WEISSE, Prof. Review of the Nuovo Saggio, in Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik, vol. xxviii., Heft 2.

NOTE. Besides these works there are published two periodicals, whose purpose it is to uphold the philosophy of Rosmini-La Sapienza, a monthly magazine, Speirani, Turin, 1880 sqq.; and L'Ateneo, a weekly illustrated paper, also published at Turin. The former contains many valuable articles, among which those by Professor Stoppani, the eminent geologist, take a high place. The latter is one of the best of the Italian weeklies.

PERHAPS the strongest objection that can be urged against revolutions and the selfish conservatism that makes them. necessary is that, in overthrowing vicious and burdensome. systems, they likewise destroy, or cast into oblivion, much of the good which originally rendered these systems possible and, in their day, useful. This was particularly truc of that revolution which took form in the philosophy of the seventeenth century, and which overthrew the Scholasticism of the Middle Ages. No doubt, the later Scholasticism, that of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, deserved most of the contempt which fell to its lot; but it was a mistake to confound in a common rejection this degraded, empty, flatulent system with the vigorous thought of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This mistake was committed by modern thought, when it revolted entirely from Scholasticism. This result, indeed, was almost unavoidable; for a thorough-going temporary breach with Scholasticism was necessary, in order to deprive it of that tyrannical and morbid influence which, as the handmaid of theology, it had gained over human intelligence. Nevertheless, the reactionary spirit of modern thought caused it

*"Theologia non accipit sua principia . . ab aliis scientiis tanquam a superioribus, sed utitur eis tanquam inferioribus et ancillis" (St. Thomas, Sum. Theolog., i. q. 1, art. 5, ad fin.).

to overlook much that was valuable in Scholasticism, and, from pure ignorance, to set out with principles so false and one-sided, that they developed into systems as unwholesome and undesirable as those which they supplanted. The cause of the decay and consequent rejection of Scholasticism was, at bottom, its incapacity to deal with the questions to which the subtlety of its own methods and the revival of ancient learning, in many ways hostile to its results, had given birth. This incapacity was due to a defect, inherited by Scholasticism from the philosophers of Grecce the entire lack of a consistent theory of cognition. In spite of the deftest efforts of a Parmenides, a Plato, an Aristotle, and a Plotinus, ancient thought never succeeded in finding any but the crudest material image to express the mode of cognition, or in discovering any principle to vouch for truth. Parmenides, who first found a way out of the absolute scepticism of the system of Herakleitos, by distinguishing being from becoming, placed the former, as the sole object of knowledge, in an ideal world by itself, and accounted for its being known by the rude and childish device of calling it identical with intelligence.* At the same time he abandoned the entire real world of things to contempt, as merely the delusive object of opinion. This theory, in consequence, contained the two greatest defects. which a theory of cognition can have: first, it confounded cognition with being, or assumed identity of subject and object; and, second, it utterly failed to account or vouch for our knowledge of reality.

In spite of these two cardinal defects, Parmenides' theory of cognition, by a kind of right of primogeniture, which first explanations not unfrequently enjoy, maintained itself, with little or no modification, throughout the whole

*To yάp auтò voeîv éσtív te kal elvai" (Fragmenta Parm., edit. Mullach, 1. 40; cf. Buroni, Dell'Essere e del Conoscere, pp. 55 sqq.)

course of Greek thought, exercising a determining influences.

Plato, who enlarged Parby placing in it the pure

upon it, and even outliving it. menides' ideal world of being, forms of things, can hardly be said to have had any theory of cognition or any principle of certainty. His doctrine of reminiscence merely shifts the difficulty, without in the least helping to solve it; for it is no more easy to conceive how disembodied spirits can cognize ideas having an independent existence, than to conceive how embodied spirits can cognize things. Plato followed Parmenides in maintaining the world of particulars not to be an object of knowledge. Aristotle, who drew Plato's ideas down from their shadowy heaven and placed them in particular things, as forms universalized through combination with individuating matter, returned, in the most pronounced way, to the two positions of Parmenides, maintaining that there was no science save of universals,* and that the cognition of these was reached by the subject's becoming identical with them. That Aristotle should have held these views is all the more astonishing that, according to another doctrine of his, the universal exists only in the particular, and the particular, therefore, is the only true existence.‡

Although Aristotle made no contribution to the theory of cognition, or in any way made clear the mode of it, he saw, much more clearly than any of his predecessors had done, what was necessary in order to make cognition valid, viz., some first principle of truth presented directly to the mind, in some such way as to place it beyond the possibility of error, and entering as the essential element into every

* “ Ἡ ἐπιστήμη τῶν καθόλου” (De An., ii. 5 ; 417 b, 22).

† “Ἐπὶ μὲν τῶν ἄνευ ὕλης τὸ αὐτό ἐστι τὸ νοοῦν καὶ τὸ νοούμενον” (Ibid. iii. 4; 430 a, 3).

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† “ Οὐσία δέ ἐστιν ἡ κυριώτατα καὶ πρώτως καὶ μάλιστα λεγομένη, ἡ μήτε καθ' ὑποκειμένου τινὸς λέγεται μήτ' ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ τινί ἐστιν, οἷον ὁ τὶς ἄνθρωπος ἢ ὁ τὶς Innos" (Categ., 5; 2 a, 11 sqq.).

process by which cognition is reached. He saw plainly that demonstration could never lead to true and satisfying knowledge, if either it had to be continued backward, from ground to ground, ad infinitum, as the sceptics asserted it must, or revolved in a circle of interdependent, mutually supporting hypotheses. He accordingly concluded that, in order to the possibility of demonstration, there must exist certain principles known to the mind without demonstration, that is, directly and intuitively.† Unfortunately, he nowhere expressly says what these grounds are, or in what particular sense (úc) ‡ they identify themselves with the mind in order to be intuited. He does, indeed, tell us that the intelligence of indivisibles is free from error,§ whence it follows that they must be known through intuition and not judgment; and he also says that the most certain of all principles is that of contradiction, from which we may conclude, with St. Thomas, that he held the ultimate principle of all truth, and the essential ground of all judgment and demonstration, to be being. At the same time, he never developed this doctrine so as to show that all truth at last rests on a direct intuition; consequently, he left philosophy involved in the vicious circle which he had shown to be fatal to the attainment of truth.¶

It need hardly be remarked, after what has been said, that the ancient theory of the mode of cognition was based

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*Who they were that held this opinion in ancient times is not clear-perhaps the Herakleiteans. It has been revived in modern times by Hegel (see under § 11). It is fully refuted by Aristotle, Anal. Post., i. 3; 72 b, 25 sqq. † « Ἡμεῖς δέ φαμεν οὔτε πᾶσαν ἐπιστήμην ἀποδεικτικὴν εἶναι, ἀλλὰ τὴν τῶν ἀμέσων ἀναπόδεικτον. Καὶ τοῦθ ̓ ὅτι ἀναγκαῖον, φανερόν· εἰ γὰρ ἀνάγκη μὲν ἐπίστασθαι τὰ πρότερα καὶ ἐξ ὧν ἡ ἀπόδειξις, ἵσταται δέ ποτε τὰ ἄμεσα, ταῦτ ̓ ávaπódeikтa áváyên elvai” (Anal. Post., i. 3; 72 b, 18 sqq.).

† “Ταῦτα (τὰ καθόλου) ἐν αὐτῇ ΠΩΣ ἐστι τῇ ψυχῇ” (De An., ii. 5, 6; 417 b, 23 sqq.).

§ De An., iii. 6, 1; 430 a, 26 sqq. See below, under § 62.

See under § 15.

See under § 10, where the way is shown out of this vicious circle.