No More Learning

1. Hence the form in which Arabian science was first taken up was that of Averroism. In this, however, science had marked off its boundaries in the most definite manner as against positive religion. This had taken place not only in reaction against the attacks to which the philosophical movement in the East had been subjected, but still more in consequence of the great mental revolutions which the age of the Crusades experienced through the intimate contact of the three monotheistic religions. The more ardently these relig ions fought iu the sphere of historical reality, the more the sharp ness of their contrasting doctrines became blunted from the point of view of theory. Those who passed through this conflict of relig ions as thinking observers could not resist the impulse to seek the common element behind the differences, and to establish above the fields of battle the idea of a universal religion. 1 In order to attain this, every form of special historical revelation must be stripped off, and the path of universally valid scientific knowledge must be taken. So with the aid of Neo- Platonic memories, a return was made to the thought of a universal religion, founded upon science, and the ulti
mate content of this common conviction was formed by the moral law. As Abelard in his own way had already reached this result, so Roger Bacon later, under Arabian influences, designated morality as the content of the universal religion.
This scientific natural religion, however, had had stamped upon it more and more by the Arabs the exclusive character of an esoteric doctrine. The distinction originating with Philo, and current in the entire patristic thought, between a verbal-historical and a spiritually timeless sense' of religious documents (cf. § 18, U) here became the doctrine that positive religion is an indispensable need for the mass of the people, while the man of science seeks the real truth back of religion, and seeks it only there, — a doctrine in which Averroes and Maimonides were at one, and which completely corresponded to the social relations of Arabian science. For Arabian science always moved within narrow and closed circles, and as a foreign growth
1 Tb« court of the highly cultured Hohenstaufen Frederick II. in Sicily appears as a chief neat of this mode of thought, and in general of the exchange of thought between Kant and Went.
• Representing this opinion, the Kternal UttoptX of Joachim of Florls was circulated among the Averroi. itic Anialricana. This completed for the entire compass of ChrUtian dogma, the transformation of everything external into the mternal. all the historical into the titnelesgly valid : the " pneumatic gospel " of Origen (ci. | 18, 2) was asserted to have here attained reality, the period of lb*
1 to hate begun. Cf. J. N. Schneider (Dillingen,
1874).
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820 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III
never gained true sympathy with the mass of the people: Averroes, nevertheless, expressly honours Aristotle as the founder of this high est, most universal religion of the human race. "
Thus in line with this thought, Abubaoer made his Man in a State of Nature," who had attained in his isolation to the philosoph ical knowledge of God, come into contact again at last with histori cal humanity, and in so doing discover that what he had known clearly and in abstract thought, is here believed in its picturate wrappings, and that what holds for him as a self-evident demand of the reason is here extorted from the multitude by means of reward and punishment.
If now it is hereby admitted that natural and revealed religion have ultimately the same content, it still follows that they necessa rily differ, at least in their expression of the common truth, — that the conceptions which form the expression of philosophical religion are not understood by believers, while the picturate ideas of believ ers are not regarded as the full truth by philosophers. If, then, by theology, we understand the exposition of the positive doctrine of religion, arranged and defended according to the formal laws of science, i. e. Aristotelian logic, — and this was the form which the relation of theology to religion had taken in the West as in the East, — it follows that something may be true theologically which is not true philosophically, and vice versa. Thus is explained that doctrine of the twofold truth,* theological and philosophical, which went through the entire later Middle Ages, although we cannot exactly fix the authorship of this formula. 2 It is the adequate expression of the mental state necessarily brought about by the opposition of the two authorities under which the Middle Ages
religious
stood, viz. Hellenistic science and tradition ; and while at
^a*er time it often served to
persecution of the Church, it was for the most part, even in these cases, the honest expression of the inner discord in which just the most important minds of the age found themselves.
2. The science of the Christian peoples accepted this antithesis, and while the doctrine of the twofold truth was expressly pro claimed by bold dialecticians such as Simon of Tournay, or John of Brescia, and was all the more rigidly condemned by the power of
1 Cf. M. Maywald, Die Lthrt von der txeeifachen Wahrheit (Berlin, 1871).
* As little can it be fixed with certainty what the origin of that widely ex tended formula was, which designated the founders of the three great positive religions as the three "deceivers" of mankind. Cnhistorical, as is every Enlightenment, the philosophical opposition of that day could explain to itself only by empirical interests the mythical which could not stand before compara tive criticism.
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CKAf. 25. ] The Two Realme Albert, Thoinat. 321
the Church, the leading minds could not evade the fact that philos ophy, as had been developed under the influence of Aristotle and the Arabians, was, and must remain, in its inner nature, alien to precisely those doctrines of the Christian religion which were spe cific and distinctive. With full consciousness of this opposition, Albert proceeded to his great task. He understood that the distinc-
ntUurai and rececUed religion, which he found in exist ence, COUld ho longer De put out of sight, that philosophy ami theology could no longer be identified, but he hoped and laboured with all his strength that this distinction might not be allowed to necome contradiction. He abandoned the doctrine that the " mys teries " of theology, the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incar nation, can be made rational, and, on the other hand, he corrected in favour of the Church doctrine the teaching of the " Philosopher " on such important points as the question concerning the eternity or temporal duration of the world. He sought to show that all which
known in philosophy by the "natural light" (lumine naluruli) holds good also in theology, but that the human soul can know completely only that, the principles of which carries within itself, and that, therefore, in such questions as those in which philosophical knowledge comes to no finally valid decision and must remain standing before the antinomy of different possibilities, revelation gives the decision, — view in which Albert follows mainly the results of Maimonides. Faith meritorious just because cannot be proved or established by any natural insight Revelation above reason, but nut uuutrary to reaaoti;
This standpoint for harmonising~hatural and revealed theology
essentially that taken by Thomas, although he seeks to limit still more, possible, the extent of that which to be withdrawn from philosophical insight and given into the possession of faith. Accord ing to the fundamental thoughts of his system, moreover, he
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this relation as relation of different stages of development, and sees accordingly, in philosophical knowledge, possibility given in man's natural endowment, which brought to full and entire realisation only by the grace active in revela tion.
