Bibliothèque
de l'École des Chartes.
Cambridge Medieval History - v5 - Contest of Empire and the Papacy
Whatever the value of his
contributions to science (about which the specialists are a little frigid),
no school of thought then suspected that geometry or optics or the pro-
pagation of force by “multiplication of species” were going to undermine
the Church. Bacon, like Abelard, may have damaged himself by making
enemies, and by his monotonous dispraise of authority; but where he
seems definitely to have stumbled was in the field of astrology. The
state of astronomy at the time permitted it to be a quasi-scientific
question whether the fortunes and even the characters of men might not
be shaped by celestial impressions. Bacon himself agreed with Aquinas
and other educated men in denying that the freedom of the will could
thus be affected, and in avoiding the more childish superstitions. The
attack on him was probably no more intelligent than the refusal to
discriminate between Aquinas and the Averroists. In the hour of
triumphant faction a few rash or ambiguous expressions would be
evidence enough. Deplorable as the result was, we have no more right
to accuse the whole age of persecuting science than we have to argue from
Bacon's own effort to prove the utility of mathematics to theology that
he saw no intrinsic value in theoretical reasoning. In any case, it is an
anachronism either to look for a new philosophy of the world in the
scientific tastes of Bacon, or to interpret his overthrow as mere hostility
to the study of natural phenomena. A still greater absurdity would be
to suppose that Bacon's praise of experience and experiment brought
upon him the wrath of Aristotelians.
Rightly to estimate Bacon's worth as a philosopher is, however, a very
difficult task. The combative spirit which enraged his contemporaries
has endeared him, perhaps unduly, to modern readers with little
sympathy for the temper of the Middle Ages. Similarly, his references to
ctual or possible devices of mechanics and chemistry have won for him
more credit as an inventor than he would have claimed for himself. Our
concern, however, is rather with his general estimate of knowledge, and
with his broader relations to the intellectual attitude of his times. And
here we find that, in some respects, his mind was provincial, or even re-
actionary, while in others he certainly had a vision of the future sicut in
aenigmate, non facie ad faciem. His provincialism appears in his failure
to appreciate the higher contemporary thought, or to perceive the direction
in which minds really more critical than his own were moving. Much of
his criticism, as for example in the De Viciis contractis in studio Theologiae,
is singularly barren, if we suppose it to refer to such men as Albert the
Great or Thomas Aquinas. They in their turn might well have objected
that Bacon's whole conception of philosophy was obsolete. They would not
formally have disputed his statement that the chief and final intention
of philosophers was circa divinam et angelorum cognitionem. . . cum con-
CH. XXIII.
## p. 826 (#872) ############################################
826
Bacon's titles to fame
temptu bonorum istius vitae temporalis, ut pervenirent ad statum futurae
beatitudinis, but they might fairly have replied that amiable commonplaces
were no substitute for a real delineation of the provinces of theology and
human reason. Bacon is, in fact, reactionary in his extravagant subordina-
tion of philosophy to theology. He reverts to a position barely tenable
in the thirteenth century unless supported by fresh arguments, and he
appears to be imperfectly acquainted with the greatest controversy of his
age.
Again, his praise of “mathematics” as an aid to civil and religious
government is so mixed up with the puerilities of astrology and alchemy
that his pretence of superiority to his times in this respect is far from
convincing. On the other hand, there are many glimpses of genuine in-
sight in his enthusiasm for linguistic studies, in his anticipation of the
manifold uses of geography, and in his constant emphasis on the importance
of experimental method. Very often he speaks of scientia experimentalis
as a separate science rather than as a general method employed by natural
philosophy; and in the Opus Tertium he makes the significant statement:
naturalis enim philosophus narrat et arguit, sed non experitur. He main-
tains, nevertheless, that experiment or experience is required to verify all
the sciences; nor can we reasonably complain if he is not yet in a position
to discriminate between the more and the less experimental departments
of knowledge. What we clearly discern in Bacon, when we get behind his
peevishness, his superstitions, and his arrogance, is a profound discontent
with the existing state of knowledge, a conviction that no further advance
is possible except by a kind of intellectual return to Nature. In this he
was indubitably right, and in this, rather than in actual achievement, lies
his title to fame. At all times, too, he was hampered by his conflict with
authority. Many of his books have the character of an apologia. He is
desperately anxious to refute the slanders of his enemies, and to persuade
Pope Clement IV that his philosophy is orthodox and profitable. Had
he worked in a calmer atmosphere, and in harmony with the chiefs of his
Order, it is probable that he would have left us a higher impression of
his
The imprisonment of Bacon was a political incident, in the same sense
that the trials of Gottschalk, Abelard, and Gilbert de la Porrée, or the
prohibitions of Aristotle, Averroism, and Peripateticism were political
incidents. For the Church was, in theory and in fact, a political society
based on first principles, and pledged therefore to test every movement
of thought by its probable effect on the faith and conduct of Christians.
