The Divine Lamp

For some reason I cannot post video on this site, so I’ve made them available in several different posts on my other blog, which is also called THE DIVINE LAMP.  Please update your bookmark and blog links, as this new blog is now my primary site.  Everything on this blog, plus much more, can be found there.  Thanks!  If you link to my blog please notify me in the combox so I can link to your blog.

The first video series is Anthony Kenny On Aquinas And Medieval Philosophy, in five parts totaling about 45 minutes.

The second video series is from one of the foremost historians of philosophy, Frederick Copleston On Schopenhauer.  This too is in five parts totaling about 45 minutes.

The third video series is from Ralph McIrnerry On Aquinas, Metaphysics, And Morality.  It will be posted before 6 AM tomorrow, June 16 on my OTHER BLOG.

He was in the desert forty days and forty nights: and was tempted by Satan.-Mark 1:13

1. It was by Christ’s own will that he was exposed to  temptation by the devil, as it was also by his own will that he was exposed to be slain by the limbs (minions) of the devil.  Had He not so willed, the devil would never have dared to approach him.

The devil is always more disposed to attack those who are alone, because, as is said in Sacred Scripture, If a man shall prevail against one, two shall withstand him easily (Eccles 4:12).  That is why Christ went out into the desert, as one going out to a battle-groun, that there he might be tempted by the devil.  Whereupon St Ambrose says that Christ went into the desert for the express purpose of provoking the devil.  For unless the devil had fought, Christ would never have overcome him for me.

St Ambrose gives another reason too.  He says that Christ chose the desert at the place to be tempted for a hidden reason, namely that he might free from his exile Adam who, from Paradise, was driven into the desert; and again that he did it for a reason in which there is no mystery, namely to show us that the devil envies those who are tending towards a better life.

2. We say with St Chrysostom that Christ exposed himself to the temptation because the devil most of all tempts those whom he sees alone.  So in the very beginning of things he tempted the woman, when he found her away from her husband.  It does not however follow from this that a man ought to throw himself into any occasion of temptation that presents itself.

Occasions of temptation are of two kinds.  One kind arises from man’s own action, when, for example, man himself goes near to sin, not avoiding the occasion of sin.  That such occasions are to be avoided we know, and Holy Scripture reminds us of it.  Stay not in any part of the country round about Sodom (Gen 19:17).  The second kind of occasion arises from the devil’s constant envy of those who are tending to better things, as St Ambrose says, and this occasion of temptation is not one we must avoid.  So according to St John Chrysostom, not only Christ was led into the desert by the Holy Ghost, but all the children of God who possess the Holy Ghost are led in like manner.  For God’s children are never content to sit down with idle hands, but the Holy Ghost ever urges them to undertake for God some great work.  And this, as far as the devil is concerned, is to go into the desert, for in the desert there is none of that wickedness which is the devil’s delight.  Every good work is as it were a desert to the eye of the world and of our flesh, for good works are contrary to the desire of the world and of our flesh.

To give the devil such an opportunity of temptation as this is not dangerous, for it is much more the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, who is the promoter of every perfect work, that prompts us than the working of the devil who hates them all.-From the Summa Theologica, III, 41, 2

Note: Today’s meditation is on why it was FITTING that Christ be tempted.  Monday’s post will be on WHY Christ had to be tempted.

Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil.-Matt 4:1

Christ willed to be tempted
1. That he might assist us aginst our own temptations.  St Gregory says, “That our Redeemer, who had come on earth to be killed, should wil to be tempted was not unworthy of him.  It was indeed but just that he should overcome our temptations by his own, in the same way that he had come to overcome our death by his death.”

2. To warn us that no man, however holy he be, should think himself safe and free from temptations.  Whence again His choosing to be tempted after His baptism, aout which St Hilary says: “The devil’s wiles are especially directed to trap us at times when we have recently been made holy, because the devil desires no victory so much as a victory over the world of grace.”  Whence too, the scripture warns us, Son, when thou comest in the service of God, stand in justice and in fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation (Ecclus 2:1).

3. To give us example how we should overcome the temptations of the devil, St Augustine says, “Christ gave Himself to the devil to be tempted, that in the matter of our overcoming those same temptations He might be of service not only by His help but by His example too.”

