The history of philosophy goes back to the very origin of the human race. In all times man has sought to know the cause of the phenomena of which he was witness. Nevertheless, if we except the monuments of Oriental philosophy, to which it is difficult to assign a precise date, authentic works are not older than the sixth century before the Christian era. It is only from this date that we can follow without interruption the progress and succession of philosophical works down the ages. The long intervening period may be divided into three general epochs: the first epoch, that of ancient philosophy, begins with Thales (B.C. 600) and ends with the death of Proclus (A.D. 485). Oriental philosophy, though anterior by some centuries, is included in this epoch; the second, that of the middle age, extends from Boëthius (A.D. 500) to Gerson (1395); the third, that of modern philosophy, begins with the movement of the Renaissance in the fifteenth century.
Oriental Philosophy comprises all that is known of the speculations of the human mind in the Orient, and principally in India, China, and Persia. The oldest writings in which we can trace the primitive philosophy of India are the sacred books known as the Vêdas, the compilation of which is attributed to Vyasa about the twelfth century before Christ.
Pantheism is the basis of the religious system contained in these books, yet it is especially in the Vedanga, a philosophical work also attributed to Vyasa, that it is presented in its greatest metaphysical precision and accepted with its most exaggerated consequences. Ancient India has likewise produced a great number of philosophical works in which the most contradictory systems are in turn exposed. The strangest theories of our days -- materialism, idealism, scepticism, and others -- have their counterpart in the Hindoo philosophy. The rules of reasoning, those of the syllogism in particular, are presented with such precision and detail that we know not whether it is to Greece or to India that the priority of the science of logic belongs. Yet, in spite of this variety of philosophical systems, it is pantheism that predominates in the Hindoo religion and literature, and from it several sects have deduced not only ideal but even moral and practical consequences.
It is likewise in the Kings, the sacred books of China, that we must seek the first traces of its philosophy. The Kings date back to the remotest antiquity; they contain principles that deviate little from the true primitive traditions, and embody remarkable ideas of God, of man, and of the relations existing between Creator and creature. About the sixth century before the Christian era these books gave rise to two schools of philosophy, which at the same time constitute two religious sects. One is metaphysical, that of Lao-Tseu: his doctrines greatly resemble those of Pythagoras and Plato. The other school, founded by Confucius, is chiefly moral. It is the peculiar character of his doctrine that it reduces all the virtues to filial piety, from which, again, it derives all duties, whether toward family, country, or God Himself. This doctrine, apparently so beautiful, has exerted a fatal influence upon China. By confounding family and country, Confucius has made the Chinese nation a race of children, blindly subject to their sovereign. About the thirteenth century of the Christian era a new school was formed in China, and by this materialistic pantheism was propagated.
The doctrines of ancient Persia are contained in the writings known as the Zend-Avesta and attributed to Zoroaster. The dominant idea of the Zend-Avesta is dualism; it bases everything in the universe on the antagonism between Ormuzd, the principle of good, and Ahriman, the principle of evil; men are good or bad according as they follow the one or the other these principles.
Greek Philosophy may be divided into three periods. The first (B.C. 600-400) extends from Thales to Socrates. It comprises five distinct schools the Ionic, the Italic, the two Eleatic schools, and the school of Sophists. All the philosophers of these different schools proposed to themselves above all else to solve the problem of the origin of things.
The Ionic school, of which Thales of Miletus (B.C. 587) is the founder, studied the universe from a physical stand-point and began with the observation of phenomena. Thales said that water was the origin of things, that God was the intelligence who together with water forms beings; Anaximander (B.C. 560) derived all things from the slime of the earth; Anaximanes (B.C. 530) assigned the air as their principle; whereas Heraclitus (B.C. 500) asserted that it was fire. According to Anaxagoras (B.C. 475) the primitive elements of bodies are of several different species, but attract one another in proportion as they are like in nature. He returned to the idea of God, which Thales had taught, but his successors had cast into oblivion. Empedocles (B.C. 450) combined all these systems; he admitted four elements, water, earth, air, and fire, and a motive principle to unite and divide them.
The Italic school was founded by Pythagoras (B.C. 540). He taught that numbers were the principle of all things, and as all numbers begin from unity, he concluded that absolute unity is the first principle. In his doctrine, he did not, like the Ionic school, confine himself to the physical order, but included the moral order and established the subordination of matter to spirit. -- The principal disciples of Pythagoras were Timaeus of Locris, Ocellus of Lucania, and Archytas of Tarentum.
The two schools of Elea followed the steps of the Ionic and the Italic school. One of these, the atomistic, had for its leaders Leucippus and Democritus (B.C. 590), who explained everything by eternal atoms infinite in number. The other, the metaphysical school, had three chief representatives: Xenophanes (B.C. 536), Parmenides (B.C. 465), and Zeno of Elea (B.C. 450), who denied finite realities and professed the most formal pantheism.
