instance of the poverty of our philosophical language. There are other words which philosophers are sometimes disappointed not to find in our dictionaries, and which it will be necessary to borrow from other sources, or to translate from the works of the schoolmen; but, as I cannot come to particulars without entering into discussions which would lead me much further than I at present intend to go, I will say nothing more on this point.
I beg to conclude with a last remark which some readers may deem superfluous, but which should not be overlooked by the teachers or the friends of philosophy. It is not so much the want of proper words as the vague and improper use of the words which we already possess that is calculated to impair the merit and mar the usefulness of an English work of philosophy. If I knew that any one was engaged in such a work, I would earnestly entreat him to spare no efforts to the end that all indefiniteness or looseness of expression may be excluded from it, and to take care that his philosophic language be, if possible, as precise and as carefully wielded as that of the mathematician. In philosophy, nothing is so dangerous as loose reasoning; and loose reasoning is inevitable with a loose terminology. Truth, by careless wording, is often changed into error, and even great heresies are frequently nothing but the incorrect expression of great truths; according to the remarkable sentence of S. Thomas:Ex verbo inordinate prolato nascitur hæresis.Hence, all those terms which in the popular language have a vague meaning should inphilosophy be either avoided or strictly defined, and constantly taken in the strict sense of the definition.
I remember having found years ago, in the works of an Italian philosopher whose celebrity has since vanished, nine or tendifferentdefinitions of the wordidea. Which of such definitions he adopted as his own I could not discover; but it seemed to me that he adopted them all in succession, according as they suited the actual needs of his multiform argumentation—a proceeding which, while confounding the minds of his readers, was certainly not calculated to give weight to his conclusions. This same wordideain our popular English is extremely indefinite; it stands forobject of thought,plan,judgment,opinion,purpose, andintention, none of which would be the correct philosophical meaning of the word; for “idea,” in all the approved treatises of psychology, means the knowledge of a thing directly perceived in any object of first apprehension. Hence, no accurate philosopher would say that we have an “idea” of God, or of his immensity, or of virtue, but only that we have a “concept” of God, of his immensity, of virtue, and of all those other things that are not objects of first apprehension, and the notions of which can be acquired only by a special operation of the intellect on pre-existing ideas. This distinction between “idea” and “concept” is very important in psychology, and should therefore be adopted in a philosophical work at the very first beginning of logic, as a first precaution against the equivocations of the ontologists.
It is not my intention to point out other words the popular meaning of which must be sharply looked into by a philosopher before he makes use of them; I will only add, in connection with the word “idea,” that, in the classical books of philosophy, the direct knowledge of the existence of a thing was not called “idea,” butnotitia. In English, we have the word “notice”; but this word means, according to Webster,the actby which we have knowledge of something within the reach of our senses, whilst the Latin wordnotitiameans rather the permanentknowledgeacquired by that act; whence we see that the Latinnotitia facticannot be translated “the notice of the fact,” and yet why should not a philosopher be allowed to use the word “notice” in the sense of the Latinnotitiawhen he wishes to contrast the knowledge of the existence of a thing with the knowledge of its properties? This would be, after all, only a late justice done to the word by again recognizing its primitive legitimate meaning.
On the contrary, the wordconscientia, which in Latin has two distinct meanings, the psychological and the moral, in English has been represented by two distinct words, “consciousness” and “conscience.” This is a real improvement, so far as it goes. But the word “consciousness,” which properly expresses the knowledge of self and of the affections of self, has already acquired, as used by modern authors, a very indefinite meaning, inasmuch as it already replaces not only the Latinconscientia, but every kind of knowledge as well; so that our educated men do not scruple to declare their consciousness of the rotation of the earth, or their consciousness of your presence in the room. In philosophy, where no word should be liable to two interpretations, such a promiscuous and illogical use of the word is really intolerable; and I respectfully submit that the word should by all means be again restricted to its natural signification.
Not to tire the reader with other considerations of a similar nature, I will come to an end. My object has been to point out in a general manner what I considered to be most needed in a good English philosophical work. Certainly, a work based on unobjectionable principles, ample in its scope, complete in its parts, and precise in its terminology, would be a great boon to the higher classes of American society. Let a writer come forward who, besides a sound knowledge of philosophical truths, possesses the rare art of expressing them correctly and forcibly in plain language, and he will see his efforts so fully rewarded that he will never regret the labor he may have endured in such a difficult undertaking.
A Friend of Philosophy.