It therefore important to notice that Scholasticism, just in this it/highest point, was far from identifying philosophy and theology, or from making the task of the former, as has often been repre- tented, an unresting comprehension of dogma. This conception hrlongs to the beginnings of mediaeval science, e. g. to Ansel in, and
found sporadically in the times when Scholasticism was entering upon its dissolution. So, for example, Raymundus Lullus projected
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322 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III
his "Great Art ", essentially in the opinion that this, by making possible a systematic explanation of all truths, will be adapted to convince all " unbelievers " of the truth of the Christian religion. So, too, later, Raymond of Sabunde aimed to prove with the help of Lull's Art that if God has revealed himself in a double manner, in the Bible (liber scriptus) and in Nature (liber vivus), the contents of these two revelations, of which the one lies at the basis of theol ogy, the other at the basis of philosophy, must evidently be the same. But in the classical time of Scholasticism the distinction between natural and revealed theology was always kept in mind, and was drawn the more sharply, the more the Ch-irch haa occasion ' to guard against the contusion of its finnt. rmp with jj natural theology. " f. hp ghn
3. Hence there were very faithful sons nf nVmrnVi hrnaifonftri again t. hp r. lpft, fopfrwoon pV. i1r,er. p>iy o^^ +l»Q»l^rj Qrr| n]f;. mately made it so wide that it could not be bridged. At their head stands y»»3 AYwiia^who taught that theology should be conceived and treated only as a practical discipline ; philosoptty, on the con trary, as pure theory. Hence for him and for the continuers of his doctrine, the relation between the two is no longer chat of supple mentation, but that of separation. Between the two opposing terri tories of revelation and of rational knowledge, natural theology shrivels into an extreme poverty of domain. The compass of the mysteries of theology that are inaccessible for natural knowledge
increases more and more ; with Duns Scotus the beginning of the created world in time and the immortality of the human soul belong to this sphere ; and Occam even denies the cogency of the usual arguments with which rational theology was wont to prove the existence of God.
This criticism is rooted essentially in the purpose to assure to faith its just right, and in tins purpose it is completely honest. In connection with the metaphysical dualism which had again become pronounced (see below, No. 5) the knowledge of the understanding, bound as it was to sense-perception, seemed incapable of searching
1 This wrong-headed, and yet in many respects interesting and therefore frequently attempted, discovery, consisted in a system of concentric rings, each of which bore a group of concepts divided into circular compartments. By shifting these rings, all possible combinations between concepts were to be brought about, problems given, and their solutions stated. Thus there was a Kigura A (Dei) which contained the whole theology, a Figura Animse which contained psychology, etc. Mnemo-technic attempts, and such as aim at the discovery of a universal language, or of a system of symbols for expressing philosophical thoughts, have frequently been attached to this art combinatorial. The introduction of the algebraic method of reckoning by letters is also con nected with these efforts.
Chap. 2, § 25. ] The Two Realms : Duns Scotus, Occam. 323
the mysteries of the supernatural world. Thus men like Geraon ' based their mystical doctrine precisely upon Nominalism. Thp ilfffprpnrp het. wepn philnHopJTjjtiid theology is npppssary; f. hp prm-
tradiction between knowledge and faith is unavoidable. Revelation has its source in grace, and has the divine realm ot grace for its con tent ; rational knowledge is a natural process of reciprocal inter action between the knowing mind and the objects of perception. Therefore, though Nominalism escaped from the scholastic method with difficulty, and was late in reaching its goal, it necessarily ended in regarding Nature as the sole object of science. At all events, philosophy now set itself as" secular science, over against theology as dmnjjscienjff"
So Duns Scotus and Occam employed language which externally is quite in harmony with the " twofold truth. " That definition of the boundaries was intended to assert, that in matters of faith dia lectic has nothing to say. But it could not fail to be the result, that in the case of others, this separation would lead to the oppo site consequence and back to the original meaning of the claim of a double truth. It became a charter of liberty for the "secular philosophy. " Dialectical investigation could be pursued even to the boldest propositions, and yet all offence might be avoided if one only added that the proposition was so secundum, rationem, but that secundum fidem the opposite was of course true. This occurred so frequently that the Thomists and Lullists became zealous against it. In the case of many, to be sure, who availed themselves of this principle, we cannot doubt that this was their honest opinion ; but it is just as sure that others, with full consciousness of their pro cedure, found in this only a convenient pretext, in order to present under the protection of this restriction the doctrines of a philosophy that in its inner spirit was at variance with faith. At all events, this applies to the school of the Averroists which flourished in Padua toward the end of the fifteenth century.
4. Parallel to this changeful process of transformation in the relation between theology and philosophy, and in closest connection with goes an analogous development of metaphysical psychology, and both have reference in like measure to the fundamental relatiou between the supersensuous and the sensuous worlds^ Here, too, dualism the starting-point, and afterwards again the end. This dualism had been developed to an especial degree of sharpness by the Victoriues at the close of the first period. In this Mysticism the last bonds between body and soul were cut, and reconciliation
was made impossible. The spiritual and material worlds fell apart as separate spheres of the universal reality.
it, is
324 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III.
