THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY
EDITORS:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PROVINCE oF ST. JosEPH

Publishers: Sheed and Ward, Inc., New York City

VoL. VI

JULY, 1943

No. 2

THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE,
ACCORDING TO ALFRED N. WHITEHEAD

P

INTRODUCTION

ROFESSOR Whitehead has made a large contribution
to the field of modern philosophy in the several works
which he has published. In the series of books which
have appeared, he preserves the general outline of his theories,
although he makes certain changes in the detailed explanations.
In his latest work, Modes of Thought, one may note a further
transition in his doctrine, still within the general trend of his
earlier thought. For the purpose of this study the most systematic presentation of his cosmology may be found in Process
and Reality. It is easily understood that, while he is presented
as a philosopher in the general sense of that term, he has come
to philosophy by way of mathematics and mathematical
physics. Hence, he is especially interested in the cosmological
rather than ontological aspects of philosophy. At the same
time, his philosophy is organic, founded on principles which
pertain as much to biology and psychology as to cosmology.
His doctrine of prehension or prehensive experience as it is
135

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EDW AIID J" LINTZ

presented in Process and Reality is an extension of a fact which
is verified concerning living things, to the inorganic world"
First of aU, the world must be conceived as composed of
monadic actual entities" Each entity becomes-it never is-and
it is nothing but the process of its own becoming" This process
of becoming resolves itself into the ingression of eternal objects
any actual
which constitute the potentialities of definiteness
existence. Not only do eternal objects enter into the composition, but other actual entities may be prehensively gathered
into the unity of one new entity. The eternal objects are
similar to universals or Platonic forms, and have an eocistence
separate from that which they possess when they are a part
of the constitution of an actual entity" A rather disconcerting
example of eternal object is a definite shade of green. Mr.
Whitehead does not employ the term " greenness " but we may
assume that the term is not alien to his idea
an eternal
object. In this manner of ingression or " participation," the
eternal objects are the source of the temporal actual entities
of which the actual world is formed.
The part of "creativity" in the system is not very clear.
It will be treated more fully in the section on creation. For
the present, we may say that it is used at times as a synonym
for the word " creation " considered as the act of creating; at
other times it is that which results from the act of creation,
the created world. At all events it is to be conceived as an
element to be found throughout the world. All existing things,
including God, are characterizations of
The two groups, actual entities and eternal objects, are
mediated by a thing which combines the two. The mediating
element is the divine element in the world, " by which the
barren inefficient disposition of abstract potentialities or eternal
objects obtains primordially the efficient conjunction of ordering." This ordering is said to be the "ideal realization" of all
eternal objects. "The ideal realization of potentialities in the
primordial nature of God constitutes the stability by which the
actual process exemplifies general principles of metaphysics and
attains the ends proper to specific types of emergent order""

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187

By reason of the actuality of the primordial valuation, or
ordering, or realization, of eternal objects, each eternal object
has a definite, effective relevance to· each concrescent process.
The ordering amounts to a plan which is realized only approximately in the concrescent process which constitutes a given
actual entity. The concrescing entities enjoy a certain amount
of freedom in the process, and therefore the primordial aim is
attained only more or less.
The process does not cease at the completion of a given
actual entity. It begins with data, eternal objects, actual
entities or both. These data are prehended by the actual entity,
in a manner analogous to the act of experience of the higher
animals, so that the data are made a part of-they are objectified in-the new actual entity. The act of experience is called
" prehension." The prehensive process is completed when a
given entity has attained a definite satisfaction. At this point
it is called a subject-superject. The prehending actual entity
is called the subject. When it is ready to be objectified in a
new process it is called the subject-superject.
The whole world continues the process, each actual entity
prehending every other entity of the world, in this way constituting one form of world unity. Finally all are united in the
one divine prehension which constitutes God in His consequent
nature. The harmonization or harmonious union of the things
of the world is the special concern of Mr. Whitehead in his
cosmology. It is also the special subject of this discussion. We
shall try to present the system in a brief explanation, touching
especially upon the items of causality and creation, as a means
of understanding the unity which constitutes the world as one
in the divine prehension.

I
ExTRINSIC

CAUSALITY IN THE PRocEss oF CoNcRESCENCE

According to the principles of organic philosophy, as presented by Professor Alfred North Whitehead, in the process of
constituting an actual entity there are two causative factors of

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EDWARD J. LINTZ

great importance. The first of these is the data of the actual
world relevant to the concrescent subject. The data are objectified in the process to form the resultant actual entity or subjectsuperject. This latter term is used to indicate that no actual
entity simply is, but that it becomes a part of the data of the
actual world or another concrescence as soon as it is itself finally
constituted. The actual entity accepts or rejects (prehends)
the various proposed objects into its constitution in accordance
with a lure for feeling, or tendency toward satisfaction which
is fully attained by the subject-superject. This latter entity
is not a static state but dynamic, and it loses the
of completion since the process is repeated. The " completed "
actual entity forms the ground or foundation, as one among
many actual entities, the data of an actual world, relevant to a
new concrescent entity.
The data, precisely as such, are called the efficient cause,
while the. lure for feeling is the final cause of the process. That
same lure for feeling is another word for " Mind "; but a mind
which may be not-conscious. In other places the lure for feeling
is said to be the germ of mentality rather than mentality.
Finally, God is the lure for feeling.
The subjective aim in the process is derived from the
primordial actual entity, that is, the primordial nature of God
which is the conceptual valuation of eternal objects. These
eternal objects "as in God's primordial nature constitute the
Platonic world of ideas." 1 From this conceptual valuation the
aim of a given entity is derived. This subjective aim, however,
is not a complete determination, for the actual entity is partly
undetermined. The propositions-the objective lure proposed
for " feeling " or absorption-can be present only when the
given actual entity has reached a stage of its development at
which it can prehend the proposition. Until that moment the
proposition does not exist for that subject. The indetermination also consists in the power of the concrescent entity to
accept or reject freely the proposition proposed.
1 Process and Reality
(Cambridge Univ. Press, 1929), p. 68; Science a:nd the
Modern World (New York: Macmillan, 1987), p. 228.

THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

139

Thus in the process the efficient cause is the data of the
relevant actual world, while the process is guided by a determining basic aim derived from the primordial nature of God
and carried on in accordance with a free choice made by the
concrescent entity itself.
The philosophy of organism is a philosophy of becoming,
completely rejecting the idea of an actual entity which is the
unchanging subject of change. Hence arises the great problem
of extrinsic causality which is so closely allied to the consideration of matter and form, substance and essence. In this section
we are considering the nature and operation of extrinsic efficient
and final causes in the process. It is well to note our own
position in the beginning of the discussion. First of all, we
cannot agree with Mr. Whitehead concerning the nature of
things. Being and becoming are not the same. The world is not
all becoming. It is quite true that the things of the world are
all in potency to a further act. That which is, is in potency
to become that which it is not. At a given moment a child is
in act with regard to certain perfections. It is also in potency
to certain other perfections. For example, it is in potency to
the attainment of intellectual knowledge which it does not
already possess. We differ from Mr. Whitehead since we say
that the entity is already in act with regard to certain perfections although it is in potency with regard to others. He would
say that it is in no way in act; that is, it is always becoming.
We emphasize that in becoming something becomes. There is
a terminus a quo and a terminus ad quem in every change, but
the subject of that change endures. Otherwise, it would not be
change, but annihilation of the one and creation of the other.
The child which passes from potency to act of knowledge
changes, but it is the same subject of change.
Nevertheless there is a difference. The ignorant child becomes a knowing child. That which was red becomes violet.
That which was multiple becomes one. This is the essential of
all becoming. There is a successive union of diverse elements.
According to the principle of identity, elements which are
different in themselves cannot of themselves be united, for they

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EDWARD J. LINTZ

would then be both what they are and what they are not.
Since they cannot unite themselves, they must be brought
together by an extrinsic sufficient reason. The union of these
diverse elements is the gradual process of becoming. That
which becomes is not yet determined being but is undetermined
being; that is, it is in potency. What is of itself undetermined
cannot determine itself. The determining or actualizing agency
is called the efficient cause.
The efficient cause must itself be in act with regard to the
perfection which it actualizes in another. A man who is totally
ignorant of the science of geometry cannot bring a child (who
is in potency to that knowledge) to a knowledge of that science.
Only in so far as anything is in act does it move another thing.
This is true not only of local motion but of every change which
takes place, including the intellectual and voluntary actions
of man.
In a few words, that which is in potency to an act cannot
reduce itself to that act, but must be reduced to it by an
extrinsic efficient cause which is itself in act. Even in living
bodies, in which one part moves another, an extrinsic cause is
finally required, for the moving part is itself moved by some
external force. The same is true of the intellectual act of knowledge. The intellect depends on the imagination which in turn
depends on the external object of knowledge. We shall not go
into the question of total and partial causes. It is evident that
the material object of knowledge is not the total cause of the
intellectual idea, or of the operation of the intellect. We shall
only point out that the total cause of an effect or perfection
must itself first be in act with
to that perfection.
A question still remains. Why does the efficient cause act?
An agent is in act with regard to many perfections. Yet it does
not always cause those perfections in another. A man possesses
much knowledge which he does not impart to others. When the
efficient cause acts, why does it do so, rather than remain at
rest? Why does a carpenter make a chair rather than a table?
If the agent produces a given effect rather than another, it must
be that he is determined or ordained to that one which he

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141

produces. He must have a tendency to just that effect. That
which motivates him to act, and which determines him to one
rather than another effect, is the final cause. It is evident that
every agent acts for an end. Moreover that end is distinct from
the agent, although it must be present in some way to the efficient cause. It is present intentionally, and exercises a causality
which determines it to that end. The final cause does not
exercise efficient but final causality, which is of a different order.
The former is concerned with the existence of the effect; that
which is in potency to existence is reduced to the act of existence. The efficient cause applies the form (act) to the matter
(potency), which results in the totality of the effect. That
which induces the efficient cause to act is the
cause. The
efficient cause is that which produces the effect. The final cause
is that for which the agent acts.
In other words, the final cause is that which determines the
agent to act. If the agent were not so determined, it would
remain inactive or it might produce any effect. There would
be no sufficient reason either for the effect or for the activity.
The effect would be due to pure chance; and pure chance is no
explanation of things. It is rather the lack of an explanation.
We may use the term" by chance" in a different sense, in that
something happens by accident, at the same time that we insist
that it is the result of an action which is carried on with an
end in view. The traditional example is that of a man who digs
a hole in a field in order to plant a tree, and in digging the hole
discovers a treasure. It is true that the discovery of the treasure
is a chance occurrence. But the action which results in that
discovery is by no means due to chance. The man had a definite
end in view in digging; during that action the treasure was
discovered by accident.
The determination of the agent to the end may be according
to its nature, or according to its intellect. By its very nature
the eye is ordained for seeing; a bird is ordained to build a nest;
a bee is determined to build a hive; a ship is determined to sail.
On the other hand an agent acting according to its intellect may
have an end to which it is determined precisely by its intellect.

EDW AliiD J. LINTZ

In causes acting according to their nature the end of the act and
the end of the ag-ent are identical. An agent acting according
to its intellect may have a further end in view, beyond or above
the end of the act. For example, fire is determined by its nature
to burn, to give heat and light, An intelligent agent may use
that fire for a further end, to warm himself, to destroy incriminating papers, and for many other purposes. He may build a
ship which is destined to sail, in order to make his living, or to
have the pleasure of sailing the ship. In this way he uses things
which are determined by their nature to certain ends and directs
them in the production of further effects, which are the ends
that he has in mind.
Mr. Whitehead admits final causality; in fact, he is credited
with re-introducing final causality into the world of today. He
gives the example of the battleship Utah which made a goodwill trip around the continent of South America. There was an
aim in the " concourse of atoms, of iron and of nitrogen, and of
other sorts of chemical elements into the form o£ a ship, of its
armor, of its guns, of its engines, of its ammunition, of its stores
of food." 2 This example shows not only final causality but also
the necessity of an efficient cause. For all these elements are
diverse, and yet they are brought into the one unit, the Utah.
An efficient cause is necessary to reduce the multiple to unity.
Each of the component elements had an end proper to it,
according to its nature. But the gathering of all into the one
ship was due to the principal efficient cause, the builder.
Obviously the ship was not actual at the time it was designed
by the builder. It was a possible, since the component elements
were present, and the necessary cause, the builder, was also
there. It did not become actual until all those diverse elements
were reduced to unity by the action of that efficient cause.
Nevertheless the builder had a complete plan in mind. He had
an end in view which specified his action. The battleship
existed intentionally in the mind of the designer. Mo:reove:rthe
director of each part of the work of construction had in mind
• The Function of Reason (Princeton Univ. Press,

p. 10.

THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

148

the proximate end which he was to accomplish in the process.
Each agent, in attaining an end, even if it be a proximate end,
is in some way determined to that object. Otherwise the existing effect would be without a sufficient reason for its becoming.
The
contingent effect would have been determined neither
in se nor in alio to become that which it is; not in se because it
is by definition contingent; not in alio because the agent was not
determined to it. Thus the end must be in some way present
to the agent in order to determine it to produce that end. It is
present intentionally to the agent. In the beginning it is a mere
possible not yet actual, yet it is really, intentionally present in
the mind of the agent. This is always true of agents which act
according to their intellect. An agent acting according to its
nature need not have the end intentionally present to it, since
it is determined to that end by its nature. Still we are forced
to admit that the author of that nature is intelligent. The agent
acting according to its intellect (and the author of nature)
must be conscious and cognizant of itself. Not only must the
end be perceived by the agent, the relation of means to end
must also be perceived. Precisely for this reason the agent must
be intelligent, since only an intelligent agent can know the
relation of means to end. 8
It may be objected that there are unintelligent and unconscious efficient causes. This fact does not affect the metaphysical proof above. When an unintelligent cause attains an
end, it acts under the direction of an intelligent cause. This
direction may be immediate, as when an arrow is directed
toward the target by the archer. It may also be carried on
indirectly as the author of the nature of a thing directs it to
the attainment of an end, as a fire is determined to burn. A
triangle also has its determined properties. But the determination does not come from itself, rather it belongs to the object
as coming from another. The ultimate author of that determination acts for an end and knows the relation of means to
end. That is, it is intelligent.
8

Cf. Garrigou-Lagrange, God, His Existence and His Nature (London: Herder,

1984), I, pp. 168-172; 194-205; 261-293.

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EDW .ARD J. LINTZ

To sum up, when an effect is actualized and it is not pure
act, it must be actualized by another entity which by its action
produces the transition from potency to act. The actualizing
agent is called the effiCient cause. That which motivates the
efficient cause to action is called the final cause. These two are
really distinct the one from the other, although the final cause
must be intentionally. present in an intelligent agent. In an
agent acting according to its nature, the nature itself determines the agent to the object of its action.
In 'applying these principles to the process of concrescence,
we shall first consider the efficient cause. " Efficient causation
expresses the transition from actual entity to actual entity." 4
There is no question here of transition from potency to act, for
the process is mere becoming and is not terminated to being.
Nothing ever really is. As soon as an actual entity "is," it
re-begins the process of concrescence. Nothing is ever in act, it
is always becoming. It may be said that these actual entities
are in act when they attain their proper satisfaction. It is true
that they are then in act, and they are also at the same time in
potency to a further act. Mr. Whitehead's own expressions and
language indicate this very state of affairs. On the other hand,
he explicitly denies that anything is. He emphasizes the
" objectification " of the entities, denying them any state of act.
Transition is only one of two kinds of fluency:
One is the " fluency " inherent in the constitution of the particular
existent. This kind I have called "concrescence." The other kind
is the fluency whereby the perishing of the process, on the completion of the partjcular existent, constitutes that existent as an
original element in the constitution of other particular existents
elicited by repetitions of the process. This kind I have called
"transition." Concrescence moves towards its final cause, which
is its subjective aim; transition is the vehicle of the efficient cause
which is the immortal past. 5

One would be inclined to think that transition is the efficient
cause in the production of the new entity. This, of course,
would be contrary to the traditional idea of efficient causality.
• Process and Reality, p. 209.

• Ibid., p. 298.

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THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

As a matter of fact, the situation is expressed only partially in
such a conclusion. For in the novel concrescence of an entity
" the determinate efficient causation is the inflow of the actual
world (i.e., the data of the actual world relevant to that entity)
in its own proper character of its own feelings felt and reenacted by the novel concrescent subject." 6 Note that there
are two actions indicated. First, there are " feelings " in the
actual world relevant to the entity. Secondly, those feelings are
" felt " by the concrescent subject. Much depends on the meaning of the words " feeling " and " felt." According to our
presentation, the efficient cause by its action produces the effect.
If concrescence is a process of feeling the data, and thus producing the novel actual entity, the entity which "feels" is the
principal efficient cause of the new entity.
According to Professor Whitehead,
Each actual entity is concrescent as an act of experience arising out
of data. It is a process of feeling the many data, so as to absorb
them into the unity of one individual " satisfaction." Here " feeling" is used for the basic generic operation of passing from the
objectivity of the data to the subjectivity of the actual entity in
operation. Feelings are variously specialized operations effecting a
transition into subjectivity. 7

Following such a line of reasoning, there can be no doubt that
the actual operation effecting the passage of the objective data
into the novel actual entity is the action of "feeling." Moreover, this action of feeling is carried on by the concrescent
entity itself. It is always an active element in transition; while
"actuality (the data of the actual world) in the process
acquires efficient causation whereby it is the ground of obligation characterizing the creativity." 8 This may be to term the
" actuality" the material cause of the effect but certainly not
the efficient cause, properly so called.
The " feeling " agent i.s indicated clearly enough. " The word
' feeling ' is a mere technical term: but it has been chosen to
suggest that functioning by which the concrescent actuality
6

Ibid., p. 846.

7

Ibid., p. 55.

• Ibid., p. 40.

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EDWARD J. LINTZ

appropriates the datum so as to make it its own." 9 In spite of
Mr. Whitehead's terminology, it is clear that the actual entity
feels the datum, and that this " feeling " is the true efficient
causality which is exercised. It is expressed in another way
when he writes: "The three categories (of Subjective Harmony, Unity and Conceptual Reversion) express the ultimate
particularity of feelings. For the superject which is the outcome
is also the subject operative in their production." 10 We shall
say nothing of the contradiction inherent in this doctrine. We
limit ourselves to a statement of the doctrine itself. The subject,
i.e., the actual entity, is that which, by its own action, feels
the data.
According to the description of the experience of the simplest
grade of actual entity, which is said to be
the unimaginative response to the datum with its simple content
of sense, Occasions A, B and· C enter into the experience of occasion
M as themselves experiencing s1 and s2 • Occasion M responsively
feels sensa s1 and s2 as its own sensations. There is then a transmission of sensation emotion from A, B and C to M.-Thus the
(unconcious) direct perception of A, B, and Cis merely the causal
efficacy of A, B, and C as elements in the constitution of M.11
This does not mean that the data are exercising efficient
causality in the becoming of M. It is true that they are actively
feeling s1 and s2, but it is by this feeling that they, themselves,
are constituted. Precisely as data for the new process of concrescence they are felt by M. To say that they are active is
merely to point out that they have prQperties which make them
useful as constituents of M. For example, steel is a useful
material element in the construction of a bridge because it
possesses properties of resistance and cohesion which suit that
purpose, while another material, such as wax, does not possess
those properties. This fact does not make the steel the efficient
cause of the bridge. It is only the material cause. One must
understand the following statement in the same sense: " The
direct perception whereby the datum in the immediate subject
• Ibid., p. 229.

10

Ibid., p. 861.

11

Ibid., p. 162.

THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

147

is inherited from the past can then, in abstraction, be conceived
as the transference of throbs of energy, clothed in specific
forms provided by the sensa." 12
The energy constitutes the data as entities, and efficient
causality is exercised in that construction. When the " dative
throbs of energy" are transferred to, or objectified in, a new
entity, the transference is due to the efficient causality of the
new entity by its· positive action of feeling.
The author implicitly admits the truth of this conclusion
when he insists that the actual entity is self-creative. 13 Nor
does he mean by this that the entity is simply its own final
cause, although this notion is included in the term. His theories
concerning the relation of the final and efficient causes are
somewhat vague. He fails to note that the final cause is that
for which the efficient cause acts; that the end moves the
agent to action, and that an end must be immanent in the efficient cause, either in its nature, or in its intellect. We are told
tliat the subjective aim guides the process. The aim is indeed
immanent to the process and, therefore, to the entity which is
the process of its own becoming. But the data, as data, are not
the process. Thus the end is not immanent in the data (the
so-called efficient cause) ; it is present neither in the individual
occasions which are the initial data, nor in the one complex
datum formed from them.
The end must be present to the efficient cause of the action.
We are told thatthe aim is inherent in the process, and therefore in the actual concrescent entity which is the process of its
own becoming. On the other hand, it is not immanent in the
data, as such. Hence we are forced to conclude that the actual
entity, rather than the data, must be the efficient cause.
Another aspect of the self-creative nature of the entity is
seen in the decision, which puts the stamp of completion on the
process. This decision is the act of the actual entity itself, in
accordance with the subjective aim. In other words, the final
12
18

Ibid., p. 168.
Cf. Process and Reality, pp. 62, 118, 814, 817, et paasim.

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EDWARD J. LINTZ

attitude of " Yes " or " No " in prehension depends on the
entity itself. The active nature .of the entity in concrescence is
everywhere· emphasized. The entity feels the data not passively
but actively. The very definition of the term "feeling" was
seen above. We may consider the action from another point of
view. Feelings are positive prehensions. 14 A positive prehension
is the definite inclusion of the item (of the universe) into a
positive contribution to the subject's own real constitution. 15
We are always confronted with the same language, the same
expressions which indicate the activity of the entity and the
comparative passivity of the data.
In all fairness to the author, we must point out one passage
in which a different attitude is shown. In Modes of Thought 16
he writes: "We must not conceive of a dead datum with passive
form. The datum is impressing itself upon the process, conditioning its forms." He has advanced a step in the exposition
of process. Nevertheless, it is really the same as before. The
datum is in potency to become one thing, or one type of thing,
and not another. In that sense it impresses itself on the process.
One could try forever to construct a bridge out of sand, but he
would be doomed to failure, for the sand impresses itself on the
process, making it impossible to fashion a bridge. On the other
hand, steel impresses itself on the process, making it possible
to produce a bridge. Nevertheless the steel is by no means the
efficient cause of the becoming of the bridge.
Mr. Whitehead has indeed made an advance in recognizing
the necessary active character of the data, but we cannot yet
find in them an efficient cause. Moreover, if one were able to
interpret this statement in that sense, it would be quite opposed
to the doctrine as it is exposed in the author's earlier works.
The only conclusion to which one can come after such a consideration is that the data, which Professor Whitehead terms
the " efficient cause," cannot be accepted as such. The real
u XII Category of Explanation, Process and Reality, p. 31.
15 Process and Reality, p. 56.
16 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1938), p. 131.

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THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

principal efficient cause of the becoming of an actual entity is
the actual entity itself. No other source, of efficient causation is
mentioned. God is not the efficient cause, as will be shown.
later. The actual entity is not actus purus, yet it causes its
own transition from potency to act. This expression can be
used concerning the philosophy of organism because there is a
becoming, and the effect is really the actualization of the
potency. The real difficulty in this philosophy is that there is
a becoming without a sufficient reason for it. Creation is selfcreation. The creature is its own creator.
When one considers final causality according to Professor
Whitehead, one finds the same element of self-causation. In the
philosophy of organism one finds some elevated conclusions
concerning the union of the world with God in His consequent
nature. Unfortunately the doctrine is tinged with sentimentalism. For the purpose of this paper it is not worth while to consider this aspect of his presentation. We shall confine ourselves
more directly to the consideration of the final cause. As was
seen above, the final cause properly so called is the object which
determines the efficient cause to act. Hence the description
given by Professor Whitehead is not absolutely contrary when
he writes: " The subjective aim at ' satisfaction ' constitutes
the final cause or lure whereby there is a determinate concrescence." 17 In other words, the final cause, as object, is the
satisfaction toward which the entity tends; as present in the
actual entity, it is the subjective aim at that satisfaction. By
satisfaction is meant "one complex fully determinate feeling
which is the completed phase of the process. . . . It is fully
determinate a) as to its genesis, b) as to its objective character
for the transcendent creativity and c) as to its prehensionpositive or negative-of every item of its universe." 18 Evidently
this is nothing more than to say that completion is the object at
which the entity aims. The question of just " what completion
is" naturally arises and is answered definitely enough when we
read that the process is its own reason. " Every actual entity is
finally its own reason for what it omits." 19
17

Process and Reality, p. Hll.

18

Ibid., p. 85.

1"

Ibid., p. 61.

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EDWARD J. LINTZ

This satisfaction is the aim of every actual entity, including
God. The ultimate end of all entities is " satisfaction " in the
consequent nature of God. There is no doubt that Professor
Whitehead admits finality in the sense of an ordering of means
to his end. The basic aim of every actual entity in concrescence
is derived from the conceptual, primordial nature of God, which
is the primordial conceptual valuation of -eternal objects so that
they have relevance to the process of creation. 20 In this way
God may be termed the " final cause " of the concrescence.
" He is the lure for feeling, the eternal urge of desire. His
particular relevance to each creative act, as it arises from its
conditioned standpoint in the world constitutes Him the initial
object of desire; establishing the initial phase of·each subjective
aim." 21
It must be noted, however, that the conceptual valuation of
eternal objects does not cause them. The knowledge of God
is not the cause of things in the philosophy of organism. Moreover the ordering of means to the " ultimate end " of unity in
the consequent nature of God is by no means complete. It
would be more proper to say that the basic aim is derived from
God, that afterward He leaves the entity to its own concrescence, and that finally He takes the result and prehends it in
His consequent nature, saving what can be saved. 22
When he writes that " the final cause is the lure whereby
there is a determinate concrescence," Professor Whitehead
does not deny our position, namely, that the final cause acts
on the agent and determines the agent to act. His use of the
term " aim " indicates clearly enough that the final cause
determines the efficient cause as the object of its action. For
him, the efficient cause is the data of the actual world relevant
to a given actual entity. Although we have seen that this
thesis cannot be sustained, we may consider the relation between it and his idea of final causality. The aim or object of the
process should be the determining factor for the data of the
actual world. Now, the satisfaction or feeling to be attained
·•• Ibid., p. 486.

"Ibid., p. 487.

"Ibid., p. 499.

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151

is not yet actual but only a possible; and a possible can be real
and present to the agent only intentionally. Such an agent
can know the object only if he is also cognizant of himself; in
other words it must be a conscious agent. Moreover not only
must the agent know the means and the end, he must also know
the relation of means to end; this is to say, the agent must be
intelligent. 28
It is a well-known principle that in the attainment of an
effect a being may act according to its nature or according to
its intellect. Unintelligent efficient causes act according to their
nature, while an intelligent cause acts according to its intellectual conception of the end to be attained. The nature according
to which an unintelligent cause acts must be directed (if not
created) by an intelligent being. If its action is directed to a
higher end which is not contained in its nature, it must be
directed by an intelligent being. Even when the cause acts
according to its nature, for an end implied therein, that very
nature is itself determined to the end. The intelligent cause
which is required is said to be the author of that nature, who
acts to attain an end and adapts the means to its attainment,
knowing the relations of means to end. In the philosophy of
organism, actual entities need not be conscious. 2 <l Much less
are they intelligent. The lure for feeling which guides the process, and which one might be led to consider a kind of anima
mundi, is the germ of mentality rather than mentality itself. 21
Since these unintelligent and unconscious entities must act
according to their nature in the production of an effect, the
question arises, " What is the intelligent being which directs
them and to which the end is intentionally present? " In the
last analysis it must be the primordial nature of God which
conceptually evaluates the eternal objects and makes them
relevant to the process of creation. But when we " consider
God in the abstraction of primordial actuality, we must ascribe
Cf. Garrigou-Lagrange, op. cit., pp. 367-68.
77.
Process and Reality, pp. 31,
•• The Function of Reason, p.
28

2'

2

EDW AlliD J. LINTZ

to Him neither fullness of feeling nor C(msciousness." 26 As a
result we find an impossib:iJity-a deficiently actual being,
unconscious even of itself, furnishing the aim of the process.
There is a further difficulty in connection with the final cause.
«Every temporal entity, in one sense, originates from its mental
pole analogously to God Himself. It derives from God its basic
conceptual aim, :relevant to its actual world, yet with indeterminations awaiting its own decisions." 27 If there are indeterminations in every developing actual entity, there must be
some reason for each determining decision. According to the
author's own description presented above, only the basic aim
comes from God; the entity i.s in other respects self-determining.
He puts this very dearly when he speaks of the " fact that every
entity-since it is what it is-is
its own :reason for what
it omits." 28 And again, "The world is self-created and the
actual entity as self-creating creature passes into its immortal
function of part creator
the transcendent world. In its selfcreation the actual entity is guided by its ideal of itself as an
individual satisfaction and as a transcendent creator." 29 We
have already seen that a self-creating entity is impossible. Here
it is to be noted
this self-creating
need not
be conscious-and which, therefore, may be quite unable to
conceive any end intentionally, is guided by its own ideal of
itself, as an end. In this way the actual entity satisfies Spinoza's
definition of substance, that it is Causa Sui. It is finally
responsible for the decision by which any lure for feeling is
admitted to efficiency .30
Professor Whitehead is here attempting to save both the
freedom of the process of concrescence and the divine ordering
of the world toward unity in the consequent nature of God.
The existence of evil in the world is one reason why he posits
the freedom. In this manner he hopes to avoid attributing evil
to God as its creator. In spite of this exposition we have every
reason to doubt concerning the fact of the freedom of con26

Process and Reality, p. 486.

Ibid., p. 317.
•• Ibid., p. 61.
27

•• lbii, p. 118.
Ibid., p. 12!'11.

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153

crescence. The uniformity of' the world of nature, and the
uniformity of its action, would indicate not freedom but
determination. We must distinguish when it is a question of the
possibility of such freedom within a world ordered by God.
Freedom concerning the means is quite admissible. Indeed, we
hold this doctrine as true of man. Concerning the ultimate end
of the world and of the entities within the world, there can be
no freedom, although man may be determined to attain that
end freely, with freedom concerning the means to it. If the
world is not fully determined to its final end, it may not reach
that end. If it does not finally attain unity in the consequent
nature of God, such unity is not its proper object. If it does
attain such unity there is not a sufficient reason for the
attainment.
Mr. Newton P. Stallknecht has drawn the proper conclusion
from this doctrine. Speaking of man he writes, " Man is free
because God is human." 31 We may add that nature, too, is
free because God is human. Whitehead has described God as a
"personal force which is no more than the successful hypostatization of human personality working out its course among its
besetting difficulties." God as the final cause is the " eternal
object of desire " which " establishes the initial phase of every
subjective aim," but which does not act as a fully determining
cause. Whence come the difficulties of which Mr. Stallknecht
speaks, for actual entities, using the freedom which is theirs,
freely accept or reject propositions in the process. They are
their own reason for that which they are. The freedom of man
is communicated to all the entities of the universe. " The
attitude of God is that of a patient father, who does not ordain
the course which those under him must follow but offers opportunity which they may be capable of grasping. The guidance is
not omnipotent-the universe is open." 32
God's role is not the combat of productive force with productive
force, of destructive force with destructive force; it lies in the
patient operation of the overpowering rationality of his conceptual
31
32

Studies in Creation (Princeton Univ. Press, 1934), p. 151.
Stallknecht, op. cit., p. 151.

154

EDWARD

J. LINTZ

harmonization. He does not create the world, He saves it: or, more
accurately, He is the poet of the universe with tender patience
leading it by His vision of truth, beauty and goodness. 33

In conclusion, the theory of both efficient and final causality
in the philosophy of organism is deficient. That which is called
the efficient cause is revealed to be, rather, a material cause.
The proper efficient cause is the concrescent entity itself, an
impossibility. Finality is admitted, in the sense of a primordial
ordering of the process. But that ordering need not be carried
out in its entirety, since the concrescent entities are free or
self-determining. Th:is theory inevitably leads to the elevation
of the actual entity, so that it is its own efficient and final cause.
The God to whom all entities are ordered is no longer the
creator of the world but one who seeks to bring his own nature
to completion and satisfaction, and harmonizes the universe in
that process. It must be admitted that the aim of entities to be
united in God is not unchristian. But, as is readily seen, the
fundamental reason for such a tendency is lacking, since the
theory of causality is unsound. It
be seen later that the
explanation of creation is also incorrect. Lastly, the unity of
finality of the universe will be seen to be quite unfounded in
principle as well as exaggerated in execution.

n
CREATION AND THE BASIS OF UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

In any study of creation according to the philosophy of
organism, one must first get clearly in mind two important
facts. First of all, the term " creation " is used in two senses.
At times it is employed in the sense of the mere conceptual
evaluation of eternal objects in the primordial nature of God.
This meaning would be analogous to, but not by any means
identical with, our use of " creation " in the strict sense, productio rei ex nihilo sui et subjecti. As we shall note later, the
idea of creation from absolutely nothing does not appear in the
33

Process and Reality, p. 490.

