THE THOMIST
A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW
OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY

EmToRs:

THE DoMINICAN FATHERS oF THE PRoVINCE oF ST. JosEPH

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

VoL. VIII

JANUARY, 1945

No.1

PERSONALISM, THOMISM AND EPISTEMOLOGY

T

I

HE latest newcomer to the philosophical forum has been
proclaimed by its adherents as " a philosophy of the
person." Personalism, announced in two continents as a
complete philosophy, is, according to its exponents, the answer
to the need of the hour, and already claims the support of respectable philosophical authority. It envisages the problem of
personality in its. broadest perspective, placing it within the
framework of a complete philosophical system. From this
central concept it seeks a solution of the problems of knowledge and being, of psychology and axiology. Primarily, it
presents an interpretation of reality. From the point of view
of development, we may distinguish two phases: naive Personalism and critical Personalism. Naive Personalism is simply
the primitive, unphilosophical interpretation of reality, the
product of a mind in Comte's "theological stage" of human
development. Having once made the distinction between subject and object, it sees everything under the aspect of person1

JOHN A. CREA VEN

ality. In the background of the world of objects it places
demons, gods, spirits of various kinds.
Clearly, such a view is the antithesis of impersonalism. But
its uncritical procedure is obviously insufficient to safeguard
vital human values from the attacks of impersonalism. To
achieve its object, it needs a rational explanation and development, which it finds in critical Personalism. 1 Critical Personalism, endeavoring to safeguard vital human values, is eclectic:
it retains what seems true in the conclusions of naive personalism and impersonalism. From the former it takes its teleological view of the universe which sees in it an orderly system
of autonomous and purposive beings, organized in a hierarchy
of persons. From impersonalism it borrows its scientific concepts and its " synoptic " or synthetic method. 2
The synoptic method, so common in Personalism, is a reflection of modern trends in psychology. In effect, the principle
underlying the method declares that we can know an object as
a whole of parts, or as a part of a whole, or as both. William
Stern, the German personalist, has developed the theory of
synopsis in both directions. He has insisted that
everywhere precedes analysis, and that synopsis reveals or contains more than analysis can ever discover. The former thesis
he takes as proved by the Gestalt psychology. The totality of
our inner experience-the Ego or " I "-is itself a unity, for
synopsis is the normal mode of experience: elements are but
abstractions from it. In his criticisms of the " Elementarist "
psychologies, he has insisted that analysis, as a work of dissection, can never discover a Gestalt quality, which disappears
as soon as it is resolved into its elements. Again, synthesis, by
working upon a previously known whole, can discover therein
a new form: by altering the contour, the lines, the lights and
the shades it can discover a new Gestalt and a new beauty.
But synopsis is also a knowledge of an object as a part of a
1

Cf. W. B. Thorp, " Mechanism or Personalism," The Personalist, XIII,

pp.
2

Lewis W. Beck, "The Method of Personalism," 'The Personalist, XIX, 1989,

p. 871.

PERSONALISM,

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AND EPISTEMOLOGY

3

whole. " To regard every object as a whole is to neglect the
essential partiality of every object except the universe itself." 3
Though an object may be, metaphysically, an individual, this
does not prevent it from being related by activity to another
individual of which it is a subordinate part. Personalists, then,
insist on the necessity of synopsis as a method of knowledge.
Our earliest as well as our latest concepts, they teach, deal with
things as wholes: with situations which are wholes; with ourselves as members of a social order; with our inner life, which
reveals itself as a whole. The mind perceives situations as
wholes, and there is comprehension before it is expressed in
articulate language.
In his " personalistic " psychology, Stern has exploited to the
full the method of synopsis. " The methodological requirement," he tells us, " that scientific psychology always preserve
the correlation between part and whole, salience and ground,
analysis and totality, applies without exception." 4 Thus the
search for elements is replaced by a probing for " wholes," on
the principle that everything mental is either a whole or a part
of a whole. The quality of wholeness does not necessarily
exclude an internal multiplicity of parts: these simply lose
their character of independent parts, capable of existing by
themselves. Stern repeatedly insists that the meaning of the
part is found only in the whole, and he has extended the partwhole relationship further than most pluralistic philosophers.
The synoptic method takes account of the relation of who-les
to more inclusive wholes (e. g. that of man to society},. wiiliout reducing the former to the status of a mere homogeneous
part. When one whole transcends another, the meaning of the
latter is not necessarily exhausted in its character of part.
The use of the synthetic method is not without its difficulties. Underlying Stern's method is the theoretical assumption
that everything mental is at the same time personal, and everything personal is a whole or a part of a whole. This assump• Lewis W. Beck, art. cit., pp. 874-875.

• W. Stern, General Psychology, pp. 14-15.

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JOHN A. CREA VEN

tion seems to be a presupposition of the Gestalt and of all structural psychologies. But it is an assumption that must not be
made too easily. To assume a Gestalt everywhere is to fall
into the fallacy of over-simplification. Reality is complex and
is not readily fitted into preconceived mental moulds. To
ascribe every element to a Gestalt is to endow many things
with qualities which they do not really possess. The synoptic
method is really a process of abstraction which substitutes for
the complex .Pattern of relationships found in the real order
another purely theoretical and schematic system of relationships. It is an error of oversimplification to identify the latter
with that which obtains in reality.

II
Every philosophical system must present a theory of ultimate reality. And for Personalism the chief task is the presentation of a " metaphysics of the person," the ultimate principle
of reality. But as epistemology logically precedes metaphysics,
the philosopher must first elaborate a theory of knowledge. 5
For the Personalist, epistemology furnishes the basis for a
theory of the person and, in this role, forms an essential part
of his system. Stern goes even further. The " Erkenntnistheorie," which stands at the beginning of his Critical Personalism, is much more than an introduction: it fulfils the
important function of providing a scientific basis for his concept of personality, and is even made to justify his conclusion
that the world consists of unitary, purposeful, self-active beings
who may be designated as " persons." In this conclusion he
sees a most important consequence of his personalist epistemology.
Personalists who follow the tradition of Bowne develop an
epistemological doctrine which they call " personal idealism."
They hold that there is a real object of knowledge and that
thought and thing are not to be identified as in Hegelian
idealism. This they term the insoluble " dualism of thought
• Cf. F. van Steenberghen, Epistemologie, pp. 44, 50.

PERSONALISM,

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AND EPISTEMOLOGY

5

and thing." 6 Cognition implies this dualism: without it, knowledge in any intelligible sense would be impossible. To know
an object implies that the object exists independently of my
knowing it. This might be called the common-sense standpoint: my thought of an object differs from the object itself.
While refusing to identify thought and thing as far as the
human mind is concerned, Personalists view the world " not
only as independent of man but as in a certain sense objective
to God Himself." 7 The real criterion of the dualism of thought
and thing is found, not in the disparity between the experienced
object and the real object, but in their " otherness." Though
the attribute of " otherness " is attributed to the real object,
as opposed to the mind, Personalists inconsistently assert that
the material world has no extramental reality. Again, though
the external world possesses no extramental reality, epistemological dualism is safeguarded, in their view, by regarding the
soul as distinct from God, and the world as a vast " system of
stimuli." This system of stimuli is represented as, in a certain
sense, objective to God, as well as to man. However, the precise nature of this " objectivity " would seem to call for clarification. Personalists find it difficult to explain how the world
(call it " system of stimuli " or " medium of communication ")
can be external and objective to man and yet possess no extramental reality. Nor is it clear in what precise sense the world
is external and objective to God. But the world does exist independently of us; we discover it and we apprehend it, but we
do not create it. Its exact nature we cannot know, but we
recognize its causality as something external to ourselves. 8
Bowne asserts that the sense-world, in so far as it is articulate,
is a thought-product.
While Absolute Idealism identifies thought with thing, Personalism believes that objects do not pass away when we cease
to think of them, neither do they suffer change with the fluctua6 A. C. Knudson,
The Philosophy of PMsonalism, p. 100 ff.; B. P. Bowne, Theory
of Thought and Knowledge, p. 296 ff.
7 A. C. Knudson,
op. cit., p. 99.
8 Knudson, op. cit., pp. 103-110.
Bowne, Personalism, p. 68.

6

JOHN A. CREAVEN

tions of our thought. The dualism of thought and thing is
inevitable. The world exists independently of us, but we can
never know its essential nature. Personalists deem that it may
even be a divine thought or system of thoughts. The world,
without rational principles, is an inarticulate, fleeting flux.
This discontinuous impression is interpreted into an abiding
self, with the aid of a priori principles of mind. Bowne regards
as an illusion the belief that there is an " absolute system of
reality," with which our thought must correspond in order to
be true. Reality is nothing more than the contents of consciousness. We can, therefore, reject the extramental universe
of unreflecting thought, for it is impossible to define the world
apart from intelligence. We remain in the world of personal
experience, convinced that this world can never be explained
on the impersonal level. The world of experience can be explained only through a rational, spiritual principle which reproduces it for our thought. 9
This position of Personalists is akin to that of Santayana
and the so-called " critical realists." Our belief in the existence
of other minds and so of society is a reasonable hypothesis for
the explanation of our experience, but can never be empirically
verified. Experience gives us certainty but not knowledge.
Experimental verification, without the interpretative activity
of reason, condemns us to solipsism. The supposed objectreference of experience, which to the naive-minded establishes
a prima facie case for realism, is really nothing more than a
" knowledge-claim." Experience becomes knowledge only when
it is rationally organized, and refers beyond the fleeting experience to something else.

III
We should note here that Personalists have not discussed
certain questions which concern the very foundations o£ epistemology. We must now formulate them in order to give our
evaluation a more fundamental character. What is "knowl0

Bowne, op. cit., pp. 107-lH!, 160.

PERSONALISM,

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AND EPISTEMOLOGY

7

edge " in general? What does the term imply in the philosophy
Does my knowledge
of Personalism? Have I "knowledge"?
attain to "truth"?
The issues raised by Personalism do not entail a discussion
of the critical problem nor an evaluation of the various attempted solutions. But it should be pointed out here that,
on the Thomist side, a noteworthy contribution to critical
epistemology has been made by L. NoeU 0 His so-called
" immanent " method is calculated to throw much light on
the critical problem and may serve as a critical scientific supplement to the theory of the Personal Idealists. The appeal of
such a method to the Personalist should be obvious: starting
from an immediate fact of consciousness, it proceeds technically
by way of critical reflection and of universal methodic doubt
to establish the fundamental conditions of knowledge and of
scientific construction. 11 St. Thomas was no stranger to such
a method. "(Veritas) wgnoscitur ab intellectu secnndum quod
intellectus reflectitur s,upra actum suum, non solum secundum
quod cognoscit actum suum, sed secundum quod cognoscit proportionem ejus ad rem." 1 .2 Logically, this is the primary fact:
" I know something" and "I know that I know it." This is
akin to Descartes' " Cogito " but there are important differences in the implications and interpretations of the respective
starting-points.
Setting off from these immediate data of consciousness, present to the knowing subject, philosophical reflection may rebuild the edifice of human knowledge from what is
most easily known. In this way, we may attain to a true
critical and metaphysical realism, and at the same time show
that to start from thought is not necessarily to eliminate things,
and hence that the ego-centric predicament of modern idealism
is in no way inevitable.
St, Thomas, in various contexts, takes a more general view
of ·the fact of knowledge as a certain aspect of living beings.
:For Noel's doctrine, cf. his Le Realisme lmmediat.
Cf. L. Noel, Le Realisme lmmediat, passim. F. van Steenberghen,
temologie., pp. 1-8.
12 St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 1, a. 9.
10

11

Epis-

8

JOHN A. CREA VEN

In this sense, it is true to say that the existence of one being
for another, which begins on the animal level and is perfected
with man, is precisely what we mean by knowledge. 13 Natural
objects exist but in no way adapt themselves to the external
world. They are endowed with a principle of life by virtue of
which they move and grow. The external world does no more
than permit or prevent their movements of growth or expanSIOn. But when we ascend from the mineral world and the
domain of vegetative life, we see that knowledge first appears
with the animal kingdom. The movements of animals are not
wholly explicable by their own internal principle of life. They
reach out to influence and be influenced by their environment.
The actions of an animal in search of prey are evidence of this.
Something outside the animal exists for the animal and many
complicated actions are performed to bring it within his grasp.
One living being becomes aware of another being. The being
which knows is, in the first place, its own essence. But in so
far as it knows, it becomes something more. It becomes in a
manner the object known. Knowledge then essentially means
that into the knowing being there enters another being previously existing for itself. As St. Thomas puts it: "Cognoscentia a non-cognoscentibus in hoc distinguuntur, quia noncognoscentia nihil habent, nisi formam suam tantum, sed
cognoscens natum est habere formam etiam rei alterius; nam
species cognita est iJJ cognoscente." 14 The difference between
that which is never anything but its own essence and that
which is, on the contrary, capable of becoming other things, is
precisely the difference between the material and the spiritual.
" The limitation of the form is due to matter," says St. Thomas.
And while the material element in a being restricts or limits it,
the spiritual element, on the contrary, enlarges and amplifies
it. Hence the gradation of being depends on the varying proportions of spirit and matter. Man is, in a certain manner,
capable of becoming all things by his senses and intelligence.
"Anima est quodammodo omnia."
13 Cf. E. Gilson, Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, p. 262 ff.
"Summa Theol., I, q. 14, a. 1, ad Resp.

PERSONALISM,

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9

Having placed the problem of human knowledge in its
broadest perspective, we may now consider the personalist
solution. The same fact of knowledge presents itself to us
under two different aspects, according as we envisage it from
the point of view of the contribution of the object known, or
from the aspect of the knowing subject. Personalists consider
chiefly the objective point of view. We shall see that their
view is idealistic, for the world is not really independent of
mind but is constructed by the creative activity of thought.
The dualism, so frequently asserted but so rarely explained,
is designed to place a real distinction between thought and
thing, between idea and object. From the personalist exposition, it is difficult to determine what is implied by this dualistic
doctrine. The failure of Personalism here is due largely to the
fact that a dualism is asserted to exist between two realitiesthought and thing, idea and object-which are not precisely
defined.
That th(i)re is a real object of knowledge must be granted.
But in what form is it to be conceived? This problem is not
settled by a priori theories of the nature of man. Only reflection on our own conscious knowing processes can reveal to us
anything concerning the nature of their object. St. Thomas,
following Aristotle, holds that being is the first intelligible concept attained by our minds. We can perceive nothing, or
conceive nothing, otherwise than as a being; and it is only
when we have thus perceived or conceived being that we can
determine the nature of the object apprehended. Being, says
St. Thomas, is the first intelligible concept and the proper
object of the intellect. " Ens est proprium objectum intellectus
et sic est primum intelligible." 15 The intellect knows that its
judgment is true by a critical reflection upon its act. The
intelligence, by reflection, discovers its true nature, which is to
conform itself to things: " in cujus natura est ut rebus conformatur." For St. Thomas, a real world exists and is intelligible:
its intelligibility permits it to be apprehended by us in sensations and perceptions. 16
15

Summa Theol., I, q. 5, a. !l, ad Resp.

16

De Veritate, q. 1, a. 9.

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JOHN A. CREA VEN

Personalism has not offered a consistent theory of the nature
of the object of knowledge. It affirms the dualism of thought
and thing, that the thing is an " other " to thought. Mind
and its object are asserted to be two distinct realities: the
mind apprehends external reality. Such statements are sufficient to satisfy the most ardent realist. But when this doctrine is further developed, it furnishes difficulties which can
scarcely be less than contradictions. Thus, while the world
" manifestly exists independently of us," and ." the dualism of
thought and thing is ... ineradicable," the world is denied any
extramental reality. 17 Again, while reality is not something
predetermined by the human mind-while, rather, it is " something revealed to us through sensations and perceptions,"
something discovered but not constructed, "something other
than our thought of it "-yet it is asserted that the dualism of
thought and thing is not a " fundamental metaphysical one." 18
In short, the dualism turns out to be a quite unintelligible
compromise between monism and pluralism, a shadowy distinction hovering somewhere in the misty region between
" otherness " and metaphysical dualism. In such a doctrine, it
is difficult to understand the status of the object in relation to
mind.
If we would trace the source of these contradictions, we
should note first the nominalistic trend of the whole personalist
epistemology. The abstract and universal have no existence
apart from the individual and the concrete. Bowne regards
our thinking as mainly symbolic and our class-terms as mere
logical symbols. Allied with this Nominalism is the attempt
to combine an idealistic view of the world with a dualism of
mind and object. In the opinion of personal idealists, matter,
as an object of sense-experience and of scientific investigation,
is not ontologically real. True, metaphysical reality is not composed of substances, whether material or spiritual, active or
passive, which somehow persist through time. On the con17
18

Knudson, op. cit., pp. 103-104.
Ibid., pp. 106, 113. Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, pp.

PERSONALISM,

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11

trary, all reality is personal and is constituted by the unifying
activity of consciousness. There is no such thing as a real
world, possessing extramental existence. For Personalists, the
physical world has a purely phenomenal character and an
existence which is secondary and instrumental.
Hence the
inconsistent solution of the critical problem. On the one hand,
it emphatically asserts a dualism of thought and thing, seeing
clearly that only on this basis is it possible to offer a consistent
theory of knowledge. On the other hand, this dualism must
permit an idealistic view of the world. The objective world
must not be given an existence entirely independent of mind,
in such a fashion that it should exist whether minds apprehended it or not. The external world must be one that " exists
only as it is conceived." 19 As a consequence of this double
allegiance, the dualism becomes unintelligible. Beyond the repeated assertions that it exists, that it is " inescapable,"
" ineradicable," but not " metaphysical," no illuminating account is offered which would define its precise nature. The
mere dogmatic assertion of the existence of a dualism of thought
and thing is logically insufficient to found it as a philosophical
doctrine. The confusion of the personalist position should
make it clear that the only consistent solution of the problem
of knowledge lies in realism, asserting ·a metaphysical dualism,
in which mind and its object are two ontologically distinct
realities. This doctrine Personalists are obliged to reject by
the exigencies of their system, which contains the fundamental
principle of the creative activity of thought.

IV
Personalists reject the realistic starting point of St. Thomas,
according to which the mind apprehends an objectively existing order. To do full justice to the claims of human reason,
they deem it necessary to assign to it a very full and independent role. Reason must be active, a constitutive factor in
the world. Hence the cardinal principle of personal idealism19

B. P. Bowne, Metaphysics, p. 5.

JOHN A. CREAVEN

that thought-processes are primarily creative. Reality is, in a
sense, revealed to us through our sensations and 'perceptions;
they are the " media " through which it is " given " to us.
Thus we are brought into contact with it, we become aware of
it, through external stimuli. There is in our knowledge an
element which is " given," which we do not create, but which
comes to us from without. The raw material of thought in
the sensibility is due to external stimuli. But apart from this
initial impulse, thought is creative rather than receptive. The
structure of our knowledge is due to mind-the mind constructing nature. The extreme position is taken by Carr that both
the structure of our knowledge and its contents are determined
by the mind. 20
To nai:ve thought the world exists as it is perceived. No
distinction is made between primary and secondary qualities.
The object seems to determine completely the knowing process.
With the appearance of error, however, doubt arises: the doubting mind begins to distinguish the " apparent" from the " reaL"
Next arises the question of the true nature of things, and this
leads to metaphysical speculation.
As a result, we are confronted with a double standard-that of the senses and that of
reason-and thus we face the problem of their relative value.
Personalists reject the ancient and medieval systems of epistemology because of their " crudely :realistic foundations."
Such systems, it is alleged, made the object the determining
factor in knowledge, while the subject became the passive
The mind was represented as
recipient of this determination.
a tabula rasa, and the figure of the seal and wax was employed
to illustrate the perceptive process. The medieval epistemologists, in general, subordinated the knowing process to the
object in such a way that the reality of the object was supposed to be given in thought itself. 21 In opposition to such a
view, Personalists uphold the creative activity of thought.
Regarding Kant as the first philosopher to conceive thought
20

H. W. Carr, "Imagination
op. cit., p. 119.

21 Knudson,

and Reason," The Personalist, XII (1931), p. 90.

PERSONALISM,

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18

as creative, they rely chiefly on the Critique of Pure Reason
to furnish a basis for their epistemology. Pre-Kantian philosophy, in their view, over-emphasized the receptive function
of the human mind, because knowledge was regarded as something wholly " given " to us. In sense-experience, we received
impressions from without and in reasoning we either brought to
light what was implicit in the sensory data, or brought to consciousness what was innate in the human mind. There was a
diversity of views as to the nature of the external stimulus;
but it was generally held that sense-perception implied a realistic view of the world. Sense-experience was produced in us
by some power external to ourselves rather than by the mind
itself.
The doctrine of creative thought-activity is designed to place
the senses in thorough subordination to reason. The most
effective means of achieving this is the denial of all ultimacy,
all self-sufficiency, to sensations and perceptions. They are
represented as thought-products, having no definite content
until they are articulated in thought. This was precisely the
contribution of Kant. In the Critique of Pure Reason, the
sensibility, as the passive recipient of external stimuli, can
yield nothing but fleeting impressions, lacking coherence and
all intelligible content. Sensations, of themselves, without the
impress of thought, lack unity and identity. l'hey constitute
merely the raw material of thought, its abstract presupposition.
As soon as they become definite enough to be called sensations of anything, they already have the character of thought
impressed upon them. Sensations, perceptions and memory
images are products of thought activity. The passive sensibility has no power to produce sensations or perceptions of a
definite character. What it contributes is inarticulate.
By
this doctrine, Kant hoped to establish firmly the supremacy
of reason against the claims of sense. His rationalism took
away from sense the last shred of cognitive independence, and
reduced it to complete inactivity. Whatever cognitive value
it seems to have is due to a priori principles of thought.

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JOHN A. CREA VEN

Pre-Kantian philosophy is arraigned by Personalists on the
charge of conceiving reason as a purely passive and receptive
faculty, and of allowing too great a share of independence to
sensations and perceptions. As might be expected, the major
portion of the criticism is reserved for Aristotle. His theory of
knowledge conceived reason as firmly anchored in sense, and
failed to make any sharp distinction between senses and reason. The function of reason was to read off; or interpret, the
universal concepts which are implicit in sense-experience. Indeed, it is asserted that his doctrine is " saved " from empiricism and sensism only by a declaration that the intelligence, as
a faculty, is as original as the sensibility. And the failure of
modern Thomists to deal sympathetically with Kant's philosophy is attributed to their adherence to the " sense bound "
epistemology of their master, Aristotle! 22 For Personalists,
Kant's greatest contribution to philosophy was his rejection of
the passivity of mind and his emphasis on the creative activity
of thought. He showed that a priori, structural principles
of thought, the categories, give form and meaning to our experience. They introduce order into the fleeting impressions
of the sensibility. Aristotelians always ascribed a dangerous
independence to sensations, perceptions and memory-images.
These- preceded thought and had a certain independence of it.
In all these strictures on Aristotle, there is room for a better
understanding of his doctrine of the universals and of the
abstractive activity of the intellect. We must bear in mind
that it is ever on the question of the metaphysical status of
the universals that he is at pains to stress his departure from
Plato's doctrines. While this is so, it is, perhaps, possible to
admit some truth in the assertion that he never completely
succeeded in freeing himself from the ultra-realism of his
master, though he was quite conscious of all the difficulties
inherent in the latter's doctrine. 28 Perhaps, too, he did not completely harmonize the Platonic unity and eternity of essences
•• For such criticisms, cf. Knudson, op. cit., pp.
ff.
•• Cf. Regis Jolivet,' La Notion de la Substance, pp. 86, 804.

PERSONALISM,

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15

with their existence in many individuals. Nor does he consistently distinguish metaphysical essences from physical substantial forms, using the term" form" (eiSos, t-topcp.q),to designate now the one, now the other. But in his view, all existence
is concrete and individual; the individual only has existence in
the real order. The universal, as a universal, exists only in the
apprehending mind. The universals are not, as Plato asserted,
self-subsistent, substantial entities. In particular, being and
unity, the widest of the universals, are not substances. The
polemic which he directs against hypostatization of universals
(as in the Platonic forms) is one of the leading notes of the
Metaphysics.
The world in which we live is, for Aristotle, a world of concrete individual things, acting and reacting on one another. In
contemplating these individuals we become aware of certain
characteristics common to many of them. These characters
are, for Aristotle, as real and objective as the individuals themselves. They are not, in any sense, mental constructions. In
his criticisms of the Platonic Forms, he warns us that we
credit them only with that existence proper to universals, viz.,
they exist only as attributes of individuals. We must not fall
into the Platonic error of positing a separate world of universals. The mere operation of ideas cannot explain .our world,
which is one of change and becoming. And in this connection,
too, we should recall the celebrated Aristotelian distinction
between first substance and second substance-a distinction
which is strangely ignored by Personalists. First substance is
individual: this man, this house. It neither exists in a subject
nor is affirmed of one. Second substance is universal and is
called substance only by analogy. It is affirmed of a subject,
as a predicate, but nevertheless does not inhere in a subject. 24
The universals are affirmed only of first substances: " Peter is
a man." The universal, "man," expresses the nature of Peter
but does not inhere in him as a subject.
The Aristotelian doctrine of moderate realism was adopted
•• Cat. 5 (fla 11); ibid. (flb 15) ;· ibid. (Sa 7).

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JOHN A. CREA VEN

by the mediaeval Scholastics. In his Commentaries on the
Metaphysics of Aristotle, St. Thomas writes: "Nihil est in
rerum natura existens, sed tantU?n in consideratione intellectus
abstrahentis communia a propriis." 25 Again: "Sed universale
est commune multis, hoc enim dicitur
quod natum
est multis inesse, et de multis praedicari." 26

v
It should be quite clear at this stage that Personalism is committed to an idealistic view of the world. If the structure of
knowledge is built up from within mind itself, then the existence of an extramental world is a mere assumption. Many
of the qualities commonly attributed to such a world (e. g.,
color, sweetness, bitterness) have no extramental existence.
Since these secondary qualities have no counterpart in reality,
the perceptual world cannot be a replica of the external world.
We can never perceive any world other than the one we construct. The world I perceive, Bowne tells us, is the world I
construct-this is true of all perception. But though they
regard the external world as phenomenal, Personalists are
agreed in asserting the reality of the self. Here personal
idealism parts company with Kantian phenomenalism.
For
Kant rejected a knowledge of the noumenal self and taught a
doctrine of a shadowy Ego. He rejected as mythical the existence of noumena, or things-in-themselves (Dinge-an,-Sich) . But
since phenomena are effects, it is very natural to seek their
causes. Kant rightly held that the categories are valid only
in their application to the objects of a real or possible experience; but he erroneously restricted experience to sense-experience and to physical sensations. For the Personalist, it
embraces also the domain of self-experience, or self-consciousness. The categories acquire their full meaning only in their
application to an Ego. The category of causality, for instance,
can imply nothing more than the self-conscious efficiency of a
•• Lib. XI, lect.

fll74.

•• Lib. VII, lect. XII, 157fl.

PERSONALISM,

THOMISM

AND EPISTEMOLOGY

17

free intelligence. 27 If the self is real it must be active: reality
and inactivity are incompatible. A self wholly passive would
have no substantial reality; its reality is manifested in and
through its activity. Thinking is of the essence of the soul,
and only in so far as thought is creative does it form a constitutive part of the world. Personalists find the ultimate theoretical basis for the reality of the self in the creative character
of its thought-activity.
Thought, which is essentially a creative process, requires as a fundamental condition the existence
of a self which endures, and which remains identical throughout
the successive changes of mentallife. 28
For the Personalist, the world does not exist as it is perceived. This was the " old " theory which borrowed all its
force from the supposed immediacy of perception. The perceived world contains something more than the real world.
The latter (which, for Personalists, is a system of stimuli) is
in some way incomplete without mind. Indeed, if we follow
to their logical conclusion the arguments of the personal
idealists, we should be obliged to hold that the world has no
existence apart from knowledge. Its existence, if it possesses
any, is purely embryonic, or instrumental: it exists in order to
be known. Our minds fashion nature: the world is a thoughtproduct.
We have here touched upon a fundamental vice in the personalist epistemology. It is pervaded by a tendency to set up
constitutive principles of thought anterior to all experience.
This tendency is a legacy from Kant, and, as in the Critique
of Pure Reason, it leads to an idealistic view of the world.
Kant changed the emphasis on the receptive character of
human thought and made mind a creative and determining
factor in the manufacture of experience. Personalists adopt
his doctrine to "save" human reason from sensism. In their
view, if reason is to be safeguarded, it must be assigned a very
full and independent role. It must be conceived as active, a
constitutive factor in the world. This preoccupation with the
•• Bowne, Personalism, pp. 108-104.

2

•• Knudson, op. cit., pp. 186-188.

18

JOHN A. CREA VEN

vindication of reason is largely due to a failure to understand
the traditional Scholastic doctrine of moderate realism. In
this doctrine, reason is certainly not subordinated to sense, and
hence there is no danger that by accepting it we are capitulating to sensism. In the Thomist epistemology, our ideas are
derived from the senses and thus from things, but by the operation of a spiritual faculty; and so are different from sensations
and images. But though essentially different from sensations
and images, our ideas are abstracted from them by the operation of a spiritual faculty. The mind is active but its activity
is not creative. It does not impose its own subjective forms
upon the data of experience. The essential activity of the
human mind is an abstractive one, drawing from the data of
experience the essential qualities or knowable elements of things
and utilizing them in the formation of a universal concept.
Sensists likewise hold that our ideas are derived from the
senses, but, in their view, the senses are, of themselves, sufficient to produce them; ideas do not differ essentially from
sensations and images.
Personalists accept the Kantian doctrine of the sensibility
and of the categories of the understanding.
In their reconstruction of the Critique of Pure Reason, they are led to present
an idealistic view of the world, but at the same time cannot
steer clear of many of the contradictions inherent in the Kantian system. The most serious of these contradictions has
been noted already in discussing the alleged dualism of thought
and thing. It has to do with the existence of things-in-themselves and their relation to the knowing faculties.
The crucial question for epistemology, and one which stands
at the parting of the ways of idealism and realism, is: Does the
human mind apprehend an objectively existing order? Or is
this order fashioned by mind itself? To this all-important
question, Personalism has no consistent answer to offer. In
defending a dualism of thought and thing, it would seem to
imply a belief in the existence of things-in-themselves as an
" other " to thought. But this dualism is subjected to quali-

PERSONALISM,

THOMISM

AND EPISTEMOLOGY

19

fications that are incompatible with a realistic view of the
world. The source of this difficulty is to be traced to an allegiance to Kant's critical philosophy. The Critique of Pure
Reason rejects the possibility of a knowledge of things as they
are in themselves. 29 The intuitions with which all knowledge
begins contain nothing real, nothing as it is in itself, nothing
beyond phenomena, or the modes in which things affect us.
"All 01,1r knowledge," says Kant, "begins with sense, proceeds
thence to understanding and ends with reason, beyond which
. nothing higher can be discovered in the human mind for elaborating the matter of intuition and subjecting it to the highest
unity of thought." 30 The sensibility receives impressions from
transcendent, unknown objects. These intuitions are first determined by the a priori forms of space and time, and are then
further formed by the categories of the understanding into
scientifically conceived things. Thus arise the synthetic a
priori judgments which are valid, for the universal element in
each is a determinable law of the mind, the application of
which can be known a priori. The necessary and predictable
character of experience is due to the subject. But the objects
determined by the categories are not noumena but phenomena,
that is, the real intuited spatially and temporally. Phenomena,
to which alone our knowledge extends, are but the appearances
of things, the modes in which they affect us. That which lies
beyond phenomena is the noumenon, the Ding-an-sich. For
Kant, every real object is a physical object, and as real object
can be apprehended only by an intuition.
Must we then abandon all effort to know noumena, to attain
the Dinge-an-sich? The theoretical reason, indeed, fails to
give us any knowledge of things as they exist in themselves.
It can tell us nothing of the deepest truths of reality: God,
freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul. These truths
it can never apprehend, for they can never become phenomenal.
But lest " our unavoidable ignorance with regard to things in
29 Cf. Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental
Doctrine of Elements, I, Transcendental Aesthetic.
•• Ibid., Transcendental Dialectic, II, A.