4. To fill and saturate our minds with confidence in His mercy: For we have not a high-priest who cannot have compassion on our infirmities, but one tempted in all things, like as we are, but without sin (Heb 4:15).  From the Summa Theologica, III, 41

1.  We fast for three reasons.

(a) To check the desires of the flesh:
First, in order to bridle the lusts of the flesh, wherefore
the Apostle says (2 Cor. 6:5, 6): “In fasting, in chastity,” since
fasting is the guardian of chastity. For, according to Jerome
[*Contra Jov. ii.] “Venus is cold when Ceres and Bacchus are not
there,” that is to say, lust is cooled by abstinence in meat and
drink.
(b)we have recourse to fasting in order that the mind
may arise more freely to the contemplation of heavenly things: hence
it is related (Dan. 10) of Daniel that he received a revelation from
God after fasting for three weeks.
(c)Thirdly, in order to satisfy for
sins: wherefore it is written (Joel 2:12): “Be converted to Me with
all your heart, in fasting and in weeping and in mourning.” The same
is declared by Augustine in a sermon (De orat. et Jejun. [*Serm.
lxxii] (ccxxx, de Tempore)): “Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the
mind, subjects one’s flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite
and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire
of lust, kindles the true light of chastity.”

2.  There is a command laid upon us:

Now it has been stated above (A. 1) that fasting is useful as atoning
for and preventing sin, and as raising the mind to spiritual things.
And everyone is bound by the natural dictate of reason to practice
fasting as far as it is necessary for these purposes. Wherefore
fasting in general is a matter of precept of the natural law, while
the fixing of the time and manner of fasting as becoming and
profitable to the Christian people, is a matter of precept of
positive law established by ecclesiastical authority: the latter is
the Church fast, the former is the fast prescribed by nature.

3.  fasting is directed to two things:

the deletion of sin, and the raising of the mind to
heavenly things. Wherefore fasting ought to be appointed specially
for those times, when it behooves man to be cleansed from sin, and
the minds of the faithful to be raised to God by devotion: and these
things are particularly requisite before the feast of Easter, when
sins are loosed by baptism, which is solemnly conferred on
Easter-eve, on which day our Lord’s burial is commemorated, because
“we are buried together with Christ by baptism unto death” (Rom.
6:4). Moreover at the Easter festival the mind of man ought to be
devoutly raised to the glory of eternity, which Christ restored by
rising from the dead, and so the Church ordered a fast to be observed
immediately before the Paschal feast; and for the same reason, on the
eve of the chief festivals, because it is then that one ought to make
ready to keep the coming feast devoutly.-From the Summa Theologica, II, Q.147, art., 1, 3, 5,

Chapter 11

Refutation Of The Foregoing Opinion And Solution Of The Aforesaid Arguments.

St Thomas is here responding to the arguement presented in the last chapter.

The foregoing opinion arose from their being accustomed from the beginning to hear and call upon the name of God.  Now custom, especially if it date from  our childhood, acquires the force of nature, the result being that the mind holds those things with which it was imbued from childhood as firmly as though they were self-evident.  It is also a result of failing to distinguish between what is self-evident simply, and that which is self-evident to us.  For it is simply self-evident that God is, because the selfsame thing which God is, is His existence.  But since we are unable to conceive mentally the selfsame thing which is God, that thing remains unknown in regard to us.  Thus it is self-evident simply that every whole is greater than its parts, but to the one who fails to conceive mentally the meaning of a whole, it must needs be unknown.  Hence it is that those things which are most evident of all are to the intellect what the sun is to the eye of an owl, as stated in Metaphysics ii.

