Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/271

258 F. WINTEETON : method and argument. They complete each other ; but it is as literature and the fine arts, in a course of education, complete and are completed by scientific pursuits. If we now turn to the Constitutions, drawn up by St. Ignatius and his first companions, and presented to Paul III. for approbation, we shall find the same idea more strongly and distinctly expressed. " As for Logic, Natural Philo- sophy, Ethics and Metaphysics, the doctrine of Aristotle is to be followed." " Let the Scholastic doctrine of St. Thomas be taught. . . . But if, in the course of time, another author should seem preferable for our students ; for instance, should a Summa or book of Scholastic theology be published that should seem more appropriate to the present period, such a work might be used amongst us." x This is very decided and unequivocal. Yet it is, on the whole, a much more judicious and moderate decision than anyone could expect who puts himself in the place of St. Ignatius, both as to his internal convictions and as regards the times in which he lived. Until that period there had not been a single religious Order that had failed to inscribe Scholasticism on its banner. Both in Metaphysics and in Natural Philosophy Aristotle reigned supreme. Most of the Platonists of St. Ignatius's time were noted heretics, even infidels ; and Galileo, the Catholic adversary of Aris- totle's physics, was not yet born. Catholic philosophers were divided into Thomists and Scotists ; while Protestants attacked Scholasticism in general, and Thomism in parti- cular, with incredible vigour and fire. Tolle Thomam, cried the great voice of Luther, et ego diruam Ecclesiam ; which reminds us of Archimedes asking for a fulcrum, in order to move the world. At the Council of Trent the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas was placed on the table by the side of the Holy Script ares. When St. Thomas's canonisation was proceeding (1323) the Pope, John XXII., impatient at the formalities which hindered the Angelic Doctor from taking his place amongst the Saints, exclaimed: "What need have we of miracles to canonise him? every sentence he has written is in itself a miracle ". And if, after this unanimity both of friends and of foes to the Church, we find the author of the Constitutions only choosing St. Thomas until some better author and one more adapted to circumstances should arise, we may well be astonished at his moderation. The causes of this extraordinary moderation are easy to 1 Constt. 4a Pars. Cap. xiv. 3 ; Cap. xix. 1, note B.