Liberty of opinion we now take to be the foundation of all other liberties;
interference with it we stamp as an act of tyranny or, at best, as a dangerous
experiment. But that is because we are governed by opinion and desire
no other master. The medieval Church, on the other hand, claimed to
be governed by knowledge, and that makes all the difference in the world.
That, too, is why the significance of the proposed division between theology
powers.
## p. 827 (#873) ############################################
The final aim of medieval philosophy
827
and philosophy was graver than even an Aquinas could suspect. The scope
of this chapter has excluded political thought in the more restricted sense,
but facts like the growth of Canon Law, the revival of Roman juris-
prudence, the rise of nations and communes, the struggle of Empire and
Papacy, and the appearance of such a book as Marsilius of Padua's De-
fensor Pacis are intimately connected with medieval philosophy. In the
last chapter of his Monarchia Dante supports his plea for an independent
Empire by the analogous independence of philosophy. To the Pope belong
revealed truths and the theological virtues; to the Emperor moral virtue
and the inventions of reason. That Dante grasped the whole possibilities
of his argument is improbable; for no such division could be effective
before the rise of the modern State, nor even then until the State had
renounced the care of theology, only to find that philosophy had likewise
vanished from its counsels. The heroic attempt of Aquinas to define a
sphere for philosophy without detriment to the sovereign rights of theology
was simply one expression of the whole medieval struggle so to adjust the
temporal power to the spiritual as to create a dominion of political freedom
within the higher sovereignty of the Church. The project, we may hold,
was impossible. It is certain, at least, that it failed.
Yet this failure was the last and greatest achievement of medieval
philosophy. Later developments, such as the rivalry of Thomists and
Scotists, with all their wrangles about matter and form, universals and
individuals, have their interest for students, but small importance for the
historical movement of the world. When we gaze on the solid line of
folios attributed to Duns Scotus (ob. 1308) it seems almost incredible that
his life can have lasted—according to a common estimate—no more than
thirty-four years. Even if the correct figure be a little larger, his youth
is perhaps a fact to be remembered in estimating the quality of his work.
For in Duns Scotus we cannot but recognise something of that joy in
destruction attributed by Plato to young men attacked by the first fever
of dialectic. It was his distinguished fate to found a school strong enough
for a time to divide the world with the Thomists. The Franciscans
adopted him as their champion and magnified his prestige. Modern
readers, however, who stand apart from medieval factions, will be slow
to recognise in Duns Scotus a serious intellectual rival to Thomas Aquinas.
In method, in perspicuity, in dignity and breadth of mind he is plainly
inferior. To charge him with insincerity would be uncharitable, but he
strikes us as a man determined at all hazards to take up original positions,
and therefore to seek with all his notorious “subtlety” for points of dis-
tinction between his own and other views. The result in most cases is
that his divergence from Aquinas and other doctors turns out to be
smaller than his statements would suggest.
On the fundamental question of the relation of philosophy to theology
he proposes a much sharper division than was approved by St Thomas.
When any truth is enunciated as an article of faith, it is inexpedient, he
CH. XXIII.