The last school is that of the Sophists, the most celebrated of whom are Gorgias (B.C. 430), and Protagoras (B.C. 422). These sceptics, in presence of the contradictions of the philosophers who had preceded them, concluded that there was no absolute truth and that man could not arrive at any certain knowledge.
In the fourth century before Christ, Socrates (B.C. 899) opened a new era of philosophy. Rejecting the speculations and systems of preceding schools, he aimed to give philosophy a practical end, and applied himself to the study of man and of the moral world. He taught that the soul contains the germs of truth, but so choked up by the vain opinions to which the passions give birth, that for their development it is necessary to begin by freeing it from these false notions. And such was the method adopted by Socrates in teaching, and since called Socratic induction.
Immediately after Socrates come four schools of little importance: 1, The Cynical school, founded by Antisthenes (B.C. 380), which placed virtue in a haughty independence of external things. -- Diogenes (B.C. 324) was the most complete representative of this school; 2, The Cyrenaic school, founded by Aristippus (B.C. 380), which taught that the end of life consists in the pleasures of sense; 3, The Sceptical school, founded by Pyrrho (B.C. 288), who referred all philosophy to virtue, inferred the inutility of science, and sought to prove its impossibility; 4, The Megaric school, founded by Euclid (B.C. 400), whose philosophy was the doctrine of Xenophanes modified by Socratic influence.
These schools had little power; but not so the four great schools that produced the philosophic development promoted by Socrates: 1, The school of Plato, or the Academy; 2, The school of Aristotle, or the Lyceum; 3, The school of Epicurus; 4, The school of Zeno, or the Portico.
Plato (B.C. 388) is one of the greatest geniuses of antiquity. In his numerous works he has developed great and sublime truths whenever he takes the traditional beliefs for his basis, but he falls into error when he accepts no other guide than his own reason. Thus he has erred upon most of the great questions of philosophy: on the origin of ideas, on the criteria of certitude, on the nature of the union between soul and body, on the unity of the soul, its origin and destiny. The principal writings of Plato are: Crito, on the duty of the citizen; Phaedo, on immortality; the First Alcibiades, on the nature of man; the Second Alcibiades, on prayer; Gorgias, on the end of rhetoric and of justice; Protagoras, on sophists; the Republic, on the plan of an ideal city; and the Laws. As to form, the works of Plato display an admirable perfection; it is through this especially that the philosopher has exercised so profound and extensive an influence both in ancient and in modern times.
Aristotle of Stagyra (B.C. 331), a disciple of Plato, surpassed his master in the depth and extent of his knowledge. Metaphysics and natural history, logic and physics, and poetry, he has embraced all. The theory of the syllogism comes from him, and has received from him a complete exposition. His works on physics and natural history were for centuries a recognized authority. On the nature of bodies, on the soul and its faculties, on ideas, he has taught doctrines that are full of deep truths and were the basis of the great labors of the Scholastic philosophers. Nevertheless, he has fallen into very grave errors, especially in morals and politics, for he was buried in the darkness of paganism. -- Of the Peripatetics, or disciples of Aristotle, the chief are Theophrastus (B.C. 322) and Straton (B.C. 289).
Epicurus (B.C. 309) professed the atomistic doctrine of Democritus. Egoism and skilfully calculated pleasures -- such is the summary of his morality, which all ages have justly branded with disgrace. When introduced into the Roman empire, Epicureanism found an eloquent interpreter in the poet Lucretius (B.C. 50), who contributed not a little to propagate its tenets.
Zeno (B.C. 300), the founder of Stoicism, taught a doctrine which, in its physical theories, touched on Epicureanism, and, in its morals, on Platonism. In his opinion there is nothing but body; everything is subject to the laws of fatality; all cognition is derived from sensation. As to ethics, justice should be the sole motive of man's actions; to be truly wise, one must repress all the emotions of the soul; justice is the only good, injustice is the only evil; sickness and death are neither good nor evil. From this it is evident that Stoicism is contradictory in its principles and in its morality. -- The principal Stoics were Chrysippus (B.C. 230); and later Seneca (B.C. 30), Epictetus (B.C. 50), and the emperor Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161).
The school founded by Plato had been styled the Academy. By the name of the Old Academy that epoch has been designated during which Plato's disciples respected his doctrines; by that of the Second or Middle Academy, the epoch that witnessed the first reform of Plato's teaching; and by that of the New Academy, the epoch in which a second reform was attempted. -- Arcesilas (B.C. 260) was the founder of the Middle Academy: he reduced all human certitude to probability under the name of acatalepsy. -- Carneades (B.C. 180) founded the New Academy. According to him, objective truth exists, but man is incapable of attaining anything beyond a more or less probable conjecture. The principles of the New Academy were spread in the Roman world, and found their most illustrious exponent in Cicero (B.C. 43), who formulated no system of his own, but faithfully reproduced the doctrines of the Greek philosophy. In his philosophical writings he has treated all the great questions, sometimes with positiveness, and again with doubt.
