CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Introductory Nobody would be prepared to maintain that in studying the development of political society in Europe we could profitably omit all consideration of the Middle Ages. For it is clear that they were an important formative period in this development and that the latter cannot be properly understood without reference to them. And I do not think that any well-informed person would now deny that an analogous statement can be made about the role of medieval philosophy in the general development of European philosophical thought. It would certainly be extremely foolish to pretend that there was simply an unbroken continuity, without the emergence of any new factors, between medieval, Renaissance, and post-Renaissance philosophy. The general cultural transition from the medieval to the post-medieval world had its repercussions in philosophy; and the scientific developments of the Renaissance were powerfully influential in stimulating new ways of thought. But though there was novelty, there was also continuity. It is a great mistake to take simply at their face-value the claims advanced by writers like Descartes to have achieved a radical break with the past and to have inaugurated a completely new philosophical era. And the customary abusive allusions to Aristotelians and Scholastics which occur fairly frequently in the writings of Renaissance thinkers can be very misleading if they are taken to mean that in actual fact an entirely new start had been made without any connexion with what had gone before. Even though, as Descartes warns us in his own case, we have to be on our guard against supposing that a post-medieval thinker who uses a term which occurred in medieval philosophy is necessarily using it in the same sense in which it was used by medieval philosophers, it remains true that writers such as Descartes and Locke cannot be fully

AQUINAS understood unless one has some real knowledge of medieval philosophy.

For example, a thorough understanding of Locke's theory of the natural moral law and of natural rights demands a knowledge not only of the fact that it was partly derived through Hooker from medieval theory but also of the way in which it differed from the theory of a philosopher such as Aquinas. Even if one decides to look on medieval philosophy as being little more than a preparatory stage in the development of European thought, it is still true that it was a stage, and an important one, and that it exercised an influence far beyond the confines of the Middle

Ages.

The historical importance of medieval philosophy is indeed far more widely admitted now in this country than it was even some thirty years ago.

It is recognized not only that there is such a thing as medieval philosophy but also that there was in the Middle Ages a great variety of philosophical outlooks and ideas, ranging from abstruse metaphysical speculation to empiricist criticism of metaphysics, and from a spiritual view of the primary function of philosophy to a devotion to the niceties of logical analysis. And at least two British universities, of which Oxford, an important centre of philosophical thought in the Middle Ages, is fittingly one, have instituted lectureships in medieval philosophy. The subject is at any rate regarded as a legitimate field for historical research and as affording material for doctorate theses.

At the same time it still seems to be considered a reasonable procedure in practice that the student of European philosophy should jump from Aristotle, who died in 322 B.C., to Francis Bacon and Descartes, who were born respectively in a.d. 1561 and 1596. And I think that the fundamental reason for the persistence of this neglect and by-passing of medieval philosophy is the conviction, whether explicit or implicit, that the medieval philosophers have little of value to offer us.

It is not denied, of course, that many of them were men of outstanding ability and intelligence. But it is widely felt that their general outlook and their general ways

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of thinking about the world are obsolete and that their philosophical systems have passed away with the culture to which they belonged. And in view of the fact that some readers may approach a book on Aquinas with the implicit assumption that we cannot expect to find in the writings of a medieval philosopher any valuable contribution to present-day philosophical discussion I want in this chapter to make some general remarks which may help to make such readers more prepared to give Aquinas a hearing. Within the compass of this book I cannot, of course, discuss at length different conceptions of the nature and function of philosophy. Nor, in a book devoted to Aquinas in particular, can I undertake to defend medieval philosophy in general.

This would be in any case an absurd undertaking. For one could no more defend simultaneously the positions of, say,

Duns Scotus and Nicholas of Autrecourt than one could defend at the same time the philosophies of F. H. Bradley and Rudolf Carnap. For the matter of that,

I am not primarily concerned with 'defending' even Aquinas.

It is not my opinion that the philosophy of Aquinas consists of a body of true propositions which can simply be handed on and learned like the multiplication tables; and in any case whether the reader agrees or disagrees with Aquinas' ideas is for himself to decide. But at the same time

I am convinced that a great deal of what Aquinas had to say is of permanent value; and I want at least to make it easier for the reader to consider sympathetically his style of philosophizing and his interpretation of the world.

Some objections against medieval philosophy are connected with features which are more or less peculiar to the intellectual life of the Middle Ages. For example, the fact that most of the leading philosophers of the Middle Ages, including Aquinas, were theologians easily gives rise to the conviction that their philosophizing was improperly subordinated to theological beliefs and interests and that their metaphysical arguments were not infrequently instances of what we call 'wishful thinking'. But on this matter

I must content myself with the observation that if we take any

AQUINAS given line of argument in favour of some belief or position the relevant question from the philosophical point of view is whether the argument is sound rather than whether the writer wished to arrive at the conclusion at which he did in fact arrive or whether he already believed in that conclusion on other grounds. For example, it is possible for a man who has believed in God from childhood to ask himself whether there is any rational evidence in favour of this belief. And if he offers what he considers to be rational evidence, it ought to be considered on its merits and not dismissed from the start on the ground that it cannot be anything more than an instance of wishful thinking. Whether or not we come to the conclusion that his arguments were in fact probably examples of wishful thinking, we should not assume that they were simply on the ground that the man already believed in God. As regards Aquinas' view of the relation between philosophy and theology, I shall outline it in a later section of this chapter.

Other objections against the medieval metaphysicians are so closely connected with a particular philosophical system that they cannot easily be handled in a short work devoted to the system of another philosopher.

If, for example, one accepts the Kantian philosophy, one will necessarily consider that the notion of the medieval metaphysicians that they could obtain knowledge by metaphysical reflection was misguided. But though some of what follows would be relevant to a discussion of Kant's position, the Kantian philosophy as such cannot be discussed here.

It may, however, be as well to remark that Kant's specimens of metaphysical reasoning were taken from the Wolffian School rather than from Aquinas, of whom he knew little. And in my opinion some of the strongest points in Aquinas' philosophy are those in which his attitude differs from the attitudes of the philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries whom Kant attacked.

But it is unlikely that the reader who tends to assume from the outset that a metaphysician like Aquinas cannot possess for us more than an historical interest bases his

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assumption on a previous acceptance of the critical philosophy of Kant, considered as such, or on the fact that Aquinas was also, and indeed primarily, a theologian.

It is, I think, much more likely that it is based on some general ideas about metaphysics and metaphysicians which are prevalent in this and in certain other countries. Some of these ideas are connected with one of the most important features of the post-medieval world, namely the rise and development of the particular sciences.

It is widely felt, and by no means only by professional philosophers, that the particular sciences in the course of their development have wrested from philosophy one after another of the fields which it regarded as its own. Cosmology has given way to physics, the philosophy of life to scientific biology, and speculative psychology is in process of surrendering to exact science as scientific psychology gradually comes into being. The sciences, it is true, do not treat of theological problems or of 'ultimate' metaphysical questions. But metaphysicians have never succeeded in showing that they have a method whereby these questions can be answered. Metaphysicians have tried to explain the world or to render the world intelligible. But even when we can understand what they are trying to say, there does not seem to be any recognizable way of verifying or testing their speculations. It looks as though the only understanding of the world which we can attain is that provided by the sciences. Everything points to the conclusion that just as philosophy took the place of theology, so has science taken the place of philosophy, at least of all speculative philosophy. The philosopher must content himself with the task of clarifying propositions and terms; his business is with analysis and clarification, not with system-building or with the attainment of truth about reality.

It was indeed natural enough that in the Middle Ages, when science was in a very rudimentary state of development, people should look to theologians and philosophers for knowledge about the world; there is no question of blaming the medievals for this. But we cannot be expected to pay much attention to writers who admitted claims on behalf of philosophy which

AQUINAS are now disputed. Hence while we can admire the work which Aquinas accomplished within his own historical context, we cannot believe that he has much of permanent value to offer us.

Since, however, this attitude towards metaphysics may seem to be associated too closely with those who would rule it out altogether, the following point of view can be outlined. Metaphysicians seem to fall into two groups, though they are not mutually exclusive in the sense that a philosopher cannot have a foot in either camp. Some have supposed that they had an a priori method of their own whereby they could obtain factual information about the world and even transcend experience, giving us information about transcendent reality or realities. But if their claims are justified, why is it that they give mutually incompatible pieces of information?

It would appear that they cannot at any rate provide us with any certain knowledge by the methods which they employ. At best their theories can be regarded as no more than hypotheses. And they can be regarded as hypotheses only if something can be indicated within the field of experience which tells for or against the hypothesis in question.

Other metaphysicians, however, have been more given to enunciating general propositions about the things given in experience than to making the attempt to transcend experience. But in so far as these propositions purport to give information about the essential structure or about essential characteristics of things, analysis shows either that they are no more than familiar trivialities expressed in a rather pompous form or that they are completely vacuous propositions which give no information whatsoever. The only form of metaphysics which has any chance of survival is the construction of hypotheses which are of wider generality than scientific hypotheses, in the sense that they may cover a wider field than that covered by any particular science, but which must be in some assignable way empirically testable.

In other words, metaphysicians, if they want to be taken seriously, must come to terms with empiricism; and their theories must take the

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form of empirical hypotheses.

Medieval metaphysicians, however, believed that they were capable, not merely of constructing empirical hypotheses which are subject to revision, but of attaining certain and final knowledge by means of metaphysical reflection. Hence, while their philosophies may be of some interest, they cannot be taken very seriously from the purely philosophical point of view. Fossils can be of interest; but they are none the less fossils.

Now, these attitudes towards metaphysics are quite understandable. And the problems involved are real problems. Furthermore, they cannot, in my opinion, be settled by appeal to the authority of any philosopher. For one thing, problems which have been rendered acute by the growth and development of the particular sciences can hardly be adequately settled by appeal to the authority of a man who wrote before the scientific Renaissance and who consequently could not discuss the problems in quite the form in which they appear to us.

In the next chapter I shall say something about Aquinas' views on the relation of philosophy to the particular sciences, and I think that the attitude implicit in what he says is sound. But it would be an anachronism to look to a thirteenth-century philosopher for a treatment of this question which could be called adequate in face of the modern situation. For another thing, Aquinas was the last man to think that philosophical problems can be settled by appeal to great names.

'Argument from authority based on human reason is the weakest' (ST., la, i, 8, ad 2). In other words, an argument in favour of a given philosophical or scientific position is the weakest sort of argument when it rests simply on the prestige attaching to the name of an eminent philosopher or scientist. What counts is the intrinsic value of the argument, not the reputation of someone who has sponsored it in the past.

But though the problems which arise in connexion with the nature and function of metaphysics cannot be settled by an appeal to the authority of Aquinas or of any other thinker, it seems to me that Aquinas' general outlook and conception of philosophy are of permanent value. The num-

AQUINAS ber of philosophers who today draw inspiration from his writings is considerable, though his influence is stronger in France, Belgium, Germany, and Italy, and even in the United

States of America, than it is in England. And though his positions doubtless need development, a theme to which I shall return in the last chapter, they are by no means irrelevant to modern problems about philosophy. For he stands as a representative of a particular type of philosophizing and of a wide conception of the scope of philosophy, which spring from a natural tendency of the human mind, the desire to understand the data of experience, man and the world in which he finds himself, in the completest possible way. The desire to understand is obviously not confined to philosophy, but if it is given free play it inevitably leads to philosophy and even to metaphysics. Whether the attempt to attain a unified interpretation of reality as known to us, and still more whether the attempt to understand the existence of finite things and to obtain clarity about the general situation which makes all particular situations possible, is an attempt which can meet with success, is not a question which can be answered a priori and in advance. But the desire to make the attempt is natural enough. There seems to be an ineradicable tendency in the human mind to reduce multiplicity to unity, to seek for explanations and hypotheses which will cover an ever wider range of facts and events. We can see this tendency at work in the sciences, and it can also be seen in metaphysics.