## p. 828 (#874) ############################################
828
Duns Scotus and his philosophy
says, to attempt a demonstration of it. The effect of your demonstration
on the faithful will be to deprive them of the merit of faith, while to the
infidel you will provide an opportunity of declaring that Christians are
driven by lack of faith to fall back on argument. It would thus be im-
proper to prove by reason that God exists, that God is one, or that the
soul is immortal. Duns Scotus fails, however, to work out the consequences
of his own hypothesis. He is far from meaning that faith is irrational,
but equally far from grasping the importance of philosophical monotheism
as a preparation for Christian doctrine, or from perceiving the danger of
sheer obscurantism involved in his own contention. Nor does he deal with
Aquinas' point that, since few men have leisure, or inclination, or ability
to be philosophers, the bulk of mankind will be obliged to receive in the
form of faith propositions which a few may be able to establish by
reasoning. On the other hand, Duns Scotus goes quite as far as Aquinas
in claiming for theology an interest in every branch of knowledge, not
excluding geometry, and also in exalting the power of the intellect for
the general purpose of arriving at truth. Theology, he maintains, is
practical rather than speculative, but the practical consequences of Chris-
tian dogmas, as he explains them, would never have been questioned by
Aquinas. In a word, Duns Scotus proposes a new division of provinces
but does not adequately defend it. He tends to exalt will above intellect,
but with the difficulties of their inter-relation he does not grapple half
so closely as Aquinas,
Perhaps the most conspicuous point of difference between Duns Scotus
and his contemporaries was his doctrine of matter. Entirely free from
materialism in any sense that would make matter independent of the
Creator, he insists, nevertheless, that all created beings, the spiritual no
less than the corporeal, have matter as well as form in their composition.
To support this doctrine he makes an important distinction between
metaphysical and physical matter. He supposed that Pythagoras and
some of the early Greek philosophers had thought of matter metaphysic-
ally, but he assigned to physics and natural philosophy, not the muteria
prima, but only the secundo prima, which is the substratum of generation
and corruption. In its metaphysical sense matter need not be localised,
and he excused himself from answering the question ubi est? Thus even
the angelic nature contains matter in its being, and since Aquinas had
allowed to the angels a kind of potentia, Duns Scotus is obliged to deny
that the existence of matter is merely potential. How it can exist actu,
without being actus alicuius, he finds it difficult to explain, but such is
his doctrine. And further, since the whole universe of creatures has been
developed out of this metaphysical substratum by progressive differentia-
tion, the Thomist doctrine of matter as the causa individuationis must
be rejected. Incidentally the angels thus recover the privilege of being
individuals without constituting a species apiece. What individuality is,
and how it arises, Duns Scotus exhausts his ingenuity to explain. He
## p. 829 (#875) ############################################
The coming revolutions in thought
829
was doubtless right in suspecting that the puzzle could not be solved
through the simple alternatives of matter and form. He perceived also
that an individual could not be defined by negatives, and that there must
be some positive quality involved in numerical distinction. If in the end
his own doctrine only led to the thesis that hoc est hoc on account of
haecceitas, we must still hesitate before we throw stones at him. For in
the monstrous jargon of some modern philosophies a word like “thisness”
has an air of almost classical refinement.
Impossible as it is to do justice in a page or two to the comprehensive
knowledge of Duns Scotus or to his intellectual acumen, it is not unjust
to deny that he is author of any momentous reform in philosophy. Rather
does he testify, like Roger Bacon, though in very different style, to the
approaching exhaustion of medieval thought. The air of finality that
hangs over the weighty pages of Aquinas has a prophetic significance.
For the work of Aquinas, consummate in its kind, had exhausted the
materials then existing for the edifice of philosophy, though not the
ingenious art of arranging them in new patterns. The great age of dia-
lectic had vanished with the rebirth of Aristotle; the age of Aristotelianism
was to perish in still greater revolutions. Alike in politics and in science
more portentous questions were soon to be uttered: whether a society
founded on an immutable gospel could find room for the modern State,
and whether a scientia experimentalis beyond the dreams of Roger Bacon
could be reconciled with an infallible Church.
CH.
XXIII ,
## p. 830 (#876) ############################################
## p. 831 (#877) ############################################
831
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS OF TITLES
OF PERIODICALS, SOCIETIES, ETC.
BZ.
(1) The following abbreviations are used for titles of periodicals :
AB. Analecta Bollandiana. Paris and Brussels. 1882 ff.
AHR. American Historical Review. New York and London.
AKKR. Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrecht. Innsbruck. 1857–61. Mayence.
1862 ff.
Arch. Ven. (and N. Arch. Ven. ; Arch. Ven. -Tri. ). Archivio veneto. Venice. 40
vols. 1871-90; continued as Nuovo archivio veneto. 1st series. 20
vols. 1891-1900. New series. 42 vols. 1901-21. And Archivio
veneto-tridentino. 1922 ff. , in progress.
ASAK. Anzeiger für schweizerische Alterthumskunde. Zurich.
ASI. Archivio storico italiano. Florence. Ser. 1. 20 vols. and App. 9 vols.