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155

philosophy of Whitehead. The term is also used in the wide
sense for the mere production of things, for example, the-creation
of a statue by an artist. The doctrine of creation may be summarily divided into the conceptual creation in the primordial
nature of God, as opposed to physical (non-conceptual) creation of a novel entity from entities which precede it in the
welter of the process. In this chapter we are i:p.terested especially in conceptual creation. It is evident that physical
creation is of far less importance as far as the principles of
philosophy are concerned. Moreover, we shall consider it in
connection with the chapters on unity.
Secondly, it must be remembered that Professor Whitehead
is speaking always of the becoming of things which never really
are. He wishes to be considered a dynamist, for he expressly
holds that all is process. In spite of his definite dynamistic
tendencies, in his latest book, Modes of Thought, he has betrayed a departure from the strict dynamistic thesis that all is
process. He writes, " The universe is more than process. . . .
The difficulty is to relate the static form to the active process." 34
He evidently holds to dynamism because the idea of static
reality devoid of process is quite contrary to what is known of
the universe. He feels that he must choose between activity,
which he sees in the universe, and a completely static system in
which there is no change. He fails to realize that there is
another alternative, and therefore he accepts dynamism. The
true state of affairs is being gradually recognized. Hence he
writes again in Modes of Thought, 85 that there is a transition
which is real and an achievement which is real. In Process and
Reality he often speaks of the end of one process of concretion
and the beginning of the next successive concretion, at which
point there is a " momentary halt for attainment." He points
out that " in the inescapable flux there is something that abides:
in the overwhelming permanence, there is an element that
escapes into flux. . . . Those who would disjoin the two elements can find no interpretation of patent facts." 36 The
•• Pp. 187-188.

""P. 140.

86

Process and Reality, p. 478.

156

EDWARD

J" LINTZ

strange thing about the philosophy of organism is that the two
elements are clear, yet when it is necessary to explain them,
recourse is had merely to process, The fact which he tries to
explain is a denial of the doctrine of process,
He lays great emphasis upon the notion of potentiality,
The notion of potentiality is fundamental for the understanding
of existence, as soon as the notion of process is admitted, . . . Thus
the actualities of the present are receiving their character from the
process and are bestowing their characters on the future. Immediacy is the realization of the potentialities of the past, and is
the storehouse of the potentialities of the future. 37
In all these expressions he indicates that there is something
which is no longer becoming, but k This is the superject at the
momentary halt for attainmenL
Although he insists time and time again that nothing really
is, the Scholastic doctrine of potency and act could very easily
be followed by Professor Whitehead if he understood it properly,
He even
maintain (s) that for human experience, there are two natural
starting points for the understanding of types of existence, The
two types in question can be named respectively, the Type of
Actuality, and the Type- of Potentiality. These types require each
other, namely, Actuality is the exemplification of Potentiality-and
Potentiality is the characterization of Actuality, either in fact or
concept. 38
It is difficult to know just what the expressions mean, Still, it
is dear that he realizes that there are two types of existence to
which all other types are reducible. For us there are no other
types, Being is either potency or acL Mro Whitehead has
evidently read much of the unchanging God of Christian
philosophy, and therefore he hesitates to accept anything savoring of staticism, For some reason he thinks that a God who is
pure Act is simply static.
He is so much opposed to staticism as it is seen in Newton
that he refuses to admit explicitly what he holds implicitly, the
37

Modes of Thought, p. 136.

38

Modes of Thought, p. 96.

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157

place of act in the universe. With the presence of even such a
process and act as Whitehead admits, it would not be too difficult to argue to the existence of Pure Act, according to the
traditional method of St. Thomas. This, however, is not our
present task. Moreover, the eminent professor might take
refuge behind his opinion that it is a prevalent bad habit to
"trust in language as an adequate expression of a proposition." 39 He would, perhaps, deny that his expressions are more
than slips of the tongue. He would hardly admit that he is
tending to the Scholastic doctrine of Potency and Act, and the
admission of the existence of an unmoved Mover who is
" eminently real."
The potential, or possible, is so essential a part of the philosophy of organism that its author weakens his own doctrine
of creation because of it. There must even be a possible as the
terminus a quo of all creation. Like Plato, he fails to reach a
beginning, in the causal sense of that term. Because of the use
of ambiguous terminology, he gives a bad impression of his
perspicacity when he speaks without qualification of the" creative process " which " is to be discerned in that transition by
which one occasion, already actual, enters into the birth of
another instance of experienced value." 40 " The Creative process is a -process of exclusion to the same extent as it is a
process of inclusion." He speaks of an " actual " which he calls
the" ground" of the creative process. 41 Thus in creation there
is a fusion of the " actual with something which, at its entry
into the process, is not actual. The process is the achievement
of actuality by the ideal consequent, in virtue of its union with
the ground." 42
In the first place we may ask, " Whence comes this ground?
Is it created? If so, is there a ground in its creation? "
Evidently there is something actual. In other words, creation
starts with something already existing, and that something is
by no means Infinite Being and Pure Act. It is creation in the
Process and Reality, p. viii; Modes of Thought, p. 139.
Religion in the Making (New York: Macmillan, 1930), p.
"Ibid.
•a Ibid., p. 114.
89

40

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EDWARD J. LINTZ

same sense as artistic creation, which is no more than production
from pre-existing material.
The ideal consequent or "non-being " which has a part in the
process is also something. It is not non-being in the true and
accepted sense of that term. In the philosophy of organism,
non-being and being are defined in terms of relevance to a given
actual occasion. That which is relevant is being; that which is
not relevant is non-being for that occasion. Transcendental
being is not considered.
This brings us to the more metaphysical treatment of the
problem as it is presented in Process and Reality. Even here,
it is held that all which arises, arises first conceptually. But
the conceptual origin is merely the conceptual valuation of
eternal objects in the primordial nature of God. Once again,
Creation is by no means productio rei ex nihilo sui et subjecti.
It is always a fusion. The eternal objects do not simply become;
they become relevant because of that conceptual valuation.
Prior to that valuation they are non-being only in the sense that
they are not relevant to the process.48 They are represented
to us as eternally standing before the valuation of God. Nevertheless they are uncreated; for by that evaluation, order is
introduced among them, while they are independent of God in
their esse."
On the other hand, causal dependence is the essential note
of creation according to the Scholastic system. True, creation
actively considered is only the action of God creating out of
nothing, and God's action is God. Therefore, in that sense there
can be no dependence, since God is absolutely independent.
But taken passively, creation is the creature itself, in so far as
it is dependent in esse. In other words it is simply the rela-:
tion of a derivative to its cause It is a question of actual
dependent beings needing a first term, and consequently a
question of the entire, causal dependence of everything in the
world, including duration, upon the first principle. 45 The
•• Science and the ModBm World, p. 284.
•• Process and Reality, pp. 84 and 486.
' 6 Cf. Sertillanges, Foundations of Thomistic Philosophy (London, 1981), pp.
91-184..

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159

Scholastic takes as a fundamental part of his system the
existence of contingent things. From that, by the principle of
causality, he argues to the existence of a necessary Being, the
First Cause. From the fact of change, which is evident in the
world, he argues to the existence of Pure Act, in virtue of which
all becoming takes place.
Professor Whitehead denies the validity of such reasoning,
for it is a primary principle of his philosophy that our notion
of causality concerns the relation of things within the actual
world, and can only illegitimately be extended to a " transcendent derivation." 46 For him, a " transcendent derivation "
would be the creation of the world by a creator quite external
to it. This would be a " supernatural origin " such as Newton
held. He (Whitehead) would make the Creator an integral
part of things and the world a part of God. He forgets that,
although there is a real distinction between the cause and effect,
God, the cause, is in the world by His power and by His essence.
This does not mean, however, that He is limited to this world
or by this world. He is transcendent Being, but He is also
immanent in the world. Creation is the production of existing
being according to its esse. That esse can only be a participation of the divine esse. Hence the Creator may be said to
be present in the world because the world is produced by Him,
and it is only as a participation of His Being. Yet He is
transcendent. The world does not contain or limit Him.
The doctrine of participation is to be found nowhere in the
philosophy of organism. For participation is a participation of
being, which is not admitted in the organic system. Everything
is becoming; nothing is. According to the doctrine of participation, being is divided into two types, that which is being by its
essence (ens per essentiam) and that which is being by participation (ens per participationem) .47 In the former, essence and
•• Process and Reality, p. 180.
41 Cf. Del Prado, de V eritate Fundamentali Philosophiae Ohristianae (Fribourg,
Switzerland: 1911), pp. 86-180; Garrigou-Lagrange, de Deo Uno (Paris: 1988),
pp. 156-164; Maquart, Elementa Philosophiae (Paris: 1987), vol. III, pp. 75-95
and 881-885. The most complete treatment will be found in Cornelio Fabro,

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EDWARD

J. LINTZ

existence are one. In the latter, essence and existence are really
distinct. In the former we need look for no external sufficient
reason. This the Supreme Being, and the Supreme Being does
not receive existence. Rather, the Supreme Being, whom we
call God, is His essence and He is His existence. He has no
external cause of His existence nor of His necessity in existence.
(Non habet causam sui esse nee suae necessitatis in essendo.)
He is by and of Himself, because of His own proper essence.
In that which is being by participation, essence and existence
are really distinct. The essence of participating being does not
include existence but it receives existence. According to the
degree of participation it is said to be more or less being. This
participation is not univocal but analogicaL One cannot predicate being of God and creatures univocaUy but analogically,
by an analogy of proportionality. 48 It is pantheism which
predicates being univocally of God and creatures. According to
such a system, God is either a part of the world, whether its
form or its matter. or its existence; or He is the world and the
world is God. According to the evolutionistic pantheists, God,
the only reality, evolves in such a way that the world is produced from His essence. N onevolutionistic pantheists maintain
that the world is only a manifestation of the one reality which
is God.
The essential note of all pantheism is the univocal predication of being as of God and of creatures. God is not transcendent but entirely immanent in the world. In fact, one can
avoid pantheism only by holding the analogical predication of
being of God and creatures, Thus God is transcendent, although
immanent i.n the world by His power and
His essence. But
His essence is participated only analogically by the creatures
of the world.
For Mr. Whitehead, God is not truly transcendent. He is
" transcendent " only in the sense that He, like all actual
entities, is a subject-superject, and as such He can be objectified
S. P. S., La Nozione Metafisica di Partecipazione, secunda S. Tomaso d'Aquino,
Vita e Pensiero (Milan: 1938).
•• Cf. Maquart, Elementa Philosophiae, vol. I, pp. 96-104 and vol. III-fl, pp. 2642.

THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

161

in the prehensive concrescence of other actual entities. This
is a new and unusual use of the term " transcendent," not at all
in keeping with the classical meaning of the word.
It can hardly be said that Mr. Whitehead is an emanationist
or evolutionistic pantheist, if we mean by that one who holds
that creatures evolve from God. On the other hand, there is a
certain similarity between the constitution of the consequent
nature of God by His prehension of the world, and the evolution
of the world into God as this theory is advanced by Heraclitus
and Hegel. There is, however, this important difference. Although Mr. Whitehead's actual entities are self-creative, they
create themselves as subjects. True, they are active in this
creation or concrescence. True, also, according to the philosophy
of organism they should continue to be active in their character
of subject-superject. But as subject-superjects they are actively
prehended by the new concrescent subject. The active subjectsuperject is what it is. The prehension is an activity proper
to the new actual entity. Not as subjects but as subjectsuperjectsthe actual entities of the world are ready for objectification or prehension by God. Thus we may say that God is the
actual world as prehended by Him, for the process and the
subject of the process are the same in the philosophy of organism. In that way, God and the world are physically one. In
that sense, therefore, the philosophy of organism may be called
pantheistic. Nevertheless emanation has no place in this system, nor can one find a downward evolution from God to the
world. Ultimately, it is because Mr. Whitehead holds that
God is not transcendent but immanent that we may term his
philosophy at least latently pantheistic, in spite of his assertion
that the world creates God.
Because he cannot go beyond the limits of the actual world
in: an examination of its origin, Professor Whitehead must be
content with an explanation which begins with " something "
in the world. He follows the Platonic system of creation, in
which" the creation of the world is not the beginning of matter
of fact, but the incoming of a certain type of social order." 49
•• Process and Reality, p. 184.

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EDWARD J. LINTZ

This same supposition is expressed in a more concrete fashion
when we are told that the miracle of creation is described in the
vision of Ezekiel, who found himself in the midst of a plain
strewn with bones. He prophesied and " the breath came into
those bones and they lived and stood up on their feet, an
exceeding great army." 50 This is the misapprehension which
is seen in many another dynamistic theory, and even in most
other non-Scholastic theories. Mr. Newton P. Stallknecht has
given us a very good study of the philosophy of creation, but
the same mistaken presupposition appears in his criticism of
Gentile. "Creative production seems to require an unrealized
possibility-something ' to be created.' Now if there is no sheer
possibility (as in Gentile), creation must be a bolt from the
blue, a veritable creation out of nothing." 51 We are not interested at present in determining whether such a statement is a
true summary of Gentile's theory of creation. It is only desired
to point out that the true nature of creation is not fully understood by the critic. Certainly a thing must be possible if it is to
be created. The possibility necessary for the act of creating the
world, however, is nothing but the divine essence, God Himself,
not a pre-existing something which He uses in creation. Unfortunately, the possibilities of Mr. Whitehead are, rather, existing
and independent of a creating God.
Professor Whitehead demands a possible for the same reason
that a Thomist demands a First Cause Who is Pure Act and
Eminent Being. Moreover, the former fails to realize that a
possible must itself be acted upon by another agent in the
process of becoming. Otherwise it is carrying on an action
without the means necessary for doing so. It is not incorrect to
argue as follows: " It is a contradiction in terms to assume that
some explanatory fact can float into the actual world out of
non-entity. Non-entity is nothingness. Every explanatory fact
refers to the decision and to the efficacity of an actual thing.'' 52
It is very true. No fact can" float" into the actual world. It
•• Ibid., p. 118.
Studies in Creation, p. 127.
""Process and Reality, p. 68.
61

THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

163

requires an efficient cause, but a creating efficient cause cannot
have any previously existing potentiality or actuality, as a
means of the act of creation. If the author were logical, from
the starting point quoted, he would have to arrive at the
traditional idea of God.
In fact, however, the philosophy of organism follows the
Platonic method; only, in place of primordial chaos, Whitehead
relies upon a number of eternal objects and creativity. He adds
the aesthetic treatment to that, developing his system according to an analogy with human " creative " art. For all the
aesthetic creationists, there are the four causes. Thus, for
example, in literary composition, a material cause is found in
the words, grammatical relations, the medium of expression
from which the statement is manufactured; the efficient cause
is the author; the formal cause is that which determines the
literary composition to be what it is in its entirety. Stallknecht
says that the formal cause refers to a "plan of organization";
and it is this which individualizes the
The plan of
organization is found primarily in the mind of the author. The
created composition is perfect in so far as it is informed by the
plan, or in so far as the plan is realized in the resulting composition. The final cause of the work may be merely the idea,
which comes to the mind, the motivating element of the
author's writing.
There are differences in the various presentations of the
aesthetic doctrine, but all the authors emphasize one special
characteristic of human creative effort. There is no complete,
definite and determined plan in: the mind of the creator when
he begins the work. As Mr. Stallknecht expresses it: "Communication or expression clarifies our thought and even actually
develops it." 54 This opinion is certainly true of human creation,
but when applied to true divine creation it indicates a malignant anthropomorphism, inherent in the aesthetic doctrine. The
creating God is supposed to act in the same fashion as a creating
artist. Whitehead holds that there is a general plan in creation
63

Studies in Creation, p. xi.

•• Ibid., p. xi.

Hl4

EDW ARIJJ J. LINTZ

but, as in human activity, this plan is to be found only
broad
outline
the creative mind of the primordial God. It might be
the primordial nature of God is unconadded, moreover,
a
scious in the act of evaluating-a manifest impossibility
conceptual acL Be that as it may, the aesthetic position is that
man does not see tota simul, i.e., that man has only discursive
knowledge. Therefore God also has only discursive knowledge,
and therefore the plan of God is developed as the process
goes on.
This doctrine is one of the fundamental points
Whitehead's
treatment
the problem of eviP 5 It is also the basis of his
explanation of freedom
the universe. Because God knows
things only discursively and successively, He plans things in
general, and leaves the details to be worked out, as the plan is
realized, successively. He hopes thus to avoid both ontological
and moral determinism. Hence he writes: " (Every temporal
entity) derives from God its basic conceptual aim, relevant to
its actual world, yet with indeterminations awaiting its own
decisions." 56 Here, too, is the foundation of his antithesis-a It
is as true to say that God creates the world as that the World
creates God." 57 The consequent nature of God is continually
being created in accordance with the plan of conceptual evaluation of the eternal objects in His primordial nature-but certain
elements in the emergent world (and therefore in the consequent nature which prehends the world) are due to the " individual decisions " of the concrescent world entities. There is a
creative evolution, at each successive moment of which the
primary, general, and indistinct plan is successively determined,
developed, and modified in its details.
The conception of an immanent Creator, transcendent in His
Being, knowing all things of the present, past, and future world
in one nunc of eternity is to be
nowhere in Whitehead.
Moreover, the axiom, scientia Dei causa rerum, is present only
in a very emasculated form. He is so much impressed by the
•• Science and the Modern World, pp. !!!57-58; Religion in the Making, pp. 94,
98, 100.
56

Process and Reality, p. :n 7.

•• Ibid., p. 49!!!.

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165

contradictions of idealism that he cannot appreciate the divine
idealism expressed in that formula, " The knowledge of God is
the cause of things." His creating God is the unconditioned
actuality of conceptual feelings at the base of things, unconscious and deficiently actual. Because, in the philosophy of
real distinction between God and His
organism, there is
knowledge, and between God and His action, eternal objects
must be introduced as uncreated, the object of the conceptual
evaluation. Once it is admitted (as it is proved in Thomistic
philosophy) that there is no real distinction in God and that
God is His being, it follows that everything which is created
is only a participation of that Eminent Being, which is the
essence of God. Contemplating His essence, God knows the
ways in which it can be participated. Knowing that essence,
He creates the actual world of matter of fact. From the many
possibles which He sees in His essence God selects certain ones
to which he gives existence. Creation can properly be called
" selection from a catalogue " when we admit that the selector
and the catalogue are one, the " catalogue " being the essence
of the creating God. In that case He cannot be the primordial
non-temporal accident of an all-pervading creativity. He cannot conceptually evaluate eternal objects distinct from and
independent of Himself. All that is, is by participation of
His Being.
Mr. Whitehead has seen the true doctrine that God must be
pure Act, unchanging Being. Yet he cannot accept his own
conclusion. He speaks in Thomistic terms:
The boundless wealth of possibility in the realm of abstract form
would leave each creative phase still indeterminate, unable to
synthesize, under determinate conditions, the creatures from which
it springs. The definite determination which imposes ordered
balance on the world requires an actual entity imposing its own
unchanged consistency of character on every phase.58
The conclusion is closely allied to the Thomistic proof for the
existence of God. Unfortunately Mr. Whitehead has a besetting
difficulty.
•• Religion in the Making, p. 94.

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EDWARD J. LINTZ

A simpler metaphysic would result if we could stop at this conclusion. A complete determinism would thus mean the complete
self-consistency of the temporal world. . . . If the theory of complete determination, by reason of the necessity of conformation
with the nature of God holds true, then the evil in the world is in
conformity with the nature of God.59
Because there is evil in the world, we must find therein " formative elements which are not definable in the terms which are
applicable to God." 60
In the process of concrescence there is one very puzzling
element, creativity. "In all philosophical theories there is an
ultimate which is actual in virtue of its accidents . . . In the
Philosophy of Organism this ultimate is termed creativity and
God is its primordial accident." 61 Just previous to this statement, Professor Whitehead remarked that this philosophy is
closely allied to Spinoza's scheme of thought. Hence we are led
to suppose that creativity is a kind of Spinozistic absolute substance, which gives rise to multiplicity through its modes.
Whitehead, however, is seeking to explain not multiplicity but
unity; how the abstract is built up from the concrete. 62 Therefore, he does not begin with one all-pervading substance. For
him, the modes of Spinoza become the sheer actualities, while
the concrescence of any one of these actualities involves all
the other actual entities among its components. In this way
the obvious solidarity of the world is to be explained, by a
system of prehensive unification. We can hardly find a place for
creativity as a Spinozistic substance in this system.
Strangely enough,
Creativity is another rendering of the Aristotelian "matter" and
of the modern " neutral stuff." But it is divested of the notion of
passive receptivity, either of " form " or of external relations; it is
the pure notion of activity conditioned by the objective immortality
of the actual world.63 Creativity is without a character of its own
in exactly the same sense in which the Aristotelian "matter" is
•• Ibid.
•• Ibid., p. 99.
61 Process and Reality, p. 9.

""Ibid., p. 27.
•• Ibid., p. 42.

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without a character of its own. It is the ultimate notion of the
highest generality at the base of actuality. It cannot be characterized, because all characters are more special than itself. But
creativity is always found under conditions and described as conditioned.64
This description is not quite clear. The "stuff" is Aristotle's
matter divested of its essentially passive character; in other
words it is not Aristotle's matter. It is the pure notion of
activity. It can receive neither form nor external relation. The
author comes dangerously close to asserting that it is pure Act.
Perhaps he realizes that such an assertion would turn his whole
system upside down.
The question becomes more confused than ever when we read,
In the abstract language here adopted for metaphysical statement,
" passing on " becomes " creativity " in the dictionary sense of the
word " creare "-to bring forth, beget, produce. Thus, according to
the third principle, no entity can be divorced from the notion of
creativity. An entity is, at least, a particular form capable of infusing its own particularity into creativity. 65
Here is a problem indeed. Creativity is incapable of receiving a
form; yet every entity is a particular form capable of infusing
its own particularity into creativity. The latter must be passive,
at least in the sense that it is capable of receiving that particularity of form. It is hardly necessary to point out the confusion
which arises from the definition of the noun " creativity " as
the verb creare.
In spite of the ambiguity as to what characterizes creativity,
it seems that creativity is the same as the creative act. This is
quite in accordance with his opinion that the act and the result
of the act are numerically identical. When he "ascribe (s) the
reverted conceptual feeling in a temporal subject as to its conceptual feeling, derived by Category IV from the hybrid physical feeling of the relevances conceptually ordered in God's
experience," he says that "in this way, by the recognition of
God's characterization of the creative act, a more rational explanation is established." 66 On another page he says that " God
•• Ibid.

3

•• Ibid., p. 802.

•• Ibid., p. 258.

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EDWARD J. LINTZ

and the actual world jointly constitute the cha1·acter
the
creativity for the initial phase of a novel concrescence." 61
According to these two passages, the two expressions seem to
be synonymous.
In qualifying the statement that God can be termed the
creator of the universe, Professor Whitehead writes:
But the phrase is apt to be misleading by its suggestion that the
ultimate creativity of the universe is to be ascribed to God's
tion. The true metaphysical position is that God is the aboriginal
instance of this creativity, and therefore the aboriginal condition
which qualifies its action. It i.s the function of actuality to
characterize the creativity, and God is the eternal primordial
character. 68

On page 42 of Process and Reality he denies categorically that
creativity can be characterized, but it is found under conditions
and is " described as conditioned." In the text quoted he says
that God is the " aboriginal condition" which qualifies the
action of creativity, and the primordial character which characterizes what he has previously described as uncharacterizable
and what is only described as conditioned. It seems that a
reader ought to be pardoned for failing to understand what
creativity really is.
We may, however, have a better idea of what it does.
Creativity is the principle of novelty. An actual occasion is a novel
entity diverse from any entity in the "many" which it unifies.
Thus creativity introduces novelty into the content of the many,
which are the universe disjunctively. The " creative advance" is
the application of the ultimate principle to each novel situation
which it originates. 69

Creativity is the principle of novelty inasmuch as it introduces
that element into the actual occasion. Evidently it is not the
source of originality, for
it must also be noted that the pure mental originality works by
canalization of relevance arising from the primordial nature of
God. Thus an originality in the temporal world is conditioned
67

Ibid., p. 345.

68

Ibid., pp. 817-518.

•• Ibid., p. 28.

THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

169

though not determined, by an initial subjective aim supplied by the
ground of all order and originality. 70
Hence, God is the source of originality or novelty by His primordial nature. The process is described in a little more
detail on page 229:
Whatever arises in actual entities from God's decision arises first
conceptually, and is transmitted into the physical world. In transcendent decision (i. e., passage from superject to novel concrescent
entity) there is transition from the past to the immediacy of the
present; and in " immanent decision " there is the process of
acquisition of subjective form and the integration of feelings. In
this process the creativity, universal throughout actuality, is characterized by the datum from the past. 71 And it meets this dead
datum-universalized into creativity-by the vivifying novelty of
subjective form selected from the multiplicity of pure potentiality. 72
In this passage, novelty seems to be selected from the multiplicity of pure potentiality, which is elsewhere described as the
ensemble of eternal objects, and which, in the passage quoted
above, is derived from the primordial nature of God. The
selecting agent is the creativity. It introduces the novelty into
the actual occasion. But it must be remembered that anything
which is received into the constitution of an actual entity is
accepted according to a dual aim, the one a general end derived
from the primordial nature of God, the other a purpose quite
peculiar to the entity itself. In other words, the creativity can
introduce the novelty, but the actual entity itself is the final
reason for the acceptance or rejection of what is accepted or
rejected.
There are many difficulties in the understanding of this
system. We find statements which are difficult to reconcile, if
they are not contradictory. Nevertheless, this much is surecreativity is an active force, it acts in the process. Therefore, it
cannot be pure potentiality. An agent acts only inasmuch as
Ibid., p. 150.
Cf. Ibid., p. 42.-" It cannot be characterized _because all characters are more
special than itself."
.a Ibid., p. 229.
70

71

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EDWARD J. LINTZ

it is in act. The potentiality in the process must be found in
the eternal objects. Moreover, it was stated previously that
creativity is the pure notion of activity. According to the
principle agere sequitur esse, creativity must first be, it must
exist. It must, therefore, be something prior to and distinct
from a " God " who is its primordial accident; in other words,
it must be independent in its being, as it is in its action. Creativity has a function in creating, inasmuch as it underlies all
actuality and is the principle of novelty. It is certainly not
created. It is given. No explanation of its origin is presented.
The misapprehension that if a thing is (or is in
from
eternity, it needs no causal explanation is here manifested once
agam.
In summary, creativity is an active matter, with no potentiality, but it is also passive. Unlike the Absolute Substance of
Spinoza, it is not the only thing which there is in the world,
but it is merely underlying all actuality. Professor Whitehead,
seeking to explain the derivation of the abstract from the
concrete, the one from the many, begins with the many. The
many, however, are not only the actual entities of the actual
world. There are also primordial entities (that is to say, primordial " somethings ") : creativity with its primordial accident,
God, and a number of eternal objects, similar to the Platonic
forms. There is a multiplicity which is eternal, and the elements
of that multiplicity are mutually independent as well as dependent. It is this multiplicity which in the process of prehensive
unification becomes the one consequent nature of God. This
fact is not stated explicitly, but it is the only reasonable assumption.73 The explicit position of Whitehead is that the
multiple actual entities become one in God. In fact, however,
the actual entities themselves become as a result of the action
of the elements mentioned.
Having treated of creativity, we now turn to the eternal
•• Cf. " The notion of a supreme being must apply to an actuality in process of
composition; an actuality not coafined to the data of any special epoch in the
historical field. Its actuality is founded on the infinitude of its conceptual appetition, and its form of process is derived from the fusion of this appetition with the
data received from the world process." Modes of Thought, p. 128.

THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

171

objects. They correspond to the Platonic forms or universals.
The definition given is as follows: " Any entity whose conceptual recognition does not involve a necessary reference to
any definite actual entities of the temporal world is called an
eternal object." 74 In the fifth Category of Existence are placed
" Eternal Objects or Pure Potentials for the Specific Determination of Fact, or Forms of Definiteness." 75 A definite shade of
green is an example of an eternal object/ 6 Each object has two
essences; one is an individual essence, which is the particular
individuality and cannot be described otherwise than being
itself. It is composed of the internal relations of the object to
itself. We may say that it is the object as it is in itself, excluding all relations to other eternal objects. Still, these external
relations cannot be overlooked because they also constitute the
object to be what it is in relation to other eternal objects. The
one essence cannot be separated from the other. The relational
essence determines how it is possible for the object to have
ingression into actual occasions. In itself, the object is neutral
to any entrance into actuality, but the relations which exist
among these objects are eternal, and proceed from a necessity
of the nature of each one.
An eternal object may be complex, in that it may be composed of a number of eternal objects in a definite relationship.
This does not mean that all the possible relations of each of the
component objects are constituting factors in the one complex
object, but that certain relations of each object constitute the
one complex. An object which cannot be analysed into simpler
objects, i. e., a relationship of components, is simple. A definite
shade of green is a simple eternal object. The shape sphere,
is also an eternal object.
These objects " subsist" as components of the primordial
nature of God. 77 The term subsistence is not defined but it is
evidently intended to convey the same idea as in Scholastic
terminology and is contrasted with " being" and " becoming."
It is necessary to recall that the eternal objects are pure
74

7"

Process and Reality, p. 60.
Ibid., p.

76

77

Science and the Modern Wodd, p. £40.
Process and Reality, p. 60.

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EDWARD

J, LINTZ

potentials and that they correspond to the Platonic subsisting
forms. These universals stand eternally before the conceptual
valuation of the primordial nature of God, and for
reason
they have relevance, that is they have "real togetherness,"
According to the ontological principle, all real togetherness is
togetherness in the formal constitution of an actuality! 8 At
the same time Professor Whitehead makes a further deduction,
saying that according to the principle of relativity there can be
only one non-derivative actuality, unbounded by its prehension
of the actual world, 'Ve can have no quarrel with this position.
This entity or actuality, however, is certainly none other than
the primordial nature of God-a non-derivative actuality which
is also an actuality formally constituted by the conceptual
valuation of eternal objects. Moreover, these eternal objects
are not God, neither are they created by God, Here is the
great weakness of this philosophy of creation. If God's prinature is formally constituted by His conceptual valuation of eternal objects, He is derived, in the sense that there are
distinct and independent elements which enter into His formal
constitution. That these elements have only conceptual existence does not avoid the difficulty. They are something, independent of the primordial and eternal prehension, To speak of
them as non-temporal does not alter the situation. It is the
causal relation of the two that matters, Ultimately, it must be
admitted that the eternal objects are a material cause of the
primordial nature of God, and that
nature is, therefore,
derivative,
The term" derivative" is taken from Hume's Treatise, Part
I-1, where he speaks of all our simple ideas as "derived from
simple impressions which are correspondent to them and which
they actually represent!' True, Hume holds causation as only
a mere succession of phenomena. But we can limit our discussion for the moment to the actual relation between our ideas
and the simple impressions from which they are derived, That
relation is a causal relation. Our treatment is justified, moreover, by the fact that Professor Whitehead rejects Hume's
theory of causality.
78

Ibid., p. 44.

THE UNITY IN THE TJNIVERSE

178

It is expressly stated, "God differs from the other actual
entities in the fact that Hume's principle of the derivate character of conceptual feelings does not hold for Him." 79 There is
still the same threefold character in God as in the other actual
entities, and the first character is that " the Primordial nature
of God is the concrescence of a unity of conceptual feelings,
including among their data all eternal objects." 80 In the section
on causality we saw that the data in the concrescence are said
to act as efficient causes. More properly they are material
causes. In either case, it is contradictory to hold that the
principle of the derivate does not hold for God, and yet that
His nature is a concrescence of conceptual feelings, with eternal
objects for their data. 81 True, the concrescence of conceptual
feelings (God's nature) is deficiently actual. This fact might
lead us to think that the eternal objects must also be deficiently
actual. They subsist in the primordial nature. It is said that
they" exist" there, in a special way. Tney require the transition to the conception of them to be " efficaciously " existent
by reason of God's conceptual realization of them. This is a
significant qualification of the statement which precedes, that
"
many eternal objects conceived in their bare isolated
multiplicity lack any existent character." There is a definite
change in meaning between existence and efficacious existence. 82
Even if we limit ourselves to the subsistence of these objects or
to what they are in their" bare isolated multiplicity," they are
still something outside the mind of God when th,ey are considered apart from their conceptual valuation. They become
relevant because of the valuation, they do not simply become.83
Prior to that act they are non-existent for a given occasion.84
79

P·rocess and Reality, p. lfll.

so Ibid.
81 In Religion in the Making, the dependence of God is emphasized. "• There is
no entity, not even God, which requires nothing but itself in order to exist' (Descartes). According to the doctrine of this lecture, every entity is in its essence
social and requires the society in order to exist." Religion in the Making, p. 108.
•• Process and Reality, p. 494.
•• Science and the Modern World, p. 284.
•• There is a very interesting similarity between the ideas here expressed concern-

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EDW AliiD J. LINTZ

AU these distinctions and qualifications are mere subterfuge.
If the eternal objects a:re anything outside the conceptual valuation of them, they a:re eternally something-not-nothingindependent of the divine causality. A mere child would then
ask, " Where do they come from? " Evidently they do not
come from God because they are only prehended conceptually
by Him, and they a:re components of His primordial nature.
One seeks in vain for any other explanation. Like Plato and
the dynamists s:iince his day, Whitehead fails to reach the ultimate explanation of things. He insists on primordial potentialities which are merely ordered in the mind of God. The fact
that they are called eternal does not prevent one from demanding the cause of them. The philosophy of organism does not
touch the depths of the problem. As Miss Emmett points out,S5
Whitehead has reduced creation to a selection from a catalogue.
We add, a catalogue with an eternal, unexplained, independent
existence, even apart from the deficiently actual existence which
it receives in the primordial nature of God.
Beyond aU doubt the philosophy of Whitehead is a great
advance over the completely materialistic, mechanistic conception of the universe which dominated 19th-century philosophy.
He and his contemporaries have indeed re-introduced God into
the world of non-Scholastic philosophers. For this they are to
be given a great deal of praise. As in all such movements,
ing eternal objects, and the presentation of propositions as being neither pure
potentials nor pure actualities. They are said to be a " manner of potential nexus
involving pure potentials and pure actualities "--entities of a new impure type
which "presuppose the two pure types of entities" (Process and Reality, p.
Seemingly there are three stages in the relevance of propositions. First of all they
ru:e mere " possibles " but possibles which exist outside the actual world of a given
actual entity. Secondly they become "proximately possible" when that actual
entity has reached a stage of development in which it is capable of feeling them;
they are then relevant and existent to that actual entity. Finally they are pure
actuality, or a part of an actual entity, when they are actually felt by the entity.
Perhaps the same stages could be applied to eternal objects, before their valuation
in God, in their valuation by God, and their " actuality " in His primordial
nature. At all events, the eternal objects must be considered as " existing possibles "
before their valuation.
85 Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism (London:
1932), pp. 116 ff.

THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

175

however, there has been a decided break from the old system,
without the complete formation of a coherent new philosophy.
Certain true principles are discovered and, because they are so
much opposed to previous thought, they are overemphasized
and applied improperly. The result is a lack of equilibrium in
the developing system. For example, Professor Whitehead is
quite correct when he denies the possibility of a " temporal
world conceived as a self-sufficient completion of the creative
act." Such a thesis violates the first principle of causality.
Creation is only explainable by maintaining that it is a constant
dependence in existence of the creature on the creator, not only
at the first moment but at every moment of the creature's
existence. We conclude that there must be an independent
supreme being in virtue of which all other being is, as a participation. Professor Whitehead cannot follow us in this deduction
because a Being who is " eminently real " (Supreme Being)
would also be pure act, and an Unmoved Mover. He cannot
understand how an Unmoved Mover can be the source of the
movement or process which he clearly sees in the world. Such
an Unmoved Mover could not give His creatures action but
" sleep." 86 This difficulty is due to a simple misapprehension
of the meaning of the term. To call the Prime Mover
"Unmoved" does not mean that He does not act but only
denies that He is moved or changed, that He passes from
potency to act. On the contrary, that which acts, acts inasmuch
as it is in actu. God is Pure Act, one eternal act; while the
motion or process in the world is only the effect, in time, of His
one eternal act. He is and acts outside time. The effects of
His action are manifested in time. 87 Thus, not only can the
Unmoved Mover be the source of action but He must be the
ultimate source of all the action in the world. The objection of
Mr. Whitehead seems valid because it is the exaggeration of a
part of the truth, while it implies a misunderstanding of the
true nature of an Unmoved Mover.
86 Process and Raality, p. 484.
s• Cf. Garrigou-Lagrange on the refutation of Plus est in motu quam in immobilitate, De Revelatione (Rome: 1931), pp. 264-268.

176

F...DWARD J. LINTZ

It must also be noted that Whitehead's philosophy is itself
evolving, and, in many points, coming closer to the true position, as we noted concerning his idea of process. Perhaps he
will complete his system and discover the true doctrine. But,
if he does, he will be like Chesterton's English yachtsman who
slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England, under
the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas. What
he will "discover" has been known for centuries. Up to the
present he has been emphasizing partial truths, omitting the
ensemble from full consideration. As a result he is involved in
manifold inconsistencies. His repudiation of the· prevalent
"belief that logical inconsistencies can indicate anything else
than antecedent errors " 88 will not help him. Granted that
hypotheses are not considered as true or false but as workable
or non-workable. Granted that they are not disproved but
abandoned. Still, common sense tells us that of two contradictory propositions one is true, the other is false. We may
not know which one is false, but we do know that one of them is
false, as it is stated. It is then the task of the theorist to
re-examine the data in the hope of finding out where the element
of truth or falsity lies. He may never find the true state of
affairs, but that does not deny the existence of the truth. So
with the philosophy of organism, truth and error are both
present. The inconsistencies must be explained on the supposition that one doctrine is true, the other false as it is stated.
·we are attempting to find the truth and error in Whitehead's
conception of the unity in the universe. In treating of this
question, it has been necessary to consider the origin of the
universe. We are told definitely that whatever arises in actual
entities from God's decision arises first conceptually and is
transmitted into the actual world. This presupposes that there
may be something in actualities which is not ultimately derived
from God's decision. The insistence on the pre-existing potentialities for creation explains this pre-supposition. The eternal
objects and creativity do not arise from God's decision; they
are not created. If they are not created, and if they are not
88

Procus and Reality, p. viii.

THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

177

God Himself, we are forced to ask two questions. In the first
place," Whence do they come?" As
have seen above, our
question is unanswered.
Secondly, we ask:. "Why must all things become one with
God in the process?" Why is there this concrescence into
unity? We have seen that God is the principle of concrescence.
But a God who is merely a principle of concrescence is a source
of external order only, as a lil;lrarian is the source of order
among the books in a library. We are forced to probe deeper.
The question is no longer," Why do things become one?" but
" Why do things become? " The God of Whitehead is neither
Infinite Being nor Pure Act. He cannot be the ultimate source
of all action, all becoming, in the universe, for a thing acts only
as it is in actu. The God whom we meet in this presentation is
only deficiently actual. It is pointed out that there is a correlative of potentiality, which is "givenness." 89 There is truly a
correlative of potentiality, that which is in no way potential,
but which is in itself the source of all potentiality. This is to
say that there is Pure Act. Such a conclusion is not to be found
in Whitehead. He would hold that givenness and potentiality
are both meaningless apart from a multiplicity of potential
entities. We add that they become meaningless apart from
Pure Act, by which those potentialities become " given," or
actual. Only with such a Pure Act, can we explain any becoming in the world. If God is the cause of the becoming and being
of things, we have a right to call him the real principle of real
order. Then there is a reason for saying that all things must
become one in Him, must return to their cause. Even then one
cannot rightly say that they become physically one in God, as
Plotinus said. Material things cannot become physically one
with the Pure Spirit who is God. They must first be spiritualized and thus returned to God through the mediation of an
entity which is both material (in order to be in contact with
the world of matter) and spiritual (in order to be in contact
with the Spiritual Entity). In other words, we can predicate a
real, but only intentional and not physical, unity of the material
89

Process and Reality, p. 60.

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EDWARD

J. LINTZ

world with God. This unity is brought about through the
medium of man's knowledge. But, without the element of
causal dependence, even this theory of unity must surely fall
by the wayside of philosophical thought.
Since Professor Whitehead cannot bring himself to admit
God as Pure Act and Pure Being, he contents himself with an
aesthetic theory of creation, and a purely anthropomorphic idea
of God. He calls Him God, and then permits Him to have a
nature just like that of any other man. The aesthetic theory of
creation follows the analogy of human aesthetic " creation,"
failing to note that the methods are but analogous and not
identically the same. Man " creates " a work of art when he
uses his faculties to synthesize in a novel fashion the images
which he derives ultimately from previous sense impressions.
God, however, acts differently. Since He is the plenitude of
Being there is nothing outside Him upon which He can depend
for His "images." Derivation can only be from Himself" Not
even Bergson's memory patterns can be admitted. God does
not remember anything, He knows it. By His act of knowledge
and the will to create, things are. The theory of memory
patterns suggests that there is a past in God, while in fact
there is but one eternal present; The emphasis is placed on the
existence of these patterns in God, as if this would help one to
avoid stating that there is something outside God upon which
He depends for material in creating; The result is only confusion worse confounded. Ultimately, Bergson's theory is :reduced to one of two possibilities. Either God is a temporal
entity which can have a past, and a memory of itself in the
past; or there is something like Whitehead's eternal objects
standing eternally before the conceptual valuation of the primordial nature of God. God's action (and, therefore, God,
even the God of Whitehead) would be derived from these
objects. Yet Whitehead affirms that the principle of derivation
does not hold for Him. We are faced with a manifest contradiction. God is derived-God is not derived. One statement is
false. In fact, we can avoid all difficulties if we admit that God
is not derived, that He is the Creator, Pure Act and Eminent

THE UNITY IN THE UNIVERSE

179

Being; that He is the cause of all becoming as well as of order.
This means that Whitehead's principle of concrescence, a mere
harmonizing God who introduces external order among things,
must be abandoned. God must be admitted as a creator who
creates ex nihilo sui et subjecti. Only then has one a solid
foundation for any proper unity in the world. The world is
one because it is created by an omnipotent God, Pure Act and
Eminent Being. As an effect it is destined to return to its
cause if it is to realize its perfection as an effect. The detailed
discussion of the unity of the universe is reserved for the next
section. We have now succeeded in finding a solid foundation
for such a process of unification.
EDWARD

Nazareth College,
Rochester, N. Y.

(To be continued.)

J. LINTZ

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING
I
Yl'f ,, HE English

word " meaning " has a peculiar ambiguity
which has been to a considerable extent the source of
confusion in the many studies :recently published on
"meaning." The lack of any precision of the word" meaning,"
of any rigor
method by way of attacking the problem, and
even of full comprehension of what the problem of meaning
embraces, seems to be the most prominent characteristic of
many contemporary writers. VVe at least have to know what
they mean even if we are trying to find out the meaning of
"meaning " This can happen only if they make known to us
in some way what they are trying to impart. In many cases,
these writers have failed badly in imparting what they intend
us to understand by the problem of meaning. This is evident
because of the apparent failure of these writers to communicate
successfully with each other, and also because tangential issues
frequently seem to be argued as though they were fundamentaL
In several notable instances, the problem of meaning seems
somewhat misconstrued since, in such cases, the analysis
ously depends upon meaning and yet what is supposed to be
sought is meaning itself" There is no question.that the peculiar
nature of the problem contributes to such confusion; yet this,
in turn, should suggest exceptional care and rigor in method
and procedure. We should ask questions about meaning, and
perhaps especially about the ambiguous word itself. Still, it
seems there are some questions which need not be asked: for
example, to ask whether a given word or sentence has meaning
appears already to be a misconstruing of the problem" If words
do not already presuppose meaning in some way, then linguistic
endeavors to ascertain how they somehow come to acquire
meaning are rather futile. It amounts to the same thing as
examining a painting and then asking whether it represents
180

THE PROBLEM

OF MEANING

181

anything or not. That wouldnot seem to be the problem; the
problem would be since it is representative, how and what it
represents. This would seem evident in any work of art, of.
which language is an example. It appears, however, that we
shall not appreciate the current problem of meaning unless we
have somehow understood what it means to ask when words
and sentences are meaningful and when they are not. The ambiguity is already tremendous here; nevertheless, this is the
starting point in the present problem of meaning.
On the other hand, we should credit these contemporary
writers with raising difficulties about principles and elements
that may not have been given sufficient attention and examination. We should welcome this opportunity to face questions
and difficulties, since that is the necessary occasion for attaining a firmer grasp of the principles and elements which are
needed.
Now there certainly is, in a definite sense, a genuine problem
of meaning. But the problem of meaning can be easily misconceived if it is based principally upon the ambiguity of the oral
and written mediums which convey meaning. And when the
problem is based on a medium of expression as completely
ambiguous as the word " meaning," such a problem can only
raise a host of other difficulties, largely fruitless and unnecessary. This has happened, in part, in the current formulation of
the problem of meaning. In general, it seems accurate to say
that contemporary writers suppose that the essence of the
problem is the ambiguity of the verbal or oral signs of meaning, or even the mere verbal or oral signs of meaning as such.
We shall, then, first have to make a brief survey of some of the
current contributions to the problem of meaning in an endeavor
to locate what they encompass. Then we shall have to examine
dialectically the main points that are there proposed.
A general, though brief, survey of the problem along this
line seems to have been made by Mr. Leo Abraham in an article
he wrote entitled" Theory of Meaning." 1 After distinguishing
five general ways of treating the problem of meaning in contem1

The Monist, July, 1936, p.

f'f.

182

JOHN A. OESTERLE

porary writings, Mr. Abraham compiled a list of some fifty
different meanings of " meaning " to make the point that the
word " meaning " is hopelessly ambiguous since all these fifty
Renses of " meaning" are currently used. 2 This series of quotations serves to indicate how the contemporary problem centers
on the ambiguity of the word "meaning." The difficulty then
might seem to be how to disentangle from all these meanings
of " meaning " an " accepted " or " best " or " correct " meaning of" meaning." This is what Mr. Abraham suggests in the
following question:
How then are we to choose from among the fifty-odd different
uses of " meaning " the one basic signification, or a basic group of
connected significations, the consideration of which may legitimately be termed the "theory of meaning "? 8

Mr. Abraham goes on to point out that an arbitrary selection
is bound to be inadequate for material upon which to base
a theory of meaning. Nevertheless, he adds, the meaning of
" meaning " as signification has a certain priority and is more
or less common to any derived meanings of "meaning." Meaning as signification, then, is the least arbitrary and the most
fundamental of all the contemporary meanings of" meaning."
Mr. Abraham's final major point is that" the frequent historical departures from the basic sense of ' meaning • as signification have numerous linguistic, critical, metaphysical, and
epistemological motivations, the consideration of which provides a convenient connecting-link among many of the theories
of the various relations, characteristics, events, and objects
historically designated by the term 'meaning.'-" 4
This approach through the ambiguity of verbal meaning
seems typical of many contemporary writers. That is to say
• " Like many other philosophical terms; ' meaning ' is extraordinarily ambiguous.
Its radical ambiguity may most readily be indicated by the following group of more
than fifty typical quotations from philosophical and psychological writers, in each
of which the term 'meaning' is used in a different sense." Ibid., p. 9!28. The
extent of Mr. Abraham's list can be seen by consulting his article; it is thoroughly
representative.
'Ibid., p. !M7.
• Ibid., p. 9!48.

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

188

that, whether they realize it or not, the problem of meaning
becomes rooted in the ambiguity of the oral or written word,
for that is the only way in which we can understand the difficulty of the meaning of "meaning." Now might it not seem
obvious that meaning already has to be involved in the very
use of spoken and written language, and that once there is linguistic expression the presence of meaning could not be denied?
Yet it is precisely this that is denied in the current formulation
of the problem, and it is here that the current problem of meaning takes a decided tum for the worse.5 In brief, the situation
• Mr. Abraham's article is understandable enough. He has noted the extent of
the ambiguity of the word " meaning" as used by various writers and has compiled
a list of representative uses to indicate this extent. It is questionable whether it is
profitable to attempt to choose from this list an " accepted " or " best " or " correct "
meaning of meaning since the meaning of any word as a word has a necessary
arbitrary element in it. Nor is the problem of meaning clarified by this procedure.
While Mr. Abraham does not seem to recognize that there is this necessary
arbitrary element in any word, he does reject a solution that would be based
merely on the ambiguity of " meaning ":
"Another conceh·able answer to our quest for a definite subject-matter is the
Jlosition that the scope of the ' theory of meaning ' is basically determined by the
very ambiguity of the term 'meaning' which rendered the previous answer invalid.
The topic of the 'theory of meaning ' would, on such a view, be marked out by
the historical mutations of the word ' meaning ' and the theory itself would consist
of the elucidations of these mutations, or at least of the more common among
them, together with the determination of the truth or falsity, consistency or contradictoriness, and importance or triviality, of the various propositions in which the
considered variations of 'meaning' have been employed. Now it is clear that such
a subject-matter, while it might prove to be a very interesting philosophical
potpourri, would possess no internal coherence or continuity other than that given
by the lexicographical fact that a single word, ' meaning,' had been used, and was
perhaps still being used, for the widely varying array of conceptions included. But
if philosophy is anything more than a sub-species of lexicography, there would
seem to be no more reason for calling a dissertation on such an assortment of ideas
a ' theory of meaning ' than for bestowing that title upon a study of any other
dozen topics whose common bond was their selection at random from the Encyclopedia Britannica ..• " (p. !l38 ff.)
Mr. Abraham's full conclusion on the matter can he judged best in his own
summary of it:
" I have here attempted to show (I) that at least five distinguishable cultural
tendencies have contributed to the prominence of discussions of 'meaning ' in recent
and contemporary philosophy and psychology; (!l) that the term meaning is hopelessly ambiguous, possessing at least fifty different significations in fairly current use;
(3) that consequently thl) notion of 'real definition,' trivial or contradictory con-

4

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JOHN A. OESTERLE

seems to be this: even when there is linguistic expression, the
problem is whether that linguistic expression has meaning or
not. In other words, meaning has to be added to language,
and the problem then seems to be to discover in what way it
can be added.
Thus Mr. A. J. Ayer, in an article "Demonstration of the
Impossibility of Metaphysics," 6 puts the matter this way:
My purpose is to prove that any attempt to describe the nature
or even assert the existence of something lying beyond the reach of
empirical observation must consist in the enunciation of pseudopropositions, a pseudo-proposition being a series of words that may
seem to have the structure of a sentence but is in fact meaningless ....
So in every case where we have a series of words which seems
to be a good grammatical sentence, and we wish to discover whether
it really makes sense-i. e., whether it expresses a genuine proposition-we must consider what are the circumstances in which the
proposition apparently expressed would be called true or false:
what difference in the world its truth or falsity would entail. And
if those who have uttered it or profess to understand it are unable
to describe what in the world would be different if it were true or
false, or in any way to show how it could be verified, then we must
conclude that nothing has been asserted. 7

How are we going to find

then, when a series of words

sidered in itself, is
in determining the proper subject-matter of the theory
of 'meaning'; (4) that the valid view of definition is that which interprets it as
the process of indicating to a person or persons the individual, group, or general
signification of signs; (5) that the arbitrary selection, according to one's dominant
interest, of any definition of ' meaning' is practically and historically inadequate as
a means of providing the proper subject-matter for the theory of ' meaning'; (6) that
the sense of ' meaning' as signification, because of its temporal priority, logical
indispensability, and general ubiquity in philosophical discourse, often in concurrence with other definitions of the term, is the least arbitrary and most fundamental
of all the current senses of ' meaning ' ... " (p.
. The seventh point has been
quoted above.
8 Mind, July, 1984, p. 885 ff.
7 Ibid., pp. 885-888. Mr. Ayer thereupon demonstrates that all of the assertions
of metaphysics must be nonsense since it aims " to describe a reality lying beyond
our experience." (Mr. Abraham refers to Mr. Ayer's question-begging argument and
notes it as an argument following from an arbitrary definition " as to what anybody
does or should mean by the terms' meaningful' and' meaningless' ... " Cf. op. cit.,
p.
n.
.

THE PROBLEM

185

OF MEANING

really makes sense? It seems to have been for the solution of
this that the principle of verification was proposed. That is,
if a series of words can be verified, then that series of words has
meaning.
This principle of verification has been enunciated in various ways, but basically it means simply this: the meaning of
a sentence or proposition or assertion is the way in which it
can be verified. Mr. A. E. Blumberg, in his article "Demonstration and Inference in the Sciences and Philosophy," 8
refers to such a principle of verification. He distinguishes empirical verification from inference. A purely logical inference
needs no empirical verification since it is only another way of
saying the same thing; it deals only with the formal tautologies
of logical and mathematical assertions or propositions. There is
a kind of "empirical" inference also (i. e., an inference that is
not merely tautological) , but this is not what is meant by verification, for "an empirical inference is a guess, a leap into the
unverified. The fundamental maxim which permits (not verifies) an empirical inference is: the inferred proposition must be
theoretically capable of empirical verification. This maxim is,
in.effect, merely another way of saying that a supposed proposition which is theoretically incapable of verification is meaningless ... " 9
The question naturally arises, and is Mr. Blumberg's main
question in the article, of how philosophy and metaphysics can
use demonstration or verify propositions. There have been
two general ways to demonstrate without appeal to empirical
data. One way supposes that propositions may " intensionally" imply other propositions. But such implication, Mr.
Blumberg points out, either is identical with tautological implication or is not. If not, then the implication either is in fact
an extensional proposition which must be verified empirically,
or it may be intensional as merely defining how· a symbol is to
be used, and consequently is intensional only in relation to
syntax. The other way of demonstrating in philosophy is some8

The Monist, October, 1982, p. 577 fl".

0

Ibid., p. 581.

186

JOHN A. OESTERLE

times claimed by the: use of " non-empirical demonstrable premises." This is a sort of intensional verification which, Mr.
Blumberg decides, is only a matter of psychological attitude.
Neither way of verification is valid. Consequently, philosophy has no way of verifying its propositions; in fact, it has no
propositions. This is Mr. Blumberg's conclusion:
Therefore, philosophy does not consist of propositions (i.e., of
assertions capable of being true or false). Its assertions are strictly
speaking meaningless. They may be termed eluciqations, that is,
more or less clumsy verbal attempts on the part of a person. to
convey to others "that which cannot be said." Elucidations are
efficacious if they succeed in conveying what they are intended to
convey. The test of their efficacy is a specific set of effects upon a
qualified audience. This paper consists of elucidations. 10

Mr. Rudolf Carnap has also enunciated the principle of
verification in various ways. In an article entitled " The Construction of a Lammage-System" 11 he said:
The word " meaning " will here be taken in its empiricist sense;
an expression of language has meaning in this sense if we know how
to use it in speaking about empirical facts, either actual or possible
ones. Empiricists generally agree ... in the view that the question
whether a given sentence is meaningful is closely connected with
the questions of the possibility of verification, confirmation or
testing of that sentence. 12

If this principle is to be generalized for all meaning, then it
would follow that a sentence obtains meaning only when it is
capable of being verified or tested empirically. It was upon
such a generalization that Mr. Ayer demonstrated the impossibility of metaphysics, as did also Mr. Blumberg; for the
Ibid., p. 584.
Philosophy of Science (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, Publishers), January,
1987, p. ff.
10 Ibid., p.
This is the fourth section of Mr. Carnap's general article on " Testability and Meaning." In this section, he attempts the construction of a language
system that will fulfill the empiricist criterion of meaning.
It js interesting to note that in this article the principle of verification is noticeably modified. Complete verification is no longer possible, but only a gradual
process of confirmation. Confirmation becomes the test of meaning instead of
verification.
10

11

THE PROBLEM

OF MEANING

187

metaphysical proposition cannot be verified empirically, and
since there is no meaning without that, hence the metaphysical
propositon is meaningless.
But there have been writers who have objected to this reduction of philosophy to meaninglessness or nonsense. One of
these was Mr. W. T. Stace in his article "Metaphysics and
Meaning" 13 in which he replied directly to Mr. Ayer. Mr.
Stace first said:
Thus this new theory of meaning threatens violent revolution
over the whole domain of philosophy. For if the theory be accepted,
a great deal of the philosophy of the past is simply blown up.
Philosophers have always been accustomed to hear from their
opponents that their conceptions were false, their arguments fallacious. But they have retained at least the right to defend themselves, to retort on their opponents, if they could. But now they
are to have no Tight to open their mouths at all. For whatever they
say, whatever opinions they believe themselves to be advocating,
they are to be told that they are merely uttering nonsensical noises.
In these circumstances linguistic analysis may remain, and this may
be called philosophy if you like. But any other kind of philosophy
must simply disappear. Thus the new theory constitutes perhaps
the gravest challenge which philosophy has ever had to face.u

What, then, does Mr. Stace do about this principle of
verification? Does he reject verification as the principle of
meaning? On the contrary, he proposes another principle of
verification:
Vlfe may therefore formulate the correct principle by saying:
either that any statement, to have meaning, must symbolize
experiencible character8 of the world; or, what is the same thing,
that every concept employed m it must have empirical application. 15
... the theory of meaning which we have now evolved shows
that any statement is meaningful provided the concepts which it
employs have application in experience; or in other words, provided
what it asserts is an experiencible character of the world; and the
experience which is thus the criterion of meaning may be that of
any mind, human or non-human, provided that it shares structure
13

Mind, October, 1935, p. 417 ff.

Ibid., p. 419.
1 " Ibid., p. 426.
14

188

JOHN A. OESTERLE

with our experience. Therefore metaphysical propositions are not
necessarily, and as such, meaningless .... 16
Another writer took up the question whether the principle
of verifiability itself was mea:o.ingful. This was Mr. A. C.
Ewing, in his article "Meaninglessness." 17
In this article I intend to examine the conditions under which a
sentence may be said to be meaningless. I have been stimulated
to do so by a belief that· present-day thinkers are often far too
ready to dismiss a philosophical statement as meaningless, and
particularly by my opposition to the theory that the meaning of all
statements is to be analyzed solely in terms of verification by senseexperience.18
Mr. Ewing thereupon questions how it would be possible to
verify the statement that all meaningful statements are verifiable. In discussing this briefly, he concludes:
The statement that all meaningful statements are verifiable is therefore not itself verifiable. It follows that if it is true it is meaningless.
But a. sentence cannot possibly be both true and meaningless.
Therefore the sentence in question cannot be true, but must be
either meaningless or false. According to my view it is the latter. 14
Mr. Ewing does go on to discuss the conditions under which
" verbal expressions could be said to be meaningless," and in
so doing, lists these possibilities:
1. There are sentences which express exclamations, commands,
exhortations. These do not assert propositions, and therefore there
is a sense in which they have no meaning, though no doubt in
another sense they have a meaning since they can certainly be
understood (or misunderstood) . It is possible that a philosopher
might confuse such a sentence with a sentence expressing a proposition and so utter a sentence which had no meaning, thinking it had
a meaning, though I doubt whether this occurs at all frequently.
2. There are expressions such as the table is beside or Cambridge
is between York which are meaningless because incomplete, i. e.,
16 Ibid., p. 436. Mr. Ayer replied to this article in one entitled " The Principle
of Verifiability." (Cf. Mind, April, 1936, p. 199 ff.). Here the principle of verifiability is" weakened" to mean" that some possible observations should be relevant
to the determination of its truth or falsehood." . . . And thus on the problem of
meaning goes.
19 Ibid., p. 847.
10 Ibid., p. 849.
17 Mind, July, 1937, p. 847 ff.

THE PROBJ,EM

OF MEANING

189

the form of the expression is such as to require an additional term
to give it meaning and the additional term is absent. In the first
example there is a dyadic relation with only one term, in the second
a triadic relation with only two terms. There are, I think, cases
where philosophers have uttered meaningless expressions of this
type thinking they had a meaning ....
3. An expression may be said to be meaningless if it includes some
word or words which do not stand for anything. If the meaning
of the: word in question is complex, it might be said to be meaningless on the ground that it was self-contradictory, in which case it
will come under a later heading; but apart from this we might conceivably have a sentence containing indefinable or undefined words
which stood, not for something self-contradictory, but for absolutely
nothing at alL I do not mean merely "for nothing existent" but
for nothing of which we have any idea at all. I do not know any
clear instances of sentences containing such words in any philosopher except Lewis Carroll, but it would no doubt be alleged by
some philosophers that, e. g., "subsist" as opposed to exist or
" good " as used in Principia Ethica are examples.
4. An expression (we should hardly call it a sentence) might
consist of words all of which had a meaning and yet be itself
meaningless because the words were combined in a way contrary
to the rules of syntax, e. g., are of fond not dogs cats. The term
syntax is used here in its strictly grammatical sense, not in the
extended sense in which " grammar " is used by certain positivists.
I do not know whether there are instances of such expressions in
philosophical works excepting those due to momentary slips or
misprints.
There are no doubt these four classes of meaningless expressions,
but I come now to two other alleged classes of meaningless sentences about which I feel a good deal of doubt. In fact I shall
contend against most philosophers that they are not meaningless
at all .... 20

But Mr. Ewing's reduction of the principle of verification to
meaninglessness had already been anticipated more fundamentally by the real forerunner in the current analysis o( meaning, Mr. Ludwig Wittgenstein. 21 His influential work, Trac20 Ibid., p. 359. The two other classes of sentences Mr. Ewing goes on to discuss
are (5) a sentence such as "Quadratic equations go to mce-meetings "; and (6) any
self-contradictory statement. The point of interest here, of course, is only with
the above cases of meaningless sentences or expressions.
01 There is also another early influential article which bears upon this issue of

HlO

JOHN A. OESTERLE

tatus Logico-Philosophicus, which begins with the celebrated
announcement, " The world is everything that is the case," is,
more than any other contribution, the basis upon which the
empirical analysis of meaning, particularly the " pictorial "
representation of reality and the association of verification
with meaning, rests. 1\![r. Carnap, in discussing meaninglessness
in his article " On the Character of Philosophic Problems " 22
referred to Wittgenstein in answer to the objection that the
positivists and antimetaphysicians
themselves cut off the
branch on which they sit.
Wittgenstein has represented with especial emphasis the thesis
of the meaninglessness of metaphysical propositions and of the
identity of philosophy and. the logic of science; especially through
him has the Vienna circle been developed on this point. How now
does Wittgenstein dispose of the objection that his own propositions
are also meaningless? He doesn't at all; he agrees with it! He is
of the opinion that the non-metaphysical philosophy also has no
propositions; it operates with words, the meaninglessness of which
in the end it itself must recognize:" My propositions are elucidato:ry in this way: he who understands me finally .recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed
verification and meaning. This is F. Max Mueller's "On Thought and Language"
which appeared in The Monist for July, 1891, pp. 572-589. Here is emphasized the
intimate connection of thought and language, so intimate that they are really
inseparable. In fact, in attempting to ascertain which is :realty prior, Mr. Mueller
made this significant observation:
" Suppose we had no such word as matter, would not our whole system of thought
be different? Matter is not an object, perceived by our senses. We may even go
further and say that matter by itself never exists ....
" It is clear, therefore, that matter is made by us, and that without some such
word as matter, we could never haYe the faintest idea or concept of matter. For
how should we call it? On the other hand, it is equally dear that we could not
have the word matter, without the concept of matter. For what would be the use
of it? Now, what follows from this apparent dilemma? If the concept cannot be
prior to the name and the name cannot be prior to the concept, they must needs
be simultaneous, or, more C'Orrectly, they must be the same thing under two aspects.
"From an historical point of view, that is, if we consider the genesis of words
and concepts, not in modern times, but during that period when words and concepts
were framed for the first time, we are bound to admit that the word is really the
prim. That period may be ever so far distant, but it was nevertheless a very 1:eal
md truly historical period." (pp.
9 " Philosophy of Science, January, 1934, p. 5 ff.

THE PROBLEM

OF MEANING

191

out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak
throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it). He must
surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly. Whereof
one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." 23

There are at least two books which must be considered
briefly in relation in this problem. The first is Mr. Wilbur
Marshall Urban's Language and Reality. 24 This book is a comprehensive and extended study of the problem of meaning in
its broadest dimensions, and is certainly one of the outstanding
challenges to the current positivistic conception of meaning.
In his preface to this work, Mr. Urban shows that he fully
appreciates the fundamental implications of the
issue
while at the same time aware of its parallels in the past 25 23 Ibid., pp. 7-8.
(Cf. Tractatus Logico ..Philosophicus, Cambridge, 1933, p. 189).
Some other especially important statements for the problem of meaning from the
Tractatus are:
"2.1
\Ve make to ourselves pictures of facts.
2.11 The picture presents the facts in logical space, the existence and nonexistence of atomic facts.
2.171 The picture can represent every reality whose form it has. The spatiai
picture, everything spatial, the colored, everything colored, etc.
2.202 The picture represents a possible state of affairs in logical space.
3.02 The thought contains the possibility of the state of afiairs which it thinks.
What is thinkable is also possible.
Only the proposition has sense; only in the context of a proposition has
3.3
a name a meaning."
24 Macmillan
Company, New York, 1939.
25 " It is, perhaps,
safe to &ay that Logical Positivism has passed its zenith and
has modified its original positions to such an extent that its sensational character is
greatly softened and its initial force largely spent. But it is equally certain that
it has left a residuum of significant problems which constitutes a permanent element
in the philosophy of the present. Perhaps the best way to introduce the present
study is to relate it to that movement. The writer shares with those of this way
of thinking the belief that problems of language are basal for science and philosophy.
If philosophy is not solely a ' critique of language,' as is frequently maintained,
such a critique is C'ertainly an indispensable prolegomenon to philosophy ....
" There are those who seem to ascribe all our difficulties, economic, political, and
social, to the ' tyranny of words ' which hide from us the realities of things. There
are those, on the other hand, who find in ' blessed words,' with all their ac-cumulated
intension, the very actuality of culture and the embodiment of reality. It is not
my object here to decide between these two extremes, but merely to suggest that
what are called verbal questions are really not merely verbal but go to the heart
of philosophical issues. In any case, I think it must be patent to all that a philoso-

192

JOHN A. OESTERLE

indeed, Mr. Urban is one of the few contemporary writers who
has sufficient philosophical perspective and insight both to
see into a problem and to see beyond the narrowness of a
couple of decades of contribution;
short, he is not only not
ignorant of what has already been accomplished throughout
the tradition of thought, but he is also able to make use of
the wealth of material that is available on this old and new
problem of meaning.
Mr. Urban's book is divided into two main sections: (1)
"The Philosophy of Language" and (2) "The Principles of
Symbolism." Obviously, just criticism cannot be made here
in space that must be so confined. It can be said, generally,
that Mr. Urban, though at the expense of considerable repetition, does raise and face all the main issues. There is, however,
the primary point on verification and meaning that deserves
consideration here, and it is rather significant to note just how
Mr. Urban treats this point in relation to the way various
positivists have developed it. In fact, he seems to accept the
association and identity of verification and meaning quite as
completely as the foregoing writers.
Mr. Urban discusses, for example, the statement of Mx"o
Ca:rnap that the meaning of an assertion is the way in which
it may be verified.
In other words the meaning is the verification. A consequence of
this is that all uses of language to which the question of truth or
falsity is irrelevant (if there be such uses) are, ipso facto, meaningless. Now I am not disposed to doubt this general statement of a
necessary relation of meaning to truth, if it is properly understood
26

phy of language such as that of the New Positivists, which would eliminate whole
areas of human discourse as meaningless and unintelligible, has significant implications for human cultnre. It might conceivably be the prelude to a brave new
world in which the human spirit, having rid itself of the ghosts of Plato and
Aristotle, and the impedimenta of the centuries, should enter into the full light
of a wholly ' scientific ' era. It might, on the other hand, conceivably be a symptom
of a decaying culture and a prelude to a scientific barbarism and a cultural nihilism.
In any case, the issues presented by so untoward a situation constitute a challenge
to critical thought." (Ibid., pp. U-13).
•• Ibid., p. 209. He then discusses the emotive use of language.