It is true that if the language of science is taken as the one norm of intelligible discourse, it follows that metaphysical language tends to strain the meaning of terms to breaking-point, but it is also true that the impulse towards unifying the variety of events and phenomena is present both in science and in metaphysical philosophy.

Neither the scientist nor the metaphysician is content to accept a purely chaotic multiplicity of heterogeneous and unrelated events

: we are far from doing this even in ordinary life. And though it is possible both in science and in metaphysics to slur over important differences in an over-hasty attempt at unification,

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the impulse towards unification seems to be involved in the process of understanding. For Aquinas at any rate the metaphysician is concerned, in part at least, with understanding the existence of finite things; and that there is anything to understand in this connexion depends on there being features of finite things, considered as such, which give rise to the relevant question or questions.

If we assume that there are such features, the process of coming to understand will involve the relating of finite things to a metafinite ultimate reality, however it may be conceived. And it is most unlikely that the human mind will ever finally abandon the search for 'ultimate explanations' and the raising of questions about 'ultimate reality'.

One of the reasons why this is unlikely seems to be that metaphysical problems are prompted by the obvious facts of change and impermanence, of instability and dependence, which are encountered in our experience of ourselves and of other things. Spinoza spoke for many human beings when he remarked on the search of the mind for the permanent and abiding, for an infinite reality transcending the flux and instability which appear to characterize all finite things. And metaphysics, when it does not degenerate into the mere repetition of traditional formulas or into arid logomachy, expresses this impulse at a particular level of intellectual life and reflection. The expression of this impulse within the field of academic philosophy is indeed more apparent at one time than another; but when it is banished from the field of academic philosophy it shows itself outside this field. Further, it tends to return within the field itself, and, to judge by historical analogies, its banishment is temporary. Doubtless many thought that Kant had finally interred speculative metaphysics, but this did not prevent the rise of German idealism. And the discrediting of Hegel has not prevented the development of other types of metaphysical philosophy. We have only to think of Jaspers, for example, in Germany or of Whitehead in America.

But though metaphysics tends constantly to recur, there have been and are different conceptions of its nature. Some

AQUINAS philosophers have talked as though by a purely deductive and quasi-mathematical method we could not only deduce the general system of reality but also make new factual discoveries. This attitude, however, which we generally associate, in part at least with justice, with the 'rationalist' metaphysicians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, is now rejected. And one of the things which I want to show in this chapter is that it was not the attitude of Aquinas. The latter did not believe that there are innate ideas or principles from which we can proceed to deduce a metaphysical system on a mathematical model. But the question arises whether, if we reject the method of Spinoza and the dreams of Leibniz, the alternative is to admit that metaphysical theories can be no more than empirical hypotheses which are inherently subject to revision simply because they are hypotheses. This is obviously a possible conception of metaphysics. And if we decide that certainty can be attained only about the truth of propositions which are in some sense 'tautologies', it is perhaps the only conception of metaphysics left to those who admit metaphysics.

In order to be able to claim that certainty is obtainable, at least in principle, in metaphysics, it would have to be shown that the mind can apprehend as necessarily true propositions which are based in some way on experience and which do say something about things and not exclusively about words.

In other words, it would have to be shown that 'empiricism' and 'rationalism' do not exhaust the possibilities and that we are not forced to choose either the one or the other. And I think that in Aquinas' philosophy we find an example of another possibility which is well worth examination.

I do not mean to suggest that his philosophy can simply be taken over as it stands without development and without prolonged examination of his fundamental positions.

I mean rather to suggest that it is an organism which is capable of growth and development of such a kind as to reconcile on a higher plane the sharp antitheses which have emerged in the subsequent history of philosophic thought.

It may seem that the notion of 'certainty' in metaphysics

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ought to be rejected out of hand in view of differences between philosophical systems and in view of the fact that no one system has won universal and lasting acceptance. But in the first place the notion of certainty need not be linked with the notion of a static and fossilized system. And in the second place there is perhaps more agreement among metaphysicians than is at first sight apparent. For instance there is a considerable measure of agreement among both Western and Eastern metaphysicians about the existence of infinite being, transcending finite things. In some cases at least sharp divergences begin to arise when a philosopher tries to go beyond the limits of the human mind and to penetrate into a sphere from which the conditions of our knowledge exclude us.

I think that the reader will find that Aquinas' conception of the competence of the metaphysician in this respect was modest and moderate.

In the succeeding sections of this chapter I propose to discuss some general points about Aquinas' philosophy which may serve as an introduction to his thought and which may at the same time help to show the reader that his philosophy deserves respect and serious consideration. In the rest of the book I shall confine myself mainly to exposition and explanation of what Aquinas says without constant reference to possible criticism, for the discussion of which space does not suffice.

The first point which I wish to make is that it is a misconception to suppose that the fundamental r61e of sense-perception in human cognition was a discovery of the classical

British empiricists.

It had already been stated, and emphatically stated, by Aquinas in the thirteenth century.

It is true that the latter was not the first to state it; for the doctrine was already present in Aristotle. But among the thirteenthcentury metaphysicians it was Aquinas who laid most emphasis on it. While certain writers, such as St Bonaventure (d. 1274), maintained a theory of what we may call virtually innate ideas, a theory which bears some resem-

AQUINAS blance at any rate to the theories put forward at a later time by Descartes and Leibniz, Aquinas stressed the experimental foundation of human knowledge.

It was his constant and frequently expressed conviction that the mind does not start off with any stock of innate ideas or of innate knowledge; and he reaffirms Aristotle's statement that the mind is initially like a wax tablet on which nothing has yet been written. This is clear from the fact that in the beginning we understand only potentially, though afterwards we understand actually'

(S.T., \a, 79, 2). That is to say, the mind is initially a capacity for knowing things; but we should have no natural actual knowledge of the world at all except through experience of things. And the primary form of experience is sense-experience, that is, contact with material things through the senses.

It is the senses which first set the mind in contact with existent things and which supply it with the materials for the formation of ideas. We do not, for instance, first have the idea of man and then later discover that there are men : we first become acquainted through sense-perception with individual men and we are thus enabled to form the abstract idea of man. Sense-perception is ultimately presupposed by all our knowledge whether of existent things or of abstract ideas or meanings.

Indeed, Aquinas does not hesitate to say that the 'proper' or proportionate object of the human mind in this life is the nature of the material thing. The first thing which is known by us in the state of our present life is the nature of the material thing, which is the object of the intellect, as has been said above many times' (ST., la, 88, 3).

Although he does not express himself in this way, we can say that for Aquinas we cannot know the meaning of a word which signifies a material thing unless we have learned the meaning either ostensively or by definition or description.

For example, even if I have never seen a skyscraper, either in reality or in a photograph or picture.

I can still learn the meaning of the word if I am given a definition or description of it by means of words like 'building', 'storey',

'tall', and so on. But it is obvious that I cannot understand the description

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unless I know the meaning of the words occurring in it. And in the long run I shall arrive at words the meaning of which I must have learned ostensively, that is, by having my attention drawn to instances of what they stand for.

I can, of course, learn the meaning of the word 'skyscraper', without knowing that there are skyscrapers, that is, that there is anything to which the definition or description of a skyscraper applies. But I could not learn the meaning of the word without some experience of actually existent entities.

Furthermore, in a sense Aquinas laid more stress than did the classical British empiricists on the part played by senseperception in human cognition. For while not excluding introspection or reflection as a source of knowledge, he did not mention sense-perception and reflection as parallel sources of knowledge. He did not think that introspection or reflection is an initial source in the same sense in which sense-perception is. His point of view was that I become aware of my existence as a self through concrete acts of perceiving material things other than myself, inasmuch as I am concomitantly aware of these acts as mine.

I do not enjoy a direct intuition of the self as such :

I come to know myself only through acts directed towards things other than myself.

I not only perceive a man, for example, but 1 am concomitantly aware that I perceive him, that the act of perception is my act. And this awareness involves the awareness of my existence as a self. The soul is known by its acts.

For a man perceives that he has a soul and lives and exists by the fact that he perceives that he senses and understands and performs other vital operations of this kind. ... No one perceives that he understands except through the fact that he understands something, for to understand something is prior to understanding that one understands. And so the soul comes to the actual realization of its existence through the fact that it understands or perceives' (De veritate, 10, 8).

To prevent misunderstanding of this passage it should be added that Aquinas draws a distinction between my awareness of the existence of the self and my knowledge of the nature of the self. To know that I have a soul or that there

AQUINAS is in me that by which I perceive, desire, and understand is one thing : to know the nature of the soul is another. For the latter knowledge deliberate reflection, 'second' reflection, is required; but the reflection by which one is aware of the self in a very general sense is not a deliberate reflection, and it is common to all human beings.

It must not be confused therefore with philosophic reflection : it is automatic in the sense that I cannot perceive without an implicit awareness that I perceive. And the point is that my awareness that I perceive is dependent on my perceiving something.

I can indeed reflect consciously and deliberately on my interior acts; but this presupposes a non-deliberate or automatic awareness of my outwardly-directed acts (of seeing, hearing, desiring, and so on) as mine. And this in turn presupposes the fundamental role of sense-experience or sense-perception. Aquinas believed that man does not consist of two juxtaposed substances, the operations of which are independent one of another, but that he is a unity, the soul being naturally united with a body. And because of the intimate union of soul and body the mind is naturally dependent on the senses for the acquisition of ideas and of knowledge.

From what has been said it is evident that Aquinas did not believe that the philosopher can deduce an informative philosophical system from certain innate ideas or principles.

For he did not admit any innate ideas or principles. He did, however, admit self-evident propositions which in some sense give information about reality. He believed, in other words, that there are propositions which are necessary and yet at the same time give information about reality; and he called them principia per se nota (self-evident principles).

They can be said to be analytic if an analytic proposition is defined as a proposition which is seen to be necessarily true once the terms are understood. But if an analytic proposition is understood as one which says nothing except about the use of symbols, Aquinas would not admit that his principia per se nota are analytic in this sense

: at least he would

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not admit that they are all analytic in this sense. For he was convinced that there are necessary propositions which do say something about reality.

I shall return to this subject later. For the present I want to show first how Aquinas reconciled the admission of these propositions or principles with the above-mentioned doctrine that all our natural knowledge depends on sense-perception and secondly how their admission does not mean that they were for Aquinas the source from which information about reality could be deduced in a quasi-mathematical manner.

Aquinas distinguished two types of self-evident principles.