QO

JOHN A. CREAVEN

themselves" should prove too irksome, lest the necessary
limitation of our theoretical cognition should unduly gall us,
Kant hastens to reassure us that the practical reason supplies
the deficiency. The practical reason, for Kant, is not the reason strictly so-called, but the will, which prescribes and decrees.
The Ding-an-sich is, therefore, not known but believed. 'We
need not relinquish such truths as the freedom of the will, or
the existence of God, because they lie beyond the ken of the
speculative reason. Such truths are possible, and since they
are the basis of our moral life, :reason confidently believes them.
The assent to such truths is granted, not because of theoretical
evidence but because of the practical claims of the mmal life.
" I must, therefore," said Kant, " abolish knowledge to make
rooni for belief." 31 The " ambitious attempts to demonstrate
the immortality of the soul from the simplicity of the soul's
substance, or to deduce the existence of God from the conception of an " ens realissimum," must now be abandoned. The
practical reason demands that man lead a morally good life,
and such a life is impossible unless certain metaphysical truths
be admitted. The practical reason, therefore, postulates these
truths. They are accepted, not because of a theoretical conviction founded on objective evidence, but because of a certain
invincible moral persuasion, a "faith." 32 The resulting position is that " no one will be able to boast that he knows that
there is a God and a future life. . . . My conviction (scil. of
these truths) is not logical but moral certainty; and since it
rests on subjective grounds (of the' moral sentiment) I must
not even say: It is morally certain that there is a God, etc.,
but: I am morally certain; that is, my belief in God and in
another world is so interwoven with my moral nature that I
am under as little apprehension of having the former torn from
me as I am of losing the latter." 33 The necessity of obeying
the moral law forces me, according to my interests, to believe
in the existence of God, of immortality, etc., as this is the sole
CritiqueJ of Pure Reason, Preface.
Critique of Practical Reason, Part I, Book 2, 2, vii.
•• Critique of Pure Reason, Canon of Pure Reason, Ill.
31

32

PERSONALISM,

THOMISM

AND EPISTEMOLOGY

condition on which my moral end could agree with all other
moral ends and so have practical validity. Hence Kant ends
by elevating faith above reason and grants primacy in matters
suprasensible and metaphysical to faith, in which assent is a
necessary supposition of reason, ultimately due to will.
Hence the categories do not extend our knowledge beyond
phenomena: they do not lead us to a noumenal knowledge of
what is given in sensation. Of themselves they are empty; in
order to be valid they must be :filled by experience, and all the
content that experience can put into them is phenomenal.
" The understanding a priori," says Kant, " can never do more
than anticipate the form of a possible experience; and, as nothing can be the object of experience except the phenomenon, it
follows that the understanding can never go beyond the limits
of the sensibility. As phenomena are but representations, the
understanding refers them to a something as the object of our
sensuous intuition. This means a something equal to X, of
which we do not, nay, with the present constitution of our
understanding, can not know anything." 34
This something is the noumenon, the transcendental object,
the Ding-an-sich or thing-in-itself. In the Kantian system, the
status of this real object is very difficult to determine. The
Personalist position is, perhaps, even more obscure. The nature
of the physical world remains a mystery, unsolved by the
metaphysicians of the school. Whether it exists in itself (as
the Kantian Ding-an-sich) is not clear, though this seems unlikely, since all extramental reality is denied. Personalists
have, after Kant, radically changed the whole conception of the
nature of knowledge. Instead of a vision, or seeing of the
object, knowledge is now a fashioning of the object out of the
raw materials supplied by the sensibility. It is a product of a
blind synthesis of a priori categories of the understanding with
the sensible intuitions furnished by the sensibility.
Such a theory fails in the test of critical reflection. It contradicts the immediate testimony of consciousness according to
34 Critique of Pure Reason, Transcendental
Doctrine of the Faculty of Judgment, Chap. III.

JOHN A. CREA VEN

which we apprehend objects which are external to us but which
we do not construct in the Kantian sense. If there is to be
knowledge in any intelligible sense, it must be of something for
which the subject's act of knowing cannot in any way be held
responsible-something not created by the mind's action, and,
in so far as not created, revealed to it. In our perception of
the external world, there is indeed a degree of " fashioning " or
" construction " which it would be arbitrary to deny. Our
cognition of an object here and now perceived is completed,
developed and given fuller detail by means of objective elements formerly perceived. But this elaboration of our cognition is very different from the creative activity of thought
upheld by personal idealists and by Kant. The latter makes
the object of knowledge of construction resulting from the imposition of a priori forms of the understanding on the data of
the sensibility. It is assumed by Personalists that Kant has
forever settled the question of the nature of knowledge;
whereas, in reality, his solution of the critical problem is full
of artificialities and contradictions. An adequate basis for a
concrete Personalism is not to be found in Kanes transcendental idealism.

VI
For the Thomist, the person is

in its acts and it is
only by a study of the intellectual activity of man that we can
hope to arrive at a knowledge of his nature. Now, every act
of intellectual knowledge is at once a revelation and aB active
possession of the ego. To know is to affirm that things are,
that the real exists; it is also to possess, in an imm3¥ent fashion,
the object known. All intellectual knowledge, then, whether
the object be the ego or the non-ego, is fundamentally an Ieh
denke, a consciousness. If we consider knowledge of consciousness of the self, this proposition is self-evident; for in self-consciO«sn.essthe person possesses itself in spiritual fashion, an:d is
actively present to itself. This further implies that the ego, to
a certain extent, constructs itself by its activity. The human
personality is not given, in actu primo, as a form whiGh is com-

PERSONALISM,

THOMISM

AND EPISTEMOLOGY

fl8

plete and perfect, with its character of selfhood completely
achieved. It is by its own activity, and chiefly by intellectual
activity, that the person perfects and develops itself. We can
say then, with truth, that, in a certain sense, knowledge is constitutive of the human ego. Without cognitive activity, the
human individual could,
be considered as an ego; but
it would be difficult to conceive the peculiar selfhood of a person constituted by the mere fact of individual existence. 'Vhat
is true of knowledge considered as consciousness of the self is
equally true of knowledge of the non-ego. The active assimilation of the forms of other beings by the ego is a perpetual
affirmation of ourselves in the representation of another. This
fact differs radically from the conclusion of Stern that our
epistemological nature compels us to think of the world in the
form of personality. This is a view which borrows all its force
from the Kantian doctrine of the nature of the human mind
and which, apart from this doctrine, is quite invalid. Reflection on our cognitive activity shows that an intellectual act
reveals to us immediately only the existence of the self which
knows.
Thought, then, reveals the existence of an ego which perfects itself and possesses itself with a certain autonomy. This
autonomous possession of the self, which for idealists is absolute, is, nevertheless, tempered by a certain dependence.
Thought does not construct its judgments as it pleases; it is
subordinated to truth, which dominates it. The mind conforms
itself to the real order which is apprehended. It is so constituted that it must affirm what objective evidence reveals as
true. And what the intellect affirms as true for itself, it feels
constrained to affirm as true for all thought in every circumstance. In this way, and not from the Kantian "categories,"
arise our universally valid judgments. Truth, which is given as
something objective, is the object of a disinterested attitude on
the part of mind.
In the second place, our intellectual knowledge carries an
abstract and universal import, a source of both perfection and

JOHN A. CREAVEN

imperfection. Abstract concepts have the unique property of
being applicable to an indefinite number of individuals. In
seizing their essence, immutable and meta-empirical, the intellect comprehends in a simple unity a multiplicity of things.
But this comprehension noes not extend to the individual
aspects of things nor to their concrete character, and so it is
schematic and imperfect, in consequence of the limitation of
human intellect. 35 Under one aspect, then, our thought appears as an unlimited desire of knowledge. From another
aspect, it appears as an imperfect act. As a thinking being,
man is interested in everything, in the external world as well
as in his own interior world; in beings material and spiritual, in
facts and the relations of facts; in passing phenomena and in
the unchanging essences of things. To define the objective
amplitude of the object o£ knowledge, one cannot do better
than say with St. Thomas that it is commensurate with being
itself, with truth. But while intellect is thus an unlimited desire for truth, it is, at the same time, essentially limited in act.
The intellect restricts itself to a particular aspect of the universe-a limitation imposed by the present condition of the
union of soul and body. But it must never be conceived as
shut up in the shell o£ solipsism. Its essential nature is to
apprehend an objectively existing order: "in cujus natura est
ut rebus conformetur."

VII
Thomism, in keeping with the Aristotelian tradition, sets
out from the data of common experience. By reflection on
man's intellectual activity, it abstracts the concept of being-byparticipation, which ultimately enables the intellect to affirm
with certitude the existence of a Being subsistent in Itself.
With the aid of many metaphysical principles, it constructs a
hierarchy of all reality. Confirming the evidence of everyday
experience, it teaches that the universe is a diversified and harmonious whole. The universe is made up of many different
•• St. Thomas, Summa Theol., I, q. 55, a. S, corp.

PERSONALISM,

THOMISM

AND EPISTEMOLOGY

25

substances, distinct from one another. This "pluralism" of
St. Thomas stands in uncompromising opposition to all forms
of monism.
At the very beginning of its philosophy, Personalism departs
from Thomistic thought. St. Thomas begins his system by
affirming that there is a coincidence betweenthe laws of knowing and of being, and proceeds to construct a realistic synthesis.
Personalism, on the contrary, builds its system on Kant's transcendental idealism, and never arrives at a consistent solution of
the nature of reality. Thomism envisages a universe of things,
which have being in various degrees. At the head of the
hierarchy, it demonstrates the existence of a God ..o is being,
but who is distinct from the universe and everything in it.
The latter are creatures and are beings only by participation.
Personalism is born of the idealist tradition and partakes of all
its defects. With its doctrine of Nominalism, it distorts the
essentially abstractive character of human knowledge, and by
upholding the primacy of practical reason, it bases all our
knowledge ultimately on a faith which can receive no validation from without. Faith is its own justification. Intellect is
completely subordinated to will and is rendered incapable of
attaining logical certitude. " The mind," says Bowne, " not
driven by any compulsion of objective facts, but rather by the
subjective necessity of self-realization and self-preservation." 36
For Thomists, on the other hand, human personality has two
levels on which it can transcend the limits of its own nature.
On the cognitive level, it can become, in a manner, all things,
by enriching itself with their forms. On the appetitive level,
man is capable of embracing every object that the intellect
exhibits to him as good or desirable. The position that " life is
richer and deeper than logic " is entirely in harmony with the
Thomistic view of human nature. Man is not only, or chiefly,
an abstract speculator. He is a living totality with practical
needs and interests to which he must adjust himself in order
to live a full, h1,1.man life. His practical necessities and theo36

B. P. Bowne, Theism, p. 27.

26

JOHN A. CREA VEN

retical interests intermingle. The practical demands of social
relations, the claims of a community life, as well as the exigencies of the material part of his being, constitute a large part of
man's life.
Human knowledge is not, then, a bare activity of intellect.
It involves the whole man and requires . the co-operation of
man's environment. It is an aspect of a general situation, of
which the state of mind is only an element, though a very
significant one. We may not overlook the physical elements
in knowledge. In Personalism there is a lack of an orderly
account of the knowing faculties, based on psychological investigation. There is ari absence of a systematic exposition of
the different grades of knowledge, of the distinction between
rational and sense knowledge. Personalists do not attempt a
proper criticism of sensation, a task which is essential to epistemology. Yet only on such bases can we build a truly scientific treatment of knowledge. The Thomist knows very well
that the knowledge-process is very complex. Into the " knowledge-situation " there enter objects known by their bodily
activities, the bodily organism with its nervous system and
senses, and the intellect. There is no such position as that of a
bare, isolated intellect, directly confronting its object. The
object of knowledge relates itself to the complete human self.
JoHN A. CREAVEN, S.M. A.
Dromantine CoTlege,
Newry, Co. Down, N. Ireland

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF CHANGEABLE
BEING

B

y changeable being in general we here understand every-

thing which is capable of successive motion or change
such as that which we perceive by our senses. Various
names are employed to designate this object. It is called
sensible reality, or that which is perceptible by sense. It is
called the sensible universe, or the whole consisting of things
perceptible by sense. We speak of it as the material and the
physical universe or nature" that is, the whole which consists of
things capable of successive motion or change. We call it the
corporeal universe, or the whole consisting of extended parts.
We call it the sensible world, or the venerable whole perceptible
by sense. We name it the cosmos, that is, the whole which
consists of many different parts disposed in an orderly way and
constiiuting a beautiful system.
Through our sensory experience we are aware that there is
something which appears changing and various. Sensible objects appear and disappear independently of our will. That
which appears to us has the aspect or reason of being: it is
something not only sensible but also intelligible. We apprehend the disappearance of an object from our experience as
something opposed to being, and called non-being. We judge
that being is not non-being, and thus we divide non-being from
being. We understand that a being such as the self is undivided
or one, and that one being is divided or distinct from anything
else which we experience, as the self is distinct from our sensory
activities. We experience many sensible objects, especially the
objects of touch, as things opposed to our knowledge of them.
We sense them acting sensibly upon us. So:me of thes€ objects
are pleasant and we enjoy experiencing them. Others are painful and excite cmr grief. We cannot sense si.mply at will. Fre-

27

28

W. H. KANE

quently we can touch that which. we choose to touch or escape
that which we dislike by reaching for it or withdrawing or
otherwise moving ourselves. The sensible world appears and
acts sensibly as being distinct from our knowledge of it. In
particular we are aware of the self, and we know that the self
is not only something sensible but also something permanent
and distinct from our knowledge of self. Through sensory experience and through our knowledge of being and non-being
we know that
objects of our knowledge are somehow distinct from our knowledge itself. Non-being can exist only in
our knowledge, and as an object known, whereas the cosmos
manifestly is in itself or has being of its own.
We can initiate certain changes in the sensible world, and we
understand some of the reasons for the things which we make,
such as clothing and houses. When producing works of art we
proceed from definite principles to certain ends. In this respect human art seems to imitate nature working through
determined means to certain ends, as birds make nests for
their young, and their young grow feathers for protection and
for flying. Hence it seems that the cosmos is a work of intelligence and can be understood by us.
The pageant of the changing world in which we actively
participate excites our admiration and curiosity. Sometimes we
observe it with wonder, and ask the solemn question: What
is it? What is this reality which- undergoes sensible change?
What manner of being is this, whose parts come sensibly into
being and sensibly cease to be? What is its very essence?
From what is it made? This question gives birth to philosophy, because the cosmos is the first reality which challenges
the power of human reason to achieve a clear understanding
of all that is.
We are convinced that we understand a thing which has
principles, causes or elements when we know what its principles, causes or elements are. Our scientific knowledge of a
subject is derived from certain first principles which are the
necessary sources of the being of the subject, or of its becoming,
and of its bein.g understood by us. The first principles of

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

29

BEING

changeable being in general, and the principles of our scientific
knowledge of changeable being, can be manifested by reasoning from the data of sensory experience and from certain general truths, such as the principles of non-contradiction and
sufficient reason, and particularly from the principle which we
state by saying that as a changeable being appears and acts
sensibly, so it is. The first principles of a changeable being can
be manifested conveniently after we have attained a general
understanding of the numerical and specific degrees or distinctions which are to be found in the sensible world. Hence we
shall consider in the first place the degrees or distinctions of
changeable being in general, and then the first principles of a
changeable being.

I
THE DEGREES OF CHANGEABLE BEING IN GENERAL

Concerning the degrees or distinctions of changeable being
in general, there are two questions to be decided: 1. Whether
changeable being is one or many numerically? 2. Whether
changeable being is one or many generically and specifically?
1.

WHETHER CHANGEABLE

BEING IS NUMERICALLY

ONE

OR MANY?

Difficulties

It may seem that changeable being is numerically one, for
the following reasons.
(I) Changeable being is known by us through our sensory
experiences. By sensory experience, particularly by touch and
vision, we apprehend something which appears to be extended
without interruption.
Therefore changeable being is one continuous whole.
(2) Changeable being is the cosmos. The cosmos seems to
be a great organism. composed of many part's having different
properties and activities by which the whole moves itself to its
own perfection. Therefore changeable being is numerically
one.

30

W. H. KANE

(3) Changeable being is the sensible universe or reality. But
reality, or all that is, is one. Therefore changeable being is
numerically one.
Solution

It is evident that there are in the world many colors, sounds,
odors, tastes and tactile qualities, many changes in these qualities, and many movements perceptible by sense. Beings such
as these sensory phenomena are called accidents. Through
our knowledge of various changes which occur in us, we know
that the self is distinct from the activities and other accidents
by which the self is modified. Our walking does not leave us
and go on without us, but requires the self as the subject in
which it exists and to which it gives a secondary mode of being,
that of locomotion. This is true also of our seeing and thinking, and of our color, warmth and figure. Our accidents inhere
more or less permanently in ourselves. They do not exist
simply, or have their being simply in themselves. But we are
aware, especially through our free activities, that the self exists
simply, and does not inhere in any subject. A being which is
primary inasmuch as it exists simply in itself, not inhering in
another, and which is the subject in which accidents inhere, is
called a substance.
When we inquire whether changeable being is one or many
numerically, we are asking whether the whole world is one
sensible substance, or consists of many substances which are
absolutely distinct from each other.
We know through our sensory consciousness that the self
pertains to the sensible world. We can move and touch our
head, arms and legs, and we are sure that these are parts of
the self. Through our intellective consciousness we are aware
of our individual being, that is, of the unity of our substance
distinct from our activities and other accidents. We know that
we are composed of many sensory parts which are parts of one
and the same substance. By our sensory and intellective consciousness we know that the self is at least a part of the world,
that we apprehend the world from within it, and that we have

THE FffiST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

31

need to employ sensory experience and reasoning in order to
understand the world. The self is either the whole substance
of the world, or one substance among many.
From ordinary experience it is clear that the self is not the
whole substance of the world. We have sensory experience of
many objects which we apprehend as distinct beings who are
similar to the self and able to manifest their own thoughts and
desires by means of sensible signs. The distinction between the
self and another seems most evident when we are aware that
our thoughts and desires are opposed to the thoughts and
desires of the other.
The unity of the self is manifested by the manner in which
we operate. Anxiety disturbs our digestion; strenuous exercise
impedes our use of reason. One intense operation impedes
another within us, and this shows that all our operations proceed from the same source. Our vegetative life is the substrate
of our sensory life and nourishes the organs of sense. Our
sensory life is the substrate of our rational life, and somehow
nourishes the life of reason. All of our parts with their various
properties and activities are ordained to one higher activity
which is that of our rational life.
We can determine whether a whole of which we have experience is one substance or many by the way in which it appears
and acts sensibly. That which appears and acts as a primary
unit undivided in itself and distinct from all other things is
one substance. If distinct properties appear in distinct parts,
if no common property pervades the parts, and if the properties
and activities of all the parts are not united and directed to a
higher activity, then these parts are distinct substances. The
world presents to our sensory experience many parts which
appear and act as primary units having distinct properties and
activities which are not united and directed to a higher activity.
For example, the various beings which we call a dog, a bird and
a tree appear and act as primary units. Things such as these
are not mere groups of phenomena without any substance, because accidents require substance in which to exist, and because the sensory properties and activities of each are unified

W. H. KANE

from within. The numerous parts of the world which appear
and act as primary units are disposed in an orderly way, and
some promote the welfare of others, but the properties and
activities of all the parts are not united and directed to a
higher activity of the world as a whole. Hence changeable
being or the sensible world is not one substance numerically,
but consists of a multitude of substances which are absolutely
distinct from each other.
Reply to Difficulties
(1) We achieve a scientific understanding of changeable
being by reasoning upon the data of sensory experience with
the aid of certain general truths. Material substance is perceptible through its sensible accidents, such as color and figure,
but we apprehend a substance more perfectly by reason than
by our senses. Our sensory consciousness is not sufficient to
manifest all the parts or the exact limits of our own substance.
Vision seems to be more refined than touch, yet even with the
aid of a microscope we cannot observe the ultimate parts of
sensible things so as to see whether their parts are continuous.
But from sensory experience and the principle of sufficient reason we know that the sensible world consists of many parts
which appear and act as primary units and which are distinct
substances. Many distinct bodies or extended substances appear and act separately, and manifest that they have distinct
terminations of their parts. Distinct bodies are discrete, not
continuous. Hence the world is not one continuous whole.
A house which is made from. many stones or bricks and pieces
of wood is not one substance. Each polyp in a branch of coral
exhibits all the parts and activities of a complete animal, and
is an individual substance. A malformation in which the principal parts of the normal type are multiple is not one substance
but many. A crystal of sugar has similar parts which cohere,
and is an individual substance.
(2) We have sensory and intellective consciousness of the
self as an organism. From our knowledge of self and of other

THE FffiST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

88

individuals like the self, we know that an organism is one
sensible substance composed of different parts which it can
employ as organs or instruments to move itself from within, as
we move ourselves when we walk, or when we nourish ourselves and grow. The cosmos is not one substance but a whole
consisting of many substances which are absolutely distinct
from one another. Hence the cosmos is not an organism in the
same manner or sense in which the self is an organism. Nor
does the cosmos move itself simply, because it is not one being
simply, or an individual substance.
A family, tribe or nation is a union of many rational organisms, and does not manifest any operation higher than the
rational activities of its members. A society is composed of
primary units or individual substances, and is not itself a
primary unit but a secondary one. A herd, flock or colony of
brutes does not manifest any operation higher than the instinctive activities of its members, and is not one substance but a
union of many. Ships, engines and other machines are composed of distinct substances which are united from without in
such a way that one can be moved by another. Mechanical
devices are secondary units, not primary ones, and they do
not move themselves simply.
(8) We apprehend the sensible universe not only by our
senses but also by our intellect. Many accidents are perceptible by sense, but relations, such as similarity, equality and
kinship, are purely intelligible accidents. Substance as such
is a manner of being which is intelligible, not sensible, although
we apprehend material substances through their sensible accidents. Substances are beings and units simply, or in the primary sense of the terms; whereas accidents are beings of a
being, and are called beings and units in a secondary sense.
From experience it is evident that the universe is not one
substance or accident. Nevertheless, each being is one numerically, and the cosmos itself appears to have a certain unity of
composition and of order, inasmuch as some material substances promote the welfare of others. The sun, for example,
by its light and heat is of benefit to organisms.
3

34

W. H. KANE

The consideration of being as such and of unity does not
pertain to philosophy of nature, but to metaphysics. In philosophy of nature we consider only that which is proper to
changeable being. Being as such and unity are purely intelligible and most universal, and are considered in the most
universal science.
2.

WHETHER CHANGEABLE

BEING IS SPECIFICALLY

ONE

OR MANY?

Difficulties
It may seem that changeable being is one specifically, and
does not consist of groups of substances which differ according
to generic and specific degrees of perfection, for the following
reasons.
(1) Changeable being consists of many sensible substances.
All sensible substances are material ones. Therefore changeable being is one specifically.
(2) Materiai substances are known by us through precise
experience. Such experience seems to manifest only moving
particles, or matter and motion. Color
to be due to the
motion of particles or waves which strike our eyes and excite
our nerves. Sound seems to be an undulatory motion in the
air or some other medium. Heat seems to be a vibratory
motion of molecules. The larger bodies are composed of many
molecules, and these seem to consist of discrete particles which
are disposed in empty space. Therefore all material substances
are of one species.

(3) Substances which do not perceptibly differ from each
other are of one species. It seems that physical substances are
so similar that they could all be arranged in a series in which
adjacent substances would not perceptibly differ from each
other and in which there would be no gaps. Therefore all
physical substances are of one species.

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

35

Solution
We know that the cosmos consists of a multitude of individual substances. Each observable substance possesses a number of sensible accidents which it presents as a group to our
perception and through which the substance manifests itself to
us. From experience we know that many individuals, for
instance, human beings,. have similar sensible accidents, and
are types of the same class or group of material substances.
Other individuals, as a dog and a bird, manifest typical accidents or sensible properties which are abruptly distinct and
are types of different groups.
In regard both to structure and to function, we human beings
appear to be most abruptly distinct from all other types. Our
bodies are delicate and naked, and we must use reason and art
in order to preserve ourselves and to attain ·the things which
we require to perfect ourselves and be happy. We are conscious of some of our immanent actions, particularly of our
sensations, emotions, thoughts and free activities. l,;Ve can
manifest our sensory and rational life to others by means of
sensible signs, not only by gestures, facial expressions and
exclamations, but also by words and works of art which we
produce deliberately and freely diversify.
We observe that there are in the world many types of
organisms which are clearly different from ourselves and from
each other. Each of these types appears to act in a manner
which is regular. For instance, robins have a similar call and
build similar nests. Only the human is versatile and manifests the sensible signs of rational life. No other type of organism constructs and communicates with boundless variety.
The organisms which we call brutes exhibit the signs of
sensory life and possess organs more or less similar to our own.
The horse and the dog have eyes and ears, and can move themselves toward or away from things which they seem to sense
from a distance and to remember. Other types of animals, as
the oyster and the earthworm, are less complex in structure

36

W. H. KANE

and appear to sense only objects of touch and taste, not objects
of sight and hearing.
The organisms
we call plants do not manifest the signs
of sensory life and do not appear to have sensory organs. Yet
the plants manifestly move themselves by growing, or increasing their quantity from within, and by producing new individuals of their types.
There are many material substances which appear rigid or
stable in structure and which do not appear to have parts by
which they can move themselves or manifest the signs of organic life. Among these we find various types with sensible
properties which are abruptly distinct and clearly different,
such as those which we call marble and salt, iron and gold.
Thus through experience we know that the world consists
of many types of substances with sensible properties which are
abruptly distinct and clearly different. By means of its sensible
properties a changeable being manifests to us the nature of its
substance. H there were no intrinsic reason for a substance to
have certain accidents, or no necessary connection between a
substance and any of its accidents, then definite types of substances would not be found in different and changing environments. In nature we do not find the typical human head
joined to the body of a dog, but to the human body. The
malformations which occur among the various organisms are
contingent and exceptional, whereas the typical forms recur as
a rule through many generations. As a changeable being appears and acts sensibly, so it is. Each definite and stable type
in the world requires as its sufficient intrinsic reason a certain
kind of substance. As a changeable being is, so it is apt to
appear and to act sensibly. The specific nature of an observable substance is manifested to us through its sensible properties or accidents which are abruptly distinct and clearly different from those of other types. Clearly distinct types, such
as a man, a horse and an oak tree, exhibit different properties
and activities, which are not merely impressed upon them from
without but proceed from within the substances themselves.
Therefore these types are different in substance, that is, they

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

37

are individuals of distinct species. Hence changeable being is
not one specifically, but consists of groups of substances which
differ in specific nature.
We find in the world various orders or kingdoms of living
and non-living bodies. Human beings constitute the order of
intellective or rational organisms. Animals and plants constitute distinct orders of sensitive and vegetative organisms.
Among the non-organic bodies there are orders of compounds
and the elements.
By means of our intellective life we humans can control and
freely diversify some of our activities. We can preserve and
perfect ourselves, and can enjoy both sensory goods and the
goods of reason. The brute animals can preserve and perfect
themselves organically, and can enjoy sensory goods; but they
do not appear to enjoy rational goods, such as humorous incidents, beauty, moral virtue, art and science. Man performs
rational activities in addition to sensory and vegetative functions. Brutes do not exhibit the sensible signs of rational life.
As a changeable being appears and acts sensibly, so it is. Man
acts in a manner which surpasses sensory activities. Hence
the specific nature of man or the intellective order is essentially more perfect than the sensitive orders and natures. The
plants can grow and perfect themselves organically, but they
do not exhibit sensory activities. Hence the animals are more
perfect than the plants. The non-organic substances tend to
preserve themselves by means of their physical properties, such
as hardness and crystalline structure; but they cannot move
themselves by means of their parts. When they are moved
from without, they act on other bodies in ways which are typical of their species, as acids and metals act on each other.
Hence the plants and the other organisms are more perfect
than the non-living substances.
The clearly distinct and typical organic structures in the
various types of organisms are signs of specific differences, because these parts are not contingent accidents but are integral
and necessary parts of the substances. The brutes manifest
their specific nature especially by their instinctive behavior.

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W. H. KANE

Among the animals we can distinguish many genera and a
great multitude of species by contrasting their typical organic
structures, the degrees of perfection in their sensory life, and
their instinctive behavior. Types of the more perfect species
of animals, such as the cat, dog, robin, alligator, frog, trout,
honey bee and squid, possess the higher senses, either vision
or hearing or both. These animals can sense things which are
at a distance and can move themselves with respect to such
objects. Types of the less perfect species, such as the clam,
earthworm, starfish and jellyfish, lack the higher senses and
are simpler in structure and in sensory functions.
Among the plants we can distinguish various genera and a
multitude of species by contrasting the perfections of their
typical organic structures and vegetative functions. The mosses
and ferns, the grape and the apple are clearly distinct and
different in regard to their typical structures and functions.
There are many types of non-living substances which have
abruptly distinct properties. By means of their color, odor,
taste, crystalline form, freezing point, boiling point, and other
observable and measurable properties, we can distinguish various genera and many species of compounds and the elementary
bodies, for instance, sugar, water, oxygen, the electron and the
proton. Among the properties of a compound there are some
which are intermediate between those of various elements, and
a compound is somehow composed of various elements. Hence
compounds are more perfect than the elements.
Thus we see that changeable being consists of distinct orders
of substances which differ according to generic and specific
degrees of perfection.
A human being is one substance which is not only intellective but also sensitive and locomotive, vegetative and corporeal. Man possesses in himself the general perfections which
are characteristic of the lower orders of nature, and so man is a
microcosm or a little world. However, it is clear that the
human does not possess the perfections which are typical of
the horse or the oak tree, or of any other specific type. By

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

39

means of philosophy of nature man tries to assimilate the
specific perfections of all natural bodies in a cognitive way.
Reply to Difficulties
(I) All material substances are of one kind inasmuch as
they are changeable beings and pertain to the general order of
nature or the cosmos. From their different sensible properties
it is clear that material substances do not all pertain to one
special order or genus or species.
(2) The cosmos is manifestly rich in the number and variety
of things which it contains. Color, sound and heat are accidents of material substances by which these substances act on
each other and on our senses. A hot substance can heat a
cooler one, and a sounding body can produce a similar sound
in another body. When hot or sounding bodies act upon our
senses we can sense their own heat or sound more or less perfectly. We perceive that heat and sound are abruptly distinct
and different. Things which are abruptly distinct and clearly
different are specifically distinct. Hence heat and sound are
not of the same species of sensible activity or motion, but are
specifically distinct qualities. Some individual substances, especially organisms, are composed of many molecules which are
parts of one and the same substance, and are not distinct
substances. Molecules which are individual substances are
composed not only of particles but also _of an extended field,
which is something physical. Even the electron and the proton
have properties which are clearly distinct and different. There
is much more in nature than homogeneous matter and motion.
These are not sufficient reasons for the great variety of substances with different properties and activities which constitute
the world.
(3) The cosmos consists of many different types of substances which are disposed harmoniously and constitute a complete whole. In regard to the whole as a system there are no
conspicuous gaps or defects. But between the living and the
non-living, between the sensitive and the non-sensitive, and

40

W.H.KANE

between the rational and the non-rational there cannot be an
intermediate type of substance. There are gaps between the
abruptly distinct and clearly different types of organisms, compounds and elements. Yet within each organic species there is
considerable variety among the individuals, and the varieties
of one species are similar to those of several other species in
accidental respects and in generic perfections. The gaps between the distinct orders and genera are somewhat filled by
more general perfections, by distribution, and by accidents
which are more or less similar in different types. For example,
the ivy and grape vines have some accidents and generic perfections which are similar, and the ape resembles man in some
respects. But types such as these have sensible properties
which as a group are abruptly distinct and clearly different,
and are not one but many generically and specifically.