About this same epoch there was a quasi-resurrection of the old school of Pyrrho; doubt was again systematized and presented as the necessary term of all philosophic labors. -- AEnesidemus (B.C. 20) professed a positive and rigorously formulated scepticism. But it was Sextus Empiricus (A.D. 180) who, of the ancients, exposed scepticism with most science and extensiveness; he attacked all the doctrines of his predecessors and strove to convict them of uncertainty.
The third period of ancient philosophy begins with Christianity and ends with the invasion of the barbarians. It may be divided into three distinct schools 1, The Gnostic school; 2, The Neoplatonic school; and 3, The Christian school.
Gnosticism is a mixture of Oriental doctrines and Christian dogmas; it gave birth to divers systems, all of which, however, may be reduced to two, pantheism and dualism. Pantheism is seen in the systems of Apelles (150), Valentinus (160), and Carpocrates (170). The speculations of Saturninus (120), of Bardesanes (160), and of Basilides (130), spring from the principle of dualism. The Gnostic ideas developed by these systems concurred to produce the doctrine of Manes (274) or Manicheism, a combination of Persian dualism and Hindoo pantheism with the dogmas of Christianity: this doctrine exercised a powerful influence for several centuries. Eventually the Gnostic systems were transformed, and their principles became the basis of various heresies, such as Arianism, Nestorianism, and Eutychianism.
The Neoplatonic school, called also the school of Alexandria, from the name of the city which was its chief asylum, had for its leading professors: Ammonius Saccas (200), Plotinus (245), Porphyry (290), Jamblicus (300), Hierocles (400), and Proclus (450). These philosophers undertook to unite Oriental and Greek philosophy. A like attempt had been made in the first century by Jewish philosophers, among others by Philo (40); but, properly speaking, the head of the Neoplatonic school was Plotinus. These Alexandrians devoted themselves for the most part to occult practices of theurgy; they were the sworn enemies of Christianity, from which, however, they borrowed not a little.
The principle Christian philosophers of the first centuries are: St. Denis the Areopagite (95), St. Justin (160), St. Irenaeus (200), Athenagoras (200), Tertullian (240), Clement of Alexandria (210), Origen (250), Lactantius (320), and St. Augustine (430). These writers, grounding their teachings on the dogmas of religion, attained to the highest and best founded speculations. Their ideas, even in purely philosophical matters, far excel all the conceptions of their predecessors among the philosophers. Moreover, they gave a practical end to their vast labors, for, on the one hand, they combated the false doctrines of the pagan and heretical philosophers; and on the other, they always contemplated science in its relation to virtue. Most of them had been disciples of the Greek philosophy; they borrowed thence whatever was true, and strove to apply it to the truths of religion. Their writings have served as a preparation and groundwork for the labors of Christian philosophy.
The disordered state of society which followed the invasions of the barbarians interrupted the great philosophic movement of the first ages of Christianity. From the sixth to the ninth century there were few philosophers: in the West, Boëthius (525), Cassiodorus (575), Claudian Mamertus (474), Isidore of Seville (636), and Bede (735); in the East, John Philoponus (650), and especially St. John Damascene (754). Boëthius forms the link between ancient and mediaeval philosophy. He sought to reconcile whatever was true in the Greek philosophers with the dogmas of Christianity. He became a high authority for the following centuries; his writings, and among others his book On the Consolation of Philosophy, were for a long period used in the school-room. St. John Damascene, like Boëthius, united the study of philosophy to that of theology; at a later date his works also had great credit in the schools of the East.