The first type consists of those propositions in which the predicate 'falls under the definition of the subject', that is, in which the predicate gives the whole or part of the connotation of the subject or is contained in the intention of the subject. Definitions are of this type, and purely formal propositions like A is A. The second type consists of those propositions in which the predicate is an attribute or property which belongs necessarily to the subject. Analysis reveals that the predicate belongs necessarily to the subject. And there can be no doubt, I think, that Aquinas looked on the principle of efficient causality, if stated in a metaphysical form (for example, 'everything which begins to exist begins to exist through the agency of an already existent extrinsic thing'), as a self-evident principle of this second type. He was well aware that 'relationship to a cause does not enter the definition of a being which is caused' (S.T., la, 44, 1, ad 1); and it is as well to realize that he was aware of it. But he maintained that analysis of the nature of a thing which begins to be reveals its relationship to a productive agent which we call 'cause'. He would not admit that the principle

1. Nowadays propositions which are claimed to be both necessary and informative are frequently called 'synthetic a priori propositions'; synthetic as giving information about reality and as not being purely formal, a priori as being necessary and universal. This term seems to me to be a convenient one. But it is apt, because of its historical association with the philosophy of Kant, to give a misleading impression. Hence I avoid the use of the term here.

AQUINAS of efficient causality could ever be refuted, but he certainlythought that it gives information about the nature of being which begins to exist.

Now, if the doctrine that all our natural knowledge defends ultimately on sense-experience meant that the process of acquiring knowledge about reality was simply a passive process of receiving sense-impressions and that the mind was simply a passive recipient, recognition of these principles would not be possible. But Aquinas did not think that the mind is purely passive. As we shall see in the first of the two chapters on Man, he was convinced that even on the level of our knowledge of visible things mental activity, a process of active synthesis, is involved. Moreover, nobody else really supposes that the mind is no more than a passive recipient of sense-impressions. If it were, not only metaphysics would be impossible, but also the scientific work of a Newton or an Einstein. It is clear that the whole scientific process of forming hypotheses and deducing confirmable or testable conclusions involves mental activity, an activity of synthesis and interpretation. The doctrine of the fundamental role of sense-perception in the acquisition of knowledge by no means demands the conclusion that we are confined to immediate and uncoordinated experimental data. And Aquinas could quite well have endorsed Kant's famous statement that 'though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience' (Critique of the Vure Reason, introd., i), provided that the statement is taken in itself and apart from Kant's theory of the a priori.

According to Aquinas we first have experience of, for example, actual things coming into being and of causal agents. The concepts of a thing which comes into being and of a causal agent are thus experimentally grounded. But once we have the concepts and understand the terms, analysis reveals a necessary connexion or relation which is affirmed in the relevant judgement, in this case the proposition expressing the principle of efficient causality. In other words, from a psychological point of view our knowledge originates in sense-perception and presupposes it, even

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when it extends beyond its immediate reach. But from the logical point of view the nexus or connexion between subject and predicate in a self-evident proposition is affirmed as necessary, not because the terms connote objects given in sense-experience, even when they do this, but because analysis of the terms reveals the necessary connexion between them. It must be added, however, that this is not for Aquinas a purely verbal analysis when there is question of the type of self-evident principle to which the principle of efficient causality belongs. As we have seen, he recognized that relationship to a cause does not 'enter the definition' of a being which begins to exist. Analysis here meansreflection on the objective meaning of the terms, on a concrete instance or concrete instances, bearing fruit in insight into the relationship between them. Aquinas believed that without experience we should have no idea of a thing beginning to exist; but he also believed that experience of concrete instances of things beginning to exist through the agency of an extrinsic thing yields insight into the fact that a thing which begins to exist must necessarily do so through the agency of an extrinsic and already existent thing. Thus once we have had the requisite experience we can know a priori that if at any time something begins to exist it does so as the result of an already existent extrinsic thing. This theory is certainly not empiricism; it is indeed incompatible with developed empiricism. But Aquinas did not consider that it contradicted the 'empiricist' element in his own philosophy. 'Once the mind knows what is a whole and what is a part, it knows that every whole is greater than any one of its parts; and the case is similar in regard to other self-evident principles. But it cannot know what is a whole and what is a part except through ideas derived from images.

. And so the knowledge of principles comes to us from sense-perception' (ST., la, Wae, 51, 1). The fact that Aquinas makes frequent use of this example of the whole being greater than any one of its parts renders even more acute the objection to the theory of necessary and informative propositions, that if they are necessary they are linguistic and not factually informative

AQUINAS statements. But I leave aside this question for the moment, in order not to interrupt the line of thought.

Though Aquinas admitted self-evident principles which in some sense give information about reality, he did not think that we can deduce a whole system of philosophy from these abstract propositions.

It is true, of course, that for him we should not recognize the principle of efficient causality unless we had had experience of causal relations. Hence, if we take into account the psychological genesis of our recognition of these principles, we can say that recognition of the principle of efficient causality shows that there are causes.

But we cannot begin with the principle and deduce by sheer logic that there are causes in the world.

It is necessary that if a thing begins to exist it does so through the agency of an already existent extrinsic thing; but it is not logically necessary that there should be any thing which has begun or begins to exist. The principle can be expressed hypothetically.

If there is any thing which begins to exist, it does so through the agency of an already existent extrinsic thing.

And the same is true of other self-evident principles. Aquinas admitted one and only one self-evident and necessary existential proposition, namely the proposition 'God exists'. But as he went on to insist that although this proposition is selfevident 'in itself it is not self-evident for any human being, we can say for all practical purposes that according to him there are no self-evident and necessary existential propositions as far as we are concerned. Hence we cannot deduce the system of existing reality from any set of definitions or axioms or from any set of metaphysical principles. For the matter of that, we cannot start with what Aquinas calls the first principles of the speculative order, like the principle of contradiction, and deduce all other self-evident principles.

When he talks about 'reducing' some self-evident proposition to the principle of contradiction, he is referring to the activity of showing that to deny the proposition would involve one in a contradiction.

In this sense it is said to be 'reducible' to the principle of contradiction and 'founded' on it. But it does not necessarily follow that the proposition in

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question can be deduced from the principle of contradiction.

We cannot therefore construct a purely deductive system of self-evident propositions. And even if we could, we still could not deduce that any entities exist. And this is a point of some importance. For it shows that Aquinas' conception of the philosopher's activity does not involve the claim that he has a special method of his own whereby he can perform the task of the particular sciences. The philosopher cannot deduce from the principle of efficient causality the particular causes of particular events. He cannot, for example, tell us what are the causes and conditions of cancerous growths.

Nor from the general statement that every material thing possesses an intelligible structure or 'form'

(a theory to be considered in the next chapter) can he deduce that material things are physically composed either of the four elements of ancient tradition or of atoms and electrons. We cannot deduce from purely metaphysical premisses the hypotheses and conclusions of the sciences.

This point can be made clearer by anticipating to a certain extent and drawing attention to Aquinas' general conception of the metaphysician's activity. The latter is concerned with interpreting and understanding the data of experience; and to this extent the root-impulse of his mind is common to himself and the scientist. But the metaphysician concerns himself primarily with things considered in their widest and most general aspect, namely as beings or things. For Aquinas he directs his attention above all to things as existing; it is their existence on which he rivets his gaze and which he tries to understand. And this is one reason why Aquinas says, as we shall see later, that the whole of metaphysics is directed towards the knowledge of God. At the same time the metaphysician first considers the intelligible structure of things regarded precisely as such and the fundamental relationships between them. He concerns himself, we may say, with the categorical structure of empirical reality. And Aquinas considers, for example, the categories of substance and accidents and the distinction in every finite thing be-

AQUINAS tween act and potentiality, themes which will be discussed in the next chapter.

Now, in all this Aquinas was concerned with the structure of things considered on a much wider level of generality than they are considered in the particular sciences. He was quite well aware that by saying, for instance, that every finite thing is composed of potentiality and act, that it is something definite but not yet all that it can be, he was not saying what are the concrete potentialities of this or that definite thing or what precise shape its development takes.

And he was aware that in saying that a living organism is a developing unity in which we can distinguish 'matter', that which it has in common with all material things, and 'form', that which seals it, as it were, as a thing of a definite type, he was not telling us anything about the concrete physical structure of a daffodil as distinct from a daisy. For a knowledge of the physical structure of this or that type of organism or of this or that type of inorganic thing we have to turn to the relevant science. Similarly, metaphysical insight into the nature of relations does not tell us, and cannot tell us, what concrete relations are to be found in the world. Metaphysics is not the same thing as empirical science; nor can we deduce the latter from the former. As will be seen in the next chapter, there is no very clear distinction in Aquinas' writings between philosophy and the particular sciences.

Nor could a clear-cut distinction be expected at that period.

But he said enough, I think, to indicate the exigencies of his system with regard to the development of this distinction.

The purification of science from metaphysics, in the sense of not allowing metaphysical propositions to do duty as concrete scientific hypotheses, and the preservation of metaphysics from being interpreted as a kind of primitive physics seem to be both demanded by his general point of view.

Metaphysics does not stand in the way of the development of the sciences; it leaves room for their development, and indeed demands their development, that concrete content may be given to the bare bones of categorical generality. On the other hand, the development of the sciences does not

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render metaphysics superfluous. The fact that we grow in knowledge of the concrete structures of definite types of things does not make it any the less true to say that every material thing has a structure. This latter type of knowledge is indeed 'useless' if we mean by this that it cannot be used in precisely the same way that a scientific hypothesis is used.

But it is not useless for those who are animated by the desire to know explicitly the general categories and structural principles of being as proportionate to the human mind.

Aquinas does indeed imply that metaphysics gives the general heuristic principles which the scientist employs. But he does not mean that the scientist need consciously accept heuristic principles from the metaphysician. It is rather that the scientist, like anyone else, grasps implicitly, for example, the distinction between a thing and its relations and thinks in these terms. What a metaphysician does is not to dictate to the scientist but to isolate and analyse abstractly the most general principles and categories which in Aquinas' opinion the scientist, as anyone else, necessarily uses in practice, not because the human mind is determined or conditioned by purely subjective forms or categories but because every mind apprehends them implicitly in experience.

Metaphysical analysis, provided that its metaphysical character is preserved in its purity, can attain a certain state of finality; but scientific knowledge can go on increasing.

And increasing scientific knowledge does not necessarily involve a revolution in metaphysics. For their functions are different.

I conclude, therefore, that in so far as a general attitude of mistrust towards metaphysics is based on the notion that metaphysics necessarily involves the claim that the philosopher can deduce the system of the world from a priori principles, it is misdirected to the extent that it includes Aquinas' philosophy in its object.

It is true that some Aristotelians of a later period shut their eyes to the scientific advance of the Renaissance and to all intents and purposes confused metaphysics with physics. And it is true that some post-medieval metaphysicians talked as though philosophy

AQUINAS could be turned into a purely deductive system akin to pure mathematics. But I think that Aquinas would repudiate the attitudes of these groups. But this obviously does not answer the question whether when Aquinas enunciated propositions about things as things he was really saying anything at all.

Nor does it answer the question whether when he went on to talk about God he was not attempting to transcend experience in a way which was quite incompatible with his view of the fundamental role of sense-perception in human cognition. And I want now to discuss briefly these two topics.