THE PROBLEM

OF MEANING

193

After repeating that he grants the general truth of the statement that there is no meaning where the question of truth or
falsity is wholly irrelevant, Mr. Urban then points out:
Verifiability may mean two quite different things which must be
carefully distinguished. On the one hand, it may mean a certain
character of the content of one's assertion or hypothesis which
makes it possible actually to satisfy the conditions of verification.
On the other hand, it may mean merely a certain character of one's
assertion or hypothesis which marks it off from the unverifiable,
but which does not, however, involve necessarily the possibility of
actual verification. 27

With this distinction made in the use of the term "verifiability," Mr. Urban proceeds by stating:
It is verifiability in this latter sense alone, then, that can with
any show of reason be made the criterion of meaning. Let us see,
then, in what verifiability in this sense is held to consist, that which,
although actual verification may be forever impossible, yet makes
the assertion in principle verifiable. . .. It is the possibility of sense
experience. The mountain on the other side of the moon may not
be actually observable, but the fact that it is intrinsically observable
makes the assertion meaningful. 28

Mr. Urban says there is no question that where there is verifiability in this sense, the assertion is also meaningful. But he
does question whether such assertions only are meaningful.
Mr. C. I. Lewis, he points out, holds there are cases
where meaning may go beyond the possibility of verification
altogether, such as "the conception of other selves." 29 This
leads Mr. Urban to say:
Ibid., p. 210.
Ibid., pp. 210-211.
29 The full quotation
from Mr. Lewis is: "In the nature of the case I cannot
verify you as another centre of experience different from myself, and yet the
meaningfulness of the supposition of other selves is unquestioned. There is nothing
to which I can give more explicit empirical content than to the supposition of a
consciousness like mine connected with a body like mine. The conception of
selves as metaphysical ultimates exemplifies the philosophic importance that may
attach to a supposition which is nevertheless unverifiable on account of the limitations of knowing." (C. I. Lewis, "Experience and Meaning," Philo.wphical Review,
Vol. Vll, No. 2, p. 146.)
27

28

194

JOHN A. OESTERLE

It seems necessary to conclude, therefore, that while there is
meaningful assertion wherever there is reference to empirically
observable entities, there is also meaningful assertion where there
is no such reference. The question now arises whether these facts
contradict the preliminary position that the meaning of an assertion
is connected with its verifiability. Obviously we are here faced
with a definite alternative. Either we accept Professor Lewis's
position or else maintain the view that there are other ways of
verification. It is the latter alternative which seems to me to be
demanded by the facts. I shaH presently develop a theory of
verification along these lines. 30
In discussing whether the supposition
other selves is
meaningful, Mr. Urban admits that there might be some justification in thinking that the condition o£ meaningfulness is not
verifiability
(" but rather imaginability ") . But with no
explicit reason, Mr. Urban discards this view and states that
he is " equally disposed to think that such content alone does
not make the supposition meaningful, and that what does make
it meaningful here also is, in the last analysis, the way in which
it may be verified." 31
Mr. Urban, then, like Mr. Stace, does not reject verification
as the principle of meaning, but counters by proposing other
ways of verification:
It has been repeatedly pointed out that the proposition that the
meaning of an assertion is the way in which it may be verified,
contains a circle and creates a predicament. For we cannot determine the verifiability of the assertion until we know what it
means. What, then, does this predicament suggest? Not that meaning and verification are independent and unrelated, but rather that
there are different ways of verification dependent upon the meaning
of the assertions or the different universes of discourse in which they
are made. It is true that when the universe of discourse in which
the assertion is made is the " physical " context, verification does
involve :reference to an observable entity. On the other hand, it is
equally clear that assertions are made in other universes of discourse
in which no such reference is implied. It does not mean, however,
that such assertions are either without meaning or unverifiable in
every sense. We may say that such meanings are· authentic even
30

Ibid., p. !i!U.

31

Ibid., p. 212.

THE PROBLEM

195

OF MEANING

when they are not verifiable in the narrow sense of the empirical
criterion. 32
Mr. Urban then proceeds to explain more fully what he
means by " authentication," which is also to mean a way of
verification in order to get meaning:
This, then, is the notion of authentication, the use of which is,
I think, justified by appeal to the aesthetic. As we shall see, it is
everywhere present in human discourse, and is indeed-this is one
of our main contentions-presupposed
in empirical verification
itself. Within this general notion of authentication we may distinguish direct and indirect. It is from a case of indirect authentication that we started, namely, the reality of other selves, and to this
type we shall return, but it is important to understand first what
direct authentication is-its nature and its range.
Direct verification, in the ordinary sense, consists in reference
to an observable entity, and the primary instance is said to be
" pointing." Verification in this sense is possible only in a physical
context or universe of discourse, but there are similar or analogous
types of authentication in other universes of discourse. In direct
authentication we may speak of "showing forth" (Aufweisen) of
some quale or relation. In developing this form of direct authentication, I shall purposely take my illustrations from the universe of
ethical discourse and value propositions, for the reason that it is
precisely assertions of this .sort that, on the basis of the empirical
criterion or norm, are said to be unverifiable and therefore meaningless .... 33
After citing some examples of assertions of value which
involve showing forth " some quale or relation which is
intuited, and in that intuition acknowledged" (e. g., the assertion that an action is "proud"), 1\1r. Urban summarizes the
two forms of verification known as " authentication ": Direct
authentication " is a form of verification which takes place in
communication-in
the mutual acknowledgement of values
and their relations," while the indirect, in following upon the
direct, " consists in the mutual acknowledgement
of the

implications of that discourse." 34
Finally, for our purpose here, in maintaining that meaning
•• Ibid., p. £18.

•• Ibid., p. £15.

"Ibid., p. 217.

196

JOHN A. OESTERLE

and verifiability, as here explained, are inseparable and that
all verification must be reduced ultimately to the verification
which is authentication, Mr. Urban raises the question of the
relation of meaning and truth, since his remarks tend to make
an identification between the two. Mr. Urban discusses this
himself:
We have already called attention to the circular character of the
relation between meaning and verifiability. The meaning of an
assertion, it may properly be said, is the way in which it may be
verified; but we cannot determine the way of verification until we
have determined the sense of the proposition. The reason why the
assertion that there are other selves cannot be verified by the
"empirical criterion" is because it does not mean something that
can be thus verified. Meaning is, then, in a sense " logically " prior
to verification. But it is also logically more ultimate. That is, in
the very fact that we have established the meaningfulness of the assertion of the existence of other selves, as the necessary presupposition of the meaningfulness of discourse about other things, we
have in that very process verified it. This situation may be stated
in the following way. All meaningful propositions, qua meaningful,
are ipso facto true or contain elements of truth. To distinguish the
meaningful from the unmeaning in discourse is inevitably to determine true propositions. 35
Although this seems paradoxical, Mr. Urban admits, nevertheless meaning and truth tend ultimately to coincide, although
initially they do not. Thus, when speaking about mountains
on the other side of the moon this, being a sensuously observable entity, needs to be actually observed to be verified, and is
therefore only verifiable (though being "in principle" somehow meaningful) . But the " assertion that there are other
selves is a meaningful proposition and, in this case at least, to
say that it is meaningful is the same thing as to say that it is
true." 36
Consequently:
Truth, then, in the last analysis, is immanent in discourse-the
sum-total of intelligible discourse is the truth. V eritas in dicta, non
in re consistit. If there is no knowing that does not involve expres•• Ibid., p. 889.

18

Ibid;, p. 890.

THE PROBLEM

OF MEANING

197

sion (and ultimately linguistic expression), whether such knowledge
be knowledge by acquaintance or knowledge by description, then
it is only in language that the meaning of that knowledge can be
elucidated and interpreted. The proposition Veritas in dicto is often
interpreted as nominalism-and as used by Hobbes, with his theory
of language, it could not be otherwise-but properly interpreted it
need not be. For, as we have shown, it is precisely a nominalistic
theory of language which makes it impossible that truth should be
found in discourse. Nominalism not only paralyses speech but
stultifies all discourse. It is precisely because names are not mere
nomina, not mere conventional signs, that it is possible to maintain
that if our discourse is ultimately intelligible it is also, in its totality,
ultimately the truth .... 37
The other book is Mr. Bertrand Russell's An Inquiry Into
Meaning and Truth. 38 This is also an influential work on this
problem and represents the fruition of the observations of Mr.
Russell over a period of years. The book itself is based on the
lectures and discussions given by the author at the University
of Chicago in 1938-39, and at the University of California in
1939-40. Mr. Russell inclines toward the logical positivists,
although he is not in complete agreement with them. In his
own words, the two main questions in his book are: " What
is meant by ' empirical evidence for the truth of a proposition ' ? " and "What can be inferred from the fact that there
sometimes is such evidence? "
The opening chapter "What is a Word?" might seem to
throw considerable light on the matter at hand. At the end of
the chapter, however, the reader may still be in considerable
doubt as to what a word is since the consideration of a word
as a " mound of ink " or a " verbal utterance " not only seems
inadequate but tends to confuse with words what may also be
mounds of ink or verbal utterances without being words. It
would seem that the notion of a word cannot be grasped unless
not only meaning or significance is involved, but also a certain
kind of significance-this, however, apparently is a part of the
problem of meaning. But it is regrettable that even here so
•• Ibid., p. 594.
•• W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, 1940.

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JOHN A. OESTERLE

much is ignored or overlooked that is necessary simply to focus
the problem of meaning. Perhaps such a question as "Why
are Words?" would tend to pose the problem more rigorously
and get us beyond mere verbalism, 39
The part of Mr. Russell's book, however, that has most
bearing on the present problem is Chapter 13, "The Significance of Sentences," which merits at least brief summary here.
The sentence " Socrates is a man " is significant because it
recognizes the rules of syntax. The expression " is a man," as
a complete sentence, violates the rules of syntax and is nonsensical, " nonsensical " being the contradictory of " significant." " Quadruplicity drinks procrastination " is likewise
nonsense, although it does not violate syntax. Consequently,
better rules of syntax must be drawn to prevent nonsense.
There is an objective and a subjective side to every assertion: subjectively, the assertion "expresses" a state of the
speaker; objectively, the assertion is true when it "indicates" a
fact and is false if it does not do so.
Thus, true and false sentences are equally significant, but a string
of words which cannot express any state of the speaker is nonsensical . . . The question of significance may be brought into
connection with sentences heard rather than spoken. The hearing
of a significant statement has effects dependent upon the nature of
the statement but not upon its truth or falsehood; the hearing of
what is recognized as nonsense has no such effects. It is true that
what is in fact nonsense may have effects such as only a significant
statement should have, but in that case the hearer usually imagines
a signification of which the words are not strictly susceptible.
Broadly speaking, we may say that a heard statement, interpreted
by the hearer as significant, is capable of effects of which obvious
nonsense is incapable. 40

There are three kinds of sentences: true, false, and nonsensicaL A nonsensical sentence will not be false, although to say
it is true is false. "We shall say that, when a sentence is mean30 However, in the chapter on "Significance
and Verifiability" Mr. Russell attacks
strongly the principle of verifiability. See especially p. 387: " ... All those who
make ' verification ' fundamental overlook the real problem, which is the relation
between words and non-verbal occurrences in judgments of perception .... "
•• Ibid., p.

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

199

ingless, so is its negation." 41 If there is something that a sentence signifies, the sentence is significant; if there is nothing
that it signifies, then it is nonsensical. "Socrates is a man" is
significant because it signifies something, while " is a man "
signifies nothing. Too many words may also not make sense:
" ' Socrates is a man' is a man." '' The law of contradiction is
yellow " is a kind of nonsense. The sentence " I am lying "
seems to signify something, but it does not.
The difficulty, then, is to decide when a string of words
signifies something and when it does not; and if it does signify
something, whether that something must be different from the
sentence " or whether significance can be merely adjectival."
" A sufficient but not necessary criterion of significance is that
perceptual experiences can be imagined, or can actually occur,
which make us use the phrase (or its contradictory) as an
assertion." 42
The truth of the statement " snow is white " is different
from the expression of it: the statement is made true by a fact
of physics; the expressing of it expresses the state of mind,
that is, asserts the object of belief, not the mere having of the
belief. The question then is: Is there an object of belief? " ...

if beliefs have objects, what I believe when I believe that snow is
white is the same as what I doubt when I ask ' is snow white? '
This, whatever it is, is, on this hypothesis, the significance of the
sentence 'snow is white' ... If we can decide what is meant by
the 'significance' of a sentence, we shall say that it is this significance that is to be called a' proposition,' and that it is either true or
false: . . . To try to discover what is meant by the ' significance ' of
a sentence, let us contrast a significant sentence with one that is not.
Take' Socrates drinks the hemlock' and' quadruplicity drinks procrastination.' Of these the former logically can be, and once was, a
judgment of perception; when it is not a judgment of perception,
it is capable of calling up a complex image which has the same
significance as, or, perhaps, is the significance of the phrase. But
we cannot form an image of quadruplicity drinking. When we try
to do so, we merely imagine some man whom, for fun, we call
43
" Quadruplicity "
u

Ibid., p. 216.

5

•• Ibid., p. 219.

•• Ibid., pp. 221-22.

200

JOHN A. OESTERLE

The question may be put in this form: " What do we believe
when we believe something? " If a number of people believe
there is going to be an explosion, they have in common a state
of tension or expectation
but the difficulty arises as regards the connection of this (a) with
the explosion or its absence, (b) with something which, in order to
be vague, we will call the " idea " of the explosion.44
Perhaps we can now explain the "significance" of a sentence as
follows: First: some sentences signify observed facts; how this
happens, we have already considered. Second: some observed facts
are beliefs. A belief need not involve any words at all in the
believer, but it is always possible (given a suitable vocabul,ary) to
find a sentence signifying the perceived fact that I have such-andsuch a belief. If this sentence begins " I believe that," what follows
the word " that " is a sentence signifying a proposition, and the
proposition is said to be what I am believing. Exactly similar
remarks apply to doubt, desire, etc.45
But this has some difficulties. Yet there seems to be something to the suggestion that a sentence is significant if "I
believe that p " or " I doubt that p " " can describe a perceived
fact in which words need not occur."
We can say that the significance of an atomic sentence is a
state (as a complex image) or set of states (as a set of like
complex images) of the believer. Images, as a form of language,
differ from words in not containing any nonsense. Now the
something that a sentence signifies cannot be the fact that
makes it true or fals.e, and hence must be something in the
person believing the sentence. This might be images. But the
bringing in of images and the distinction between propositions
and sentences may well be an unnecessary complication. Perhaps significant and nonsensical sentences can be distinguished
in the effects of the hearer rather than the speaker.
An article by Kaplan and Copilowish entitled " Must There
Be Propositions?" in Mind for October, 1939, is then reviewed
with which Mr. Russell takes issue by answering it affirmatively in pointing out that the term "implicit behavior" is
what he means by proposition; and this, of course, must always
"Ibid., pp. 228-24.

•• Ibid., p. 226.

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

201

be present. This leads to a conclusion of this part of the chapter
in which the following is summarized: Propositions do have to
be distinguished from sentences, but they are to be defined as
psychological and physiological occurrences, and it is these
that sentences express. Words are not essential to propositions;
the only essential point is that sentences signify something
other than themselves, which is psychological or physiological.
In reproducing this section of Mr. Russell's book, it is the
point on significance and sentences which is emphasized. Mr.
Russell does not, as has been seen, associate verifiability and
meaning in the manner of the foregoing writers; he recognizes
the futility of it and insists it ignores the real problem. However, Mr. Russell does accept meaningless or nonsensical sentences. Incidentally, there would seem to be a difference
between meaningless and nonsensical; this point appears to
have been overlooked by all, although this may be partly a
matter of terminology-as to how we are to understand
"meaningless" and "nonsensical." There is, apparently, in
the current issue also the problem of the meaning of " meaninglessness."
At any rate, in the case of Mr. Russell, sentences may be
both significant and nonsensical, where " nonsensical " is the
contradictory of" significant." This again raises the apparently
inevitable problem of how to distinguish nonsensical sentences
from significant sentences. According to Mr. Russell, this will
depend upon the rules of syntax, although it is not quite clear
how this is to be related to his remark that the real problem
for meaning or significance is the relation between words and
non-verbal occurrences. "Syntax" here is taken in a wider
sense than its purely grammatical significance; generally, it
means both the logical and
connections or relations between terms in virtue of which propositions or sentences
are formed. 48 This, in turn, will raise the question whether
significance is established in terms of the rules of syntax or,
on the contrary, whether rules of syntax are formulated in
•• In addition to Chapter 13, Mr. Russell also treats of syntax in Chapter 2:
" Sentences, Syntax, and Parts of Speech."

202

JOHN A. OESTERLE

terms of significance. Or: does significance presuppose syntax
or does syntax presuppose significance? It is this which has important bearing on the question of how sentences are meaningful, and whether sentences can be meaningless. In connection
with this, Mr. Russell has also said:
. . . Does logic or theory of knowledge need " propositions " as
well as " sentences "? Here we may define a " proposition," heuristically, as" what a sentence signifies." Some sentences are significant,
others are not; it is natural, though perhaps mistaken, to suppose
that, when a sentence is significant, there is something that is its
significance. If there is such a something, it is what I mean by the
word " proposition." . . .
Whether or not there is a substantive "significance," 1 there is
certainly an adjective "significant." I apply this adjective to any
sentence that is not nonsense. " Significant " and " significance "
are words that I apply to sentences, whereas" meaning" is a word
that I apply to single words. This distinction has no basis in usage,
but it is convenient. When a sentence is not significant, I call it
" nonsensical."
No ordinary language contains syntactical rules forbidding the
construction of nonsensical sentences; e. g., the sentence " quadruplicity drinks procrastination" is not one that grammarians can
condemn. Yet it seems clear that it must be possible to construct a
language having the following two properties:
(1) Every sentence composed according to the rules of syntax
out of words having meaning is significant;
Every significant sentence consists of words having meaning
and put together according to the rules of syntax .
. . . But although it should be possible, in a good language, to
give syntactical rules determining when a sentence is significant,
it must not be supposed that " significance " is a syntactical concept. On the contrary, a non-tautologous sentence is significant in
virtue of some relation that it has to certain states of the person
using the sentence. These states are " believings " and are instances
of the same belief which is " expressed " by the sentence. In defining
the relation of the sentence to the belief (which latter is in general
non-verbal), we have to remember that false sentences are significant as well as true ones. And when the relation has been defined,
we have to show that our syntactical rules of significance are such
as it justifies.
n Ibid., pp. 208-!UO.

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

208

II
There is the initial difficulty of understanding adequately
the meaning of these writers who have made contributions to
the problem. Since the problem is meaning itself, the difficulty
is apparently increased. How could we ever reach an understanding, and much less a solution, of the ,problem of meaning
if the meaning of "meaning " is likewise a problem? It is possible to remain indefinitely in this void, and it appears that
some of the writers have remained on the level of verbal
ambiguity. 48
For example, we could conceivably approach the problem in
a like manner. We could remark that the question "What is
the meaning of meaning?" seems to present many difficulties
to be solved before we can decide what the question asks, i. e.,
what the question means. This seems quite plausible when
one considers the various ways in which it has been answered.
Does the question mean, for example, " What is the meaning of the word 'meaning'?" If so, then the answer is in a
good dictionary wherein is stated all that the word " meaning "
has been used to mean. In this meaning, the word " meaning "
has many meanings, and their enumeration seems to be an
adequate answer to the question. And yet it might be pointed
out that in this meaning of the question, the first word "meaning " is a case of what the word " meaning " is used to mean.
Now if this particular case in which the ambiguous word
" meaning " is used is itself ambiguous, then the question
"What is the meaning of the word 'meaning'?" remains inextricably ambiguous. This seems to suggest that if we lay
claim to knowing what we mean by the question we are taking
both words " meaning " in an unambiguous meaning: the first
means the meaning of the word and nothing else; the second
means the word " meaning" and nothing else, i. e., the deter•• It has been possible, of course, only to reproduce a few of the many treatments
of this problem, and those only briefly and insofar as they serve to indicate what
appear to be the main difficulties, issues, and suggestions for solution. These are
used now to try to centralize the problem.

JOHN A" OESTERLE

minate or particular word we actually use to mean the act of
meaning, to mean what is meant thereby, etc"
Should it not be pointed out, then, that while the question is
about an ambiguous word, the word itself is not used amleast not if we know
we ask? The word
" ambiguous " itself may be ambiguous in two ways: first, in
this word, as any other word, may be used to mean very
different things; second, in
it applies to all words of which
it is itself a case" But there would remain a respect in which
it is not ambiguous, namely when I use it to mean
word
which may
ambiguous in
two mentioned ways"
From this might be shown that if in the question " What is
the meaning of ' meaning '? " the first word " meaning " is
ambiguous,
to mean the word " meaning"
itself
be ambiguous" The question would then be ambiguous" And
if it is ambiguous to the one
asks the question, then he
does not know what he is asking" And if, for the sake of argument, it were conceded that even the first word " meaning " in
" What is the meaning of meaning ' ? " is considered ambiguous, then it would follow not only that the question itself is
inextricably ambiguous, but also that even this concession
cannot escape taking the word " meaning " in some definite
meaning insofar as it means the ambiguous word " meaning "
as the condition of the ambiguity of the question" From this
difficulty there seems no escape"
words cannot be used
unambiguously, can there be any communication at all? Couid
one ever know what the other means? Could the other himself
mean something?
Again, the question might mean: What is the meaning of the
first word " meaning " in the question " What is the meaning
of 6 meaning ' ? " If this question means something, the word
"meaning," which is ambiguous, should be used unambiguously" What, then, does it mean here?
do we mean when
the meaning of a word? Would we not mean
we ask
"What does the word signify?" And would we not answer
by the signified? And is this not called the meaning of the
word? Whatever the ambiguity of the word" meaning" when
6

THE PROBLEM

OF MEANING

it is used in this context, does it not signify unambiguously?
And if its use cannot be narrowed down to this signification,
does the question merit being asked? But it can only remain
doubtful that this is what the question asks. For the one who
asks it should be the one to do the narrowing down.
Or, perhaps, in this question, "meaning" stands for the
act of signifying one thing by another, or for what is signified.
Then it might be put more explicitly by asking: " What is the
signified of signifying?" or by "What does signification signify?" This might help to bring out the verbalism of the question" What is the meaning of meaning?" which in fact seems to
mean "What is signification? "And if this is true, then it might
be shown that certain highly critical authors have been
copiously indulging in what they mean to be most critical of.
The same way of proceeding could be adopted in exploiting
the verbalism of the question "What is the meaning of 'meaninglessness'?" But the merit of mere verbal expatiation seems,
despite the attention given to it, very dubious. If we can skip
by most of the void of verbal ambiguity, it does become important to determine how we are to understand what constitutes " meaninglessness " or nonsense as it is employed by the
various writers. And in this contemporary issue," meaningless "
is more significant for the problem than meaning itself.
Are we to understand, for example, when it is claimed that
words or sentences are meaningless that actually the words or
sentences in question really have no meaning? Or, are we to
understand that the expression in question does not convey
meaning to the reader or listener, although it may to the user?
It might also mean that the user employs words whose meaning
he does not understand and which, in addition, the reader or
listener may or may not understand.
If either of the last two possibilities is meant· the problem is,
of course, a normal and frequent one. A person need not know
the meaning of words he can pronounce, and the person is rare
who knows the meaning of all words directed to him. Now
when a person does not understand communication that is
directed to him, he frequently says: "That's meaningless," or

206

JOHN A. OESTERLE

"That's nonsense." Here again, a certain amount of verbal
ambiguity has to be contended with, for he may mean by that
remark only that a particular statement is odd or ridiculous.
In this case he does not really mean " meaningless " or " nonsense," as almost everyone, except perhaps some philosophers
of language, would distinguish between the ridiculous and the
strictly meaningless. When we say, for example, that Lewis
Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is nonsense, we mean "nonsense" in the sense of ridiculous. Only a narrow semanticist,
possibly, could be logically led to mean that it was strictly
would have to
meaningless, .in which case any laughter
be somehow merely idiotic. We may, however, consider it fairly
safe to say that while "meaningless" or "nonsense" may
mean, among other things, the ridiculous, it is not this use
which concerns us here, although a certain kind of semantic
analysis of various sentences of Alice in Wonderland might be
fascinating in this connection.
The person might mean by" That's meaningless" that it is
meaningless " to me ., and merely fail to utter aloud that significant prepositional phrase. This, again, is a frequent occurrence, and many fallacies arise therefrom because the person
deduces from the state of its " meaninglessness " to him the
" meaninglessness " of the statement itself.
These last two possibilities do not provide any insuperable
difficulties that an intelligent use of the liberal arts might not
clear up and consequently we must revert to, the first case of
the meaning of "meaningless" as it appears in the various
writings. We must understand, then, that words or sentences
can be meaningless, where " meaningless " is to mean devoid of
all sense, signification, understanding, intelligibility, and so on.
It seems hard to grasp the full meaninglessness of meaningless
in this meaning, but this seems to be what the different writers
intend. 49 They mean there is no meaning at all. If this is not
' 9 Very likely we should also ask whether in "meaningless"
meaning is to be
denied in a privative sense or in an absolutely negated sense. That is, whether
meaning is absent from where it ought to be or, might have been, or whether
meaning cannot possibly be present. It seems that the absolute denial of meaning

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

207

what they mean, then many of their remarks become somewhat
absurd although, of course, still meanjngful. How else could
the issue of "meaninglessness" be understood? How else can
their writings have any point? How else can the principle of
verification be appreciated as they introduce it? Why else
would such statements as " Quadratic equations go to racemeetings," " Quadruplicity drinks procrastination," or any
handy metaphysical sentence that may be lying around, be
questioned? Perhaps this labors a point that is evident enough.
"Meaningless," after all, does mean no meaning. This point,
however, is an important one and we must be as sure as we can
that this is the one certain point in the current problem,
namely, that there are meaningless words and sentences, and
that we know what is meant thereby. If we ignore this, we
ignore the contemporary problem altogether. We must, then,
in order to face the problem with them, continue on to ask
questions and discuss suggestions as to when oral or written
expressions have meaning and when they have not.
For example, the suggestion has been made that " meaning" be used in an empiricist sense. It might be put in the form
of the following question: Does an expression of language have
meaning when we know how to use it in speaking about
empirical facts?
Here again we might revert to the endless regress of defining
a word by using an instance of it. Then, too, there could be the
difficulty of how we are to understand " meaning " in only a
narrowed case of it. For if the word " meaning " is to be taken
here in its empiricist sense, would we not have to know the
meaning of the word " meaning " in order to know the meaning
of its empiricist sense? Or would we not have to presuppose
what we mean by the word " meaning " in order to know what
is to be meant by it in its empiricist sense? Would we not have
difficulty in knowing what the remark means because it is playis meant, as the privative sense would imply that there is or ought to be some
meaning in some way. Etymologically, "meaningless" should mean in a privative
sense, while "nonsense" should mean the absolute denial. Popularly, the meanings
seem to have become reversed.

208

.JOHN A. OESTERLE

ing upon the ambiguity of " meaning ,. and " sense "? Does not
the remark only seem to be saying that the word "meaning.,
will be taken in its empi:ricist meaning (sense) and that an
expression of language has meaning
this meaning (sense)
if we know how to use it?
Or again, the :remark seems· to be saying that an expression
of language has meaning when we know how to use it, But is
that saying anything else than an expression of language has
meaning only when we use it as having meaning? For we can
use it about empirical facts only when we use it meaningfully.
But is not this only saying that an expression of language has
meaning when it has? And how would that differ from an
expression of language being an expression of language olliy
when it is an expression
language?
The inevitable difficulty here is that we have to know already
the mea:ning of .. mea:ning " in order to know the special
ing. The problem is escaped by ignoring it, and by arbitrarily
assuming that whatever " meaning " may mean it is here to
mean a special meaning of "meaning." This would, perhaps,
be admissible if it were not used as a dub to reduce any other
meaning to " meaninglessness,'' This is what has been done
repeatedly in the current issue, Any expression of language
which is not used about " empirical facts " or in connection
with "'empirical investigation" is ipso facto meaningless. We
need not be surprised, then, if the attempt has been made to
demonstrate the impossibility of metaphysics, or for that
matter it could be Alice in Wonderland o:r anything else that
" lies beyond empirical observation." Fo:r in this remarkable
inference any attempt to describe the nature of something lying
beyond the reach of empirical observation must in fact be
meaningless,
And yet if such is the case, would not such a statement or
demonstration itself be « meaningless " ? 5 ° For something that
lies beyond the reach of empirical observation should be something which is such that it does lie beyond the reach of em•• Mr. Ewing (op. cit.) has also used this same sort of argument against the
principle of verification.

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

209

pirical observation and is therefore said to be meaningless. But
is not this itself, then, what is meant by " meaningless " ? For
does not this statement imply that what lies beyond the reach
of empirical observation is something which cannot be verified
by empirical verification? Must not this mean that what lies
beyond the reach of empirical observation is meaningless, and
yet at the same time must not it mean something which is not
within the reach of empirical observation? Granting a flexibility of meaning here, must we not say that even so such a
statement or demonstration is, in its own terms, meaningless?
How could such a statement lie within the reach of probable,
possible, hypothetical, or even imaginary, empirical verification?
Then again, in these circumstances, could we admit a difference between statements that are proper to a fairy tale and
statements that are proper to empirical science? For if the
meaningfulness of a statement depends upon its being within
the reach of empirical observation, and if statements used in
fairy tales are known to mean fairy tales, then fairy tales would
have to be within the reach of empirical observation and be
empirical facts. But if there is some difference between fairy
tales and empirical science, how would we know the difference
between a statement used in a fairy tale and a statement lying
within the reach of empirical observation unless we know what
it means for a statement to lie beyond the reach of empirical
observation? But would not this imply that statements may
mean something non-empirical? If not, could we ever discover
whether empirical facts are fairy tales or fairy tales are
empirical facts?
If there is a dilemma here, perhaps it can be broken by
going beyond words, statements, and sentences to " concepts."
This at least is suggested by a writer who is dis&atisfied with
the foregoing demonstration. This suggestion seems to have
the merit of attempting to leave the realm of mere verbalism.
Here a statement becomes meaningful if the concepts employed
have application in experience in some way, which might
seem to broaden the scope of meaning somewhat.
Of course, the use of " concepts " may cause a repressed

JOHN A.. OESTERLE

shudder in some. There is a fair chance of its being meaningless, and hence it may result in the common faUacy of begging
the question. But it is clear that help is needed wherever it
may come, and « concepts " (" notions," " ideas," " understandings," " thoughts ") need not be despised metaphysical
entities which depend upon a superstitious past. As with any
other word, a good deal depends upon what is intended to be
imparted by it.
In the present instance, there is presumably a distinction
between words and concepts. And probably by " concepts " is
meant notions distinct in some way from their verbal expression. Now it seems to be implied in this suggestion that there
can be meaningless concepts, since only those concepts which
have application in experience are meaningfuL What, then,
would a meaningless concept be? Is it one that would not
have application in experience? Would we not have to know
by a concept that it does not have application in experience?
And would it be possible to have a concept that did not have
application in experience? Would not the mere having of a
concept be an application in experience? Can I conceive or
understand without meaning?
Would a concept of a concept have application in experience?
Can I not conceive that I conceive and is this meaningless?
And, for the sake of argument, if a concept could be meaningless, could I have a concept of a meaningless concept? Would
not the concept of a meaningless concept at least have to mean
a meaningless concept? But would not this be asserting an
experiencible character of the world? And would the concept
of a concept have application in experience? What is involved
in meaningless concepts that makes them meaningless? Would
it be because they have a meaningless meaning?
Is a non-human mind an experiencible character of the
world? Is it a concept? U it is not applicable in experience is
it not then meaningless? Would not non-human experience be
meaningless? To be meaningful, the non-human mind and the
non-human experience should have application in experienceo
But could a non-human mind sharing structure with our
experience be an experiencible character of the world?