Now, however, Aristotelianism fulfilled its historical mission of overcoming the two-worlds theory in Augustine, as formerly in Plato, and in the Tliomist psychology the conception of development, and of the gradual building up of phenomena, was intended to' bridge that separation. While Hugo of St. Victor had drawn the dividing line in the created world through the midst of man's nature, by emphasising the complete impossibility of any comparison be tween the two substances there brought together, the human soul was now to be understood as just that connecting link, through the medium of which the two worlds come into organic interaction in the one course of development of allthings!
Thomas attains this result by an extraordinarily acute transfor mation of the Aristotelian doctrine of Forms and their relation to matter. The material and the immaterial worlds are characterised by the fact that, in the latter, pure Forms (formce separatee ; called also subsistent Forms) are real or actual as active intelligences with out any attachment to matter, while in the former, Forms realise themselves only in union with matter (inherent Forms). The hu man soul, as lowest of the pure intelligences, is a forma separata
(on which rests its immortality) and, at the same time, as entelechy of the body, it is the highest of those Forms which realise them selves in matter. But these two sides of its nature are bound together in it to an absolute substantial unity, and this unity is the only Form which is at the same time subsistent and inherent. 1 In this way the series of individual beings proceeds from the lowesT" Forms ot material existence, on past plant and animal life, through the human soul, with uninterrupted continuity over into the worTd ofpure intelligences — the angels,2 and finally to the absolute j'orm — the deitjr:—Th« cleft between the two worlds is closed in Thomisui by this central position of metaphysical psychology.
o. But it seemed to the following period that the cleft was closed only by being plastered over, as it were, and that the union of so heterogeneous attributes as the entelechy of the body and the sub sistence of a pure intelligence was more of a load than the con ception of individual substance was able to bear. Hence Duns Scotus, whose metaphysics likewise moves naturally within the Aristotelian terminology, introduced an (inherent) forma corporei- tatis between the intelligent soul, which he too designates as the
1 In this is concentrated in a conception the anthropocentric way of viewing the world, which even Thomism did not overcome.
* Thomas constructs his scale of forms in the material world according to Aristotle, in the spiritual world according to Dionysius the Areonagite.
" essential Form " of the body, and the body itself ; and thus the
Chap. 2. § 25. ] The Two Realms : Thomas, Scotus, Occam. 325
Augustinian and Victorinian separation of the conscious essence from the physiological vital force was again re-established.
Occam not only made this distinction his own, but, forced to insert another gradation, analysed the conscious soul into an intel lectual and a sensitive part, and ascribed real importance to this separation. It seems to him that the sensuous activities of con sciousness can as little be united with the rational nature whose vocation it is to behold the immaterial world, as can the form and motion of the body. Thus for him the soul is split up into a num ber of individual faculties, to determine the relation of which occasions great difficulties, especially with regard to their spatial inter-relation.
6. The essential thing in this is that the world of conscious- ness and that of corporeal bodies become again completely sepa rated -L and this is shown especially in Occam's theory of knowledge, which proceeded from these presuppositions to an extremely signifi cant innovation. "
"
ations, the old Greek idea, that in the knowing process, by means of the co-operation of the soul and of the external object, a copy of the latter arises, which is then apprehended and beheld by the soul. Occam strikes out these species intelligibiles as a useless doubling ' of the external reality, which according to this view, in so far as it is an object of knowledge, would be assumed as having still another existence (in psychical reality). But by this act sensuous knowledge loses for him its character of being a copy as compared with its object. An idea (concept us, intellectio rei) is as such a state or an act of the soul (passio — intentio animas), and forms in this a sign (signum) for the corresponding external thing. But this inner structure is something of a different nature from the outer reality of which it is the sign, and therefore it is no copy of it. We can speak of a " re semblance " only in so far as in this case the inner reality (esse objective = content of consciousness) and the outer reality (esse for- maliter or subjective = objective reality in the present sense of the word "objective " ') necessarily relate to each other, and, so to spoak, form corresponding points in the two heterogeneous spheres.
Thus the beginning of a psychological and episteraological idealism
In their doctrine of the
the two "Realists," Thomas and Duns Scotus, had alike followed, though with some vari
species intelligibiles
1 According to hU methodical principle : entia prater necessitateTM non esse mmltiplleanda.
•The term* "objective" and "fubjective" In the Middle Aftei have accord ingly a meaning exactly the reverse of that which they have in preiteiu
326 Mediaeval Philosophy . Second Period. [Part 1IL
develops among the Terminists out of the old duality of mind and body : the world of consciousness is another world than the world of things. What is found in the former is not a copy, but only a sign for something without which corresponds to it. Things are other than our ideas (idece) of them.
