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et Pauli apostolorum Eius auctoritate confisi, omnibus et singulis sodalibus ex utroque sexu, qui nomen suum dederint vel Primariae Associationi Ssmae Crucis in Sessoriana Basilica erectae, vel aliis ipsius nominis atque instituti illique aggregatis Societatibus, ubique terrarum exsistentibus, atque admissorum confessione expiati et Angelorum Pane refecti quotannis Inventionis atque Exaltationis Ssmae Crucis, nec non Nativitatis, Circumcisionis, Epiphaniae, Resurrectionis atque Ascensionis D. N. Iesu Christi festis diebus propriam respectivae Societatis Ecclesiam visitent, ibique pro christianorum Principum concordia, haeresum exstirpatione, peccatorum conversione ac S. Matris Ecclesiae exaltatione pias ad Deum preces effundant, plenariam; ac tam inscriptis quam in posterum inscribendis iisdem in Societatibus Ssmae Crucis sodalibus, qui in propria respectivae Societatis Ecclesia piaculari processioni, item vere poenitentes et confessi ac S. Communione refecti, quotannis intererint feria sexta maioris hebdomadae, praeter indulgentias Stationis, item plenariam omnium peccatorum suorum indulgentiam et remissionem misericorditer in Domino concedimus. Tandem iisdem nunc et in posterum dictas in Societatis rite adlectis sodalibus, qui, contrito saltem corde, singulis annis die festo Ssmi Iesu Nominis, videlicet secunda post Epiphaniam Dominica, pariterque Dominica Passionis et feriis sextis intra Quadragesimam, propriam Societatis respectivae Ecclesiam, uti superius diximus, preces fundentes visitent, de numero poenalium in forma Ecclesiae solita septem annos totidemque quadragenas expungimus. Veniam praeterea, apostolica Nostra auctoritate, facimus, ex qua Associationibus Ssmae Crucis rite Primariae aggregatis ubique terrarum, communicari queant Stationum indulgentiae quibus Sessoriana Basilica gaudet, ita ut fideles ipsi in Associationes adlecti, qui singulis annis, dominicis secunda Adventus et quarta Quadragesimae, nec non feria quarta hebdomadae maioris propriam respectivae Societatis Ecclesiam visitent et reliqua, quae iniuncta sunt, pietatis opera praestent, Stationum indulgentias lucrari queant non minus quam si illa ipsa die Sessorianam Basilicam inviserent. Porro largimur sodalibus ipsis, si malint, liceat plenariis his ac partialibus indulgentiis functorum vita labes poenasque expiare. Non obstantibus contrariis quibuscumque. Praesentibus perpetuis futuris temporibus valituris. Volumus autem, ut praesentium Litterarum transumptis, seu exemplis, etiam impressis, manu alicuius notarii publici subscriptis ac sigillo personae in ecclesiastica dignitate vel officio constitutae munitis, eadem prorsus fides adhibeatur, quae adhiberetur ipsis praesentibus si forent exhibitae vel

ostensae.

Datum Romae apud S. Petrum, sub annulo Piscatoris, die XXIV martii MCMXVII, Pontificatus Nostri anno tertio.

P. CARD. GASPARRI, a Secretis Status.

REVIEWS AND NOTES

A MANUAL OF MODERN SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. By Cardinal Mercier and Professors of the Higher Institute of Philosophy, Louvain. Volume I. Authorized translation and Eighth Edition by T. L. Parker, M.A., and S. A. Parker, O.S.B., M.A., with a Preface by P. Coffey, Ph.D. (Louvain), Professor of Philosophy at Maynooth College, Ireland. London: Kegan Paul.

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EVERYTHING Worth saying for or against this volume has been already set forth in the pages of the Tablet during the controversy that followed on its appearance, last January. I shall not be straying from my task, therefore, in traversing the points made in that interesting discussion. Not that I intend to follow up all its details: I shall be content to define it sufficiently for the purpose of laying down a general view which can be explained more clearly in subsequent paragraphs dealing with the contents of our volume.