1842–53. Index. 1857. Ser. nuova. 18 vols. 1855-63. Ser. III.
26 vols. 1865-77. Indexes to II and 1. 1874. Supplt. 1877. Ser. iv.
20 vols. 1878–87. Index. 1891. Ser, v. 50 vols. 1888-1912. Index.
1900. Ser. vi. Anni 71-81. 20 vols. 1913-23. (Index up to 1917 in
Catalogue of The London Library. Vol. 1. 1913, and Supplt. 1920. )
Ser. vii. Anni 82 etc. 1924 ff. , in progress.
ASL. Archivio storico lombardo. Milan.
ASPN. Archivio storico per le province napoletane. Naples. 1876 ff.
ASRSP. Archivio della Società romana di storia patria. Rome. 1878 ff.
BEC.
Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes. Paris. 1839 ff.
BISI. Bullettino dell'Istituto storico italiano. Rome. 1886 ff.
BRAH. Boletin de la R. Academia de la historia. Madrid.
Byzantinische Zeitschrift. Leipsic. 1892 ff.
CQR. Church Quarterly Review. London. 1875 ff.
DZG. Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft. Freiburg-im-Breisgau.
DZKR. Deutsche Zeitschrift für Kirchenrecht. Freiburg-im-Breisgau. 1891 ff.
EHR. English Historical Review. London. 1886 ff.
FDG. Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte. Göttingen.
HJ. Historisches Jahrbuch. Munich.
HVJS. Historische Vierteljahrsschrift. Leipsic.
HZ. Historische Zeitschrift (von Sybel). Munich and Berlin.
JA. Journal Asiatique. Paris.
JB. Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft im Auftrage der historischen
Gesellschaft zu Berlin. Berlin. 1878 ff.
JRAS. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain. London.
JTS. Journal of Theological Studies. London.
MA Le moyen âge. Paris.
MIOGF. Mittheilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung.
Innsbruck.
Neu, Arch. Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde.
Hanover and Leipsic.
NRDF (and RDF). Nouvelle Revue hist. de droit français et étranger. Paris.
1877-1921 ; continued as Revue hist. de droit français et étranger.
Paris. 1922 ff.
QFIA. Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken.
Rome.
RA. Revue archéologique. Paris.
RBén. Revue bénédictine. Maredsous.
RCHL. Revue critique d'histoire et de littérature. Paris.
RDF. See above, NRDF.
RH. Revue historique. Paris.
RHD, Revue d'histoire diplomatique. Paris.
## p. 832 (#878) ############################################
832
Abbreviations
RHE. Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique. Louvain.
Rhein. Mus. Rheinisches Museum für Philologie. Frankfort-on-Main.
RN. Revue de numismatique. Paris.
RQH. Revue des questions historiques. Paris.
RSH. Revue de synthèse historique. Paris.
RSI. Rivista storica italiana. Turiu. See Gen. Bibl. 1.
SKAW. Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Vienna.
[Philos. -hist. Classe. ]
SPAW. .
Sitzungsberichte der kön. preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Berlin.
TRHS. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. London.
ZCK. . Zeitschrift für christliche Kunst. Düsseldorf.
ZDMG. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft. Lei psic.
ZKG. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte. Gotha.
ZKT. Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie. Gotha.
ZR. Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte. Weimar. 1861-78. Continued as
ZSR. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtswissenschaft. Weimar. 1880 f.
[Each vol. contains a Romanistische, a Germanistische, and, after
1911, a Kanonistische Abteilung. ]
ZWT. Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie. Frankfort-on-Main.
(2) Other abbreviations used are:
AcadIBL. Académie de. Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.
AcadIP. Académie Impériais de Pétersbourg.
Allg DB. Allgemeine deutsche Biographie. See Gen. Bibl. 1.
ASBen. See Mabillon and Achery in Cen. Bibl. iv.
ASBoll. Acta Sanctorum Bollandiana. See ConBibl. iv.
BGén. Nouvelle Biographie générale. See Gen. Bibl.
BHE. Bibliothèque de l'École des hautes études. See Gen. Bibl. v.
Bouquet. See Rerum Gallicarum. . . scriptores in Gen. Bibl. iv.
BUniv. Biographie universelle. See Gen. Bibl. 1.
Class. hist. Classiques de l'histoire de France au moyen âge. See Gen. Bibl. IV.