As regards the consideration of things as things or beings and the analysis of them when considered in this way, the objection can be raised that, though this procedure may be legitimate in the sense that no a priori prohibition can be issued against indulging in it, it leads to no more than the enunciation of trivialities and really provides no information. Mention has already been made of the distinction made by Aquinas between act and potentiality, between a thing's actuality, its being actually this or that, and its capability of change, of acquiring fresh accidental characteristics or even, in the case of material things, of becoming a different kind of thing. And it is immediately evident that in one sense at least the statement of the distinction provides no new information at all. The fact, for example, that the ordinary man the man,

I mean, who is innocent of philosophy - puts wood or coal on his fire in winter shows clearly enough that he is well aware that wood or coal are capable of undergoing change, that they possess potentiality. Similarly, the ordinary man has no doubt about events having causes.

If someone is found shot, the ordinary man simply takes it for granted that the dead person either shot himself or was shot by someone else, whether intentionally or accidentally.

Even if the cause of the person's death cannot be determined, the ordinary man does not dream of doubting that there was a cause.

Hence if the metaphysician comes along and announces that finite things are metaphysically composed

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of act and potentiality and that every event has a cause or causes, he gives the impression of enunciating in terms of unnecessary solemnity truths of which everybody is already aware.

In my opinion, this is a point of considerable importance.

But I do not think that it would disturb Aquinas.

It is true that people in general are well aware that this or that particular thing is capable of change, and they are well aware in practice that events have causes. And this awareness finds expression in the concrete propositions of ordinary speech.

But the so-called man in the street does not consciously advert to or 'notice' structural characteristics of the things which enter into the field of his experience, since these characteristics are so familiar in practice that they are taken for granted. And because he does not consciously advert to them and reflect upon them he does not apprehend reflectively their connexion with finite being as such. Nor, though he has a practical awareness of the causal relation and though he doubtless often investigates the particular causes of particular events, does he attempt to analyse the nature of the causal relation. The metaphysician, however, pays attention to what is so familar that it is customarily taken for granted, and he attempts to analyse in an abstract way characteristics and relations of which all possess an implicit and unreflecting awareness. And when he analyses, for example, the causal relation, he is not conveying to people the fresh piece of information that there are causal relations; for they know this already. Still less is he telling them what is the particular cause of this particular event. He is analysing what it means to say that X is the cause of Y and Y the effect of X.

1 For the matter of that, does not a great deal of philosophy in general consist of a clarificatory analyi.

I suggest that much of what is now called 'linguistic analysis' does not differ fundamentally from what Aquinas would have thought of as metaphysical analysis. The descriptive names may differ; but what is done seems to be often much the same sort of thing. The results of the analyses of Aquinas and of a modern analyst may often be different. But this is another matter.

AQUINAS sis of what is in some sense already known ? For example, people did not have to wait for Socrates in order to be able to distinguish between good and bad and in order to say correctly that one action was objectively just, another unjust. The ordinary Athenian certainly had some knowledge of moral values. But it does not follow that he could have provided definitions of justice, courage, and so on. All he could have done was to do what was so often done by those whom Socrates questioned, namely to point to concrete instances. The ordinary Athenian's knowledge of moral values was implicit and practical rather than explicit and theoretical or abstract. And he was doubtless often confused in his ideas. What Socrates tried to do was to make clear what was confused and explicit what was implicit. But we do not on that account say that Socrates' activity was useless. Nor, when the metaphysician analyses the causal relation or draws attention to the essential structure of finite being, is there any reason for saying that his activity is useless, unless we are prepared to say that philosophy in general is useless.

Perhaps the matter should be carried a little further in connexion with Aquinas' principia per se nota or self-evident principles. But I had better make it clear at once that we shall not find in Aquinas an explicit treatment of the question how far these self-evident principles are 'informative'. And to attempt to find all possible problems and their answers in any given philosopher is, I consider, a silly practice. Nevertheless Aquinas says enough to suggest that he might not be so put out at the observations of some modern critics as one might at first be inclined to suppose.

Let us take the statement that a finite whole is greater than any one of its parts.

1 It is often pointed out that this proposition is true, and necessarily true, in virtue of the meaning of the terms. Once given the meaning of the terms, the proposition cannot be anything but true. And it is inconceivable i.

I say 'finite' whole because I am not concerned with the special problems arising out of infinite sets in mathematics.

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that any instance could be adduced which would lead us to say that the proposition is after all false or that it admits exceptions. For if our attention were drawn to any alleged contrary instance, we would say, 'that is not what is meant by a whole' or 'that is not what is meant by a part'. But though the proposition is true it does not tell us that there are in the world any wholes or any parts. What it does, it may be said, is to elucidate the use of words or symbols

: it gives no factual information. It may be said that the proposition does not concern words alone; for it affirms an objective relationship between that to which the word 'whole' is applied and that to which the word 'part' is applied.

If the conventions of the English language required the use of 'part' where we use 'whole' and 'whole' where we use 'part', then it would be true to say that the part is greater than any one of its wholes and false to say that the whole is greater than any one of its parts. But the objective relationship affirmed would be the same as the objective relationship affirmed by the proposition expressed according to actual English usage. And this shows that it is not simply 'a matter of words'. But the retort can be made, of course, that though this is true no 'information' is conveyed by the proposition, however it is expressed, since everyone already knows that what is called a 'whole' is greater than what is called its 'part'.

It seems to me, however, that Aquinas would admit this.

He distinguished between self-evident propositions, the meaning of the terms of which are very easily understood, so that the proposition can be said to be immediately obvious to practically everybody, and self-evident propositions, the meaning of the terms of which are not easily understood, so that the truth of the proposition is by no means obvious to all. What constitutes a self-evident principle is not the number of people who understand the terms and see the necessary truth of the proposition but the necessary connexion itself between subject and predicate, which may or may not be clear to all. Now, the proposition 'the whole is greater than any one of its parts' is given as an 4i

AQUINAS example of the first type. It is a proposition, the meaning of the terms of which are so easily understood that the truth of the proposition is naturally known to practically everyone. Though people are not accustomed to say to themselves

'the whole is greater than any one of its parts', they know it already if they are normal persons. And I do not think that Aquinas would have any hesitation in admitting that if one announced solemnly to an ordinary man that the whole is greater than any one of its parts, one would not be giving him any factual information about the world, if to give information to someone means to tell him something which he did not know before.

1 For Aquinas clearly supposes that every normal person is well aware that the whole is greater than any one of its parts. What he does is not to suggest that the proposition gives new information but to offer it as an admitted instance of an indubitable proposition. And if it is said that it is necessarily true in virtue of the meaning of the terms, this is what Aquinas also says. He would doubtless add that an objective relationship is affirmed; but he was not so stupid as to suppose that this relationship is unknown until one has formulated or heard formulated the abstract proposition.

The principle of efficient causality, however, is different.

We could hardly define 'whole' without mentioning 'part' or 'part' without mentioning 'whole'. But as Aquinas himself observed, relationship to a cause does not enter the definition of a thing which begins to be. Unless we state the principle of causality in a frankly tautological form ('every effect has a cause'), the principle is not 'tautological' in the sense in which 'the whole is greater than any one of its parts' has been called 'tautological'. It has indeed sometimes been said that the principle of causality, expressed in the form 'every event has a cause', excludes nothing and so asserts nothing. But there are some people who deny the principle; or rather there are people who deny that the prini.

I do not mean to imply by this that those who say that propositions of this kind are not informative do so on the ground that they do not provide 'new' information.

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ciple is universally and necessarily true. And if it can be denied, it is at least not thought to be vacuous by those who deny it. For it excludes what is asserted by the people who deny it. But if it can be denied in such a way that the denial is not purely verbal, a difficulty arises in connexion with the claim that it is 'self-evident'.

Is it an empirical hypothesis or is it an instance of what might be now called a 'synthetic a priori proposition' ? Aquinas certainly understood it in the latter sense. But I do not want to discuss this problem, important as it is. What I want to do is to make the point relevant to the present discussion, namely that all act on the supposition that all events have causes and that most people would be prepared to say that they 'know' that all events have causes, even though they may not be able to say anything more about the matter. Hence the formal enunciation of the principle of efficient causality cannot come to them as a piece of information in the same sense in which one gives a man information when one tells him that there is a cobra under his chair, this being a fact of which he was ignorant. Yet the principle does say something. It says something about things which begin to exist, if there are such things, and it excludes from the class of things which are necessarily caused a thing which does not begin to exist, supposing that there is such a thing.

We can see therefore that for Aquinas the philosopher as such has no privileged access to a sphere of experience from which non-philosophers are debarred. His insight into the intelligible structure of the world presented in experience is the result of reflection on data of experience and of insight into those data which are in principle data of experience for everyone, whether he is a philosopher or not. William James declared that scholasticism, which he spoke of as 'common sense's college-trained younger sister', was nothing but common sense rendered pedantic. This was not intended exactly as a compliment; nor would James' verdict be accepted by everyone. But there is, I think, some truth in the remark. For Aquinas, to confine one's observations to him, did not think that the philosopher enjoys private access to a sphere of

AQUINAS reality from which ordinary people are excluded. The ordinary man apprehends in some sense the fundamental metaphysical principles, though he does not formulate them in the abstract way in which they are formulated by the philosopher.

It is so often the case that the philosopher makes explicit what is implicitly known by people in general. For example, the ordinary man uses universal terms correctly, and he can be said to know, in some sense of the word 'know', that there are no existent universals 'out there'. For he would never dream of looking behind the hedge or taking a telescope to see if there is a universal called 'horseness' existing out there in addition to horses.

But he would probably be at a loss, were he asked to give a logical analysis of universal terms. Hence when a philosopher like Aquinas says that there are no universal entities existing independently 'out there', he is not giving the ordinary man a brand-new piece of information. On the other hand, his analysis of universal terms is not superfluous.

This is all very well, it may be said. Whether we agree or not with Aquinas' analysis of causality or of act and potentiality, it is clear that in this particular field he is not working on the assumption that he has privileged access to a sphere of reality from which the ordinary man is excluded.

It is clear, in other words, that in some at least of his metaphysical analysis he does not pretend to play the part of an explorer, bringing us back news about the existence of things which were hitherto entirely unknown by ordinary mortals.

But it has already been pointed out in this book that for Aquinas the whole of metaphysics is directed towards the knowledge of God. And does he not here pretend to be able to transcend the sphere of ordinary experience and to bring back news of the existence of a being which lies outside the scope of normal human cognition ?

It is necessary to understand Aquinas' point of view as a metaphysician. With centuries of theism behind us we naturally have some notion of God; and if we are doubtful

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about the truth of theism, we inevitably tend to put the following sort of question, 'Is there a God?' or 'Does God exist?' or, if we are more sophisticated, 'Is it the case that there is a thing, and one thing only, which is infinite, omniscient, omnipotent, etc.?' And once the question has been put in this way, it is natural to go on to say that before we try to answer it we ought to find a method whereby such questions can be answered.