Under the reign of the caliphs Haroun-al-Raschid and Al-Mamoun, the Arabs began to cultivate the science of philosophy. The principal masterpieces of Greece were translated into their tongue; the books of Aristotle in particular were much studied. -- The most ancient of the Arabian philosophers is Alkendi (800), who merely commented upon Aristotle. Al-Farabi, who lived about a century later, made logic the principal object of his labors. -- In the tenth century appeared Avicenna, who was long counted in the first rank of the masters of medicine, and is still regarded by the Orientals as one of their chief philosophers. He commented on the logic and metaphysics of Aristotle, but considerably modified several of the Stagyrite's important theories. -- Al-Gazel, who lived in the eleventh century, employed his entire resources in dialectics to destroy all systems of philosophy; he held that one could escape doubt only by having recourse to the revelation of the Koran. In the East the attempt of Al-Gazel inflicted a blow on philosophy from which it could not recover. But this was the very time when it was cultivated with more eagerness than ever in the Academies which the caliphs had founded in most of the cities subject to the Saracens. Far different from Al-Gazel was Avempace (1138), a native of Saragossa, who taught that philosophic speculation was the sole means by which man could know himself; his doctrine tended to exclude the supernatural. Avempace had among his disciples Thofaïl (1185), whose system is pantheism. -- But of all the philosophers that Islamism has given to Spain, the most celebrated is unquestionably Averrhoës (1168). He made extensive commentaries on all the works of Aristotle. He composed, besides, several original treatises, of which the substance is Peripateticism, but carried to consequences which Aristotle would have disclaimed. In the opinion of Averrhoës, there is none but a universal intelligence, in which all intelligent beings share without having an intelligence of their own. By this and other doctrines he opened the way to pantheism, so that even the Mussulmans condemned his works. Some of his Peripatetic ideas were developed by a disciple of his, Moses Maimonides (1209), a Jewish philosopher and the greatest light of the Hebrew people since the preaching of the Gospel. A century previous, another Jew, Avicebron, also gained great renown as a phi1osopher; he taught doctrines whose consequences were pantheistic.
With Charlemagne the culture of the sciences and literature was begun anew with ardor in the West. Alcuin (804) was the principal instrument in the hands of the emperor to create new schools and make them prosper. Under Charles the Bald, Scotus Erigena (886) became famous; he was of Irish birth, but passed the greater part of his life in France. His doctrines are pantheistic, and he labored in vain to reconcile them with the Christian dogmas. About the middle of the eleventh century great philosophic works began to be published. St. Anselm (1033-1109) wrote his two treatises, the Monologium and the Prosologium, in which, with no aid but reason, he rose to the highest conceptions of the divine essence.
It was at this epoch that philosophy was brought back to a problem with which it had formerly been engaged, the problem of universals, of genera and species. Plato had thought that universals had an existence in themselves apart from particular individuals; Aristotle had regarded them as concepts of the intellect corresponding to the essences contained in the existing entities; however, he did not present his opinion with sufficient clearness, and it may receive different interpretations. Toward the end of the eleventh century, Roscelin, a canon of Compiègne, revived the question. He maintained that the universals contained in generic and specific ideas were mere words and consisted in names only: hence the designation of nominalism given to his theory. St. Anselm was one of his most ardent adversaries, and victoriously combated the beterodox consequences which Roscelin drew from his system. William of Champeaux (1121) considered the universals as essences common to several individuals, which were, therefore, distinguished from one another by merely accidental differences. This doctrine, which gave an objective reality to universals as such, was called ultra-realism. Abelard (1142) attacked the theory of his former teacher, William of Champeaux, and invented a third system, conceptualism, which regarded universals as mere concepts of the mind, and was, after all, only disguised nominalism. Nominalism and conceptualism tended to serious errors, even to atheism and materialism; hence they were generally rejected by the Catholic schools. As to realism, it is of two kinds: one considers the essence as having an individual subsistence apart from the mind and receiving its universality in the intellect; the other regards the essence as possessing an abstracted and universal reality apart from any mental operation. The former is moderate realism, and was accepted and defended by St. Anselm and the other great philosophers of the schools; the latter is ultra-realism, which was sustained by several, among others by Gilbert of Porrée (1154), bishop of Poitiers, and has been solemnly condemned by the Church.
One of those who shone with greatest lustre in these philosophic disputatious was Peter Lombard (1159). His chief work is the book entitled The Master of the Sentences, in which he has collected the sentiments of the Fathers on the principal points of theology and philosophy. This book exerted a powerful influence; it was for a long period a text-book which the professors explained in their schools.
At this epoch the dissemination of the complete works of Aristotle within the universities, which till then had known them only in part, and the appearance of the Arabian philosophy, gave a new impulse to philosophic studies. Unfortunately the ardor which then carried minds away, and the enthusiasm for Aristotle and his Arabian commentators which then fired them, weakened religious faith and submission to the authority of the Church. Amaury of Chartres (1209) and David of Dinant (1220) taught, the one, idealistic pantheism, the other, materialistic pantheism, and thus drew upon themselves the anathemas of the Church. But while the works of Aristotle and the Arabian philosophers brought trouble into the schools, two religious orders sprang up destined to furnish illustrious defenders of the truth. The Franciscan Alexander of Hales (1245) and the Dominican Albert the Great (1280) became celebrated as much by the depth and extent of their learning as by the orthodoxy of their teaching. Their works, together with those of William of Auvergne (1248), bishop of Paris, were a preparation for the immortal masterpieces to be produced by Bonaventure and Thomas of Aquin.