Nor does it follow, as the first argument alleged, that as soon as the meaning of the word God is understood, it is known that God is.  First, because it is not known to all, even to those who grant that there is a God, that God is that thing than which no greater can be thought of, since many of the ancients asserted that this world is God.  Nor can any such conclusion be gathered from the significations which Damascene assigns to this word God (De Fid. Orth. Bk. 1, Ch 1. See quote below).  Secondly because, granted that everyone understands this word God to signify something than which a greater cannot be thought of, it does not follow that something than which a greater cannot be thought of exists in reality.  For we must needs allege a thing in the same way as we allege the signification of its name.  Now from the fact that we conceive mentally that which the word God is intended to convey, it does not follow that God is otherwise than in the mind.  Wherefore neither will it follow that the thing than which a greater cannot be thought of is otherwise than in the mind.  And thence it does not follow that there exists in reality something than which a greater cannot be thought of .  Hence this is no argument against those who assert that there is no God, since whatever be granted to exist, whether in reality or in the mind, there is nothing to prevent a person from thinking of something greater, unless he grants that there is in reality something than which a greater cannot be thought of.

Again it does not follow, as the second argument pretended, that if it is possible to think God is not, it is possible to think of something greater than God.  For that it be possible to think that He is not, is not on account of the imperfection of His being or the uncertainty thereof, since in itself His being is supremely manifest, but is the result of the weakness of our mind which is able to see Him, not in Himself but in His effects, so that it is led by reasoning to know that He is.

Wherefore the third argument also is solved.  For just as it is self-evident to us that a whole is greater than its parts, so is it most evident to those who see the very  essence of God that God exists, since His essence is His existence.  But because we are unable to see His essence, we come to know His existence not in Himself but in His effects.

The solution to the fourth argument is also clear.  For man know God naturally in the same way he desires Him naturally.  Now a man desires Him naturally in so far as he naturally desires happiness, which is a likeness of the divine goodness.  Hence it does not follow that God considered in Himself is naturally known to man, but that His likeness is.  Wherefore man must needs come by reasoning to know God in the likeness to Him which he discovers in God’s effects.

It is also easy to reply to the fifth argument.  For God is that in which all things are known, not so that other things be unknown except He be known, as happens in self-evident principles, but because all knowledge is caused in us by His outpouring.

St John Damascene:

No one hath seen God at any time; the Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him(1). The Deity, therefore, is ineffable and incomprehensible. For no one knoweth the Father, save the Son, nor the Son, save the Father(2). And the Holy Spirit, too, so knows the things of God as the spirit of the man knows the things that are in him(3). Moreover, after the first and blessed nature no one, not of men only, but even of supramundane powers, and the Cherubim, I say, and Seraphim themselves, has ever known God, save he to whom He revealed Himself.

God, however, did not leave us in absolute ignorance. For the knowledge of God’s existence has been implanted by Him in all by nature. This creation, too, and its maintenance, and its government, proclaim the majesty of the Divine nature(4). Moreover, by the Law and the Prophets(5) in former times and afterwards by His Only-begotten Son, our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, He disclosed to us the knowledge of Himself as that was possible for us. All things, therefore, that have been delivered to us by Law and Prophets and Apostles and Evangelists we receive, and know, and honour(6), seeking for nothing beyond these. For God, being good, is the cause of all good, subject neither to envy nor to any passion(7). For envy is far removed from the Divine nature, which is both passionless and only good. As knowing all things, therefore, and providing for what is profitable for each, He revealed that which it was to our profit to know; but what we were unable(8) to bear He kept secret. With these things let us be satisfied, and let us abide by them, not removing everlasting boundaries, nor overpassing the divine tradition(9).

For more on this topic:

See Chapter two of THE ONE GOD: A Commentary On The First Part Of St Thomas’ Theological Summa, by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Eternity is well defined by Boethius, interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio, the perfect and simultaneous possession of interminable life.  We know what is simple by that which is composite; for we know first what is composite, through which we attain to the notion of simplicity.   Accordingly, Eternity becomes known to us in a twofold manner: first, as that which belongs to Eternity is interminable, without beginning or end; and the term can be applied to both.  Secondly, this Eternity is without succession, it exists all at once.  Thus it exists always according to the one and same mode, and the idea of before or after has no place in it at all.  God is eternal because He is Unchangeable; thus Immutability belongs to Eternity as movement belongs to time.

