all, only the legitimate outcome of the Parmenidean materialistic theory of cognition, wrought its natural debilitating effect upon Greek thought and life. Some of the later philosophic schools, by a desperate appeal to Platonism, endeavoured to combat it, but in vain. They were even so far from seeing the real source of its defects, that they emphasized more strongly than ever the identity of thought and being—that is, of subject and object-in cognition." From the Greeks the doctrine passed to the Arabs, by whom it was logically developed to all its pantheistic and materialistic results, and among whom it wrought its baneful effects. Since the days of Scholasticism, it has been currently held that the Arabs misinterpreted Aristotle, foisting upon him pantheism, materialism, and other objectionable doctrines, whereas the Schoolmen, for the most part, correctly developed his doctrines. Hardly anything could be farther from the truth. To be sure, the Arabs did draw from the writings of Aristotle consequences which he probably never dreamt of, and, no doubt occasionally, misunderstood his meaning ; but, after all, their interpretation of Aristotle is much more correct in its main tendencies than that of the Schoolmen-to the religious credit of the latter be it said. The Muhammedan priesthood knew what it was doing when it suppressed Averroistic Aristotelianism. Aristotle, correctly interpreted, will shortly undermine any religion.† From the Arabs the ancient theory of cognition passed, along with Aristotelianism, into Christendom, and there at once began to make such havoc of faith as to call for the Plotinus says, “ Μία μὲν οὖν φύσις τό τε ἐν ὅ τε νοῦς” (Enneads, v. 9, 8, edit. Kirchhoff, vol. i. p. 56: cf. Richter, Neuplatonische Studien, iii. p. 26; Kirchner, Die Philosophie des Plotin, p. 49; Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 456 sqq.). † See Zell, Aristoteles in seinem Verhältnisse zur griechischen Volksreligion; also De Aristotele Patriarum Religionum Astimatore. serious attention of the Church. At first the ecclesiastical authorities prohibited the writings of Aristotle; but, finding that such prohibition was of little avail, and also discovering that a very large portion of true Aristotelianism might be accepted with great polemical advantage to Christianity, and the rest, involving the objectionable consequences, made innocuous by a careful interpretation and adaptation, they subsequently permitted, and finally recommended, the study of them. The task of interpretation and adaptation was undertaken by the most powerful intellects of the time, men like Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, by the latter of whom it was most successfully performed. For this reason St. Thomas has always justly been regarded as the best representative of Scholasticism. In St. Thomas's writings we must carefully distinguish three things: first, what he borrowed from Greek and Arabic philosophers, especially from Aristotle; second, what he accepted as authoritative from Holy Writ and the doctors and Fathers of the Church; and, third, what he himself added. Speaking in Aristotelian language, we may call these elements, respectively, the material cause, the final cause, and the formal cause of his writings, himself being their efficient cause. The aim of his writings, as he himself has told us,† was to shape philosophy (and by philosophy he meant especially that of Aristotle) into a pillar of support for Christian doctrine. This was by no means an easy task; for Aristotelianism, in the first place, is not a logical or consistent system, and, in the second, it tends fundamentally toward pantheism and materialism, both of which are radically opposed to Christianity. St. Thomas, however, did his best, and that best was the enormous body of * See Jourdain, Recherches critiques sur l'âge et l'origine des traductions latines d'Aristote, pp. 202 sqq.; Rosmini, Aristotele Esposto, pp. 51 sqq. † Summa contra Gentes, lib. i. cap. ii. * doctrine known as Thomism. He had a profound respect for the teachings of Aristotle, and, though he not unfrequently, partly from ignorance of Greek and partly from prejudice, misinterpreted them, he never willingly departed from them except where they stand in pretty direct and evident conflict with Christian teaching.† When the conflict was not over manifest, he frequently accepted principles which, if carried to their logical conclusions, are not only incompatible with each other, but fatal to Christian theology. In this way he built up a system which, although displaying an almost marvellous acuteness in the parts, is nevertheless, as a whole, without logical completeness—a fact which is at present rendered only too apparent by the war which has been waging over his meaning, since the recent rehabilitation of his system in the Church through the papal encyclical Eterni Patris. Among the doctrines which St. Thomas accepted from Aristotle without sufficiently considering their consequences, was that relating to the mode of cognition. Hence, he not only affirms that "the sensible in act is the sense in act, and the intelligible in act the intellect in act," but says distinctly that "knowledge is assimilation to the thing known, and the known is also the perfection of the knower." § He does, indeed, seemingly depart from the doctrine of the ancients in maintaining that we may have a knowledge of particulars; but, after all, he is obliged to admit that such knowledge is merely reflexive, and, as a consequence, a knowledge of a universal.