Around William of Auvergne, Alexander of Hales, and Albert the Great was grouped a great number of illustrious philosophers and theologians, as Vincent of Beauvais (1264), whose Speculum Majus (General Mirror) was a kind of encyclopaedia of all the sciences; Henry of Ghent (1295), surnamed the "Solemn Doctor," from the authority of his doctrines; and Roger Bacon (1294), whose vast intellect foresaw some of the most important discoveries of modern science. But among all these, two men became especially famous in the thirteenth century; they soared by their genius above all their contemporaries; they are St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas of Aquin.
St. Bonaventure was born in Tuscany in 1221. He entered the order of Franciscans and studied at Paris under Alexander of Hales; by his sanctity, as well as by his science, he merited to become the general of his order. He was made bishop and cardinal by Gregory X., and assisted at the second council of Lyons, where he died in 1274. St. Bonaventure's principal philosophic work is his commentary on The Master of the Sentences. He teaches that all science comes from God and should lead to God; therefore he makes all the cognitions of reason concur to the service of the divine science, and in all things he seeks the hidden element by which they are referred to God; hence the elevation and sublimity to be remarked in his writings, and that have won for him the surname of "Seraphic Doctor."
His rival in learning was St. Thomas of Aquin, surnamed the "Angel of the Schools." He was born in the kingdom of Naples in 1227, and embraced the religious life in the order of St. Dominic. After studying philosophy and theology at Bologna under Albert the Great, he followed him to Paris, where he subsequently taught with great distinction. He died in a monastery of Italy in 1274. His philosophic ideas are embodied chiefly in the Theological Sum, the Sum against the Gentiles, the Commentaries on all the parts of Aristotle's philosophy, and several special treatises on questions of metaphysics and morals. Pope John XXII. declared that St. Thomas of Aquin diffused more light in the Church than all the other doctors together. In fact, in his numerous works are to be found arguments to defend all truths and to combat all errors. Hence they have at all times possessed the greatest authority in the schools and among the learned, and the Theological Sum merited a place on the same table with the Bible at the Council of Trent. By his vigorous attacks on the Arabian philosophy, St. Thomas destroyed its credit and reduced it to complete impotence. He took from Aristotle whatever was trne, refuted his errors, rectified what was defective and incomplete; by thus enlisting the philosophy of the Stagyrite in the defence of the truth, he put an end to the pernicious influence which it had long exercised in the schools. By a luminous distinction he cleared up the difficult problem of universals. He showed that the essence has a different manner of being according to whether it is considered as having a real existence or as having an ideal existence, and thus he avoided the error of both nominalists and realists. He threw light upon the most difficult questions of metaphysics; and his doctrines on God, the nature of spirits, the composition of bodies, the origin of ideas, the rights and duties of man, have even to this day lost none of their authority. Moreover, it is from St. Thomas of Aquin that philosophers as well as theologians most frequently borrow their arguments for the defence of truth.
The teaching of St. Thomas was continued by his disciples, among others by Egidio Colonna (1316). But in the face of this body of doctrine, which had its principal defenders in the Dominican order, there arose another in the Franciscan order whose solutions differed on several points. Its founder was Duns Scotus (1308), called the "Subtle Doctor," whose numerous works give proof of his remarkable power and his great subtility in dialectics. But this subtility was nowhere carried further than in the Combinatory Art of Raymond Lully (1315), who pretended that by logical procedures a mechanical means is given to the intellect for the solution of all questions.
While Durand de Saint-Pourçain (1334) appeared in the order of St. Dominic as the adversary of St. Thomas, William Ockham (1347) among the Franciscans opposed both St. Thomas and Duns Scotus, and revived the nominalism of Roscelin, in which action he was followed by John Buridan (1360) and Peter d'Ailly (1420). Thus it happened that lively discussions were raised in the universities, and they led to such errors that many a time the Holy See was obliged to interfere.
On the decline of scholasticism several philosophers made a name for themselves by remarkable works; among them should be noted the chancellor Gerson (1429), who in some of his writings restored intuitive and mystic philosophy.
At the end of the fifteenth century, and during the sixteenth, many writings were published relating to philosophy without strictly constituting a system. The Greeks, Theodore of Gaza (1478), George of Trebizonde (1486), and Cardinal Bessarion (1472), published commentaries on the books of the ancient philosophers; Angelo Poliziano (1474) in Italy, Ulric von Hutten (1523) and Erasmus (1536) in Germany, attacked the Scholastic philosophy; Marsilio Ficino (1499), the Florentine, became the panegyrist of Plato; Pico della Mirandola (1494) in Italy, and Reuchlin (1522) in Germany, taught doctrines that were a mixture of theology and cabalistic ideas.
