Final Observations

18. I should not conceal the fact that the solution which I have proposed is tantamount to saying that in a Christian regimen philosophy enjoys improved conditions of exercise, a duly privileged state. Historical evidence of this may be found both in the extraordinary metaphysical vigor of the medieval writers, from whom -- as in Leibnitz's time -- it is always profitable for us to learn in these matters, and in the philosophic flowering (a strictly philosophic one, such as was not seen in the golden age of India) which the West witnessed in post-medieval times. St. Thomas himself profoundly realized the superiority of this state, when he deemed that without the aid of revelation the philosophers would have remained in ignorance of the sublimest truths, or apprehended them only with a great deal of difficulty.^{24}

But where the achievements of the intelligence are concerned, the mere question of the human being's state is hardly enough, alas; genius is also necessary. That is why Christian philosophy would make a mistake in affecting a prideful attitude; its own history during the XIV and XV centuries would suffice to counsel modesty. When we compare the genius of a Spinoza or a Hegel, not to be sure with that of St. Augustine or St. Thomas but with that of their undistinguished but well-meaning postcartesian and postkantian disciples, we are reminded of St. Jerome's comment in reference to the patriarchs and the conditions of natural law in which they lived (with particular reference to the polygamic system): Abraham was holier than I, but my state is better.

Moreover, it does not appear possible to dispense with this idea of qualitatively diverse states or conditions of exercise for philosophy. Those who do not admit that the diversity in question may stem from a certain intervention of the eternal in time and from a certain elevation of nature by the grace of a transcendent God, will have it stem from the flow of time itself, and from the succession of intellectual epochs (a succession, however, which is ideally corrected to account for regressions, those annoying regressions, which mar the historian's prescience). In this way -- and taking these corrections into consideration -- the privileged state follows the vagaries of the flux of time. So much so, in fact, that all that is needed to do away with any idea is simply to assign it a date of origin prior to the onset of the temporal zone thus privileged.

If I deem it inconceivable that intelligible objects are subject to an aging-process, or that a chronometric criterion suffices to evaluate our relationship with them, I believe on the other hand, that we must make room for a certain historical growth which creates -- mainly as a result of the development of the positive sciences -- ever new conditions of existence and exercise, an ever renewed state for philosophy. (Whether or not this state is a privileged one is another matter; it is, at all events, one which philosophy can reject only at the risk of becoming a mere museum piece.) I do not admit, however, that the essence of philosophy is changed on that account. And, it is my view that although Christian philosophy took form during the Middle Ages, its nature was not struck by an exclusively medieval, precopernican, precartesian, or preeinsteinian -- in short prehistoric -- stamp. Now that it has been freed, thanks to Galileo and Descartes, from the dead weight of that Aristotelian astronomy and pseudophysics which some still persist in confounding with its metaphysics, I believe it can take its place on the morrow (depending on its powers of assimilation) in a perfectly contemporaneous status.

{24} "Ratio enim humana in rebus divinis est multum deficiens." (Human reason is very deficient in things concerning God.) Sum. Theol., II-II, 2, 4. Cf. Sum. Contra Gent., I, 4; Compend. Theol., cap. 36; de Verit., 14, io; in Boet. de Trin. 3, 1, ad 3.