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Father Michael Maher, S.J., gave a hearty and generous welcome to this translation on the last week of January in the Tablet. He drew attention to the fact that most of the present volume was a summary of works written by Cardinal Mercier: the Psychology, the Criteriology, and the Ontology. This gave him an opportunity of insisting on the characteristic features of the Cardinal's contribution to the revival of Scholastic Philosophy: loyalty to the teaching of St. Thomas combined with large and liberal sympathy towards modern progress both in science and in philosophy. While, on the one hand, he [Cardinal Mercier] has ever been a most faithful and ardent disciple of St. Thomas of Aquin, on the other, he has imbibed too deeply the genuine spirit of the great medieval thinker, who had baptized and popularized the pagan Aristotle, to imagine that there is not room for progress in philosophical thought, that the frontiers were reached in the thirteenth century, and that subsequent difficulties and problems can be adequately solved by a mere restatement of the dicta of even the greatest of the Schoolmen.' And as the Cardinal had imbued with his own spirit the band of professors gathered round him, these ideals animated every branch of study o ganized at the Higher Institute of Philosophy. Still, this warm appreciation of the general merits of the Louvain school did not blind Father Maher to two notable defects of the present volume: the lack of fuller treatment of various mental processes in the Psychology; the absence of all reference to the most recent discoveries of physics and chemistry in the Cosmology. The following week, Dr. Vance, Professor of Philosophy at Old Hall,

and a Doctor of Philosophy of Louvain, in a long letter dotted the i's and crossed the t's of these defects. He acknowledged enthusiastically the good points of the volume-it was 'probably incomparably better than anything of its size': and he laid particular stress on its 'very powerful synopsis' of the theory of knowledge and of Neo-Aristotelian metaphysics. The volume, for all that, ' leaves very much to be desired': two of the works summarized are out of date-to be frank, the whole text of the Cosmology and more than half that of the Psychology need to be recast; the summaries themselves are not always happy; the philosophical prestige of the text is lowered here and there by ex machina references to Catholic theology; often enough the translators have hit the meaning with grace and ease,' yet the translation is, in other places, ill done. Dr. Vance accordingly urged that these summaries do not give a true or just conception of the real work and endeavour of the Louvain school this feeling is the leitmotif of his severity and is a satisfactory reply to the plea pro domo- Hawks should not pick hawks' e'en.' This outspoken criticism provoked several chivalrous replies: the writers best known to students of philosophy being Father Joseph Rickaby, S.J., Mr. A. J. Rahilly, and Professor De Wulf. The last named practically concedes the points made by Dr. Vance against the summaries of Cosmology and of Psychology: his chief quarrel with Dr. Vance refers to the Grand Cours-an issue altogether beyond our present task. Readers must be cautious, however, about the interpretation of a quotation from Duhem cited by Professor De Wulf. It is impossible, for want of context, to discover what particular theories Duhem thought insufficiently developed for incorporation into cosmological treatises. Only those who are aware of Duhem's antagonism to Atomism and devotion to Energetics can, without prejudice to Duhem's undoubted competency, construe this quotation accurately. Neither Father Rickaby nor Mr. A. J. Rahilly controvert Dr. Vance's charge against the Cosmology. They had no motive; Father Rickaby is frankly dynamistic in his published works; Mr. A. J. Rahilly guardedly so. But the latter registers a spirited and needed protest against superficial reconciliations of Scholasticism and Science based on linguistic analogies. These fools' paradises are becoming a positive danger to professors as well as to students; a Latin author whose commercial success testifies that his textbook has been the philosophical pabulum of multitudes of students and professors, has been trapped, presumably by Leibnitz's lip-homage to Scholasticism, into assuring his readers that Leibnitz in the end of his days abandoned dynamism in favour of hylemorphism. Apart from some suggestions of Mr. Rahilly regarding the Psychology, with which I shall deal later on, both he and Father Rickaby make Dr. Vance's attitude towards the use of theological argument in philosophy their main ground of complaint. Dr. Vance neatly counters this attack by referring his readers to Father T. A. Finlay's evidence in October, 1909, before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of Ireland: the point at issue is quite secondary, and contemporary scholastic philosophers, however they may differ regarding it in theory, are of one mind in practice.