Yet some philosophers gave a systematic form to their conceptions. Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa (1464) distinguished himself by his depth and originality. He restored certain Pythagorean ideas to honor and anticipated the exposition of the Copernican system of the earth's motion. Paracelsus (1541) taught a kind of illuminism which was subsequently professed by Van Helmont (1664) and Boehme (1625). All three derived the science of the physical world from theosophy. Telesio (1588), on the contrary, excluded God from his theory of the world. Thomas Campanella (1639) was one of Bacon's precursors, and explained the whole man by the faculty of sensation. Pomponazzi, or Pomponatus (1526), taught among other errors that the soul is mortal and destitute of all liberty. Jerome Cardano (1576) became noted by his most extravagant doctrines. Giordano Bruno (1600) professed a pantheistic system and prepared the way for Spinoza; he regarded the world as an infinite organism, of which God was the soul. Vanini (1619) was burned at Toulouse as an atheist. Peter Ramus (1572) undertook a reform of logic, and combated to the last extremity the philosophy of Aristotle. Montaigne (1592) regarded the reason of man as naturally incapable of arriving at certitude; in this he was in part followed by his disciple Charron (1603).
Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, was born at London in 1561. He played an important part in the affairs of his country and was made baron of Verulam by James I. He died in 1626. His principal work is Novum Organum Scientiarum. In this work he assails the philosophy of Aristotle, and seeks to replace it by a new system. After a criticism of the syllogism, he gives a classification of the sources of errors, dividing them into four categories, which in his own quaint language he designates as idols of the tribe, the prejudices common to all men; idols of the den, individual prejudices; idols of the market-place, prejudices due to language and the commerce of men; and idols of the theatre, prejudices due to the authority of masters. Bacon then assigns a practical end to science; he lays down the laws of experimentation, and gives the method of observation and induction as the means of progress in the sciences. The soul of Bacon's philosophy is the principle that sensations are the only constituent in the formation of human cognitions. This principle, developed by his disciples, was destined gradually to insure the triumph of materialistic doctrines.
Descartes was born in 1596 at La Haye, in Touraine. He at first embraced the military state; then, after travelling in several countries of Europe, he withdrew to Holland, where he devoted himself exclusively to works, the plan of which he had already conceived. He made important discoveries in physics and mathematics. In philosophy he desired to effect a reform, and he made a vigorous attack on the theories of Aristotle. Having drawn persecution upon himself by his doctrines, he sought refuge with Queen Christina, at Stockholm, where he died in 1650. His principal philosophical work is the Discourse on Method. It contains six parts. The first comprises his criticism of the science handed down by the schools. In the second, after proclaiming the insufficiency of the syllogism, he formulates his method, which he reduces to the famous four rules: 1, Accept as true only what is evidently such; 2, Divide every question into as many parts as possible; 3, Proceed from the easy to the difficult, from the simple to the composite; 4, In enumerations take care to omit nothing. These rules have been much praised for depth and originality, but they are pointed out by nature, and were known and put in practice long before Descartes published his Discourse, In the third part, while awaiting the solutions which his reason was to furnish him, he makes provisional rules of thought and conduct. In the fourth part, he rejects by the methodical doubt all his previous opinions, and formulates the celebrated enthymeme: I think, therefore I am, on which he pretends to raise the structure of science, In the fifth part, he describes the leading ideas in his system of cosmology; and in the sixth, he indicates by what means the sciences may effect new progress. In this discourse, the value of which has been greatly exaggerated, and also in his other works of philosophy, Descartes teaches many errors, which have been made the foundation of most of the modern false systems. And so, while aiming to create a new philosophy, he has fallen into error on the great questions of certitude, of substance, of the union between soul and body, and others of equal importance. It is to be remarked, however, that Descartes did not shape his conduct by these systems, for he showed himself a good Christian, though his doctrines have been the occasion of bitter attacks upon the Church.
Leibnitz was born at Leipsic in 1648. His vast intellect embraced all the sciences. In mathematics he established the basis of infinitesimal calculus, and he wrote extensively on history, constitutional law, philosophy, and theology. He died in 1716. His principal philosophical works are his Essays on Theodicy and his New Essays on the Human Understanding. Leibnitz holds that all substances, even material, are forces; that matter has its principle in simple and irreducible forces, perfectly analogous to the simple and irreducible forces that constitute spirits: these forces he calls monads. The monads cannot act upon one another; however, they correspond exactly in their evolutions in virtue of a harmony pre-established by God. In theodicy, he professes optimism, and be lieves that this world is the best possible.