But though this way of approaching the matter is perfectly understandable, and though the question could have been put in this way in the thirteenth century, since men like Aquinas also had an idea of God before they asked whether there is any rational evidence in favour of belief in God, Aquinas' actual approach was rather different. For it is plain that for him attentive reflection on the objective meaning of, say, coming into being and passing away discloses the relation of dependence of things which come into being and pass away on something other than themselves which does not come into being or pass away, and cannot do so. His conviction was that if a man does attend (which he may not do, of course) to the metaphysical structure of things as things, their existential dependence on something which transcends them becomes apparent. And the function of the arguments for God's existence is to give explicit statement to the process of metaphysical analysis and reflection. Thus the objective existence of a completely independent being on which the things which fall within the field of our natural experience depend existentially forces itself upon the mind which carries through an analysis of the metaphysical structure of these things. In this sense we can say that for Aquinas the proposition affirming God's existence is not so much an answer to the question 'Is there a God?' as an answer to the question

'What are things considered simply as beings?' For him the mind is first acquainted with material things.

It can consider these things from a metaphysical point of view.

If it does so, it will be led, he is convinced, by the process of analysis to see them as dependent on 'something' beyond them. And the question then arises what sort of being is this

AQUINAS 'something'. Aquinas' affirmation of God's existence is not offered as an empirical hypothesis to explain, say, religious experience; still less is it grounded on some personal incommunicable experience. His proofs of God's existence constitute a prolongation of the reflection on things as things to which attention has already been drawn. He is thus prepared to say that 'all cognitive agents know God implicitly in everything they know' (De veritate, 22,

2, ad i).

And this is the point which I am trying to make. When the metaphysician affirms God's existence, Aquinas does not depict him as entering a sphere of experience of reality from which non-philosophers are debarred. Nor does he depict the philosopher as going on a voyage of exploration and coming back with the startling news that there is a God 'out there'.

He starts where everyone else starts, and he reflects on the normal data of experience. But he has a power of reflective analysis which, when stimulated by the necessary interest, enables him to be a philosopher. And he raises to the level of conscious and explicit reflection truths which many people perhaps never consciously apprehend, though the truths, once apprehended, throw a flood of light on the content of their experience.

When therefore Aquinas depicts the philosopher as arriving at the affirmation of God's existence, he does not mean to imply that the philosopher can transcend human experience and the limitations of the human mind. For him the human mind, as mind, is open to the amplitude of reality or being, in the sense that it is the faculty of apprehending the intelligible and that every being is, as such, intelligible.

At the same time, considered precisely as a human mind, that is as an embodied mind, it is dependent on sense-perception for the acquisition of knowledge. This dependence does not take away or destroy its openness to reality in a wider sense than material reality; but it means that in its present life the human mind can know spiritual or supersensible reality only in so far as it is manifested in the material world, that is, in so far as the mind's active reflection discerns the relatedness of the finite object of direct

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experience to what transcends our direct natural experience.

'Our natural knowledge takes its beginning from sense.

Therefore it can extend only so far as it can be brought by (reflection on) the things of sense'

(S.T., la, 12, 12). Again, 'those things which do not fall under the senses cannot be apprehended by the human mind except in so far as knowledge of them can be gathered from the senses' (C.G.,

1, 3).

Thus we can have a natural knowledge of God only in so far as finite things point beyond themselves and manifest the existence of that on which they depend. Hence the proofs of the existence of God say something primarily about things, the things which fall within the field of experience. They say that these things depend on something which transcends them. They cannot give the philosopher or anyone else an intuition of God. Any more immediate experience of God must be supernatural in character and the work of God Himself within the soul; it cannot be obtained by philosophical analysis and reflection.

To make Aquinas' position clearer it should be added that it is not only in the initial acquisition of knowledge that the mind depends on sense-experience. For he held that we cannot use the knowledge which we have already acquired without the employment of images or 'phantasms'; and images are the result of sense-perception. 'For the mind actually to understand something there is required an act of the imagination and of other (sensitive) faculties not only in receiving fresh knowledge but also in using knowledge already acquired Anyone can experience in himself that when he tries to understand something he forms for himself some images by way of examples in which he can see, as it were, what he is trying to understand. Hence also when we wish to make anyone understand something we set before him examples from which he can form for himself images with a view to understanding' (ST., la, 84, 7). Aquinas did not believe in imageless thinking, and he regarded the necessity of recourse to images as an illustration of the factual dependence of mental activity on the sensitive faculties or powers. Whether or not thinking is always accompanied by

AQUINAS images is a controversial matter, and in any case to make Aquinas' view tenable the term 'image' would have to be understood as covering 'word' and 'symbol*. Otherwise it would be very .difficult to show that symbolic logic and pure mathematics require the use of images. But Aquinas regarded the truth of the general proposition that mental activity requires as a matter of fact the use of the imagination as being confirmed by experience. He remarks, for instance, that 'if the use of the imagination is hindered by an organic lesion, a man's power to use knowledge already acquired is thereby impaired'

(ibid., and cf. De fotentia, 3, 9 ad 22).

The point of adding these remarks is that Aquinas applied his theory of the necessity of what he calls the 'recourse to the phantasm' to our thinking about spiritual things. 'Incorporeal things, of which there are no images, are known by us by means of their relation to sensible bodies of which there are images.

. And so when we understand something about incorporeal things, we have to have recourse to the images of bodies, although there are no images of incorporeal things themselves'

(ST., la, 84, 7, ad 3). For example, when we conceive the divine immensity we cannot help imagining

God as extending everywhere, as though He were spread out in space. We cannot avoid using some image or symbol, even though we know that God is not a material thing which is capable of being extended or spread out. Not even the philosopher can free himself from the mind's dependence on sense-perception.

Any pretended disclosure of the divine essence, any unveiling of the inner nature of God, by the power of the speculative reason would thus be for Aquinas no more than pseudo-knowledge. He was convinced that there is a natural desire to know the supreme being, a desire which shows itself on the conscious level in, for example, metaphysical reflection. But he would add that it is rational to want to do this in so far as the means are available. And philosophic reflection is not a means for satisfying this desire, not simply because theologians say that it is not or because they erect

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a barrier with the notice 'trespassers will be prosecuted', but because our natural dependence on sense-experience and the imagination renders it impossible for us to penetrate the divine essence. If we attempt to do so with Hegel, the result will be a progressive elimination of the divine transcendence and the creation of a caricature of the unfathomable mystery of God. As we shall see in the chapter on God, Aquinas thought that philosophic reflection gives us knowledge of what He is not rather than of what He is. The metaphysician cannot transcend the limitations of the human mind which are common to himself and others. We cannot therefore expect startling discoveries in metaphysics comparable to the startling discoveries which are made in the particular sciences or by explorers.

Even though Aquinas did not make extravagant claims on behalf of metaphysics, he none the less thought that the metaphysician can attain certainty within a limited sphere.

And it may appear that he simply assumed the mind's ability to know. Indeed, it has been suggested that the medieval philosophers in general were naive dogmatists in that they did not preface their philosophies with theories of knowledge. But though this point of view is understandable, and though it is true that Aquinas did not preface his philosophy with an explicit theory of knowledge, there is little reason to think that he would have had much sympathy with an attempt to 'justify' knowledge, if this is taken to mean a justification from outside, as it were. For how could knowledge ever be justified from outside? None the less, Aquinas did take steps to justify our spontaneous conviction that knowledge of truth is attainable by analysing the grounds of this conviction and by drawing attention to indubitable acts of knowing. We can call this, if we like, a justification from inside. And though Aquinas may not have said very much on the matter, he at any rate said enough to make his general position clear and to show the general line which he would adopt against scepticism.

AQUINAS According to Aquinas it is in the act of knowing truth that the mind is aware of its ability to attain truth. Truth is predicated primarily of propositions; or, as he puts it, truth is found primarily in the judgement. Now, there are indubitable propositions, the truth of which cannot really be doubted, though they can, of course, be verbally denied.

'The whole is greater than any one of its parts' would be a case in point. And in recognizing the truth of such indubitable propositions the mind recognizes both the fact that it knows their truth and that it is its own nature to be conformed to reality and so to know. In a rather cryptic passage Aquinas states that truth is 'a resultant of the activity of the mind, when the mind's judgement is about the thing as it is. Truth is known by the mind according as the mind reflects on its act, not only as knowing its act but also as knowing the relation of conformity between the act and the thing (proportionem eius ad rem). This indeed cannot be known unless the nature of the act itself is known; and this in turn cannot be known unless the nature of the active principle, that is, of the mind itself, is known, to whose nature it pertains to be conformed to reality (to things, rebus). Therefore the mind knows truth according as it reflects on itself (De veritate, i, 9). Thus the mind knows its own power of attaining truth by reflecting on itself in the act of knowing truth. Aquinas' point of view was that sometimes at least we know something with certainty, that we know that we know it and that in knowing it we know that the object is knowable. It may be objected that this point of view is uncritical and naive on the ground that it amounts to accepting the ordinary man's spontaneous conviction that he can attain truth and often does so. But the point is that for Aquinas the ordinary man's conviction on this matter is not simply 'naive'.

It is in the act of knowing that the mind's ability to know is recognized; and it is recognized by the ordinary man. The philosopher can reflect on this recognition and make explicit what for the ordinary man is implicit. And this procedure can be called 'second reflection'.

The passage quoted above is an instance of second reflection.

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But the 'reflection' about which the passage speaks is not itself philosophic reflection : it is what we may call 'first reflection', the awareness of knowing truth which at least sometimes accompanies the ordinary man's mental activity.

In other words, the philosopher can reflect on the ordinary man's awareness of attaining truth, but he has not at his disposal some extraordinary and special means of proving that we can know truth or that 'knowledge' is knowledge.

If a philosopher were to comment that in this case we can never prove that we can attain truth and that if we cannot prove it we can never know it, Aquinas might reply that the sort of proof which the philosopher is looking for is inherently useless and indeed impossible, but that it does not follow that we cannot both attain truth and also know that we can attain it. We do not need any further guarantee of our ability to attain truth than our awareness or recognition of the fact that we do in fact attain it.

In the De veritate (10, 12, ad 7) we read that though one can think about the statement that one does not exist, no one can give his assent to it : that is, no one can affirm with a real interior assent that he does not exist. 'For by the fact that he perceives something, he perceives that he exists.' In enunciating the proposition 'I exist'

I know that I am enunciating a true proposition, and I cannot be sceptical about its truth, though I can, of course, say in words 'I do not exist'.

But it is to be noted that Aquinas does not say that a man perceives that he has a spiritual soul or that he affirms his existence as a thinking subject, if by this we mean simply a mind. The awareness of one's own existence of which Aquinas is speaking is an awareness enjoyed also by those who are innocent of all philosophy; it is anterior to any metaphysical theory of the self. The ordinary man, of whom

Aquinas is speaking, would certainly affirm that he exists, if he were questioned on the matter, but he would not mean by this that he exists simply as a mind. Indeed, Aquinas did not use, and could not have used, the proposition

'I exist' in the way that Descartes used his Cogito: ergo sum. For example, the idea of starting with the affirmation of one's own

AQUINAS existence as a thinking substance or mind and then trying to prove the existence of the external world, including one's own body, would have been quite foreign to his point of view.

For, as we have seen, he was convinced that the human being's knowledge and awareness of himself presupposes sense-perception. Our initial awareness of self starts with the awareness of outwardly-directed acts as our acts. Hence to start with a kind of detached ego or mind and then to try to prove the existence of things other than this ego or mind would necessarily have seemed to Aquinas a highly artificial and paradoxical proceeding. He uses the proposition 'I exist' as an example of a proposition which I know to be true if I enunciate it. And in knowing it to be true I know that I can attain truth. And in knowing that I attain truth I know that it is the nature of the mind to attain truth. For Aquinas everyone really knows this. But the fact that Aquinas takes the proposition 'I exist' as an example of a proposition which I know to be true if I enunciate it should not lead us to imagine that the proposition occupies or could occupy the same position in his philosophy that the Cogito: ergo sum occupies in the philosophy of Descartes.