II
THE PRINCIPLES OF CHANGEABLE BEING IN GENERAL

Concerning the principles of changeable being in general
there are five questions to be decided: 1. Whether a changeable
being has first principles?
Whether the first principles are
contraries? S. Whether there are only two or three first principles? 4. Whether one of the first principles is purely potential? 5. Whether there is only one actual principle in each
changeable substance?
1.

WHETHER A CHANGEABLE

BEING HAS FIRST PRINCIPLES?

Difficulties

It may seem that a changeable being does not have first
principles from which it exists and is made, for the following
reasons.
(I) That which is created out of nothing does not have first
principles from which it is made. Changeable beings were
created out of nothing by the Author of nature. Therefore
changeable beings do not have first principles from which
they are made.

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

41

(2) That which is or exists does not seem to have principles
from which it exists and is made, because a being cannot be
made from itself, nor from another being which already exists,
can something be made from nothing by natural power.
Changeable beings already exist, and their motion, heat and
light seem merely to pass from one to another. Therefore
changeable beings do not have principles from which they are
and are made.
(3) A principle is something which is first and from which
something else proceeds or follows. One is prior to many.
Therefore there is only one principle.
(4) That which is divisible without limit seems to have an
infinite number of principles, because a being exists and is
made from the things into which it can be resolved or divided.
Changeable beings are extended and are divisible without
Therefore changeable beings have an infinite number of principles from which they are made.
Solution
We use the term principle in a wide sense to signify any
source or origin from which a thing proceeds. Some principles
are extrinsic to that which proceeds from them, as an artist
who is painting a picture is extrinsic to the picture which is
being painted by him. Other principles are within that which
proceeds from them and are the intrinsic sources from which a
thing exists and is made, as the wood is an intrinsic source of
the table which exists and is made from the wood. By the first
principles of changeable being we understand the intrinsic
and fundamental sources from which any changeable being
exists and is made.
Through experience we know that many things in the world
are newly made. Organisms can generate new individual substances, and they can become corrupted and changed into certain non-living substances. These in turn can be changed into
other substances which are specifically different, as wood can
be changed into ashes. Changeable beings appear to be capable

a

W. H. KANE

of change, not only with respect to their accidents, but also
fundamentally or substantially.
We notice that changeable beings, as they are made in the
course of nature, appear to exist and to be made from some
antecedents, not from mere nothing. Things which are produced by natural change appear to proceed from intrinsic principles from which they exist and are made) as ice appears to
proceed from water and from whatever else is required as an
intrinsic principle from which ice is formed. That which is
newly made is distinct and different from its antecedents, and
appears to exist and to be made from principles which are
distinct and different from each other, somewhat as the color
purple appears to proceed from the colors red and blue.
Yet it is clear that neither everything nor all kinds of things
are required as intrinsic principles from which any individual
changeable being exists and is made. Something brown is not
generally required as a principle from which something is made
sweet, nor is gold required as a principle from which water is
made. Moreover, the sensible properties and the proper activities of a changeable being are limited in number, and appear to
proceed from a limited number of intrinsic principles. Furthermore, some things proceed from others, as the color green
proceeds from the colors yellow and blue, or as compounds
proceed from elements; whereas the principles of a changeable
being are the sources from which a changeable being exists and
is made. Hence not all things are intrinsic principles.
Thus we see that a changeable being exists and is made from
intrinsic principles which are limited in number and are distinct and different from each other. Certain of these intrinsic
principles do not proceed from others, because the number of
principles in a changeable being is limited; nor do they proceed
from each other, because they are different. Things which do
not proceed from others, nor from each other, but from which
any changeable being exists and is made are the intrinsic and
fundamental sources or first principles of a changeable being.
Therefore a changeable being has first principles from which it
exists and is made.

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

48

Reply to Difficulties
(1) The questions concerning the creation of a being out of
mere nothing pertain to metaphysics, not to philosophy of nature, because these questions concern being as such, not changeable being exclusively. In the course of nature changeable
beings are not made out of mere nothing, but from certain
antecedents, and so they have first principles for which they
exist and are made.
(2) Sensible motions and qualities such as heat and color
are accidents, not substances. Accidents do not have their
being in themselves simply, but in a substance, and the same
accident numerically does not pass from one substance to
another. Through experience we know that a hot substance
can act upon a cold one and can make it more or less hot.
When such a change takes place, the same heat numerically
does not pass from one substance to another, nor is some new
heat made simply, because heat is not a substance, and is not
apt to be or to be made simply. In this case, a cold substance
is made hot, and some heat is newly made or made more
intense in a substance which already exists and which is capable
of becoming hot. Similarly, the motion of the self when we
walk is not made simply, but is newly made in the self.
Inasmuch as a being is something actual it cannot be made,
because it already is. Through experience we know that change
takes place, and that changeable beings are newly made. A
changeable being is not made from mere nothing in the course
of nature, nor from an antecedent being inasmuch as this is
something actual. Between an actually determined material
being and mere nothing there is a certain medium which is a
potential principle, or something which is capable of receiving
a new determination, somewhat as a cold body can become hot.
(3) One is prior to many inasmuch as it is an extrinsic principle from which many things proceed, as an artist is prior to
many works of art which proceed from him, or as a divisible
whole is prior to the parts into which it can be divided. But
that which is made as things are made in the course of nature

44
proceeds from more than one intrinsic principle, and so many
intrinsic principles are prior to such a one.
(4) Changeable beings appear to be composed of extended
parts into which they can be divided. Yet each natural body
is limited in its extension or quantity, and the individuals of a
species do not vary indefinitely in regard to their quantity.
Human beings, for example, can be large or small, but within
limits of size. Through experience we know that natural bodies
cannot be divided indefinitely without a change in species
taking place. A man can have his arms and legs cut off and
remain a man, but he cannot have his head cut off and remain
a man, nor is an amputated arm or leg a human being. Hence
there are certain first and substantial principles which are required for a man to exist and to be made. Similarly, all natural
bodies have first principles from which they exist and are made.
2.

WHETHER THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF A CHANGEABLE

BEING

ARE CONTRARIES?

Difficulties
It may seem that the first principles from which a changeable being exists and is made are not contrary to each other,
for the following reasons.
(1) Things which are extremely distant and different from
each other and which pertain to the same genus are called
contraries, such as the red and the blue, the sour and the bitter.
Something sour can become red, although sour and red are
rather disparate than different from each other, and are not
contraries. Therefore the principles from which a changeable
being exists and is made are not contrary to each other.
(2) Contraries are positive things, such as sweet and salt. A
changeable being can be made from principles, not all of which
are positive things. Something dark can become bright, although the dark seems to be merely the absence of light. Therefore the principles of a changeable being are not contraries.
(3) The first principles from which a changeable being exists

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

45

and is made do not proceed from each other. Contraries can
proceed from each other, as black can proceed from white, and
white from black. Therefore the first principles of a changeable
being are not contraries.
(4) Contraries such as blue and yellow oppose and resist
each other, and cannot coexist in the same body or in the same
part of a body, at least not in intense degree. The first principles from which a changeable being exists and is made coexist
in the same changeable substance. Therefore the first principles
of a changeable being are not. contraries.
(5) Changeable substances are not contrary to each other,
because they are abruptly distinct in species and cannot be
changed as colors or sounds can be changed from one extreme
to another. The first principles from which a changeable
substance exists and is made are :fundamental or substantial
principles. Therefore the first principles are not contraries.
Solution
We know through experience that material substances can
be modified accidentally and that they can be substantially
generated and corrupted. We notice that bodies whi!ih are
hot or cold do not heat or cool other bodies which are equally
hot or cold. We find that moving bodies do not act on other
bodies which are moving with similar velocity and direction.
It is clear from experience that change does not take place
indiscriminately. We do not observe that anything whatever
proceeds from anything whatever, except by accident: when
something is present which is not required for a particular
change. A man who is a carpenter may become a writer,
although it is not necessary that one be a carpenter in order
to become a writer. The world appears to consist of changeable
beings which are produced in a certain order :from principles
of a certain character and which are corrupted in a certain
order.
We observe, on the one hand, that when something becomes
black, it is made so from something not black. Yet it is not

46

W. H. KANE

made from anything whatever which is not black, such as
sweet or hot, because things which are neither sweet nor hot
can become· black; but it is made so from something white, or
of another color. When something becomes hot, it is made so
from something cold or cool. When a statue is carved, it is
produced from something which was crude or unformed. VVhen
stones or other things are placed in order, the order is made
from things which were scattered. When a compound is made
or an ovum fertilized, the combination is made from things
which were uncombined but suited for union.
On the other hand, when something ceases to be black, it
becomes white or another color. When something ceases to be
hot, it becomes cool or cold. When something ceases to be
formed, it becomes unformed. When bodies cease to be ordered,
they become scattered. When a compound or organism becomes
corrupted, it is changed into things which are uncombined.
From experience it is evident that changeable beings are
made from principles which are dissimilar and properly opposed
to each other, and that they become corrupted into their proper
opposites. Moreover, that which is made and which becomes
corrupted does not exist before it is made, nor after it becomes
corrupted. Hence that which properly becomes something else,
as the white or non-black becomes black, or as the cold becomes hot, involves the non-being or opposite of that which is
made; and that into which something becomes corrupted, as
the combined becomes uncombined, involves the non-being or
opposite of that which becomes corrupted. Things which are
dissimilar and properly opposed to each other, as white or nonblack and black, cold and heat, order and disorder, union and
disunion, are said to have contrary characters, and are called
contraries. Changeable beings exist and are made from principles such as these. Therefore the first principles from which a
changeable being exists and is made have contrary characters
and are contraries.
Reply to Difficulties
(1) The intrinsic principles from which a changeable being
proceeds are those which are required for its being and being

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

47

made. In order that something can become red, it is necessary
that it be contrary to red, but it need not be sour. Hence the
sour as such is not a principle of something which exists and is
made red, but in this respect is merely accidental.
(2) Contraries in the strict sense of the term are positive
things, such as sour and bitter tastes, or red and blue colors.
Yet things such as heat and cold, light and dark, are called
contraries in a wide sense of the term. The first principles of a
changeable being are contraries in the wide sense.
(3) Contraries can proceed from each other inasmuch as
they can succeed each other in a subject or substance, as black
can succeed white in a subject which is white. But black itself
is not composed of the non-black, nor white of the non-white.
Contraries do not proceed from each other in the sense that
one is composed of the other. The first principles of a changeable being do not proceed from each other, or are not intrinsically composed one of another, because they are the fundamental contraries and are opposed to each other as light and
dark.
(4) Blue and yellow are contraries in the strict sense, and
they exclude one another in the same subject. A green can
from yellow and blue, not inasmuch as these are yellow
and blue, but inasm,uch as they are non-green, because that
which properly becomes something else includes the non-being
of that which is made from it, whereas that which already is
does not become. Blue and yellow as such are extrinsic terms
from which something becomes green. Anything which is nongreen, or contrary to green in a wide sense, can become green.
Likewise, when something round becomes square, the round
figure is an extrinsic term. The square is not intrinsically made
from the round as such, but from the non-square and the square
figure. The first principles of a changeable being are contraries
in the wide sense, and are opposed as non-green and· green, or
non-square and square. Principles such as these .exclude one
another from themselves, and one is not composed of the
other; but they are included in that which proceeds from them
and which is intrinsically made from them.

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W. H. KANE

(5) Material substances of different species are not contrary
to each other in the strict sense, because they are abruptly
distinct, ·somewhat as triangles and squares are distinct. But
if we consider the properties of various substances, and particularly their differences, such as living and non-living, sensitive and non-sensitive, they are contrary to each other in a
wide sense. The first or fundamental principles from which a
changeable being exists and is made are not contraries in the
strict sense, but in the broad sense, somewhat as dark and
bright.
3.

WHETHER THERE ARE ONLY T'\VO OR THREE FIRST PRINCIPLES
OF A CHANGEABLE

BEING?

Difficulties

It may seem that there are not three first principles from
which a changeable being exists and is made, for the following
reasons.

(I) Each changeable being exists and is made from its own
principles. There are changeable beings of many different kinds,
and organisms particularly appear to be very complex and to
be made from many principles. Therefore there are very many
principles of a changeable being.
(2) The first principles of a changeable being are contraries.
Only one thing is contrary to another. Therefore there are
only two first principles of a changeable being.
(3) The first principles of a changeable being are the fundamental sources from which it exists and is made. A changeable
being can be made from a subject and one form, as something
dark can be made bright. Therefore there are only two first
principles of a changeable being.
(4) A changeable being is made from the principles into
which it can be resolved. Each changeable being can be resolved into a subject and a form, as hot water can be resolved
into water and heat. Therefore there are only two first principles of a chap.geable being.

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

49

Solution
Through experience we know that the principles from which
a changeable being exists and is made are contraries in a wide
sense, such as cold and heat, or dark and bright. But if cold
is merely the absence of heat, and dark merely the absence of
light, it does not seem that a changeable being can be made
from them. Heat does not act on coldness and make it hot,
nor does light act on darkness and make it bright, because
contraries are not intrinsically composed one of another, and
because that which is newly made in the course of nature requires some positive antecedent from which it exists and is
made. Moreover, heat and color are accidents. They do not
exist in themselves, but exist and are made in a subject or
substance. Changeable substances also are made in the course
of nature, and it seems that they cannot be made from the
mere absence or privation of something substantial, together
with only one positive principle. Hence it seems that there
must be a third principle which is the subject of the contrary
principles from which a changeable being exists and is made.
When we examine things . which are made or modified in
nature, it appears that there is always a subject in which
change takes place and from which something is made or which
becomes modified. We notice that a changeable being can be
made either according to some accidental mode, as cold water
can be made hot, or according to its very substance, as ashes
are made. Hence things are not said to be made in only one
sense of the word, but in many senses, according to the diverse
things which are made.
We observe that a change takes place between two terms,
that is, from something to something else. When some water
is heated or an apple turns red, it is the same water that was
cold which becomes hot, and the same apple that was green or
yellow which becomes red. There is somthing which remains
throughout the change, namely, the water or the apple. There
is also something which does not remain throughout the change,
namely, the contrary of heat or of red, because the water is
4

50

W. H. KANE

no longer non-hot after it becomes hot, and the apple is no
longer non-red after it becomes red. Something which remains
throughout a change cannot be the same, at least in concept,
as something which does not remain. Hence the non-hot which
becomes hot, or the non-red which becomes red, has two
aspects, one of which remains and the other does not remain
throughout a change. Likewise, when something which is nonsweet becomes sweet, or when the non-round becomes round,
there is something involved which has two aspects, one of
which remains and the other does not remain throughout a
change. Something which thus remains throughout a change
is called the subject of the change. The term from which a
change proceeds and which does not remain after the change is
completed is the opposite or privation of the term to which the
change tends. The positive term to which a change tends and
which is newly made in the subject of the change is called the
form, for example, heat or redness. Some changes proceed
from a positive term or form to the privation of the form in
the subject, as when hot water becomes cold, or something
bright becomes dark.
Changeable substances are made when organisms and compounds are generated. The making or production of a thing
involves the beginning of its being; and so only that which did
not exist fundamentally or substantially before it was made is
made simply. A human being, or a dog, or any substance
which is generated, was not merely not a human being, or a
dog, or any substance before it was generated, but was not
simply, or did not exist. Hence when a substantial change
takes place in nature something is made simply. However, we
observe that new substances are generated from something
antecedent, such as seed or elements, somewhat as a green
proceeds from a yellow and a blue. When a new substance is
generated, it seems that there is always a subject which remains throughout the change and which was deprived of a
substantial form which is newly made in the subject.
Moreover, when we examine the ways in which changeable

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

51

beings are made, it is clear that there is always a subject from
which they are made. Certain things are made by a change of
feature or figure, as a smile or a posture; others are made by
addition or confluence, as a river from many streams; others
by subtraction or erosion, as a mountain or valley; others by
composition, as compounds and the higher organisms; others
by division, as the lower organisms; others by growth, as leaves
and feathers; others by alteration, as the color and odor of
flowers and fruits. From all these cases it is clear that whatever is made in the course of nature is made from a subject
which was deprived of a form which is newly made in the
subject.
In ordinary speech we sometimes designate the subject of a
change and the form to which a change tends without expressing the privation which is involved. We say, for example, that
some water becomes hot, or that a pumpkin turns yellow. We
express the subject, the privation and the form when we say
that a dark body becomes illuminated, or that a sick man
becomes well.
From this analysis we can determine the number of the first
principles from which a changeable being exists and is made.
The principles which constitute a changeable being are the
positive things from which a changeable being exists and is
made, and which are in the thing which is made. Everything
which is made in the course of nature exists and is made from
a subject and a form, and consists of a subject and a form,
because a changeable being is composed of the things into
which it can be resolved, and each can be resolved into a subject and a form, somewhat as hot water can be resolved into
water and heat. Hence the first principles which constitute a
changeable being are a subject and a form.
But the subject from which a changeable being is made has
two aspects: the positive and the privative, somewhat as a
flower without an odor, or an apple without red. The subject,
inasmuch as it is something positive, is a component principle
from which a changeable being both exists and is made, some-

W. H. KANE

what as a statue exists and is made from marble or bronze.
The privation of a form which can be made in a subject does
not remain in the thing which is made, as the marble does not
remain unformed after the statue has been carved from it.
Hence privation is not a component principle of a changeable
being. Yet a changeable being proceeds from a subject that is
deprived of a form which can be made in it, as a red apple
proceeds from one which is non-red, and a yellow apple from
one which is non-yellow. Even when a subject has a certain
form, for instance, an apple with the color green, it is deprived
of an opposed form, such as red. But an apple as a subject
merely happens to be deprived of red, and the marble happens
to be deprived of a figure which can be made in it. Likewise,
any subject with a certain form happens to be deprived of
another form which it can receive. A changeable being neither
exists nor is made without privation of some form. Hence privation is a principle from which a changeable being exists and
is made, although it is a principle by accident, inasmuch as the
subject happens to be deprived of a form which can be made
in it.
Thus there are two first principles from which a changeable
being exists and is made, and of which it is composed, namely,
the subject and the form. There are three first principles from
which a changeable being exists and is made if we distinguish
privation, which is a principle by accident. The principles are
contraries if we consider the subject with privation as one principle, opposed to the form which is the term to which a change
tends, somewhat as something cold and heat are contraries, or
something non-red and red. But privation and form are not
found without a subject. Moreover, the subject and the form
are not contraries, because they coexist as component principles of a changeable being. The first principles from which a
changeable being exists and is made are not contrary to each
other simply, but only by reason of privation in the subject;
nor are they simply two, because the subject has two aspects,
the positive and the privative, and these with the form are
three principles.

THE FffiST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

53

Reply to Difficulties
(I) At this point in philosophy of nature we inquire concerning the first principles of changeable being in general, and
we use particular instances only for the sake of general analysis
and illustration.
The proper principles of various kinds of
changeable beings are considered in special parts of philosophy
of nature. Through experience we know that certain changeable beings, particularly the higher organisms, are very complex in structure. An organism has many accidents, such as
color, figure, density, heat and powers of operation, and is
composed of many organs and elements. However, only the
fundamental sources from which a changeable being exists and
is made are its first principles in the strict sense of the term.
The principles which do not proceed from other principles, nor
from each other, but from which any individual changeable
being exists and is made are a subject with privation and a
form.
(2) The first principles from which a changeable being exists
and is made are not mere contraries without a subject. They
are contraries and a subject in which a privation and a form
succeed one another.
(8) The subject from which a changeable being exists and
is made is always deprived of certain forms, because even
when it has one form it lacks others which it is capable of receiving, somewhat as an apple which happens to be green or
non-red can become red. Hence privation is also a principle,
although by accident.
(4) The constituent principles from which a changeable
being exists and is made are the subject and the form, because
these are the positive and essential components of all that is
made or generated in the course of nature. But a subject
which has one form always lacks others which can be made in
it. The privation of a certain form in a subject is required for
a changeable being to be and to be made, because that which
already is does not become, nor is something made from mere

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W. H. KANE

nothing by natural power. Hence privation, which is the lack
of a form which can be made in a subject, is also a principle.
4.

WHETHER

THE FIRST SUBJECT

IS PURE POTENCY?

Difficulties
It may seem that the first subject from which a changeable
being is and is made is not a purely potential principle, for the
following reasons.
(1) Changeable beings appear to be and to be made from a
material subject, such as water or air. A material subject such
as water is an actual principle. Therefore the first subject
from which a changeable being is made is an actual principle.

(2) The first subject from which a changeable being is made
is something real. Everything which is real seems to be actuaL
Therefore the first subject is an actual principle.
(3) The first subject from which a changeable being is made
is something which receives the form which is made in it. Anything which receives a form seems to be an actual principle, as
the wax which receives the form of a seal. Therefore the first
subject is an actual principle.
(4) The first subject from which a changeable being is made
is something which cannot be generated or corrupted by
natural power. Something which cannot be generated or corrupted by natural power seems to be the true and actual
source of changeable beings. Therefore the first subject is an
actual principle.
(5) The first subject from which a changeable being is made
is something good, because good things, such as organisms and
compounds, are made from it. The good is something actual,
because that which is not actual seems to pertain to defect or
evil, which is the opposite of good. Therefore the first subject
is something actual.
(6) The first subject from which a changeable being is made
is really the same as privation. Privation is not a potential

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

55

principle, but the absence of form, or non-beingo Therefore
the first subject is not a purely potential principle.
Solution
We know through experience that new individuals of the
various species, both living and non-living, are generated in the
course of nature, and that changeable beings are changeable
simply or substantiallyo It is clear, on the one hand, that a
substance which actually exists cannot be made, because it
already is. On the other hand, it is clear that a substance
cannot be made from mere nothing by natural powero If new
substances were made from mere nothing in the course of nature, a stone or a horse or any other substance could be made
in the same way, and a subject with special dispositions would
not be required for the production of a substance of determined
species. From experience we know that an antecedent subject
with special dispositions is required for the production of water,
and of a dog, and of each specific type of natural body. Hence
new individual substances are made from some primary or
substantial subject which is capable of receiving a new substantial actuality and of losing the substantial actuality which
it previously had. The substantial actuality of the antecedents
from which a new substance is generated is extrinsic to the one
which is newly made, which is distinct and different from its
antecedentso A subject which is capable of receiving a new
substantial actuality, and of losing the one which it previously
had, of itself has neither the one nor the other. Therefore new
individual substances are made from a primary subject which
of itself lacks substantial actuality, which it is capable of receiving and which can be made in it. Such a subject is a first
and purely potential principle, It is a first principle because
it is a subject which of itself lacks the first or substantial actuality, and so it is not made from or composed of any other
principle. It is a purely potential principle because it is capable
of receiving a substantial actuality which can be made in it
and which it does not have of itselt Hence the first subject

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W. H. KANE

from which a changeable being is and IS made
potential principle.

IS

a purely

Reply to Difficulties
(1) Both accidental and substantial changes occur in the
course of nature. The subject of an accidental change is an
actual substance, such as water or iron. When an accidental
change takes place, as when water becomes hot, there is nothing which is made simply, because the same substance continues to exist after an accidental change is completed in it.
An existing material substance or natural body, which is the
subject of accidental changes and of accidents which are made
with it and in it, is called second matter. Second matter is
itself a changeable substance which is and is made from its own
first subject and substantial actuality.
When a substantial change takes place and a new organism
or compound is generated, an individual substance is made
which did not exist before it was made. The first subject from
which a changeable substance exists and is made is a purely
potential principle, because it is something which is capable of
receiving a new substantial actuality and of losing the one
which it previously had. This subject is called first matter,
because it is the first subject from which a changeable being
exists and is made, or the first subject of change.
(2) That which is simply real in nature is second matter,
such as a man or a horse. Second matter is a subject which
already has its substantial actuality or being, and so it does
not receive its being simply through anything which is made
in it or added to it. From second matter a new substance can
be made only by accident, inasmuch as the one which is actual
is not the one which can be made from it, somewhat as a black
body can become white by accident, inasmuch as it happens
to be non-white. A body does not remain black after it becomes white, nor does a changeable substance rema:in the same,
individually or specifically, after it has been changed substantially, as the wood does not remain after it has become ashes.

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

57

A changeable being is made properly from its own component
principles which are in it after it is made, whereas it is made
only by accident from something which is not in the one which
is made. When a new substance is generated, it is made properly from first matter, that is, from a subject which of itself
lacks substantial actuality, and which receives its being or
becomes actual through something which is newly made in it.
First matter is something real in nature, qecause it is a component principle of a changeable substance. It is not an actual
being, but a potential one. It is not a complete substance, but
the purely potential part of a changeable substance. The first
subject of change or first matter is a certain medium between
mere nothing and an actual being. This subject is something
which of itself lacks substantial actuality, and is not of itself
apt to exist, but is ordained to existence through the substantial form which is made in it. First matter and substantial
form together constitute a complete changeable essence which
is apt to exist. When a substantial change takes place, a new
substance is generated from the potentiality or first matter of
one or more substax:..::eswhich previously existed, and the other
or others become corrupted.
In this way the generation of
one substance is the corruption of another, and first matter
always has a substantial form.
(3) The subject which receives accidental fqrms is an actual
substance or second matter, because accidents do not have
their being simply in themselves, but in a substance which
exists simply in itself. The subject which receives a substantial form is something which of itself lacks substantial actuality
and is a purely potential principle. First matter receives a
substantial form in a purely passive way, through the action of
an extrinsic principle,. and the matter exists with dependence
on the substantial form which it receives.
(4) We say that something is true when we know that it is
genuine or conformed to its standard. In particular we say
that a judgment or statement is true when we know that it
corresponds to the thing concerning which the statement is

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W. H. KANE

made. We know through experience that changeable substances are made simply in the course of nature and that they
are not made from mere nothing. A new substance cannot
be made intrinsically from a subject which of itself has substantial actuality, because that which already is a substance
cannot become one simply. Hence changeable substances are
made from a subject which of itself lacks substantial actuality,
and which is a purely potential principle. This subject, or first
matter, cannot be generated in the course of nature, because
every generation requires a subject, and first matter is the first
subject from which a changeable being exists and is made.
First matter can be corrupted by accident, inasmuch as it was
deprived of a certain substantial form which it no longer lacks
after it has received the form, as something non-green becomes
corrupted when it becomes green. But first matter cannot of
itself become corrupted, because it is the term of corruptive
change, and the changeable or corruptible substance is already
corrupted when it is reduced to first matter. Hence the principle which cannot be generated or corrupted in the course of
nature is not the substantial actuality of a changeable being,
but its substantial potentiality.
The world endures because
generation and corruption are concomitant. New substances
are generated from the first matter of other substances, and
these antecedent substances become corrupted.
First matter is not of itself knowable, because things are
and are knowable through their formal or actual principles,
whereas first matter is the subject which receives a substantial
form, and is som8thing which of itself lacks all form and actuality. Yet we can know first matter by analogy or proportion.
We know, for example, that wood of itself lacks all the artificial
forms which can be made in it. But the wood sometimes has
one form, for instance, that of a table; and sometimes it has
another form, for example, that of a chair. Hence wood is
distinct from all the artificial forms which can be made in
it. We know also that the wood sometimes becomes ashes.
Hence something which exists under the form of wood sometimes exists under
form of ashes. Thus, something which

THE FffiST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

59

is in wood and in ashes, and which is something distinct from
the form of wood and from the form of ashes, is in a natural
substance somewhat as wood is in a chair or. table. Yet first
matter is not an individual substance, such as the wood. First
matter does not of itself have form or unity in act, but is a
being and unity only inasmuch as it is potency with respect to
a substantial form, which it receives in a purely passive way,
on which it depends for its actuality, and through which it is
knowable.
(5) Anything which is desirable is said to be good. From
experience we know that everything seeks to preserve its own
being and to achieve its own perfection. Hence a complete
substance is that which is good, whereas the distinct perfections which a substance has or seeks are that by which it is
good. First matter is not of itself good, because it is a purely
potential principle. Nevertheless, first matter has an aptitude
for good, inasmuch as it is a subject which can receive a substantial form by which it has actual being and perfection. In
this respect first matter is distinct from mere nothing, which
cannot receive a perfection. First matter is not desirable for
anything which it has of itself, but it is inclined to a substantial form by which it is perfected. Even when first matter has
one form it is inclined to all other forms which it is capable of
receiving, and in this sense it always desires substantial forms.
First matter is not evil, because evil is opposed to good, whereas
the matter is not opposed to the form by which a thing exists
and is good, but is. inclined to the fgrm. Moreover, first matter
is useful for the substantial form which is made in it and for
the substance which is made from it.
(6) By privation we understand the absence of a certain
form in a subject which is capable of receiving the form. Privation is distinct from negation, because negation is the absence
of a form without a subject capable of receiving the form. A
stone is said to be blind in the negative sense of the term,
whereas a man is blind in the privative sense of the term.
When a privation is considered as the mere absence of a

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W. H. KANE

form, it is distinct from the potential principle or first matter,
because the absence of a form is itself non-being, whereas first
matter is non-being only by accident, inasmuch as it happens
to be deprived of a certain form. Moreover, first matter is a
certain medium between nothing and an actual being, and is a
being inasmuch as it is potentially a changeable being. Furthermore, first matter is an essential part of a material substance,
is inclined to substantial form and perfection, and is useful for
the form and for the material substance. But a privation is
not a potential being, nor is it inclined to a form and perfection, because it ceases when the form is produced. Hence
privation, unlike matter, is opposed to being and to good, and
pertains somehow to evil, which is the opposite of good.
Yet first matter has privations, because even when it has
one form it is deprived of all the others which it is capable of
receiving, and which it seeks or desires because it is capable of
receiving them, not because it is deprived of them, since it is
deprived of them only by accident. Still, first matter does not
desire the forms without being deprived of them, because desire is always for something which is not possessed. Hence we
must say that first matter has two aspects, namely, potency
and privation. First matter is really the same as privation,
because the matter or potency is something real, and is potentially a changeable being, whereas the privation is the absence
of substantial forms in and including the matter. A certain privation is required for a change, and matter always has privations of the forms which it does not possess. But the privation
of a form ceases when the form is made in the subject. Hence
a changeable being is not composed of privation. Privation
is only by accident, a first principle from which a changeable
being exists and is made, inasmuch as the matter happens to
be deprived of a certain form which it is capable of receiving.
But first matter of itself is a first and purely potential principle
from which a changeable being exists and is made, and which is
in the one which is made, because it is the subject which
receives a substantial form.

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

5.

OF CHANGEABLE

WHETHER THERE IS ONLY ONE SUBSTANTIAL
CHANGEABLE

BEING

61

FORM IN A

SUBSTANCE?