The principal disciples of Bacon's school are: Hobbes, Gassendi, Locke, Condillac, Helvetius, d'Holbach, and Hume. Hobbes (1679) in his works, and more particularly in the Leviathan, denies the existence of spirits, reduces the end of man to pleasure, and in politics acknowledges no rights but those of power and force. Gassendi (1655) is celebrated on account of the apology which he makes in various works for the philosophy of Epicurus. -- Locke (1704), in his Essay on the Human Understanding, recognizes two sources of ideas: sensation, which furnishes all the elements, and reflection, which forms from them various composites; he asserts that it is impossible to demonstrate the spirituality of the soul, and that perhaps matter is capable of thought. -- Condillac (1780) develops the theories of Locke in his Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge and in his Treatise on Sensation. He takes away reflection as a source of ideas and admits only sensation. He explains all the operations of the soul by transformed sensations. From his doctrines it is easy to deduce the negation of liberty, of the soul, and of the existence of God -- in a word, scepticism. -- Helvetius (1771) applied the principles of sensism to morals, and reduced virtue to self-interest. D'Holbach (1789) in his System of Nature supported the opinion that only material beings exist. -- Hume (1776) drew from sensism a complete system of scepticism.
The principal philosophers of Descartes' school are: Malebranche. Arnauld, Bossuet, Fénelon, Pascal Berkeley, and Spinoza. The most noted works of Malebranche (1715) are the Search for Truth, the Christian and Metaphysical Meditations, and the Conversations on Metaphysics. In these he proves himself a superior writer and at times a profound philosopher, but at the same time he teaches erroneous systems which have justly discredited his works. For instance, it is his theory that we see all in God, even the material world; that the soul is only the occasional cause of the movements of the body. His philosophy tends to idealism and contains the germs of pantheism. -- Antoine Arnauld (1694) made a great name by his Art of Thinking, commonly known as the Port-Royal Logic, which he wrote in a week with Nicole (1695), each writing half. -- Bossuet (1704) has left but one work that treats specially of philosophy, the Treatise on the Knowledge of God and Oneself, in which he summarizes what is most useful in the science of God and of the soul. -- Fénelon (1715) wrote the Demonstration of the Existence of God, in which he displays his great depth and originality: in the first part, he proves the existence of God by final causes; in the second, he deduces it from the idea of the infinite. -- Pascal (1662), in his Thoughts, aims alternately to exalt and to humble man at the sight of his greatness and his miseries. -- Berkeley (1753), in the attempt to destroy materialism, falls into an opposite excess; he denies the existence of the material world and sinks into complete idealism. -- Spinoza (1677), in his Ethics, revives materialistic pantheism. He gives an exposition of his system according to the geometrical method, and forms his theories into a closely linked chain of reasoning, but he begins with an unsound principle. It is the false definition of substance given by Descartes, "Substance is that which exists by itself (par soi)." In his work, Spinoza (1677) sets himself to demonstrate: 1, That there is but one substance, the Infinite Being; 2, That all finite beings are only modes or attributes of this Infinite Substance. The famous sceptic Bayle (1706) may also be placed in the school of Descartes; in his Critical Dictionary he impugns the certainty of all human knowledge.
The influence of the philosophy of Leibnitz was felt by nearly all the German schools of his epoch, and inclined them to idealism. Thomasius and Wolf are its leading exponents. The doctrine of Thomasius (1655) presents a singular combination of sensism and mysticism. Wolf (1764) was the continuator of Leibnitz, whose doctrines he coördinated into one great system of philosophy.
Even in England the doctrines of Hobbes and Locke had encountered marked opposition. Hutcheson (1747) strove to banish sensism from the domain of morality, though he allowed it to remain as the basis of psychology. But Reid (1710-1796) attacked it as a false theory not only of morality, but likewise of the human mind. He taught for a long period in the University of Glasgow, in Scotland, and he is regarded as the founder of the Scotch school. His chief work is the Essay on the Intellectual Powers of Man. He there demonstrates with much justice and sagacity the insufficiency of sensation to explain all psychological phenomena, but he also inculcates some errors on method, certitude, the faculties of the soul, etc. One of the special characteristics of his philosophy is his doctrine of instinctive judgments, the truth of which, though not intellectually perceived is necessarily to be admitted under pain of drifting into scepticism. Dugald Stewart (1828), a pupil of Reid's, continued in his teaching and his works to apply the method of his master. He distinguished himself by his spirit of observation in the study of the phenomena of the human mind.
Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804) was the founder of the German school. He taught for many years at Koenigsberg. The most celebrated of his works is the Critique of Pure Reason, wherein he establishes the principles of the philosophical reform which he had begun. Although he proposed to combat scepticism, yet in his works he lays the foundations of a complete scepticism and of the most monstrous errors; but he is inconsistent with his system and admits the great truths of the existence of God, the liberty and immortality of the soul.{1} The chief philosophers connected with his school are Fichte (1814), Schelling (1854), and Hegel (1831); all three, pushing the ideas of their master to their utmost limit, drew the logical consequence of an idealistic pantheism which numbers many adherents in Germany to-day.{2}
Besides the German school, strictly so called, there are many schools at present: 1, The eclectic rationalistic; 2, The progressive; 3, The positivistic and materialistic; 4, The ontologistic; 5, The traditionalistic; 6, The Thomistic. The founder of eclecticism is Victor Cousin (1866). Among those who prepared the way for him are Laromiguière (1837), Maine de Biran (1824), and Royer Collard (1825). His principal disciples are Jouffroy (1842) and Damiron (1864). The eclectics adopt in general spiritualistic doctrines, but they reject the supernatural and recognize no authority but that of reason. -- The progressive school is so called because it professes to believe in indefinite progress. Its leaders are La Mennais (1854) and Pierre Leroux (1871), whose tenets lead to pantheism. To this school may be referred the humanitarian and socialist systems of Fourier (1837), Saint-Simon (1825), and others, whose utopian schemes have excited the contempt of all sensible persons. The positivistic and materialistic school is chiefly represented by Auguste Comte (1857), Littré (1881), and Taine (b. 1828), who have striven, but in vain, to make the progress of modern science subservient to the defence of the degrading doctrines of materialism. -- The ontologistic school, renewing the error of Malebranche, has overlooked the distance that separates man from God, and teaches that all our ideas are but partial intuitions of God. This error, which logically ends in pantheism, has been specially inculcated by Gioberti (1852) and Rosmini (1855). -- The traditionalistic school exaggerates the feebleness of human reason, in the belief that the authority of tradition and revelation is strengthened thereby; it has exposed itself to the attacks of incredulity and atheism, which it aimed to combat. Its leaders were De Bonald (1840), La Mennais (before his fall), and Ventura (1861).
The great impetus given to the study of the natural sciences in this century has led many philosophers, so called, to give undue importance to the methods of observation and experiment, and even to apply them to the solution of some of the gravest questions in philosophy. Thus, "Mill and his followers drag down all a priori laws to the level of the a posteriori, or rather deny the existence of the a priori laws at all."{3} The manifold errors of English philosophy to-day may be traced more or less directly to this deplorable confusion of principles, In the domain of logic, the conceptualism of Sir W. Hamilton and the nominalism of John Stuart Mill are the result of a failure to discriminate between the intellectual idea and the sensible image in the imagination. Both men have attacked the fundamental principles of knowledge: Hamilton asserts that not the principle of contradiction, but the principle of identity, which he formulates as A is A, is the first of all; Mill declares that the principle of contradiction is "one of our first and most familiar generalizations from experience," and reduces the principle of causation to "invariable and unconditioned antecedence." In psychology empiricism prevails and is supported by Mill, Lewes, Spencer, and Bain, in England; by Draper and Fiske, in America. Now it takes the form of positivism, and, as its name indicates, accepts as positive only what is attested by scientific observation and experiment. Of this school George H. Lewes is the exponent in England. Again, it becomes evolutionism and teaches that "all material and spiritual substances are but force, or a collection of correlated forces." Herbert Spencer is the father of this system; with him Darwin and Huxley may be associated. In ethics and politics the same spirit is at work, as may be seen in the utilitarianism of Mill, the moral system of Herbert Spencer, and the religion of humanity inculcated by the school of Comte. As for general metaphysics, it is all but absolutely rejected as being a series of unintelligible, unprofitable, and often unmeaning speculations. Agnosticism is but the negative side of positivism, for it defines that "the ultimate cause and the essential nature of things are unknowable, or at least unknown" -- a sad commentary on the enlightenment of a Huxley and a Romanes, who profess such ignorance of what it most intimately concerns man to know. The German transcendental school has also a following in England and America.
Since the condemnation of ontologism and traditionalism by the Church, the Thomistic school alone remains among Catholic philosophers. This school, which has never wanted illustrious representatives in Catholic universities, counts among its prominent supporters, Sanseverino (1873), Kleutgen (1883), Liberatore (1893), Gonzalez, and Cardinal Zigliara (1893). By their learned works, these philosophers and their disciples have repulsed the attacks of error and restored to honor the grand Scholastic philosophy, justly styled Christian or Catholic, because as a course it has been praised, encouraged, and, it may be said, sanctioned by the Church herself, the infallible guardian of truth.
{1} That is, as postulates of practical reason and because of practical necessity; but he affirms that they are unattainable by theoretical or speculative reason.
{2} From the denial of philosophic certitude, Strauss went a step farther and denied the historic certitude of the books of the Bible. In his Life of Jesus (1835) he asserts that Christ is but a myth, his Gospel but a bundle of myths, embellished by poetic imagination called miracles. It is from him that Rénan has borrowed most of his blasphemies
{3} Logic, Stonyhurst Series, p. 387.