Coll. doc. Collection de documents inédits sur l'histoire de France. See Gen.
contributions to science (about which the specialists are a little frigid),
no school of thought then suspected that geometry or optics or the pro-
pagation of force by “multiplication of species” were going to undermine
the Church. Bacon, like Abelard, may have damaged himself by making
enemies, and by his monotonous dispraise of authority; but where he
seems definitely to have stumbled was in the field of astrology. The
state of astronomy at the time permitted it to be a quasi-scientific
question whether the fortunes and even the characters of men might not
be shaped by celestial impressions. Bacon himself agreed with Aquinas
and other educated men in denying that the freedom of the will could
thus be affected, and in avoiding the more childish superstitions. The
attack on him was probably no more intelligent than the refusal to
discriminate between Aquinas and the Averroists. In the hour of
triumphant faction a few rash or ambiguous expressions would be
evidence enough. Deplorable as the result was, we have no more right
to accuse the whole age of persecuting science than we have to argue from
Bacon's own effort to prove the utility of mathematics to theology that
he saw no intrinsic value in theoretical reasoning. In any case, it is an
anachronism either to look for a new philosophy of the world in the
scientific tastes of Bacon, or to interpret his overthrow as mere hostility
to the study of natural phenomena. A still greater absurdity would be
to suppose that Bacon's praise of experience and experiment brought
upon him the wrath of Aristotelians.
Rightly to estimate Bacon's worth as a philosopher is, however, a very
difficult task. The combative spirit which enraged his contemporaries
has endeared him, perhaps unduly, to modern readers with little
sympathy for the temper of the Middle Ages. Similarly, his references to
ctual or possible devices of mechanics and chemistry have won for him
more credit as an inventor than he would have claimed for himself. Our
concern, however, is rather with his general estimate of knowledge, and
with his broader relations to the intellectual attitude of his times. And
here we find that, in some respects, his mind was provincial, or even re-
actionary, while in others he certainly had a vision of the future sicut in
aenigmate, non facie ad faciem. His provincialism appears in his failure
to appreciate the higher contemporary thought, or to perceive the direction
in which minds really more critical than his own were moving. Much of
his criticism, as for example in the De Viciis contractis in studio Theologiae,
is singularly barren, if we suppose it to refer to such men as Albert the
Great or Thomas Aquinas. They in their turn might well have objected
that Bacon's whole conception of philosophy was obsolete. They would not
formally have disputed his statement that the chief and final intention
of philosophers was circa divinam et angelorum cognitionem. . . cum con-
CH. XXIII.
## p. 826 (#872) ############################################
826
Bacon's titles to fame
temptu bonorum istius vitae temporalis, ut pervenirent ad statum futurae
beatitudinis, but they might fairly have replied that amiable commonplaces
were no substitute for a real delineation of the provinces of theology and
human reason. Bacon is, in fact, reactionary in his extravagant subordina-
tion of philosophy to theology. He reverts to a position barely tenable
in the thirteenth century unless supported by fresh arguments, and he
appears to be imperfectly acquainted with the greatest controversy of his
age.
Again, his praise of “mathematics” as an aid to civil and religious
government is so mixed up with the puerilities of astrology and alchemy
that his pretence of superiority to his times in this respect is far from
convincing. On the other hand, there are many glimpses of genuine in-
sight in his enthusiasm for linguistic studies, in his anticipation of the
manifold uses of geography, and in his constant emphasis on the importance
of experimental method. Very often he speaks of scientia experimentalis
as a separate science rather than as a general method employed by natural
philosophy; and in the Opus Tertium he makes the significant statement:
naturalis enim philosophus narrat et arguit, sed non experitur. He main-
tains, nevertheless, that experiment or experience is required to verify all
the sciences; nor can we reasonably complain if he is not yet in a position
to discriminate between the more and the less experimental departments
of knowledge. What we clearly discern in Bacon, when we get behind his
peevishness, his superstitions, and his arrogance, is a profound discontent
with the existing state of knowledge, a conviction that no further advance
is possible except by a kind of intellectual return to Nature. In this he
was indubitably right, and in this, rather than in actual achievement, lies
his title to fame. At all times, too, he was hampered by his conflict with
authority. Many of his books have the character of an apologia. He is
desperately anxious to refute the slanders of his enemies, and to persuade
Pope Clement IV that his philosophy is orthodox and profitable. Had
he worked in a calmer atmosphere, and in harmony with the chiefs of his
Order, it is probable that he would have left us a higher impression of
his
The imprisonment of Bacon was a political incident, in the same sense
that the trials of Gottschalk, Abelard, and Gilbert de la Porrée, or the
prohibitions of Aristotle, Averroism, and Peripateticism were political
incidents. For the Church was, in theory and in fact, a political society
based on first principles, and pledged therefore to test every movement
of thought by its probable effect on the faith and conduct of Christians.