Difficulties

It may seem that there are many substantial forms in a
changeable substance, for the following reasons.
(1) A changeable substance is composed of the principles
from which it is made, and into which it can be resolved. Compounds and organisms seem to be made from various substances, and they can be resolved into substances of many
specific types. Therefore there are many substantial forms in
a changeable substance.
(2) Many substantial forms are produced from the matter
of a changeable substance, because many specific types are
generated, at least in part, from the matter of each one. Whatever is produced from matter was contained in the matter.
Therefore there are many substantial forms in a changeable
substance.
(3) When new substances are made in the course of nature,
their substantial forms do not come from without, but either
were in the matter or are made from nothing. Something cannot be made from nothing by natural power. Therefore there
are many substantial forms in a changeable substance.
Solution
A first actuality or substantial form, which is something distinct from first matter, is required as a component principle
from which a changeable substance exists and is made in the
course of nature. When a new substance is generated, a new
substantial actuality is manifested by new individual or specific
sensible properties. For example, when some wood is burned,
the wood becomes corrupted and ashes are generated. Such a
change is not the total conversion of one or more substances
into new substances.
If this were the case, one substance
would be entirely corrupted and another would be produced
from mere nothing. But substances are not produced from

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W. H. KANE

mere nothing by natural power. Hence something of the antecedent substance remains in the one which is newly generated.
The substantial actuality of the antecedent substance does not
remain, but the substantial potentiality or first matter remains
and receives a new actuality. A changeable being is not made
from first matter alone, because first matter is a purely potential principle. Hence a substantial form distinct from first
matter is required as a component principle from which a
changeable being exists and is made.
The substantial form of a substance which has been generated was not merely hidden in the antecedent matter from
which the substance was generated. If this were the case, a
new substance could not be made simply, because that which
already is cannot be made. The substantial form itself is not
the whole substance of a changeable being, because material
substances are naturally changeable, whereas that which already is an actual substance does not become one simply.
Moreover, if the substantial form were the whole substance of a
changeable being, it would be entirely corrupted and a new
substance would be made from mere nothing when a substantial generation takes place in nature. But we know from experience that natural changes require a subject, and that something from an antecedent substance remains in the one which
is newly altered. Furthermore, a new substance cannot be
evolved from the matter of an antecedent substance unless
another substantial form is made in the matter. If the substantial form of the new substance was actual in the previous
substance, then nothing is made simply; if it was merely potential, then it could not appear actual if nothing new is made in
the matter. Hence the individual substances, both living and
non-living, which are made in the course of nature are composed of a substantial form together with first matter.
By observing the manner in which a changeable being appears and acts sensibly, we can determine whether there is
only one substantial form from which it is and is made. Each
individual substance appears and acts as one being simply. The

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

63

unity of a human being is especially clear from the fact that,
although we are very complex in structure and perform many
different operations, yet one intense operation, such as attentive thinking or swift running, impedes other operations such
as hearing or digestion. This would not be the case if the first
actual principle of all our operations were not essentially one.
Moreover, we are conscious of the self as one being simply,
which lives and moves and understands. A changeable being
cannot be one simply unless it is made from one substantial
form, because it has its unity from the same principle from
which it has its being or actuality. Furthermore, we notice
that generation and corruption are concomitant in nature. The
generation of one substance involves the corruption of another
or others. When a new substance is generated, the first subject of the change loses the substantial form under which it
previously existed and receives another substantial form, individually or specifically distinct from the one which it had.
Hence there is some incompatibility between distinct substantial forms which prevents them from being together in the same
individual substance.
The incompatibility between distinct substantial forms
comes, in the first place, from the nature of a substantial form
as such. A substantial form is the actuality by which first
matter is actualized. It is the first actual principle from which
a changeable being is made simply and is apt to exist in itself
and to be the subject of accidental forms. A substantial form
is the first actuality which is in a substance and which underlies all the other actualities in the substance. A substantial
form gives being simply, whereas an. accidental form gives
being in a certain manner, such as round, white or hot. When
the first matter receives a new substantial form, the one under
which it previously existed is expelled, because only one substantial form supplies the actuality which is absolutely first,
from which a changeable being exists and is made simply.
In the second place, distinct substantial forms are incompatible and cannot coexist in the same subject because each

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W. H. KANE

is apt to constitute, together with the first matter, a complete essence which is distinct from all others individually or
specifically.
Reply to Difficulties
(I) A changeable substance is composed of the principles
which are in it after it has been made, and into which it can be
resolved properly, not by accident. An individual substance
is one being simply, or a primary unit, and is not composed of
many complete substances. A compound or organism is made
by accident from various types of elements or other actual
substances, inasmuch as the first matter of these substances
happens to be deprived of a substantial form which can be
niade in it. A new substance is made properly from its own
constituent principles, which are the first matter and a new
substantial form. Likewise, a compound or organism can be
resolved by accident into substances of various types, each of
which is made properly from first matter derived from the
previous substance and from a new substantial form. The substantial forms of the substances from which a compound is
made do not remain actual in the compound, because there is
only one substantial form in an individual substance. As types
of different species are unequal in perfection, so different substantial forms differ in perfection. The more perfect form
includes in itself the general perfections of the less perfect,
somewhat as the number five includes two and three, or a
pentagon includes three angles and two more.
(2) When a substance is produced from something in which
it was contained actually, as when a coin is produced from a
purse, nothing is made simply, because the substance already
existed before it was produced in this manner. But when a
substance is generated in the course of nature, a being is made
which did not exist before it was made. A changeable being is
made properly from first matter which remains from a previous
substance and from a new substantial form. The substantial
form of the new substance was not contained actually in the

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

65

matter of the previous substance, because the new substance is
made simply. First matter is of itself pure potency, and has a
merely passive inclination or proportion to substantial forms.
The substantial forms to which first matter is of itself passively
inclined and proportioned are contained potentially, not actually, in the passive potency of the matter, somewhat as the
movements to which our power of running and jumping is of
itself inclined and proportioned are contained potentially, not
actually, in the active potency of the locomotive power. The
potency of first matter extends to all the substantial forms
which are dependent upon matter in order to exist and to be
made, although each substance requires certain dispositions in
the matter from which it is made and forms succeed one
another in matter in an orderly way. A substantial form
which is dependent upon matter in order to exist and to be
made is contained within the scope of the potency of matter,
and is made by the change by which the matter is moved or
changed from potency to actuality. Such a form is said to be
produced or educed from the potency of matter.
A substantial form which is not dependent upon matter in
order to exist is not contained in the potency of matter in such
a way that this form can be produced from matter, or made by
a change by which matter is moved from potency to actuality,
but only in such a way that matter can be united to it. In a
special part of philosophy of nature proof is given that the
human substantial form, or the intellective soul, is not dependent upon matter in order to exist.
(3) From our experience of the works of nature and of

human art, it is clear that the forms of the things which are
made do not come from outside the matter but are made in the
matter by the action of competent agents. When a statue is
carved, the form of the statue is made from nothing of itself.
Likewise, when a substance is generated, a substantial form
becomes actual which previously was not, and is made from
nothing of itself. Yet forms are not made without an antecedent subject. Moreover, a changeable substance is that
5

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W. H. KANE

which exists and is made simply in the course of nature. A
substantial form which is dependent upon first matter in order
to exist and to be made is not made simply, because it is not a
complete substance. It is not that which exists and is made
simply, but the first actual principle from which a changeable
being exists and is made. Such a form was contained in the
potency of matter, and when the substance which has been
made from it becomes corrupted, the form ceases to be actual
and becomes potential, or returns to the potency of matter.
By natural power something cannot be made from mere
nothing, that is, from the absence not only of a form but also
of a subject capable of receiving the form. Through experience it appears that a substance whose substantial form is contained in the potency of first matter can be produced from the
matter by natural power. Hence first matter and a substantial
form which is contained in the potency of matter cannot be
entirely diverse, but in some way are one. When a substance
is generated from the potency of first matter, something which
is in potency becomes actual. Hence first matter is potentially
something which the substantial form is actually. First matter
and the substantial form are not of themselves complete substances, but together they constitute a substance which exists
and is one simply. Hence first matter and the substantial
form are one inasmuch as together they constitute one changeable being. But a being cannot be one simply, or a primary
unit, and yet be made from many principles; unless one principle from which it is composed is purely potential, and the
other is a first actual principle or a substantial form, because a
being exists and is one simply by reason ofits first actual principle. There is only one first actual principle or substantial
form in one substance. The substance, or that which exists
simply in itself, is the subject in which accidental forms inhere.
Hence first matter and the substantial form are united immediately, without any intrinsic bond distinct from themselves
by which they are held together, somewhat as a smile is united
to a face. First matter and the substantial form are joined by

THE FIRST PRINCIPLES

OF CHANGEABLE

BEING

67

the action of a competent agent, which moves the matter from
potency to actuality, or which, as in the generation of a human
being, disposes the matter and applies it to the substantial
form. First matter and the substantial form together constitute the essence of a changeable being which is made simply,
and which is apt to be in itself and to be the subject of
accidental forms.

w. H. KANE, 0. P.

Dominican House of Studies,
River For est, Illinois

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

T

HE system of education which generally prevails in
English-speaking countries bears many traces of the
positivistic past in which it was developed, and has
produced an atmosphere or mental outlook which, though
favorable to the progress of the physical sciences, is definitely
alien, if not hostile, to any proper appreciation of philosophic
thought. Most people learn the rudiments of physical science
and mathematics at school, but remain in absolute ignorance of
even the very nature of philosophy; whereas, in many continental countries, philosophy figures conspicuously in the
scholastic curriculum, with the result that the students can
face life with a broad and universal outlook denied to those
who have become acquainted with only one attitude and approach to the problems of life, and who turn to science to
afford them the explanation of the univers.e. A public opinion
which is unfavorable to, because ignorant of, philosophy has
thus been created, and the philosopher has practically no
common ground on which he can meet his public. For most
people, philosophy is regarded as a sort of abstract theorizing
about the facts of science, to whose methods and criteria it is
bound. In practice this attitude, which is not only that of the
man in the street but of many scientists also, amounts to a
denial of philosophy as a distinct and independent branch of
knowledge; and the philosopher comes to be regarded as a man
who, through indolence or incapacity, shirks the detailed research of science, and contents himself with speculations or
hypotheses built upon the facts which scientists have discovered at the cost of so much labor. In an attempt to explain
the position of the philosopher in relation to the scientist, the
following pages have been written.
The distinction between the scientific attitude and the philo68

SCIENCE

AND PHILOSOPHY

69

sophical attitude 1 can only be rightly understood in the light
of the historical causes which are responsible for their confusion. This historical retrospect will introduce us to the properly
philosophical doctrine as to the relation of the sciences to philosophy; and in conclusion we will exemplify our conclusions
by applying them to certain subjects on which science and
philosophy seem to be in conflict.
We can trace back the movement which substituted science
for philosophy to the Renaissance, 2 but it is above all in the
doctrines of Descartes that we can see the germs of the whole
later development both of science and of modern philosophy.
To Descartes is due the antithesis " nature-spirit " which was
to dominate later philosophy, thus giving it an anthropocentric
trend, and setting it on the high road to idealism. His concept
of man as a mysterious union of two complete substances, one
spiritual, the other extended, each endowed with its own independent life and in opposition to the other element, led to the
regarding as the real man the thinking " I," the soul, whose
essence is pure thought, and which has no direct contact and
interaction with the body in the acquisition of knowledge.
Knowledge, therefore, cannot begin in the senses, and sensation
itself is a form of thought, so that other animals than man are
pure machines; our real ideas are infused by a kind God, whose
veracity is sufficient criterion of truth for us. Hence the proper
method of knowledge is not discursive reasoning, but intuition;
we have certain primitive ideas, clear and evident to the
original vision of the mind, and deduction is but the process of
combining these intuitions. But knowledge represents reality;
1 Modern usage of the word " scientific " cloaks an equivocation which may lead
people to regard philosophy as " unscientific." The word " science " is now generally only applied to the body of the positive sciences; and in distinguishing the
scientific and philosophical, we mean that philosophy is distinct from these sciences, with methods and aims specifically its own. But philosophy is a science in
the technical sense of the word, and more perfectly than the particular sciences, as
we hope to make clear in the course of this article.
2 The medieval
Platonists, especially Robert Grosseteste, had already arrived
at some kind of pan-mathematicism; cf. C. Dawson, Mediaeval Religion, London,
1984, Sheed and Ward, pp. 81-99.

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and thus we get to the fundamental principle of the Cartesian
philosophy: that the real is not to be defined in relation to
existence, as the traditional school held, but as that which
appears to the mind with clarity and distinction. 3
By thus creating an artificial chasm between soul and body,
and by denying that the body is an essential instrument of the
soul in the acquisition of ideas, thus contributing to its perfection, Descartes restricted knowledge to a pure activity of the
soul, which consists principally in elaborating the ideas which
it has received from God, and seeing them all in the fundamental intuition of the " I " in the " cogito," and of God. This
not only opened the door to the later ontologism of Malebranche and, through the appeal to the veracity of God and
the denial of the power of the senses to reveal the existence of
things to us, to the later scepticism of Sanchez, Bayle, Hume
and the Encyclopedists; above all, it led to that absolute
idealism which is so prevalent today. By confining knowledge
to the strictly immanent sphere of the mind, by making the
idea the term of knowledge (a theory that had already appeared in Occam and Pereira), and by reducing knowledge to
the intuition of clear, evident and irreducible elements, he cuts
it off from all contact with external reality, and transforms it
into a merely subjective process which does not measure itself
on its object, but rather measures objects by itself. Kant had
only to develop this doctrine, by asserting that the understanding fashions its own object, without, however, giving it being,
and that we cannot know anything but the phenomena or
empirical manifestations of things in so far as they affect us.
But if we cannot know the external world as it really is, only
our subjective representations of it, there is no reason for
affirming its existence; all that we can know with certainty is
our own reality. So Fichte was at least logical in transforming
the mysterious and unknowable " ding an sich " into the pure
"I," the necessary principle of the non-ego, the phenomenal
3 The fundamental
position which this principle occupies in the philosophy of
Descartes is well brought out by Mgr. F. Olgiati, La Filosofia di Descartes, Milano:
"Vita e Pensiero," pp.

SCIENCE

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71

world, which it produces spontaneously and unconsciously. By
this pantheism he thought to solve the nature-spirit antithesis,
but in reality he denied nature by reducing it to spirit. Schelling sought to unite both nature and spirit in the transcending
Absolute, the common and identical ground of contraries, and
of which all things are but phases or manifestations. Hegel in
his turn criticized this doctrine as leaving unexplained the
transition from the Absolute to the opposing poles of nature
and spirit. A rational process was necessary to account for the
transformation of the primary ideal ground of reality into its
different modifications; and so he furnished the metaphysical
frame of this universal becoming, by which the real, which is
thus identified with the rational, evolves itself dialectically into
all things. Thus we get the first extreme solution to the dualism
of Descartes, an absolute idealism and subjective pantheism,
with all its innumerable consequences in the religious, social
and political orders.
A more immediate, and, in our present question, more important consequence of the Cartesian theory of knowledge is
that if all knowledge is purely subjective and independent of
external reality, there can be only one form of knowledge; there
can be no real distinction between the sciences, and there can
be but one method in acquiring knowledge. Philosophy is
indeed the love of wisdom, but wisdom is the one and universal
science, the total explanation of things, whether physical,
mathematical or metaphysical. Beneath the apparent diversity
of the sciences there lies a profound unity, for " all the sciences
united together are nothing else than the human intellect,
always one, always the same, however varied the subjects to
which it is applied." 4 If science is one, there is but one universal method, essentially the same for physics, metaphysics
and mathematics; and this consists in resolving, by means of
the famous four rules, all knowledge into its primary constituents, the clear and evident ideas about which the mind
cannot entertain any doubt. The relative or derived ideas are
•" Regulae ad Directionem lngenii," Ia Regula (Adam et Tannery, Oeuvres de
Descartes, Paris, L. Cerf, Vol. X, p. 860, 7-10).

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

to be resolved into those absolute ideas whose objects cannot
be divided into a greater number of clear and simple natures.
The method is hence one of decomposition of things into their
absolute elements, and then a new composition of them, by
combining these elements to form the relative or derived things;
it is a method of intuition with regard to the clear and distinct
elements, and of reasoning with regard to the composition of
these elements. There is a great affinity between this and
the Kantian method which transforms metaphysics into an
enumeration and classification of the a priori elements of the
mind; and such a numerical process tends to extend the mathematical method to all branches of thought.
By postulating one method for both science and philosophy,
Descartes really denied the essential difference between them,
and changed metaphysics into an introduction to mechanics,
medicine and moral science; while the philosophy of nature
became identified with the physical sciences. He thus set in
motion that cu:rrent of thought that was to lead logically to the
position of Comte, Taine and Spencer, who asserted that philosophy is but the sum of the particular sciences in their organic
connection, thus denying the reality of philosophy as a distinct
science. This attitude is very common today, in practice if
not in theory. It is assumed that the scientific method is the
only valid approach to the interpretation of the universe, and
that philosophy is OJ;Ily a sort of abstract physics, or, at most,
a science whose duty it is to classify the different sciences, and
to order systematically the data afforded by the physical sciences. It is thus made to depend entirely on the positive
sciences, and is forbidden to advance any independent views on
the nature of things; it may aid in forming those hypotheses by
which we try to unite and explain scientific data, but this does
not really add to our knowledge. Philosophy is made so dependent on the sciences that without them it has no real value,
and strictly philosophical problems can be solved by an appeal
to science. 5
5

How widespread

was this conviction

may be seen from the fact that om

SCIENCE

AND PHILOSOPHY

73

The philosophy of the spirit, or the subjective side of the
Cartesian system, is thus seen as an absolute intellectualism, a
proclamation of the autonomy and absolute independence of the
intellect; independence of the sensible origin of ideas, leading to
an exaggerated intellectualism; independence of the object as
the rule of knowledge, leading to a universal mathematicism;
and independence of reality as the term of knowledge, leading
to idealism. M. Maritain has well described this theory of
knowledge as " angelism," 6 for these are the characteristics of
the knowledge proper to the angels. 7 But the objective side of
Descartes' philosophy, his philosophy of nature, was to lead to
no less direful results. Just as the essence of the soul is thought,
the essence of material things is extension and movement;
matter is nothing more than geometrical extension, and even
the most different phenomena are but the result of changes in
position and figure, and of motion. 8 The clear and evident
elements, to which all our notions about the external world can
be reduced, are extension and movement; 9 and so the universe
is a machine, where everything is the result of figure and
motion, and physics is nothing more than geometry and mechanics. This position was not only to lead to positivism, by
claiming to interpret the world in terms of motion and extension alone; it also led to a completely deterministic view of
nature, which is nothing less than a doctrinaire mechanism.
Nothing is to be admitted unless it can be proved by reason,
unless it provides complete rational satisfaction; and that which
affords this rational satisfaction in the philosophy of nature is
mechanism, which completely accounts for the constitution and
behavior of all natural bodies, animate and inanimate, for all
universities still grant the degree of "Doctor of Philosophy " to those who have
qualified in purely empirical science.
6 Trois Reformateurs:
Luther, Descartes, Rousseau, Paris, 1925, Plon-Nourrit,
p. 78.
7 Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theologica, Ia Pars, q. 54-58.
• Principia Philosophiae, I, 53, 63; II, 4, 27; (Vol. VIII, p. 25, 12-27; 30, 26-31,
12; 42, 4-22; 55, 4-11).
• Cf. S. V. Keeling, "The Mechanism of Descartes," Philosophy, Jan., 1934,
pp. 51-56.

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matter may be reduced to space, and all vital activity, excluding thought, to locomotion. 10 This mechanism was already
contained in germ in the Cartesian method; but its express
formulation helped greatly in furthering the claim of positivism
and mathematicism to embrace all reality within their spheres.
The identification of corporeal substance with extension also
marked the first step in that movement which ended in the
denial of substance altogether. If the only correct and true
way of knowing nature is to treat it as being composed entirely
of extension and motion, the science of nature must disregard
the notion of substance; and once it is granted that this science
deals with everything that is real, the notion of substance is
not only disregarded but rejected.
The very definition of substance which Descartes formulated
led to this same result, although, strangely enough, he affirmed
that substance was the only reality, in denying the reality of
accidents as distinct from their subject. Accidents for him
were but modes or determinations of substance in its proper
line. 11 The affinity with Spinoza is evident. By making God
the only substance and the only reality, Spinoza was but completing the work begun by the father of modern philosophy,
and contributing no less effectively to banish the idea of substance from the science of finite or created being. There is
also a similarity of method between these two philosophers, for
Spinoza expressly applied the geometrical method to metaphysics and moral science, thus subordinating them to the
mathematical study of nature. It has been well said that
Spinoza stands in the same relation to Descartes as Hegel does
to Kant, for he also did but draw the principles of his predecessor to their logical conclusion. But in the former case, the
transition was effected mainly through the occasionalism of
Malebranche. The Cartesian dualism between soul and body
was developed by Geulinx into an anthropological occasionalism
which nai:vely regarded the soul and the body in the manner
10 Principia Philosophiae, IV,
198, 199 (Vol. VTII, p.
14); and
M editationes de Prima Philosophia, 3rd Med. (Vol. VII, p. 43, 10-45, 8)
11 Cf. Principia, I, 61-64 (VIII,
16-31, 31).

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

75

of two clocks ticking in harmony; a doctrine which recalls
the pre-established harmony of Leibnitz. But :Malebranche
extended this occasionalism to all things, making God the sole
cause, and reducing creatures to the state of utter passivity,
since they are but instruments and channels of the activity of
God. As the concepts of cause and substance are so closely
related that only a substance is a cause in the ontological
sense of the word, Spinoza could claim the authority of :Malebranche for his assertion that there was only one cause and
one substance. The result was, of course, a universal determinism, the denial of free will, of metaphysical causality, especially of final causality, of the reality of finite substances, and
hence of personality. We may thank Spinoza for showing us
in advance what to expect when we apply the mathematical
method to the study of all reality.
This intellectualist, or rationalist, movement on the continent, which led to pantheism and idealism, and, in Kant, to the
denial of metaphysics as a science, was paralleled by the empirical movement in England, which was to lead to positivism
and materialism, and to a no less complete rejection of metaphysics in favor of the empirical sciences. These two movements, so widely. different in character and consequences, have
a common origin; and they may best be summed up as the
full flowering of the seeds of Cartesian philosophy, planted· in
the more speculative soil of continental thought, and in the
practical and empirical soil of English thought. Modern continental thought has been described as the conclusion of a syllogism, of which Descartes formulated the major premise:
" Nothing is true or real, except what is clear and evident to
the mind." Kant provided the minor premise: " But only that
is clear and evident to the mind which the mind produces of
itself." The inevitable conclusion, "Nothing is true or real
except what is produced by the mind," sums up the fundamental idea, the principle of immanence, which is at the base
of modern continental idealism and pantheism. But the English philosophers, inclined by nature towards the practical and
empirical, subsumed a different minor premise under the major

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

of Descartes; they said: "But nothing is clear and evident
except what the senses tell us, and hence has reference to
matter."
The logical conclusion is positivism, tinged by a
materialistic outlook.
Bacon had set this process in motion by his criticism of deduction as a source of knowledge, and by attempting to construct an empirical philosophy on the principles of the new
scientific method, by means of induction alone. In practice
this meant that philosophy comprised only logics and physics,
while metaphysics, psychology and ethics were transferred to
the sphere of revelation. Hobbes went a step further by applying this system to all philosophy, especially to ethics, and to
politics. Reality for him was identified with what is corporeal,
all activity is reduced to local motion, and substance is transformed into body. Thus philosophy is held to be the science of
corporeal being, metaphysics is rejected as useless, and the sole
instrument or means of knowledge becomes sensible experience
and observation. Even thought is reduced to sensation, since
the intellect is only the imagination using general terms; and
man is disintegrated into a bundle of faculties and movements,
having no substantial foundation, merely united in the " I '' by
a consciousness which is nothing more than sensation. There is
no room, of course, for free will in this conception of man; and
sensualism, with its consequent hedonism in ethics, and individualism and absolutism in politics, is at last proposed as a
philosophical system in England.
If Hobbes was the moralist of the empirical school, Locke
must be regarded as its representative in metaphysics. Though
siding with Gassendi against the general doctrines of Descartes,
and rejecting his innate ideas, his theory of knowledge has
much in common with that of Descartes; but he modified it in
restricting the intuition to the relations between ideas, which
are only general images, and in making experience the sole
fount of knowledge. He applied to the study of the mind what
Bacon had laid down for the study of nature, and his contempt
for deductive reasoning is well in the line of the Baconian tradition. It followed that we cannot know the essences of things,

SCIENCE

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77

and that the so-called secondary qualities are altogether subjective; we can only know the primary qualities, such as extension,
bulk, figure and motion, and our notion of substance is entirely
subjective, since it is a collection of images of those qualities
which are always found united. This sensualism is the logical
premise of the later materialism advanced by Voltaire and the
Encyclopedists, by Condillac and Comte; but later English
philosophy stands, like Locke himself, rather undecided between spiritualism and materialism. It refused to be either
fully spiritualistic or fully materialistic, and preferred to guard
an attitude of aloof reserve, if we except the extremes marked
by Berkeley, on the one hand, and by such convinced materialists as Priestley and Toland on the .other.
To Locke also is due that critical aspect which appeared in
English philosophy, since he inquired into the powers of knowing and the conditions of certitude; and this attitude was to
exercise, through Hume, a great influence on Kant. But if we
call in question the objective existence of the secondary qualities, we should logically deny that of the primary qualities,
since our perception of both pertains mainly to the senses. So
Berkeley put forward the opinion that both were purely subjective; and since they comprise the sum total of corporeal
reality in the positivistic and Cartesian systems, he maintained
that external nature existed only in so far as it was perceived
by the mind. All reality is produced by the soul, whether this
soul is that of man or that supreme soul that we call God; the
real world is the world of mind-images produced in us by God,
and the world of our representations of things is only an ideal
and subjective world. The only true substance is ideal, or
rather, it is either God or the soul; that which we call substance
is merely a subjective representation, which has no reality outside the mind in which it is conceived. Berkeley thus showed
how close is the affinity between empiricism and the subjectivism of Kant. The denial of the reality of substance as distinct from its sensible accidents, on the ground that the mind
cannot pierce beyond and beneath such accidents, if it does

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not lead to scepticism, will naturally carry us into either
subjectivism or pantheism.
In Hume we see the principles of empiricism carried to such
logical conclusions. He reduced the internal experience admitted by Locke to external sensations and looked upon ideas
as especially lively images, whose function it is to unite and
separate the materials furnished by experience. No wonder
that this doctrine aroused Kant from his dogmatic slumber,
and suggested to him his concept of the pure a priori reason,
which was to result in a scepticism as devastating as that of
Hume. This empiricism was logical in denying causality, for
observation, the only source of knowledge, cannot reveal more
than an empirical succession and co-existence of phenomena,
and only a substance can be a cause. The denial of the reality
of substance also premised the denial of metaphysics as a science of being, the denial of free will, and the denial of the
human personality as a substantial principle of man's being
and activity. We are presented with the doctrine that the
mind is a succession or a stream of perceptions somehow :floating about and united in the void that we call man; nothing is
left of objective reality but the phenomena that can be known
by the senses. This is pure pan-phenomenalism.
This concept of man found an echo on the continent in Condillac, who taught that all psychic activity is but a form of
sensation, and that the ego is a collection of sensations which
are present to the consciousness, either as now affecting us, or
as recalled by memory. The voice of common sense was lifted
in Scotland in protest against these extreme exaggerations, but
the current was too strong to be stemmed. Hamilton proposed
this doctrine again, by asserting that the ego is but a collection
of states of which one is conscious.
From this time onward metaphysics is definitely abandoned
as a science, or is confused with the critical study of the value
and conditions of knowledge. Cosmology, or the philosophy
of nature, is identified with the physical sciences.
is being
gradually transformed into pure mathematics, and ethics is
considered as pertaining to religion or mysticism, if it is not

SCIENCE

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79

subordinated to the sociological sciences. All that is left of
philosophy is an empirical and denuded psychology, which may
admit the existence of a mind, but then only as the theater of
of certain operations. More generally, however, conscious life
is entirely neglected in this study, and the theme of psychology
has become the sensitive and vegetative side of man. This
movement is praiseworthy in that it brought to light many elements of empirical psychology which had hitherto been more
or less neglected; but from the beginning it was tainted with
positivism, and gradually led to identifying psychology with
biology, physiology and sociology. The modern psychologists
are interested only in reflexes, behavior, conduct, and the
measurable correlations between the different forms of spontaneity and reaction. This is due to a large extent to Herbart
and the English school, who treat of vital activity as a mathematical associationism of sensations. Psychology has thus
become purely external; the psychology without a soul of
Ribot has given way to a psychology without consciousness,
where all the attention is turned to the exterior aspect of man.
Many theories now in favor are frankly sensualistic, such as behaviorism and parallelism, which see no real distinction between
mental activity and cerebral physiology; while Spencer tried to
give the scientific doctrine of evolutionism a philosophical signification by applying it to the psychic life. When philosophy
has been reduced to such meager and rudimentary proportions,
and linked up intimately with the physical sciences, the field is
free for the positive sciences to claim the sole right to interpret
reality and to discover the nature of the universe. The application to philosophy of the mathematical method by Descartes,
and of the inductive method by Bacon, has led to this positivistic attitude. Among many scientists today it is a firm
conviction that the only real knowledge or science is that which
proceeds by observation, classification and analysis of particular sensible facts, and by determining, through induction,
the laws which unite sensible phenomena. We can only show
how unfounded is this opinion by examining the nature of sci-

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ence in general, and setting forth the general relations between
the positive sciences and philosophy. 12
The confusion that reigns in the world of science today is the
price the moderns are paying for the rejection of metaphysics,
the only science which can unify the sphere of knowledge and
classify all the sciences according to their proper objects and
methods. Once this unifying principle of all thought was
abandoned, the world of science was split into several independent and water-tight compartments having no contact with
each other and having no means of coordinating their findings
in order to see their full significance and their repercussions in
other branches of thought. Thus the way was prepared for
any one particular science to claim the supreme position in the
hierarchy of knowledge and the last word about the nature o£
the physical universe.
This is precisely what has happened. We are now confronted with two great movements, positivism and mathematicism, in which the empirical sciences and mathematics respectively have put forward their claims to be supreme and to
have the whole of reality as their object. Metaphysics is, as it
were, the governing political power in the scientific state; it
was the object of attack by its subordinates, and when it was
overthrown the result was, as usual, a civil war between the
rival scientific factions themselves. The fundamental points of
positivism have "been well summed up by Dr. Fulton Sheen 13
under the following four headings: 1) The experimental method
is the only valid and scientific one; 2) Its object embraces
the totality of accessible truths; 8) The concrete is the sole
12 If we have insisted, in this brief historical summary, on the gradual elimination of the notion of substance, and therefore of cause and free will, it is
these notions are intimately connected with our present problem; for the denial of
substance and causality means that nothing is real except the sensible qualities,
extension and movement; and since the positive sciences deal expressly with these,
the way was prepared for the complete domination of thought by the mathematicophysical sciences of today.
18 The Philosophy of Sciencfll, Milwaukee, 1984, The Bruce Publishing Co., p. 17.
As representatives of
school he quotes Dr. D'Abro, of Yale, The Evolution of
Scientific Thought from lfewton to Einstein, and B. Russell, The Scientific Outlook.

SCIENCE

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81

form of reality, hence every kind of knowledge that departs
from empirical data has no objective value; 4) Experience is
the only reason that can justify the adherence of the mind
to any truth. With the amazing rise of the mathematical sciences, this positivistic view was, in many instances, either rejected or modified, and we are now witnessing the apotheosis
of mathematics in the claim of the mathematicians to be the
only accredited guides in the explanation of the nature of the
physical world. The mathematical philosophy of science is
summed up by Dr. Sheen 14 as that doctrine which holds that
nature is composed of those ideal forms of reason which constitute the object of mathematics.
Philosophy is denied any
certitude of its own, only that which comes from facts, or
mathematics applied to facts. It is only a synthesis of the
sciences expressing a personal attitude towards life, a sort of
mysticism allied to a metaphysical vision of the world. 15 By
applying mathematical principles to the explanation of the
physical world, the comparatively
science of mathematicalphysics was created, and its theoretical physics is frequently
regarded as the last word of reason about reality. Its philosophy of science, among its most extreme advocates, IS a
combination of positivisim and mathematicism.
Underlying this positivistic, and, to a lesser extent, the
mathematical philosophy of science, we can detect a group of
pre-scientific prejudices, such as the denial of the reality of substance and of the intelligible essence of things, and the denial
of the distinction between the intellect and the senses. That
the intellect is essentially distinct from the senses will be readily
admitted by most human beings, for it is quite evident that
there is some essential distinction between man and the other
animals. 16 There are many proofs that the intellect is an
14 Ibid., p. 18.
As representatives, he quotes Sullivan, The Basis of Modem
Science; Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (but we do not think that
this is quite just, as we hope to show later on in this article); and Jeans, The
Mysterious Universe.
15 Cf. Sir A. Eddington,
The Nature of the Physical World, chap. 15.
16 Dr. Arnold Gehlen (Der Mensch: seine Natur und seine Stellung in der Welt.