God is not only Eternal; He is His own Eternity; for His Duration is His Existence; as His Essence is His Existence, so is His Eternity.  And God alone is Eternal, for He alone is Unchangeable.  Other things share in Eternity in much the same way as they share from Him, in their own degree, of durability, as things corruptible have a long life, and thus Scripture speaks of the “eternal hills.”  With some things, as the elements, this participation is held by the whole, and not according to the parts; others, like the Angels and the Blessed, participate, in a strict sense, by the substantial incorruptibility of their individual act; their happiness is in the Word, and their thoughts are not changeable.  Eternity differs from Age and from Time.  Eternity is without succession, which cannot be said of time; because the very notion of Time means before and after.  Age differs from Time, for as Eternity is the measure of permanent existence, and is without before or after, nor can it be in a way comparable to such a notion; indeed, as a thing recedes from permanence of existence it recedes from Eternity, so also Age is without before or after in itself, but may possibly be joined to them accidentally, hence its measure is that of the heavenly bodies, the existence of which is unchangeable, although this may be joined to change as regards place.  The Angels have a changeless existence, with liability to change as regards election, so far as pertains to their nature, thus being mutable as regards intelligence, affection, and place, and their measure of existence is Age.  But corruptible things that recede so far from permanence of existence as to be subject to change, like all movement, are measured by Time.

Age is one; for as the oneness of Time is derived from the unity of the first movement, which is the most simple, and the rule of measurement for all others, so one Age is the measure of all others, and the more it is simply the first the more simple it is, and the principle of the rest.  But many ages are reckoned as so many centuries. St Thomas Aquinas, A Compendium of the Summa

What follows is an excerpt from MORAL PHILOSOPHY, by Joseph Rickaby.  Links and text in red represent my additions.  The sole purpose of the first chapter is to summarize certain introductory points.

Of The Object-Matter And Partition Of Moral Philosophy.

1. Moral Philosophy is the science that considers human acts inasmuch as they befit man’s rational nature and make towards man’s last end. Philosophy means the love (philia) of wisdom (sophia). Wisdom orders things to an end: “Accordingly it is proper to moral philosophy, to which our attention is at present directed, to consider human operations insofar as they are ordered one to another and to an end” (Aristotle) The last end of man is happiness: “Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence” (Aquinas). For more on wisdom and the science of Philosophy in general read chapter 1 of the Summa Contra Gentiles. For more on happiness (Beatific Vision) see SCG, Bk. 3, Ch. 37.

2. Those acts alone are properly called human, which a man is master of to do or not to do. A human act, then, is an act voluntary and free. A man is what his human acts make him. Concerning this, read this excerpt from Walter Farrell’s Companion To The Summa, Bk. 2, Ch. 2. Also, read the Summa Theologica Ia-IIae, Q. 1, Art. 1.

3. A voluntary act is an act that proceeds from the will with a knowledge of the end to which the act tends. See ST. Ia-IIae, Q. 6, Art. 1.

4. A free act is an act which proceeds from the will that under the same antecedent conditions it might not have proceeded. See ST. Ia-IIae, Q. 13, Art. 6.

5. Human acts, as defined above, are the subject-matter of moral philosophy. The special light in which it considers them is their agreement with, or opposition to, man’s rational nature. That agreement or opposition is their moral good or evil, and is called morality. See ST. Ia-IIae, Q. 18, Arts. 1-11.

6. Moral Philosophy is divided into Ethics and Natural Law. The principal business of Ethics is to determine what moral obligation is, or to fix what logicians call the comprehension of the idea I ought. It belongs to Natural Law to consider what things are morally obligatory, or to determine the extension of the idea I ought.

7. Ethics stand to Natural Law as Pure Mathematics to Mixed.

1. Particular and General Sciences. At the time of the thirteenth century, the West possessed a comprehensive classification of the sciences, which we may well look upon as one of the characteristic achievements of the medieval mind, and which, in its main features, lasted up to the time of Wolf.

At the lowest stage we find the particular sciences,-which for the Schoolmen were the same as the experimental sciences. Such as Astronomy, Botany, Zoology, Human Physiology, Medicine, also Civil and Canon Law, which became separate and autonomous sciences in the twelfth century.

They derive their particularity (a) from the material object, which is particular. They are concerned only with a restricted section of the corporeal world. botany, for instance, has nothing to do with economic wealth. (b) From their formal object, which, in consequence of what we have just said, cannot be grasped or abstracted from all reality, but only from a more or less restricted section of it.