Liberty of opinion we now take to be the foundation of all other liberties;
interference with it we stamp as an act of tyranny or, at best, as a dangerous
experiment. But that is because we are governed by opinion and desire
no other master. The medieval Church, on the other hand, claimed to
be governed by knowledge, and that makes all the difference in the world.
That, too, is why the significance of the proposed division between theology
powers.
## p. 827 (#873) ############################################
The final aim of medieval philosophy
827
and philosophy was graver than even an Aquinas could suspect. The scope
of this chapter has excluded political thought in the more restricted sense,
but facts like the growth of Canon Law, the revival of Roman juris-
prudence, the rise of nations and communes, the struggle of Empire and
Papacy, and the appearance of such a book as Marsilius of Padua's De-
fensor Pacis are intimately connected with medieval philosophy. In the
last chapter of his Monarchia Dante supports his plea for an independent
Empire by the analogous independence of philosophy. To the Pope belong
revealed truths and the theological virtues; to the Emperor moral virtue
and the inventions of reason. That Dante grasped the whole possibilities
of his argument is improbable; for no such division could be effective
before the rise of the modern State, nor even then until the State had
renounced the care of theology, only to find that philosophy had likewise
vanished from its counsels. The heroic attempt of Aquinas to define a
sphere for philosophy without detriment to the sovereign rights of theology
was simply one expression of the whole medieval struggle so to adjust the
temporal power to the spiritual as to create a dominion of political freedom
within the higher sovereignty of the Church. The project, we may hold,
was impossible. It is certain, at least, that it failed.
Yet this failure was the last and greatest achievement of medieval
philosophy. Later developments, such as the rivalry of Thomists and
Scotists, with all their wrangles about matter and form, universals and
individuals, have their interest for students, but small importance for the
historical movement of the world. When we gaze on the solid line of
folios attributed to Duns Scotus (ob. 1308) it seems almost incredible that
his life can have lasted—according to a common estimate—no more than
thirty-four years. Even if the correct figure be a little larger, his youth
is perhaps a fact to be remembered in estimating the quality of his work.
For in Duns Scotus we cannot but recognise something of that joy in
destruction attributed by Plato to young men attacked by the first fever
of dialectic. It was his distinguished fate to found a school strong enough
for a time to divide the world with the Thomists. The Franciscans
adopted him as their champion and magnified his prestige. Modern
readers, however, who stand apart from medieval factions, will be slow
to recognise in Duns Scotus a serious intellectual rival to Thomas Aquinas.
In method, in perspicuity, in dignity and breadth of mind he is plainly
inferior. To charge him with insincerity would be uncharitable, but he
strikes us as a man determined at all hazards to take up original positions,
and therefore to seek with all his notorious “subtlety” for points of dis-
tinction between his own and other views. The result in most cases is
that his divergence from Aquinas and other doctors turns out to be
smaller than his statements would suggest.
On the fundamental question of the relation of philosophy to theology
he proposes a much sharper division than was approved by St Thomas.
When any truth is enunciated as an article of faith, it is inexpedient, he
CH. XXIII.
## p. 828 (#874) ############################################
828
Duns Scotus and his philosophy
says, to attempt a demonstration of it. The effect of your demonstration
on the faithful will be to deprive them of the merit of faith, while to the
infidel you will provide an opportunity of declaring that Christians are
driven by lack of faith to fall back on argument. It would thus be im-
proper to prove by reason that God exists, that God is one, or that the
soul is immortal. Duns Scotus fails, however, to work out the consequences
of his own hypothesis. He is far from meaning that faith is irrational,
but equally far from grasping the importance of philosophical monotheism
as a preparation for Christian doctrine, or from perceiving the danger of
sheer obscurantism involved in his own contention. Nor does he deal with
Aquinas' point that, since few men have leisure, or inclination, or ability
to be philosophers, the bulk of mankind will be obliged to receive in the
form of faith propositions which a few may be able to establish by
reasoning. On the other hand, Duns Scotus goes quite as far as Aquinas
in claiming for theology an interest in every branch of knowledge, not
excluding geometry, and also in exalting the power of the intellect for
the general purpose of arriving at truth. Theology, he maintains, is
practical rather than speculative, but the practical consequences of Chris-
tian dogmas, as he explains them, would never have been questioned by
Aquinas. In a word, Duns Scotus proposes a new division of provinces
but does not adequately defend it. He tends to exalt will above intellect,
but with the difficulties of their inter-relation he does not grapple half
so closely as Aquinas,
Perhaps the most conspicuous point of difference between Duns Scotus
and his contemporaries was his doctrine of matter. Entirely free from
materialism in any sense that would make matter independent of the
Creator, he insists, nevertheless, that all created beings, the spiritual no
less than the corporeal, have matter as well as form in their composition.