It would, however, be a mistake to interpret Aquinas' appeal to the ordinary man's awareness of attaining truth as equivalent to saying that whenever anyone thinks that he knows the truth he does in fact know it. In the case of some propositions there can be no error, but this does not mean that we cannot enunciate false propositions while believing them to be true.

If I say That object in the distance is a tree', my statement may turn out to be false, even though

I now believe it to be true. But though error is possible, Aquinas did not regard this possibility as any valid reason for unlimited scepticism. In cases where there is a possibility of error or where there is reason to suspect error Aquinas speaks of a 'resolution to first principles'. But we must not interpret 'first principles' as meaning exclusively the first principles of logic and mathematics. True, if we have reason to suspect that there is an error in our mathematical reason-

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ing, we have to go back and retrace our steps. But under 'first principles' in the present connexion Aquinas includes actual sense-perception. 'Because the first principle of our knowledge is sense, it is necessary to reduce in some way to sense all things about which we judge' (De veritate,

12, 3, ad 2). If my statement that the object in the field is a tree is open to doubt, the way to resolve the doubt or to correct the error is to look more closely.

It may be said that this does not touch the problem whether all sense-perception may not be illusory. But I do not think that Aquinas would have had much patience with a problem of this kind. The term

'illusion' has meaning for us only in contrast with what is not illusion and is known not to be illusion, and the word 'false' has meaning for us only in contrast with the word

'true'.

And we know the meaning of the word 'true' because we enunciate and know that we enunciate true propositions.

Again, the word 'knowledge' is meaningful for us because we actually know. And to ask whether the knowledge we have is 'really' knowledge is to pursue a profitless inquiry.

Of course, if when we ask whether what we think to be knowledge is 'really' knowledge, we mean to ask whether knowing that there is a cat under the table is 'mathematical knowledge', the answer is that it is not. And if we insist that only the conclusions of mathematical demonstrations can properly be said to be 'known', it follows that knowledge of non-mathematical truths is not knowledge. But all we are doing is to propose a peculiar use of the words 'know' and 'knowledge' which is different from the normal use and which has little, if anything, to recommend it.

In other words, I suggest that Aquinas would have considerable sympathy with those modern philosophers who examine with the aid of linguistic analysis what precisely is being asked when it is asked whether all that we take to be knowledge may not be something other than knowledge, whether all sense-perception may not be illusory, whether all experience may not be a dream, and so on.

For Aquinas, therefore, it is in actually knowing something that we know that we know and that the object is S3

AQUINAS knowable. And he was convinced that further reflection shows that the object is knowable or intelligible because and in so far as it has being. The truth that being is intelligible is revealed in the concrete act of knowing anything, though its expression in the form of an abstract proposition is the work of reflection. And this is for Aquinas the reason why the mind goes forward confidently to investigate reality, whether in the sciences or in philosophy. And if his philosophical interpretation of the world forms in some sense a system, the reason why it does so is not for him that reality is forced into a preconceived and presupposed mould but that the world is in itself an intelligible system and that this intelligible system discloses itself to the reflective mind.

It is rather that the system is imposed on the mind by reality than that the mind reads a system into phenomena.

Mention has just been made of 'system' in connexion with Aquinas' philosophy. And it will, I hope, become clear in the course of the following chapters that his cosmological, metaphysical, psychological, and ethical discussions form together a unified interpretation of the world, which permits one to speak of a system, provided that one does not understand the word in the sense which it would have if applied to the philosophy of Spinoza. At the same time it is clear that Aquinas never worked out a philosophical system in a treatise or series of treaties devoted exclusively to philosophy. He was neither simply a philosopher nor simply a theologian; and the fact that he was a theologian-philosopher, as one might put it, is reflected in his writings. But he had quite definite ideas about the relation of philosophy to theology; and it is necessary to outline these ideas if his thought is to be understood.

The word 'theology' is often used to cover all discourse about God, and this is a quite natural and proper use. And if one understands 'theology' in this wide sense, it may appear that the problem of the relation between theology and philosophy can be settled by saying that the former is composed

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mainly of discourse about God whereas the latter is not concerned with God. But this was not at all Aquinas' view of philosophy. It is true that the philosopher performs analyses in which no mention of God is made or need be made. The logical analysis of universal terms is a case in point. But Aquinas was convinced, as we have seen, that reflection on material things can disclose to the philosopher their relation of existential dependence on a transcendent being possessing attributes which make it proper to speak of this being as 'God'.

If therefore we use the word 'theology' to cover all discourse about God, it follows that there is a part of philosophy which can be called 'theology'. And it is obvious that when Aquinas draws a distinction between philosophy and theology he is not drawing a distinction between philosophy considered as a whole and one of its parts. What he is thinking of is the distinction between philosophy, including what is now called 'natural theology', and Christian theology proper, that is to say, theology based on the Christian revelation. We cannot understand Aquinas' distinction between theology and philosophy unless we bear in mind the concept of a Christian revelation. For the problem which he considered is one which arises for a man who believes in a Christian revelation on the one hand and on the other in the metaphysician's power of attaining some knowledge of God by the power of his reflective reason.

According to Aquinas, therefore, the distinction between philosophy and theology is not primarily a distinction between truths considered with regard to their content.

In many cases there is indeed a difference of content between theological and philosophical propositions. The philosopher can arrive at conclusions about, for example, the right analysis of universal terms, which form no part of Christian revelation. The theologian, on the other hand, concerns himself with revealed truths like the doctrine of the Trinity, which could not be known without revelation. But there can be a certain overlapping as regards content. For instance, both the theologian and the philosopher assert that the world depends existentially on God. But whereas the former

AQUINAS asserts it because it is the teaching of the Scriptures, the latter asserts it as the conclusion of a process of rational reflection, and not as a proposition accepted on authority and believed by faith. Hence the distinction between philosophy and theology is a distinction between different ways of arriving at and viewing truths rather than primarily a distinction between propositions considered with regard to their content. There is no reason why another science should not treat of the very same objects, as known by the light of divine revelation, which the philosophical sciences treat of according as they are knowable by the light of natural reason. Hence the theology which belongs to sacred doctrine differs in kind from that theology which is a part of philosophy' (S.T., la, i, i, ad 2). Similarly, both the theologian and the moral philosopher consider the ultimate good or end of man. But 'the philosopher considers as the ultimate good that which is proportionate to human power', while 'the theologian considers as the ultimate good that which exceeds the power of nature, namely eternal life' (De veritate, 14, 3).

The matter can be elucidated in this way. The theologian, who bases his reflection on revelation, naturally starts with God and only afterwards proceeds to a consideration of God's creation. But the philosopher proceeds the other way round. He starts with the immediate data of experience, and it is only by reflection on these data that he comes to some knowledge of what, considered in its essence, transcends natural experience. Hence the part of metaphysics which treats of God comes last in order from the philosophical point of view. The philosopher cannot start with God and deduce finite things; he starts with the finite things given in experience and comes to know spiritual reality only by reflection on these things. But this distinction refers, of course, to the theologian acting as a theologian and to the philosopher acting as a philosopher. Aquinas does not mean to imply either that the theologian as a man is exempt from the human being's dependence on sense-perception or that individual man may not have received his first idea

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of God from his parents or from the teaching of the Church.

It is occasionally said that this way of looking at things is due rather to the Thomists' than to Aquinas himself. But this suggestion is erroneous. Aquinas not only made a distinction in explicit terms between philosophy and what would now be called 'dogmatic theology', but he also observed the distinction and took it seriously. This can be seen from the fact that though as a Christian theologian he was convinced that the world was not created from eternity he stoutly maintained that philosophers had never succeeded in showing that creation from eternity is impossible.

He did not state dogmatically that reason alone cannot prove the impossibility of creation from eternity; what he said was that in his opinion no philosopher had ever succeeded in showing its impossibility by philosophical or mathematical arguments. That is to say, no philosopher had ever succeeded in showing the impossibility of a series of events without a first assignable member. And if philosophy cannot show that such a series is impossible it cannot answer the question whether the world was created from eternity or not. We thus have a question to which the answer has never been given by philosophy, though it is provided by theology.

And it is therefore clear that Aquinas took seriously his own distinction between theology and philosophy. Furthermore, one can draw attention in passing to a point to which I shall return in the chapter on God.

If Aquinas believed that no philosopher had ever succeeded in showing the impossibility of an infinite series stretching back into the past, it is clear that when in his proofs of God's existence he rules out an infinite regress he is not talking about this sort of series, as some critics have mistakenly supposed.

It is perfectly true, of course, that Aquinas did not i.

It is perhaps worth adding that according to Aquinas one cannot at the same moment believe in the truth of a proposition by faith, accepting it on authority, and know its truth as the conclusion of a philosophic argument. One can do so at different times, but one cannot do both simultaneously.

AQUINAS elaborate a philosophical system in accordance with his own canons of philosophical method. After all, he was a professor of theology. And some historians have argued that because he begins with God in both Summas the exposition of his philosophy should proceed in the same way. But this is to my mind a mistaken view, at least if it is interpreted in a narrow and literal manner. It seems to me out of place to feel bound by the order of treatment which Aquinas adopted in works written for specific and not primarily philosophical purposes. He says explicitly that before coming to the part of metaphysics which concerns God it is necessary to know many other things first. 'For the knowledge of those things which reason can find out about God it is necessary to know many (other) things first, since the mind in almost the whole of philosophy is directed towards the knowledge of God.

Hence metaphysics, which treats of the divine, is the last part of philosophy to be learned' (S.G., i, 4).

I feel, therefore, no hesitation in including a chapter on The World and Metaphysics' before the chapter on God.

Now, in view of this distinction between philosophy and theology many Thomists have said that Aquinas affirmed the autonomy of philosophy and that it is therefore a mistake to speak of his philosophy as a 'Christian philosophy' in any other sense than that it is compatible with Christianity. The fact that a philosophy is compatible with Christianity no more makes it a specifically Christian philosophy than the fact that a mathematical system is compatible with Christianity makes it a Christian mathematical system. On Aquinas' premisses there can be true and false philosophical propositions just as there can be true and false propositions in biology; but there can no more be a specifically Christian philosophy than there can be a specifically Christian biology.

That this point of view brings out important points seems to me undeniable. For it brings out the fact that Christianity is essentially a revealed way of salvation and not an academic philosophical system. It also brings out the fact that there is no revealed philosophy. One philosophy may be more compatible than another with Christianity. A purely

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materialistic philosophy is obviously incompatible with Christianity in a sense in which Cartesianism, for example, is not. But in the long run a philosophical system stands or falls on its own intrinsic merits or demerits. And to realize this fact prevents one from treating Thomism or any other philosophy as being part of the Christian faith. On the other hand, if one overstresses this legitimate point of view when talking about Aquinas himself, one may tend to give an impression of artificiality and even of a certain disingenuousness. For it is obvious that Aquinas was not a split personality. He remained a Christian whether he was pursuing theological or philosophical themes; and there is certainly a sense in which it is true to say that he was a believing Christian who tried to give a unified interpretation of the world and of human life and experience, using the methods of both theology (in his sense) and of philosophy. He was a Christian, and his interpretation of reality was a Christian's interpretation.