But the detailed study of the sensible world by sections does not satisfy the mind. After the details, we seek for a comprehensive view of the whole, and this can only be furnished by philosophy. The man of science is like a stranger who explores a city bit by bit, and walks through its streets, avenues, parks, museums and buildings one after another. When at length he has wandered over the city in all directions, there still remains another way of becoming acquainted with it: from the top of a tower, the city would resent to him another aspect,- its divisions, its general plan, and the relative disposition of its parts. The philosopher is just such a man: he views the world from above as it were, and tries to realize its general structure, for philosophy is a generalized knowledge of things, a synthetic view of that material world of which alone we have direct and proper knowledge, and then by extension, of all that is or can be (3:2). It is human wisdom, science par excellence. This general science or philosophy constitutes the second stage of knowledge.

In contrast to the particular sciences, philosophy derives its generality, (a) from its material object,-which is all that exists or can exist.

The man who takes in, by a single glance, the whole of a city from the top of his tower does not exclude any part of the whole, that which belongs to all and not merely to some of its parts. In the same way philosophy, instead of dealing with only one department of reality, takes in all the real.

(b) From its formal object which consists of points of view that affect and are found in all reality. Indeed these comprehensive views are possible only because the mind seizes in the immensity of reality certain asspects which are present everywhere and in everything, and which in consequence belong to the very essence of reality. Philosophy is defined as the investigation of all things by means of that which is fundamental in them and common to all. Sapientia est scientia quae considerat primas et universales causas (In Metaph., I, lect. 2).

In other words, philosophy is a science which coordinates or makes a synthesis, for the materials it studies and the point of view from which it studies them are both characterized by generality. What are these general and comprehensive points of view or aspects which the human mind discovers in its study of the universe? This question brings us to the division of philosophy.

2. Division of Philosophy. Starting from a well-known classification of Aristotle, Thomas remarks that philosophical sciences admit of a first subdivision into theoretical and practical. The human mind (for all science, as we have seen, is a work of the mind) can come into contact with the real in general, or, as it was then called, the “universal order,” in two ways. In the first place we may study this universal order such as it is in and for itself, and look for its general features, without subordinating this knowledge to ourselves. This constitutes speculative or theoretic philosophy, the end of which is knowledge for its own sake. Or, in the second place one may study the universal order of things not as such, but insofar as it enters into relation with our conscious life (knowing, willing, producing). It is in this sense that this part of philosophy is called practical.

Each of these two groups admits of further subdivision. Speculative philosophy comprises Physics (in the Aristotelian sense), Mathematics, Metaphysics. Practical philosophy includes Logic, Moral Philosophy, Aesthetics. Let us consider these various classifications in the light of the scholastic teaching concerning the construction of the sciences.

3. Speculative Philosophy. The division of speculative philosophy into Physics, Mathematics, Metaphysics does not correspond to three separate sections of being in the universe, but results from the varying profundity of point of view or degree of abstraction with which we study the totality of things. Physics, mathematics and metaphysics, all study the material universe as a whole, but each studies a particular aspect of all reality, change, quantity, and being, respectively.

(a) Physics. Everything is carried along on the stream of change, which the Schoolmen called motus (from moveri). The study of change in its inmost nature and in its general implications is the first step in a general understanding of the universe. It is the task which belongs to Physics or to the philosophy of nature. Since man forms part of the world of sense reality, psychology is a department of physics, and the epistemological inquiry belongs to psychology.

(b) Mathematics. But there is in the sensible universe something more profound than change,-namely, quantity. Fer every change is closely bound up with conditions of time and space in which the change takes place, while quantity, on the contrary, as studied in numbers and geometric figures, is grasped apart from the sensible condition of real quantified beings. Mathematics, which studies quantity and its implications, is for the Schoolmen a general and therefore a philosophical science,-a conception to which contemporary mathematicians tend to return.

(c) Metaphysics. Lastly, beyond change and quantity, metaphysics seizes in the things of experience the most profound aspects of reality, the strata which underlie all the others: being and the general determinations of being such as essence, existence, substance, unity, goodness, action, totality, causality, ect. These most general aspects of reality themselves constitute a synthetic view of the material universe. ut while change, which implies duration of time, and while quantity, which is the primary attribute of bodies, depends on the material state of the universe, this state is not essential to the notion of being or those other ideas which are correlative to it. If there should be suprasensible beings, such as God, or the soul, then these metaphysical notions would be applicable to them, with certain necessary corrections. In this way natural theology and the non-experimental part of scholastic psychology really form part of metaphysics.