6

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immaterial faculty, while the senses are material, but we do not
propose to enumerate them here, as they may be found in
numerous philosophical works and nothing is to be gained by
beating a dead horse. It is legitimate, even necessary, that the
scientist proceed as if there were no intellectual beings and
admit only what can be observed by the senses; for the particular sciences deal with the sensible phenomena alone, and
their method is one of induction and observation, or, in natural
history, of enumeration and classification. Experience is the
sole guide for the scientist, and observation is the gateway
through which scientific data must pass to be incorporated
into the body of science. 17 But to exalt this methodological
principle into a doctrinal one, by asserting that all reality is
narrowed down to that particular region that can be perceived
by the senses, is quite unjustifiable and amounts to denying the
possibility of all science.
The very first requisite of science is that it be intellectual, if
not in its method at least in its formal constituents; we should
certainly be very much surprised to see an assembly of cows, or
even apes, gathered together to discuss the latest developments
of the quantum theory. This does not mean that all knowledge
is intellectual, for brute animals possess real knowledge, though
merely sensible; but that organized form of knowledge which
we call science is made up of conclusions arrived at by the
intellect from the observation of reality and by deduction from
first principles, and hence necessarily postulates a rational
faculty (except in purely spiritual beings, who, by intuition,
see the conclusions in the principles without having to deduce
them) and can only pertain to man, in so far a11 he is gifted
with intellectual powers. Science is hence primarily intellectual
and therefore speculative, and the practical sciences are only
Berlin, 1940, Part I) shows that even in his embryonic stages man is anatomically
and physiologically different from and superior to even the highest animals.
17 Cf. Sir Arthur Eddington,
The Philosophy of Physical Science, London, 1989,
Cambridge University Press, Chapter I, especially p. 10: "Every item of physical
knowledge must therefore be an assertion of what has been or would be the result
of carrying out a specified observational procedure."

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analogically so called, and are more correctly termed arts. All
knowledge is an immanent activity; and science, being the
most perfect form of knowledge/ 8 is necessarily immanent, a
perfection of the intellect. As such it must be proportionate
to the nature of the intellect, that is, immaterial and spiritual,
and must have reference primarily to an intelligible object.
Only such an object can insure that necessity and universality
which true science postulates, and only the spiritual intellect
can guarantee the participation of science in such essential
objective characteristics. Hence any doctrine that denies the
existence of supra-sensible knowledge and supra-sensible realities by that very fact teaches that all science is impossible.
The principle of causality, which is the only stable basis of
induction, falls to the ground; our knowledge is limited to the
study of contingent beings as such, and can never attain the
necessity and universality which science demands. Kant has
shown that sensible experience, of itself, can never reveal such
necessity and universality.
I do not think that it has ever been seriously denied that
science must have this character of universality, even in the
particular sciences. The botanist does not build up a science
about this particular flower which he is examining under his
microscope, but on the enduring characteristics of this type of
flower, and its permanent place among the classified forms of
plant life; nor is the doctor concerned with the particular qualities of the body which he is dissecting, except in so far as they
lead him to knowledge of the human body in general. But
the problem of explaining how science attains this universality
has always agitated the human mind, since Plato postulated
the existence of the world of ideal and subsisting forms, until
our own day. Such universality must not be merely subjective, for, if the object of science is mutable and can change into
something else, we cannot build up a secure and certain form
of knowledge about it. The individual, as such, is mutable,
18 For the moment,
we do not distinguish between science and wisdom, but
include both under the generic term " science."

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and therefore cannot form the object of real science; and the
world in which we live is composed of individual and contingent things. It is this aspect of mutability which has most
impressed many minds, from Heraclitus to Bergson, and has
led to varying forms of scepticism. But the world is not altogether contingent, for what is mutable supposes that which
endures, since a thing must be before it can change; and it is
this element alone, some intrinsic. necessity in the inmost constitution of beings, that can render science possible. This element is what we call the nature or essence of beings, that
substantial principle which gives a thing a definite place in
the hierarchy of being, which differentiates it from all other
beings as regards its specific properties, and which underlies
the sensible phenomena by which it manifests its nature and
can therefore be known. It is an indivisible ontological entity;
which cannot be known directly by empirical observation.
Although it is unknown to the experimental sciences, it is far
more real than the sensible properties with which these sciences deal. It is the reason for those stable relations which
the sciences seek to discover among the sensible manifestations
of things, and the ultimate ground of the consta:Qcy of certain
operations under definite conditions. 19
Considered in its individual and particular existence in the
world of external reality, the essence is indeed singular, and
cannot form the object of science; but when it is spiritualized
in that vital act of intentional union and psychical identification which we call knowledge, it acquires a manner of existence
corrresponding to that of the intellect, for a thing as known in
the concept has the very same existence as the act itself by
which it is known. The intellect, when informed by the intelligible likeness of the object, becomes the object known, in a
psychical assimilation and conformation.
By means of the
concept, the object known can thus participate in the uni19 In this respect, Bergson is right in saying that experimental
science cannot
penetrate to the real nature of things, and that this can only be <J.one by intuition,
which, for him, is philosophical knowledge; cf. "La Pensee et le Mouvant," ch. 6,
sqq.
Introduction
la Metaphysique, Paris, 1984, Alcan, 4th ed., pp.

a

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versality of the intellect; purified from all the individuating
notes which determine it in its concrete existence in reality, the
abstracted essence, or immaterialized nature (the metaphysical
universal of the Scholastics) becomes capable of being predicated of the many particular objects in which it is found,
and so it is fundamentally universal. When it is actually
considered by the mind as being found in these particular
objects, and actually referred to them, it acquires that form
of universality (formal or logical universality) which only the
intellect can confer. The abstract nature to which the intellect
gives this fo:rm of universality is no mere subjective fiction,
but the ideal representation of that which exists independently
of the mind, the intelligible counterpart of the object known,
and that by which the object becomes present to the intellect.
The nature that is known exists actually in the physical world,
but is singularized by its concrete and determined existence, if
not by matter, and so is only fundamentally, or, as others
would say, potentially, universaL By being rendered actually
universal, the specific notes of the essence are not altered; the
form of universality which it receives is a purely logical relation, and the change is in relation to the manner of existing,
and hence of predicating. The nature receives a higher, intentional, existence, the existence proper to objects as known; and
since existence is not an essential attribute of finite things, the
essence is unaltered in its constituent notes. This must not be
interpreted as the phenomenologism of Husser!, which eliminates existence from philosophy.
We can admit that philosophy is not concerned directly with the particular existence
of each individual object-that is why it is eternally truebut it is very much concerned with existence as such, and its
function in reality. But since it is really distinct from the
essence, the existence may be changed without a corresponding
change in the essence; so that the universal concept of the
essence leads the intellect to the true knowledge of its object
and at the same time affords that universality which is necessary for science.

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The universal concept, distinct from the subsisting forms of
Plato, is no less distinct from the generic image, with which
it is confused by the positivists, and more recently by Bergson,20 and which is but a vague synthesis o£ many individual
cases or phenomena, utterly incapable of founding any true
and infallible necessity. Nor does the concept deform reality,
since it faithfully represents the essence, though it abstracts
from the concrete existence which gives it actuality.
But
Bergson is right in affirming that our conceptual knowledge
does not exhaust the whole of reality, and that we have to
form several distinct concepts of the one undivided being in
order to obtain a complete synthetic knowledge of it. The
greatest philosophers have readily acknowledged the imperfection of our knowledge of the essences of things, St. Thomas
even saying that " the essences of things are unkown to us." 21
But this refers to our knowledge of things in themselves in
their ultimate specific differentiations. Since the common
formal object of the intellect is being in all its universality, 22
everything which it knows is attained under this formal aspect,
under the aspect of intelligibility. We know material objects
as beings, as principles of those operations and properties which
are manifested sensibly, and can be known by the imagination
and the power of perception, and thus by the intellect. 23 Such
knowledge is necessarily very universal and general; but, by
reason of its very universality and its nearness to the supreme
principles of thought and being, it possesses a degree of certitude superior to that of the knowledge which deals only with
the sensible properties of things. Philosophy pertains to this
21 De Veritate, 10, I.
•• Cf. op. cit., pp. 202, sqq.
22 Cf. Summa Theologica, I, 5, 2; 79, 7; 82, 4, ad l; I-ll, 94, 2; Summa Contm
Gentes, II, 98; De V er., 21', 4, ad 4.
23 Cf. St. Thomas,
Comm. in Met., VII, L. 12 (Ed. Marietti, Turin, 1935,
nn. 1542-1544, and especially 1552); S. T., I, 18, 2; 85, 1 c. and ad l, ad 3, ad 4;
C. G., I, 3; De Ver., 4, l, ad 8; 10, l c. and ad 6; 21, 4, ad 4; J. Maritain, Les
Degres du Savoir, Paris, 1932, Desclee, pp. 61-64, 347-350. Here and in succeeding
footnotes, works of St. Thomas Aquinas are designated thus: S. T.: Summa Theo-

logica; C. G.: Summa Contra Gente:<; De Ver.: Quaestione:< Dispt,tatae de Veritate;
C01nm. in Met.: Commentarium in Libras JJ,fetaphysicorurn Aristotelis.

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87

kind of knowledge of the essences of things, and hence studies
reality under the aspect of intelligibility, and, like all true science, it is primarily speculative. But the limitations of our
knowledge of the essences of things must make the philosopher
beware of claiming a detailed and minute knowledge of the
essences of things, or of deluding himself with the hope that his
science will provide him with an easy intuition into the nature
of reality. Even the imperfect and general knowledge which
philosophy seeks to attain can only be acquired at the cost of
much labor and prolonged reasoning; and it is precisely in
carrying out the detailed and experimental examination of the
sensible properties of things-a task which philosophy is not
equipped to undertake-that the particular sciences are of such
help to the philosopher.
Intimately connected with this characteristic of science, universality, is another equally important quality without which
science would be impossible, that of necessity. The conclusions
of science must not only be true universally; they must also
be necessary, and this necessity must be primarily objective.
Necessity, however, is opposed to contingence or mutability, so
that the task of finding necessity in nature is that of discovering some permanent and immobile element beneath all the flux
of change which the senses manifest to us. This element must
be, by definition, the essence, that substantial principle which
sustains the accidents in being, and which endures while they
change and pass. Individual beings are thus a composite of
necessity, by reason of their essence, and of contingence, by
reason of their material elements and their mutable accidents.
It is the materiality of a thing which is the root of its mutability and contingence, and it is its essential properties which
endure, thus guaranteeing that necessity which science requires.
We must therefore distinguish between the material object of
a science, the sum of the particular objects which it considers,
and which are mutable, contingent, and individual, and its
formal object, that aspect under which these objects are considered by science. The scientist must abstract from wh,tt i;,
contingent and material in his object, and givt'
·d otd v tu

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what is necessary, either to the essence itself, or to those necessary relations among the sensible phenomena which are founded
on the essence. He must, of course, study the material and contingent objects of his science, but only from one particular view
point, and in order to discover the implications of necessity
which all contingent things contain.
In scientific knowledge, therefore, the mind must neglect
(in its formal object) all that is singular and contingent, and
center its attention on that which is necessary, and, therefore,
to some extent separated from the cause of mobility and contingency, that is, from matter and the individuating notes to
which it gives rise. This mental process is what the Scholastics
called abstraction. 24 We obtain different formal objects according as we abstract more or less from this potential element in
beings; and since the sciences, as intellectual habits, are distinguished by their formal objects, these degrees of abstraction
allow us to classify the sciences in their supreme orders. 25 If
we abstract only from the individuating notes of things, from
matter in so far as it is the principle of individuation fu things,
we get the first great class of sciences, those which consider the
world of corporeal entities, of mutable being, with all the qualities that can be experimentally known. This is the world of
corporeal substances and their properties, embraced by the
" physics " of the ancients, the domain of the philosophy of
nature and experimental physics and natural history. A superior, because more immaterial and more abstract, degree of
science is realized when we abstract from matter in so far as
it is the principle of the sensible qualities of beings-" sensible
matter " the ancients called it-but still regard our object as
affected with matter in so far as this gives rise to quantity,
·•• Cf. S. T., I, 85, 1 c. and ad 1, ad 8, ad 4.
25 On the classification
of the sciences through abstraction cf. Aristotle, Anal.
Post., I, c. 28 (St. Th., L. 41); Comm. in Physic., Bk. II, L. 8; In Met., VI, L. 1;
XI, L. 7; In Boetium "De Trinitate," q. 5; q. 6, a. 1; S. T., I, 85, 1; Cajetan and
Bannez, Comm. inS. T., I, 1, 8; John of St. Thomas, Cursus Philosophicus, Logica,
II, q. 27, a. 1 (Reiser, I 818, sqq.); Phil. Nat., I, q. 1, a. 2 (R., II, 17 sqq.);
Cursus Theologicus, I, Disp. 6, a. 2 (Solesmes, I, 582 sqq.); Maritain, op. cit., pp.
71-98.

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89

and the properties consequent on or founded on quantity, such
as number and extension. This is the world of " intelligible
matter," 26 the ideal world of extension and number and of
pure quantity, and it forms the domain of mathematics. The
object of this science cannot exist except in sensible matter,
but it .can be conceived without it, though not without its
supporting substance. 27 In this domain we may distinguish,
according to the degrees of terminal abstraction, the highest
form of mathematics, pure mathematics (arithmetic, algebra,
analytical geometry and the infinitesimal calculus), which
treats of quantity itself, or magnitude, in so far as it is measurable; next come geometry and mechanics, which treat of concrete quantities of a continuous nature and the laws of distance; and finally, in applied mathematics, we see the applications of these sciences to different kinds of facts and possibilities. Supreme in the grade of natural sciences is metaphysics, whose object abstracts from all material elements,
leaving only being, considered under the formal aspect of being,
and its necessary properties and laws; an object which can not
only be conceived without matter, but which can exist apart
from matter, or is common to both material and immaterial
beings alike. This is the world of being as being, and oi the
transcendental properties pertaining to being, such as unity,
truth, goodness, substance, potency, act, causality, etc. 28
We arrive at the same classification from a subjective viewpoint, namely, from the very nature of science as a process of
demonstration, or syllogistic reasoning, about the facts known
through experience. The first principle of each science, and
the medium of its demonstration, if it is a deductive science, is
the definition of its subject, for this enunciates the essential
attributes of a thing, and contains implicitly all the further
•• Cf. St. Thomas, Comm. in Met., Bk. VII, L. lO (n. 1496); Bk. VIII, L. 5
(n. 1760).
27 Cf. St. Thomas,
In Phys., II, L. 3, n. 5-9; In Met., Bk. III,. L. 7 (n. 422);
Bk. V, L. 16 (989); Bk. VII, L. 10 (n. 1496); In Boetium, q. 5, a. 3; S. T., I, 5,
3 ad 4.
28 Cf. S. T., I, 85, 1 ad 2, etc.

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properties which are founded on the essence.29 If the definition
thus holds the central place in science, it is clear that the orders
of sciences will be distinguished according to the different ways
in which these definitions are obtained. 30 We may define things
in the most general terms of being, or in the more specialized
terms of quantity, or again we may define them in so far as
they are affected by their sensible qualities; but we cannot
define the individual, because in so far as it is individual it is
ineffable. 31 These three manners of defining things, and therefore of proceeding in the demonstrative process which constitutes science, correspond to the three great degrees of
abstraction.
Bearing in mind these general characteristics of all science,
we can now indicate the formal distinction between the particular sciences and philosophy. That which above all distinguishes philosophy from other kinds of science is that it is
primarily concerned with the essence of things, that which is
fundamentally universal, and the objective cause of the necessity which is essential to science. But we cannot be said to
know the essence unless we know its causes, the influence
which brought it into being, the end to which it is ordained,
no less than its material elements and its specifying form.
Hence philosophy is essentially the scientific knowledge of
things by their causes; and it is such knowledge alone that
constitutes. science in its full perfection. A certain knowledge
is gained by considering the effects which a thing produces, the
conditions under which it operates or exists, and the phenomena
29 It must not be thought that, since the definition is the principle of a science,
it is the first thing known in that science. We can only arrive at the definition
after a long and exhaustive process, of induction and deduction, which Aristotle
significantly called the "hunt of the definition." At least a nominal definition is
necessary as a starting point, but it is the aim of science to arrive at a real
definition.
3 ° Cf. St. Thomas, In Met., Bk. VI, L. 1 (1156); Bk. XI, L. 7 (2256).
31 A discussion of the nature of the so-called " concrete
sciences," whose object
IS individual, such as cosmography,
geography and history, should find its place
here, but it is outside our present scope, since these sciences do not pretend to
treat of philosophical questions.

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91

with which it is associated; but it has not the same degree of
certitude as that which is based on those necessary links which
bind a thing to its four causes. Among the many causes of a
being, philosophy considers only the four ontological causes;
and, on account of the subordination existing between the different branches of philosophy, by which they are all dependent
on metaphysics, which treats of the supreme causes of things,
philosophy can be said to consider the supreme causes of its
object either formally, as in metaphysics, or by participation,
as in the other parts of philosophy. We can further distinguish wisdom, the highest form of knowledge, from science, in
so far as wisdom is that intellectual habit by which we consider
the supreme cause of all things, judge of all things in the light
of this supreme cause, and order all things to it. 82 In the
natural order, metaphysics alone is entitled to the full title of
wisdom in all its formality, more especially that part of it
which we call natural theology; the other branches of philosophy and the particular sciences belong formally to the
realm of science, not of wisdom.
The science of mathematics does not treat formally of the
essence of its subject, quantity, but is deductive in arriving at
the knowledge of its properties by discursive reasoning. But
the conclusions in which it formulates its findings are in the
form of mathematical equations and therefore cannot express
the reality of motion, for such equations are but forms of the
principle of identity, where the two identical terms are differently divided; and where there is identity, there is no movement. But if mathematics must, not only by reason of its
object, but also by reason of its procedure, exclude or abstract
from motion, it cannot consider the efficient or final causes of
things; sa these pertain to the dynamic consideration of things,
whereas mathematics is essentially static. Hence it cannot
claim to treat its object under the aspect of all its four causes,
sa Cf. Met., Bk. I, cc. 1 and 2; St. Thomas, Comm., L. 1 and 2; S. T., I, 1, 6; 1-11,
57, 2_; 11-11, 45, I; C. G., I, 1; II, 4; In Boetium de Trinitate, q. 2, a. 2 ad 1.
•• Cf. In Met., III, L. 4 (n. 374, 375); Bk. V, L. 16 (n. 989); In II Phy., L. s,
nn. 4-7; S. T., I, 5, 3, ad 4; De Potuntia, 5, 1; In Boetium de Trin., q. 6, a. 1.

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and is therefore distinct from philosophy, even though it may
in some way attain to the essence of this object.
If the particular sciences of the lowest degree of abstraction
retain the word " cause " in their lexicon, it is given a different
sense from that which it has in philosophy. These sciences may
treat of the proximate constituents of their object, but they
will still be distinguished from philosophy, which considers the
ultimate causes of things, and for the most part they treat
their object under aspects which bear only an analogical resemblance with the true causes. Nor can these sciences be said
to treat of the essence of their object, their immediate object
is not the essence, but the phenomena of things, and the
laws which bind them together in regular succession and coexistence. Such a study is also primarily quantitative; and the
" causes " of which it speaks are only the quantitative and
measurable relations between such phenomena in so far as they
take place in space and time. It follows that the method
employed in these sciences must be above all inductive; by an
analysis of the phenomena, they seek to formulate the empirical
laws which rule their succession and co-existence. But the
validity and necessity of these empirically determined laws
can only be guaranteed by philosophy, and derive ultimately
from the necessity of the essence which underlies the phenomena. Though not treating formally of this essence, the
particular sciences suppose it as the foundation of the regularity which they observe among the phenomena; they accept a
necessary law, determined by induction, as a practical substitute for the essence, and by thus participating in the necessity
which has its root in the essence, they acquire that firmness
and certitude which is essential to all science.
Whether a science be deductive or inductive, a priori or a
posteriori, it must start from experience, and remain constantly
in touch with the data of experience, if it is not to degenerate
into p'ure abstractism. The ancients were most insistent on this
point, asserting that all knowledge, even the highest form in
metaphysics, starts from the senses, through which the intellect is brought into contact with the world of reality. It is

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often said, in reproach, that the philosopher neglects the role
of the senses, and gives himself over to airy speculations, without any regard to the data of experience. Such a reproach may
be justified as applied to certain individual philosophers, but
it betrays a lamentable ignorance if it is formulated against the
accredited masters of the philosophia perennis. Aristotle makes
experience the bedrock on which he founds his whole system,
and even a most cursory reading of his works reveals that the
appeal to experience was for him the beginning as well as the
ultimate test of even his most abstract theories. He rejects
the ideal world of Plato, teaching that the object of science
pertains to the world of reality in which we live; he follows
Socrates in affirming that all our knowledge starts in the senses,
and thence, by reflection and abstraction, attains that universality necessary to science; and over and over again he
stresses the necessity of basing our theories on facts of experience and observation, 34 while his works are full of observations
of amazing accuracy and thoroughness, thus showing that he
practised what he preached.
True, the instruments of observation in Aristotle's day were
very imperfect, and the physical theories then in vogue have
long since been abandoned. But this is the fault, not of the
philosopher, but of his contemporary scientists, and his philosophy was not founded on the physical theories current in
his time. There is an experience common to all men and ever
capable of manifesting those elementary facts which suffice for
the philosopher, as well in our own day as in the days of the
Athenian Lyceum. We must distinguish two forms of experience: the common or vulgar form, which is essentialfy pragmatic and infra-scientific and which limits itself to the most
common facts of nature-an experience which M. Maritain has
well called " perinoetic "; 35 and scientific experience, whether
84 Cf. De Generatione Animalium, II, c. 7; III, c. 10; De Generatione et Cor(St. Th. L. 3, n. 8); De Caelo et Mundo, III, 8; Met., I, c. 1.
rutione, I, c.
Cf. Dr. E. Zeller, Philosophy of the Greeks, translated into English by B. Costelloe
and J. Muirhead, Aristotle and the Earlier Peripatetics, Vol. I, Longmans, 1897,
London, pp.
95 Les Degres du Savoir, pp. 400, sqq.

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empirical or philosophical. The enormous progress made by
the sciences as regards accuracy of observation and the perfection of their technical instruments has allowed us to discover
new facts and to add to the content of our knowledge of phenomena, and has also rendered great service in purifying many
of the notions of common experience from the imaginative
accretions and false interpretations which had accumulated
through the ages. While such scientific empirical experience
seeks to discover new phenomena, philosophical experience
limits itself to penetrating to the inner meaning of those notions
which common experience gives to us, and which have been
purified by scientific research; hence it may be called " dianoetic." In this penetration of the facts of common experience,
the philosopher is independent of technical assistance, although
this is a great aid and by no means to be neglected. Such
penetration depends far more on the intellectual prowess of
the investigator than on the number of experiments made;
hence the genius of an Aristotle or an Aquinas could raise the
lasting structure of his philosophical system on the basis of
those facts which common experience reveals, such facts as
the existence of something, of a multiplicity, of movement,
quantity, extension, life, thought, desire, etc.
We are apt to exaggerate the powers of our instruments, and
thus to come to despise the value of the observation of the
unaided senses and to deny what they reveal, accepting only
what the instruments tell us. We forget that the errors associated with sense-knowledge arise, not from the senses themselves, although their knowledge is entirely relative, but from
our false interpretations of sense-data, and that any aspersions
on the validity of sense knowledge fall directly on that of
technical observation; for these instruments are but aids to the
senses, whose power they increase in one particular direction,
but whose united testimony they also divide, so that they add
to the possibility of error by affording false perspectives, and
by destroying the natural unity of sense-knowledge. " The
method of enquiry of the physicist," says Sir A. Eddington,
" depends on sharpening up our sense organs by auxiliary

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apparatus of precision." 36 Moreover, they can only give us
average determinations, sufficient for practical purposes. We
can say that " both gravitation and electric force follow approximately the law of inverse-square of the distance," 37 but
we are speaking approximately.
Heisenberg's principle of
uncertainty has taught us that we can only hope to reach
approximations as to the relative speed and position of intraanatomical entities. Furthermore, our experiments deal with
the present stage of the evolution of the universe, so that their
range is very limited; only by an immense extrapolationwhich we cannot justify experimentally, for we cannot observe
the distant past or the remote future-do we extend our conclusions to cover the regions beyond observation. Our experiments, to accept them at their face value, only show us the
way a thing is acting in this phase of the evolution of the universe, in so far as can be empirically determined; and this is
the only law of nature which scientific empirical experience
can make known to us.
These considerations alone should make us hesitate to accept
the scientific presentation of facts as a complete and exhaustive
representation of them. But two further remarks show conclusively how unfounded is the claim of the positivists that
they deal with all reality and alone have the right to affirm
what is or is not true. First of all, the facts with which science
deals are separated from their natural environment; they are
artificially torn from their place in a dynamically inter-connected universe, and thus witl1drawn from the numerous influences which natural causes exercise on them. This is a legitimate method of procedure, but it distorts reality and forbids
86 The Nature
of the Physical World (Cambridge University Press, cheap edition, reprinted 1933), p. 91. Cf. P. Duhem, "The man in the street believes that
the result of a scientific experiment has a higher degree of certitude than that of
common experience. He is wrong, for the result of a physical experiment has not
the imm;diate certitude of the common and non-scientific experience, and is not as
easily controlled.
It is less certain than common experience, but surpasses it in
the number and precision of the details it makes known." La The01·ie Physique,
£nd ed., Paris, 1914, Riviere, pp. 246, £47.
87 Eddington,
op. cit., p. 29.

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us to claim that we know all about a thing because we have
succeeded in observing it by our instruments.
This becomes
most evident in biology. Professor A. E. Taylor has written:
"If you set out with the notion that the only methods available for the attaining of truth in all matters must be those of
the experimental man of science in his laboratory, you will be
forced to add not merely that all truths must be established by
' induction ' from observed facts, but that the observed facts
must be 'laboratory ' facts, facts of the kind that lend themselves to the purposes of the man of science. And the only
facts which are suitable to his purpose are facts which are not
merely determinate, but quantitatively determinate in all their
features, records of minute and precise measurements.
Once
admit about any fact whatever that it in any respect eludes the
possibility of such measurement, and you have rendered it
unavailable for the purposes of the laboratory.
(Or, at best,
what you can extract from it for those purposes is not the full
fact, but a mutilated aspect of it, which excludes the features
in it not amenable to measurement). And for this simple reason: no concrete fact of life is a ' laboratory ' fact at all, and
can only be made to appear so by the most unscrupulous ' editing.' You cannot make the facts about life and living beings
fully amenable to what a naturalistic metaphysic regards as the
only legitimate method for the attainment of truth, without
the suppression of life itself; you must ' murder to dissect.' " 38
We may also quote the remarks of Sir Oliver Lodge on those
scientists who refuse to admit any fact about living beings
unless it has been revealed by their instruments and who, from
the fact that when the brain is damaged thought is impaired or
ceases, conclude that brain and mind are identical. He says:
" I urge that this does not follow at all, and that it is contrary
to all analogy. A dose examination of the brain will not explain thought, though it will show us the mechanism by which
thought is reproduced in perceptible material form. Examination of the strings of an orchestra, or of the strings of a piano,
38

"Freedom and Personality,"

in Philosophy, July 1939, pp. 264, 265.

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97

would never yield a symphony or a sonata; and yet these
instruments are necessary for its reproduction or manifestation." 39 Similarly, "a seed or germinal vesicle is itself a molecular aggregate, which themselves are now known to be each
a set of minute electrical particles revolving round an electrical
nucleus." In some cases, these have constituted a substance
known as protoplasm, which can develop into a beautiful plant
or animal; " but no examination will explain its vitality. Associated with, or incorporated in it, is something which not only
enables it to build into its own structure otherwise alien material, but which exercises specific control over that material,
building up a definite form and a specific type-a type which
does not depend on the material, but is entirely dependent on
the indwelling specific essence, of which the material is only
the vehicle and demonstration." 40 This immanent principle,
unobservable by technical instruments, has been called by
Driesch the mysterious "factor E," a non-spatial principle,
which maintains the specific type of the individual. Science
must conclude: " The essence of life is beyond us; we know not
whence it comes nor whither it goes. So far as we know at
present, there is no life without antecedent life. . . . It is dependent on matter and physical and chemical energy for its
manifestation and development; but neither matter nor energy
can explain the thing itself, or give an idea of its marvelous
properties." 41
Among the facts with which scientific knowledge treats, we
must distinguish the pure fact, the object of pure sensation
(sensibile per se), attained in its existence by the sensing subject, and which, of itself, has no importance for the savant;
and the so-called " mixed " fact, which of itself does not affect
the senses, but which is found associated with the proper object
of sensation, in a synthetic acquired knowledge (sensibile per
accidens). This association refers to the data of the different
sensorial registers, to images and memories, to practical judg•• "Life and Matter," in the Journal of Philosophical Studies, Oct. 1927, p. 479.
41 Ibid., p. 480.
40 Ibid., p. 479.

7

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

ments of instinct, and also to concepts of the mind; and it is
this association of a subjective element with a sense-object that
allows us to speak of scientific experience. Hence a scientific
fact not only establishes the existence of that which is the
proper object of sensation, but also, and principally, of a reality
that is thought, of an intelligible object associated to an object
of sensation in the concreteness of an organized experience.
Among the objective elements enunciated in a fact, it is the
intelligible object whose existence is affirmed, which has the
formal, specifying, and diversifying role. Thus a scientific fact
is not something purely sensible, but a sense-object elaborated
intellectually 42 and so rendered fit to be adapted into the intellectual scheme of the science to which it refers. There are,
therefore, as many kinds of facts as of concepts. It follows
that the facts with which the particular sciences deal cannot,
of themselves, have a philosophical signification or be incorporated as they stand into a philosophical system. They cannot be invoked to solve a problem of philosophy, for they are
associated to a type of concept which differs from the type
of concept of philosophical thought, and are adapted for
incorporation into a system whose explanation consists in a
resolution, or reference, to empirical observation. To have any
bearing at all on philosophy, they must undergo a change of
context, they must be illuminated by philosophical knowledge,
otherwise acquired, and thus given a higher intelligible context,
an ontological signification, which transfers them into the
domain of philosophical facts. In practice, this means that a
dispute in philosophy cannot be decided by an appeal to the
facts of science as these are presented in their purely scientific
conceptual dress; and that philosophy transcends the particular
sciences, not only as to its principles, but as regards the formal
element of experience, and even as regards the material of experience, since this is provided, in common experience, anteriorly to scientific experiments. It also means that one of the
42 This intellectual
elaboration of sensory data, the first task of the scientist and
philosopher alike, is that referred to by Helmholtz as the deciphering of sense-signs,
or the interpretation of the world of sensory experience of Max Planck.