7. Lastly, Augustine's dualism appeared in its complete bald ness in his conception of history. The realm of God and that of the devil, the Church and the political state, here confronted each other in rigid antithesis. The historical conditions of which this doctrine was the reflex, had become changed completely since Augustine's day. But hitherto the Middle Ages had not only lacked historical conceptions which would have been adapted to correct this doctrine, but scientific thought had been employed in such a one-sidedly theo logical and dialectical manner, that ethical and social problems had remained farther outside the horizon of philosophers than had phys ical problems. And yet at the same time, history was seeing move ments of such grand dimensions that science also must necessarily take a position with regard to it. If she was able to do this in the second period in a manner completely worthy of the greatness of the subject, she owed her strength for this again to the Aristotelian system, which gave the means into her hand of mastering in thought the great connected structures of political and historical life, of arranging in her metaphysics these forms of the series of develop ment, and thus of putting into conceptions the mighty import of that which she was living through. Indeed, in this line in which the Arabian commentators had not gone before lies the most brilliant achievement of mediaeval philosophy,1 and since Albert's interest lay
more on the side of physics, the chief credit here falls to Thomas. Thomas regards the political state, not as did Augustine, as a con sequence of the fall, but as a necessary member in the world's life. In his view, therefore, law or right also flows from the divine nature
and must be so conceived ; above all human institutions stands the lex naturalis, upon which rest morality and the life of society. In
particular, however, as is proved by language, by the need of help which the individual feels, and by the impulse toward society, man is by his nature destined for life in a state. The end of the state according to Aristotle's teaching, to realise virtue, and from this end all the characteristics of the state are to be developed (in philosoph ical law — Natural Right or Law) . But — and here the new thought begins — that civic virtue to which the state should educate its citizens does not exhaust man's destiny. In this he fulfils only his
Cf W. Dilthey, Einleitung in die Geiitesviissenschqfien, 418
1 .
I. f.
is,
Chap. 2, § 25. ] The Two Realm* : Thomas, Dante. 32T
as an earthly being ; his higher destiny is the salvation which grace offers him in the community of the Church. But as the higher everywhere realises itself through the lower, and the lower exists for the sake of the higher, the political community is to be the preparation for that higher community of the State of God. Thus the state becomes subordinate to the Church as the means to the end, as the preparatory to the complete. The com munity of the earthly life is the school for that of the heavenly —
PB. CAMBULA GRATIA.
By the side of the teleology of Nature which Greek philosophy had
worked out, patristic thought had set the teleology of history (cf. § 21, 6) ; but the two had remained unconnected. The doctrine of the state set forth by Thomas subordinates the one to the other in a system of thought, and in so doing completes the most deeply and widely reaching union of the ancient and Christian conceptions of the world that has ever been attempted.
With this the capstone is fitted to the metaphysical structure of Thomism. By this transition from the community of Nature into that of grace, man fulfils the task which his position in the universe assigns him, but he fulfils not as an individual, but only in the race. The ancient thought of the state lives again in Christianity but the state no longer an end in itself, the best means for carrying out the divine world-plan. Gratia naturam non tollit sed
l"rficil.
8. But even this highest synthesis did not long endure. As in
political life, so also in theory, the relation of Church and state took on a form that was very much less harmonious. With Dante the relation of subordination already exchanged for that of co-ordina tion. The poet shares with the metaphysician the thought that because man's destined end to be attained only in the race, this makes a perfect unity in political organisation requisite. Both de mand the universal state, the " monarchia " and see in the Empire the
fulfilment of this postulate. But the great Ghibelline cannot think theocratically, as does the Dominican monk and where the latter assigns to the imperium the place of subordination beneath the sacer- dotium, the former sets the two over against each other as jK)wers of like authority. God has destined man for earthly and for heavenly
purpose
happiness in like measure to the former he state, by the natural knowledge of philosophy
conducted by the to the latter he
In this co-ordination the joy in the world, characteristic of the Renaissance, bursts forth as victoriously as does the feeling of strength which belongs to the
guided by the Church, by means of revelation. secular state.
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328 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part IIL
And along this line the development proceeded. When the graded scale of reality constructed by Thomas was severed ih the midst of man's nature, the spiritual and political powers fell apart, as did the npiritual and corporeal worlds; and the theory afforded the con-
renient means of banishing the sacerdotium to the supra-mundane inner nature, and putting the imperium into sole control within the world of sense. This is precisely the point of view from which Occam, in his Disputatio with reference to the controversy between the papacy and the temporal power, took his position upon the side of the latter. Nor yet is it any longer possible, in accordance with his presuppositions, to base the theory of the state upon the realistic
thought of the human race M a whole, hound together for the real isation of one end. The Nominalist sees as a substantial back ground in social and historical life, only the individuals who will, and he regards state and society as products of interests (bonum
commune).
In theory, as in life, individualism prevails. 1
§ 26. The Primacy of the Will or of the Intellect
W. Kahl, Die Lehre vom Primat des Willens bei Augustinus, Duns Scot us und Descartes.
In closest connection with all these general questions stands a spe cial psychological problem, which was vigorously discussed through out this whole period, and in reference to which the points of opposition between the parties of the time may be recognised upon a smaller scale, but all the more sharply focussed. It is the question whether among the powers of the soul the higher dignity belongs to the will or to the intellect (utra potentia nobilior). It takes so broad a space in the literature of this period that the attempt might have been made to look upon the psychological antithesis which unfolds in connection with it as the leading motive of the whole period. But the course of the development shows too clearly that the real impelling forces lay in religious metaphysics, and the rigidity of systematic conception which distinguishes the philoso phical doctrines of this period explains sufficiently why it is that their position with reference to an individual problem may appear as typical for the different thinkers. It still remains characteristic that this problem is a question taken from the domain of the inner world.
1 This doctrine of Occam's concerning secular power and law is followed out to the extreme consequence of the omnipotence of the state by Occam's friend, Marsilius nf Padua, whose treatise, Defensor Pads (1346), carries out in rigorous lines the attempt to establish the theory of the state upon the utilitarian and nominalistic basis using the Epicurean theory of compact (above, § 14. fi).
Chap. 2, $ 2U.