While this fair fight was going on in the open, an anonymous correspondent, who had long bided his time and now thought the hour had struck, entered the lists to deliver a smashing attack on the Louvain school, and indeed all schools of Neo-Scholasticism. Under the anonym, 'D.Ph.,' he wrote: The work of the Louvain school of philosophy has been represented as something sui generis-a model of scientific method and modernity; we are now told by a doctor of that same school that it suffers from several serious defects.' Having then summarized Dr. Vance's criticisms, he proceeded to suggest a panacea of his own with special reference to Cosmology and Psychology. His view is that since scientific theories are constantly changing, why bother about them in scholastic philosophy? May not serious objection be urged against a method of presenting scholastic philosophy which calls for a representation every few years? Does not scholastic philosophy stand for certain established truths? And if it does, ought not the work of those who expound its main principles to be mainly a work which is constant as to its greater part?' Here 'D.Ph.' stands confessed: Scholastic Philosophy must abjure Natural Science. And from this supposed vantage ground of genuine Scholasticism, he inveighs against wild-goose chases after ephemeral views, vain desires of being abreast of the times, boyish fears of being out-of-date. Farther on, as if repenting of this sweeping denial of the value of natural science for scholastic philosophy, he added: 'I am far from denying that there is a time and place for such discussions.' And lest his panacea might be thought the prescription of a mere quack, he informs his readers: 'I write as one who has known what it is to feel the interest of such matters; I have lived to feel that the business can be overdone.' Having thus triumphantly disposed of this 'model of scientific method and modernity '-the Louvain school-' D.Ph.' devoted a paragraph to Father Rickaby's main topic, the relation between scholastic philosophy and Catholic theology. He spoils a plea as fair as Father Rickaby's by harping on the danger of breeding a race of philosophers who will philosophize so independently of theology as to end with conclusions which are counter to it.' This suggestion prepares open-eyed readers for his two parting shots: the defection of Loisy, and a condemned proposition of Pius IX. This concluding paragraph need not detain us: the question of the subsidiary use of theological argument in philosophical textbooks is, for Catholics, one of expediency, not of principle; as, for the Louvain school, it began and carried on its work under the immediate protection of the Holy See. And turning back to the general problem of the relation between scholastic philosophy and natural science, no reader can set much value on 'D.Ph.'s' salvo about a time and place for discussion of scientific theories. That solitary sentence, taken by itself, is perfectly correct; but its sane import is altogether invalidated by the general tone of his letter. The letter, as a whole, is a plea for a divorce between scholastic philosophy and natural science: a view which lies close to the heart and intentions of a thinly and irregularly spread school among Catholic writers. Now, it is better certainly to uphold truth on wrong grounds than not at all. Still this way of upholding truth is not

VOL. X-6

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philosophical: the distinctive mark of philosophical truths is that it is reasoned. Hence, if scholastic philosophy is to remain a philosophy, it must continue to be defended on the lines laid down as unassailable by its founders, and acclaimed afresh in our day by the Papacy; and every student knows the licence of reason for scholastic philosophy to be its proud assurance that no metaphysical conclusions other than its own can be validly drawn from the accredited results of contemporary science. The fact is this suggested divorce between Scholasticism and Science is a specious plea for trusting second- and third-rate writers rather than Aristotle and St. Thomas. How the individual supporters of this theory may extricate themselves from the logical consequences of an erroneous method is their personal concern; but the theory, as such, were it generally accepted, is sure to prove the undoing of that which it sets out to defend -Aristotelic-scholastic philosophy. Prophecy, however, is much too facile a test: let us examine this notion of a Scholasticism divorced from Science by the words and deeds of Aristotle, St. Thomas, and Pope Leo XIII. Leo XIII writes in the Aeterni Patris (1879): The schoolmen, following the opinion of the holy Fathers, everywhere taught in their Anthropology that only by sensible things [italics mine] is the human intellect raised to the knowledge of things incorporeal and immaterial. Hence they readily concluded that nothing was more profitable for the philosophers than a diligent inquiry into the secrets of nature and a long and profound study of physics. St. Thomas, Blessed Albertus Magnus, and other leaders of the schoolmen, for all their study of philosophy, spent much of their energies in seeking to acquire knowledge of the facts of physics.' These words of the Pope need no commentary. As for papal deeds of approval, Louvain, the model of scientific method and modernity,' has had its share: Leo XIII contributed large sums to the building and upkeep of the Institute; Pius X raised to the Cardinalate its founder and life-long superior. And when we pass from extrinsic to intrinsic proofs of the true connexion between Scholasticism and Science, the evidence is still more damnatory of this divorce theory. In the writings of Aristotle and St. Thomas, philosophy and natural science are almost inextricably entangled in those treatises which we should call cosmological and psychological: this is a truism to the most casual student of Aristotle; it is just as much a truism to the student who glances even cursorily over the philosophical works of St. Thomas-works which fill as many volumes of the Parma edition as does the Summa Theologica. Aristotle has, it must be allowed, hardly any rational psychology; but St. Thomas constructed the main outlines of that branch on the basis of the physics and biology of the Stagyrite. Whom, then, would ‘D.Ph have us follow? Certainly neither Aristotle nor St. Thomas nor Leo XIII. He cannot seriously wish contemporary scholastics to incorporate into their text-books the exploded natural science of Aristotle. And if, because physics and chemistry and biology have to be thrown overboard, he will have none other, on what foundation can scholastic philosophers build? Father Rickaby tells us: 'The hope of Scholasticism as a philosophy of the future seems to rest on its alliance with Physical

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