Science and Medieval Thought: The Harveian Oration Delivered Before the Royal College of Physicians, October 18, 1900Allbutt, T. Clifford (Thomas Clifford)
Philosophy
Science and Medieval Thought: The Harveian Oration Delivered Before the Royal College of Physicians, October 18, 1900
Allbutt, T. Clifford (Thomas Clifford)
Philosophy, Medieval
[14] The opponents of the theory of the Mass are apt to charge the
Roman Church with the proposition that therein the elements are
changed into “real” flesh and blood. In the nineteenth century, as in
the thirteenth, this Church has not, I believe, determined whether the
“real” substance be corporeal or incorporeal, separable or inseparable
from the sensible properties of things; whether in a word it be
something or, as many of us would say, nothing at all. Spinoza
regarded “substance” as intelligent and extended.
[15] Thus it was difficult to claim his authority for one side or the
other. The metaphysical treatises were not known till the later part
of the twelfth century. (See p. 75, note 2.) At the outset of the
Physics Aristotle discusses what nature is in itself, and defines
first elements; in the Second Analytics on the other hand, although
thinking of science as deductive and expository, he strongly opposes
the primary existence of ideas, though these are predicable of many
individuals. By excess of logical formations, the division of
properties, the use of such terms as “γένη ὑποκείμενα,” &c. &c., he
laid himself open to misconception, and so was readily platonised by
his commentators. It would seem indeed that for Aristotle universals
were not merely propositions obtained by negation of individual
variations, but something more active. A νόησις became somehow a
ποίησις; e.g. “ἡ δημιουργήσασα φύσις.” His position may be appreciated
briefly thus:—In the Categories Aristotle speaks of individuals as
primarily existent, while in Met. Z, and elsewhere, the primary
existent is the form. The inconsistency is, however, more apparent
than real; for in the Categories it is the individual so far as he
represents his natural kind which is primarily existent, whilst the
form which in the Metaphysics is primarily existent occurs only in the
individual. This terse appreciation is one of my many debts to Dr
Jackson.
[16] It were almost to be desired, for our own lucidity, that we could
get rid of the words cause and law, and use language significant of
order only. Aristotle’s influence has weighed heavily in favour of
studying “Causes” rather than sequences; thus it is hard to clear our
own minds, and impossible to clear the minds of our pupils, of a
genetic notion of causation—that an effect comes, as it were, from
the womb of its causes. Even Ockham taught as if causes contained
their effects. Mr Marshall (West. Rev. loc. cit.) is of opinion that
Roger Bacon by his “non oportet causas investigare” intended to
confine scientific thought to the relations of phenomena.
[17] As St Anselm put it, “Participatione speciei plures homines sunt
unus homo.” Out of humanity individual men proceed.
[18] Vid. p. 32, note.
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