In saying this, however, I do not mean to take back what I have said about the seriousness with which he understood his own distinction between philosophy and theology. And I think that I can indicate briefly how the two points of view come together in his conception of the function of philosophy in human life.

It is true to say, I think, that Aquinas sees the function of philosophy in the light of man's supernatural vocation; that is, he interprets it in the light of the Christian doctrine of man's vocation to a supernatural destiny, the vision of God in heaven. Through knowledge the potentialities of the human mind, which for Aquinas is man's highest power, are actualized, and through knowledge man is enriched. Knowledge of the material world in the sciences and natural philosophy is itself an enrichment of the human personality, a partial fulfilment of man's striving after truth. But by reflection on the finite things of the empirical world the human mind is able to know something of the infinite being on which all finite things depend, and philosophy culminates in the metaphysical knowledge of God which is the highest perfecting and development of the mind on the purely

AQUINAS natural level. But because of our dependence on sense-perception our minds are not at home, as it were, in the sphere of spiritual reality, and the glimpse of infinite being which is possible for the philosopher is difficult to attain and difficult to preserve. 'Instruction by divine revelation was necessary even about truths concerning God which are accessible to the human reason. For otherwise they would have been found only by a few men and after a long time and, even then, mixed with many errors. And the whole salvation of man, which is to be found in God, depends on the knowledge of this truth'

(S.T., la, i, i). Revelation confirms the truth about God which the metaphysician can attain without it, though only with difficulty; and it also sheds on man's way to his final goal a light which is unattainable by philosophy alone. In this sense, therefore, philosophy, though not resting on specifically Christian foundations, is directed towards

Christian theology. But faith is not vision, and man's knowledge of God through revelation still remains analogical knowledge. Grace enables the will to outrun the intellect in the sense that it enables men to love God immediately though they cannot in this life know Him immediately. But it is only in the vision of God in heaven that man's quest achieves its goal. The natural desire to know cannot be stilled until we know the first cause, not in any sort of way but in its essence. Now, the first cause is God. Therefore the final end of the rational creature is the vision of the divine essence' (Compendium theologiae, 104). This vision is the actualization of man's highest potentialities. Supernatural in character it yet involves the fullest perfecting of the human personality both in its cognitive and affective aspects.

This is not a fashionable view of the function of philosophy, so far as this country is concerned. But it should be remembered that philosophers have not infrequently emphasized the connexion between philosophy and human life and destiny. We have only to think of Plato and Plotinus in the ancient world, of Spinoza in the seventeenth century, and of a thinker such as Karl Jaspers in the modern world. Even those who recommend a different use of the word

'philo-

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sophy' can recognize that there are various possible conceptions of the nature and function of philosophy. And in the case of Aquinas it is important to have mentioned at least this aspect of his thought. For in the Middle Ages people looked to Christianity itself for a message of salvation: once Christianity had been born those who accepted it could no longer look on philosophy in the same light that the non-Christian Neo-platonist had regarded his philosophy. And thus medieval philosophy very naturally tended to become something purely academic, a thing for holders of university chairs and their students, an abstract analysis divorced from man's constant striving to understand himself and his destiny. But whatever it may have tended to become, it was not only this in the eyes of the great theologianphilosophers of the thirteenth century. As a Christian theologian, a preacher, and a saint, Aquinas was primarily interested, of course, in man's attainment of his supernatural destiny. And he certainly did not think that it is necessary to be a philosopher in order to attain it. At the same time he thought that philosophy can throw some light, even if not a very strong light, on the significance of man's desire for truth and clarity and of his restless search after happiness.

He was not the type of theologian who considers it his business to represent the sphere of the natural as being no more than the sphere of alienation from God and the work of philosophic reflection, analysis, and synthesis as being simply a sign of the pride of the human intellect. Just as for him grace perfects nature but does not destroy it, so for him revelation, while shedding further light on the significance of human existence and of the natural tendencies of the human mind and will, no more renders philosophic reflection otiose and superfluous than the foundation of the Church did away with man's need for the State or annulled the latter's positive function. In the understanding of reality faith and reason go hand in hand. And in expounding this ideal harmony and balance Aquinas was the representative thinker, theologian, and philosopher combined, of the high

Middle Ages.

In the course of time the factors which he

AQUINAS combined in his intellectual synthesis became estranged, a process which began within the medieval period itself. And the latent tensions and centrifugal forces have worked themselves out in history. Whether at some future period a culture will arise in which the factors which Aquinas synthesized will again be harmoniously combined, it is obviously impossible to say. But if it comes it will clearly not be a literal repetition of the medieval culture; nor indeed is it desirable that it should be. And if a philosophy of the type represented by Aquinas ever wins general acceptance, it will not be a mere reproduction of what he wrote. But unless men in general ever become entirely absorbed in practical materialism, there will always be some who will be alive to the questions about man's destiny which the particular sciences can hardly answer, not because we can set any a priori limits to scientific advance but because they are not the sort of questions which any of the particular sciences asks. And for any Christian who stands in the tradition of Aquinas, we cannot, when considering these problems, reject all philosophy in the name of revelation or the idea of revelation in the name of philosophic autonomy.

In this respect Aquinas remains as the great example of a balanced Christian thinker. And whether we agree with him or not, he deserves our respect.

It would, however, be a great mistake to think that for Aquinas the function of philosophy is to 'edify' in the sense of uttering pious sentiments or earnest exhortations. He did not consider the function of the philosopher to be that of the preacher or of the popular moralist. On the contrary, he was convinced that philosophy is a form of intellectual activity which demands patient, open-minded and unremitting mental effort. Living when he did, he naturally took for granted some things which can hardly be taken for granted in a very different intellectual climate. But he would be the first to admit the need for an examination and analysis of the very foundations of his philosophy.

If he saw in philosophy the striving of the human mind after truth, a striving which for him can be completely satisfied only in the vision

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of God, the infinite being, this does not mean that he wished to substitute mystical elevations or affective attitudes for philosophical analysis and reflection.

I hope that this will become apparent in the course of the book.

In developing his philosophy Aquinas made considerable use of Aristotle. When he speaks, as he so often does, of 'the Philosopher', he means Aristotle. This was indeed a common way of referring to the Greek thinker in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and it indicates the peculiar position which he occupied in the estimation of the medievals. And since the significance of the role played by Aristotle in medieval thought is liable to be misunderstood, and indeed has often been misinterpreted, it is advisable to say something about the matter here for the benefit of any readers who know little of medieval philosophy.

Aristotle had always been known by medieval thinkers, but for a considerable time he was thought of primarily as a logician. The reason for this was that though the early medievals possessed at any rate some of the logical works of Aristotle in Latin translations, they did not possess the Corpus Aristotelicum as a whole.

1 But in the second half of the twelfth and the first part of the thirteenth centuries the physical and metaphysical works of Aristotle were made available in Latin translations, some of which were made from the Arabic while others were made from the Greek.

Thus by the time that Aquinas began his teaching career at Paris the Aristotelian philosophy had become known to the medieval Christian world.2 But it met with a very mixed i.

In speaking of the Corpus Aristotelicum I prescind altogether from the difficult question, what contributions and additions and changes by other hands (by Theophrastus, for example) form part of the Corpus as we have it. This problem is important for the study of Aristotle, but it is irrelevant to the present theme.

2. By saying this I do not mean to imply that Aquinas acquired no knowledge of Aristotle while he was a student at Naples. And he learned a great deal more about Aristotelianism when studying under Albert the Great at Paris and Cologne.

AQUINAS reception. On the one hand it was received with enthusiasm by considerable numbers of professors and students. On the other hand, when the statutes of the university of Paris were sanctioned by the papal legate in 1215 Aristotle's works on metaphysics and natural philosophy were prohibited, though the study of the Ethics was not forbidden and that of the logical works was ordered. In 1229 the professors of Toulouse, in order to attract students, issued a notice saying that lectures could be heard there on the works of Aristotle which had been prohibited at Paris in 12 10 and again in 12 1$.

An attempt was made in 1245 to extend the prohibition to Toulouse also, though by that date it had become impossible to check the spread of Aristotelianism. Generally speaking, the prohibitions had little effect, and in the course of time the official policy was reversed.

But what must appear strange in the eyes of those who think of medieval philosophy as synonymous with a somewhat arid and petrified

Aristotelianism is that the prohibitions ever took place.

We find an enthusiastic interest in Aristotle in the universities coupled with an initial hostility on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities and of a number of theologians; and both these facts need some explanation for the modern student who may find it difficult to understand how Aristotle aroused either enthusiasm or fear and hostility. Moreover, an understanding of the facts is required in order to be able to appreciate the attitude adopted by Aquinas.

In the early Middle Ages philosophy, if one excepts the system of John Scotus Eriugena (d. c. 877), was to all intents and purposes synonymous with dialectic or logic. This is one reason why philosophy was commonly regarded as the 'hand-maid of theology'. For logic was looked on as an instrument, and the theologians naturally saw in it an instrument for the development of theology from the data supplied by the Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers. In the course of time the scope of philosophy was broadened, and Abelard (1079-1 142) in particular raised the whole standard of philosophical thinking and analysis. But, in com-

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parison with later conceptions of its scope, philosophy was still confined within rather narrow channels. When, however, the Corpus Aristotelicum was made known to medieval Christendom, a new world was opened to men's minds.

For here was a wealth of observation, reflection and theory which was new to the medieval. It came with the charm of novelty and it was impressed with the stamp of an outstanding thinker

: it offered an interpretation of reality which far exceeded in its richness and comprehensiveness anything which the medieval philosophers had yet provided. Thus if one tries to put oneself in the place of a university student in the early part of the thirteenth century, it is not difficult to understand the interest and enthusiasm which Aristotle aroused. For many people today Aristotelianism is something old and obsolete; but for the student of whom

I am speaking it was like a new revelation, throwing a fresh light on the world. Moreover, since it was obvious that Aristotelianism stood, as it were, on its own feet and owed nothing to Christianity, men's ideas of the nature and scope of philosophy were necessarily enlarged.

At the same time it should also be easy to understand that the philosophy of Aristotle appeared to a number of theologians to be a dangerous and seductive influence.

In the first place, in the vname of reason it contradicted Christian doctrine on several points. For example, Aristotle taught that the world is and must be eternal, and he rejected what he took to be the Platonic idea of creation. God is mover but not creator. Whereas for the Christian all finite things are existentially dependent on God, for Aristotle the world is independent of God so far as existence is concerned. But more important than any isolated points on which the philosophy of Aristotle clashed with Christian doctrine was the general impression it made of being a naturalistic rival to supernatural religion.

It appeared to some to be a closed system, in which God was little more than a physical hypothesis to explain 'motion' or change and in which the human person was incapable of having a supernatural destiny.

Plato, so far as the medievals were acquainted with him, was

AQUINAS regarded as having developed ideas which looked forward to Christian revelation for adequate completion and statement. And this was indeed the way in which many early

Christian writers and Fathers had interpreted Plato.

But Aristotle seemed to some at first sight to have elaborated a naturalistic system in which no room was left for Christianity.