4. Practical Philosophy is equally general in character, since through our conscious powers of knowing, willing, and producing we enter into relation with all reality. This general category includes logic, moral philosophy or ethics, and the philosophy of art or aesthetics. Logic draws up a scheme of all that we know, and the method of constructing the sciences; as there is nothing that the human mind cannot know in some imperfect way, logic is a general science. Ethics, again, studies the realm of human conduct, and there is nothing in human life that cannot become the subject of morality. It is to be noted that politics and domestic ethics are, like individual ethics, merely applications of general moral philosophy. The philosophy of arts deals with the order achieved by man externally through the guidance of reason, as when, for example, “he builds a house, or makes a piece of furniture.” Philosophy of art here includes the study of the mechanical as well as the fine arts.

It is easy to realize that we have adopted this philosophical classification in the preceding chapters of this book.

Particular sciences precede philosophy, and the latter must be in a sense based upon them. They program of the Faculty of Arts in the Universe of Paris and Oxford was inspired by this principle. The arrangement by which the particular sciences form the threshold of philosophy gives to the latter an experimental basis, or, as we should say today, a scientific foundation. General views presuppose particular or detailed ones to a certain extent.

1.  Art, Nature, and Beauty. Themselves contemporaries of a tremendous artistic development, which ranks the thirteenth century among the great creative epochs, the Schoolmen did not neglect the study of beauty in art.  Any external product of man may possess beauty,-that of an artisan who makes furniture just as much as that of a painter of pictures or a uilder of cathedrals.  There is no essential distinction between arts and fine arts.  If a man transforms preexisting realities, then he is an artist, and the work of art is, Says Dante, by reason of this act, a godlike creation.

Nature also is eautiful.  St Bonaventure compares the universe to a magnificent symphony; Duns Scotus likens it to a superb tree.  For the universe realizes and expresses order and purpose.

But beauty is not studied from the special point of view of nature or of art.  Scholastic philosophy considers it in a general way, and aesthetics becomes a department of metaphysics and psychology.  Let us select therefrom some special points.

2. Objective ans subjective aspect of beauty. Above all beauty is real and has an objective aspect; it is not a mere mental attitude.  Beauty belongs to certain external things.  Where is it found?  In those things which realize and manifest an order variously described as commensuratio partium elegans by St Albert the Great, aequalitas numerosa by Bonaventure, debita proportio by Thomas Aquinas.  Multiplicity of parts, variety, and unity of plan which combines the parts into one coherent whole,-such are the elements of order found in all beauty.  The beauty of a being is the flowering of the reality which it ought to possess according to its nature, and which is called its natural perfection.  Accordingly the unity which beauty expresses is a function of the specific principle to which each being owes, its fundamental determination, and which we have called its form (9:4).  “The beautiful unifies everything it touches, and it is able to do so thanks to the form of the being, which it sets out in relief.”  (St Albert the Great)  Perfection and form are both teleological functions.  That is why the beauty of one thing is distinct from the beauty of another.  An artist who wishes to paint the image of Christ, “must reveal in the face the light of his Divinity” (in Davidem, Ps 44:2).

But not everything ordered is thereby beautiful.  Order becomes aesthetic only when it speaks clearly and with no uncertain voice to a human intelligence by means of sensations, and thus brings to the mind the pleasure of disinterested contemplation.    Only the intelligence, which has being as its object, is able to penetrate through to the  ‘form,’ and discern it in the midst of the sense impression and material data in which it  manifests itself.  Here once more scholasticism asserts its intellectualism.

