[213] This polemic is not new. The school of St. Thomas engaged in it early against the theory of Occam, which was quite similar to that which we combat. See our _Sketch of a General History of Philosophy_, 2d Series, vol. ii., lect. 9, _On Scholasticism_. Here are two decisive passages from St. Thomas, 1st book of the _Summation against the Gentiles_, chap. lxxxvii: "Per praedicta autem excluditur error dicentiam omnia procedere a Deo secundum simplicem voluntatem, ut de nullo oporteat rationem reddere, nisi quia Deus vult. Quod etiam divinae Scripturae contrariatur, quae Deum perhibet secundum ordinem sapientiae suae omnia fecisse, secundum illud Psalm ciii.: omnia in sapientia fecisti." _Ibid._, book ii., chap. xxiv.: "Per hoc autem excluditur quorundam error qui dicebant omnia ex simplica divina voluntate dependere aliqua ratione." [214] See the famous calculus applied to the immortality of the soul, _Des Pensees de Pascal_, vol. i. of the 4th Series, p. 229-235 and p. 289-296. [215] Lecture 16. LECTURE XIV. TRUE PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS. Description of the different facts that compose the moral phenomena.--Analysis of each of these facts:--1st, Judgment and idea of the good. That this judgment is absolute. Relation between the true and the good.--2d, Obligation. Refutation of the doctrine of Kant that draws the idea of the good from obligation instead of founding obligation on the idea of the good.--3d, Liberty, and the moral notions attached to the notion of liberty.--4th, Principle of merit and demerit. Punishments and rewards.--5th, Moral sentiments.--Harmony of all these facts in nature and science. Philosophic criticism is not confined to discerning the errors of systems; it especially consists in recognizing and disengaging the truths mixed with these errors. The truths scattered in different systems compose the whole truth which each of these almost always expresses on a single side. So, the systems that we have just run over and refuted deliver up to us, in some sort, divided and opposed to each other, all the essential elements of human morality. The only question is to collect them, in order to restore the entire moral phenomenon. The history of philosophy, thus understood, prepares the way for or confirms psychological analysis, as psychological analysis receives from the history of philosophy its light. Let us, then, interrogate ourselves in presence of human actions, and faithfully collect, without altering them by any preconceived system, the ideas and the sentiments of every kind that the spectacle of these actions produce in us.