THE REACTIONS BETWEEN DOGMA AND PHILOSOPHY.* To those who have

even a moderate acquaintance with the philosophy and theology of the mediaeval schools the vogue

which Dante enjoys in England is perplexing. For, great poetry as the Diving Cornnodia is, it is poetry for the erudite ;

a condition of its appreciation is a certain knowledge not only of the history but of the speculative and religious thought of

the writer's time. In his Dante and Aquinas Mr. Wicksteed has done much to supply this necessary background. In these important Hibbert Lectures, however, he addresses a larger

than a merely literary circle ; the book is one which no student

of the thirteenth century can afford to overlook. The discussion of that crux of Scholasticism, the principium individuotionia,

would be sufficient if it stood alone—which it does not—to show the quality of the work.

Scholasticism has suffered more from its friends than from its enemies. It was not the " unfruitful wisdom " that Macaulay supposed ; neither was its style " dry, crabbed, and barbarous."

" The diction of Aquinas has at all times perfect fitness and economy. It is clean, direct, felicitous. To anyone who can overcome his classical prejudices, these qualities give to the eloquence of some few passages of the Summa Theologise, and of many pages in the Contra Gentiles, a moving power closely akin to that of poetry."

On the other hand, when in,the Encyclical 20ferni Patris (1880) Leo XIII., after a fine panegyric on the Angelic Doctor, allows himself to say that reason, " ad humanum fastigium Thomae

penis evecta, jam fere nequit sublimius assurgere, neque fides a ration° fere potest plure, aut validiora adjumenta praestolari," the absence of proportion is manifest ; such language multiplies words without increasing sense. Nor is it the really great features of the Thomist philosophy which attract its modern adherents--the universality of its compass, its intellectual

• The Readions telmeen Dogma and Philosophy illustrated from the Works of Ss. Thomas Aquinas. The Ribbed Lectures. 1916. By Philip II. Wieltatecd, ILA., Lit .D. London : Williams and Norgato. [24s. not.] hardihood, its confidence in the rationality of things-; rather Rim its limitations—its assumptions, its attempt to derive the universe from an unverified principle, its defective knowledge and appre- ciation of fact. The mediaeval preference for the deductive method is reasonable—on the supposition that Nature as a whole is known to us. But the more we are compelled to question this, the less confidence we feel in deduction ; the more inevitably the slower, but surer, methods of observation, experience, and generally, induction, take its place. Yet, as Pattison reminds us, one active habit of the understanding was incidentally cul- tivated in the Middle Ages, and was probably not unconnected with the preference for the deductive method. This is the correct use of language ; " an accurate terminology, carried indeed by some over-subtle scholastics to absurd excess, but which in general contrasts most . favourably with the slipshod and intangible metaphor which the revival of classical learning has introduced into modern style."

The thirteenth century was the Golden Age of Catholicism both as an intellectual force and as a world-power. It was characterized in particular

" by that intimate alliance between Aristotelianism and Catholic theology which was prepared by the learning and intellectual curiosity of Albert of Cologne (1193-1280), and was cemented by his yet more illustrious pupil, Thomas of Aquino (1226-1274). To speak of it as an affiance ' is already to give some hint of the special significance of the Thomist synthesis. Reactions between Christian teaching and systems of thought more or less independent of it, or even hostile to its essential spirit, present themselves to us at every stage in the development of the Church. . . . But in the Christian Peripatetics ' of the thirteenth century, and pre-eminently in Aquinas himself, we see the process, that is always going on incidentally and half uncon- sciously, coming out into the clear daylight as a deliberate and wholly conscious construction. Thomas knows perfectly well what he is doing, and has not the least desire to conceal it. Thus it often happens that what, in other cases, we have to conjecture or detect is in his case deliberately sot out before us ; and that too by an intelligence of which lucidity, order, and fearless integrity are no lees characteristic than profundity. Aquinas arranges a formal alliance, as between two high contract- ing parties, in which frontiers are determined, principles laid down, relations defined, and rights safeguarded with admirable precision ; and the whole is inspired by an entente cordiale in marked contrast with the lurking suspicions or repudiations with which, in many other cases, Christian teachers have attempted to fence or to disguise their indebtedness to Ethnic thinkers or practices."

That this was possible was due to his massive faith and his transparent sincerity. But these qualities, if not the product of their environment, are conditioned by it ; and the fact that no such alliance has been concluded between religious and secular thought since the thirteenth century suggests questions which are more easily asked than answered. The outlook of St. Thomas is extraordinarily real:— " It is impossible not to contrast it with the uneasy attitude of modern apologists. How much of what passes in our day for theology is a half-hearted attempt to maintain the credit of traditional formulae or practices, not by showing how firmly they stand, but by showing how little weight they are called upon to bear ! They are valuable historical documents that it would be a pity to lose sight of (so that credo is reduced to the rank of a rather violent grammatical figure ' for crediderunt); or we are asked to feel that they are not now dogmas but sym- bolic expressions of truths that we all acknowledge. . . . The difference between the atmosphere one breathes with Aquinas and that of modern apologetic theology is physically palpable."

Heirs of the later time, we cannot unite the letter and the spirit of the Middle Ages. To cling to the form is to lose the substance.; to retain the substance is to recognize the limitation of the form. But the appeal of spirit is to spirit. We have within us a certain faculty, or " sense for truth, beauty, and goodness. If we allow

it to abdicate, we are self-betrayed."