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

211

To shift meaninglessness from words and sentences to concepts may not be as helpful as it might seem. For there may
not be so much difference between attempting to decide when
words are meaningful and when concepts are meaningful, since
the same fascinating difficulty recurs of trying to decide when
either is meaningful, which accordingly exacts knowing when
they are meaningless and how we can know that we know
they are meaningless. But is not this all, nevertheless, quite
significant?
The problem, in clearer terms, seems to revolve around
meaning and verification in various ways. The problem seems
to center on what means of verification to employ in order to
secure meaning. Meaning and verification, we are told, are
inseparably related. This leads one writer to suggest that because of this inseparable relation, meaning and truth have to
be identified ultimately. In other words, to distinguish the
meaningful from the " unmeaning " is really to distinguish
the true from the false.
The " true " and the " false " are likewise fighting terms, but
perhaps there can be somewhat general agreement in understanding them to mean that when something is asserted it is
either so or not so, which in turn is determined in various
ways. This is rather gross, but not too gross for our present
purposes. We also avoid at this point the endless regress possible in ascertaining the meaning of truth if meaning and truth
are (ultimately) to be identified. There is not, of course, such
a regress in ascertaining the meaning of the false, although
there may be a peculiarity.
And yet why must meaning and truth be identified, even ultimately? Is it evident that wherever there is meaning there
must be truth? If the true to be true must be meaningful,
does it also follow that a meaning to be a meaning must be
truthful? How could a statement be judged true without having a meaning to be judged? And if a proposition is false, how
do we know that it is false and not true except in terms of what
it means? How could we determine between truth and falsity
if what is meaningful must be ultimately true? Can not mean-

JOHN A. OESTERLE

ings be both true and false and hence must there not be some
real distinction between them? For example, a proposition
may assert that y is related to x in some way, It may then be
said: "If you mean by 'y' this, then your statement is true,
But if you mean by ' y ' that, then your statement is false. "
And even though an argument should develop as to what y is
to mean, nevertheless is not this a question only of what the
one intends to impart upon which a judgment of truth or falsity
is to fall? Nor does it seem necessary that every sentence written or uttered express a proposition (or an expression which is
capable of being judged true or false). A sentence may express
wishes, desires, prayers, or even questions without involving
assertions. It is one thing to w.ish you were in Dixie,
is
another to assert you were there, or will be. Must not aU this
suppose a real priority of meaning?
Of course, the writer of this suggestion has warned against
an over-simplification of what the identity of truth and meaning means, and
this merely fails to heed the warning.
Then, too, this identification of meaning and truth may be
only another case of a derived instance of " meaning " such as
that in which we employ the word "significant" frequently.
If this is so, then it does not touch the problem of meaning
p:rope:r, since it is again a narrowing of
term "meaning."
However, since this writer proposes this
connection with the
need of verification in order to get meaning, .and since verificameaning, then there
tion for truth is to give verification
would appear to be some basis for questioning such an identification. Nor, insofar as other principles of verification are
concerned, does it seem any
way of solution; it avoids
the initial problem which must concern the very association of
verification and meaning since it is certainly not immediately
evident that they are related inseparably,
But supposing this association of meaning and verification,
and supposing that meaning and truth are ultimately to be
identified, this in turn implies that nothing less than a proposition is meaningfuL Is there not, however, some difference
between a word or a term and a proposition, and does not a

THE PROBI ..EM OF MEANING

word separately have some meaning? Are there not words
that can be taken separately which are not propositions (or
sentences) in any way? This, however, has been denied, and
a celebrated announcement has been made to the effect that
only the proposition has sense, that only in the context of a
proposition has a name a meaning.
Now if only the proposition has sense, this seems to imply
that anything less than a proposition is not meaningful of
itself but only as it is within a proposition. Is there anything
less than a proposition? There seem to be names (words,
terms) because names have meaning in a proposition. Then
names must be parts of a proposition, for if names are in a
proposition, or if a proposition is made up of names in some
way, then it would seem safe to say that a proposition is composed of names as parts. And if names are the parts of a proposition do not the names have to be combined in a certain way
to form a proposition? Not any collection or arrangement of
names would seem to form a proposition. But if these names
can be put together in more than one way, and if not any way
results in a proposition but only some certain way, then must
not the names themselves be meaningful in order to be combined in a propositional way? ·would not names even have to
be meaningful of themselves in some way in order to be combined at all? Hence, if names have to be combined in a certain
way for a proposition to be formed, and if their combining
must precede the proposition which is formed from their combination, and if we have to know what we are combining in
order to be able to combine, then can it still be said that only
the proposition has sense?
The point may still remain, however, whether a name can
have meaning only as it is in a proposition. For if the name
has no meaning of itself in the sense that it has meaning only
as it is in the proposition, then it can have no meaning apart
from the proposition, and if that name is used in another proposition it does not seem that there can be any similarity, much
less identity, of meaning as it is used in one proposition and as
it is used in another proposition. For example, " man " is a

fl14

JOHN A. OESTERLE

name in the proposition "Man is witty," and "man" is a
name in the proposition " Man has a· wife." If " man " has
meaning only as it is within a proposition can there be anything
common between " man " in those two propositions? If it
becomes meaningful only as it is within one proposition, can
there be any meaningful connection with it as it is within
another proposition? For if it cannot be something meaningful
of itself (apart from any propositional function) then it would
have to be strictly meaningless as a name and there could be
no mere understanding of it as a name. For it can have meaning only as it means in something else or as connected with or
related to something else. And yet is there not a meaning for
" man " such that we use the name not only both for that
which can be witty as well as that which can have a wife, but
also for that which means the sort of thing we call " man "regardless 'ot the moment, of whether X' s notion of " man " is
the same as Y' s? Is there not, then, something to " man "
which permits '' man " to be witty and to have a wife; and
must it be something entirely different that is witty and that
has a wife?
Cannot the same name, as a consequence, 'be meaningful in
different propositions? And not only meaningful in different
propositions but also meaningful of itself in order to be the
same name that is used differently in different propositions?
must it not also be meaningful of itself by the very fact
that it can be meaningful in different propositions, for how
could it be said to be meaningful in different propositions without itself somehow being meaningful?
So when it is said that something has meaning only as it is
combined with something else, this would seem to be letters,
which of themselves have no meaning but which become meaningful by the name that is formed from them. For example,
in the name " man " do not the letters m an have meaning
only as the name " man " is formed from them? It would seem
to be in this way that parts which of themselves have no meaning are combined to form something which is meaningful, just
as there is nothing meaningful in m a n as letters, nor is

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

215

there anything common in meaning between the m.a n of
"man" and the man of "many." Is not this the way in
which parts have meaning only in combination?
And does it not seem that a sentence expressing a proposition
is made up of names or words and not of letters? For do we
not group names together, rather than letters, to form the
expression of a proposition? But if we say that the parts of a
proposition are meaningful only as they are within a proposition do we not make the proposition a name? As a consequence, does it not follow, then, that the proposition is not the
primary unit of meaning because it itself is composed of units
of meaning? And hence is there not also a problem of meaning
that is prior to and apart from the problem of the meaning
of a proposition?
There remains, however, this problem of the association of
verification and meaning to which all the foregoing is largely
subsidiary. It is necessary to understand this as the central
problem in the writings that have been quoted above. Hence,
what about this notion of verification as the principle or condition of meaning? How did the notion of verification happen to
arise in connection with meaning? It is fairly obvious that it
seems to have been for the purpose of discovering meaning,
for the writers in general are maintaining that unless there is
verification of some kind there is not meaning. 51 This may also
have a bearing on how the proposition has come to be regarded
as the element of meaning.
But as a matter of fact do we really get meaning as a result
of verifying? 52 Does it not seem that, on the contrary, what
01 Vd. especially Blumberg, Ayer, Stace, Carnap, and Urban as quoted above, and
as in other writings of theirs which space prevents quoting here. Only Ewing seems
to contest seriously verification as 'a principle of meaning. Perhaps the most explicit
statement of the principle of verification is Blumberg's " A supposed proposition
which is theoretically incapable of verification is meaningless" (cf. fn. 9 supra).
•• Perhaps it is not too late to point out that I do not intend to be confusing
with " meaning " any more than with " meaningless." Without indulging in its
ambiguity, I mean by "meaning" what the various writers have meant, which
I take to be the contradictory of what they mean by "meaningless." In other
words, along with them, I depend upon the popular notion of " meaning," which
will do here.

6

216

JOHN A. OESTERLE

we verify is a meaning and that we do not verify in order to
obtain a meaning? For how can a proposition be verified? Is
it not only by supposing that some meaning is already constituted in the proposition? Do we not have to know what we
are going to verify?
We can, however, speak of verifying words and propositions.
Now if we must suppose that words and propositions already
have to be meaningful in order to be something that can be
verified-for it would seem safe to suppose that not anything
is verifiable, nor even any sort of collection of letters or wordsthen does not the verification of words and propositions give
something different from their meaning? Does it not give,
instead, the way in which their meaning is to be applied or
used? Is not the application of the meaning of words and
propositions different from the obtaining of the meaning of
words and propositions? Does not that which is applied or
verified differ from that for which it is applied or verified?
But if the use or application of words must follow upon
their meaning, then how do the words get their meaning? At
the moment, this might seem an insoluble question because
this is what verification is supposed to answer. But without
complicating the problem unduly, can we not say that words
are in some way substitutions for what we mean? Perhaps
this is evident, but it does not seem evident in connection with
the way the principle of verification has been proposed, And
yet if we do not jump immediately to verifying words and propositions themselves, does it not seem obvious that both words
and propositions are substitutions in some way for what
we mean, and that it is for that purpose we use them as
instruments?
Let us suppose that words are substitutions :for what we
mean; that is, words represent what we mean, For example,
the word " man " would represent what I mean by that sensible appearance; it would be a substitution for my notion of
" man." Whether my notion of " man " is the same as your
notion of " man " is another question. Would it not be enough

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

to recognize first that this is how the word "man" comes to
be used as a substitution?
This is one way in which we can use words as substitutions.
It might- also suggest that words, in the act of substitution,
acquire meaning. But is there not also another kind of substitution of words? In addition to substituting a word for what I
mean, can I not further substitute words so that they can be
associated in connection with each other? If I put two or
twenty words in some definite relation with each other, do I
not have a different way of substituting than if I consider the
substitution of each word individually and separately? In this
further substitution of words in relation with each other, do
they not have to stand together in a certain way in this combination? And are they not able to stand together in a certain
combination because the meaning for which each word is substituted can be further substituted so as to be a related part
of this combination? And is it not in this second kind of substitution, this further substitution, that verification would initially appear? Do not these words have to be verified for the
further substitutiton which is made of the meaning they have?
And would not this further substitution of the meaning of
words in relation to each other, or in some additional use,
need verification? That is, if the meanings of words are to be
applied in relation to each other, does not this use of their
meanings need to be verified or shown-would we not have to
see if the meaning which the one word expresses can be related
to the meaning which another word expresses, or, again,
whether either can properly stand as a part in, for example, a
proposition which is the whole? 58 "
This is only stating the difference between the word (or
a term) and the word in a proposition since we have seen that
there might be a difference between the two. It is in terms of
;that distinction we can suggest that the word itself is a substi••• Grammatically, this is only distinguishing the words themselves (the elements
of grammar) and their use as parts of sentences, as "parts of speech." The parts
of speech_presuppose the meanings which the various words express. Thus the word
" man," in virtue of its meaning, can be used as a noun.

218

JOHN A. OESTERLE

tution for what we mean, while the word in a proposition is a
further substitution, a substitution for what we mean as it is
to be applied in a certain way, i.e., as a part of a proposition.
" Man " is a word. " Man has two feet " is a proposition.
Is there not a difference between " 1'/W,n " and " ' man ' has two
feet " ? " Man " alone would be a word substituted to represent a notion I have. " Man " in " 'man ' has two feet " is
further substituted so as to have a certain connection with the
" has " and the " two feet." Will that connection or relation
hold? Can the meaning which " man " represents be further
substituted and employed in this way? Is not this where the
meaning of" man" will have to be verified? And will not this
verifying consist in establishing whether or not the meaning of
"man" can be used in that way? In other words, has the
meaning of "man" application in that proposition? In this
case, it would seem that the meaning of " man " can be verified
as a part of that proposition because it could be pointed out
that what is meant by " man " is capable of "having" what is
meant by "two feet" related to it in a certain way. 54 And it
is· in this way that a verification of "man" could be madenot to get the meaning of " man " but to get the use or application of the meaning of " man." Suppose the meaning of
"man" could not be verified in that use. Would the verification result in making "man" meaningless? On the contrary,
it would seem that it is because " man " has a meaning that
this application of it could not be verified. The first substitution of " man " would remain; the further substitution of
" man " would not be verified.
Is there not a difference, too, between verifying a word as a
part of a proposition and verifying the proposition itself? Does
not the verifying of a proposition consist in seeing whether
what the whole proposition says is so or not? But in order to
verify whether a proposition is true or false, do we not have to
know first what the proposition says in order to know whether
•• We shall see in a later article whether or not verification is formally related
to the copula.

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

219

what it says is so or not? And hence does not the verification
of a proposition follow upon the meaning of a proposition so
that what results from the verification is not the meaning of
the proposition, but the truth or falsity of that meaning?
Here it seems that we should recognize four distinct points.
First, we have the word alone which is imposed or substituted
to represent a notion I, have. Second, we have the word or
name which especially contributes to the making up of a proposition; not all words would have to contribute to the making
, up of a proposition. Third, we have the verification of names
.as parts of the proposition-the names are to be verified in
relation to each other as forming special parts or functions of
the proposition. Fourth, we have the verification of the entire
proposition itself, which verification gives truth or falsity to
the proposition. All these points are distinct and important,
especially that the proposition is made up of words which have
to be meaningful (hence, more strictly, words embody, logically, terms), that in virtue of their meaningfulness words
can be verified as parts of the proposition, and that it is such
a proposition, thus meaningfully formed and thus verified in
its parts, that is itself verified entirely for truth.
So we can now ask again, how did this notion of verification
arise in connection with meaning? Is it not because the writers who propose it as a principle of meaning also hold-,.in one
way or another, that meaning arises only within a sentence or
proposition? And in assuming that, would they not also suppose that there is only one way of substituting words, namely,
as words are parts within a proposition or as words are used
in special ways to make up a proposition? And when they
think that this is the way words get meaning, are they not.
confusing the meaning of words with a further substitution and
use of the meaning of words?
But even more so, is there not likewise a confusion of the
ve'rification of words in a proposition with the verification of
the proposition itself, both of which are further confused in
that it is assumed that this is the only way a proposition obif there is no verification
tains. meaning, and that

JOHN A. OESTERLE

in some way (especially of the proposition itself) there is
therefore no meaning either? Would not the verification of
words in a proposition-the establishment of words as distinct
parts of the proposition-make possible the verification of the
entire proposition, and would not this verification result in the
truth or falsity of the proposition?
This may also explain the attempt to identify meaning and
truth. For if it is supposed that the verification of a proposition gives it its meaning, is not it unavoidable that there will
be a confusion of meaning and truth? It is perhaps easy to
suppose that if there is no verification then there is no truth
and hence the statements in question have no meaning provided" have no meaning" means "no truthful meaning." In
this case, the question is not so much to discover what makes
meaning truthful as to understand why such a derived notion
of " meaning " is taken. It does not answer the difficulty continually present with verification; it ignores it. There is no
problem of meaning; there is only the problem of truth.
Furthermore, this general confusion may likewise explain
why frequently so many statements are dismissed summarily
as " meaningless." Even if there is granted, in a very charitable
moment, the claim of the empirical criterion of verification
(admitting, also, its variously "weakened" forms), is it not
fairly evident that there is still confusion? Alice in Wonderland, Kant's mighty Prologomena, or Wittgenstein's Tractatua
do not forthwith vanish in their " meaninglessness " ; at most,
they might fail to satisfy a narrow empirical criterion for
"truth." They all. would remain fairly significant.
As a matter of fact, it is in order to ask if any words, sentences, statements, or propositions can be "meaningless." It
might seem evident, from the foregoing, that no word as a
word can be meaningless, and hence, a fortiori, not sentences
nor propositions either. Could a word be defined or described
without meaning being involved? Could one abstract from
the meaning present in a word? It would seem that one would
then abstract from a word as well. There are both legitimate
and illegitimate abstractions. An illegitimate " abstraction"

THE PROBLEM

OF MEANING

would be to ignore in a thing the sort of thing it is. It seems
inconceivable that anyone could understand by " word " anything except meaningful sound in some way which, of comse,
is not complete but is, on the other hand, the absolute minimum. Hence it appears that to speak of meaningless words,
provided " meaningless " means " no meaning " and provided
words remain words, is to utter a flat contradiction. 55 It is just
as impossible, though not as humorous, as seeing that famous
grin without the cat.
With regard to sentences and propositions, the issue of meaninglessness has been, rather oddly, even more pronounced. We
have seen wholesale instances of throwing out sentences as
meaningless, even sentences whose meaninglessness is disputed
because of their meaning. There need not be any more concern,
perhaps, over sentences whose grammatical status is sound
(which is, of course, purely a question of grammar). This point
has been covered in the foregoing with reference to the general
confusion there apparent. Besides, the particular semantic
fanaticism on this point seems to be waning, at last. The more
fundamental point here would concern the proposition as
expressed in the sentence and hence whether there can be
meaningless propositions. This, too, has been covered in the
foregoing and will also be referred to again later.
This leaves for consideration such expressions as "The law
of contradiction is yellow," "Quadratic equations go to racemeetings," " Quadruplicity drinks procrastination," and perhaps even "Procrastination drinks quadruplicity." 56 It may
be laboring an obvious point to insist that these are not
" meaningless " provided " meaningless " still means " no
meaning." We might refer to them as nonsense provided" non55 This should also take account
of the difference between what is meaningless
and what is vague, indefinite, absurd, or ridiculous. Some words, too, represent
more meaning than others, a difference commonly recognized in the distinction
between categorematic and syncategorematic words or terms, approximated grammatically in the pal'ts of spee<:h. Absurd meaning, vague meaning, indefinite meaning, or less meaning: is not no meaning.
56 Mr. Ewing has also argued that expressions of this kind are not meaningless.
Vd. fn. 20 supra.

JOHN A. OESTERLE

sense" does not mean, as it does etymologically, "no sense."
If " nonsense " is to mean " ridiculous " then there is some
intelligibility in caning such sentences nonsense" There would
still remain, however, a vast difference between that kind of
nonsense and what we might call strict nonsense. It is very
:important to note here that it is only in virtue of what those
words joined together mean that we are able to say they are
nonsense in the sense of :ridiculous or absurd. It would be quite
absurd to regard as absurd what has no meaning to be absurd.
It is likely a mistake, too, to :regard syntax as the criterion
of meaning. Syntax has a definite function, but by theI nature
of the case it must presuppose meaning, or the meaningful elements with which it is concerned" This would apply to syntax
in its normal grammatical dimension or syntax as extended to
logic, in which case it is only another name for determining
the status of a proposition" It is unfortunate that "" syntax "
has come to have a special logical connotation as this only
serves to increase the modern confusion of grammar and logic,
particularly evident in the various schools of semantics and
symbolic logic,
Grammatically, syntax can have nothing to say about the
status of such expressions as "The law of contradiction is
yellow." It is a complete sentence and is quite sound grammatically. This is because meaningful elements (words) are
combined in the structmre of a sentence and satisfy the rules of
grammar. That is, words are used at least as nouns and verbs
in the :relation or grammatical subject and predicate. which
is grammatical syntax. Logically (and here the concern is
with the meanings or terms expressed through the words rather
than with the words or verbalisms themselves 51 ) the situation
is different since the .. syntax " now concerns whether such
meanings can be put in such a relation in order for an act of
judgment to fall upon them" Since what is meant by " yellow .,
and what is meant by" the law of contradiction" do not seem
to admit a basis for a judgment, it could be argued that a
01 This and
general question of the distinction between grammar and logic
will be touched upon later. Vd. fn. 54 :JU'f!'rlt.

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

228

proposition is not being expressed through this sentence. Now
supposing that is so, this would not imply that there is not a
sentence present, and especially would it not imply that the
sentence or expression is meaningless. All of these distinctions
are possible only because of the meaning that is being exsome meanpressed. Both grammar and logic must
ing in order to determine the respective grammatical and
logical status or form; it is in this sense that it becomes impossible to determine whether there is any meaning because
of syntax. On the contrary, syntax must determine the
grammatical and logical form of the meaning.
There are other types of expression which are perhaps more
suitable to illustrate this point, such as "is a man," "Cambridge is between York," " are of fond not dogs cats,'' etc.
Here there is grammatical violation as well as logical violation,
but what there is not here is " meaninglessness," for it is only
in virtue of the meaning that is badly expressed there that we
can syntactically criticize it. To argue, for instance, that
" Cambridge is between York " is meaningless because incomplete is ipso facto to admit meaning because of its incompleteness. How otherwise can the expression be known to be
incomplete? The point is that the expression is syntactically
incomplete because of the meaning that is present in the words
given. In the case of " are of fond not dogs cats " the meaning
is simply jumbled in expression, which is not at all the same
as meaningless; in " is a man " the meaning, again, is incomplete
to be a sentence. 58
58 Mr. Ewing argues (op. cit.) that" an expression may be said to be meaningless
if it includes some word or words which do not stand for anything. . . . I do not
mean merely ' for nothing existent ' but for nothing of which we have any idea
at all." This seems clearly impossible. How can there be words which " do not
stand for anything" or "for nothing of which we have any idea at all"? Words
to be words must refer to notions or ideas, as will be emphasized later. In fact
it is only in virtue of this reference of words to notions that we can distinguish
those collections of letters which form words from any collection of letters which,
because they do not form something significant, are accordingly not words but
mere gratuitous grouping of the material elements out of which proper words can
be formed. •• Kliss." for example, differs from " kiss " in that the former has no
ack:nowledgedsignificance (although it could be coined and, if accepted, recognized

JOHN A. OESTERLE

This is not merely quibbling over how " meaningless " is to
be used nor stretching " meaning " to extend to cases not ordinarily covered. As a matter of fact, it is a very crucial though
small point. It is important because it is only at this level that
the inherent absurdity of the current theories of meaning can
be seen. It is only when ridiculous expressions are chosen
that the current attempt to add meaning to language can be
seen itself really to be ridiculous (though not meaningless).
It is when dealing with ridiculous expressions that it can be
seen most clearly how stupid it is to attempt to determine,
once meaningful elements are present, how and when meaning
is going to be discovered. Not that there may not be problems
present, but that what are the problems do not get discussed.
As far as meaning is concerned, it amounts to the same thing
as looking for one's glasses with the glasses on.
Perhaps this singular situation can be explained in part by
the undue emphasis of these writers upon words, by their devotion to the excesses of verbalism, and by the apparent ease
with which almost everyone writes these days. How could
there be an issue over the principle of verification unless there
is question of how meaning is to be added to linguistic structure? If we suppose that the problem of meaning originates in
verbal form, can the charge of verbalism be escaped? This may
seem curious because most of these writers probably would like
to think they are attacking verbalism and getting away from
it. But if anyone takes the principle of verifiability seriously
as the origin of meaning. or if he really thinks words and
propositions need verification for meaning, must not he take
verbalism as the starting point and can he ever hope to reach
anything more ultimate than verbalism? This would seem to
lead to the following question: Why do we use words?
Yet, since we all have to speak or write in words, it might
seem as though we have to start with words. Can there be
meaning without using words? Of course, I might point, if
as a word) . Such collections of letters as " kliss " are the only cases to which the
expression "meaningless words" might apply, and this only by sheer equivocation
on "words."

THE PROBLEM

OF MEANING

what I mean can be pointed to. But is this really any different
from using words? Do not both show meaning? On the other
hand, there would seem to be a difference between showing
meaning with words and trying to find meaning after there
are words.
So it might seem that words can have no meaning unless we
can show what they mean-not by taking words and hunting
for their meaning but by hunting for the words with the meaning we have. 59 The word itself does not contain its meaning.
Nor does the word of itself point to what it means. Nor is it
wholly necessary that I point to what the word means-I
can in some cases, but then I would just be duplicating the
function of the word. Nor does what the word means contain
or point to the word. In other words, there seems to be something arbitrary about words. But in the current problem of
meaning, if we start from words-if the whole analysis depends
upon words-do we not have to suppose them absolute, or do
we not ascribe exaggerated importance to them?
Thus it appears that we must recognize that words have
no meaning in themselves, that they have no direct reference
to things, nor do things of themselves have direct reference
to words or refer to them. Does not this imply that we must
know what the word is to refer to before being able to use the
word knowingly? Then what meaning words have, would they
not have it from a mind, a knowing faculty, an intelligence,
an "inner speaking," or whatever one wishes to call it? So it
seems that in any case if words can lead to things they will do
so through the intermediacy of mind. And so would not words
depend upon the mind? But need the mind have to depend
completely upon words?
Again, it does not seem that words of themselves lead to
things through the mind. Nor, on the other hand, do things 60
of themselves lead to words through the mind. Does horse of
50 There is a sense, of course, in which words may evoke meaning in the one
communicated to, but this would have to depend upon the meaning already expressed or suggested in the words themselves.
60 Is it necessary to quarrel about " things " as a word?

JOHN A. OESTERLE

itself mean the word " horse " either directly or through the
mind, or does the word " horse " of itself mean the horse, either
directly or through the mind? And yet there must be some
way in which words are meaningful, and this would seem to
have to come from the mind. But does it not come from the
mind somewhat arbitrarily?
Why do we recur to words if they are the source of so much
trouble? Is it to find meaning? It does not seem so. Of course,
if someone else is reading these words he has to use the words
to get at the meaning. But he must not forget that I am putting the words on paper. If he does not find clear meaning,
(will he not find some meaning?) should he blame the words?
Should he not, instead, blame me? And does this not suggest
the reason why we recur to words? Are not .words merely for
the purpose of communication? Are they not only to express
what is already known and meant? Does not meaning become
wordy when it becomes communicative? Is it necessary to talk
and to write to have meaning? Is it necessary to have an audience in order to think? Is it words that give birth to knowledge?
Is communicating the same as knowing?
The way most writers talk about words, symbols, and propositions seems to imply that to think is to be in communication
only in terms of words and propositions. Consequently, if
words and symbols are suppressed, then thinking is also
suppressed. But is not the suppression of words only the
suppression of the means of communication? Are not words, at
most, necessary aids to thinking? If they are suppressed,
would we not still have the meaning of what the words refer to?
Does this not, then, bring out the intrinsic void of words and
their complete subjection to something which can be independent of them? Does this not also indicate the impasse we are
led to when from the start analysis of thought is conceived to
depend wholly upon the analysis of words? When I communicate words to someone, do I expect him to extract what I am
thinking from the words? Do I not, rather, expect him to
evoke in himself a thought similar to my thought, and not a

THE PROBLEM OF MEANING

227

thought similar to my word? And is this not all that can be
expected from words?
But if someone wishes to harp upon words and sentences,
can he not do so without any possibility of ever ending? For
example, if I say that a word has a meaning, we could easily
start the endless discussion about the meaning of the word
" meaning " and in that way suppose that we are talking about
the problem of the meaning of" meaning." Could we not also
start an endless discussion about the word "word"? How
might we agree on whether the word " word " is a word? Does
not this suppose the notion of word? Is the notion of the
word" word" a word? Would not any agreement on the word
" word " presuppose an agreement upon the notion of word?
Then would it not seem that the word " word " is used to impart the notion of word, which is not a word, but which nevertheless is agreed to be signified by the word " word " ? And
is it not in this way that a verbal communication about the
word " word " involves words? But do we have to suppose
that we are trapped by the word " word " any more than we
are trapped by the meaning of " meaning " ?
It might be said that in the case of the word " word " we
could show what it stands for either by wordless pointing to
the word "word," or by using other words. But can the pointing to the word be meaningful in the way we intend unless the
notion of word is already had in order to make the pointing
indicate what we mean? Is not pointing as such needless?
Do we not point only because we already have meaning? In
the case of the word " word," pointing to scratches on the
paper can have meaning only if it can evoke a notion which
the scratches are used to signify. When I point to the word
"word" I am either pointing to the scratches on the paper,
and then the word " word " could merely mean the scratches
on the paper, or I am pointing to the word " word " as a word,
and this would involve the notion which the scratches stand
for-but then what am I pointing for?
And so it seems that communicators must have something

JOHN A. OESTERLE

in common before using words, before words have any meanwords are used to signify.
ing. They must have in common
If they have nothing
common prior and apart from the
use of words, is not then the very use of words fruitless? Is
not communication fruitless when there is nothing to communicate? Even here words could not be said to be meaningless,
however, since they continue to express meanings but the
meanings are not the same. Words are employed, but only
equivocally.
Must not aU verbal communication, then, start from the
supposition that there is something common in the meaning
that is expressed? Is this not what we spontaneously suppose
when we use speech? When I use the word " horse " do I not
already suppose that the person to whom I am speaking will
think of what I use the word to signify? Should the word
" horse " itself be expected to impart the notion of horse? If
the one communicated with does not have the notion of horse,
then must we not recur-not to other words primarily-but to
other notions from which he should arrive at the notion of
horse which we are signifying by the word " horse , ? If this
does not succeed, then it does not seem that there can be any
communication at all. For communication must presuppose
some common element which is not a word, and for which
words can never be used except to signify. We have to have
some agreement
notions before there can even be possibility
of agreement in words. Hence, if the one communicated with
claims that the word "horse, is meaningless to him, this is
either because he has no knowledge of a horse or because he
is not aware that these scratches or this sound is to be used
to signify it.
this shows the use of words
any adequate sense, then
the problem of meaning as so conceived does not even seem to
be headed toward a solution. Instead, all that has been written so far at most may only begin to detect a problem of meaning. For all that has happened so far merely seems to show
that these writers are not really talking about meaning, but

THE PROBLEM

OF MEANING

about what is posterior to meaning. It would show merely
that it is really impossible for one writer to hold that the words
of someone else are meaningless. It would show merely that
the meaning of a sentence or proposition is not the starting
point of the problem of meaning. It would show merely that
while words may not be used correctly in a sentence, nevertheless words still have meaning though not an application of
their meaning. It would show merely that the meaning of an
expressed proposition depends first upon words separately
meaningful and then upon words as they are in a proposition; and then that words must be verified in their relation in
the proposition, which thereupon makes the proposition itself
verifiable as true, or, if not, as false. And it would show merely
that a word does not have to be in a sentence or a proposition
to have meaning.
This would then indicate that not very much has been shown
about meaning. 'VVe have been able to go only as far as words,
and we have had difficulty even in going that far. And going to
words does not at aU unravel the problem of meaning, for there
is nothing absolute or primary about the meaningfulness of
words. Does this not also indicate how the special ambiguity
of the English word " meaning " has been a source of confusion
in its vagueness, which has been taken accordingly as the
"problem of meaning"? So do we not have to look farther
and in some other way for the " problem of meaning " ?
JOHN

A. OESTERLE

Aquinas College,
Grand Rapids, Michigan

[Another article from Dr. Oesterle, continuing this subject,
will appear in an early issue.- THE EDITORs.]

THE MEANING OF FAITH
AITH IS a concept employed by all philosophers, yet an
analysis of what faith really is, is far to seek In fact,
modern philosophers with the exception of the NeoScholast:ics for the most part do not even attempt to define
"faith" with any clarity. It is the thesis of the present article
that for an analysis of the concept '" faith " one must turn to
Scholasticism, where the treatment will be shown to be comprehensive and minute as to both faith's practical and its them·etical aspects. Faith is always a venture: to this Scholastics
and non-Scholastics alike agree. Quoting William James, "Faith
means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible"; we shall however see that the character of
the venture differs widely as between the Scholastic and the
non-Scholastic philosopher, and that the practical aspect of
faith to a greater or less degree overshadows the theoretical in
modern treatments of the subject.
To cover all or even nearly all important modern usages of
the term " faith " is manifestly impossible within the limits of
a comparatively brief article; and the selection of philosophers
here to be presented must be justified solely on the ground that
their discussions seem to this writer to be both interesting and
representative-if not completely so-of modem non-Scholastic
viewpoints. The first section of the discussion will deal with
the use of the concept "faith" by Santayana, Dewey, James,
and Brightman, no one of whom accords the term careful analysis from its objective aspect. The four immediately fall into
two groups with respect to what they hold to be the object of
faith; Santayana and Dewey take certain natural occurrences
to be this object; James and Brightman, on the other hand,
would extend " faith " to include a transcendent Value, a Highest Good, which they in various terms describe as God. The
second part of the discussion will deal with some aspects of the

230

THE MEANING

281

OF FAITH

treatment of "faith" by A. E. Taylor and H. B. Alexander,
both of whom treat the concept from an objective as well as a
subjective standpoint, and both of whom approach rather closely
the Scholastic position. Finally, the Scholastic account of
"faith" will be given, as being by far the fullest and most comprehensive.
A. MoDERN NoN -ScHOLASTIC
SANTAYANA,

TREATMENTS

oF FAITH:

DEWEY, JAMES, AND BRIGHTMAN

The following accounts will of necessity be brief and rather
meager, since these four philosophers simply do not give us any
detailed analysis of the concept under discussion; they tend to
describe " faith " in purely psychological terms, dealing with
the state of the believing subject rather than with the metaphysical status of " faith " itself, and emphasizing practical
rather than theoretical considerations.
Santayana, in whose treatment of faith from the sceptic's
point of view the element of venture is severely restricted,
nevertheless affirms that faith of a sort is absolutely essential.
" There is no avenue to the past or future, there is no room for
breath or for progressive life, except through faith in the intellect and the reality of things unseen." 1 Even the sceptic cannot escape believing. " Scepticism is a suspicion of error about
facts, and to suspect error about facts is to share the enterprise
of knowledge in which facts are presupposed and error is possible.... Scepticism is accordingly a form of belief. Dogma
cannot be abandoned; it can only be revised in view of some
more elementary dogma." 2 Santayana describes this indispensable, rudimentary belief which he calls "animal faith" as
" a sort of expectation and open-mouthedness " which is earlier
than intuition, intuition arriving subsequently " to help it out
and lend it something to posit." 3 The unsophisticated man
in the street needs not to consider this faith, he simply experiences it as a matter of course. In this unsophisticated state
" faith hangs like a pendulum at rest." But when sophistication,
1

Scepticism and Animal Faith, p. 29.

