On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical. William Whewell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ is the source of our knowledge of the external world, the teachers of the middle ages were in the dark; but so, on this subject, have been almost all the writers of all ages, with the exception of those who in recent times have had their minds enlightened by contemplating philosophically the modern progress of science. The opinions of the doctors of the middle ages on such subjects generally had those of Aristotle for their basis; but the subject was often still further analysed and systematized, with an acute and methodical skill hardly inferior to that of Aristotle himself.

      The Stagirite, in the beginning of his Physics, had made the following remarks. "In all bodies of doctrine which involve principles, causes, or elements, Science and Knowledge arise from the knowledge of these; (for we then consider ourselves to know respecting any subject, when we know its first cause, its first principles, its ultimate elements.) It is evident, therefore, that in seeking a knowledge of nature, we must first know what are its principles. But the course of our knowledge is, from the things which are better known and more manifest to us, to the things which are more certain and evident in nature. For those things which are most evident in truth, are not most evident to us. [And consequently we must advance from things obscure in nature, but manifest to us, towards the things which are really in nature more clear and certain.] The things which are first obvious and apparent to us are complex; and from these we obtain, by analysis, principles and elements. We must proceed from universals to particulars. For the whole is better known to our senses than the parts, and for the same reason, the universal better known than the particular. And thus words signify things in a large and indiscriminate way, which is afterwards analysed by definition; as we see that the children at first call all men father, and all women mother, but afterwards learn to distinguish."

      There are various assertions contained in this extract which came to be considered as standard maxims, and which occur constantly in the writers of the middle ages. Such are, for instance, the maxim, "Verè scire est per causas scire;" the remark, that compounds are known to us before their parts, and the illustration from the expressions used by children. Of the mode in which this subject was treated by the schoolmen, we may judge by looking at passages of Thomas Aquinas which treat of the subject of the human understanding. In the Summa Theologiæ, the eighty-fifth Question is On the manner and order of understanding, which subject he considers in eight Articles; and these must, even now, be looked upon as exhibiting many of the most important and interesting points of the subject. They are, First, Whether our understanding understands by abstracting ideas (species) from appearances; Second, Whether intelligible species abstracted from appearances are related to our understanding as that which we understand, or that by which we understand; Third, Whether our understanding does naturally understand universals first; Fourth, Whether our understanding can understand many things at once; Fifth, Whether our understanding understands by compounding and dividing; Sixth, Whether the understanding can err; Seventh, Whether one person can understand the same thing better than another; Eighth, Whether our understanding understands the indivisible sooner than the divisible. And in the discussion of the last point, for example, reference is made to the passage of Aristotle which we have already quoted. "It may seem," he says, "that we understand the indivisible before the divisible; for the Philosopher says that we understand and know by knowing principles and elements; but indivisibles are the principles and elements of divisible things. But to this we may reply, that in our receiving of science, principles and elements are not always first; for sometimes from the sensible effects we go on to the knowledge of intelligible principles and causes." We see that both the objection and the answer are drawn from Aristotle.

      We find the same close imitation of Aristotle in Albertus Magnus, who, like Aquinas, flourished in the thirteenth century. Albertus, indeed, wrote treatises corresponding to almost all those of the Stagirite, and was called the Ape of Aristotle. In the beginning of his Physics, he says, "Knowledge does not always begin from that which is first according to the nature of things, but from that of which the knowledge is easiest. For the human intellect, on account of its relation to the senses (propter reflexionem quam habet ad sensum), collects science from the senses; and thus it is easier for our knowledge to begin from that which we can apprehend by sense, imagination, and intellect, than from that which we apprehend by intellect alone." We see that he has somewhat systematized what he has borrowed.

      This disposition to dwell upon and systematize the leading doctrines of metaphysics assumed a more definite and permanent shape in the opposition of the Realists and Nominalists. The opposition involved in this controversy is, in fact, that fundamental antithesis of Sense and Ideas about which philosophy has always been engaged; and of which we have marked the manifestation in Plato and Aristotle. The question, What is the object of our thoughts when we reason concerning the external world? must occur to all speculative minds: and the difficulties of the answer are manifest. We must reply, either that our own Ideas, or that Sensible Things, are the elements of our knowledge of nature. And then the scruples again occur—how we have any general knowledge if our thoughts are fixed on particular objects; and, on the other hand—how we can attain to any true knowledge of nature by contemplating ideas which are not identical with objects in nature. The two opposite opinions maintained on this subject were, on the one side—that our general propositions refer to objects which are real, though divested of the peculiarities of individuals; and, on the other side—that in such propositions, individuals are not represented by any reality, but bound together by a name. These two views were held by the Realists and Nominalists respectively: and thus the Realist manifested the adherence to Ideas, and the Nominalist the adherence to the impressions of Sense, which have always existed as opposite yet correlative tendencies in man.

      The Realists were the prevailing sect in the Scholastic times: for example, both Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, the Angelical and the Subtle Doctor, held this opinion, although opposed to each other in many of their leading doctrines on other subjects. And as the Nominalist, fixing his attention upon sensible objects, is obliged to consider what is the principle of generalization, in order that the possibility of any general proposition may be conceivable; so on the other hand, the Realist, beginning with the contemplation of universal ideas, is compelled to ask what is the principle of individuation, in order that he may comprehend the application of general propositions in each particular instance. This inquiry concerning the principle of individuation was accordingly a problem which occupied all the leading minds among the Schoolmen[48]. It will be apparent from what has been said, that it is only one of the many forms of the fundamental antithesis of the Ideas and the Senses, which we have constantly before us in this review.

      The recognition of the derivation of our knowledge, in part at least, from Experience, though always loose and incomplete, appears often to be independent of the Peripatetic traditions. Thus Richard of St. Victor, a writer of contemplative theology in the twelfth century, says[49], that "there are three sources of knowledge, experience, reason, faith. Some things we prove by experiment, others we collect by reasoning, the certainty of others we hold by believing. And with regard to temporal matters, we obtain our knowledge by actual experience; the other guides belong to divine knowledge." Richard also propounds a division of human knowledge which is clearly not derived directly from the ancients, and which shows that considerable attention must have been paid to such speculations. He begins by laying down clearly and broadly the distinction, which, as we have seen, is of primary importance, between practice and theory. Practice, he says, includes seven mechanical arts; those of the clothier, the armourer, the navigator, the hunter, the physician, and the player. Theory is threefold, divine, natural, doctrinal; and is thus divided into Theology, Physics, and Mathematics. Mathematics, he adds, treats of the invisible forms of visible things. We have seen that by many profound thinkers this word forms has been selected as best fitted to describe those relations of things which are the subject of mathematics. Again, Physics discovers causes from their effects and effects from their causes. It would not be easy at the present day to give a better account of the object of physical science. But Richard of St. Victor makes this account still more remarkably judicious, by the examples to which he alludes; which are earthquakes, the tides, the virtues СКАЧАТЬ