] Will and Intellect : TltomUm, Hcotitivi. 329
In this question, also, the two main bodies of tradition, Augus-
tinianism and Aristoteliauism, were not at one ;
here in nowise that of an outspoken opposition.
the question was in general awkwardly stated.
the oneness of nature in the personality was so strongly emphasised, and the inter-relation of the different sides of its activity was so often made prominent, that a relation of rank in the proper sense was really out of the question. But on the other hand, especially in his doctrine of knowledge, Augustine had assigned to the will as the impelling power — even in the process of ideation — a position so central that it was not shaken in its importance for empirical facts, even though the Neo-Platonic contemplation of the deity was maintained as the final goal of development. On the contrary, the intellectualism of the Aristotelian system was quite undoubted, and if it still admitted any increase, it had received it from the Arabian philosophy, especially from Averroism. Thus antitheses presented themselves which were soon enough to break forth to open controversy.
Thomism in this point, also, followed Aristotle unconditionally,
tinding at its side in this cast' the nearly related German Mysticism,
and as its opponents the Augu. stini. tnw, iScnti'itS) nn/i '^ynnrnts, y that, as thus grouped, the opposition betwppn thp Dominicans and the Franciscans finds general expression.
~T. The question as to the pre-eminence of the will or of the intel lect develops at first as a purely psychological controversy, and de mands a decision upon the point, whether in the course of the psychical life the dependence of the will's decisions upon ideas, or that of the movements of ideas upon the will, is the greater. It was there fore adapted to further the beginnings of a treatment of psychology that concerned itself especially with the history of mental develop ment (cf. § 24), and it would have been able to do this in a higher degree than was actually the case if it had not always been trans ferred to the ground of dialectic or to the metaphysical domain. This latter transfer occurred principally in consequence of the fact that the conception of freedom, which always involves ethical and religious questions, was looked upon as the point in controversy. " Both parties, indeed, desired to maintain or defend man's " freedom in the interest of responsibility ; but this was possible only as they gave different meanings to the word.
Now, in individual cases, Thomas admits an influence of the will, not only upon motion, but also upon aflirraation or denial of ideas. In particular, he recognises absolutely such an influence in belief. But in general he regards the will, quite according to the ancient
but their relation was For Augustinianism For in this system
330 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Pakt 111
model, as determined by knowledge of the flood. The intellect not only apprehends in general the idea of the goo3, but also, in each individual case, discerns what is good, and thereby determines the will. The will necessarily strives for that which is known to be good ; it is therefore dependent upon the intellect. The latter is the supremus motor of the psychical life; "rationality," so said Eckhart also, is the head of the soul, and even romantic love ("Minne") clings only to knowledge. Freedom (as ethical ideal) is hence, according to Thomas, that necessity which exists upon the Fasis or knowledge, and, on the other hand, (psychological) freedom ofchoice (facidtas electiva) is nevertheless only possible by reason of the fact that the understanding presents to the will, various pos sibilities ait means toward its end, the will then deciding for that which is known to be best, — the view held by Albert also. This intellectualistic determinism, in connection with which Thomas him- self always insisted that the decision of the will depends only upon purely internal knowing activities, was extended by his contemporary Gottfried of Fontaine to the point of making even the sensuous presentation (phantasma) the causa efficiens of the will's activity.
But the opponents made their attack just in connection with this conception of necessary determination. The rising of ideas, so Henry of Ghent had already taught, and after him Duns Scotus, and still later Occam, is a natural process, and the will becomes un avoidably entangled in this if it is to be completely dependent upon ideas. But with this, said Scotus, contingency (i. e. possibility of being otherwise or "power to the contrary ") in the will's functions is irreconcilable : for the process of Nature is always determined in one way ; where it prevails there is no choice. With contingency, however, responsibility also falls to the ground. Responsibility can therefore be preserved only if it is acknowledged that the intellect exercises no compelling power over the will. To be sure, the co operation of the ideational faculty is indispensable in the case of every activity of the will : it presents the will its objects and the possibilities of its choice. But it does this only as the servant, and the decision remains with the master. The idea is never more than the occasioning cause {causa per accidens) of the individual volition; the doctrine of Thomas confuses practical consideration with pure intellect. If the latter gives the object, the decision is still solely a matter of the will; the will is the movens per se; to it belongs absolute self-determination.
Indeterminism, as Scotus and Occam teach sees therefore in the will the fundamental power of the soul, and maintains conversely, that as matter of fact the will on its side determines the develop
a
it,
Chap. 2, § 26. ] Will and Intellect : Tkomism, Scotitm. 331
ment of the intellectual activities. Following the procedure of Henry of Ghent,1 according to whom the theoretical functions become more active according as they are more immaterial, Scotus attempted to prove the proposition just stated, in a highly interest ing manner. The natural process, he says, produces as the first content of consciousness (cogitatio prima) a multitude of ideas which are more or less confused (conftism — indistinctve) and im perfect. Of these only those become distinct (distincta) and perfect on which the will, which in this process is determined by nothing
Scotus alsn t. paches at thp same ti"nTp~ that the will strengthens in their intensity these ideas which it raises from the confused to the distinct condition, and that the ideas to which the will rlnps not, apply it. splf ultimately cease to
exist, on account of their weakness.
In addition to these psychological arguments, we find appearing
in the controversy appeals to the authority of Anselm and Aristotle on the one side, and to that of Augustine on the other, and further a series of other arguments. These are in part of a purely dia lectical nature. Such is the case when Thomas claims that the verum toward which the intellect aims is higher in rank than the bonum toward which the will strives, and when Scotus doubts the authority for this gradation ; and so again when Thomas expresses the opinion that the intellect apprehends the pure, single conception of the good, while the will is concerned only with the special
empirical forms assumed by the good, and when Henry of Ghent and Scotus, exactly reversing this statement, develop the thought that the will is always directed only toward the good as such, while the understanding has to show in what the good consists in a particular case. With such variations the matter was later tossed to and fro a great deal, and Johannes Buridan is an example of those who stand undecided between determinism and indeterminism.