7

• Ibid., p. 8.

• Ibid., p. 107.

ILSE FOREST

achieved through rigorous intellectual discipline, enters in, perplexity arises and causes the pendulum to " swing more and
more madly." Eventually the pendulum "may for a moment
stop quivering at a point of unstable equilibrium at the top;
and this vertical station may be likened to a universal scepticism." 4 The unproductive state of universal scepticism is
escaped by the sophisticated man through his conscious acceptance of the fact of " animal faith," the objects of which are
simply "existences." "That such external objects exist, that
I exist myself and live more or less prosperously in the midst of
them, is a faith not founded on reason but precipitated in.action,
and in that intent which is virtual action, involved in perception." 5 With this faith scepticism is not inconsistent: " The
admission that nothing given exists is not incompatible with
things not given." 6 All that is ever present to the perceiver is
what Santayana calls " essence." Essences are characters of
things, both existent and possible: " The realm of essence is
simply the unwritten catalogue, prosaic and infinite, of all the
characters which all different things would possess if they
existed." 7 The characters of things, present to the mind, are
as such not illusory, but the instant they are "hypostasized,"
taken to be significant of definite things, the knower is" putting
his trust in animal faith," not in his own experience. All truth
is the object of faith, since " what everybody means by faith is
the standard comprehensive description of any fact in its given
relations," and such a description cannot be achieved through
experiences. Facts, things, transcend experience; we must believe them, but they remain "things unseen." In terms of
Santayana's analysis, faith is identical with perception and
knowledge. "Perception," he says, "is faith." Also, "Knowledge ... is belief; belief in a world of events, and especially in
those parts of it which are near the self, tempting or threatening it .... This belief is native to animals, and precedes all
deliberate use of intuitions as signs or descriptions of things." 8
'Ibid.
• Ibid., p. 106.
• Ibid., p. 105.

7
8

Ibid., p. 77.
Ibid., p. 179.

THE MEANING

OF FAITH

Thus for Santayana faith is an obligatory venture, strictly
required by the activity of knowing, from which it is inseparable,
having as its object existences.
are transcendent of
the intuition of essences through which we " believe " or" know "
them. In Santayana's words they have " ... a transcendent
relation to the data of intuition, which in belief may be used
as signs for them; the same transcendent relation which objects
of desire have to desire, or objects of pursuit to pursuit." 9 Subjectively we may describe" animal faith" as a quasi-instinctive
attitude, forced upon animals and men by the exigencies of
their existence; no other description of what "faith" itself is,
is given by Santayana.
Like Santayana, Dewey describes faith in naturalistic terms.
But he extends faith's venture to include human ideals as
potential values which eventually may be realized through intelligent cooperative action. He distinguishes carefully between
faith in a body of propositions on the authority of a proposer
whether human or divine, and moral faith. "Conviction in the
moral sense signifies being conquered, vanquished, in our active
natures by an ideal end; it signifies acknowledgment of its rightful claim over our desires and purposes. Such acknowledgment
is practical, not primarily intellectual. It goes beyond evidence
that can be presented to any possible observer." 10 This moral
faith, which is in some cases only reached after long and arduous reflection, is based upon " the authority of an ideal over
choice and conduct," and Dewey takes pains to emphasize that
it is "the authority of an ideal, not of a fact, of a truth guaranteed to the intellect, not the status of the one who propounds
the truth." 11 In keeping with the whole philosophy of instrumentalism, the authoritative ideals which control us are not
possessed of antecedent actuality; indeed Dewey holds that
when ideals are thought of as being imbedded in very nature of
things, and for this reason requiring intellectual assent, a lack
of moral faith is thus evidenced. " Faith that something should
be in existence as far as lies in our power is changed into intel• Ibid., p. 47.

10

A Common Faith, p.

f.

11

Ibid., italics mine.

234

ILSE FOREST

lectual belief that it is already in existence and when physical
existence does not bear out the assertion, the physical is subtly
changed into the metaphysical. In this way moral faith has
been inextricably tied up with intellectual beliefs about the
supernatural." 12 The metaphysical tie-up, from Dewey's point
of view, militates against the realization of moral ideals, because
in giving assent to values believed to be already existing, ". . .
imagination merely supervenes and is relieved from the responsibility of intervening. Weak natures take to reverie as a refuge
as strong ones do to fanaticism. Those who dissent are mourned
over by the first class and converted through the use of force
by the second.13 Faith, to be practical or moral, must be antecedent to the truth which is its object: " all endeavor for the
better is moved by faith in what is possible, not by adherence
to the actual." 14 It is dependent upon imagination-an imagination which " intervenes " rather than " supervenes " in the
course of events. This practical faith is the foundation of
democracy; its object is the capacity of human beings to shape
their own destinies toward desirable ends, and it is the means
of generating this power: ". . . the foundation of democracy is
faith in the capacities of human nature: faith in human intelligence and its power of pooled and cooperative experience. It
is not belief that these things are complete but that if given a
show they will grow and be able to generate progressively the
knowledge and wisdom needed to guide collective action." 15
It involves specifically faith in the common man-not merely
in the gifted few: " While what we call intelligence may be distributed in unequal amounts, it is the democratic faith that it
is sufficiently general so that each individual has something to
contribute, and the value of each can be assessed only as it
enters into the final pooled intelligence constituted by the contributions of all." 16 And Dewey thinks that faith in " the continued disclosing of truth through directed, cooperative, human
endeavor" is" more religious in qualitythananyfaithinacom13 Ibid., italics mine.
Ibid., p. 21.
u Ibid., p. 23.
John Dewey's Philosophy, edited by J. Ratner, p. 402.
10 Ibid., p. 403.
12

16

THE MEANING

OF FAITH

235

pleted revelation." Having told us what faith does and can
achieve, what has Dewey to say about what faith is? Subjectively,
it would seem, faith is a determination to achieve that which is
good; a dogged, firm conviction that human nature can progressively realize the democratic ideal. It is generated in the
process of human association: without this association, it is ipso
facto non-existent. As Dewey describes it, faith is not wholly
subjective, since human association transcends individual human
beings and their societies; but its objectivity is limited to its
social in contrast to its purely individual significance.
We now turn to the treatment of faith by the two philosophers who make up our second sub-group of " moderns "-James
and Brightman. William James extends the "will-to-believe ••
beyond natural occurrences, thereby enhancing its venturesome
quality. "Faith," he says, "is synonymous with working
hypothesis." 17 The religious believer wills to believe in the
" religious hypothesis " by which the universe becomes " no
longer a mere It to us, but a Thou." The hypothesis is justified,
in the first place, as any scientific hypothesis is justified. The
view of the world which appeals to man's power to trust and
to risk commends itself strongly to the average person, and
James thinks this power may be rationally extended in the direction of religious dogma " which we are tempted to postulate for
our emotional interests, just as we are tempted to postulate the
uniformity of nature for our intellectual interests." 18 The justification of the religious, as well as of any other, hypothesis, is
the pragmatic one: " It matters not to the empiricist from what
quarter an hypothesis may come to him. He may have acquired
it by fair means or by foul; passion may have whispered or
accident suggested it; but if the total drift of thinking continues
to confirm it, that is what he means by its being true." 19
Further, in James' view as in Dewey's the human mind's activity
is in a sense determinative of reality. Speaking of human
values, he comments: " The desire for a certain kind of truth
Essays in Popular Philosophy: The Sentiment of Rationality, p. 95.
Ibid., p. 91.
10 Op. cit. The Will to Believe, p. 17.
17

1"

236

ILSE FOREST

here brings about that truth's existence .... Who gains promotions, boons, appointments but the man in whose life they
are seen to play the part of live hypotheses? ... His faith acts
on the powers above him as a claim, and creates its own verification." 20 Again, " There are, then, cases where a fact cannot
come at all unless a preliminary faith exists in its coming." 21
In opposition to Helmholz and others, James adds: "And where
faith in a fact can help create the fact, that would be an insane
logic which would say that faith running ahead of logic is ' the
lowest kind of immorality ' into which a thinking human being
can fall." 22 The confidence that believing in God does the universe a service, on the contrary, justifies religious faith: " This
feeling, forced on us we know not whence, that by obstinately
believing that there are gods ... we are doing the universe the
deepest service we can, seems part of the living essence of the
religious hypothesis." 23 And the following passage from the
essay "Is Life Worth Living?" again suggests that in some
sense belief is determinative of the nature of God Himself. "I
confess that I do not see why the very existence of an invisible
world may not in part depend on the personal response which
any one of us may make to the religious appeal. God himself,
in short, may draw vital strength and increase of very being
from our fidelity." 24
In James' account of faith there obviously appears a touch
of the mystical which is quite absent in Dewey's-" this feeling,
forced on us we know not whence," can hardly be a strictly
" natural " phenomenon. There is also a difference between the
two treatments in that James intends to "obstinately believe
that there are gods," which Dewey would deplore, and that he
suggests there is a God who may be modified by our belief. It
is all hypothesis, behaving " als ob," to use Vaihinger's phrase,
but it is free from Dewey's objection to believing that there are
values imbedded in the nature of things. 25 James tries to reconcile scepticism with what seems to have been for him a rooted
so Ibid., p.
21

24.

Ibid., p. 25.

s• Ibid.
•• Ibid., p. 28.

•• Op. cit., p. 61.
26 Cf. p. 233, supra.

THE MEANING

OF FAITH

237

preference for theism. Subjectively-apart from the abovementioned feeling "forced upon us we know not whence "faith is straightforwardly described as a voluntary identification
of the self with a hypothesis held to be fruitfuL And so far as
James is concerned the subjective description is all that he offers.
For him faith seems to have no discernible objective aspecL
Edgar S. Brightman distinguishes explicitly between religious faith and the hypotheses of science as to their respective
functions. However, he holds that the process of verification
is the same in both cases. " The function of faith differs at a
vital point from the function of a scientific hypothesis, for the
latter aims at the description of specific natural processes, while
the former aims at discovering and adjusting our lives to the
purpose and value of our whole existence. This difference being
granted, the hypothesis that there is a personal God seems to
be verified by the same principles that the mind applies in testing any other hypothesis." 26 To be sure, Brightman's declared
theism further distinguishes him from James, in that for him
the object of faith is not projected by a self seeking to save
itself from complete religious scepticism, but rather a personal
G9d, whose nature is untouched by our projections. " God is
what he is, whether we believe or doubt or ignore qr blaspheme;
and he seeks us whether we seek him or not ... human error
or inadequacy does not alter the structure of reality or prevent
reality from acting on us." 21 In his book, The Problem of
God, Brightman expressly condemns Dewey's humanism, and
hypostatizes Deity as " an unseen Friend." Quoting, " Belief
in God is . . . not any evasion of the difficulties of life; it is
simply the confidence that behind the daily mystery of life that
surrounds us, the human race can rely on a powerful Friend." 28
However, Brightman does not hold that faith should take as
its object any formulated dogma concerning God. On the contrary, " ... the essential element of faith is not a true doctrine
of God, but a sincere search for God." In this searching activity
faith allies itself with reason: " Reason certainly needs faith
•• Personality and Rdigion, p. 62. Italics mine.
Op. cit., p. lOS.
Op. cit., p. 165.

27

238

ILSE FOREST

if .it is to reach beyond immediate experience; but just as certainly faith needs reason, if it is not to abandon all truth and
value." 29 Authoritative creeds actually constitute a disvalue:
" Implicit, blind faith; unquestioning belief in authoritative
creeds as containing the essence of revelation; acceptance of
tradition or Scripture as final standard, fear ,and distrust of
science and philosophy-these are some of the bitter fruits of
the overvaluing of the experience of revelation." 30 In keeping
with liberal Protestant theology of today, Brightman seeks to
make God reasonable, acceptable to the critical mind of modern
man, by trying to solve in reasonable fashion the contradiction
between the goodness of an alledgedly omnipotent God with
the sufferings and evil of His creation. To reach this reasonable solution, he deprives God of His omnipotence and leaves
Him His goodness. God is finite, limited by the given. Neither
" omnipotent or omniscient or impassible" He remains "the
perfectly benevolent Creator and the perfectly wise Knower of
actual existence." The given accounts for " natural evils and
the ' mistakes ' of evolution." Faith in such a God is " an
imperative obligation to join in the task of making the wo:rld
better." 31
So, inasmuch as it is a " sincere search for God," faith as
Brightman conceives it is practical, an aspect of :reasonable
activity which has transcendent Value as its especial goaL Subjectively described it is a hypothesis, differing from a scientific
hypothesis only in its inclusive motive: that of " discovering
and adjusting our lives to the purpose and value of our whole
existence," rather than "describing specific natural processes."
In spite of his careful distinction of purpose, as between the
religious hypothesis and the scientific, Brightman does not
actually offer any account of "faith" as distinct from a scientific
hypothesis, nor does he supply any description of faith considered objectively.
•• Religious Values, p. 21.
OO lbido, Po 30o
S1 lbido, Po 164o

THE

B.

OF FAITH

289

A. E. TAYLOR AND H. B. ALEXANDER

A. E. Taylor and H. B. Alexander, while not analyzing faith
in any such meticulous fashion as does the Scholastic, nevertheless treat it from an objective as well as a subjective standpoint.
For both men faith is clearly belief resting on authority which
transcends individual experience, and involving reciprocal
activity as between the human soul and God. Their treatments
therefore approach rather closely the Scholastic position.
In The Faith of a Moralist Taylor does not specifically
analyze the term" faith," but he is explicit in his assertion that
rational knowledge alone cannot apprehend the real. There is
mystery in the universe, consonant with the presence in all our
contacts with the objectively real of " an element of refractoriness to complete intellectual analysis which is the stamp of
objectivity," "a never wholly removeable misfit between the
real and the categories in which we try to confine it." 82 This
discrepancy between the real and our feeble categories leaves
room for an authority, the function of which is" to insist upon
the reality and omnipresence in religion, as in all our contacts
with the objectively real " of the element of refractoriness mentioned above. In so doing, " authority does not conflict with
experience, but merely shows up the limitations of rational
knowledge." Taylor is essentially opposed to a dogmatic authority, but not to supra-human authority as such. He writes,
following a criticism of religious dogmatism, "And yet when
all is said it is as hard to conceive of an adequate religion without mystery, and consequently without the note of authority,
as it is easy to smile at the shifts to which the theorist is driven
when he attempts to provide authority with its clearly defined
seat and to compile a register of its declarations. It remains
true that ' a God comprehended would be no God,' but a mere
artificial construction of our own minds." 88
The faith which Taylor has in mind is not wholly subjective.
True, " We know our true good, which is no other than God
himself, by obscure but none the less real and impressive, per•• Op. cit., vol. ll, p. !liS.

•• Op. cit., vol. n, p. 211.

240

ILSE FOREST

sonal contacts with God. Without this real contact the process
of winning a true personality could not be begun." 34 But this
mystical knowledge or " faith " has its objective side as well:
it implies a movement from without, the initiative of God as
well as the initiative of man: " ... because God is the lumen
intellectus . . . an Ethical Theism has then to conceive God as
the 'efficient ' as well as the ' exemplary ' cause of the whole
moral life ....
" If God is not only the goal, but the author and sustainer of
moral effort, the whole moral endeavor of man must be a reponse
to what we can only call a movement from the other side. It is,
indeed, our own because it is the response of such moral personality as we already possess, but none the less it is a response
to a divine initiative." 35
So the faith of a moralist, insofar as Taylor describes its
nature, is on the subjective side the reaction of the moral self
to God; on the objective side it is the " divine initiative," acting
as the '' efficient " cause of the moral life. He does not distinguish as does, for instance 9 the Thomistic scholar, Jo Maritain,
between knowledge by faith and mystical experience.
H. B. Alexander, in God and Man's Destiny, analyzes faith
"as between God and :1\fan" as of three types. On man's part,
there is first " that faith which is represented by the credo and
which is no more than a belief in the existence of a divine being,
no more than an intellectual assent to the presence and role of
God in the world." 36 It is the faith of the mind-Alexander
says that it is, peculiarly the faith of the philosopher and the
theologian-" and while it may piHa:r edifices of thought it is
only rarely that it can kindle into a passion of understanding!' 37
One notes particularly in Alexander's description of this type of
belief that " God is indifferent to it," that is, it is wholly on
man's side, and is accorded only a psychological description as
a subjective assent to God's existence. A second type of faith is
trust, and in contrast to the first "it moves in two directions.
34
36

Op. cit., voL I, p. f<!38.
Ibid., italics mine..

Op. cit., p. 80.
•• Ibid.

36

'!.'HE MEANING

OF FAITH

241

It is man's trust in God and it is God's trust in man; its truest
image is that which is found in the relationship of persons
mutually understanding and sharing in responsibility." 38 Man's
movement of trust toward God is thus reciprocated by a movement of God toward man; faith in this sense is not purely subjective, but has objective reality in God, as well. Divine Person
approaches human person even as human person reaches toward
the divine.
The third type of faith described by Alexander is moral faith:
the response of the whole moral personality to the demand of
Perfection, a response which becomes overt in moral action.
" ... it lies between a man and his own soul, and it lies between
God and his own nature." Continuing, " For in a moral world
it is not alone man who must hold himself to account, but God
also, facing his own standards of equity, purity and nobility ....
This is the last and highest arbitrament of the good and the bad
that man can conceive-God's faith kept with himself." 39
Like A. E. Taylor, Alexander excludes dogma from his conception of faith. "Actual trust in God means something quite
different from any dogma. It means a recognition of his character and person in a manner not at all dissimilar to that which
prompts our trust in the character and person of our neighbor,
which is assuredly not the outcome of any studied analysis, but
arises directly from a familiarity that has bred confidence and
has engendered love." 40 Man does not believe then in the dogmatic assertions of others, either churches or individuals, but
rather in the validity of his own " personal experience of God."
This faith must be described as mystical in quality, since it
implies a direct contact of the soul with met-empirical Reality.
Thus far we have dealt with concepts of faith which, all of
them, treat the subject without any reference to dogmatic
authority, and also, one must admit, without any thoroughgoing analysis of the term. In Santayana's system faith is
" animal " faith, an instinctive attitude required for the survival
of living creatures. In Dewey and James it is a voluntary belief
•• Ibid.

•• Ibid., p. 85.

•• Ibid., p. 81.

ILSE FOREST

in the power of ideals to influence the course of men's lives and
the very universe in which these lives are lived, In Brightman's
theory it is belief in an Unseen Friend, a finite, personal God,
Taylor introduces a note of authority, but not dogmatic
authority; faith is the conviction that reality is beyond the
reach of our limited categories; his conception of faith also
includes the idea of " the divine initiative," " a movement
from without," in addition to the initiative of the believer,
Alexander's " faith " we have just discussed; it is the "faith "
of an evangelical theologian, examined in what he thinks to be
its three phases, We turn now to a concept of faith in which
dogma is very much involved, but which, as a concept, is given
very careful analysis.
C. THE THoMISTIC

DocTRINE

OF FAITH

A. E. Taylor has made a statement with which the writer
does not wholly agree, but which affords a good introduction
to the discussion of the Scholastic doctrine of faith. He writes:
"The' Liberal Protestant' of 1927 would, no doubt, have been
disowned as a mere ' deist ' by the ' Liberal Protestant ' of 1727,
as our friends in the Roman fold like to remind us; but may
we not equally suspect that an ' orthodox Roman ' of our own
time, a Leo XIII for example, would have found it hard to talk
theology with the Angelic Doctor, without discovering, for
good or bad, the man of the thirteenth and the man of the
twentieth century meant different things by the same phraseology?" 41
The truth of the first part of this passage is not here disputed,
but the second part, referring to the " orthodox Roman " of
our day and the Angelic Doctor does not seem defensible. The
twentieth-century Roman Catholic could have little or no difficulty in conferring with the theologian of the thirteenth, precisely because of the meaning and nature of " faith " in Scholasticism, the careful way in which its nature is described, and the
" Op. cit., vol. n,, p. !IS.

THE MEANING OF

accurate, definite, and final fashion in which its object is defined.
" Faith " as analyzed by St. Thomas has as its object the Faith
of the Roman Catholic Church, the content of which is held to
be divinely revealed. Roman Catholic theologians are trained
in it, and in the precise terms in which St. Thomas defines it.
Canon 1866 of the new Codex of Canon Law reads: " The study
of philosophy and theology and the teaching of these sciences to
their students must be accurately carried out by Professors "(in seminaries, etc.)-" according to the arguments, doctrine,
and principles of St. Thomas which they are inviolately to
hold." 42 Neo,.Scholastic philosophers doubtless have developed
certain nuances of the doctrine of faith, but according to
Roman Catholic teaching the permanent structure was built
by Christ and faithfully guarded by His Apostles, Fathers, and
Doctors among whom St. Thomas Aquinas was not the least
prominent. This seems amply to justify the selection here of
the Thomistic as typical of the Scholastic treatment of faith.
For St. Thomas, reason, faith, and the gifts of the Holy Ghost
are the sources of our knowledge of God. It is necessary to
stress the term intellectual in order to represent this essential
quality of Thomistic faith, and also to exclude from the discussion any mystical apprehension of God. Such apprehension
is direct knowledge through vision. " ... to believe is immediately an act of the intellect, because the object of that act is
the true, which pertains properly to the intellect. Consequently
faith, which is the proper principle of that act, must needs reside
in the intellect." 43 The concept of a twofold order of knowledge
runs throughout Scholastic discussions, the following passages
from the Summa Theologica and the Summa Contra Gentiles
being typical: "It was necessary for man's salvation that there
should be a knowledge revealed by God, besides philosophical
science built up by human reason . . . because man is directed
to God, as to an end that surpasses the grasp of his reason." 44
' 2 Cf. Summa Theologica. Trans. by the Fathers
of the English Dominican
Province, vol. I, p. xxxiii.
•• Summa Theologica, 11-11, q. 4, a. 2.
.. Summa Theol., I, q. 1, a. 1.

244

ILSE FOREST

" While then the truth of the intelligible things of God is twofold, one to which the inquiry of the reason can attain, the other
which surpasses the whole range of human reason." 45
St. Thomas accepts the Pauline definition of faith, translating
it to read, " Faith is a habit of mind whereby eternal life is
begun in us, making the intellect assent to what is nonapparent." 46 Faith so conceived is a supernatural gift, by means
of which the truths of revelation are voluntarily accepted as
true by the human mind: 'the power to believe is a free gift
from God to the human soul which " moves " the soul to react
in a certain way. "The act
believing is an act of the intellect
assenting to the divine truth at the command of the will moved
by the grace of God." 47 The writer is aware that the conception ·
of faith as a supernatural gift or "grace" is not familiar to nonScholastic philosophers, but as such St. Thomas certainly
regards it. According to Scholastic teaching, when man gives his
assent to matters of faith, he is raised above his nature. This is
only possible through the action in him of a supernatural principle: this inwardly moving principle is none other than God.
" Therefore faith, as regards the assent which is the chief act of
faith, is from God moving man inwardly by grace." 48 This
supernatural grace is not needed merely to make man's assent
possible: it is necessary because the object of faith is supernatural and therefore a supernatural means must be employed
in its apprehension.
Faith is a less satisfying activity to the intellect than reason,
since it requires a humiliation of the intellect's power, and a
submission to the experience of" seeing in a glass darkly." When
the intellect, through faith, deals with the divine Object, it
requires " evidence of things unseen." Evidence is of three
kinds: .self-evidence, evidence deducible from premisses, and
evidence accepted on "grave authority."
Now this "grave
authority " may be human authority in a scientific field, giving
us interesting knowledge about our mysterious universe which
•• I Cont. Gent., 4.'
•• Summa Theol., 11-11, q. 4, a. 1.

01 Summa Theol., 11-11, q. 1, a. 2.
•• Summa Theol., II-11, q. 6, a. 1.

THE MEANING

OF FAITH

245

is not self-evident, nor within the reasoning power of most of
us. The evidence so obtained is an example of what St. Thomas
calls " human faith." Or the grave authority may be God Himself, in which case there is certitude through divine faith. In
either case, faith involves taking another's word for some statement; in the first, that of a fallible human being, in the second,
the word of God. (Faith in the latter sense is the faith meticulously analyzed by St. Thomas in the second part of the Summa
Theologica.) The evidence, in divine faith, is extrinsic as evidence to the proposition believed, and reached usually under
the disposing influence of such intrinsic evidence as is furnished
in the propositions: a) this person is competent and truthful;
b) this person has vouched for the truth of this or that statement-a proposition which is implied in " human " faith as
well. Supernatural faith, then, has the certitude of Divine
authority based on divine evidence: "Faith has not that research
of natural reason which demonstrates what is believed, but a
research into those things whereby a man is induced to believe,
for instance, that such things have been uttered by God and
confirmed by miracles." 49 Of course this certainty immediately
distinguishes the Thomistic concept of faith from the nonScholastic descriptions considered in the present article.
The believing subject accomplishes the assent of faith by the
will's consenting to the intellectual acceptance of a statement
as true on the authority of the witness. Faith so conceived is
not unreasonable: on the contrary, faith and reason are in
fundamental agreement since their joint object is truth. But
faith is non-reasonable-a process other than reason giving
intellectual knowledge, and, like reason, requiring analysis and
synthesis, issuing in a proposition. Faith is not a subjective
feeling, but a voluntary intellectual act made into supernatural
certainty by an objective factor, supernatural grace. "Motives
of credibility," intrinsic with respect to reason, are the extrinsic
evidence arrived at by direct reasoning; they antedate, and are
antecedently necessary to, the act of faith. But for this very
49

Summa Theol .• II-II, q. 2, a. l. Italics mine.

ILSE FOREST

.reason they do not constitute the essence of the act of faith.
This act, as has been said, is a voluntary consent to the intellectual acceptance of a statement on the authority of a witness.
The reasons for believing which would make the non-Scholastic
philosopher commit himself to one set of beliefs rather than
another do not ai{ect the Scholastic: for him faith in its objective
totality IS the sum of the truths revealed by God in the Scriptures and in tradition. The extraordinary history of the Jewish
people, the fulfillment in the New Testament of the prophecies
of the Old, the human life of Christ, the survival of the Church
and the constancy of its doctrine in spite of heresy, schism, and
the treachery of its own leaders-these facts are admitted by
Scholastics as giving strong reasonable support to the theory
that the Scriptures are divinely revealed, but he who says these
'"motives of credibility" are necessary to faith, or for that
matter in any way enhance its natural brilliance, is anathema.
For the Scholastic there can be no selection by the :reason of a
preferred hypothesis, no self-determination to commit oneself
to one hypothesis rather than another; his position requires an
absolute, naive acceptance of a truth divinely given and
divinely certified-requiring, it is true, the cooperation
the
intellect and the will, the latter perhaps motivated by the
promise of eternal reward, but initiated by God and withdrawn,
in some instances, at his pleasure.
From the foregoing it is evident that a subjective analysis of
an act of faith must presuppose the presence of an objective
element, supernatural light. Through the action of supernatural light a subjective, voluntary act of assent is made
possible. The object of his belief is then apprehended by the
believer in a manner analogous on the one hand to the phenomenon of ocular vision and on the other to the intellect's
of its p:roper object. In sight there are involved
the eye or visual faculty, a colored object, and light serving as
medium. 5 ° Color is the formal object of sight-the objectum
formale quod. Light is the formal reason of sight-the objectum
50 This discussion follows very closely the article on " Faith " by Hugh Pope, in
the Catholic Encyclopedia.

THE MEANING

OF FAITH

247

formale quo. In the apprehension of the proper object of intellectual knowledge, the intellectual faculty elicits the act, the
objectum formale quod is the intelligible object, and the evidence presented for assent is the objectum formale quo. In the
act of faith the object primarily attained (objectum formale
quod) is God as He is in Himself under the aspect of First
Ontological Truth (Prima Veritas in essendo) and the evidence
(objectum formale quo) on which it ultimately rests is God
under the aspect of authoritative revealer Who can neither
deceive nor be deceived, that is, God from the standpoint of
His unfailing veracity and omniscience (Prima V eritas in
dicendo et in cognoscendo) . Both the objectum formale quod
and the objectum formale quo are therefore divine, in divine
faith. Quoting H. Pope's article in the Catholic Encyclopedia,
"Just as the formal object of Divine Faith is the First Truth
itself, so the evidence of the First Truth is the First Truth
describing Itself."
In reviewing the Thomistic philosophy we recall that there are
two orders of knowledge, knowledge by reason based on evidence
and knowledge by faith based on authority. There are also two
orders of faith: since faith is always based on authority, and
there are two sorts of authority, human and divine. The higher
order of faith, namely the divine, is given by God as a " grace,"
and assented to by man through an intellectual act. The lower
order requires only assent to human authority, and carries with
it no constraint or obligation to believe any given authority
rather than any other; the higher order, carrying with it divine
certitude, ipso facto leaves only the option of assent or nonassent. We may also distinguish correspondingly two orders of
objects: the object of divine faith is the First Truth, the divine,
the Wholly Other. The object of human faith is scientific truth.
St. Thomas teaches that it is possible for the same thing to
be the object of reasonable knowledge for one man and the
object of faith for another. To the simple, revelation brings
knowledge about God which these could never attain by philosophic inquiry. The proofs for God's existence, for instance,
can hardly be understood by those of limited intellectual
8

248

ILSE FOREST

capacity, yet these same limited intelligences may know the
truths concerning God by faith: ". . . it was necessary that
man should be taught by a divine revelation; because the truth
about God which human reason could discover would (else)
only be known by a few, and after a long time and with the
admixture of many errors." 51 Also, ". . . while then the truth
of the intelligible things of God is twofold, one to which the
inquiry of the reason can attain, the other which surpasses the
whole range of human reason, both are fittingty proposed by
God to man as an object of belief. We must first show this with
regard to that truth which is attainable by the inquiry of
reason, lest it appear to some that, since it can be attained by
reason, it is useless to make it an object of faith by supernatural
inspiration." 52 The text of the Summa Contra Gentiles then
goes on to show three disadvantages which would result if the
divine truth were left solely to the inquiry of reason: " few
men would have knowledge of God " because of limitations of
temperament, lack of intelligence and laziness; and those who
arrived at truth would do so only after a long lapse of time;
there would be " an admixture of many errors."
The disparity between the detailed account of faith offered
by St. Thomas and the slight treatment accorded the subject
by our modern philosophers makes comparison difficult. Yet
this very disparity is of significance, and has a cogent psychological reason. The sanctions of heaven and hell do not influence
the modern philosopher; faith is, for him, a convenient term for
describing a certain intellectual experience, ranging in importance and significance all the way from bare certitude that he
exists in an existing universe to a unique, personal experience
of God. For the modern, faith is an intellectual adventure
involving risk, without any certitude, or, .at best, a certitude
based on personal conviction. St. Thomas, on the other hand,
is vitally concerned with faith as a requisite for salvation,
through the possession or non-possession of which men are forever saved or damned. Such a faith, once possessed, .involves
Summa Theol., I, q. 1, a. 1.
•• 1 Cont. Gent., 4.

51

THE MEANING OF FAITH

249

no risk, and gives utter certainty since it is based on the word
of God. There are degrees of seriousness in the risk which a
modern philosopher takes. In science and metaphysics, he
simply risks a mistake, risks making a fool of himself to a greater
or less degree. However, when the same modern takes the risk
of faith in practical matters, such as social idealism or religion,
the jeopardy is grave, because of the importance of the practical
issues involved, and the possibility of objective certainty is still
ruled out, even though the specific Protestant theism of an H.
B. Alexander gives subjective certainty. For St. Thomas, faith
is likewise a risk, a venture: but it is a venture with a certain
outcome, once the grace of God is vouchsafed. And there is no
" higher order " of faith, no " divine " faith, until this grace is
given, this divine element enlisted. Without the divine ingredient, there is merely faith in human authority-since without the authoritative element there can be no faith in the
Scholastic sense: " The disposition of a believer is that of one
who accepts another's word for some statement, because it is
fitting or useful to do so." 53 The Scholastic, like the non-Scholastic, may be deceived in his " human " faith; but not in the
faith which is divine.
John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote in
and Gain:
" Certainty in the highest sense is the reward of those who by
an act of will, embrace the truth when nature, like a coward,
shrinks. You must make a venture; faith is a venture before a
man is a Catholic, it is a grace after it. You approach the church
in the way of reason; you live in it in the light of faith." 54
This quotation seems to summarize the Scholastic position:
faith is belief in authority. He who would have divine faith
must approach the pronouncements of the Church in an attitude
of receptivity toward authority; then, by divine action, faith
as a virtue becomes possible, for grace inclines the will to move
the intellect to assent to the divine truths which the Church
teaches. Thus " human " faith is a psychological venture, full
of risk, of doubtful certainty; divine faith is a virtue, having
•• De Veritate, xiv, 1, quoted by Hugh Pope, op. cit.
•• P. 309.