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

99

tasks of philosophy is to keep in touch with the recent developments of science, in ordt:r to discern when and how new theories
may have philosophical implications, and to judge the value of
such implications as are claimed for them by the scientists. 43
The second remark to be made on the scope of technical
observations is that they interpret in terms of quantity and
motion even that limited field of reality with which they deal.
A thermometer, for instance, interprets heat, a quality, in terms
of the expansion and contraction of mercury, in so far as it can
be quantitatively represented; and the so-called secondary
qualities are explained as vibrations, in terms of motion, color,
for instance, being reduced (objectively) to its scientific equivalent, electromagnetic wave-length. 1\Iotion itself is interpreted
quantitatively, as the position in space, at certain moments, of
the moving body. The limitations of scientific observation are
well understood from the picture of the scientific observer
which Sir A. Eddington has given us. 44 The physicist, we are
told, in studying the scientific world, is deprived of all superfluous senses; he is denied the aid of taste, smell, hearing, even
touch. He must have only one eye, which can discriminate
two shades, so as to distinguish whether an object is absent or
present. This one eye will be likely to recognize geometrical
form and spatial magnitude, and hence physics, twenty years
ago, was largely geometrical. In 1915, Einstein deprived our
peculiar disembodied observer of the faculty of recognizing
form or extension; he could now only tell whether two things
were touching or not. The one sense with which the observer
has been left is capable of merely quantitative impressions; he
has "power to see when a pointer coincides with a gradation
on a scale." 45
•• On the difference between scientific and philosophical facts, cf. lves Simon,
"Philosophy of Science," in the Rervue de Philosophie, Janv.-Fev. 1985, pp. 58-64;
" Les Preoccupations experimentales des philosophes et Ia notion de fait philosophique," ibid., Mai-Juin 1932, pp. 267-289; J. Maritain, Les Degres du Savoir,
pp. 102-180.
•• "Physics and Philosophy," in Philosophy, Jan. ·1933, pp. 80-48.
•• Ibid., p. 35.

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This method of observation is rigorous and exact, in its own
sphere, but it must not be pushed too far. We cannot deny
the existence of a thing merely because it cannot be observed
by such methods. This would be to imitate the attitude of
the astronomer who denied the existence of God because he
could not see Him with a telescope, or of the doctor who denied
the existence of the soul because he could not discover it with
his scalpel. There is also the danger of a vicious circle in depriving the scientist of the faculty of distinguishing colors, and
then denying the existence of color altogether because he does
not perceive it. Our instruments have sharpened up certain
of our senses, but they have excluded many others from the
scene, and have thus restricted our view of reality to one very
narrow aspect. All the senses can cooperate to present a more
perfect and complete picture of reality to the intellect, which
can then penetrate to the inmost constitution of things, since it
sees ·things under the aspect of intelligibility, and can arrive at
deductive knowledge of objects made known by experience and
thus attain to such truths as can never be learned from mere
technical observation. The purely positivistic attitude is now
disappearing, but it has left many traces. Many men of science are to some degree affected with its teaching, and will but
reluctantly admit the existence of things which do not come
under the range of their instruments, or persist in trying to
explain them by methods wholly unsuited to the task.
It is an attitude which, if adhered to strictly, will have
disastrous consequences for science itself. The intellect itself
cannot be observed by our instruments; but if we deny its
existence, we cut at the root of scientific knowledge. Causality
is equally unobservable, and it is now called in doubt by the
physical indeterminists.
Once it is denied, however, what right
have we to assert the existence of the entities with which science deals, for instance of protons and electrons, except that
the hypothesis of their existence gives us a basis for introducing order among our data and promoting discovery? Such
hypotheses are legitimate in science, but we cannot infer the
reality of the entities they are intended to explain unless we

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postulate them as the cause of certain sense data; and this
inference is invalid, once causality has been rejected, so that
the whole " scientific world " itself is reduced to a subjective
representation, to mere "mind-spinning."
If the scientific description of the world were the only true
one, we should be in a very confused state of ignorance indeed.
We are confronted with two theories as to the nature of light,
and we are told that they are contradictory. It seems that the
electron itself has both the particle and wave properties, so that
it is now called a " wavicle " possessing seemingly contradictory properties. The Rutherford-Bohr atom has now given
way to that of Schrodinger, and it is to be regarded as a wavecenter of the probability entity 1/J; and goodness only knows how
many new theories are yet to be advanced. 46 E. Picard sums
up the present position when he says: " Some [physicists J ask
whether the electron has only a purely analytical existence,
being but a center of vibration in a system of waves which
alone are real. For others, it is the waves which have only an
analytical existence." 47 This serves to show that physical science is not directly concerned with the reality of the physical
world, but only with certain quantitative and measurable
aspects of it, in so far as these can be expressed in convenient
mathematical formulae. As W. T. Stace says: "The relation
of atoms to sense data is not the relation of cause and effect,
but the relation of a mathematical formula to the facts and
happenings which it enables the mathematician to calculate." 48
At least, this is all he is entitled to conclude on the positivistic
hypothesis, although a sane philosophy can come to his aid arid
point out the epistemological value of his conclusions, and
provide an ontological basis for his science and his observations. To refer to the now famous example of Sir A. Edding•• Heisenberg's new quantum theory (1925) was followed, in the space of twelve
months, by at least three different interpretations of it, those of Born and Jordan,
of Dirac and of Schriidinger.
47 Un coup d'oeil sur l'Histoire des Sciences et des Theories Physiques,
Paris,
1929, Gauthier-Villats, p. 44.
••" Sir A. Eddington and the Physical World," Philosophy, Jan. 1934, p. 48.

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ton/ 9 the physicist may see in the elephant which slides down
a grassy slope only a "bundle of pointer-readings," indicating
the bulk of the animal, the angle of the slope, the readings of a
photometer, etc., for he is not in the least concerned with the
reality or inner nature of that curious quadruped with a trunk
and tusks of ivory. He would have arrived at the same result
had some other object of the same mass, color and shape slid
down the same slope (provided the elephant submitted to the
experiment with complete passivity) . But we should lift our
eyebrows if he were to state that the elephant had no objective
reality, because he was not concerned with it, or because his
numbers and measurements remained the same whatever the
object in question. He would, however, probably lift his hands
in horror if we were to deny the
of electrons and
protons; for these leave traces (a wavy line on a photographic
plate) and can be weighed and measured. Yes, indeed; but if
this is the test of reality, why deny the reality of the elephant?
He also can leave traces, not only on a photographic plate but
on any other sort of plate, and he can, much more easily, be
weighed and measured. One result is provided by common
experience, the other by scientific experience; and the discrimination between the two can only be explained by the
disdain of common experience in favor of the latter, and an
exaggerated opinion of the scope of the sciences.
Such an attitude is, to some extent, inevitable, owing to the
specialization imposed by the tremendous advances of physical
science. " The specialist, in every department of life," remarks
Mr. Noyes, 50 "has been very well defined as a man who knows
more and more about less and less. It is a plain fact that, in
our rapidly growing world, the extension of various kinds of
highly specialized knowledge, all valuable in their own way,
has given us so many things to look at, that we are not only
blind to the woods, but have almost ceased to believe in the
trees." 51 Since each branch of science has its own method, the
The Nature of the Physical World, pp. 251, sqq.
The Unknown God, London, 1934, Sheed and Ward, pp. 10, 11.
51 This
continues: "We have evolved a race of specialists, each working
49

60

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103

specialist, by long application, acquires a habit, conformable
to his manner of investigation and explanation; and habits
become second nature with us. This results in a restriction of
the plasticity of the mind, and a tendency to apply one particular method to the solution of all problems. Such a procedure spells disaster and ruin. It explains why those who are
experts in their own branch talk utter piffie when they come
to treat of other problems. 52 The specialist can claim no more
authority in another branch of knowledge than any other ordinarily educated man. In fact, he is much more liable to err
than his non-specialist companion, since he is led by inclination and habit to judge of all things by his particular method
and set of principles, whereas the non-specialist relies on those
general principles and common-sense notions which nature has
implanted in us. These principles are of far more universal
value than the particular principles of the specialist in correlating the facts brought to light by the different sciences and in
judging of their relative importance and significance. As a
practical consequence, we may note that " controversies arise
not so much from real disagreement as from misunderstanding
the real beliefs of others and the terms in which they are expressed, or from a limitation of the intellectual vision, whereby
the specialist sees with great sharpness every detail of a certain
along his own narrowing line, each developing a language of his mvn, and each
diverging further and further from that central point of view which once enabled
us (from the lost height of a great historic religion) to ' see life steadily and see it
whole.' With the very best intentions, and in a most orderly and scientific manner,
we have built an immense Tower of Babel, and we have been gradually overcome
by the ancient penalty-a confusion of tongues."
52 Dr. Robert Hutchins,
president of the University of Chicago, writes: "You
will have noticed, too, that it has become almost a tradition in this country for a
natural scientist, after he achieves eminence and leisure, to employ some of both
in metaphysical, and even theological, speculations. Without any particular training in these disciplines, and with a healthy contempt for those who have, he
proceeds to confuse the public further about the greatest questions that have
confronted the human mind." He adds: " The reception accorded the expressions
of these gentlemen shows how much we feel the need of an orthodox theology or a
systematic metaphysics."
The Higher Learning in America, 4th printing, New
Haven, 1930, Yale Univ. Press, p. 104.

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

restricted field, but is unable to coordinate his views with other
and not less important aspects of the matter. Even though
others may also be right, he denies their rightness simply because he is looking in another direction. It is for this reason
that the affirmations of men of science are far more to be
trusted than their denials." 53
This narrowing of the mental vision is common to all science, and demands, in compensation, that the scientist should
be possessed of a certain general culture (as distinct from mere
dilettantism and " dictionarism," which are entirely superficial)
which may restore the balance and harmony that the exigencies of the scientific method have destroyed, by developing
those powers which have been atrophied by neglect. That is
why culture is broad and universal, transcending the narrow
divisions and limited visions of specialism; it is the perfection
of man as man, as distinct from the cultivation of one side of
our nature to the detriment of the others. Father Sertillanges
has written some appropriate words on this subject. He says:
"Every science, cultivated apart, not only does not suffice, but
is attended by certain dangers. Isolated mathematics falsify
the judgment, by habituating it to a rigor which no other science, and still less real life, can suffer. Physics and chemistry
beset us with their complexity, and narrow the spirit. Physiology inclines one to materialism, astronomy to divination,
geology turns one into a bloodhound on the scent, literature
empties one, philosophy puffs up, and theology leads to sham
sublimity and doctoral pride. We must pass from one mentality to the other in order to correct them, one by the other;
we must rotate the crops if we would not ruin the soil." 54
If we do not counteract the dangers of specialism, we are
condemning ourselves to a life that is not fully human and
putting ourselves in the way of temptation, that of belittling
the value, or denying the objects, of other sciences, and of closing our eyes to whole realms of reality and truth. The physi53
54

Noyes, op. cit., p. ll4.
P. Sertillanges, 0. P., La Vie Intellectuelle,

Paris, Desclee, New Edition, 1934, p. ll7.

(Ed. de la Revue des Jeunes),

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105

cist has dissolved the world into " tiny specks floating in the
void"; 55 and for the "familiar table" he has substituted the
"scientific table" of electric charges scattered throughout
empty space. Very good; but if we admit the claim of the
physicist that the " scientific " table is the only real one, we
are surrendering the whole universe, under all its aspects, to
one specialized branch of thought. The physicist, in this case,
would also tell us that the human countenance was only a constellation of electric forces, and he would have truly analyzed
one side of the picture. But what has ·become of the smile on
that face, or the affection that shines through those eyes, and
the other realities of higher order that it expresses? Or, if the
chemist gives us an acute analysis of the reactions involved,
will he have told us the real meaning of the heaving of the
breast of our beloved? He may present us with an exquisitely
accurate analysis of the water and salt in human tears, but will
that tell us what they mean? Surely we are dealing with different orders of truth, " as different as that of an electron from
that of a flower," and with realities which "are expressed in
languages as different as an architect's blueprint from a picture
by Turner." 56 Specialism can thus lead to encroachments on
other spheres, and this to the elimination from the universe of
all its highest values.
This confirms what we have already said, that man can
know much more than what his instruments reveal to him.
The mother knows far more about the real significance of
the light in the eyes of her child than can be learned from a
physical analysis of those eyes into a system of infinitesimal
planetary worlds. The scientific picture is true as far as it
goes, but the scientist, attuned by long research to consider
only the quantitative aspect of things, may find himself unable
to appreciate the other aspects of things. This "maladjustment " of the intellectual focus may be so permanent as to
lead the scientist to deny the reality of those things such as
justice, mercy, friendship, freedom or thought, of which his
55

56

Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, p. 1.
Noyes, op. cit., p. 187.

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science does not treat and which do not pertain to the " scientific world." In such cases, the denials of the men of science
are indeed not to be trusted. The recognition of such realities
demands a deliberate alteration of the intellectual focus, 57 and
the inability of the scientist to make such an alteration should
not be construed as a sweeping generalization about objective
reality.
From a subjective point of view, then, the need is felt for
a science which may recapture the power of direct vision, by
coordinating all the partial views afforded by the various
branches of knowledge into one unified vision, the vision of
the whole man, not of the specialist or of the disembodied and
one-eyed observer of science. This higher science, the science
of man brought face to face with nature and moved by wonder
to seek the causes and nature of things, is the philosophy of
nature, one of whose tasks it is to reintegrate into one comprehensive view our scattered fragments of knowledge, and thus
to regain the central point of view which necessarily eludes the
specialist in physical science. To this subjective need corresponds an objective reason for the philosophy of nature. The
special sciences "pulverize" nature and divide it into several
water-tight compartments, and their facts are separated from
their natural environment. Philosophy must consider nature
as a whole, thus restoring that unity which specialism has
destroyed.
Comparing the philosophy of nature with the physical sciences, we may say, in general, that the former is deductive,
while the latter are mainly inductive. The material object of
both is the same, the material universe and its constituent
parts. But philosophy considers it primarily under the aspect
of intelligibility; it treats of sensible and mutable being, but
under the aspect of being, by seeking to know the essences of
things by their causes. Hence it has a certain affinity with
metaphysics, and is of little or no value in extending our knowledge of phenomena. The philosopher is concerned with pene··
67

Cf. ibid., pp. 190, 339; cf. also pp. 76, 195, 196.

SCIENCE

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107

trating to the inner meaning of the notions of common experience and formulating the universal truths which they imply.
He must start with experience, and hence must proceed analytically; but he aims at a synthesis, by which he can correlate
all his subject to the universal laws of being and thought and
discover the intelligible and necessary relations which link together the various parts of the universe. This is only possible
once he has succeeded in defining the entities with which he
deals; from these definitions he can arrive at the knowledge of
many properties of things by way of deduction. We may,
under certain conditions, find out, by observation and experiment, that two notions are always connected; but the
intellect can, with far greater certitude, discover the logical
or essential connections between two notions by analyzing and
comparing them. The difference between scientific and philosophical analysis is that the philosopher analyzes the essence of
things, expressed in the definition, and so arrives at the ontological relations between things; whereas the scientist analyzes
things from a material or phenomenal point of view, and so
can learn only the relations between the phenomenal manifestations of beings.
The difference in method leads to a difference in the manner
of explanation. The philosophy of nature reduces its objects,
by deduction, to the intelligible sphere of being, distinguishing
what is necessary, contingent or fortuitous in the world. The
physical sciences, depending mainly on induction, establish
their concepts by reference to what is sensible and observable.
They are sciences of phenomena, rather than of being, and
hence they are not explicative in the causal sense of the word, 58
for they do not treat of the ontological causes of things. Their
explanations are hypotheses, which seek to relate facts to an
unknown condition, to reduce the unknown to something describable in terms of familiar conceptions, and hence cannot
be said to explain these facts by their causes. Such hypotheses
58 Cf. W. T. Stace, loc. cit., p. 47: "Scientific
laws, properly formulated, never
'explain' anything. They merely state, in an abbreviated and generalized form,
what happens."

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are rather subjective aids which satisfy our natural inclination
to know the causes of things, and which present us with a
handy formula which helps us to introduce order among our
observed facts and aids the memory by reducing complexities
to some form of synthesis. This manner of explanation differs
essentially from that used in philosophy, both in method and
in the object it defines. They concern different aspects of
reality, so that there can be no collision or contradiction between them. The two branches of knowledge differ as much
as ontological definition and analysis differ from empirical
observation and description. Any seeming contradiction is due
to an unwarranted excursion of either the philosopher or the
scientist into domains beyond his scope, where his particular
methods are entirely unsuited to the aspect of reality which is
there considered. An attitude of mutual understanding and
aid should reign between the two forms of science, especially
since they both treat of the same material objects. And if the
scientist renders great service to the philosopher by purifying
the notions of common experiences and discovering new phenomena, he, in turn, is aided by the philosopher, who furnishes
the ontological basis of his science, and defines and defends
those fundamental notions (such as quantity, space, time,
place, life, thought, etc.) , which the scientist supposes but with
whose inner reality he is not concerned. 59
The errors of a universal mathematicism can only be refuted
by recalling briefly the chief notes of this science of the second
degree of abstraction.
As we have already said, it considers
formally only quantity, and under the aspect of measurability,
not under the aspect of being. Quantity is a :real accident,
existing in the objective world, so that mathematics depends
on experience for its object. But it is considered so abstractly
that it prescinds from all existence, whether real or merely
rational.
It is refashioned independently of experience and
treated as if it were something subsistent, and often acquires
6 ° For a more complete
discussion of these points, cf. J. Maritain,
Sagesse, Paris, 1935, Labergerie, ch. 2; Les Degres du Savoir, ch. 2.

Science et

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an imaginary character which has no counterpart in reality.
Thus the imagination plays a big part in providing the object
of this science. 60 Though presupposing the external senses,
mathematics is independent of them and is free from those
conditions of relativity which characterize sensation; it seeks
to represent quantity by symbols in the imagination, and the
real properties of this accident are translated into symbolic
terms which render them convenient for numerical manipulation. Mathematics then seeks to relate these imaginative forms
by means of equations, and so to construct, deductively, .a network of mathematical relations between those beings which can
be measured, thus building up a metrical and hypothetical
representation of the universe. Its criterion is the possibility
of representing things metrically and of verifying its conclusions by reference, direct or analogical, to the imagination,
in which the first elements of mathematics were primarily
elaborated. The sole preoccupation of the mathematician is
that the numerical results he obtains by thus correlating his
symbols should correspond to the measurements recorded by
his instruments.
On account of its imaginative character and its process of
mentally combining symbols without reference to reality, mathematics constructs many notions which have no objective
counterpart (such as the " irrationals " of Meyerson, imaginary
numbers, etc.), but which are necessary to
procedure. These are known to the philosopher as " beings of
reason," entities which have no objective existence apart from
the mind. Hence the mathematical representation of the world
is incomplete in that it introduces many elements which are
not, and cannot be, real components of the physical world. It
is also incomplete in that it represents only one aspect of the
universe, since it considers only quantity, and that in so far
as it can be measured. The essences of things, causality, motion or the sensible qualities find no place in the mathematical
world, which is completely static, a world of numbers and
•• Cf. St. Th., C07Tl/l11,. in Met., Bk. Vll, L. 10 (n. 1494, 1495).

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symbols. It is hard to see how anyone could mistake this
imaginative world for the real world, or believe that a mathematical equation could fully reveal the nature of things to us.
Sir James Jeans, however, makes this claim, saying: "The
same concept [viz.: the concept of the universe as a world of
pure thought] implies, of course, that the final truth about a
phenomenon resides in the mathematical description of it; so
long as there is no imperfection in this, our knowledge of the
phenomenon is complete." 61 And again: " It is true, in a sense
somewhat different from that intended by Galileo, that ' N ature's great book is written in mathematical language.' So
true it is, that no one except a mathematician need ever hope
fully to understand those branches of science which try to
unravel the fundamental nature of the universe." 62 There
might be some truth in this claim, in the Cartesian hypothesis
of the identity of substance and extension-a hypothesis still
lingering on among many scientists 63 -or for the positivists,
for whom nothing is real except what can be observed and
measured. There is little difference between denying the existence of substance because it cannot be measured, and identifying it with extension. St. Thomas, following Aristotle, has
conclusively shown that the identification of substance with
extension is nothing more than the denial of the reality of
The Mysti!Jrious Universe, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1931, pp. 140, 141.
Ibid., pp. l£7, l£8. We leave it to the reader to judge whether he is con·
sistent when he says (ibid., p. 142): "A mathematical formula can never tell us
what a thing is, but only how it behaves; it can only specify an object through its
properties." The inconsistency disappears, perhaps, if we grant the author's thesis,
that the universe is a thought-structure, emanating from the mathematical creator,
and can be understood only by a mathematician, in much the same way as mathematical procedure or reasoning is intelligible only to a mathematician.
63 Sir A. Eddington,
for instance, conceives substance as " the kind of nature
exemplified by an ordinary table" (op. cit., p. xi), "thinly scattered in specks
in a region mostly empty " (p. xiii), " whose intrinsic nature is to occupy space "
(p. xiv), "rigged out with the attributes of form, color, hardness, etc., which
appeal to our several senses" (p.
Then, having rejected this half-vulgar,
half-Cartesian entity, he claims: "We have dismissed the metaphysical conception
of substance!" (p. £61). A similar conception of substance is entertained by Sir
James Jeans, The Mysterious Universe, pp. 138, 139.
61
62

SCIENCE

AND PHILOSOPHY

111

substance. 64 He also points out that this error arises from a
failure to distinguish between body as it pertains to the genus
of substance (a composite essence, material but not sensible)
and as it pertains to the genus of quantity (an accidental form,
giving this essence extension in space and the ordered plurality
of parts); just as the error of the Pythagoreans and Platonists
arose from confusing that unity which is convertible with being
with the unity which is the principle of number. 65
This Pythagorizing tendency may, perhaps, be explained by
the fact that mathematics is an exact and deductive science,
which exhausts the essence of its object, since this is, to a large
extent, fashioned by the mind itself 66 and is possessed of a
degree of certitude more adapted to our human way of thinking than either the philosophy of nature or metaphysics. 67 The
very completeness of mathematics, in its own line, tends to
awaken in the mathematician a conviction that, in learning
all about his particular object, he has sounded the depths of
reality. This is a conviction, however, which even an elementary notion of the scope and methods of this science shows to
be absurd. By thus usurping the place of philosophy, mathematics tends to regulate the inferior sciences and to impose its
own method on them, a tendency which has more than once
called forth the protests of biologists and psychologists, who
are brought more directly into contact with living beings,
which evade all efforts of mathernatization. 68 But it is otherwise with the physical sciences of inert matter, which offer a
favorable ground for a progressive mathematization.
The application of the mathematical method to the study of physical
phenomena has been the greatest revolution in science, and is
largely due to Descartes and Galileo; it has given us the now
all-important science of mathematical physics.
65 Ibid., n. 5!4.
In Met., Bk. HI, L. 13 (nn. 507-513).
Cf. E. Meyerson, La Deduction Relativiste, Paris, 1935, Payot, pp. 139, 140.
67 Cf. St. Th., In Boetium De Trin., q. 6, a. I; ad !i!am Quaest.
68 Cf. W. R. Thomson,
Science and Common Sense, London,
1938;
W. MacDougall, The Frontiers of Psychology, Nisbet, London, and Cambridge
Univ. Press. 1935.
64
66

A. J. MCNICHOLL

This science endeavors to provide a mathematical interpretation of the physical world, and so it is at once physical and
mathematical, realizing perfectly the type of intermediary science known to the ancients only in astronomy, musical theory
and optics. By reason of its principles and method, it is formally mathematical, but it is materially physical, on account of
its subject matter. 69 It depends on empirical science to furnish
its data by induction and observation and to make those precise measurements with which it is entirely concerned and to
which it turns in order to verify its conclusions. But its conceptual procedure is mathematical; the real facts and measurements and the physical structure of bodies which observation
makes known are symbolically represented by mathematical
symbols and linked together by a network of mathematical
relations, in order to provide a deductive synthesis, amenable
to numerical procedure. It is hence a combination of univocal description and symbolical interpretation. 70 It starts
with a real description of facts, but a description which is
entirely metrical. " Our scientific information is summed up
in measures," says Sir A. Eddington; 71 and again: " The whole
subject matter of exact science consists of pointer-readings and
similar indications; 72 the whole of our physical knowledge is
based on measures." 73 That is why the FitzGerald contraction
macl.e such a change in physics;" the constancy of a measuring
scale is the rock on which the whole structure of physics has
been reared; and that rock has crumbled away." 74
Having ascertained the metrical properties of its subject,
mathematical physics tries to coordinate these into a synthesis
of mathematical equations and so provide a hypothetical and
mathematical reconstruction of the physical world under its
material aspect. This mathematical counterpart of the. phy69 Cf. St. Thomas, Comm. in Bk. II Physic., L. 8, n. 8; L. 11, n. 8; In Boetium,
q. 5, a. 8, ad 6, ad 7; S. T., II-II, 9, 2, ad 8.
70 Maritain,
op. cit., p. 87.
71 Op. cit., p. xiii.
•• Ibid., p. 252.
73 Ibid., p. 152.
•• Ibid., p. 8.

SCIENCE

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113

sical world is a world of symbols and numbers/ 5 a subjective
world built up by the mind itself, on a plan or outlook " adopted
by the mind for its own reasons," 76 namely, that the symbolic
elements may " conform to the mathematical formulae which
they are designed to obey." 77 This subjective mathematica1
substitute for the real world is not intended to provide a causal
explanation of it, for the physicist (as such) does not concern
himself with the ontological value of his symbols or with the
true nature of things. Hence, as in mathematics, his "worldpicture" will include many elements which have no objective
reality, such as the "sub-ether," 78 "waves of probability,"
"isolated electrons," and such like "beings of reason"; while
many of the " pictures " of science, as, for instance, those of
the inner arrangement of the atom and of curved space-time,
are but symbolical representations of entities whose inner nature eludes us! 9 These symbolical reconstructions have a
foundation in reality, since they are based on the observed
behavior of natural bodies and on measurements experimentally
obtained. But, formally, they are only relations of measurement, so constituted as to be apt for use m mathematical
deductions.
Mathematical physics thus substitutes a mathematical
essence for the real nature of things, and constructs a closed
world " consisting of entities rigorously bound to one another
by mathematical equations forming a deterministic scheme," 80
and is thus a triumph of geometrization. For the philosopher,
this geometrical and subjective world has no direct significa75 Cf. Eddington,
op. cit., "Science aims at constructing a world which shall be
symbolic of the world of common-place experience" (p. xv); · "The symbolic nature of the entities of physics is generally recognised" (p. 330; cf. pp. 82, 209); the
world of science is a "shadow-world" (pp. 109, 230).
78 Cf. ibid., p. 219.
77 Ibid., p. 269; cf. 255, 270, 291.
•• Ibid., p. 241.
79 Cf. Sir James Jeans, The Universe Around Us, Cambridge
Univ. Press, 1929,
pp. 125-134. The Rutherford-Bohr picture of the atom is to be preserved, though
now modified, because wave-mechanics has not yet furnished a picture of the atom
at all. The Mysterious Universe, pp. 79, 124-127.
80 Eddington,
op. cit., p. 271.

8

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

tion; he realizes that it has an auxiliary and methodological
importance, but does well to keep clear of purely scientific
questions, especially since there is so much confusion and disagreement between the scientists themselves. But it is necessary that he should point out the epistemological value of the
conclusions of this science. Since its method is entirely quantitative, it does not treat of the real nature of things. The relativity theory does not tell us what time is, but seeks to discover
the determination of time that is physically possible, and specifies the procedure for so doing. The space-time framework is
only a concept, a mathematical invention designed to correlate
experiences. The second law of thermodynamics, which is now
given the supreme position among the laws of nature, can only
correlate states of the universe in so far as they are quantitatively represented in terms of energy, and by reference to a
final state of entropy. 81 Action itself is defined in terms of
quantity, 82 and so with all the other physical entities. By
being thus mathematically represented, things are emptied of
any signification other than quantitative, and are transferred
from objective reality to the subjective " shadow-world " of
physics. The great danger is that this subjective world be
regarded as the only real one, thus involving a denial of all
that is not quantitative; whereas, by the very procedure by
which it is formed, it is only a subjective representation, very
incomplete and to a great extent imaginative, of the real world.
It is refreshing to find such a representative scientist as Sir
Arthur Eddington admitting the limits of his science and postu,.
lating the existence of beings which are not measurable by
numbers. 88 He points out the essential insufficiency of the
quantitative method in its study of reality: " The incongruity
of symbolizing this fundamental intuition (of becoming) by a
property of arrangement of the microscopic constituents of the
81 Cf. A. E. Milne, "Some Points in the Philosophy of Physics,'' Philosophy, Jan.
1984, pp. 19-88.
82 Cf. F. A. Lindemann,. " The Place of Mathematics
in the Interpretation of the
Universe," Philosophy, Jan. 1988, pp. 14-29.
83 Cf. op. cit., pp.
85, 86, 209, 271, 275.

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY

115

world, is evident." 84 Such notions as mass and distance have
some significance beyond mere number.s, but this significance
is lost by their incorporation into the scientific scheme, just as
the scientific analysis of a picture into particles of paint loses
sight of its esthetic meaning. 85 The entities of physics can
only form a partial aspect of reality, 86 for "the measure-numbers, which are all that we can glean from a physical survey
of the world, cannot be the whole world," 87 and an array of
symbols cannot tell us all about man. 88 The system of inference used in physics is one of reduction to mathematical equations governing symbols, so that what cannot be embodied in a
differential equation is ignored. 89 Not only is much of reality
ignored, but that which does come into the field of theoretical physics is frankly admitted to be treated in an entirely
quantitative manner: " Scientific investigation does not lead to
knowledge of the intrinsic nature of things. Whenever we
state the properties of a body in terms of physical quantities
we are imparting knowledge of the response of various metrical
indicators to its presence and nothing more," so that we leave
its " inner un-get-atable nature undetermined." 90
These quotations give reason to hope that the attitude of
scientists is gradually changing from the pan-mathematicism
of earlier years according as the true nature and limitations of
science are being more fully realized. By thus restricting himself to his own domain, the scientist not only insures the
progress of his science but removes a cause of eternal and useless wrangling with the philosophers, who try to discover the
inner nature of things and are not limited to a merely quantitative outlook. The realization that physical science has nothing to say on the inner nature of the atom, of time, of becoming,
of existence, and such other realities, paves the way for the
harmonious development of both science and the philosophy
of nature, in an atmosphere of mutual aid. If we take the
•• Ibid., p. 97.
•• P. 106.
•• Pp.
" 7 P.

881.

""P.
•• Pp.
•• Pp. 808, 804; cf. pp.

