ART. VIII.-PHILOSOPHICAL AXIOMS.

La Filosofia antica esposta e difesa del P. GIUSEPPE KLEUTGEN, D.C. D.G Versione dal Tedesco. Roma.

Essay on first Principles. By the Very Rev. CANON WALKER. London: Longmans.

Padre Liberatore and the Ontologists. A Review. By Rev. C. MEYNELL, D.D., Professor of Philosophy and Literature at S. Mary's College, Oscott. London: Burns, Oates, & Co.

IN

Na preceding article we express the great wish which we have long felt, of promoting in any way we could so happy a consummation, as that English Catholic thinkers should be united in a phalanx against the irreligious philosophies now so rampant. Take one or the other essential truth, which these philosophies deny: we are very anxious to do what we can towards placing it in that light, which may exhibit its perfect harmony (1) with theology and (2) with reason; and which may at the same time help Catholics in doing battle against the evil school which denies it. Canon Walker's pamphlet comes opportunely, in deciding us to make our first essay on the question of philosophical axioms. Nor could there be (we think) a better beginning than this; because, as F. Kleutgen observes, in these "infallible " axioms philosophy has its "base and foundation."* Moreover, as might be expected from this circumstance, there is no other point on which the characteristics of each rival school are so sharply contrasted and come into such lively mutual conflict. We will begin our exposition then by exhibiting this conflict. When our readers have seen the vast and impassable gulf which separates scholasticism on this head from every antagonist, they will more appreciate what we have said in our earlier article, on the necessity of adopting the fundamental principles of scholasticism as alone suitable for a Catholic philosophy.†

* All acquisition of truth "would be impossible to us, if there were not within us certain convictions (conoscenze) which require no others in order to become evident. In these convictions is found the commencement of all speculation and to determine them; to prove their infallibility; to demonstrate their relation with every other conviction ;-this is what is meant by 'giving philosophy a base, a foundation"" (vol. i. p. 118).

+ This expression must not be misunderstood. "If we would speak

There are four fundamentally erroneous systems, with which the English Catholic philosopher is nowadays brought principally into conflict. As a Catholic, he is brought principally across "traditionalism" and "ontologism"; for these are the two errors against which foreign orthodox philosophers chiefly direct their blows. Strangely enough, these two errors, which more than any others meet his eyes as a Catholic, he hardly encounters at all as an Englishman: for in England, whether among Catholics or Protestants, both traditionalism and ontologism proper are almost unheard of. In their stead there meet us in England two violently anti-Catholic systems, to which foreign Catholic philosophers-at least in Italy and France-pay comparatively little attention. The first of theseand immeasurably the most irreligious of all four t-is the empirical or phænomenal school of Mill and Bain: the second, the Kantian or sceptical school, prominently represented by Dean Mansel. These are the four capital errors, from which in these days Christianity has most to fear whether in England or abroad: traditionalism, ontologism, scepticism, empiricism. We must maintain that followers of these four schools are as simply external to the true way of philosophy, as Lutherans and Calvinists to that of theology; because in either case those truths which are accidentally held, are held on wrong grounds, and (if we may so speak) in a wrong relative position. We are for the moment merely considering each school broadly and on the whole, without taking into

properly," says F. Kleutgen (vol. i. p. 61), "there is no such thing as a Christian philosophy; but rather a true philosophy, which [as being true] is in accordance with Christianity."

* In our next number we shall criticise Dr. Meynell's ascription to himself of "ontologism." To our mind he is as much and as little an ontologist as F. Liberatore.

English philosophers, with their experience, will be quite startled by F. Liberatore's opinion ("Della Conoscenza intellettuale," vol. ii. n. 58) that ontologism "is the most threatening danger of modern science." Hardly less are we surprised, when we find Dr. Meynell to have hoped (p. 35) that sensationalism as a philosophy has become obsolete." Are Messrs. Mill, Bain, and Huxley then obsolete writers, known only to antiquarians?