250

ILSE FOREST

objectivity and perfect certainty, a gift of God, like aU gifts
dependent on his good pleasure, impossible of attainment by
thought or effort, directed toward one transcendent Object, the
First Truth. St. Thomas, as we have shown, defined this faith
clearly, definitely, and with intent to make of it a bulwark for
Catholic doctrine. Small wonder that his system became the
official philosophy of the Roman Church. But with equal clarity
and distinctness he distinguishes the provinces of faith and
reason, and declares that the former has no place in metaphysical
discourse.
ILsE FoREST

New York City"

THE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY
PART

5. THE PRINCIPLES

I

IV

oF JusTICE:

CoNSTITUTIONALITY

(Continued)

N ORDER to clarify the notion of the mixed regime, as
distinct from the mediaeval regimen regale et. politicum,
we found it necessary to expose the inadequacies and
errors which make the " traditional " classification of the forms
of government capable of representation in a sixfold hi-columnar
diagram. Aristotle's conception of the polity as a mixed regime
cannot be understood except in terms of Aristotle's theory of
Constitutional government, which he sharply distinguishes from
Royal or absolute government and which he divides into subordinate forms according to the criteria for admission to citizenship and other public offices. For Aristotle there is only one
mixed regime--the well-tempered constitution that results from
an amelioration of the injustice of the oligarchical constitution,
on the one hand, and of the contrary injustice of the democratic constitution, on the other.
It will be seen at once that Aristotle's classification of the
forms of government, involving this conception of the " middle
constitution " and based upon the fundamental opposition between Royal and Political regimes, cannot possibly be represented schematically by the familiar diagram, which scholastic
political theory perpetuates and which modem political writers
both use and abuse. That diagram delineates the classification
to be found in the De Regimine Principum of St. Thomas
(Book I, Ch. 1, 8}. It is as follows:
GOOD FORMS
(Rule for tke common good)
(I) By one: monarcky-----(2) By a few: aristocracy---(8) By the many: polity or good
democracy--------

PERVERSIONS
(Rule for private interests)
(6) By one: tyranny
(5) By a few: oligarchy
(4} By the many: (bad) democracy

251

M. J. ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

We have already shown-in the preceding installment of Part
IV, Section 5535 "-that the theory schematized in the foregoing
diagram is neither Platonic nor Aristotelian. The picture here
presented is a caricature of the much subtler analysis to be
found in Plato's Statesman. 585 b And though it can be defended
•••• Vd. The Thomist, VI, 1, pp. 49-118.
•••b It is true that in The Statesman Plato makes a sixfold division of the forms
of human government, all of which are contrasted with .a seventh form of government-the perfect government which would occur if a god were to administer the
affairs of the human community, governii:J.g without laws because, possessing the
true art or science of government, he could mete out absolute justice in each case.
As contrasted with this model of perfect government, which Plato regards as
mythical in character, all human political institutions are seen to be essentially
imperfect, in that general rules or positive laws are required as a substitute for
the true art of government, so that justice may be done, albeit imperfectly by the
application of general rules to particular cases. It is this fact which gives Plato a
criterion for determining when the imperfect government, that is the only government practicable on earth, achieves the excellence proper to its type. Good human
regimes are those in which the administrators rule according to laws instituted,
through c;ustom or otherwise, by the people, the whole community. The rulers or
administrators are not law-makers. They are servants of the law. Human .government becomes perverted and unjust when the magistrates try to substitute their
own rule for the rule of law, or when they try to legislate by issuing decrees which
lack the authority of public institution. Though Plato's conception of constitutional
government is inadequate, it does contain the primary note of the supremacy of
positive law over all men, rulers as well as ruled. For Plato, then, all the good
forms of human government are constitutional, and all the perversions are degrees
of despotism, i. e., an absolute rule by men. The subordinate distinction among the
three good forms (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy) is based entirely on the
numerical criterion (one, few, or many administrators), and monarchy is the best
simply because the most efficient in administration; tyranny is the worst of the
three perversions because the most efficient in maladministration. Democracy,
according to Plato, is both in the good and bad column. The least efficient
administration of the laws is Ly the many, the least efficient maladministration,
or violation, of the laws is by the many.
This summary of The Statesman reveals some points of resemblance between the
Platonic analysis and the " traditional " six-fold hi-columnar picture. But the
" traditional " picture obscures the central point in Plato's theory, namely, that
all of the good forms of government, differing inter se only accidentally, are alike
as constitutional regimes, and equal in justice. None of them is more like the
Divine government than any other. In none of them is the ruler also a legislator
or above the positive laws in any way. On Plato's theory, there could be no mixed
regime resulting from a combination of rule by the one, by the few, and by the
many. This is the acid test which shows that the " traditional " classification is a
confusion of Platonic ·and Aristotelian analyses.

THE THEORY OF

253

as a simplified version of the classification Aristotle reports as
current opinion in Book III of the Politics (Ch. 7, 8), the
remainder of the Politics, especially Books IV, V, VI, :repudiates
the six-fold hi-columnar picture.
This we have already shown by an extended examination of
the relevant texts, but so far we have proceeded negativelydemonstrating that the " traditional " picture is neither Aristotelian nor true to the facts of political history. To complete
our discussion positively, we must now set forth a classification
of the forms of government that is truly Aristotelian and also
true as an analysis of the concrete historical record-that is,
analytically true as far as it is possible for an ancient theory
to account for the political facts that could have been known,
and the possibilities that could have been guessed, in the ancient
world. This positive task can best be accomplished by the construction of a diagram that will immediately reveal the radical
differences between Aristotle's theory and the "traditional"
diagram given above.
In constructing this table we shall try to picture the subordination of accidental to essential distinctions, and of specific
essential distinctions within the generic sphere of Constitutional
government. We shall also try to indicate by spatial arrangement and direction, the order of the various regimes with respect
to justice. In order to make the diagram represent the classification which occurs in the Politics, we have parenthetically
indicated the intermediate regime, the regimen regale et politicum, which was a mediaeval development, and also the
characteristically modern development of Democratic government. The latter introduces a new specific subdivision within
the generic sphere of Constitutional government to replace
the threefold division which Aristotle makes. In the modern
world, there are no Constitutional governments of the sort
the Greeks knew as pure oligarchy and pure democracy; and
the Greek mixed regime, the polity, becomes with some alterations the modern Republic which, in Part V, we shall analyze
and compare with Democracy, which is more just than the
Republic even as the Greek polity was more just than Greek

M. J. ADLFJR AND WALTER FARRELL

oligarchy or democracy, though the reasons are not the same
in the two cases.
The diagram as here presented is, then, incomplete and
remains to be completed in Part V. But, as here presented, it
conforms to the Aristotelian analysis, and to the Aristotelian
vocabulary as well, with one exception, namely, our use of the
words " benevolent despotism " and " despotic tyranny " to
distinguish the two characteristic perversions of Constitutional
government from " simple tyranny " as the only perversion of
Royal government. Though this language is ours, it is thoroughly justified by Aristotelian principles, and especially by
what is said in Book IV of the Politics (Chapters 4, 5, 6) concerning the two stages in the corruption of oligarchy and
democracy-first the overthrow of the constitution itself, and
then the tyrannical use of despotic power. (By the addition
of these two perversions, the classification becomes eightfold
instead of sixfold.) Since the perversion of Royal government
is the same for both its accidental modes, and since the two
perversions of Constitutional government are essentially the
same for its several species, we have not deemed it necessary
to complicate the diagram by indicating all the routes of
corruption in detail. And in general we have omitted from the
diagram most of the accidental subdivisions or accidental elements, in order to make the main structure of the classification
stand out as clearly as possible. A full understanding of this
diagram depends, of course, upon all the points in our prior
discussion, as well as- upon noting its differences from the
" traditional " sixfold picture.

fl55

THE THEORY OF

ARISTOTELIAN EIGHTFOLD CLASSIFICATION OF GOOD
GOVERNMENTS AND THEIR PERVERSIONS
JUST

JUST AND UNJUST

(without injustice)

(ambivalent regimes)
both
just and unjust

I. Purely Royal-----

-----------

Less
just

I

I
I

UNJUST

(totally corrupt)
Less
More
unjust

accidental modes

-?(7)
Simple

(8)
Despotic

Tyranny

Tyranny

<h
(k)
I monarchy aristocracy

I

I

I
I
I

I

(accidental varieties
of each)

..J,

L

/

I
I

I [1;11-regimen regak]
I

"1\

J

I

et pobtiCum

II. Purely Constitutional--

I

I

,l
--- -I
Benevolent Despotism

essential species

"1\

Less
unjust

',/pure -..//

(oil

<E :
/

_, "'

(mixed regime)"'
(S)

polity
--

(5)
__....-extreme oligarchy
:
---

(fusion)

:
:
:
:

{many accidental
variations between these
two extremes

(4)
'extreme democracy
More
just

More
just
\V

[III. Democracy)
NOTES ON FOREGOING DIAGRAM

1. The unbroken arrows indicate the absolute directions within the field of justice
and injustice. The direction of the broken arrows indicates the motions of progress
and corruption. Thus, of the three just regimes (monarchy, aristocracy, and polity),
two are equal in justice, and this is indicated by their being placed on the same
vertical level; and the remaining one is absolutely more just, for polity is a species of
Constitutional government,
the transition from Royal to Political government is
a motion in the direction of progress. Of the three ambivalent regimes (democracy,
oligarchy, and benevolent despotism), democracy is nearest to polity in the horizontal dimension, and this indicates that it is the,,least unjust of the partial perversions; oligarchy is more unjust, and benevolent despotism, being the corruption

256

M. J. ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

of Constitutional government itself, is more unjust, while at the same time being
somewhat just. Because they are ambivalent; it can be said of these three regimes,
that the most just is the least unjust, and the most unjust is the least just. This
is indicated by the order of the numbers-(4), (5), and (6)-(4) being to the left
of (5) and (6), and (6) being higher in the vertical dimension than (5) and (4).
Of the two complete perversions (simple tyranny and despotic tyranny), simple
tyranny is less unjust than despotic tyranny because the latter is the complete
corruption of a superior good regime, but neither of these two regimes has any
justice; therefore here we do not say that the less unjust is the more just. That
benevolent despotism is, however, less unjust than simple tyranny is indicated by
the fact that (6) ·is lower in the vertical dimension than either (7) or (8). And
that it is less unjust than despotic tyranny is indicated by the fact that (6) is, in
the horizontal dimension, to the left of (8).
2. We can, therefore, read off the order of the eight numbered regimes, by placing
their numbers in three series, as follows. First, the order of regimes which are simply
just, i.e., have :iJ.o element of injustice relative to the conditions which justify them:
here (1) and (2) are coequal, and inferior to (8) . Second, the order of ambivalent
regimes, which are both just and unjust: here the order is (4), (5), and (6)from the less to the more unjust. Third, the order of regimes which are simply
unjust, i.e., no element of justice: here the order is (7) and (8), from the less to
the more unjust. And if injustice is alone considered, the order from less to more
is (4), (5), (6), (7), and (8).
8. The diagram also shows how the ambivalent regimtls are both perversions of
simply just regimes and subject to further corruption into absolutely unjust regimes.
Thus, oligarchy and democracy, as pure species of the Republican form, are perversions of polity as the mixed constitution; and both are subject to further corruption,
:first into benevolent despotism, and then into despotic tyranny. The diagram does
not consider a change from democracy to oligarchy, or its converse, as a motion of
corruption or progress, even though democracy is more just, and oligarchy more
unjust.
4. What is represented by [!/Ill indicates the place of the intermediate regimen
regale et politicum in the order of justice, but not in the order of temporal development, since both purely Royal and purely Political government are historically prior
in their occurrence to government which is imperfectly both Royal and Political.
5. We have added [III. Democracy] merely to indicate where the third of the
three major regimes would come in the order of justice. This is also its place in the
order of historical development; but this diagram does not adequately represent how
the Democratic and Republican regimes differ and are related within the generic
sphere of Constitutional government. In an adequate diagram, the Roman number
II would be used for Republic, including here all the sub-species of Republican
government (i.e., polity, democracy, and oligarchy); and the Roman number III
would be used for Democracy. It would be understood that II and III together
differed from I, as purely Constitutional from purely Royal government.
6. In the Aristotelian scheme, the distinction between pure and mixed regimes is
possible only within the realm of Constitutional government, though, as we have
indicated, it may also be relevant to the constitutional aspect of the regimen regale
et politicum. When the distinction between Republic and Democracy is made in
Part V, it will be seen that the distinction between pure and mixed regimes is
relevant only to the Republican form of Constitutional government.

THE THEORY OF

257

To complete our understanding of this classification of the
forms of government, with its several orderings of regimes
according to justice and injustice, it is necessary to remember
that an Aristotelian analysis involves the distinction between
the relatively just and the absolutely just. A regime, such as
purely Royal government, can be just relative to inferior circumstances, and with respect to these circumstances in no way
unjust; yet, absolutely considered, it is less just than purely
Constitutional government. Absolutely considered it is lacking in justice, though relatively considered it may not be
actually unjust. Because of this, the words " absolute regime "
are ambiguous, for both Royal government and benevolent
despotism are absolute regimes, and both are just with respect
to the common good, but· benevolent despotism is a regime
which is actually unjust relative to superior circumstances
because they do not justify its absolutism, whereas relative
to inferior conditions, the absolutism of Royal government is
not actually unjust.
It is not possible to represent these facts in a two-dimensional
diagram, but our diagram will not be fully understood unless
these qualifications are remembered, for the only difference
between purely Royal government and benevolent despotism
depends on the circumstances-.:....inferior conditions justifying
the one, superior conditions making the other actually unjust.
In the temporal order of. development, a regime may become
actually unjust without undergoing the sort of perversion
which consists in the violation of some element of justice
enters into its character. It may become unjust because
it remains unchanged in character after the inferior conditions,
which justified it relatively, have given way to superior conditions. We must remember, therefore, that our diagram indicates only one sort of perversion-the familiar sort which
consists in the negation or violation of a principle of justice
already actually present in the regime being corrupted. But
there is this other sort of perversion, which the diagram cannot
represent, namely, the sort which consists in the failure to
actualize a principle of justice when changing conditions de-

258

M. J. ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

mand that that principle become actually realized. At a prior
time, when inferior conditions prevailed, no actual injustice
was done by the regime in which that principle was only potentially present. If it remains in potentiality after conditions
have changed, however, then actual injustice occurs.
This will, of course, be understood by the reader who has
followed our discussion of the relative justification of the Royal
regime (in Section 3 supra) by reference to the difference
between primitive conditions (in which one or a few men are
radically superior to the many) and civilized conditions (in
which the many are radically equal in virtue or political competence). In this connection, however, it is necessary to repeat
a word of caution already spoken. 586
The Aristotelian theory of the relative justification of inferior regimes depends upon an hypothesis about historic fact.
If that hypothesis is false-if there never has actually been,
nor now is, a difference among civil communities of the sort
supposed-then the several inferior good regimes cannot be
relatively justified. Rather they are all ambivalent regimes,
both actually just and actually unjust. Only the best of the
good regimes is completely just, without any element of actual
justice. And only the ultimate corruption of good government
is completely unjust, without any element of actual justice.
Between these two extremes there are several ambivalent
regimes, each of which is less just than the perfectly just
and less unjust than the completely unjust; and considered
among themselves, one ambivalent regime may be more or
less just, less or more unjust, than another. On this hypothesis,
moreover, one of the most striking analytical consequences is
the eradication of any distinction between Royal government
and benevolent despotism. These are merely two names for
the same ambivalent regime, which is unjust in so far as it is
absolute government, and just in so far as it is benevolent
and thus avoids the injustice of tyranny. If the analysis is
completed by adding the distinction between the Democratic
••• Vd. Part IV, Section 8, supra, in THE THOMIST, IV, 8, pp. 620-2; and Section
4, supra, in THE THOMIST, IV, 4, pp. 694-6.

259

THE THEORY OF

and Republican forms of purely Constitutional government,
it will be found that there is no distinction between a Republic
(Constitutional government with unjust distribution of the
status of citizenship) and the perversion of Democracy which
we have decided to call oligarchy. 531 There is, in short, no relative justification for Republican government, to distinguish
it from oligarchy as a corruption, as there is no relative justification for Royal government, to distinguish it from benevolent despotism as a corruption. This analysis eventuates in a
much simpler classification and ordering of the forms of government, presented in the following diagram. All the Aristotelian
distinctions remain, though they are transformed by the obliteration of any relative justification for inferior regimes, on the
hypothesis that no inferior conditions have ever existed historically to justify them.

CLASSIFICATION OF THE FORMS OF GOVERNMENT ON THE
HYPOTHESIS THAT HISTORIC CONDITIONS ARE
ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE THE SAME
PERFECTLY
JUST

Limited

III. Democratic

II

AMBIVALENT

Less just
-?More unjust..-..-

Government

Absolute Government

11

<E--- II. Republican

!'------

3. Tyrannical
{oligarchical
(benevolent
/{ (virtually in-injustice)------+ despotism)/
eluding the
--,,.
injustice of
despotism
essential species
accidental modes·

--. ......_____

I. Royal

la

1/Frehy

polity /

531

II COMPLETELY

REGIMES

just
Less unjust----------

:

lmonarchy
aristocracy

Vd. Part IV, Section 5, supra, in THE THOMIST, VI, 1, p. 110-1, and fn. 5fl7.

260

M. J. ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

NOTES ON FOREGOING DIAGRAM
1. The unbroken arrows indicate the order of progress from the less just to the
more just regime. The broken arrows indicate the order of corruption from the
perfectly just regime through the ambiva1ent regimes to the ultimate perversion of
good government, which is completely unjust.
2. The Roman numbers indicate the three regimes which have some justice, and
the Arabic numbers indicate the three regimes which involve some injustice. The
three regimes which are indicated by Roman numbers can, therefore, be called good
regimes; and the three regimes indicated by Arabic numbers can be called perversions. Two regimes, of course, can be classified both as good regimes and perversions,
according as their ambivalent character is separated into elements of justice and
injustice. With respect to these two, we have indicated the names by wpich they
are called when they are regarded as good and when they are regarded as perversions.
These alternative names are, of course, strictly synonymous in denotation,
3. Among the good regimes, the order from less just to more just is: I, II, and III.
Among the perversions, the order from less unjust to more unjust is 1, 2, and 8.
4. If by " good government " is meant a regime which is actually completely just,
then Democracy is the only good government; similarly, if by " corrupt government"
is meant a total perversion of government, then Tyranny is the only corrupt
government.
5. As tyranny virtually includes the two less grave injustices (despotism and
oligarchy), so benevolent despotism virtually includes the less grave injustice which
is oligarchy. Vd. fn. 528 supra. No confusion need result from the double use of
the word " oligarchy " to name the type of injustice which is peculiar to the
ambivalent character of Republican government, and also to name a subordinate
type (i.e., an essential species) of Republican government, divided against
democracy and polity. These subordinate distinctions, as well as the distinction
between monarchy and aristocracy, are the same in this diagram as in the preceding
one on page 255.

If the hypothesis as to historic fact, on which the foregoing
diagram is based, be true, then there is no need to prove that
regimes which are justified only in relation to inferior conditions are absolutely less just than those which superior conditions demand. But if the hypothesis on which the Aristotelian
analysis rests be true, then we must prove that very point.
Since we have decided to complete our whole discussion on the
Aristotelian hypothesis before undertaking to consider the issue
of fact which these contrary hypotheses generate, we must
now turn to the last problem which concerns us in this part
of our work-to argue explicitly the absolute superiority of
Constitutional government. 538
538

The argument for the absolute superiority of the Democratic form of Consti-

THE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY

261

6. Though the reasons have already been indicated/ 39 they

must now be collected and ordered to demonstrate that Constitutional government is absolutely more just than Royal government. There is no need for us to consider here the intermediate regimen regale et politicurn, for if the demonstration is
made, it must follow necessarily that Royal and Political
government is intermediate in the absolute scale of justice.
To begin with, we must observe that the problem of absolute gradations in justice concerns only those regimes which
can be just relatively to certain circumstances. Only such
regimes can, in relation to other circumstances, be called relatively unjust or relatively inexpedient. The real perversions
of just government that we have so far considered (despotism
and tyranny taken simply or in combination) are always
unjust. Moreover, when we say that one of these perversions
is more unjust than another, the measurement is determined
by (1) whether it is the perversion of a more just l;egime, or
(2) whether it is a more complete corruption than some less
drastic perversion of that same just regime. Hence we could
not compare distinct perversions as more or less unjust according to the first sort of measurement, unless one form of
just government is absolutely more just than another; or,
according to the second sort of measurement, unless some just
governments involve two separable principles of justice, one
of which can be violated without the other, or both together
to result in a more complete corruption of this just regime.
This shows conclusively that there is a scale of absolute justice
tutionai government is reserved for Part V. Only after that has been presented will
we consider the merits of the two hypotheses about historic fact. But we have
revealed enough of the analytical consequences of the hypothesis which denies
relative justification to show that the classification and ordering of the forms of
government on that hypothesis diverges as radically from the " traditional " classification (of six so-called" pure" regimes in two columns, the regimes in each column
being equal in justice or injustice), as does the classification based on the contrary
hypothesis. Neither hypothesis supports the position taken by :Father Parsons and
others, because the analysis based on each involves the same fundamental insightthe distinction of three separable and cumulatively combinable elements of
political justice.
539 Vd. Section 3, supra, in THE THOMIST, IV, 3, pp. 513-16.

M. J. ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

on which just regimes can be hierarchically placed. Moreover,
it indicates that the absolutely more just regime, being one
that is subject to partial or complete corruption, must involve
separable elements of justice, for otherwise its progressive corruption could not occur through the cumulation of distinct
types of injustice. Our prior validation of the distinction between despotism and tyranny, and between simple and despotic tyranny, is therefore by itself almost sufficient proof that
Constitutional government is, absolutely speaking, more just
than Royal government.
There are, however, several other ways in which this conclusion can be proved, differing from one another only in
that each looks at the same fundamental truth from a
different angle, and so they tend to confirm one another.
Since prior discussions have prepared the way, we can now
briefly summarize these arguments.
(1) The social conditions or circumstances of civil life may

not only be diverse, but their diversity may also support the
judgment that one set of conditions is inferior to the other.
The grounds for making this judgment will be argued subsequently (in 2 below). Here let us merely stand on the judgment
that the conditions of a primitive community (as already
defined) are inferior to the conditions of a civilized community
(as already defined). Now we have previously shown two
things to be true about Royal government, because of its essential nature as the absolute rule by one or a few men radically
superior in virtue to the rest, the rest being without sufficient
political competence to decide things for the common good:
(a) that Royal government is justified only by the inferior
conditions of a primitive community; (b) that relative to the
superior conditions of a civilized community, absolute government is unjust and hence, if absolute rule does occur under
such circumstances, it is not Royal, but despotic, government.
The second of these points leads necessarily to a third point,
viz., (c) that by its very nature Constitutional government
(as the limited rule by office-holders who are radically equal in
virtue with the ruled, all of whom have sufficient, though not

THE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY

263

the same degree of, political competence to decide things for
the common good) is not only justified by the superior conditions of a civilized community, but also required in justice by
such conditions. I£ this were not true, it could not be said
that, relative to such conditions, absolute government is unjust
-not Royal, but despotic. Finally, there is a fourth point:
(d) that Constitutional government is not, for the most part,
unjust relative to primitive conditions; it is only, for the most
part, inexpedient. It is not unjust to give men functions or
responsibilities which they are incompetent to exercise, but it
is certainly practically unwise to do so. The reason for the
qualifying ut in pluribus is that, with respect to the one or
few superior men in the primitive community, injustice is done
by treating them only as equals with the resL 540 This qualification does not, however, affect our argument. From the four
points noted, we must conclude that that form of government
which is justified only by inferior conditions and is actually
unjust relative to superior conditions, is absolutely less just
than a form of government which justice requires in relation
to superior conditions. 541 The conclusion is here stated with
complete generality. It obviously applies to Royal and Constitutional government, for they are so related. 542 Hence we
conclude that Royal government is inferior to Constitutional
government on an absolute scale of justice.
(2) We shall now argue the truth of the judgment that
diverse social conditions can be compared as inferior and supe640 Vd. fn. 362 supra.
•n To understand what is here being said, we must carefully distinguish two
comparisons which can be made of diverse regimes. (I) We can say that one form
of government is better than another relatively because it is more expedient for
these particular conditions, i.e., will more efficiently preserve the existential common
good. (S) We can say that one form of government is better than another relatively
because it is more just for people who are in these particular conditions, i.e., the
other and inferior regime would be actually unjust for them. A superior regime may
be inexpedient for a people in an inferior condition; but an inferior regime will
always be unjust for a people in a superior condition.
••• The generality with which the conclusion was first stated reveals it to be
applicable to the comparison of the Republican and Democratic forms of Constitutional government as well.

9

264

M • .J. ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

rior. Furthermore, we shall now show that there is no further
element of relativity in our comparison of diverse regimes,
because it is by the very nature of the state or civil community
that we must regard one set of social conditions as absolutely
inferior to another. The ultimate end of the state or civil
society is the happiness of all men-not a few men, some men,
or most men. The natural happiness of men consists in a good
social life, the fullest realization of man's capacity for social
living, both intellectually and morally. The inferiority of the
domestic and village communities to the civil community resides in the fact that, though they can provide for thj:: daily
needs of life, they cannot provide the conditions of the good
life, a human life. The good life, in short, can only be led by
civilized men, and the superior goodness of the civil over
other natural communities lies in the fact that it, and it alone,
can civilize men. If this is its ultimate purpose, one measure
of its success is the number of men it does in fact civilize-of
aU those who can be so cultivated. Excluding persons with
abnormal deficiencies,
the rest of mankind can be civilized.
That is the very meaning of normality in any sound view of
human nature. Hence it follows that what we have called a
civilized community is absolutely superior to what we have
called a primitive community. The measure of this superiority
is found in the_nature of man and in the nature of the state or
civil community as an indispensable means to every man's perfection. We must conclude, therefore,
the form of government which justice requires for a superior community is
absolutely more just than the form of government which is
just only in relation to inferior conditionso This conclusion
applies to the comparison of Constitutional and Royal regimes.
(3) The foregoing argument is supported by the view we
are now taking concerning the facts of historical progress.
According to our understanding of the unequal goods which
can be achieved by the family, the village, and the state, we
must say that there is progress in human affairs when men
pass historicaHy from domestic or village communities to civil
society. Furthermore, on the Aristotelian hypothesis, there is

THE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY

265

progress in civil life according as the state progressively
achieves its ultimate aim-to civilize all normal men. Now in
its historical occurrence, absolute government first shows itself
in domestic and village communities, and passes thence by
natural extension to the state in its primitive formation. 543
But though absolute government is naturally proper. in the
family, and even in the village as an extension of the family,
it is anomalous in the civil community because of the ideal
condition or end which defines the very nature of the state.
Hence it is justified in the state only by the earliest stages of
civil development. Unless we deny the reality of progress
in human affairs, we are compelled to say that one form of
government is absolutely better than another according as it
is proper to a higher stage of human progress. But Royal government is proper only at an earlier stage of progress, and
Constitutional government is an inevitable accomplishment of
later stages. We must conclude, therefore, that Constitutional
government is absolutely better than Royal government,
since the goodness of government is to be found in its justice,
this means that Constitutional government is superior on an
absolute scale of justice. 344
(4) We have previously separated the generic moral quality
common to every form of good government from the special
moral qualities with which the particular forms of good government are endowed. That we have done by distinguishing the
us Vd. fn. 871 supra. Cf. John Locke, Second Essay Of Civil Government, Ch.
VIII" Of The Beginning of Political Societies," esp.1[I05-112, wherein Locke repeats
the Aristotelian account almost in identical terms.
"" The argument from the facts of progress can also take the form of a reductio
ad absurdum. The dominion of freedom under absolute government is imperfect;
the dominion of freedom under limited government is perfect. Perfect freedom being
better than imperfect freedom, it cannot be indifferent whether people pass from
perfect to imperfect freedom, or from imperfect to perfect. Since the latter transition
is morally better, the transition from Royal to Constitutional government must be
hoped for; and, for the opposite reason, the transition from Constitutional government to absolute government must be feared. Hence there is political progress and
political regression. But this is impossible unless one form of government is absolutely more just than another. Hence we must conclude that an absolute scale of
justice exists, whereon Royal government is inferior to Constitutional governmentand it is this which was to be proved.

M, J" ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

ideal common good, as finis causa and the ultimate term of political progress, from the existential common good, as finis effectus
and the proximate term of political activity on the part of the
rulers and ruled in a particular state, The political agents in any
community must not only work to preserve the existential common good, but, so long as improvement in human affairs is possible, they must work to achieve the highest condition of civilization that is attainable-L e,, the ideal common good and, with it,
the most complete happiness of mankind, 545 Now by the very
nature of Royal government, the rulers are the principal political agents in the community, and are chiefly responsible 1 for the
common good, But it is not sufficient if they merely maintain
the existing common good, If they make no effort whatsoever
to work toward the ideal common good, their government cannot be regarded as just in the generic sense of justice which
is the same for all good governments, Absolute rulers who
make no effort to improve the condition of their subjects are
no better than tyrants, for even though they preserve the existing common good they are exploiting it for their own class
interests, for they are trying to maintain their own superiority
by doing nothing to reduce the inequality between themselves
and the ruled, Tyrants also must preserve the state in existence in order to exploit the fruits of the common good, These
things being so, it belongs to the generic goodness of the Royal
regime as just, for absolute rulers to work for political progress,
L e,, to elevate the condition of their subjects, to provide for a
wider and more effective distribution of the benefits of civilization, gradually to reduce the original inequality between
themselves and the :ruled, and so to prepare for the transition
from Royal to Constitutional government, and with it the elevation of the ruled from the imperfect freedom of subjection
to the perfect freedom of citizenship, In brief, Royal government, like aU government, must work for political progress.
The point of the argument is that in the case of Royal government, political progress means the elimination of Royal in
••• For the adequate statement of this analysis, vd. Part ll, supra, in Tm::
THOMEST,

III, 4, pp. 621-24; 635-52.

THE THEORY OF

267

favor of Constitutional government. Royal government, in
other words, is unjust unless it strives to replace itself by
Constitutional government.
The fact that such changes cannot usually be accomplished
within the lifetime of a single Royal ruler, and not perhaps in
any period of time short of centuries, does not affect the
argument. The force of the argument remains so long as two
premises are true: (a) that just government must work for
the improvement, as well as for the preservation, of the common good, i. e., must aim at the ideal common good which is
the ultimate term of the state's development in its mission to
provide all men with the benefits of civilization; (b) that all
normal men are capable of being civilized, which means that
the radical inequality in competence, as between rulers and
ruled in a truly Royal regime, must be understood as an inequality in habit, not in power, and so is capable of being
reduced to an inequality in the degree to which the same
habits are shared by all. On these two premises, it must follow
that Royal government is just only if it works to supplant
itself by Constitutional government, doing so by gradually
elevating the society from primitive to civilized conditions,
and gradually effacing the radical inequality in habit as between the one or the few and the many. But if it is just for
Royal government to seek to replace itself by Constitutional
government, and if Royal government is unjust unless it so
endeavors, then we must conclude that Constitutional government is absolutely superior to Royal government on the scale
of justice, for unless this were so, it would be unthinkable
that Constitutional government should be the proximate goal
toward which Royal government is morally obliged to work. 546
••• We have said that absolute rulers who do not attempt to improve the
conditions of the ruled even though that necessarily means the ultimate demise of
Royal government are like tyrants who preserve the common good only to exploit
it for their own interests. This enables us to see another way in which the injustice
of despotism can occur. Up to this point we have defined despotism as the first
corruption of Constitutional government-the injustice of substituting an absolute
rule over a community whose conditions demand the justice of Constitutional
government. But now we can see that despotism may also occur if Royal govern-

268

M. J. ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

The truth of this conclusion requires us to deny the prevalent supposition that every form of just government has a
right to do everything it can to maintain itself. Quite on the
contrary, if it is not the most just form of government it must
do everything it can to replace itself by a superior regime.
To fail in this, or worse, to violate this obligation, is a tyrannical misuse of power, for it is acting against the ideal common
good. The historical record is, unfortunately, replete with evidence of such tyranny on the part of Royal rulers who not only
failed to foster
but strove to prevent the disseminament refuses to give way to the demand for Constitutional government at that point
in the development of a community when a sufficiently large part of the population
has been prepared for citizenship, and when there is no longer a radical inequality
in competence between the absolute rulers and a large number of their subjects. In
such a situation, the absolute rulers cease to embody the goodness of the Royal
regime, justified as it is only by inferior conditions which no longer exist, and they
must be regarded as despots. This is the despotism of unjustified absolute government, even though it is not the corruption of Constitutional government. As
absolute government can be tyrannical by failing to work for progress, so it it
can be despotic by refusing to acknowledge progress once achieved. The application
of these two points throws great light on the moral aspects of the great struggle
between absolute and limited government with the progressive dissolution of the
regimen regale et politicum in the transition from mediaeval to modern times. Vd.
446 and 454 supra. There can be little question that the kings of England and
France who tried to be absolute rulers by dissolving the regimen regale et politicum
into what they conceived as a purely Royal regime were both tyrannical and
despotic.
Vd. Essay on Representative Government, where at the end of Chapter II, Mill
writes: " It is, then, impossible to understand the question of the adaptation of
forms of government to states of society without taking into account not only the
next step, but all the steps which society has yet to make; both those which can
be foreseen, and the far wider range which is at present out of sight. It follows,
that to judge of the merits of forms of government, an ideal must be constructed
of the form of government, most eligible in itself, that is, which, if the necessary
conditions existed for giving effect to its beneficial tendencies, would, more than all
others, favor and promote not some one improvement, but all forms and degrees of
it. This having been done, we must consider what are the mental conditions of all
sorts, necessary to enable this government to realize its tendencies, and what,
therefore, are the various defects by which a people is made incapable of reaping
its benefits. It would then be possible to construct a theorem of the circumstances
in which that form of government may wisely be introduced; and also to judge,
in cases in which it had better not be introduced, what inferior forms of polity will
best carry those communities through the intermediate stages which they must
traverse before they can become fit for the best form of government."