Thus the objective aspect of beauty is completed by the subjective aspect, or the impression which the beautiful produces within us.  The order of things is necessarily adapted to an act of mental contemplation of which it is the content and terminus.  Or, as the Schoolmen would say, order, and above all the form of the being, must shine forth to the mind.  This relationship between the beautiful object and the knowing subject is seen in the theory of the claritas pulcri, or brilliancy of beauty.  The more the form shines out, the greater and deeper will be the impression upon the human soul.  It will be the ’substantial form’ bursting through the perfection of a type or a species, as for instance when a Greek statue represents a typical human being; or more often some ‘accidental form’ may shine out, as for instance an attitude of a mother smiling to her child.  The brilliancy of the form is a principle of unity freely chosen by the artist in the work of art.

Beauty therefore does not belong exclusively to things as the Greeks thought, nor to the subject alone who reacts and enjoys, as some contemporary philosophers maintain.  But is is as it were midway between object and subject, and consists in a correspondence between the two.

1. Logic s a teaching method, and as a branch of philosophy. Thomas asks whether logic is an art or a science, and come to the conclusion that it is both.

The thirteenth century, in fact, considered logic as an are and retained the practice of exercises in logic. At the university of Paris and Oxford, students were trained in the analysis of syllogisms, the refutation of sophisms, and the discussion of arguments for and against a given thesis. This kind of logic, which the early Middle Ages placed among the seven liberal arts under the name Dialectia, is not strictly speaking a branch of philosophy.

But side by side with this instrumental logic destined to discipline the mind, as athletic exercises train the muscles, the philosophers of the thirteenth century recognize and cultivate a philosophical logic which consists in a study of the architecture of human knowledge or of the methods adopted by the mind in the construction of the sciences, whether particular or philosophical. In this meaning of the term, logic itself is a science. It takes as its subject matter the whole content of knowledge, in order to study the laws which govern its coordination, synthesis, ans systematization; and just as knowledge reaches an objective reality, logic too, in the final analysis leads us to truth and to certitude. We may say that in the realm of their logic, the Schoolmen not only followed but also completed Aristotle.

2. Judgment. The most elementary construction of knowledge is the judgment, or the perception that a content of representation (for instance, ‘white’) applies or does no apply to another (for instance, ’snow’). It consists in the union or disunion of the two contents of representation.

Science has to do with only one kind of judgment, the necessary and universal judgment, known as ‘law’. Scientia non est de particularibus.-Science has nothing to do with particular cases, or mere ‘atomic propositions.’ The logical law, or judgment, may be dependent upon, or independent of experience. Accordingly, it is included in one of the two classes of judgments which we have called above judgments of the existential and of the ideal order.

Let us consider each of these classes in more detail.

(a) With judgments of the ideal order, we are confronted with the process of pure deduction. An understanding and a comprehension of the subject and the predicate are sufficient in making the necessity of their connection evident,-just as in order to affirm the principle of contradiction it is enough to understand the meaning of being and non-being.

Mathematical judgments are of this sort; and the only difference betwwen these and the directing principles of knowledge is that the latter are the foundation of all affirmations, whereas mathematical judgments relate only to a special field, namely quantity.

Moreover, the judgments of ideal order with which mathematics is concerned belongs to the same two types which we already discussed in connection with the directing principles. Thus mathematics comprehends:

• (1) judgments in which the subject considered in its essential elements includes the predicate, as for instance, 2+2=4.

• (2) Judgments in which the predicate is not included in the subject, although a comparison of the content of both is sufficient to make the necessity of their connection evident. That every number is either odd or even, remarks Thomas Aquinas, is a judgment belonging to that second type. The content of odd or even is not comprehended under the notion of number, but from the mere comparison of both it appears that being odd or even is a necessary property of every number.

(b) With judgments of the existential order, we are confronted with the process of induction. A comprehension of the meaning of chlorine and oxygen is not sufficient to reveal the law governing their combination. Observation and experience are needed in order to discover how they react to one another; and the law is obtained by applying to observation and experience such directing principles as those of sufficient reason and causality. For, these two principles justify us in concluding that the convergence and constancy of observed phenomena (as for instance the boiling water under the action of heat) can only be explained by reference to a tendency on the part of the substance to act in a particular way, a tendency which is stable and rests upon the nature of the thing in question (thus it is the nature of water to boil at 212 degrees F). The Schoolmen did not study the methods of experiment with care and detail. This was only to be expected, seeing that the experimental sciences were in an undeveloped state in those times. But we already find among them-notably in John Duns Scotus, who flourished a few years after Thomas-a keen analysis of the methods of induction, or the ways by which we may pass from the observation of particular cases to the law which governs all.