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

attitude of Sir A. Eddington (on these matters) as representative of that of present-day science, we shall also find that the
starting point and many of the fundamental notions of metaphysics are admitted as the basis of a higher form of knowledge
than that attained by physical science. He tells us that the
mind is the first and most direct thing in experience 91 that is
capable of making legitimate judgments, 92 and by admitting
the distinction between sense and non-sense, between valid and
invalid reasoning, he is asserting the necessity of the principle
of contradiction and the need of logic. 93 We might almost say
that he was paying a tribute to the critical realists of the
neo-Thomist school in claiming that "those who in the search
for truth start from consciousness as a seat of self-knowledge
with interests and responsibilities not confined to the material
plane, are just as much facing the hard facts of experience as
those who start from consciousness as a device for reading the
indications of spectroscopes and micrometers." 94 The philosopher goes to great pains to show how the " potentiality of
being known to mind is a fundamental objective property of
matter," if by matter we mean physical reality, but Sir Arthur
would admit this at once.B5 He also admits that the mind
possesses an insight beneath the symbols of science, 96 an insight
into our own volitions, 97 into the elementary undefinable "becoming," an insight " which sweeps aside all symbolic knowledge as on an inferior plane"; 98 and that "we have direct
knowledge of time and the human spirit which makes us reject
as inadequate that merely symbolic conception which is so
often mistaken for an insight into its nature." 99
The philosopher does not need to go, hat in hand, to the
scientist to ask his permission to assent to such truths; they
are evident to any man with healthy faculties and a modicum
of reflection. We have given these quotations merely to show
that the philosopher need not fear active hostility from scienOp. cit., p. ZSl.
P. 334.
"" P. 345.
94 Pp. ZSS, Z89.
""P.Z67.
91

92

P. Z7Z.
•• P. 3lZ.
•• P. 97; cf. 88, 89.
99 P. 57; cf. pp. 91, 320.
96

SCIENCE

AND PHILOSOPHY

117

tists about these elementary data, and that modern scientists
are realizing that philosophy occupies a sphere apart, with
methods and objects specifically its own. The claims of the
philosopher are not exorbitant; he does not even demand that
he be credited with an " insight " into the inner nature of
things. He alone is concerned, formally, with this aspect of
reality, and he best realizes the immense difficulties which beset
the path of the seeker after the knowledge of the nature of
things. He asks that the latest scientific theory-which may
be cast away by the scientists themselves after a few months-be not thrown in his face as if it were the cut and dried answer
to a philosophical problem or the refutation of an ontologically
grounded truth. He asks that the existence of thought, the
validity of first principles, the reality of such fundamental
things as being, becoming, essence and existence, multiplicity
and change, be granted-and he can show that the denial of
these leads to absolute absmrdities. By examining the essential implications of them in the light o:f first principles, he will
build up his own science and justify the spontaneous affirmations of an enlightened common sense as well as the presuppositions of science.
Some of the main questions which give rise to conflict between scientists and philosophers are the reality of the external
world, of substance and of causality. Science has nothing to
say on these subjects, which are quite outside its domain; but
scientists have advanced conflicting opinions about them, so
that a few words of criticism, and a brief survey of the present
trend of thought among scientists on these matters, will help
to make clear the distinction between the teachings of science
and the private opinion of the scientists.
Sir James Jeans seems to have confused the purely subjective and symbolic world of mathematical physics with the real
world, and thinks that the existence of an external world distinct from and independent of -our thought is only an illusion.
He professes a form of idealism with a Kantian tinge/ 00 for he
100 The New Background
of Science, Cambridge Univ. Press, ·1933, last passage.
The Mysterious Universe, pp. 135 ff.

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believes that the Heisenberg principle has made us give up as
insoluble the enigma of the nature of the physical world, and
bids us turn to the task of introducing order and simplicity into
our thoughts about the world. 101 For him," nature consists of
waves, and these are of the general quality of waves of knowledge, or absence of knowledge, in our mind." 102 'When the
bewildered philosopher turns to another scientist to find out
what this means, he is told that these " waves " are nothing
but mathematical elaborations of the imagina,tion, and that
"Schrodinger's wave-mechanics is not a physical theory but a
dodge-and a very good dodge too," 108 so good, indeed, that it
has tricked Sir James Jeans. But some light breaks on us
when we read that " the ' wave ' represents our knowledge of
the electron. That statement is, however, an inexact way of
emphasizing that the knowledge, not the entity itself, is the
direct object of our study." 104 So this is a confession of pure
idealism, and not merely a scientific theory. 105 If all reality
consists of waves (it does not seem to matter much whether
they are waves of knowledge, or of the absence of knowledge;
we may soon
such a detail is not significant for the
be asked to believe that an earthquake is only a mental storm,
with " waves of knowledge " lashing furiously against the
breakwaters of our mind, and that the mangled bodies of its
victims, its ruined houses and all its track of destruction, are
but the flotsam and jetsam of our mental storm, washed up on
the beach of consciousness.
Sir A. Eddington has also laid himself open to criticism by
concluding that color and such qualities are " mental states,"
Ibid., p. 286.
Presidential Address at the British Association, Aberdeen, Sept. 15th, 1984;
quoted by H. V. Gill, "Physics at the British Association, 1934," in the- Month,
Nov. 1934, p. 428.
10 " Eddington,
The Nature of the Physical World, p. 219.
10 • Eddington,
The Philosophy of Physical Science, p. 51.
105 This idealistic
attitude of Sir James Jeans becomes still more difficult to
understand when we recall that he himself (e. g., The Mysterious Univt'11'8e, pp. 79,
124, U6), professes that the ether and its waves are probably fictitious and that
wave-mechanics is only a mathematical picture, which does not put us into contact
with ultimate reality.
101
102

SCIENCE

AND PHILOSOPHY

119

a sort of " mind-spinning," because protons and electrons and
such things have not these qualities. 106 The physicist is qualified to affirm that such qualities do not pertain to the world
which he considers, but he is not qualified to state which world
they do belong to. If he identifies sensation with mental states,
he is trespassing outside his own domain, and he shows himself
to be rather at sea there. Moreover, if the philosopher admits,
with reservations, that the only essence or nature into which
we have direct insight is our own conscious nature, he is careful to point out that an introspective analysis of conscious
knowledge reveals the existence of another world of reality,
since there could be no such thing as knowledge unless we were
stirred into activity by the activity of objects distinct from
thought. 107 It is contradicting this fundamental insight to
assert that the essence of the physical world is mental, or, as
he naively pnts it, "mind-stuff." 108 He asserts: "We reach
then the position of idealist, as opposed to materialist, philosophy. The purely objective world is the spiritual world;
and the material world is subjective in the sense of selective
subjectivisim." 109 By the term " selective subjectivisim" he
means that scientific knowledge deals with the properties of
physical objects as observable and as generalized into laws, not
as they are objectively, and that this knowledge is determined
by the selective effect of the procedure of observation on which
it relies. 110 If all he means by this is that the world of physical
science is selectively subjective, we quite agree with him; but
in trying to determine the nature of the real world, he is, on
his own confession, acting as a philosopher, not as a scientist,
and he will have to face all the arguments that philosophers
have advanced against idealism.
Of the scientists who hold the truth of the objectivity of the
external world as a primordial postulate of science, we may
Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, cf. pp. 88, 89, 94, Q56, 329.
Cf. S. T., I, 87; De Ver., 10, 8.
108 The Nature of the Physical World, p. 276.
109 The Philosophy
of Physical Science, p. 69.
110 Ibid., ch. Q; cf. pp. VII, 37, 41.
106

107

A. J. MCNICHOLL

quote such illustrious names as Meyerson, Poincare, Duhem,
Bayel, de Broglie, Bohr, Einstein and Planck. It was indeed to
counteract the false conclusions deduced from his own revolutionary quantum theory; as well as to state his own attitude,
that Planck published his very interesting book. 111 He says
that this question cannot be solved by the scientific method,
which is limited to those manifestations of reality that can be
perceived by the senses and accurately measured, and that each
step in the scientific explanation raises more difficult problems.
We have a direct perception of the existence of the external
world and it is useless to try to prove it. It will not do to
divide reality into the " familiar " and the " scientific " worlds;
we must leave room for the most important of all, the real
world, which lies beyond both sense knowledge and scientific
measurement. The world of physics is a hypothetical world,
situated between the world of sense and the world of reality;
" it is a deliberate hypothesis put forward by a finite human
mind," 112 and can therefore claim no more reality than the
world of sense.
The bifurcation of nature into two totally unlike worlds is
entirely artificial and very old. Both the " familiar world "
and the " scientific world " are but partial and phenomenal
views of the one abiding reality, the real world; both are true
in their own way, but both are essentially incomplete. Science
has affirmed the partiality of its view, and philosophy, as
represented by St. Thomas Aquinas, has long since pointed out
the essential relativity of sense-knowledge, since the senses do
not attain the nature of things but only make known things
as they appear, in their outward appearances, and depend to
a large extent on the conditions affecting the sensing subject. 113
The familiar world is indeed formed, to a large extent, of our
own unjustified interpretations of sense data, but this should
111 Where Is Science Going, with a preface
by A. Einstein; trans. by James
Murphy, London, 1933, George Allen and Unwin.
112 M. Planck, The Universe in the Light of Modern Physics, pp .. 9-10.
113 Cf. In Met., Bk. IV, c. 5 sqq., L. 12 sqq., especially L. 14; in De Anima, Bk.
III, L. 5; DeVer., I, 11, 12; S. T., I, 17, 2.

SCIENCE .AND PHILOSOPHY

121

not lead us to deny the validity of sense knowledge. It should
make us try to correct our false interpretations, and science
can aid us greatly in this task. Science has told us that we err
when we interpret our visual and tactual sensations of a table
as postulating the continuity of its material elements. The
senses can only tell us what they are meant to represent, just
as science can only tell us what it, on account of its means
and methods, is meant to represent. We thus get two aspects
of the one table, but neither explains the true nature of the
table. It is a pity that ignorance of the metaphysical notion
of
should lead Sir A. Eddington to confuse substance
with the supposed continuity of the material elements of things,
and thus to deny its reality. All his arguments for the existence of a background to the pointer-readings, or metrical characteristics of things, are very like the philosophical arguments
for the reality of substance as the permanent basis which
sustains the accidental elements in being. This substantial
entity is non-metrical and non-observable, but it is not therefore mental, or " mind-stuff."
It is material (in corporeal
beings), but it cannot be known intuitively, even by the intellect; and it is the duty Of philosophy, not of science, to establish· or deny its existence and to investigate its nature.
Once the reality of substance has been denied, the denial of
causality follows logically, as we have already seen. But
.Eddington and Jeans claim to have done away with strict
causality on purely scientific grounds, by the application of
the quantum theory to electronic physics, a procedure which
at once arouses suspicion, for it is an effort to solve a philosophical problem by scientific methods. The philosopher has
always insisted that empirical science could not discover ontological causality. If that is what Sir Arthur means when he
says: " The result of our analysis of physical phenomena up to
the present is that we have nowhere found any evidence of the
existence of deterministic law," 114 he is only stating an obvious
truth. His notion of causality is entirely uphilosophical, like
114

"Physics and Philosophy,"

in Philosophy, Jan.' 1933, p. 34.

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

that of substance; it is a sort of time-governed linkage between
phenomena 115 and as such has nothing in common with ontological causality. Perhaps the formal thing in this theory is
that science does not concern itself with the task of discovering strict causality; 116 if it affirms the non-existence of such
causality, then it becomes a philosophical theory and must be
criticized as such.
The invocation of Heisenberg's principle to prove that causality does not exist, and .not merely that science does not
concern itself with it, is quite beside the point. It has often
been pointed out that this principle is one not of indeterminacy
but of indeterminability, of
or of uncertainty.117 It does not imply lack of causality in nature, but
asserts the inability of the scientist to determine simultaneously
the position and velocity of intra-atomic entities. And it may
be remarked that this limitation holds good for all observations
of the position and velocity of all moving bodies, not merely of
electrons and protons. A being who knew all about the beings
in question, and whose methods of observation did not affect
either the position or velocity of such bodies, could arrive at
such knowledge; the fact that man cannot, only proves that his
methods of observation are imperfect and his knowledge incomplete. James Murphy, summing up Planck's attitude, says on
this point: "We have no means whatever of proving or disproving the existence of causation in the external world of
nature. . . . [The Heisenberg principle] does not mean that
causal sequence is not actually verified objectively. It means
that we cannot detect its operation, because, as things stand
today, our research instruments and our mental equipment are
not adequate to the task. The Principle of Indeterminacy is,
in reality, an alternative working-hypothesis, which takes the
place of the strictly causal method in quantum physics. But
Cf. The Nature of the Physical World, pp. 295, 296.
This interpretation is confirmed by a passage, op. cit., p. 299.
117 Cf. for instance,
F. R. Hoare, "Indeterminacy and Indeterminism," in Philosophy, Oct. 1932, pp. 394-403; N. Campbell, "The Errors of Sir Arthur Eddington," in Philosophy, April 1931; Max Planck, Where Is Science Going, p. 202.
115
116

SCIENCE

AND PHILOSOPHY

128

Heisenberg himself would be the first to protest against the
idea of interpreting his principle of indeterminacy as tantamount to the denial of the principle of causation." 118 The
philosopher may surely take these statements, indicating the
attitude of one of the most distinguished of modern physicists,
as truly representing the attitude of science today, and is glad
to :find such confirmation of his own views in science itself. As
to the personal opinions of Max Planck, we read: " Here I
must definitely declare my own belief that the assumption of
a strict dynamic causality is to be preferred. . . . I have not
been able to find the slightest reason, up to now, which would
force us to give up the assumption of a strictly law-governed
universe, whether it is a matter of trying to discover the nature
of the physical, or the spiritual, forces around us." 119 If such
a deterministic causality were lacking in objective nature, then
physical science would have no ground for its inductive process,
and some form of subjectivism or scepticism would indeed be
the only possible attitude of scientists. But to deny the existence of strict causality on purely scientific grounds is as absurd
as trying to find the soul with a microscope, and can only lead
to equally disastrous consequences as well as to endless disputes
of no utility whatsoever.
It should scarcely be necessary to state that these :remarks
on the nature of the physical sciences are not motivated by
any desire to minimize their value but rather by a solicitude
that, by demarcating them off from philosophy and indicating
their place in the hierarchy of knowledge, their legitimate
progress may be assured and useless conflict avoided. Sir A.
Eddington has written: " The conflict (between science and
religion) will not be averted unless both sides confine themselves to their proper domain; and a discussion which enables
us to reach a better understanding as to the boundary should
be a contribution towards a state of peace." 120 And if we have
dwelt more on the movement of thought behind scientific
Where Is Science Going, p. 32, 33, Introduction.
Ibid., p. 100.
120 The Nature of the Physical World, p. 351.
118

119

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

theories than on the particular forms they have taken, it IS
because this alone directly interests the philosopher. He is
intensely interested in the dramatic search for truth, wherever
it may be found, but more so with the attitude that science
adopts in its investigation. Epistemology, treating of the nature, value and subordination of the sciences, is a part of
critical metaphysics, and is essentially philosophical. Its neglect has given rise to the errors of positivism and pan-mathematicism which we have been considering. Three centuries of
the empirico-mathematical method have succeeded in turning
our attention to the sensible and have well-nigh stilled in man
the desire for any knowledge except that which is useful in
practical life. This pragmatic outlook renders philosophy,
above all metaphysics, uncongenial to the modern mind. 121 The
idea of searching after truth for its own sake, as a good in
itself and not as a means of extending our power and domination over material forces, seems ridiculous to the modern mentality. This pragmatism is revealed in the question one often
meets: what use is metaphysics? it does not provide us with
new inventions or time-saving devices, or gain us our daily
bread. No, metaphysics is not useful in this sense; it is a good
in itself (bonum honestum) a higher form of good than what
is only useful and therefore more to be desired than it. The
"practical man" will have none of it, however, for he is content with things of a lower order. He regards it as a luxurious
training for the mind, if he does not consider it suspiciously as
mere woolly abstractism.
Beneath this attitude, it is easy to see the anti-intellectualism
fostered by positivism and empiricism. The value of the
abstract-which alone can be the object of science-is denied,
of philosophy dates from the Reformation, which not
>'21 The modern distrust
only divided Christendom into different theological camps but destroyed the unity
of philosophical thought, by rejecting the philosophia perennis that had been the
common patrimony of all Christians. It thus paved the way for divergent theories
of life, and for conflicts on the most vital and important questions. No wonder
that the man in the street is led to believe that there are no common principles
underlying life and its problems, and thus adopts a practical attitude which consists in, facing each problem as it comes and in the best way possible.

SCIENCE

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125

and the value of intellectual knowledge is consequently
doubt. If we would characterize pre-modern
essential difference from modern thm.ight, we would say
the former was abstractive, informed by the process
tion, whereas modem thought is mainly inductive and empiricaL122 That is why metaphysics, and philosophy
could be so cultivated in the past and is so neglected
Metaphysics is the assertion of the power of the mind to
to the realm of essences underlying the sensible phenomena, to
penetrate within the data of sensible experience to
intelthus
ligible necessities which surpass all sense-knowledge,
to attain to super-experimental knowledge of absolute certainty. H being as such is the object of the intellect, it is in
the science of being as such that the intellect is most true to
itself and most certain. But we are not gifted with an insight
into the nature of things; and only by a long and arduous
process can we ascend from the visible and concrete, by means
of the intelligible causations implied in the world, to the full
vision of the transcendental realm of eternal and changeless
truth, The task of unifying the partial and complementary
views of reality into one final and supreme synthesis, by which
all beings may be contemplated in their prototype and source
and all judgments seen in the supreme principle of thought,
will take us a lifetime, even though others have already traced
out the path. This final intuition has ever been the aim and
end of philosophers as well as of mystics, and Bergson has
shown that it can only be gained at the price of years of intense
study and devotion to truth, But the prize is worth the
struggle, and the joys of contemplation are sweetest of all. vVe
find that the good in itself is not useful, because it transcends
that which we call useful, because it is super-useful, and that it
is of far more value to us than those limited goods which
serve us.
12 ,2 Cf. Mgr.
F. Olgiati, "Italian Neo-Scholasticism and its Relation to Other
Philosophical Currents," in Present Day Thinkers and the N eJW Scholasticism,
edited by John S, Zybura, Ph. D., St. Louis and London, l9Z6, Herder, Part H,
ch. 8.

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

M. Maritain gives expression to this thought, saying: " What
we need is not truths which serve us, but a truth which we
serve; for truth is the food of the spirit, and we are spirits by
the better part of ourselves. The useless metaphysics orders
our speculative and practical intellect, not an order such as the
policeman enforces, but an order springing from eternity. It
gives man his balance and movement ... it unravels to him
in all the extent of being, the authentic values and their
hierarchy. It centers his ethics; it gives to the universe of his
knowledge its just place, assuring its natural limits, and the
harmony and subordination of the different sciences; 123 and
that is more important for man than all the luxuriant fruitfulness of the mathematics of phenomena, for what does it profit
a man to gain the whole world, and to lose the rightness of
reason." 124
Physical science will make many errors and its true progress
will be greatly retarded if the validity and necessity of a supporting metaphysics is not recognized. The contempt for this
supreme science which one so often meets among scientists
arises from a complete ignorance as to its true nature and leads
to indescribable confusion and to the most absurd aberrations.
The scientist uses, in the actual exercise of his science, many
philosophical notions which he takes for granted, such as the
existence of things independently of thought, the possibility of
knowing them in some way, and the necessity of the supreme
principles of reason. He has a certain idea of the nature of his
12 " The need for this function
of metaphysics is stressed by Hutchins, op. cit.,
pp. 99, 101: "Metaphysics, then, as the highest science, ordered the thought of
the Greek world, as theology ordered that of the Middle Ages. One or the other
must be called upon to order the thought of modern times. . . . Both are totally
missing today. And with them has gone any intelligible basis for the study of man
in his relations with other men. . . . A similar degradation overtakes natural science. If the world has no meaning, if it presents itself to us as a mass of equivalent data, then the pursuit of truth for its own sake consists of the indiscriminate
accumulation of data. . . . We believe, then, that if we can gather enough information about the world we can master it. Since we do not know precisely which
facts will prove to be helpful, we gather them all and hope for the best. This is
what we call the scientific spirit."
124 Les Degres du Savoir, pp. 9, 10.

SCIENCE

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127

science and its position in the hierarchy of knowledge, and
supposes that his ideas are distinct from the objects which he
considers. This pre-philosophy may be rudimentary and unconscious, but it is none the less real for that. If the only
science which can justify these presumptions is held in contempt, physical science itself will suffer and will be deprived
of all its reference to objectivity. 125 The sciences also have
reference indirectly to the being of things as to the foundation
of the explanatory representations which they elaborate. Since
they depend on observation, and thus on the intuition of the
senses, they, like the senses, declare implicitly the existence in
the world of hidden ontological structures, which, however,
transcend the scope of science. 126
In an era of countless inventions and great material advancement, dominated by the gospel of progress, it is but natural
that we should be inclined to neglect the ancient philosophers
who have spoken for all time. We are so impressed by the
progress of the sciences that we assume that similar progress
has been made in all the other fields of thought, and we think
it a waste of time to read anything but the most modern books
or to discuss anything but the current events. 127 We thus cast
125 There are signs that scientists
are coming to recognize the need of metaphysics from a purely scientific point of view. Sir Arthur Eddington's book, The
Philosophy of Physical Science, seeks to formulate the philosophy to which scientists stand committed by their practice. The recent developments of science force
scientists to inquire into the nature of the knowledge they try to obtain and to
invesigate the scope and validity of the observational processes used in science. Sir
Arthur, however, is mistaken in thinking .that epistemology pertains to science.
He realizes that it treats of the nature of knowledge (pp. I, ZZ, etc.) and sometimes says that it is a part of philosophy. In other places (pp. 18, 49, sqq.) he
says that it is a part of physics. This is in direct contradiction with what he has
said on the scope of physical science, which is concerned with measurements and
does not treat of the nature of things.
126 Cf. Maritain,
op. cit., pp. SOl, SOZ.
127 Cf. Hutchins,
op. cit., pp. Z4, Z5, Z6: "Our notion of progress is that everything is getting better and must be getting better from age to age. Our information is increasing. Our scientific knowledge is expanding. Our technological equipment in its range and excellence is far superior to what our fathers or even our
older brothers. knew. . . . In intellectual fields we have no hesitancy in breaking
completely with the past; the ancients did not know the things we know; they

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

aside the grand intellectual heritage of past ages, as if only the
moderns had anything of importance to say to us, as if they
alone had the monopoly of eternal truth. We forget that
human nature is essentially the same now as when Aristotle
walked in the cloisters of the Lyceum, or when Aquinas was
lost in contemplation in his narrow cell; that nature presented
the same problems then as now; and that truth founded on
the essences of things is as unchanging and eternal as the
essences themselves. A perverted sense of values has led us to
regard what is new as what is better, and what is more detailed
as more profound. The craze for innovation, which has characterized the world since the reformers broke away from all tradition, has fostered this false notion of progress, and in the search
for novelty we have lost what had already been acquired.
" Those who were eagerly grasping at new truths were almost
indifferently dropping certain older truths. This is the constant
Nemesis of what we call 'Progress.' Any new, or even rediscovered, truth is, for the moment, more important for us than
what we already know. Men will die to make a very small
discovery; but when it is made, and securely our own, it falls
into its proper place, and is seen to be far less important than
some of our former knowledge." 128 Man directs his life to the
attainment of happiness, and applies his knowledge to reaching
those conditions which will realize this happiness. Experience
and such application add to the sum of knowledge, and most
instruments are perfected through experience. But things are
had never seen steam engines or aeroplanes or radios, and seem to have little
appreciation of the factory system. Since these are among the central facts of our
lives, how can the ancients have anything to say to us? The tremendous strides
of science and technology seemed to be the result of the accumulation of data.
The more information, the more discoveries, the more inventions, the more progress.
The way to progress was therefore to get more information.
The sciences broke
off from philosophy, and then from one another, and that process is still going
on. . . . We begin, then, with a notion of progress, and end with an anti-intellectualism which denies, in effect, that man is a rational animal." For a penetrating discussion of the nature and value of progress, the reader is referred to
Christopher Dawson, Progress and Religion, London, 1938, Sheed and Ward,
Unicorn Books.
128 Noyes, op. cit., p. 59.

SCIENCE

AND PHILOSOPHY

129

not only discovered during this gradual process; they are also
forgotten. 129 " The advancement of knowledge in one direction does not necessarily mean that we have added to our
knowledge as a whole. The human mind is so eonstituted that,
when it acquires a new truth, it sometimes drops, not only an
old error, but an old truth." 130
Time not only brings new knowledge, it also tests the enduring power and inner vitality of truth once acquired. No philosophy has stood this test better than the philosophia perennis,
initiated by the Greeks and welded into a magnificent synthesis
by St. Thomas Aquinas. Apart from its inherent power to
satisfy the deepest cravings of the mind after truth, to solve
modern problems, to assimilate all the new findings of lasting
philosophical value, as well as to impart a deeper significance
to modern scientific theories/ 31 its survival and development
down the ages and its amazing spread in our own day are signs
of its eternal truth. The body of old and disproved scientific
theories has been cast off, but it never was an essential, or
even an integral, part of the philosophical system, just as the
scientific theories of today, or of tomorrow, do not form part
of our philosophy. The soul of this philosophy remains the
same, though the body. of scientific thought which it informs
renews itself from age to age. We do not claim that nothing
new or important has been said since the Middle Ages; there
is no philosophy that has not some truth in it, and many old
truths have been considerably developed in their applications
since the days of the Scholastics. The philosophia perennis is
a signpost, not a boundary, as P. SertiUanges has said. Its
eternal principles are directive of life and thought and its
assimilative force is inexhaustible. It is as if the great philosophers of the past were content, nay, ardently inspired, to
formulate these unchanging truths which are vitally necessary
to man in his quest for truth and in his practical life, leaving
Cf. Hilaire Belloc, "Progress," in Studies, Dec. 1920, pp. 497-511.
op. cit., p. 137.
point, cf. J. Maritain, Le Docti'JUr Angelique, Paris, 1930, Desclee,
" 1 On this
ch. 3: "L'Apotre des Temps Modernes."
1 ·2 •

130 Noyes,

9

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A. J. MCNICHOLL

to later ages the task of developing the particular sciences, a
task which only centuries of detailed research could fulfil. It
will be distasteful to the modern mind to be asked to return to
these great pioneers of thought, who have never since been surpassed. The labor of separating the grain from the chaff, the
underlying truths from the scientific theories invoked as examples, and the strangeness of the terminology, which, despite
its literary crudeness, was exact, 132 make this return doubly
difficult. But this task has been performed, and is still being
continued, by men who have dedicated their lives to opening
up to the world this unfailing well of truth. It is from this
well that we have drawn in these pages in order to outline the
respective positions of philosophy and science, and to indicate
that the old philosophy and the new science are not antagonists
but partners in the common quest of truth.

A. J. McNICHOLL, O.P.
St. Mary's, Tallaght,
Dublin, Ireland

18 °Cf. Prof. G. Santayana, in Zybura, op. cit., p. 74: "The fixity and clearness
of the Scholastic vocabulary are a relief from the Babel of figurative terms and
perverse categories confusing modern philosophy, and making the despair of anyone
who wishes to think cogently and not to be misunderstood."

BOOK REVIEWS
Carmelite and Poet: A Framed Portrait of Saint John of the Cross, with
his poems in Spanish. By RoBERT SENCOURT. New York: The
Macmillan Co., 1944. Pp. xiii + 274, with index. $3.00.
Previous reviewers have judged that, although this book was written
with genuine enthusiasm, it is "too wordy and woolly," contains a few
historical errors, adds nothing to the extensive literature on the saint, and
exhibits a considerable lack of theological background. It is unnecessary
for us to cover this ground again. Instead, we shall try to indicate the
fundamental weakness in the author's portrayal of St. John as a mystic.
We shall not, therefore, comment upon Mr. Sencourt's conception of St.
John the poet. It is our belief that the author of Carmelite and Poet has
failed to grasp the doctrinal unity binding the saint's works into one; nor
has he understood the supernatural principle of grace operating as the
basis of the saint's teaching. This has resulted in a poorly "framed
portrait" of St. John of the Cross as the great mystical doctor.
St. John's doctrinal unity is apparent in his four major works, which
form the " summa" of his teaching and are undoubtedly authentic: The
Ascent of Mount Carmel, The Dark Night of the Soul, The Spiritual
Canticle, The Living Flame of Love. In addition, there are poems, letters,
and maxims. Although a number of the letters have been lost or destroyed, nevertheless we have, in the four above-mentioned works, the
complete teaching of the saint of Carmel. Scholars disagree as to their
chronological order, but that matters little. All the works were written
within a few years of each other, and St ..John was in full possession of his
complete doctrine when he began to write. What is to be- noted is the
logical sequence in which we have listed the books. The saint is inflexibly
logical; and his works, therefore, demand attentive and repeated reading.
So carefully are they knit together that only constant study, as he himself warns us (The Ascent, Prologue, n. 8), will reveal the train of thought
that runs a straight course through them.
But what is this thread of doctrine that so harmoniously weaves through
St. John's works and makes of them a whole? It is his teaching on the
meaning of perfect union of the soul with God, and a thorough description
on how to arrive there. The frontispiece of the critical edition of The
Ascent of Mount Carmel, which is also reproduced in the English translation of Peers, contains an original sketch by St. John showing the road
to perfection and the summit that is to be reached. In this allegorical

131

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REVIEWS

sketch is contained,
the central theme of his whole doctrine.
AH his
works
either the summit of the mount, or the path
leading to iL We grasp their value when we reflect that the Carmelite
friar, having reached the summit of perfection,
now looking down
explaining the direct
that leads to the top of the mount and pointing
out the two side-paths, hall' way up the mountain, that lead to thick
entangling forests and impassable hills beyond which there is no advance.
That St. John teaches only one direct way to the summit and only one
type of divine union (and that mystical), which he also calls the state
of perfection, can be proved from the fact that his description of divine
union is one and the same in all his works. By this union he means simply
the conformity of the creature's will with the will of God. Not any conformity, but
conformity is the summit of Carmel toward which we
dimb. Even in The Ascent, this is the goal placed before generous souls.
But the saint does not teach that all souls must reach the same high
degree, or that the union is realized in the same manner by all. " The
state of this divine union consists in the soul's total transformation, according to the will, in the will of God, so that there may be naught in the
soul that is contrary to the will of God, but that, in all and through all, its
movement may be that of the will of God alone" (The Ascent, B. I, Ch.
n, n. cf. Ibid., B. H, Ch. 5, n. 3) .1
This perfect conformity is not the work of man alone. It demands
more than ascetic labor: it calls for the infused movements of the Holy
Spirit, if a perfect soul is to be forged. Thus, this state of union has an
element of passivity about it that makes it mysticaL " Wherefore the
functions of the memory and of the other faculties in this state (of union)
are all divine; for, when at last God possesses the faculties and has become
the entire master of them, through their transformation into Himself, it is
He Himself who moves and commands them divinely, according to His
Divine Spirit and will; and the result of this is that the operations of the
soul are not distinct, but all that it does is of God, and its operations are
divine" (The Ascent, B. III, Ch.
n. 8).
Writing some time later in The Living Flame of Love, the saint holds
tenaciously to the same explanation. " All the movements and operations
which the soul had aforetime, and which belonged to the principle and
strength of its natural life, are now in this union changed into divine
movements, dead to their own operation and inclination and alive in God.
For the soul, like the true daughter of God that it now is, is moved wholly
by the Spirit of God, even as St. Paul teaches, saying: That they that are
1 All quotations
from St. John are taken from Peers, E. Allison, The Complete
Works of Saint John of the Cross, translated from the critical edition of Silverio
de Santa Teresa, 0. D. C., London (l934), 3 vols.