|| Now, *Examples of such misinterpretation might easily be adduced. On the extent of these departures, see Talamo, L'Aristotelismo della Scolastica nella Storia della Filosofia, and Schneid, Aristoteles in der Scholastik. “Sensibile in actu est sensus in actu, et intelligibile in actu est intellectus in actu" (Sum. Theol., i. q. 14, art. 2, c. ; q. 55, art. 1, 2 m.). § "Scientia est assimilatio ad rem scitam, et scitum est etiam perfectio scientis" (Ibid., q. 14, art. 2, 2). "Cum non contingat intelligere nisi secundum abstractionem a materia, these doctrines are not only palpably false, but they utterly fail to render intelligible what they were invented to explain. Indeed, instead of explaining intelligence and sensation, they would prove that both are impossible. If the subject and object of intelligence should become one, their relation as subject and object, that is, intelligence, would instantly cease. In like manner, if the principle and term of sensation should become identical, their relation as principle and term, that is, sensation, would be annulled. That such results would follow from the Greek theory of the mode of cognition, the Schoolmen never discovereda fact which was due to their never clearly understanding the conditions of cognition. If St. Thomas, notwithstanding all his distinctions between the active, possible, and passive intellects,* with their various faculties or lights, utterly failed to arrive at any rational or theologically admissible theory of cognition, he certainly did something to develop the Aristotelian principle of truth, by showing that the principle of contradiction ultimately depends upon the intuition or direct intelligence of being; † and he only required to apply this principle, so based, in order to place the reliability of objective cognition beyond doubt. This application he, unfortunately, never made; and so Scholas impossibile est singularia ab intellectu apprehendi directe, sed tantum secundum quandam reflexionem. . . . Id quod cognoscit sensus materialiter et concrete (quod est cognoscere singulare directe) hoc cognoscit intellectus immaterialiter et abstracte, quod est cognoscere universale" (Ibid., q. 86, art. 1, concl. and 4 m.). It will be seen from this that St. Thomas attributes cognition to the senses! Indeed, he elsewhere says that "Sensus est quædam deficiens participatio intellectus" (Ibid., q. 77, art. 7, c.). What a text for the Evolutionists and Darwinians! These distinctions were derived from the Arabs and later Greek Peripatetics. Of the three human intellects of the Schoolmen, only one, the passive, is known to Aristotle. † See under § 15, and compare Casara, Il Sistema Filosofico Rosminiano, dimostrato nel suo Principio fondamentale, pp. 27 sqq. ticism remained, not only without a theory of cognition, but also without a universal principle of truth. It must be admitted that these two defects were not without their immediate advantages. They made it possible to introduce into Scholastic systems any doctrine regarded as wholesome, without detriment to any logical consistency, as well as to find grounds to refute any doctrine assumed to be dangerous. They likewise left abundant room for the exercise of logical subtlety in the way of reconciling incompatible doctrines. Still, these advantages were not without corresponding disadvantages. In virtue of them, Scholasticism grew up, or, rather, was heaped up, into that unorganized mass of loosely connected doctrines which we find it to be in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; while, at the same time, it developed a logical acuteness which, in view of its want of any allembracing principle of truth, could not fail, in the long run, to be fatal to it. The consequence was that, in the sixteenth century, Scholasticism fell into disrepute, and left the thinking world in a state of universal philosophical doubt. This doubt, though originally born among men who, like Pomponazzi, Bruno, Vanini, had been schooled in Scholasticism, found its first universal expression in Descartes, who had rather drunk it in from the prevailing scepticism of his time than been led to it by the direct study of philosophy. Under these circumstances it was natural enough that Descartes' scepticism should be indiscriminating, and that he should ignore not only the weak points of Scholasticism, but also its strong ones. The weak points of Scholasticism, philosophically considered, were, as we have seen, its want of a true theory of cognition, and its failure to apply the universal principle of truth to cognition, albeit it had really discovered that |