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"The most irreligious" in itself. We are not here considering this or that consequence, which legitimately follows indeed from other false systems, but which is disavowed by their upholders.

Pantheism indeed may be perhaps considered a distinct philosophical system. It has not been mentioned in the text; because neither on the one hand is it prominently mentioned in Catholic philosophical books, nor on the other hand is it, as regards its explicit shape, at all common in England. Positivism, we need hardly say, is but one form of empiricism, unless indeed the two terms are synonymous. The "Civiltà," in 1867, published a course of articles against positivism: but very little notice is taken of that system in the ordinary Catholic philosophical courses.

VOL. XIII.—NO. xxv. [New Series.]

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account the shades of difference which exist among its upholders. And this being understood, we would, by way of introduction, briefly contrast their doctrine with the scholastic on this particular question of philosophical axioms. We will take an extremely simple instance, as being the better calculated to bring out the contrast. We will inquire then on what ground men are to hold, that “ every trilateral rectilineal figure is triangular." The traditionalist says: "I know this truth, because God originally taught it to mankind; and it has been handed down from generation to generation, till it reached my instructors who taught me."

The ontologist says: "I see God immediately, though not reflexly; and in seeing Him, I see the necessary truth that every trilateral figure is triangular."

The Kantist says: "My faculties are so constituted, that I cannot help regarding every trilateral figure as necessarily triangular. But whether in real truth every trilateral figure is necessarily triangular, I have no means of even guessing.*

The phenomenist says: "Every trilateral figure which I or anybody else has ever seen, has had three angles; and I have a right by the laws of induction to generalize this proposition within certain limits. But whether, if you went to the fixed stars, you would there find all trilateral figures triangular, I cannot tell."+

*We by no means intend to imply that Dean Mansel would express himself in this way; but we do maintain—and purpose in a future number to argue that it is the only doctrine on the subject consistent with his principles. Take such passages of his as the following, which are but specimens of a large class. "It may be that the conditions of possible thought correspond to conditions of possible being; that that which is to us inconceivable, is in fact non-existing but of this, from the nature of the case, it is impossible to have any evidence" ("Prolegomena Logica," p. 72). In other words it may be that a quadrangular trilateral figure is impossible: but we cannot know that it is. Presently the Dean adds (p. 74), that we cannot tell "how much of the result" of the laws of thought is true in itself, and how much is "relative and dependent on the particular bodily or mental constitution of man." Again (p. 84), the necessity of necessary truth is " a necessity of thought depending on the laws of our mental constitution"; and not therefore known to man as an intrinsic necessity, apart from human thought altogether.

+ "We should probably be as well able to conceive a round square as a hard square or a heavy square, if it were not that, in our uniform experience, at the instant when a thing begins to be round it ceases to be square."-Mill on Hamilton, p. 85 of third edition. "Axioms are experimental truths; generalizations from observation. The proposition 'two straight lines cannot enclose a space' is an induction from the evidence of our senses."- Mill's Logic, vol. i. p. 260 of fourth edition. "In distant parts of the stellar regions... the phenomena may be entirely unlike those with which we are acquainted."-Ib. vol. ii. p. 104.

Such have been the incredible aberrations of many a thinker, in some respects able and even profound. Nay, such have been the incredible aberrations of many a thinker, who has looked down on the middle ages with self-complacent contempt as dark and unphilosophical.* Descartes himself, who set up as the apostle of philosophical reform, and who declared that no solid foundation had ever been laid for human knowledge until his own theories were given to the world ;-Descartes himself, we say, on this primary question of axioms advocated doctrines which are portentously absurd: though his system as a whole is now so obsolete, that it is not worth while troubling our readers with its consideration.† And all this time, while rival philosophies have been vying with each other in extravagance and paradox, scholasticism has remained firm in its original common-sense and straightforward position. Scholasticism, we say, has taught consistently throughout, that those axioms, which underlie the whole fabric of speculative truth and without which that truth must collapse, are immediately known with self-evident certainty by the light of reason.