To support this doctrine he makes an important distinction between
metaphysical and physical matter. He supposed that Pythagoras and
some of the early Greek philosophers had thought of matter metaphysic-
ally, but he assigned to physics and natural philosophy, not the muteria
prima, but only the secundo prima, which is the substratum of generation
and corruption. In its metaphysical sense matter need not be localised,
and he excused himself from answering the question ubi est? Thus even
the angelic nature contains matter in its being, and since Aquinas had
allowed to the angels a kind of potentia, Duns Scotus is obliged to deny
that the existence of matter is merely potential. How it can exist actu,
without being actus alicuius, he finds it difficult to explain, but such is
his doctrine. And further, since the whole universe of creatures has been
developed out of this metaphysical substratum by progressive differentia-
tion, the Thomist doctrine of matter as the causa individuationis must
be rejected. Incidentally the angels thus recover the privilege of being
individuals without constituting a species apiece. What individuality is,
and how it arises, Duns Scotus exhausts his ingenuity to explain. He
## p. 829 (#875) ############################################
The coming revolutions in thought
829
was doubtless right in suspecting that the puzzle could not be solved
through the simple alternatives of matter and form. He perceived also
that an individual could not be defined by negatives, and that there must
be some positive quality involved in numerical distinction. If in the end
his own doctrine only led to the thesis that hoc est hoc on account of
haecceitas, we must still hesitate before we throw stones at him. For in
the monstrous jargon of some modern philosophies a word like “thisness”
has an air of almost classical refinement.
Impossible as it is to do justice in a page or two to the comprehensive
knowledge of Duns Scotus or to his intellectual acumen, it is not unjust
to deny that he is author of any momentous reform in philosophy. Rather
does he testify, like Roger Bacon, though in very different style, to the
approaching exhaustion of medieval thought. The air of finality that
hangs over the weighty pages of Aquinas has a prophetic significance.
For the work of Aquinas, consummate in its kind, had exhausted the
materials then existing for the edifice of philosophy, though not the
ingenious art of arranging them in new patterns. The great age of dia-
lectic had vanished with the rebirth of Aristotle; the age of Aristotelianism
was to perish in still greater revolutions. Alike in politics and in science
more portentous questions were soon to be uttered: whether a society
founded on an immutable gospel could find room for the modern State,
and whether a scientia experimentalis beyond the dreams of Roger Bacon
could be reconciled with an infallible Church.
CH.
XXIII ,
## p. 830 (#876) ############################################
## p. 831 (#877) ############################################
831
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS OF TITLES
OF PERIODICALS, SOCIETIES, ETC.
BZ.
(1) The following abbreviations are used for titles of periodicals :
AB. Analecta Bollandiana. Paris and Brussels. 1882 ff.
AHR. American Historical Review. New York and London.
AKKR. Archiv für katholisches Kirchenrecht. Innsbruck. 1857–61. Mayence.
1862 ff.
Arch. Ven. (and N. Arch. Ven. ; Arch. Ven. -Tri. ). Archivio veneto. Venice. 40
vols. 1871-90; continued as Nuovo archivio veneto. 1st series. 20
vols. 1891-1900. New series. 42 vols. 1901-21. And Archivio
veneto-tridentino. 1922 ff. , in progress.
ASAK. Anzeiger für schweizerische Alterthumskunde. Zurich.
ASI. Archivio storico italiano. Florence. Ser. 1. 20 vols. and App. 9 vols.
1842–53. Index. 1857. Ser. nuova. 18 vols. 1855-63. Ser. III.
