ii. But I must now return to the attacks which have been made against the form of writing adopted by the philosophers of the School. The second complaint preferred against it is, that it exhibits an utter contempt for, or ignorance of, classic purity of style. The indictment must, in great measure, be admitted. Whether we regard the vocabulary employed or the construction of sentences, there is no denying that we can discover no traces of that severe purity proper to the Augustan age. I will even go further and confess, that the Latinity of the Scholastics is such as would not be now tolerated in any public school. But the first question, which should in all justice be answered before the Scholastic writers are condemned, is this: Was it possible for them to avoid such solecisms and such neglect of established models? It should not be forgotten, that it was their appointed task to initiate, (one might almost say), the scientific evolution of Christian Theology. They had, therefore, to deal with new ideas which demanded a new terminology. Moreover, this scientific evolution, as regards its form, was regulated by the principles of the Peripatetic Philosophy. Hence, the terminology of Aristotle soon found itself transformed into Latin use; and the Latin version of the terms was ordinarily a literal transcript of the original Greek. To this must be added that the Latin translation of the Works of Aristotle, (the only one then in existence and, consequently, the text-book in the class-rooms during the epoch of the earliest and greatest Scholastic Doctors), was made from the Arabic translation of Averroes. It was not till the middle of the fifteenth century, that Pope Nicholas VI caused a new Latin version to be made from the original. The old translation will be found embedded in the Commentaries of St. Thomas on the Philosopher. If the reader should have the curiosity to examine, he will find that the Greek text has been rendered with such verbal accuracy as to make it far more difficult to follow the meaning of the author in the Latin than in the original. We have positive proof that these Latinized Greek idioms soon became naturalized in the vocabulary of the Schools.

Again: I cannot withhold the expression of a long-cherished conviction, that the provincial Latin of the early African Fathers and of the African version, or versions, of the Sacred Scriptures, had a marked influence, more particularly after the death of St. Augustine, on the ecclesiastical Latin which was gradually forming in the Catholic Church. Certainly, this influence is conspicuous in the Vulgate, as we now have it; and the present Vulgate is substantially the same as it was in the days of Albert the Great, St. Thomas, and St. Bonaventure. Interesting and valuable evidence in proof of the above statement may be found in two letters of Cardinal Wiseman on The Three Witnesses of St. John, originally published in The Catholic Magazine, afterwards placed first among his collected Essays on Various Subjects. Of course, we must also take into account the gradual decadence of the language, until finally it ceased to be a living language altogether.

Nevertheless, after taking all these contributing causes into consideration, there still remain peculiarities in the Scholastic style, which demand further explanation. For, in the construction of the sentences and phrases, an order and collocation of words have been observed, more consonant with the modern languages than with the Latin tongue. My explanation of this indubitable fact is derived from the manner of teaching in the medieval schools. I allude, in particular, to the custom of giving the professorial lectures in Latin. When a professor was lecturing daily in Theology or Philosophy, it would be obviously impossible for him to prepare his matter with sufficient care, if he attempted to write his lectures textually and then to learn them by heart. Hence, so far as the words went, he would necessarily deliver his lectures extempore; as is the custom, up to the present time, in the Catholic Schools, In the previous mental preparation for giving his class, (to use an established phrase), his thoughts would naturally follow in the groove of his own native tongue. He would think in Italian, Spanish, English, as the case might be. What wonder, then, if his Latin instruction should accommodate itself, in its syntactical form, to the construction and genius of his native language; more especially in those respects wherein modern languages unitedly contrast with the Latin? Such construction, continued daily for years, and instinctively adopted by the scholars in their repetitions and disputes, would soon become stereotyped; so that a new language would eventually result, Latin in its dress, but European in its synthetical structure. Such are the causes which, to my mind, satisfactorily account for the peculiarities of style observable in the writings of the Scholastic Doctors. With respect to the Angelic Doctor in particular, I may add that many of his Opuscula and, indeed, of some of his other writings, seem to me to have been mere notes dotted down for reference in class, -- some of them so hastily, that the most patent grammatical mistakes have remained untouched; and the reverence of his editors for the great Doctor has hindered them from venturing to touch, even by way of emendation, these venerable relics.

So much, by way of apology or explanation. But a far more important question remains to be determined; and it is this: Has such acknowledged transgression of classical usage any deleterious effects on the transmission or comprehension of the Scholastic Philosophy? For this is, after all, the main point. I am free to admit that, in school-exercises, -- in notes of editions of the Classics, -- in orations, -- solecisms, in the use of words or of constructions, ought not to be allowed; because purity of style is one of the main objects of the author, and there is nothing in the nature of the subject-matter to interfere with the legitimate pursuit of such an end. But the case is quite different, when it is question of Works on Philosophy or Theology. Then the advice of St. Augustine is in reality the expression of a great principle, where he says, 'Let us not fear the canes of grammarians, provided only that we attain to solid and more certain truth.'^{1} If truth can only be acquired and communicated by the adoption of a new terminology, -- if its acquisition and communication are made more easy by a verbal sequence and grammatical construction, less consonant, perhaps, with the dead language that has been adopted, by common consent and for grave reasons, as the established medium of thought in these higher studies, -- if phrases, borrowed from the Greek, have a force, clearness, accuracy, which would be lost by a slavish adherence to classical models, -- if a philosophical or theological dialect (so to speak) has been in this way gradually evolved and universally accepted; surely, it would be mere folly to reject or condemn it, because it does not satisfy the full requirements of the grammarian, or because it fails to harmonize with the over-refinements of mere classical scholarship.

Here the most fitting opportunity presents itself for saying a word touching the selection of the Latin language, in the Schools of the Church, as the vehicle of a scientific education. There would seem to have been two principal reasons for doing so. First of all, it was deemed advantageous, if not necessary, that there should be a common language, by means of which the learned in every country might he able to hold intercommunication. Those only can thoroughly appreciate the value of such an arrangement, who have to deplore its loss. Since the theological and philosophical disintegration of the civilized world, consequent upon the great Revolution of the sixteenth century, the practice has fallen into abeyance; and the consequence is, that, unless a man should have acquired a knowledge of all the languages in Europe, he is practically cut off from the literary and scientific contributions of foreign peoples, with the exception of that imperfect information which he can gather from translations. The second reason is, that a dead language has a great advantage over living languages, as the vehicle of theological and philosophic teaching; because its terms are not subject to those variations of meaning, which living languages must admit for the simple reason that they are living. Such stability in the meaning of words markedly conduces to a corresponding fixedness of thought.

{1} 'Non timeamus ferulas grammaticorum, dum tamen ad veritatem solidam et certiorem perveniamus.' Tract. II in Joan. n. 14.