For the latter view speaks responsibility, for the former the prin ciple that every event is necessarily determined by its conditions.
Other arguments which become interwoven in the controversy trench upon the more general domains of the conceptions of the world and of life.
2. To this class belongs, first of all, the transfer of the question of the relative rank of will and intellect to God. The extreme intellectualism of the Arabians had, in Averroes, excluded the faculty of will from the Supreme Being, in accordance with the Aristolelian motif, that every act of will implies a want, a state of
further, hxes Its attention.
1 Whose view in thi* respect Richard of Middletown »l<" completely adopted.
332 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III
imperfection and dependence; on the contrary Avicebron, who ex ercised a strong influence upon Duns Scotus, had defended the religious principle that the world was created by the divine will, and in a similar line of thought William of Auvergne had main tained the originality of the will as existing side by side with the intellect in the essence of God and in his creative activity. These antitheses were now continued in the controversy between Thomism and Scotism.
Thomas, indeed, as a matter of course, recognises the reality of the divine will, but he regards it as the necessary consequence of the divine intellect, and as determined in its content by the latter. God creates only what in his wisdom he knows to be good ; it is neces sarily himself, i. e. the ideal content of his intellect, that forms the object of his will ; he necessarily wills himself, and in this consists the freedom, determined only by himself, with which he wills indi vidual things. Thus the divine will is bound to the divine wisdom, which is superior to it.
But just in this the opponents of Aquinas see a limitation of
omnipotence which does not comport with the conception of the ens realissimum. A will seems to them sovereign, only if there is for it no kind of determination or restriction. God created the world, according to Scotus, solely from absolute arbitrary will ; he might have created he had so willed, in other forms, relations, and conditions and beyond this his completely undetermined will, there are no causes. The will of God with its undetermined crea tive resolves the original fact of all reality, and no further ques tions must be asked as to its grounds, — even as the decision made by the will of finite being with its liberum arbitrium indifferentice, when placed before given possibilities, creates in every instance a new fact which cannot be understood as necessary.
The sharpest formulation of this antithesis comes to light in the fundamental metaphysical principles of ethics. On both sides the moral law naturally regarded as God's command. But Thomas teaches that God commands the good because good, and recognised as good by his wisdom Scotus maintains that good only because God has willed and commanded and Occam adds to this that God might have fixed something else, might have fixed even the opposite as the content of the moral law. For Thomas, therefore, goodness the necessary consequence and mani festation of the divine wisdom, and Eckhart also says that "be neath the garment of goodness " the essential nature of God veiled; intellectualism teaches the perseXtas boni, the rationalty of the good. For intellectualism, morals philosophical discipline
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Chap. 2, § 26. ] Will and Intellect : Thomism, Scotism. 333
whose principles are to be known by the "natural light. " "Con science " (synteresis ') is a knowledge of God sub ratione boni. With 8cotus and_Occam, on the contrary, the good cannot he a" object of natural knowledge, for it might have been otherwise than it is : it ia determined not by reason, but by groundless will. Nothing, so
t'lerre d'Ailly teaches with extreme consistency, is in itself, or per se, sin; it is only the divine command and prohibition which make anything such, — a doctrine whose range is understood wheu we reflect that, according to the view of these men, God's com mand becomes known to man only through the mouth of the
Church.
It is also closely connected with this that theology, which for
Tli' un;is still remained a " speculative " science, became with his opponents, as has been already indicated above (§ 25, 3), a " prac tical " discipline. Albert had already made intimations of this sort, Richard of Middletown and Bonaventura had emphasised the fact that theology deals with the emotions ; Boger Bacon had taught that while all other sciences are based on reason or experience, theology alone has for its foundation the authority of the divine will: Duns Scotus completed and fixed the separation between theology and philosophy by making it a necessary consequence of his metaphysics of the will.
4. The same contrast becomes disclosed with like distinctness in the doctrines of the final destiny of man, of his state in eternal blessedness. The ancient Otatpia, the contemplation of the divine majesty, free from will and from want, had in Augustine's teaching formed the ideal state of the pardoned and glorified man, and this ideal had been made to waver but little by the doctrines of the ear lier Mystics. Now it found new support in the Aristotelian intel- lectualism, in accordance with which Albert thought that man, in so far as he is truly man, is intellect. The participation in the divine being which man attains by knowledge is the highest stage of life which he can reach. On this account Thomas, too, sets the dianoetic virtues above the practical, on this account the visio dicinee essentia, the intuitive, eternal vision of God, which is removed beyond all that is temporal, is for him the goal of all human striving. From this vision follows eo ipso the love of God, just as every determinate
» This word (written also tinderetis, tclnderetit) has, since Albert of Boll- ttldt, occasioned much etymological cudgelling of brains. Since, however, among the later physicians of antiquity (Sext. Emp. ) rijpi^n appears as a technical term for "observation," it mny be that ffinr^pij^it, which is attested in the fourth century, originally signified "self-observation" in analogy with the Neo- Platonic usage in cvnir^rn or turtUritu (cf. p. 234), and thus tuck on the ethico- religious sense of "conscience" (cox$cientia).
&34 Mediceval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part IH
state of the will is necessarily attached to the corresponding state of the intellect. Just this tendency of Thomisra was given its most beautiful expression by Dante, the poet of the system. Beatrice is the poetic embodiment of this ideal, for all time.
Meanwhile a counter-current manifests its force on this point also. Hugo of St. Victor had characterised the supreme angel choir by love, and the second by wisdom ; and while Bonaventura regarded contemplation as the highest stage in the imitation of Christ, he emphasised expressly the fact that this contemplation is identical with "love. " Duns Scotus, however, taught with a decided polemi cal tendency that blessedness is a state of the will, and that, too, of the will directed toward God alone ; he sees man's last glorification, not in contemplation, but in love, which is superior to contemplation, and he appeals to the word of the Apostle, " The greatest of these is love. "
Hence as Thomas regarded the intellect, and Duns Scotus the will, as the decisive and determining element of man's nature, Thomas could hold fast to Augustine's doctrine of the gratia irresisti- bilis, according to which revelation determines irresistibly the intel lect and with it the will of man, while Duns Scotus found himself forced to the "synergistic" view, that the reception of the oppm- tion of divine grace is to a certain extent conditioned bv the free will of the individual. So the great successor of Augustine, with strict logical consistency, decided against the Augustiman doctrine of pre destination.
5. On the other hand, the intellectualism of Thomas develops its extreme consequences in German Mysticism, whose founder, Eckhart, is entirely dependent upon the teacher of his Order in the con- ceptional outlines of his doctrine. 1 Eckhart goes far beyond his master only in the one respect that as a much more original person ality he is unwearied in his effort to translate the deep and mighty feeling of his piety into knowledge, and thus urged on by his inner nature he breaks through the statutory restrictions before which Thomas had halted. Convinced that the view of the world given in the religious cousciousness must be capable of being made also the content of the highest knowledge, he sublimates his pious faith to a speculative knowledge, and in contrast with the pure spirituality of this he looks upon the Church dogma as only the external, temporal symbol. But while this tendency is one that he shares with many
1 Cf. S. Denifle in the Archiv fur Litterat. - u Kult. -Oesch. d. M. -A. ,ll. 417 ff. So far, therefore, as Eckhart was really to be the "Father of German speculation," this speculation had its source in Thomas Aquinas and his teacher Albert.
Chap. 2, § 26. ] Will and Intellect : Eckhart. 335
other systems, it is his peculiarity that he does not wish to have the inmost and truest truth kept as the privilege of an exclusive circle, but desires rather to communicate it to all people. He believes that the right understanding for this deepest essence of religious doctrine is to be found precisely in connection with simple piety,' and so he throws down from the pulpit among the people the finest conceptions constructed by science. With a mastery of language that marks the genius he coins Scholasticism into impressive preach ing, and creates for his nation the beginnings of its philosophical modes of expression, —beginnings which were of determining in fluence for the future.
But in his teaching the combined mystical and intellectualistic elements of Thomism become intensified by the Neo-Platonic ideal ism, which had probably reached him through the medium of Scotus Erigena, to the last logical consequence. Being and knowledge are one, and all that takes place in the world is in its deepest essence a knowing process. The procedure of the world forth out of God is a process of knowledge, of self-revelation, — the return of things into God is a process of knowledge, of higher and higher intuition. The ideal existence of all that is real — so at a later time said
Nicolaus Cusanus, who made this doctrine of Eckhart's his own — is truer than the corporeal existence which appears in space and time.
The original ground of all things, the deity, must therefore lie beyond Being and knowledge ; * it is above reason, above Being ; it has no determination or quality, it is " Nothing. " But this "deity "
(of negative theology) reveals itself in the triune God,5 and the God who is and knows creates out of nothing the creatures whose Ideas he knows within himself; for this knowing is his creating. This process of self-revelation belongs to the essence of the deity, it is hence a timeless necessity, and no act of will in the proper sense of the word is required for God to produce the world. The deity, as productive or generative essence, as '■ un-natured Nature " [or Nature that has not yet taken on a nature], is real or actual only by knowing and unfolding itself in God and the world as produced
1 (i. -rnian Mysticism is thus connected with the more general phenomenon, that the fast increasing externalisation which seized upon the life of the Church in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries drove piety everywhere into paths that lay outside the Church.
* Evidently the same relation that subsisted in the system of Plotlnus between lb* fr and the mvt, a relation in which thought and Being were held to coincide. ' The distinction between deity and God (diiinitm and deut) was made dla-
Jectically by Gilbert de la I'nrree in connection with the controversy over uni versal* and its relations to the doctrine of the Trinity.
336 Mediaeval Philotophy : Second Period. [Part III.
reality, as natured Nature. 1 God creates all — said Nicolaus disa rms — that is to say, he is all. And on the other hand, according to Eckhart, all things have essence or substance only in so far as they are themselves God ; whatever else appears in them as phenomena, their determination in space and time, their " here " and " now " (" Hie " und " Nu," hie et nunc with Thomas), is nothing. 1
The human soul, also, is therefore in its inmost nature of the divine essence, and it is only as a phenomenon in time that it possesses the variety of " powers " or " faculties " with which it is active as a member of the natura naturata. That inmost essence Eckhart calls the " Spark," s and in this he recognises the living point at which the world-process begins its return.
For to the "Becoming" corresponds the reverse process, the "Anti-becoming" (" Entwerden"), the disappearing. And this, too, is the act of knowledge by means of which the things which have been made external to the deity are taken back into the original Ground. By being known by man the world of sense finds again its true spiritual nature. Hence human cogni tion, with its ascent from sense perception to rational insight,* consists in the "elimination " (" Abscheiden ") of plurality and mul tiplicity; the spiritual essence is freed from its enveloping husks. And this is man's highest task in the temporal life, since knowledge is the most valuable of man's powers. He should indeed be also active in this world, and thus bring his rational nature to assert itself and gain control, but above all outer action, above the right eousness of works which belongs to the sphere of sense, stands first the "inner work," cleanness of disposition, purity of heart, and above this in turn" stands retirement or "decease" (Abgeschieden- heit) and "poverty of soul, the complete withdrawal of the soul from the outer world into its inmost essence, into the deity. In the act of knowing it reaches that purposelessness of action, that action not constrained by an end, that freedom within itself, in which its beauty consists.
But even this is not perfect so long as the knowing process does not find its consummation. The goal of all life '« *h» knowledge of
1 On the terms natura naturans and natura naturata, which were probably brought into use by Averroism (cf. § 27, 1), cf. H. Siebeck, Archiv f. Gesch. d. Phil, III. 370 ff.
1 Accordingly without accepting the dialectical formulas, Eckhart treats the Thomistic doctrine of Ideas quite in the sense of the strict Realism of Scotus Erigena. He speaks slightingly of the Nominalists of his time as "little masters. "
* Also the *'Gemtithe" or Synteresis = scintilla contcientia;.
* The single stages of this process are developed by Eckhart according to the Thomistic- Augustinian scheme.
Chap. 2, $ 27. ] Problem of Individuality. 337
God, but knowing is Being ; it is a community of life and of Being with that which is known. If the soul would know God, it must be God, it must cease to be itself. It must renounce not only sin and the world, but itself also. It must strip off all its acquired knowledge, and all present knowing of phenomena ; as the deity is " Nothing," so it is apprehended only in this knowledge that is a not-knowing — docta ignorantia, it was later called by Nicolaus ; and as that " Nothing " is the original ground of all reality, so this not- knowing is the highest, the most blessed contemplation. It is no longer an act of the individual, it is the act of God in man ; God begets his own essence within the soul, and in his pure eternal nature the " Spark " has stripped off all its powers through which it
works in time, and has effaced their distinction. This is the state of supra-rational knowing when man ends his life in God, — the state, of which Nicolaus of Cusa said, it is the eternal love (charitas), which is known by love (amore) and loved by knowledge.
§ 27. The Problem of Individuality.
The doctrine of German Mysticism, which had arisen from the deepest personal piety and from a genuine individual need felt in a life whose religion was purely internal, thus runs out into an ideal of exaltation, of self-denial, of renunciation of the world, in the p res e nee of which everything that is particular, every individual reality, appears as sin or imperfection, as had been the case in the ancient Oriental view. In this thought the contradiction that was inherent la the depths of~the Augusiinlan system (cf. p. 287) bccanie
fully developed and immediately palpable, and it thus becomes evident that the is eol'latonic intellectualism, in whatever form it appeared from the time of Augustine to that of Master Eckhart, was in itself alone always necessarily inclined to contest the metaphysical self- subsistence of the individual, while the other party maintained this self-subsistence as a postulate of the doctrine of the will. Accord ingly, when in connection with the increase of intellectualism the untversalistic tendency increased also, the counter-current was neces sarily evoked all the more powerfully, and the same antithesis in motives of thought which had led to the dialectic of the controversy over universals (cf. p. 289) now took on a more real and metaphys ical form in the question as to the ground of evidence in individual
beings (principinm individuationis) .
r. Tne stimulus for this was furnished by the far-reaching conse
quences to which universalism and intellectualism had led among the Arabians. For the Arabians, in interpreting the Aristotelian
338 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part in
system, had proceeded in the direction which had been introduced in antiquity by Strato (cf. p. 179 f. ), and which among the later com mentators had been maintained chiefly by Alexander of Aphrodisias. This direction was that of naturalism, which would fain remove from the system of the Stagirite even the last traces of a metaphys ical separation between the ideal and the sensuous. This effort had become concentrated upon two points : upon the relation of God to the world, and upon that of the reason to the other faculties. In both these lines the peculiar nature of the Arabian Peripatetic doc trine developed, and this took place by complicated transformations of the Aristotelian conceptions of Form and Matter.
In general, we find in this connection in the Andalusian philoso phy a tendency to make matter metaphysically self-subsistent. It is conceived of, not as that which is merely abstractly possible, but as that which bears within itself as living germs the Forms peculiar to and brings them to realisation in its movement. At the same time Averroes, as regards particular cosmic processes, held fast to the Aristotelian principle that every movement of matter by which
realises out of itself lower Form, must be called forth by higher Form, and the graded series of Forms finds its termination above in God, as the highest and first mover. The transcendence of God could be united with this view, as the doctrine of Avicebron shows, only matter were regarded as itself created by the divine will. But on the other hand, this same Jewish philosopher, pro ceeding from the same presuppositions, insisted that with the excep tion of the deity, no being could be thought of otherwise than as connected with matter, that accordingly even the spiritual Forms need for their reality matter in which they inhere, and that finally the living community of the universe demands single matter as basis for the entire realm of Forms. The more, however, in the system of Averroes, matter was regarded as eternally in motion within itself, and as actuated by unity of life, the less could the moving Form be separated from realiter, and thus the same divine All-being appeared on the one hand as Form and moving force (natura naturans), and on the other hand as matter, as moved world
(natura natnrata).
This doctrine with regard to matter, that one in nature, is
informed within, and ~ts~ eternally in mutton of ttSilf, became ex tended with Averroism as an extremely naturalistic interpretation of the philosophy of Aristotle. It now became reinforced by those consequences of dialectical Realism- which compelled the view that God, as the ens generalissimum, the only substance, and that in~ qividual things are but the more or less transient Forms in which
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Chap. 2, § 27. ] Problem of Individuality : Averroe's. 339
this single substance becomes realised (cf.