3. Reasoning. A process of reasoning is itself a system of judgments, since it consists in passing from judgments already known to another less known or not known at all. The syllogism, which is the simplest expression of reasoning, consists of three judgments. It starts out from the enunciation of a law, or of a necessary relation, based upon the nature of things (for instance, “it is of the nature of a spiritual being to e simple, i.e., without parts”), and proceeds to show that this law applies to all or certain beings seen to be comprised under the extension of the law (for instance, “the human soul, belonging as it does to the category of spiritual beings, is endowed with simplicity”). The law, which is the foundation of the syllogism, belongs to either class of judgments, as it is dependent upon or independent of experience. The result of a syllogism is a new judgment, so that the judgment is the unit of logical construction, with which all knowledge begins and ends.

4. Scientific systematization and its methods. #1. First principles of each science.- Isolated reasonings could not make a science. In their turn they are connected together like the links in a chain: each finds its justification in a previous inference. but there must be a beginning to the process,-there must e something from which the whole chain may hang. An infinite regression would render all knowledge impossible.

There are therefore at the base of each and every science certain indemonstrable judgments, known as the first principles of the science in question. They formulate certain very simple and evident relationships, and are derived from the subject matter of the science. Their enunciation may or may not presuppose observation, according to the nature of the subject matter of the science. Thus that 1+1=2 is a principle of arithmetic; that the group life is for the sake of the individual members is a principle of social science. These principles, which do not admit of further demonstration, constitute the limits and boundaries of each science. They consist generally of ‘definitions,’ inasmuch as they make clear what is the object studied by each particular science. We see, then, that besides the governing principles of all knowledge which are common to every science, like the principle of contradiction, each science has its own fundamental principles.

#2. Material and formal object of each science.-The numerous reasonings which go to make up a science, together with its definitions and the first principles which constitute its basis, form one coherent whole, a unified system. The unity which runs through the whole, and is more or less evident according to the importance of each section, depends on the ‘formal object’ of the science. What does this mean?

The Schoolmen point out that in every science there is room to distinguish between the things themselves which are studied-the raw material of the science, its ‘material object’-and the point of view, or aspect from which these materials are considered (’formal object’). For example, the human body is the material studied by physiology, but this only considers it from one point of view, namely, that of the functions exercised by its organs. This point of view is grasped as a result of abstraction, so that abstraction (2:3) is the generative process which underlies all science.

Every reasoning principle must express in some way the formal object of the science in question. Thus in physiology, every doctrine ought to e concerned with the functional role of organs. it is the ‘formal object’ which gives each science its distinctive character, and makes it what it is,-hence the designation of formal object. Whence it follows, that two sciences may possess the same subject matter, may have the same ‘raw material,’ but unless they are to be identical, each must study this material from a distinct and separate point of view. Thus anatomy also studies the human body, but from the point of view of its structure. If it were to concern itself with functions, it would trespass upon and identify itself with physiology, and one or the other would have to disappear.

Thomas applies this theory of the specification of sciences to philosophy and theology, which have to some extent the same material object, but of which the formal points of view are quite distinct. “A difference in the point of view from which the mind contemplates the object entails a diversity in the branches of knowledge (diversa ratio cognoscibilis diversitatem scienctiarum inducit). The astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion,-that the earth, for instance, is round:the astronomer by means of mathematics (i.e., abstracting from matter), but the physicist by means of matter itself. Hence there is no reason why those things which may be learned from philosophical science, so far as they can be known by natural reason, may not also be taught us y another science so far as they fall under revelation. Hence theology included in Sacred Doctrine differs in kind from that theology which is part of philosophy” (ST Ia, q. 1, art. 1).

This justifies what we said at the beginning, that scholastic Philosophy is quite different from scholastic Theology, despite the relation between them, of which there will be made a Brief mention toward the end of this work.

On these notions of the formal and material object, the scholastics rest their classification of the sciences whether particular or general, i.e., philosophical, and their division of philosophy.Maurice de Wolf, THE PHILOSOPHY OF ST THOMAS AQUINAS