26 vols. 1865-77. Indexes to II and 1. 1874. Supplt. 1877. Ser. iv.
20 vols. 1878–87. Index. 1891. Ser, v. 50 vols. 1888-1912. Index.
1900. Ser. vi. Anni 71-81. 20 vols. 1913-23. (Index up to 1917 in
Catalogue of The London Library. Vol. 1. 1913, and Supplt. 1920. )
Ser. vii. Anni 82 etc. 1924 ff. , in progress.
ASL. Archivio storico lombardo. Milan.
ASPN. Archivio storico per le province napoletane. Naples. 1876 ff.
ASRSP. Archivio della Società romana di storia patria. Rome. 1878 ff.
BEC.
Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes. Paris. 1839 ff.
BISI. Bullettino dell'Istituto storico italiano. Rome. 1886 ff.
BRAH. Boletin de la R. Academia de la historia. Madrid.
Byzantinische Zeitschrift. Leipsic. 1892 ff.
CQR. Church Quarterly Review. London. 1875 ff.
DZG. Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft. Freiburg-im-Breisgau.
DZKR. Deutsche Zeitschrift für Kirchenrecht. Freiburg-im-Breisgau. 1891 ff.
EHR. English Historical Review. London. 1886 ff.
FDG. Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte. Göttingen.
HJ. Historisches Jahrbuch. Munich.
HVJS. Historische Vierteljahrsschrift. Leipsic.
HZ. Historische Zeitschrift (von Sybel). Munich and Berlin.
JA. Journal Asiatique. Paris.
JB. Jahresberichte der Geschichtswissenschaft im Auftrage der historischen
Gesellschaft zu Berlin. Berlin. 1878 ff.
JRAS. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain. London.
JTS. Journal of Theological Studies. London.
MA Le moyen âge. Paris.
MIOGF. Mittheilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung.
Innsbruck.
Neu, Arch. Neues Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde.
Hanover and Leipsic.
NRDF (and RDF). Nouvelle Revue hist. de droit français et étranger. Paris.
1877-1921 ; continued as Revue hist. de droit français et étranger.
Paris. 1922 ff.
QFIA. Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken.
Rome.
RA. Revue archéologique. Paris.
RBén. Revue bénédictine. Maredsous.
RCHL. Revue critique d'histoire et de littérature. Paris.
RDF. See above, NRDF.
RH. Revue historique. Paris.
RHD, Revue d'histoire diplomatique. Paris.
## p. 832 (#878) ############################################
832
Abbreviations
RHE. Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique. Louvain.
Rhein. Mus. Rheinisches Museum für Philologie. Frankfort-on-Main.
RN. Revue de numismatique. Paris.
RQH. Revue des questions historiques. Paris.
RSH. Revue de synthèse historique. Paris.
RSI. Rivista storica italiana. Turiu. See Gen. Bibl. 1.
SKAW. Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Vienna.
[Philos. -hist. Classe. ]
SPAW. .
Sitzungsberichte der kön. preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Berlin.
TRHS. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. London.
ZCK. . Zeitschrift für christliche Kunst. Düsseldorf.
ZDMG. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft. Lei psic.
ZKG. Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte. Gotha.
ZKT. Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie. Gotha.
ZR. Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte. Weimar. 1861-78. Continued as
ZSR. Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtswissenschaft. Weimar. 1880 f.
[Each vol. contains a Romanistische, a Germanistische, and, after
1911, a Kanonistische Abteilung. ]
ZWT. Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie. Frankfort-on-Main.
(2) Other abbreviations used are:
AcadIBL. Académie de. Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.
AcadIP. Académie Impériais de Pétersbourg.
Allg DB. Allgemeine deutsche Biographie. See Gen. Bibl. 1.
ASBen. See Mabillon and Achery in Cen. Bibl. iv.
ASBoll. Acta Sanctorum Bollandiana. See ConBibl. iv.
BGén. Nouvelle Biographie générale. See Gen. Bibl.
BHE. Bibliothèque de l'École des hautes études. See Gen. Bibl. v.
Bouquet. See Rerum Gallicarum. . . scriptores in Gen. Bibl. iv.
BUniv. Biographie universelle. See Gen. Bibl. 1.
Class. hist. Classiques de l'histoire de France au moyen âge. See Gen. Bibl. IV.
Coll. doc. Collection de documents inédits sur l'histoire de France. See Gen.