It must be remembered that the medievals thought of Aristotle as being much more of a dogmatizing systematizer than he appears to a modern commentator. And the sympathy of the ecclesiastical authorities for the 'pagan' system was not increased by those professors and lecturers of the faculty of arts at Paris who in their enthusiasm for Aristotle chose to regard him as having said the last word on every matter which he treated.

If we bear in mind the intense interest aroused by the writings of Aristotle and also the initial reserve and hostility of the ecclesiastical authorities, we can understand how it was that in adopting and utilizing so much of his ideas Aquinas was regarded in his day as an innovator, as a modern and advanced thinker. For though Aquinas was convinced of the great value and of the potentialities of Aristotelianism as an intellectual instrument, the weight of conservative opinion was against him.

I do not mean to imply that other thinkers did not utilize Aristotle's ideas to a greater or less extent; for they did. But the more conservative thinkers tended to stress a division between the Christian theologianphilosophers like St Augustine

(d. 430) and St Anselm (d.

1 109) and the pagan philosophers. For St Bonaventure, a contemporary of Aquinas who died in the same year (1274),

Aristotle was a great scientist and natural philosopher but he did not merit the name of metaphysician. At a later date we find Roger Marston (d.

1303), an English Franciscan, speaking of the pagan philosophers, in comparison with St Augustine and St Anselm, as those 'infernal men'. And even

Duns Scotus, who was one of the greatest thinkers of the Middle Ages and who himself made copious use of Aristotle and of the Islamic philosophers, evidently regarded Aquinas as having compromised himself with the 'philosophers' and

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as having maintained points of view under the influence of Aristotle which a Christian theologian should not have maintained.

It is, however, a great mistake to interpret Aquinas' very sympathetic attitude towards Aristotle as being simply that of an 'apologist'.

I mean, it is a mistake to think that Aquinas set out to diminish the danger attending on the renaissance of pagan philosophy by seeing if he could 'baptize' Aristotle and bring him safely into the fold as a Christianized sheep.

He was not concerned with patching together Aristotle as Aristotle with Christian theology. If he adopted and adapted a number of Aristotelian theories, this was not because they were Aristotle's, nor yet because he thought them 'useful', but because he believed them to be true. Given the state of historical scholarship at the time, Aquinas' commentaries on Aristotle show a remarkable penetration into the thought of the Greek philosopher, and to a great extent he thought that the latter's theories were valid.

Aquinas' attitude throughout was one of serene confidence. There is no need to be alarmed by Aristotle or by any other non-Christian thinker. Let us examine what he has said with an open mind.

Where he supports a position with valid reasons, let us adopt it. When he asserts conclusions which are in fact incompatible with Christian doctrine, the proper procedure is to examine whether these conclusions follow validly from true premisses : it will be found that they do not. Aristotle was not infallible, and the fact that he taught or appeared to teach doctrines which are incompatible with Christianity is no good reason for bluntly rejecting Aristotelianism and turning a blind eye on the new learning.

Inasmuch as Aquinas adopted from Aristotle what he thought was true and made it his own, it is unnecessary to cumber the following chapters with constant reminders that this or that statement or theory was based on the writings of Aristotle; for the book is about the former's and not the latter's philosophy. It may, however, be appropriate at times to draw attention to similarities and divergences in order to illustrate how Aquinas, while utilizing Aristotelianism, re6?

AQUINAS thought it critically in the process of building up his own synthesis and of showing the harmony between theology and philosophy. But it may be as well to remark here that the divergences between the views of the two men are sometimes concealed or obscured by Aquinas' 'charitable' interpretations.

That is to say, on those occasions when Aristotle's thought conflicts with Christian doctrines or seems to lead to conclusions which are incompatible with Christianity Aquinas tends to interpret him in the most favourable light from the Christian point of view or to argue that the conclusions drawn by Aristotle do not necessarily follow from the latter's premisses. But of greater importance is the fact that Aquinas made of the philosophy of Aristotle something rather different from historic Aristotelianism. The Greek philosopher was concerned with the problem of 'motion', in the wide sense of becoming, whereas

Aquinas made the problem of existence the primary metaphysical problem. The former asked what things are and how they come to be what they are, but he did not raise the question why they exist at all or why there is something rather than nothing. And there is a very great difference between these questions. In his Tractatus logicophilosophicus (No. 644) Wittgenstein stated that 'Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is'. If the word 'metaphysical' is substituted for the word 'mystical', this statement, though it would not be entirely acceptable to Aquinas, can serve as an illustration of the difference between the philosophy of the historic Aristotle and that of Thomas Aquinas. The change in emphasis doubtless owed a lot to the JudaeoChristian tradition, as £tienne Gilson showed in his Gifford lectures on the spirit of medieval philosophy; but that there was a change can hardly be denied. And this is one reason why some writers like to speak of Aquinas' philosophy as 'existential'. The use of the term can be misleading, since the word 'existence' means something different in modern existentialism from what it meant for Aquinas. But the use of the term may be justified if it is accompanied by an explanation of one's purpose in using it, namely to exhibit

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the change in emphasis between historic Aristotelianism and Aquinas' philosophy.

This lonj introductory chapter can perhaps be fittingly brought to a close with some remarks on Aquinas' use of language. He wrote, of course, in Latin, the common language of the learned world in the Middle Ages. This Latin was not indeed the Latin of Cicero's orations, as the scholars and humanists of the Renaissance were not slow to note. Moreover, the Latin of the medieval Scholastics contained a large number of terms which are not to be found in the classical writers. But it does not at all follow that these terms were all unnecessary accretions. The deficiencies of Latin from a philosophical point of view had been noticed centuries before : Seneca, for example, complained that the meaning of Latin words had to be forced or changed in order to express the concepts of Greek philosophy. And it was only natural that the medieval theologians and philosophers found themselves compelled not only to invent new terms to render Greek terms and phrases, which were themselves often technical terms coined by Greek writers, but also to invent entirely new terms. And these were designed to express or refer to aspects of reality and to distinctions which were not catered for by ordinary language. From the point of view of the classicist some of these terms are certainly strange or barbarous. The word quidditas (whatness) is a case in point.

Aristotle had coined a phrase (to tl ?jv zhon) to mean essence or the 'whatness' of a thing, and the medievals translated this term by the word quidditas. It is certainly a neologism, and from the purely classical point of view a barbarous one, but it does not follow that it was a purely gratuitous addition which bore no relation to common experience or to ordinary language. For we are accustomed to ask what a thing is, and ordinary language implies a distinction between saying what a thing is and that it is. Often enough the somewhat strange terms used by the medieval philosophers were due to the need of expressing in technical and abstract

AQUINAS language, for purposes of economy and clarity, concepts and distinctions which were present implicitly, though in an imprecise, confused and blurred way, in ordinary language.

It is a mistake to dismiss the medieval theologians and philosophers on the ground that they employ 'jargon'.

It is also a mistake to assume that the medievals, because they lived centuries ago, must all have been linguistically naive. They were aware, for example, that the same word may have different senses in common usage, that the meaning of a word when used as a technical term in philosophy may not be exactly the same as the meaning or meanings which it bears in non-philosophical language, and that the meaning of a word in its philosophical use needs to be precisely stated. Again, they were well aware of the distinction between the etymological origin of a term and its meaning in use. Thus Aquinas says that The etymology of a name is one thing, and the meaning of the name is another. For etymology is determined by that from which the name is taken to signify something, while the meaning of the term is determined by that which it is used to signify'

(S.T., Ha, Uae, 92, 1, ad 2). Aquinas' views on etymology are indeed frequently naive; like his contemporaries he often adopted the views expressed by Isidore of Seville

(d. c. 636) in his famous Etymologies. Nobody would be prepared to maintain that philology was highly developed in the Middle Ages. But Aquinas was perfectly capable of distinguishing between the etymological origin of a term and its meaning in use.

It may also be worth pointing out that the distinction between the grammatical form of a sentence and its logical form, a distinction which has been given considerable prominence by contemporary philosophers, was not unknown to the medievals.

For example, when Aquinas talks about 'creation out of nothing' he is careful to explain, as St Anselm had done before him, that 'out of nothing' means

'not out of anything', 'as if it were said, he is speaking of nothing because he is not speaking of anything' (ST., la, 45,

1, ad 3). Aquinas was not so silly as to suppose that because

INTRODUCTORY

the sentence 'God created the world out of nothing' is grammatically similar to the sentence 'Michelangelo made this statue out of marble' the word 'nothing' must signify a peculiar kind of something.

I am certainly not prepared to state dogmatically that Aquinas was never 'misled by language'; but he certainly recognized that there is such a thing as being misled by language. The example of analysis just quoted shows that. Again, though there had been ultrarealists in the early Middle Ages, Aquinas did not imagine that because we can say Joannes est homo (John is a man) and Vetrus est homo (Peter is a man) there must be a universal essence of man existing outside the mind.

Aquinas' concern with language cannot be called in question. He certainly used analogy and metaphor. And when speaking of the Scriptural use of metaphor he defended it on the ground that our knowledge begins with sense-experience and that spiritual realities are more easily understood if they are represented in the form of metaphors taken from material things (S.T., la, i, 9). But the bent of his mind was opposed to any unnecessary use of pictorial language. He much preferred to state his meaning in exact and precise terms rather than to multiply metaphors and illustrations suggesting meaning in an allusive and, as it were, cumulative way. The style of a Bergson, with its use of pictorial imagery, may be pleasanter and more attractive to read than the somewhat bald and apparently arid style of Aquinas; but the latter would have wanted to know precisely what the imagery and metaphors of the former were meant to convey. He fully sympathized with Aristotle's condemnation of the use of poetical and metaphorical language in philosophy. He remarks, for example, that Plato had a bad way of expressing himself. 'For he teaches all things figuratively and by symbols, meaning by the words something else than the words themselves mean, as when he said that the soul is a circle' (In De anima, 3, c.

1, lectio 8). Whether this is altogether just to Plato is another question; but it at any rate shows Aquinas' concern with language. There is perhaps a natural tendency to associate this concern with 7i

AQUINAS those philosophers of the fourteenth century who were in varying degrees critical of the speculative metaphysics of the preceding century. But it is important to remember that the leading metaphysicians of the thirteenth century had themselves given an example in this respect. In recent times in this country some attention has been paid to the meaning of terms when used analogically in metaphysics.

And the fact that some analysts have cast doubt on the meaningfulness of terms predicated analogically of God has sometimes created the impression that inquiries of this sort are a prerogative of anti-metaphysicians. Yet the analysts are simply reviving a line of inquiry which occupied a prominent position in the thought of men like Aquinas in the thirteenth century and which was practically neglected in post-medieval times. Indeed, a concern for language belonged to the general climate of thought in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. One can certainly find in the writings of the philosophers of the period much that is difficult to understand for a reader who belongs to a very different historic epoch, and one finds too a preoccupation with some problems which cannot be expected to arouse a very lively interest today.

But these features of their writings should not blind us to their passion for clear and accurate thinking and expression. Aquinas was a saint and a mystic, he was also a theologian and a metaphysician; but he was careless neither of logic nor of terminological exactitude. His opinions, like those of any other philosopher, are open to criticism; but he was far from being a woollyminded individual who based his philosophy on 'hunches' and had recourse to rhetoric to support their validity.

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