REVIEWS

133

moved by the spirit of God are sons of God Himself" (S. II, n. 34; cf.
The Spiritual Canticle, XII, 10; XXVII,
The union is the same in all his works. The Ascent and The Dark Night
merely point out the goal while explaining at length the way to. it. The
Spiritual Canticle and The Living Flame, on the other hand, relate ex
professo the experiences of the soul that enjoys the perfect union with God
on the summit of the mount.
We have insisted upon this logical connection because there are some
spiritual writers who claim that the union with God described in these
works is not a union identical in nature. If their opinion were true, then
there would be no doctrinal unity in the works of St. John. He would be
explaining two different unions with God, one which may be termed
ascetical, and the other, mystical. There would be then two different roads,
the ascetical as described in The Ascent, and the mystical as described in
The Dark Night. The practical conclusion would be that those not called
to the mystical life should content themselves with the teaching of The
Ascent alone. But it is clear from our quotations that the end pointed
out in The Ascent is identical with that of The Living Flame.
Mr. Sencourt admits doctrinal unity in broad outline, but he fails to
explain precisely what it is. Nor does he give a clear idea of the nature
of the divine union, which we have discussed above. From his discussion
of the relation between The Ascent and The Dark Night, it seems that he
is unaware of their complementary necessity on the road to perfection.
What is the relation of The Ascent to The Dark Night? Both explain
the way to union. Both point out the straightest path leading to the
summit. They form, in reality, one single treatise. Both explain the
nights, that is, the detachment from creatures and self that the soul must
undergo to reach union with God. This purgation, which leaves the soul
arid and without consolation, is rightly described as a period of darkness, a night. There are two nights-the night of t4e senses and the
night of the spirit-which correspond to the sensitive and the spiritual
parts of human nature. Each night has an active and a passive aspect.
When the soul is the predominant agent in the purification of the senses
or the spirit, the action is called active purification. When God is the
predominant agent, it is called passive purification. The active purification is explained in The Ascent, the passive in The Dark Night. The first
thirteen chapters of the former explain the active purification, and since
this is the work of beginners, it is the easiest to understand. Due to this
ready intelligibility, some stop reading here in the belief that this part is
meant for all, but the remainder only for the select few. They fail to see
that The Ascent and The Dark Night are so related that the teaching of
both is necessary for divine union. The two works are not different roads
leading to different goals; they are not parallel, but complementary. Nor

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REVIEWS

does The Dark Night merely repeat more extensively what was said in
The Ascent. The Dark Night explains the passive purification without
which the soul could not advance to the summit. " And the divine effects
which God causes in the soul when He has granted it this habit, both as
to the understanding and as to the memory and will, we shall not describe
in this account of the noul's active purgation and night, for by this alone
the soul does not completely attain divine union. We shall speak of these
·effects, however, in treating of the passive night, by means of which is
brought about the union of the soul with God" (The Ascent, B. III; Ch. 2,
n. 14).
Mr. Sencourt has not perceived this essential relation. He regards The
Dark l'{ight as a more elaborate exposition of what was said in The Ascent.
" The saint felt he must go over the ground once more " (p. 136) . The
author, however, does not bring out the fact that the passive purification is
a complementary and necessary step in the soul's ascent. Indeed, he
seems to place so much emphasis on the passionate poetry of The Darlc
Night that he overshadows the predominant purpose of the saint's writings: " To direct the soul through all its natural and supernatural apprehensions in purity of faith to divine union with God" (The Ascent, B. II,
Ch. 28, 1).
It will easily be seen from our previous exposition of the saint's teaching
why we must reject the theme of Transcendence and Immanence which
Mr. Sencourt has inserted therein. By the way of transcendence the
mystic goes directly to God, stripping himself of all the joy he might find
in created things. But, having arrived at the state of union, he sees all
beauty in God, and through God all created beauty, which before he
relinquished and now begins to enjoy. In a burst of enthusiasm Mr.
Sencourt writes: "Try as he might to put by the beautiful things he loved,
and so worship the invisible alone, he was aware that he loved them
still; they opened his secret raptures" (p. 147). St. John, as we have
seen, admits only one way, that of total abnegation. Even in The Spiritual
Canticle and The Living Flame, he recalls his advice of a negation that he
elaborated in the other two treatises. But one must understand this total
abnegation. John does not demand a suppression of the sensitive life, but
its perfect ::;ubjection to the spiritual life. Even on the way to God
(way of transcendence, to use Sencourt's phrase) the sensible and the
beautiful may be used as long as we are not attached to them, and they
lead us to God. Therefore, at least here there is no room for the theory
of transcendence and immanence.
We come now to our second observation. How does the soul climb the
mount and unite itself to God? Is it capable of uniting itself to God
under its own power? The nature of the divine union is difficult to understand. It is a union in Faith and Charity. One must experience it, we are

REVIEWS

135

told, in order to understand it fully. But, since mysticism depends on
dogma for its interpretation, we can at least know the theological background which St. John used to explain it. It is here that Sencourt leaves
the reader confused. As we have said, for St. John union with God is a
mystical state, that is, a state in which the soul is passive under motions
of the Holy Spirit. It is a union in the supernatural order, the attainment of which is above all the efforts of man. Catholic theology teaches
that man lives in a supernatural state destined for a supernatural end,
the vision of the Triune God. This state and end, therefore, is a pure
gift of God to which man by nature has no title. Sanctifying grace is the
divine quality which lifts the soul of man above the natural order, makes
him a consort of divine life, an adopted son of God; and it is the seed of
glory. But even as a son of God man cannot lift himself up into the
mystical state of union. This, too, is another gift of God. Man might
prepare himself but God gives Himself to whomever He wishes and whenever He wishes (The Dark Night, B. I, Ch. 9, n. 9). Theologians differ
as to whether this mystical union described by St. John, which he also
calls the state of perfection, is the ordinary terminus of all those who reach
sanctity, or whether it is an extraordinary gift reserved for a select few.
Yet they all agree that it is a special divine gift above the natural power
and needs of man. It is here that Christian mysticism differs from all
forms of natural or diabolical mysticism.
There are, for example, natural mystics who have many good qualities.
Many of their characteristics resemble those of the Christian mystics.
They retire from the world, seek solitude and silence, curtail sensible
pleasures, undergo painful purification of the soul, meditate by their
natural powers on the beauty of nature and the greatness of God. They
even aspire to a contemplation of the divine nature which they know
from natural reason, but this effort is usually crowned with tension and
exhaustion. For them contemplation is an end; for the Christian it is only
an attitude of the soul; love of the Triune God is the end.
Furthermore, these natural mystics use expressions, aspirations, and
other forms of prayer which are almost identical with those of the Christian mystics. This should not surprise us, since Christian mysticism does
not destroy human nature, but supposes it, perfects it, and transforms it.
Yet in spite of these similarities these natural mystics remain deprived
of grace and of a divine call, and by their own effort they are incapable
of attaining to the intuition of, and union with, the Trinity. Strive as
they might, they can never attain supernatural Faith and Charity by their
own efforts in o!'der to enter into the very life of God. We should never
bf: deceived by mere resemblances.
Now it is precisely this distinction that Carmelite and Poet fails to
evaluate properly. To be sure, Sencourt admits a distinction between the

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REVIEWS

natural and the supernatural.
In his Introduction he reminds the reader
tl1at Christian mysticism is unique. But in the body of the book his loose
modes of expression give the impression that the author has not understood the matter. Sencourt, lost in the wonders of the saint's poetry,
tends to obscure the theme of the poet by concentrating on the resemblances that are found in common with some English poets (p. 219). A
true portrait might justifiably include these resemblances, but it certainly
would sharply distinguish them, depicting in fuller color the unique position
of Catholic mysticism.
Natural contemplation of beauty, no matter how intense, that finally
results in mental quietness, does not lead to sanctity in divine union. It
has only a resemblance to Christian contemplation.
The mental quiet in
natural mysticism can be acquired by human effort. The prayer of quiet
mentioned by St. Teresa and St. John is a gift of God beyond the grasp
and the power of unaided human nature. It is misleading to say: "The
better way can never be learned except by those who have made effort
enough, or endured enough, to have their nerves tired out " (p. 150) .
The framed portrait by Sencourt lacks firmness of shape and outline
because the author lost sight of and failed to understand the central theme
that runs through the major works of St. John: The direction of souls to
divine union with an explanation of all the natural and supernatural
(visions, ecstasies, etc.) apprehensions of the soul along the way and in
the highest degree of union.
Our criticism of Carmelite and Poet has been of necessity completely
adverse because we have limited it to what we believe is fundamental to
an understanding of the mystic. It would appear from Mr. Sencourt's
Introduction that he was well aware of the path he had to follow-indeed,
he approached his task with genuine enthusiasm. It is regrettable that he
has not succeeded in achieving his purpose.
REv. KILIAN HEALY, 0. Carm.
Whitefriars Hall, Washington

The Judgement of the Nations. By CHRISTOPHER DAwsoN.
Sheed & Ward, 1942. Pp. 2£2. $2.75.

New York:

Most books, if they are not reviewed as soon as they are published,
need not be reviewed at all. Others, either because of the authority of
the author or the importance of the content, can always be profitably
considered. In the case of the present work, it is fortunate that we can
consider it now and ask some questions about it that might have been
more disturbing and more easily dismissed if they had been brought up
sooner.

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187

I

Mr. Dawson's intention in this his latest work is clearly practical in nature-to heal the dissension and disunities of nations through a return to
the love and service of God. It includes an analysis of the forces that
brought about the present diseased state of the world and a discussion of
the measures necessary to bring about a cure, if that is possible. Western
civilization has reached a judging point in its history: it has two alternatives-a continuation on the path to destruction or a complete Christian
renewal.
The work has two main divisions: the first part exposes the historical
forces which brought European civilization to its present state (The
Disintegration of Western Civilization); the second part is more patently
theological and attempts to show the Christian principles that must underlie any enduring and just civilization (The Restoration of a Christian
Order).
The scientific and technological advances of the last few centuries have
become the primary instruments of the greatest effort ever attempted to
destroy and subjugate man; consequently the present crisis is unequalled
by anything in history. There are two reasons for this. First of all, the
nations that are making the greatest bid for power ever attempted have
weapons, both physical and psychological, unknown to previous conquerors.
Secondly, the civilization which is threatened with destruction is a Christian civilization, whose fall would be incalculably more disastrous than the
fall of the Roman Empire.
In the face of this totalitarian drive for power, liberal humanism, the
secularized version of Christianity, which was the enemy of the last
century, is no longer to be regarded unqualifiedly as an enemy. It is also
threatened by the new enemy, an enemy so menacing that in its presence
the partial conflicts dividing Western civilization acquire a different
aspect. For now the very existence of our whole culture is at stake; in
such a situation cooperation with any elements that uphold freedom is to
be desired. The great danger of the present war is that in the very struggle
democracy will suffer defeat from within. For it is possible that the
exigencies of the present moment may force the democratic nations to
organize their life on totalitarian lines. At stake is the civilization built on
Christian principles and the western ideal of liberty. This war is a war for
democracy; the author is careful, however, to exclude from this any idea
of equalitarianism. " Still less are we fighting for the squalid prosperity of
the economic liberalism of the last century. What we have to defend is,
to quote Cardinal Lienart's words, 'a human and Christian civilization
built with infinite patience,' a work to which many races and schools of
thought have contributed century after century" (p. fl4) .

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The author lays emphasis on the fact that the present world conflict is
basically a conflict between contrary conceptions of the natural law and
their consequent public moralities. Luther's view of the natural law is the
force behind German culture, while Calvin's view, which, according to
Dawson, is fundamentally identical with the Catholic conception, is the
spiritual inspiration behind Western democracy. "This Lutheran tradition with its strange dualism of pessimism and faith, other-worldliness and
world affirmation, passive quietism and crude acceptance of the reign of
force, has been a most powerful forc.e in the formation of the German
mind and the German social attitude " (p. 43) . "Here Luther's cult of
force and his ' natural law of irrationalism ' becomes transformed into the
cult of militarism and of a non-moral or super-moral Machtpolitik" (p.
44).
Part of Mr. Dawson's thesis is that modern democracy is peculiarly the
product of Calvinism and the free churches.
Thus the Cromwellian
commonwealth was the starting point of the new civilization which stressed
freedom of conscience and the person as absolute rights bestowed by God
and nature. In America, the Calvinism of New England led to the pronouncement of the rights of man in our Constitution and inaugurated
political democracy. Summing up, the author says: "Thus the modern
Western belief in progress, in the rights of man and the duty of conforming political action to moral ideals, whatever they may owe to other
influences, derive ultimately from the moral ideals of Puritanism and its
faith in the possibility of the realization of the Holy Community on earth
by the efforts of the elect. While the German combination of realism and
mysticism, of external discipline and internal anarchy, which is so alien to
our way of thought, has its roots in the Lutheran world view with its
concepts of the mighty forces of irrational nature and irresistible grace ''
(p. 51)
Mr. Dawson places the ultimate cause of the disunity of our civilization
in the fact that religion, which should be a unifying force, is itself in a
state of disunity. It is this religious disunity that is the cause of our
secularized civilization. This, he maintains, is a unique problem in world
history, " the problem of a state of dislocation between religion and culture; in other words, the problem of a secularized culture " (p. 97) . The
banishment of the Christian Faith doomed Europe to disunity and collapse,
for Europe, unlike, for example, China or India, has no natural bond of
unity; the spiritual community of the Church furnished the only bond.
The author carefully separates the ideological basis of
from
the many variegated manifestations which have passed under this somewhat ambivalent name. He finds this basis in the ideal of freedom, which,
rather than equality, has been the spiritual ideal of Western culture. His
0

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139

acceptation of the term freedom is not defined; he says merely that he does
not mean the " lawless individualism of the barbarians."

II
The second part of Mr. Dawson's book regards the task of restoration
from an explicitly theological viewpoint. The idea of a planned society is
discussed. Because of the primacy of the Spirit, the author insists that the
vitalizing power of any culture must come from its subordination to the
spiritual. The failure of our secularized culture makes this more evident.
The redeeming power of God's grace is efficacious to save not only individual sinners but also erring civilizations; the importance of this principle is paramount today for what is at stake is not the collapse of a
Christian culture but rather the collapse of the secularized culture that has
taken its place. The new state claims control of the whole of human life,
and the inventions of science make this possible to an extent never before
dreamed of by rulers of the past. "No human power can stop this progress
to the abyss. It can only come about by a profound movement of conversion which brings the human spirit once more into vital relation with the
Spirit of God " (p. 157) .
Religious division, as has been shown, is one of the primary causes of
the present world situation; Mr. Dawson concludes that a return to religious unity is a necessary condition for the restoration of the spiritual
community of Europe. He holds that cooperation among the various
religious bodies is essential and that such cooperation is possible on the
basis of the traditions, beliefs, moral values, sacraments and forms of
worship held in common. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and
charity provide the best basis for unity in the intellectual as well as the
spiritual sphere. More immediately, he is persuaded that our age is more
favorable to Christian unity than any since the Reformation; for as their
religion is becoming that of a persecuted minority, the pressure of hostile
forces may well force Christians to unite against a common enemy; " or it
may be that the Church will react positively to the situation by a fresh
outpouring of the apostolic spirit, as Bl. Grignon de Montfort prophesied
two centuries ago " (p. 182) .
On the political level the problem is to find a center of unity between
individual states and one world organization.
The author suggests the
creation of " not a League of Nations, but a confederation, a league of
federations, based on community of culture and each organized as a society
of nations of states with autonomous rights" (p. 214). But he finds the
difficulties inherent in such a plan so great that they far exceed the scope
of the politician or economist. " The reconciliation of the nations can only
be accomplished on a deeper plane than that of political power or economic

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interest. It is essentially a spiritual task which demands the spiritual
vision that is Faith and the spiritual will that is Charity" (p.

Ill
It is with some hesitation that we approach the critical part of our
review; yet, after due consideration, we have been forced to the conclusion
that this present work of Mr. Dawson is puzzling and disturbing. Many
times it is difficult to recognize that the man who wrote Religion and the
Modern State and Beyond Politics is also the author of The Judgement of
Nations. The author's views in this book are sharply at variance with
those advanced in previous works; moreover, there are numerous inconsistencies in the arguments advanced; most notable of all, there is a
persistent vagueness and ambiguity, chiefly in the use of several important
terms.
We shaH start with the last point; the best example of this is the use of
the term democracy.
On p.
the author means by democracy selfgovernment, based on the ideal of personal liberty, embodied in representative or parliamentary institutions.
On p. 24, he says he does not mean by
democracy merely political institutions.
He calls democracy the spiritual
heir of Christendom, then shows how it is a product of Calvinism and
puritanism.
Could not Nazism also be called the spiritual heir of Christendom, since, as Dawson points out, it is in many respects the product
of Lutheranism?
He then says that democracy is not an adequate name
for the set of values we are defending; in another place he identifies
democracy with our whole Christian civilization, and all that is good in it.
In previous works Mr. Dawson has shown that liberal democracy is but
another form of the universal tendency today toward the growing influence
of the state in the life of the individual; it is the counterpart of the totalitarian state proportioned to the humanitarian traditions of the Western
countries as Nazism is proportioned to the German militarist tradition,
He has
analyzed the extension of the function of the state and its
growing demands upon the life of the individual to the point that the
individual is more and more moulded by the dominant ideology of the
state; and the ideology of the democratic state has been the primacy of
economic ends. As he had well said elsewhere: "We can already discern
the beginnings of this paternal-democratic regime in England and can see
how all the apparatus of the social services-universal secondary education,
birth control clinics, antenatal clinics, welfare centers, and the rest-may
become instruments of a collective despotism which destroys human liberty
and spiritual initiative as effectively as any communist or Nazi terrorism"
(Religion and the Modern State. New York: Sheed & Ward, p. 106). "It
may be harder to resist a totalitarian state which relies on birth-control

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141

clinics and free milk than one which relies on castor oil and concentration
camps " (Zoe. cit.) .
There are, of course, many traces of his previous position on democracy
interwoven with his new identification of democracy with Christian civilization; this only makes his present position difficult to understand.
Previously Mr. Dawson has insisted on the distinction between English
Parliamentarianism and French democracy, and emphasized the error that
follows from a facile identification of the two. He has also said: "The
truth is, unpalatable though it may be to modern ' progressive thought,'
that democracy and dictatorship are not opposites or mortal enemies, but
twin children of the great Revolution, and that the English political system
is immune from the tendency towards dictatorship because it is not democratic in the full sense of the word, but rather liberal and aristocratic "
(Beyond Politics. New York: Sheed & Ward, pp. 40-1).
The same difficulty is found with the author's use of the term freedom.
Nowhere does he give an adequate definition of his use of the word. And
since he equates liberalism with freedom, this confusion extends to the
former word as well. Mr. Dawson says that freedom or liberty is central
in the Western tradition and hence in modern democracy. But one wonders
to what kind of freedom he is referring. He says that it is not the freedom
of economic individualism or lawless barbarism. His one positive statement is correct but limited: referring to a social order that has Christian
freedom as its basis, he says: "This means that it must be a social order
directed to spiritual ends, in which every man has a chance to use his
freedom for the service of God according to his powers and gifts" (p. 185).
But this one oblique statement seems hardly sufficient in a book that is
primarily about the necessity of preserving this Western ideal of freedom.
The necessity of an adequate analysis of the ChristiaFl ideal of freedom
becomes more apparent in the face of the pernicious errors widespread in
the modern world concerning its nature. Human freedom has been exalted
to the status of a first principle; the very indeterminacy of the human will,
which is properly an imperfection and as such is potent to draw down the
divine mercy, has been glorified as a perfection. This is an abomination
well calculated to cut off mankind from the divine mercy, for no one is less
worthy of mercy than the "poor proud man.'' Has Mr. Dawson any
assurance that he will not be understood to be speaking of this kind of
freedom, which is the dominant conception of democratic society. It might
even be thought that the Church sanctions this perverted doctrine of
freedom, which is the fruit of man's pride and has more affinity with the
French Revolution t1Ian with Catholic doctrine.
In previous works Mr. Dawson had clear and definite views on the relation between individual freedom and state authority, and, consequently,
on the relation between the common good and the individual good. (Cf.

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"Catholic Doctrine of the State," in Religion and the Modern State.) In
the present work he seems to have reacted against totalitarianism in such
a way as to deny the truth that it distorts, that is, the principle of community, which is the force behind the totalitarian doctrine. He now places
undue emphasis on the individual good and the freedom of the individual.
At bottom his difficulty seems to involve an erroneous conception of the
common good. Thus, he says: "Western democracy has been the will to
erect a society which . . . protected . . . the freedom of the individual
against the unlimited authority of the state itself." From one viewpoint
this is but the outgrowth of defending the freedom of the individual against
the unlimited authority of God Himself; just as totalitarianism is the outgrowth of the complete denial of human freedom from the Lutheran view
of Divine omnipotence. Mr. Dawson quotes Burke with approval: "All
the old countries of Europe were agreed on the common principle that the
state is made for the people, and not the people conformed to the state,
but England differed from the rest in that it made personal liberty a direct
object of government and refused to sacrifice the individual to the community or the part to the whole" (p. 185). Both of these statements err
in this, that they singularize the common good and thus make the common
good and the private good alien goods, as though the common good were
not the greater good of the individual, and as though the true private
good could be opposed to the common good. The state becomes an alien
power against which the individual must continually defend himself. In
this the individualistic and totalitarian theories of government agree, for
they both deny the community of the common good. Civil life becomes
a warfare between two powers-individual freedom and the omnipotent
state; either the state dominates the individuals or the individuals, with
their individual good exalted to the status of an end superior even to the
common good, dominate the state.

IV
Although Mr. Dawson is well aware of the various anti-Christian forces
that have contributed to the breakdown of our culture, he also points out
that " we cannot refuse all responsibility and put the blame on tl1e
shoulders of the rationalists and anti-clericals. For ... the primary cause
of the secularization of Western culture has been the religious divisions of
Christians. Behind the present crisis in Europe there lie centuries of religious disunity and strife which have divided men's minds in the spiritual
order itself and which have destroyed the bonds of charity which alone
can transcend the conflict of material interests and the corporate selfishness of classes and peoples" (pp. 191-2). Now this is a point of the
greatest importance· and one which does not begin to be sufficiently recog-

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148

nized. Unfortunately Mr. Dawson's formulation does not evaluate with
sufficient precision the nature and proportion of responsibility for the
present crisis borne by the various elements in our culture. He does manifest the degree to which rationalism, liberalism, capitalism, and so forth,
must be held responsible; he quite justly points out the greater responsibility borne by Christians. But he ignores the peculiar responsibility of
Catholics, for whom there is no excuse, knowing, as they should, that they
are called upon to be the leaven of the world. The degree to which the
sins of the world are upon the members of the visible Church is not
recognized. " And that servant who knew the will of his Lord and prepared not himself, and did not according to His will shall be beaten with
many stripes. But he that knew not and did things worthy of stripes
shall be beaten with few stripes. And unto whomsoever much is given,
of him much shall be required: and to whom they have committed much,
of him will they demand the more" (Luke, xii, 47, 48). There is a vital
relation between the health of the world and the health of the Church.
The one
against the forces of evil latent in fallen human nature is
the relatively small group of the faithful, whose function it is to supply
the saving leaven which alone makes the earth pleasing to God. The
saints, who are our models, always considered themselves, by their sins and
infidelities, responsible for the sins of the world; nor can this be dismissed
as exaggeration, since they alone among men see things as they are. And
in this they are but imitating Christ, who, although sinless, assumed the
burden of all men's sins. The saints alone, then, realized the tremendous
responsibility placed upon the faithful, for the justice or mercy of God will
be called down upon the world in proportion as Catholics pursue sanctity
or mediocrity.

v
Mr. Dawson's failure to indicate the unique nature of the responsibility
of Catholics for the disintegration of our civilization necessarily detracts
from the adequacy of his analysis: it also has important bearings on the
practicality of the remedies he proposes. Having shown that religious
disunity is the primary cause of our secularized civilization, He advocates
the cooperation of the various Christian churches on the basis of their
common sacraments, moral values, traditions. He urges this most strongly,
for, as he says, the dangers from the common enemies of Christianity are
so great. He is also in favor of cooperation with all the scattered elements
in our society which have the common ideal of freedom.
Now these proposals are undoubtedly good and are of great importance
for any Christian renewal; the difficulty arises when one asks how this
cooperation is to be effected. I do not think that Mr. Dawson sees with
sufficient clarity that this must originate with a revitalized unity within

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the visible Church. For if the failure of Catholics to pursue perfection
according to Christ's injunction, "Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father
is perfect," is the ultimate cause of our present confusion, then any proposed reform must begin with those who by the dictates of their doctrine
are obliged to take these words literally. For only the Catholic Church
has the necessary means to bring about such a reform, i. e. her doctrine
and her sacraments. It is futile to seek a unity with those outside the
Church which we do not possess among ourselves; for such a unity would
be based, not on the Faith, but upon some human concept commonly held.
A speculative consideration of the question of the visible and invisible
Church is certainly not required in a practical work. What is important is
to know how to deal with individuals and for this there is only one answer:
supernatural prudence is required. From St. Paul we learn that our first
concern should be for Catholics: "Therefore while we have time, let us
work good to all men, but especially to those of the household of faith "
(Gal. vi, 10). And elsewhere he says, "our own first/' Now this clearly
does not exclude cooperation with· those outside the Church, but rather
facilitates it in two ways: first, the example of the love Catholics bear
one another would prompt others, weary of the dissensions of the world,
to unite themselves to the Church; secondly, as charity grows within us
we shall know how best to deal with those outside. For love has a way of
communicating itself and charity has means of persuasion unknown to
natural justice. Further if we recognize the extent of our own responsibility for religious division, that too will be communicated to others rather
than a self-righteousness which only drives men away. Moreover, it does
not seem wise to conceal in any way the fact that Catholics can will
world to Christ and His Church.
nothing less than the conversion of
These criticisms are the more difficult to make the more clearly it is
seen that Mr. Dawson's purposes are the highest. Moved by that Charity
that prompts the Catholic intellectual to use all the intellectual disciplines
to bring about a return of the modern world to Christ, he has utilized
the matter of history and politics to bring about a reconciliation of the
modern world and Catholic doctrine. It is only in the light of this intention that Mr. Dawson's difficulty can be understood. In previous works
he has shown that he is well able to analyze and evaluate liberal democracy
at its true worth; elsewhere he has given a splendid account of the nature
of Christian freedom (cf. Dublin Review, July,
:. hence it is clear
that his present treatment of these matters cannot be laid to lack of knowledge. We feel rather that it is owing to a dislike of what might seem
self-righteous criticism in time of peril. This could have been avoided if
Mr. Dawson had seen the full extent of Catholic responsibility for the
crisis, that any criticism of liberal democracy is more truly a criticism of
Catholics.

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145

From a theological viewpoint, the modern world is divided between two
heresies: one, totalitarianism, denies human freedom in favor of unlimited
authority of the state; the other, liberal democracy, exalts human freedom
to the status of an absolute principle. This is but a reflection of a deeper
problem that has persisted throughout the history of the Church-the
reconciliation of the omnipotence of God and the freedom of the human
will. The relation between the individual and the state is an imitation of
the relation between the individual soul and God, and as one denies,
theoretically or practically, the freedom of the will or the omnipotence of
God, he will have totalitarianism or liberalism. Once again we can lay the
confusion of the modern world on the shoulders of Catholics, for very few
Catholics have practically resolved the problem of reconciling the claims
of divine omnipotence and free will.

VI
There would seem to be a basic error at the root of each of the above
criticized positions. The author is trying to reconcile Western ideals as
they are understood today with Catholic doctrine. Yet in so doing he
treats the Church and those forces with which he advocates cooperation as
equals. He seems not to see, or, at least, to point out that in any cooperation the Church must take the lead, whether others know it or not. Thus,
Mr. Dawson, taking them as equals, effects a merger of the two doctrines
to such a degree that neither is recognizable. Liberal democrats will fail
to find an expression of their concept of freedom, and Catholics will fail
to find any definition of the nature of Christian freedom; there is simply
freedom used in an indeterminate and uncritical way, subject to any interpretation the reader wishes to give it. Given the audience for whom the
work is intended, there can scarcely be any doubt as to the meaning they
will take.
The only reason Mr. Dawson gives for his changed attitude towards
liberalism, liberal democracy, humanitarianism, and so forth, is the emergence of the totalitarian threat to all human values, in face of which
liberalism must be regarded as an ally. But difficulties to this position
arise when one realizes that liberal humanitarianism
and the "new
paganism '' are not essentially diverse, but rather one in principle, for
both regard man as ultimate. The new hordes of destruction have merely
progressed further along the road, having recognized and accepted the
incapacity of the isolated human will to preserve the ideals of freedom
and justice. Indeed, Mr. Dawson treats it as a revolution against the
false hopes of humanitarianism.
" The new revolution is a movement of
disintegration and despair which derives its strength from the liquidation
of the ideals on which the nineteenth century world had set its hopes."

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Accordingly, while every effort should be made to exploit the good in
liberal philosophy, indeed, this is a duty incumbent upon Catholic thinkers,
cooperation with such a force holds the gravest dangers, as exemplified by
the present work; it must be done with the greatest circumspection and
with the " wisdom of the serpent."
Above all, such cooperation cannot be of equals. Liberals should be
shown that the ideals they still cherish belong properly and originally to
Catholic doctrine, which is where the liberals got them from in the first
place, and that they can be attained only by the power within the Church.
It is undoubtedly the providential meaning behind the collapse of liberal
hopes-a proof that of themselves men cannot preserve ·a just and stable
civilization. It is getting to a point where anyone who refuses to recognize
this truth can be accused of wilful blindness. Whether Liberals will recognize it or not will prove a test of their good will. Unity with other Christians must be accomplished in a similar way, leading to their conversion
and not merely to good fellowship; moreover, such unity can be the fruit
of a greater unity within the Church and a further development of doctrine
adulterated by our long sojourn in Egypt.
Adverse criticism of this work should not be taken as an indictment of
Mr. Dawson's work as a whole. Probably no contemporary writer has
performed such valuable services for the Church; we have tried to emphasize that the present work has been criticized only in so far as it departs
from his previous works. It seems clear that this work represents the
impact of the war upon Mr. Dawson's thought; for this reason it is outside
the continuity of his thought and it is to be hoped that he has not adopted
permanently the positions he takes here. Much that is good in his other
works is present in this one. Most notable of all is his uncompromising
insistence upon the extent to which the present crisis must be attributed
to spiritual causes and the inadequacy of. anything but the power of the
Spirit to save our civilization from complete collapse. No writer has shown
more powerfully and persuasively the doom which inevitably awaits any
culture that places its trust in man rather than in God.
WILLIAM

Washington, D. C.

P. DAVEY

BOOKS RECEIVED
Bennet, 0. The Nature of Demonstrative Proof. (The Catholic University
of America, Philosophical Studies, Vol. LXXV.) Washington: Catholic
Univ. of America Press, 1943. Pp. 97.
Crowe, M. T. The Moral Obligation of Paying Just Taxes. Washington,
D. C.: Catholic University Press, 1944. Pp. ix + 175, with index.
Doolan, A. Philosophy for the Layman. Dublin: Irish Rosary Office, 1944.
Pp.
with index. 7/6.
Dunney, J. H. Church History in the Light of the Saints.
Macmillan, 1944. Pp. 465, with index.
Gheon, Henri. Secrets of the Saints.
Pp. 406. $3.00.

New York:

New York: Sheed & Ward, 1944.

Joan, Sr. M. and Sr. M. Nona. Guiding Growth in Christian Social Living.
Washington: Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1944. Pp. 308.
Kelly, V. J. Forbidden Sunday and Feast-Day Occupations. Washington,
D. C.: Catholic University Press, 1944. Pp. !ll9, with index.
Krikorian, Y. H. (Ed.). Naturalism and the Human Spirit.
Columbia Univ. Press, 1944. Pp. 397. $4.50.
Lamarche, M.-A.

Projections.

New York:

Ottawa: Editions du Levrier, 1944.

Pp.

$1.00.

Lewis, D. B. W. Ronsard, His Life and Times.
Ward, 1944. Pp. 340, with index. $3.50.

New York: Sheed &

Maritain, J. The Dream of Descartes. (Trans. by M. L. Andison.)
York: Philosophical Library, 1945. Pp. £20. $3.00.

New

Pegis, A. (Ed.). Essays in Modern Scholasticism.
Newman Book Shop, 1944. Pp.

Md.:

Westminster,

Peguy, C. Men and Saints. New York: Pantheon Books, Inc., 1944. Pp.
303. $U5.
Perkins, M. Speaking of How to Pray.
Pp. 276.

New York: Sheed & Ward, 1944.

Sheen, F. J. Seven Pillars of Peace. New York: Charles Scribner's & Son,
1944. Pp. 112. $1.75.

147

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BOOKS RECEIVED

Sturzo, L. Inner Laws of Society.
314.

New York: Kenedy & Sons, 1944. Pp.

$3.50.

Watkins, E. I. Catholic Art and Culture. New York: Sheed & Ward, Hl44.
Pp. Qfl5, with index. $4.50.

Wedel, F. Between Heaven and Earth. New York: Philosophical Library,
1944. Pp.
$3.00.
Winzen, D.
$1.00.

Symbols

of Christ.

Keyport, N. J.: St. Paul's Priory, 1944.