THE THEORY OF

269

tion of culture, :repressed the beginning of popular engagement
in political discussion, exercised a self-serving censorship over
books and other avenues of communication, and regarded the
printing press as the fountainhead of sedition. 547 The enlightenment of the people can be called " subversive " only by
tyrants. Absolute rulers who are truly Royal, neither tyrannical
nor despotic, must undertake the civil cultivation of their subjects, not in spite of its tending to undermine absolute government by removing the need for it, but precisely because of
such tendency. Now the first effect of such cultivation is to
prepare a large enough number of men-though perhaps far
from all-for the status of citizenship by giving them the political competence which before only the rulers had. When this
happens, Constitutional government is not only possible, but
necessary. Continuing past this point, absolute government
ceases to be Royal and becomes despotic. 548
(5) Confirming the previous argument is the fact that the
sort of competence which absolute rulers are supposed to have,
the virtue needed to decide things for the common good, is not
547 To take the most glaring example of many in modern history, the absolute
rule of the Czars of imperial Russia was not despotism during all the centuries in
which the vast masses of the Russian population were totally 1mprepared for
of
Constitutional government. But it was more than tyrannical in tb:e usual
reducing the people from the imperfect freedom of subjection to the indignity of
servitude. It was vicious in the more profound sense that the Czars opposed every
motion toward enlightenment on the part of the people, arising from whatever
source. Instead of working for the peaceful evolution from Royal to Constitutional
government, their repressive measures, unable to curtail the underground spread of
political education, inevitably culminated in the violent revolution of 1905. At that
point, their refusal to see, except at the point of a gun, that some portion of their
subjects (however small against the vast background of the silent masses) were
now ready for a measure of Constitutional government, is a flagrant example of the
despotism of an absolute regime unwilling to recognize that its community has now
progressed to a condition which demands, at least, the intermediate regimen regale
et politicum. Cf. fn. 546 supra.
648 Vd. fn. 546 supra.
The general principle here enunciated applies to the
regimen regale et politicum, as well as to purely Royal government. At a certain
point, even the persistence of the intermediate regime, when it should be dissolved
in favor of purely Constitutional government, indicates the attempt of kings to
preserve the absoluteness of their powers, and so the regimen regale et politicum
becomes despotic in part-i. e., in its Royal aspect. Cf. Section 4, supra, loc. cit ..
pp. 751 ff.

270

M. J. ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

so abnormal that only one or a few men in any community can
ever be expected to possess or attain it. We shall not here
argue what we think to be true, namely, that all men who are
not abnormal are endowed with a human nature whose normal
powers can be cultivated by habits which are the virtues of
citizenship-of actively participating in government for the
cominon good. The whole truth need not be argued until we
undertake to prove that Democracy is the ultimate term of
progress in the development of Constitutional government.
Here, considering only the Constitutional regime generically
as the term of progress at which Royal government must aim,
we need simply argue that a large enough number of the men
who are subjected by absolute rule can become radically equal
in habit with their absolute rulers, to make unjust the inequality of status that is the essence of absolute government. The
proposition we must appeal to is, therefore, less difficult to prove
than the proposition we have previously stated as a premise in
our argument. 549 The proposition we must appeal to seems to us
to be amply proved by the facts of history. Communities have
been able to advance from a primitive to a civilized condition
precisely because the virtue of ruling as well as obeying for the
common good has been attainable by more than one or a few
men.
To think that ·the Royal regime need never be superseded by
Constitutional government is not only to deny such facts, but
also to become involved in a profound theoretical error. That
••• Vd. the premise marked as (b) in (4) supra: "that all normal men are
capable of being civilized, which means that the radical inequality in competence,
as between rulers and ruled in a Royal regime, must be understood as an inequality
in habit, not in power, and so is capable of being reduced to an inequality in the
degree to which the same habits are shared by all." Furthermore, it should be
noted that an inequality in the intensity of the same habits is granted as always
remaining, always irreducible because of individual differences in the degree of
human powers. But such inequality is the basis, not for the distinction between
absolute rulers and their subjects, but for the distinction among men, all of whom
rightly enjoy the equality of citizenship, which deserves for some of these the
honor and obligations of governmental office. To say that the virtue proper to
citizenship enables all who possess it actively to participate in government for the
common good is not to say that any citizen is equally competent with any other
to discharge the duties of every governmental office set up by the constitution.

THE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY

271

error consists in supposing that absolute rule is necessitated and
justified by a fixed, natural inequality among men, rather than
by an alterable inequality, due not to nature but to the development of nature's powers. In the domestic community, the
absolute rule of the father over his children is necessitated and
justified by the immaturity of those he governs for their own
good. But how is immaturity to be understood except as a
developmental condition, a privation of the habits which, with
time and training, can be formed, because the powers of the
normal child are radically equal with the powers of the parent.
The duties of the parent are not only to care for the child during his immaturity and to protect him against his lack of prudence, but also-more positively and most essentially-to educate the child to become a man. The child is simply an imperfect man, which would not be true were there a radical inequality in power between child and adult. 550 The imperfect freedom
of subjection is proper to the developmental condition of the
child as an imperfect man.
What is thus seen to be true in the domestic community is
no less true in the civil community, though it is less likely to be
seen because the development of a people out of political immaturity may take many generations, even centuries, whereas the
growth of a child is a phenomenon so obvious that it cannot be
overlooked by anyone. The slowness of the comparable development of a people, the length of time required and the magnitude of the growing pains, have caused many astute thinkers
and honest observers in the past to overlook the parallel between the growth of a child and the maturation of a people.
650 As we have previously seen, the parent who is unwilling to acknowledge that
his children have become mature and his equals, hence no longer subject to his
absolute rule, is a domestic despot. Vd. fn. 312 supra. But he is a tyrant if, during
their childhood, he does nothing to develop their powers, or even interferes with
their education because it threatens his absolute domination over them. Cf. fn.
547 supra. The parental obligation to serve the good of his children involves more
than caring for them during the period of their insufficiency; it involves the
requirement that he do everything he can to remedy their incompetence. Vd. John
Locke, Second Essay Of Civil Government, Ch. VI " Of Paternal Powers," and
especially 1[67, 69, 74.

Mo ;;L ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

Looking only at the situation in their own day, and lacking
sufficient historical perspective, they supposed that the politically immature were, unlike the child, not merely undeveloped,
but incapable of development. They naturally concluded that
political progress was impossible, because the type of regime
required and justified by the existing inequalities among men
would always be requisite and just.
the light of historical
information now available, no person alive today can be
excused for holding this false conclusion on a supposition so
plainly contrary to fact. We can see that a politically immature
people are like children, not in age, but in stage of developmen.to Though they are chronologically adult, all sorts of contingent factors have cooperated to prevent their normal powers
from being normally developed-economic hardships which
gave them little or no leisure, fixed social stratifications which
restricted their opportunities and set up barriers to communication, educational inadequacies, and cultural superstitions.
That such factors are contingent means that they are remediable. They are rooted in the contingencies of history, not in the
necessities of nature. Whereas the maturation of a child is
partly a matter of natural growth, and only partly dependent
on extrinsic influences, the maturation of a people through
the centuries is entirely a matter of historical growth, entirely
dependent on the efficacy of the cultural and civilizing forces
that can be brought to bear.
So long as a people is, for the most part, culturally immature,
the imperfect freedom of subjection is proper to their imperfect
stage of developmenL The absolute character
Royal rule
is justified, for what Yves Simon has caHed "substitutional
authority " must be exercised
the government
those who
cannot govern themselves-the child, for his own good; an immature people, for their common good. 551 But the ve:ry aptness
of the name Simon has applied to the sort of authority exerCised
by a father
the household and a Royal regime in the state
501 Vd" om prior
discussion of Simon's distinction between "substitutional
authority" and "essential authority" in Section 4 supra, in TlE!E THOMIB'Ir, IV,
4, pp" 'dlli ff.

THE THEORY OF

273

indicates that it should disappear. It is a temporary substitute
for the prudence lacking in the immature. When with maturation-in the short span of childhood or in the centuries of historical growth-the ruled attain the habits of their rulers, no
substitute for their deficiency is any longer needed, and the
substitutional authority of absolute government should vanish,
leaving in its place the essential authority of government, which
is required by the fact that, even in a community of equals,
there always remains the need for some unity of decision concerning the common good. As we have seen, the substitutional
authority of the Royal regime virtually contains, and so conceals, the essential authority which belongs generically to every
type of just government. The very nature of a civil community
makes government indispensable, and so requires the institution of essential authority. But substitutional authority is not
required by the nature of the state, any more than it is required
by the nature of the ruled. It is warranted only by a phase in
the historical development of both the state itself and its people.
Hence we must conclude that, even as subjection is an imperfect condition of freedom in the ruled, so Royal government
is an imperfect form of civil government because, due to historic
contingencies and not to the nature of the state itself or the
essential nature of government, it requires the rulers to exercise
substitutional as well as essential civil authority. By the same
reasoning, we know that Constitutional or Political government,
exercising only an essential authority, is proper to the nature of
the state, and perfectly embodies the essence of civil government. But the nature of the state and of government provides
us with an absolute standard for measuring the goodness of
diverse regimes. Therefore, our conclusion that the Royal
regime is imperfect government for a civil community, and
Political government perfect, is equivalent to the proposition
to be proved, namely, that Constitutional government is
absolutely superior to Royal government, and such superiority
must be expressed in terms of greater absolute justice.
(6) In an earlier discussion we argued against those who
might say that absolute government is not just at all-that it

M. J. ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

is never Royal but always despotic-on the ground that it violates certain conditions which must be :respected by eve:ry type
of good government: namely, that the ultimate source of civil
authority is naturally vested in the community, and must be
derived therefrom for the rulers to have it justly; that in this
sense there must always be popular sovereignty; and that the
ruler must always, therefore, operate as a vicegerent. We defended the Royal :regime as having the goodness common to all
just government by applying Yves Simon's distinction between
substitutional
essential authority to show how Royal
authority is, at least in part, derived from the community in so
far as it is essential, and in part derived from the superiority
of the :rulers in so far as it is substitutionaL And this led us
furthermore to see the distinctions between perfect and imperfect modes of popular sovereignty, and between a perfect and
an imperfect exercise of vicegerency. 552 Because it involves
popular. sovereignty only in an imperfect mode, and because
it involves a sovereign man who is imperfectly a vicegerent, we
must conclude that the Royal regime participates incompletely
in the goodness common to all just government. That absolute
government can have such goodness to some extent shows it
not to be despotic by its very essence, but only so when conditions do not justify it. But that absolute government has such
extent, even when conditions justify it,
goodness only to
shows that Royal government is essentially imperfect, and so
absolutely inferior to the Constitutional regime which perfectly
embodies the goodness of government. 553 These considerations,
Vd. Section 4 supra, loc. cit., at pp. 713-19.
Vd. Essay on Representative Government, where at the opening of Chapter
HI on the ideally best form of government, Mill writes: " It has long (perhaps
throughout the entire duration of British freedom) been a common saying, that if
a good despot could be ensured, despotic monarchy would be the best form of
government." Mill means by " despotic monarchy " an absolute form of government,
which would be a truly Royal regime on the supposition of a " good despot." He
goes on to say: " I look upon this as a :radical and most pernicious misconception
of what good government is; which, until it can be got rid of, will fatally vitiate
all our speculations on government."
It is this very misconception which prevails throughout the history of political.
theory, originating with Plato and Aristotle in so far as they permitted themselv<e£
002

653

THE THEORY OF

275

therefore confirm all our previous reasoning and make unavoidable the conclusion that Royal government is absolutely less
just than Constitutional.
(7) Finally, we return to the argument with which we began
this discussion. The fact that Royal government can become
corrupt only through the injustice of simple tyranny, whereas
Constitutional government can become corrupt through the
injustice of despotism as well as the injustice of tyranny, and
through these two injustices combined in despotic tyranny,
conclusively shows that the justice of Royal government must
be simple, i. e., determined by a single principle; whereas the
justice of Constitutional government must be complex, i. e.,
determined by at least two principles which, furthermore, are
separable from one another, and cumulatively combinable. If
these two principles were not separable and combinable, despotism could not be separated from tyranny, as in fact it can be,
nor could they be combined in despotic tyranny, as in fact they
to speculate about an impracticable ideal of government-impracticable
because
based on a fallacious supposition, namely, that the perfection possible in Divine
government is a measure of the goodness in imperfect human government. 'When
Mill formulates the ideal of government, he projects a thoroughly practicable ideal,
capable of being achieved by human beings as they are or can be. " The ideally
best form of government," he says, "is that in which the sovereignty ... is vested
in the entire aggregate of the community, every citizen not only having a voice in
the exercise of that ultimate sovereignty, but being, at least occasionally, called on
to take actual part in the government, by the personal discharge of some public
iunction, local or general" (ibid.). These words define only the generic form of
Constitutional government, but if they are understood to imply, as in Mill's view
they did, that every normal man is entitled to be a citizen, then they define the
ultimate ideal of Democracy as the highest species of Constitutional government.
That generic Constitutional government is absolutely superior to Royal government
is only the first step in the demonstration that Democracy is supreme.
What is most important about Mill's style of thinking here is, first, that he
conceives the ideal as a practical possibility, and not in terms of fictitious suppositions, or by reference to a purely theoretic comparison of Divine and human; and
second, that in praising one form of government as the ideal he does not regard
all inferior forms as totally corrupt. These two qualities make him truer to
Aristotelian principles than Aristotle was, or, shall we say, than certain passages
in Aristotle's Politics were. They show his thinking about political problems to be
thoroughly practical and with an eye on history, never deflected by the mirage of
what the state might be like if men were not men, nor confused in its ordering
of human regimes by purely theoretic, and therefore irrelevant, comparisons between
Divine and human government.

M. J. ADLER AND WALTER FARRELL

have been. These things being so, it must follow that a regime,
the goodness of which combines two principles of justice, is
absolutely superior to a regime which is good through only one
of these; and so we conclude that Constitutional government
is absolutely more just than Royal.
The reason why we left this argument until the end is not
that it is the weakest. On the contrary, it is the strongest,
going to the very essence of the matter, because it argues in
terms of the principles of justice which are intrinsic to the
goodness of diverse regimes. But the argument cannot be adequately stated without a fairly elaborate inquiry into the
nature of political justice.
It is not enough to name and distinguish the injustice of
tyranny and of despotism, to show that they are separable and
combinable. It is necessary to name and distinguish the principles of justice to which tyranny and despotism are respectively opposed, and to explain how they can exist separately
and how they can be combined. There are two sorts of difficulties to be clarified here: (I) those arising from the fact that
the justice of diverse regimes must be considered both relatively and absolutely, whereas the injustice of perverted govrnment is always to be understood relatively to the government
being corrupted and the conditions which justify that form of
government at a given time and place; and (2) those arising
from the traditional theory of justice, with its conventional
distinctions between general and special justice, commutative
and distributive justice. In this second connection, it will be
necessary to separate justice as a subjective virtue from justice as the objective quality of law, constitutions, and governmental institutions generally; it will be necessary to distinguish
natural .from conventional justice; to show the relationship of
justice to the common good, on the one hand, and to its foundation in objective equalities and inequalities on the other;
and, above all, to expand the account of distributive justice
beyond the field of economic goods to which it is usually
restricted.
Since our analysis of the moral hierarchy of the forms of

THE THEORY OF DEMOCRACY

government cannot be completed here; since it remains to be
proved that Democracy is most just absolutely, because it is
more just absolutely than Republican government, even as
Constitutional government generically is absolutely more just
than Royal government; and since the truth of the historical
hypothesis underlying the theory of the relative justification of
inferior regimes, remains to be examined; we think it advisable
to postpone the solution of these difficulties, of the two sorts
aforementioned, until we have completed our analysis in Part
V, there undertaking the final steps in our demonstration of
Democracy. Thus we shall avoid needless repetition. Moreover, we shall have before us in Part Vall the remaining arguments concerning the superiority of one regime over another
which, with those now completed, will need to be understood
in terms of an adequate theory of political justice.
That such understanding has not yet been achieved does
not, however, invalidate the distinction between the Royal
and Political regimes, the analysis of which we have now finished; nor does it diminish the probative force of the arguments
we have presented, in the light of that analysis, proving that
Constitutional is absolutely more just than Royal government.
The demonstration of that conclusion, taken together with our
argument that, relative to certain specified conditions, absolute government is justified and has, to some extent, the goodness common to all just regimes, sufficiently answers the objection of Father Parsons and others who, faithful to the fallacious
sixfold classification of the much too simple "traditional picture," erroneously suppose that the several good regimes are
morally indifferent, more or less expedient under different circumstances, but never absolutely more or less just than one
another.
WALTER FARRELL,

O.P.

MoRTIMER

Dominican House of Studies,
Washington, D. C.

(To be continued.)

J. ADLER

University of Chicago,
Chicago, Illinois

BOOK REVIEWS
Archaeology and the Religion of Israel. By WILLIAM F. ALBRIGHT. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1942. Pp. 238, with index. $2.25.
This companion volume to From the Stone Age to Christianity presents
to the reading public the 1941 Ayer Lectures of the Colgate-Rochester
Divinity School. The author purposes " to follow the evolution of the
human mind in the Near East ... nothing less than the ultimate reconstruction, as far as possible, of the route which our cultural ancestors traversed in order to reach Judaeo-Christian heights of spiritual insight and
ethical monotheism " (p. 4) .
Any insistence upon the many excellent features of· this book would be
superfluous, for here as always the author maintains his high standards of
work. It would be difficult to find elsewhere such a competent, thorough,
and palatable preseniation of archaeological data connected with the Scriptures. The bibliography is exhaustive and the index all that it should be.
The first chapter, dealing with the Near Eastern mind, is followed by a
valuable account of the various archaeological and epigraphical discoverie5
at Ras Shamra, Mari, Accad, Gezer, Lachish, Egypt, Boghazkoy, etc.;
these form the background for the subsequent discussion of Old Testament
religion, which alone is dealt with in_ this book. Next comes a study of
the religion of the Canaanites, with its many and mysterious gods, Baals,
and the goddesses Astarte, Anath, and Asherah; the chapter then conclude$
with some indications of the mythological developments and religious
practices of these neighbors of the Israelites. The remaining two chapters
deal with the religion of the Israelites such as it was at the time of the
conquest, as it was during the brilliant period of organization under David
and through the commercially splendid reign of Solomon up to the end of
the dual monarchy. The temple which was a powerful unifying force in the
nation receives a rather detailed description in a section which provides
much information concerning the function of the Sea and of the twfu pillars
Jachin and Boaz, etc.
In conclusion, the author holds that the substantial historicity of the
Old Testament tradition has been generally confirmed by archaeology.
Judaeo-Christianity stands out as a phenomenon of the historical order,
and the Israelite faith was " much closer to Christianity and rabbinic
Judaism, than to the basically prelogical religions of the ancient Near
East " (p. 177) . The traditional position has always been that the faith
of Israel was of a superior ethical content and deeper spiritual insight
than the religions of the surrounding nations; similarly traditional is the
position that there was a doctrinal development in Judaism, culminating
in the revelation made by Christ, in Whom the old religion is fuiJilled.
Much of the great value of this book lies in the fact that these positions

BOOK REVIEWS

279

are confirmed by the latest developments of research. As in his previous
volume, the author holds that " monotheism formed an essential part of
Mosaic religion from the beginning," but it did not become explicit " until
after the dawn of the logical age about the sixth century B. C." (p. 177).
He likewise declares that the prophets of Israel were reformers and preachers of penance, not
innovators. In these opinions regarding monotheism and the role of the prophets, Mr. Albright differs sharply from most
of the non-Catholic Biblical scholars, who arbitrarily hold that monotheism was the result of prophetical activity and therefore quite late in
Israelite history.
The astonishing mass of details and facts contained in this book is informed by a rational spirit which while it may at times approach the Faith,
nevertheless inevitably leads to conclusions which are opposed to those of
the Faith, and consequently cannot be rational. In other words, Mr. Albright's explanations are not always commensurate with the Faith, a fact
which does not obligate him to accept the Faith, but should at least indicate
that his scientific study is not carried out in its light. This is important for
the readers, and for the author too, for this book deals much with religion,
revelation, and primitive theology. From a purely natural .or rational
point of view, theology would only be the result of a rational evolution,
of which man would be the beginning and end; the supernatural therefore
would be either a myth or something irrational, and in any case, negligible. Actually the supernatural is something superior to reason but not
destructive of it, and its recognition is essential for a correct evaluation
both of man and of religious history.
The initial chapter states that primitive man, upon leaving the world of
everyday activity, "enters the magical world of prelogical thought, a
world where the logical principles of identity and contradiction are flouted
constantly." The proof of this extraordinary statement would be in the
reading of the many recently discovered or deciphered texts of a religious
nature. Thus, for example, the mythological texts present deities who are
male and female, god or goddess, etc., at different times or simultaneously
(p. 27 sq.).
To conclude from such texts that primitive man was prelogical in the
sense just mentioned, and further to add that religion would not have come
into being but for this preliminary prelogical probation (p. 29), is not only
contrary to the Faith, which teaches that Adam was created a perfect man
endowed with grace and the gifts of the Holy Ghost, but also illogical and
a purely arbitrary conclusion which cannot be the correct interpretation
of facts. It overlooks the simple but important fact that symbols proper
to religious thought (words and names both being symbols) cannot adequately exhaust or represent the idea of God, since they signify things by
concepts which are not proper to them. Thus when we speak of the " arm
of God " we cannot take these words in their proper literal signification,

10

'280

BOOK REVIEWS

for God is a spirit; yet the meaning is clear, for the words do express a
is not
real perfection or quality of God, namely His power. An
proper to Him, but it is to us, and ·we understand something of God by
using this term which is proper to us but not to God.
It is true that primitive man spoke of his god as being at one and the
same time male and female, or lord of death and giver of fertility, healer
and destroyer, etc. To understand these words literally would indeed
eliminate the principle of contradiction, but there is no reason to assume
that primitive man intended so to be understood. If he was always a
rational animal-as we hold-and did not first acquire the characteristic
of rationality and then proceed to transmit it, then there is reason to suspect that he had great respect for the principles of identity, contradiction, and causality. In no case do we attempt to .prove that he acquired
these principles, which are so self-evident that they defy proof; and yet
the most naive child can appreciate them. To dise()ver that primitive
writers refer to a god now as a father,' now as a mother, or both together,
is no proof that they were unaware of the basic principles so essential to
thought, since their words are susceptible of another explanation.
Thus, a supernatural truth held only symbolically is understood in a confused way, not "prelogically." The perfection of literal truth, in which
alone there is no literal contradiction, is not commensurate with rationality, but with the consideration of science. But by "prelogical" Mr.
Albright means prerational, and so is wrong inasmuch as the principle of
contradiction is not the fruit of logical perfection, but the first principle
attained in the natural consequences of this principle as it relates to second
intentions as they are ordered to demonstrative science. Man is per se
logical, not as a being who by his nature has the perfection of logic, but
as able to attain this perfection by his nature, i. e., reason.
If then primitive man referred to his god as a man, or father, he meant
simply that his god was strong and powerful, as a· man is strong; if the
same god was called woman or mother, it meant that the god was fecund
as a mother. He possessed in himself and in an eminent way all the perfections which men and women possess separately. Certainly primitive
man was not to be taken in by his own symbols, and the fact that he used
them as he did does not constitute proof that he flouted the principle of
contradiction. On the other hand, all the evidence, according to our
explanation which is commensurate with the teachings of the Faith, points
to the existence of a primitive revelation. By this is meant that there
was once a time when man, Adam, closer to God and made in His image,
was taught directly many things by divine revelation. Such knowledge
became progressively obscured in the course of time, and when we peer
into the past by means of the inscriptions provided by archaeology, we
discover that some of those we call primitives, instead of applying to one
God all due perfection, had lost the idea of one God and had distributed

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BOOK REVIEWS

His perfections over the personnel of a whole pantheon. From time to
time, at intervals determined by divine Providence, the primitive belief
concerning one God received fresh impetus by renewed revelations; it does
not seem necessary to hold that the true idea of God ever completely died
out at any.one time. One of these revelations was that granted to Moses,
and its importance lies in the fact that this revelation is preserved clear
and unique, shining like a single star in the gloomy heavens, in the
Scriptures.
We have gone to some length in discussing primitive revelation, because
it may be advanced as consonant with the :Faith and as an adequate explanation of the facts; whereas the proposed theory of evolution is not.
Instead of evolution pursuing a steady upward course, there might well
have been another type in which there first occurred a deterioration or
fall, followed by repeated rises and falls. However, Mr. Albright states:
" I do not mean to place prelogical mentality on a lower plane than logical,
except with reference to their relative positions in the ·scale of human
evolution " (p, 184, n. 64).
If now he means
he does not) that prelogical man was no
different from a brute, then there can be no question or discussion of principles, for however much a brute may approach the perfection of man,
there remains always an infinite distance between mere animality and
rational animality. H, however, he means that prelogical man is capable of
reasoning, but only in a crude or elementary fashion, that among men
there is a difference of degree but not of kind of rationality, this can be
admitted, but then the merest prudence demands that his basic theory be
proved, principally that part of it which is contrary to
Faith, namely,
evolution, which, however often affirmed, has never yet been demonstrated
to satisfaction.
The real issue, however, which is not of Faith but in the natural order
as a preamble to the Faith, is the question: is theology a product of the
developed human intellect, having its beginnings in the crude explanations
of " primitive man " or is it, as Faith, a gift from God? In the first case
we should have man as the principle and end of all theology, which is a
species of idolatry; in the second, we should have God as complete and
supreme ruler of His universe, and man as His creature to whom intimate
revelations have been made concerning God Himself. Of the two positions,
only the latter is defensible, truly rational, and specifically Christian, and it
is not the position of Mr. Albright, who is rather a " Liberal," which means
that his book lacks the integration of a single principle.
However, aside from the philosophical and theological implications of
his work, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel deserves high praise
and is a worthy companion to From the Stone A.ge to Christianity.
Dominican House of Studies,
Washington, D. C.

RICHARDT.

MuRPHY,

O.P.

BRIEF NOTICES
A History of Social Thought. By PAUL HANLY FURFEY. New York:
The Macmillan Company, Jl.942. Pp. :riii + 468. $2.75.
Father Furfey gives two reasons for attempting to summarize the whole
history of social thought in a single volume. The first is that social thought
is an enormously important subject, both theoretically and practicaUy,
and no one has previously written the history of social thought so broadly
conceived as it is in this volume; and secondly, even among those works
which have given the subject a narrower definition, none has been written
from the Catholic viewpoint. These are excellent reasons, and ample
justification for a book ambitiously conceived and painstakingly written.
According to the author, the history of social thought is "the crystallized social experience of the race." It may be either formal o.r informalthe formal embracing books written with the conscious purpose of discussing society, the latter including "aU social thought which is not explicitly labeled as such," as a code of laws, literature, a campaign speech or
This concept of social thought at once sharply
international treaty.
differentiates the history from others bearing a like title, and obscures,
by its very enormity, the field of investigation. The criterion of selectivity
is the historical importance of the doctrine; those doctrines are included
which have influenced a considerable number of human societies through
the course of history.
Beginning with primitive social thought as reveal.ed in the dim light
of prehistoric archaeology and ethnology, Dr. Furfey surveys the ancient
Near East, examines the social doctrine of the Old Testament, the Far
East, Greece and Rome, the New Testament. After a too brief treatment
of the thought of the Church Fathers through the medieval synthesis in
St. Thomas Aquinas, the author treats the rise of bourgeois and scientific
naturalism, the Age of Reason and the Revolutionary Epoch, Democracy,
Nationalism, Industrialism and the Era of" Progress," to attain contemporaneity with chapters on the rise of academic sociology and the period of
"The Great Disillusionment" (1914-1939). A very helpful bibliographical
essay concludes the book.

Is Modern Culture Doomed? By ANDREW J. KRzESINSKI, Ph. D., S. T. D.
New York: The Devin-Adair Co., 1942. Pp. xiv + 158.
The author points out the coexistence of two cultures which underlie the surface of modern Western CiviXization. One of these, tra-

BRIEF NOTICES

288

ditional culture, finds its highest development in Christianity; the other,
anti-traditional or materialistic culture, is fundamentally different since
it discounts all spiritual values and seeks the enjoyment of earthly goods
as the sole aim of human existence. The author then reviews briefly the
historical development of materialism from the ancient Hindus to the
belligerent materialism of Communism.
The major portion of his work then follows and endeavors to clarify
the characteristics of materialistic culture. The features of modern
materialistic culture as discoverable by an analysis of modem man with
reference to himself are: 1. anthropocentrism; 2. autonomism; 8. individualism. Consequent upon man's relation to reality they are: 1. limitarianism, by which the author designates modem man's phenomenalism
or lack of transcendentalism; 2. mechanization, which is seen to be
detrimental to man; 8. atheism; 4. egoism, which is the chief cause of
the social problem and the hostility of nations towards each other; 5.
solidarity or collectivism, which is caused by man's recognition of his
individual weakness and his attempt to fight against the menacing individualism of the powerful and wealthy. The ·ideals of modem man
reveal the following features: I. scientism; 2. realism in literature and art;
8. the cult of money; 4. the cult of the body; 5. hedonism; 6. sexualism;
7. the cult of collectivism; 8. the cult of nation. The psychic state and
mental disposition of modem man are characterized by I. inconstancy; 2.
dissatisfaction; 8. lack of joy.
Modem materialistic culture is in an extremely critical condition, despite
the apparent progress as measured by technological developments, because
it has deprived man of his spiritual and moral values. So tragic is its
predicament that many philosophers such as Spengler see only a complete
collapse and place their hope for the future in the culture of the Far East.
The author, however, takes an optimistic view of the situation which is
based on two reasons. First, there is an innate instinct of self-defense
in nations as well as individuals which reacts against the enemy of their
well-being. He finds this law confirmed by the history of every nation
although he admits that in some nations the crisis terminated fatally
because the nation advanced beyond the stage where an internal restoration was possible. Secondly, the bankruptcy of materialistic culture is
the best possible justification for Christian culture. Furthermore, divine
providence brings good out of evil. The author interprets this to mean
that the human race will develop more perfectly, religion will take deeper
root, Communism and Nazism will accelerate the reconstruction of a just
social order. Germany and Russia will emerge with greater respect for
religion and moral values. Signs of a religious revival are discernible in
Europe and America. The di!J'knessof the present hour is that of the hour
before dawn.

BOOKS RECEIVED
A Newman Treasury. Chosen II.I1d Edited by C. E. Harrold. New York:
Longmans, Green & Co., 1943. Pp. x + 404, with bibliography. $4.00.

Balz, Albert G. A. The Value Doctrine of Karl Marx. New York: :King'lil
Crown Press, 1943. Pp. viii + 49. $.1.00.
Coomaraswamy, A. K. Hinduism and Buddhism.
sophical Library, 1948. Pp. 86.

New York: Philo-

De Koninck, Charles. Ego Sapientia, La Sagesse qui est Marie. Quebec,
Canada: Editions de l'Universite Laval, 1943. Pp. 176. $1.00.
Maritain, Jacques. Twilight of Civili<>ation. (Trans. by Lionel Landi'JT.)
New York: Sheed & Ward, ll943. Pp. ix + 65. $JL50.

Nef, John. U. Universities Look
fuc.-, 1943. Pp. 42. $.50.

Unity.

New York: Pantheon Books,

Osgniach, A. J., 0. S. B. The Chri:Jtian State.
Pp. xix 356, with index. $3.75.,

+

Milwaukee: Bruce, 1948.

Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 194!ill:
Vol. XVIII: Truth in the Contemporary Crisis. Washington, D. C.:
Catholic University of America Press, 1943. Pp. 223. $2.00.
Rooney, Miriam T. "The Movement For a Neo-Scholasti.c Philosophy of
Law in America: 1932-1942." Reprint from Proceedings of the
American Catholic Philosophical Association: 19.!,2.
Scharfstein, Ben-Ami. Roots of BeTgson's Philosophy. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1943. Pp. ix + ll.56, with index. $1.75.

Science, Philosophy and Religion. Third Symposium. New York: Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion, 1943. Pp. xix +438.
The Confessions of St. Augustine. Trans. by F. J.
Sheed & Ward, 1943. Pp. mi + 354. $3.00.

284

New York: