CHAP. I the dialectic art became correspondingly lessened. Aquinas and Roger Bacon, little as they agreed in other respects, seemed in some sense at unison on this point. The subjectmatter of logic,' said the former, 'is not an object of investigation on its own account, but rather as a kind of scaffolding to other sciences; and hence logic is not included in speculative philosophy as a leading division, but rather in subserviency thereto, inasmuch as it supplies the method of enquiry, whence it is not so much a science as an instrument'.' The view of Bacon, according to which he regarded the logica utens as a natural inborn faculty, and the logica docens as merely ancillary to other sciences, has already come under our notice. That such views failed to find expression in a corresponding modification of practice, and that, notwithstanding the more intelligent estimate of science that now undoubtedly began to prevail, logic continued for more than two centuries to occupy the same bad eminence' both at Oxford and at Cambridge, must be attributed to the Byzantine logic, to Petrus Hispanus, and to Duns Scotus. Prince of the Byzan Scotus 'The logic of Duns Scotus,' says Prantl, which gave Dot birth to an abundant crop of Scotistic literature, does not indeed proceed in entirely new paths which he had opened up for himself, he is, on the contrary, as regards the tra ditional material, just as dependent and confined (abhängig und bedingt) as all the other authors of the Middle Ages. But he is distinguished, in the first place, by a peculiarly copious infusion of Byzantine logic, and secondly, by the comprehensive precision and consistency with which he incorporates the Aristotelian, Arabian, and Byzantine material, so that by this means many new views are, in fact, drawn from the old sources, and, in spite of all opposition, the transition to Occam effected'.' The treatise of Psellus, as translated by Petrus Hispanus, thus enunciates the theory which Duns Scotus developed;-Dyalectica est ars artium, scientia scien an opinion adopted, almost to a man, too sweeping Ad Boeth. de Trinitate, (Vol. XVII 2) p. 134. quoted by Prantl, m 108. Geschichte der Logik, 111 203. e briefly to restate the question as re the enunciation of this theory t, is an art and not a science; a science ts, with veritable entities, not with arbitrary laws. Metaphysics are a Ascence, but logic, as concerned only v processes of the mind which it seeks to has no pretentions to rank as such. acepted, as Albertus has done, the intentio secunda, by far the most a to metaphysics since the time of d short precisely at the point where en the question of the right of legie e sciences, That theory admits of walk The intellect as it directs its If xternal objects, discerns, for example, Counter theory of Duns CHAP. IL Socrates in his pure individuality, and the impression thus received is to be distinguished as the intentio prima. But when the existence of Socrates has thus been apprehended, the reflective faculty comes into play; Socrates, by a secondary process, is recognized as a philosopher or as an animal; he is assigned to genus and species. The conception thus formed constitutes the intentio secunda. But the intentio secunda exists only in relation to the human intellect, and hence cannot be ranked among real existences; while the objects of the external world, and Universals which have their existence in the Divine Mind, would exist even if man were not. It was in respect of this theory of the non-reality Du Scotus of the intentiones secundee, that Duns Scotus joined issue with the Thomists. It is true, he replied, that existence must of necessity be first conceded to the objects which correspond to the primary intention, but it by no means follows that it is therefore to be denied to the conceptions which answer to the intentio secunda, that these are nothing more than creations of the intellect, and have consequently only a subjective existence. They are equally real, and though the recognition of their existence is posterior to that of the phenomena of the external world, 'man' and 'animal' are not less true entities than Socrates himself. Hence we may affirm that logic equally with physical science is concerned with necessary not contingent subject-matter, and is at science not less than an art'. Art Auch den Unterschied, welcher zwischen Logik und Metaphysik neben manchen Berührungspunkten doch als ein wesentlicher besteht, erblickt Scotus ebenso wie all seino älteren und jüngeren Zeitgenossen in jener intentio secunda, welcher wir nun seit den Arabern stets schon begegneten, und er spricht in mannig faltigen Wendungen wiederholt es ans, dass die Logik jene Momente, welche von ratio oder von intellectus oder von conceptus ausgehen, kurz also der subjectiven Werkstätte angehören, auf das objective Wesen der Dinge "anwende," applicare. Eben hiedurch entscheidet er auch jene Frage, ob die Logik als modus sciendi selbst eine Wis senschaft sei, im Ausschlusse an Alfarabi dahin, dass die Logik einerseits als docens wirklich eine Wissenschaft ist und andrerseits als utens den modus für alle übrigen enthält, so dass wir hier...den Begriff einer "ange wandten Logik" treffen.' Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, 11 204-5. According, therefore, to this view we have, Logica Docens Pure Logic-a Science; Logien Utens-Applied Logic an Art. This appears almost identical with the view subsequently espoused by Wolf, and by Kant, who, in defining the Logica Docens as The Science of the Necessary Laws of Thought, arrived, thongh by a very different process, at the same This conception of logic formed the basis of the Realism car TE of Duns Scotus, and the inferences he derived therefrom struck deeply at the foundation of all theories concerning education. The Cartesian dogma was both forestalled and exceeded; for it is evident that in postulating for all the arbitrary divisions and distinctions marked out by the intel lect a reality as complete as that of all external individual existences, the theory which claimed for every distinct conception of the mind a corresponding objective reality, was at once involved and still further extended. With Scotus the conception was itself the reality; and hence, as an inevitable corollary, there was deduced an exaggerated representation of the functions of logie altogether incompatible with a just regard to those sciences which depend so largely for their developement upon experience and observation. Logic, no t longer the handmaiden, became the mistress-the science of sciences; men were taught to believe that the logical concept might take the place of the verified definition, and that à priori reasoning might supply that knowledge winch can only be required by a patient study of each separate science'. Mathematics and language, which Bacon had re garded as the two portals to all learning, were to give place to that science where alone could be found the perfect circle, and the remedy for the inaccuracy and vagueness of nomenclature and diction. The reproach which Cousin so unjustly cast upon Locke,-in reply to the almost equally conclusion as Scotus, Sen Dean Man Introduction, pp. xlv and xivit. While I wish to speak with all respeet of a work like Dean Milman's Latin Christianity, I may venture to observe that in his statement of Dons Scotus's philose phy he has exactly inverted the order of the Scotian artment. A con parison of lus neeint Bk. xiv e. 3) with that given by Haurean and Praut: w.l prove this kor ne und somit dem Universale of making it, not stop v them stress Pratt remarks at th Al- CHAP. I unjust assertion of the latter, that theological and scientific disputes are generally little more than mere logomachies,that he regarded science as nothing more, to use the aphorism of Condillac, than une langue bien faite', may, with the change of a single word, be applied with perfect propriety to the Subtle Doctor. Cela posé,' says Hauréau, after an able exposition of the Scotian theory, 'cela posé, il va sans dire qu'à toutes les pensées correspondent autant de choses, qu'on peut indifféremment étudier la nature en observant les faits de conscience ou en observant les phénomènes du monde objectif, et qu'une logique bien faite peut suppléer à toute physique, à toute métaphysique".' of the By antine logic. Important It will not repay us to follow our laborious guide through results of the on those minute and subtle enquiries whereby he has demonDie loge strated the presence of the new element in the applied logic of Scotus, our object being not to resuscitate the pedantry of the fourteenth century, but to trace, if possible, the direction of the activity that then prevailed, and its influence upon subsequent education. Nor will the foregoing outline appear irrelevant to such a design if we remember that in this Byzantine logic are to be discerned not only the influences that raised the logician's art to so oppressive a supremacy in the schools, but also the germs of the ultra-nominalism developed by William of Occam,-the rock on which the method of scholasticism went to pieces in our own country; though in the obscurity that enveloped alike dogma, philosophy, and language, men failed at first to perceive the significance of the new movement. But before we pass from Duns Scotus to his pupil and successor, it is but just that we should give some recognition to that phase of his genius which honorably distinguishes him from Albertus and AquiThe logician who riveted thus closely the fetters of the schools, was also the theologian who broke through the to de barriers which his predecessors had so complacently con Limits which pas. Kentus held must be ob Valin tion of to revealed truth. structed; and it must be regarded as an important advance Philosophie de Locke, 5th edit., p. 232; Cf. Locke, Essay on the Hu Logic, 1 197. * Philosophie Scolastique, 11 313. |