It is our object in this article, to draw out what appears to us the true theory concerning axioms; so far, at least, as is necessary for the refutation of those false philosophies which we have mentioned, and especially of empiricism, which is far the most actively anti-religious of all. We are throughout addressing Catholics, and assuming every principle on which all Catholics are agreed; for we defer to a future number the task of defending our doctrine by reason, against our opponents of the Mill and Bain following.

By

"axioms ""

(6 are meant necessary first truths"; and

We here speak of the other three systems. We would not call ontologism an "incredible aberration"; though we regard it as fundamentally false and pernicious.

Yet it may be worth while in a note to give a few of the sentences, which F. Kleutgen has extracted from this philosophical reformer (vol. ii. p. 216, note). "God is the author of all necessary truth," says Des Cartes; "it was as free to Him to appoint that the straight lines drawn from centre to circumference of circle should be unequal, as it was to create the world." "Mathematical truths, which you call eternal, were made by God, and depend on Him just as other creatures do . . . These laws were ordained by God in nature, just as any king ordains laws in his realm; ... and they are all implanted in our mind, just as any king would [if he could] engrave his laws in the heart of his subjects... If God's will could change, then [like a king in the supposed case] He would change these laws." Is it the scholastic philosophy then, or on the contrary its earliest opponent, which disparages necessary truth?

"Axiomata vocantur ea judicia quæ non modo per se evidentia sunt, verum etiam universalitatem habent atque ideo scientiarum principia constituunt. Atque hæc est ratio cur eo nomine, quod dignitatem significat, donata sunt cum altissimum in cognitione locum obtineant."-(F. Liberatore, Logic,

this definition will convey at once a sufficiently distinct notion for ordinary purposes. On the present occasion however, we must go somewhat deeper: we will consider firstly, what are "truths"; secondly, what are "first truths"; and thirdly, what are "necessary truths."

It is the more important to consider what is precisely meant by "truths"; because it appears to us that Canon Walker's valuable and thoughtful pamphlet betrays a certain confusion of thought on the subject, having its origin in a certain ambiguity of language. The author says excellently (p. 16), "that there are certain truths which are of necessary, universal, infinite import. Such are mathematical truths, arithmetical proportions, principles of immutable morality, and the like." He adds however (p. 17), that "so far as they are perceptible and discoverable by created intellects, they are indeed certain, necessary, immutable, but not with that certainty, necessity, and immutability which belongs to the divine knowledge. They are, in short, created finite verities." Similar language is found in p. 27, and indeed may almost be said to pervade Canon Walker's general course of argument. We think most of our readers will spontaneously feel that here is some entanglement; and in order to unravel it, we must consider the sense of this word "truths." We may add that no scholastic whom we have examined seems to us so clear and satisfactory on the whole matter of "verum," as Vasquez in his 76th and 77th disputations on S. Thomas's 1a.

The word "truth" is, etymologically at least, derived from the notion of a cognizing mind and its true judgment. Now what is a judgment? What am I doing when I am said to form one? In an affirmative judgment, called "compositio," I am ascribing some attribute or attributes-represented in a proposition by the "predicate "-to certain ens or entia, real or imaginary, represented in a proposition by the "subject." In a negative judgment, called " divisio," I am judging that such attributes do not appertain to such ens or entia. We here, as is evident, use the word " ens in its widest sense, as including both "substance" and "quality." And we will throughout, for the sake of obvious convenience, use the expressions" term," "subject," "predicate," when speaking of judgments, not less than when speaking of propositions.

Now a "truth" is neither more nor less than "the object of a true judgment." In other words, it is the "convenientia' or "inconvenientia " of a certain predicate with a certain sub

n. 216.) And in n. 218 the author implies that axioms "necessitatem et universalitatem includere."