The Philosophical Doctrines of St. Augustine compared with the Ideology of the Modern Schools [pp. 481-496]

484 The Phiiosopki~a1 Doctrines of St. August~~e.
opening at random any one of il~e and, classical tradition in science.
sacred and precious volumes, either This I come to-day to recommend;
of the illustrious ancient fathers or of and I have confidence that I can betthe venerable princes of t~e schools. ter persuade men to undertake it by
But those of us who are honored by example, and, as it were, by means
the privilege of representing in the of something actually done, if you,
chairs of instruction, or cultivating with your accustomed benignity, will
and illustrating in books the Catholic deign to bear with my proposition,
philosophy, have far greater reason and to give it the support and weight
to know and esteem the master-pieces of your authority.
of the doctors and the fathers. Such I invoke the authority of this recan see, by contrast with these, that spectable asembly for an end I have
what is called the modern philosophy, greatly at heart, and which seems to
although sustained and kept on foot, me of supreme importance both to
here and th~ere, by some authors of scientific advancement and rdigious
unusual and vast speculative ability, edification; that is, to obtain that our
nevertheless never satisfies in the philosophers, divided, not by their own
least any one who attempts to r9vive fault but by that of our ancestors of
it, always lacking a valid direction, the last century, into ontologists and
always liable to sudden changes and psychologists, should once for all give
vacillations-a sure sign of internal their attention and open their eyes to
contradiction - agitated, discompos- the history too long belied and alone
ed, tormented by all the follies of the worthy of consideration-the history,
most mediocre and turbulent intel- I say, ever new, brilliant, and unsurlects. Such persons as these, not oh- passable, of our own philosophy; and
serving that logic (permit me here instead of consuming all their strength
to use the language of St. Augustine) in a war among our excellent doctors
is properly the intellectual judgment -which it is high time to break offof entire humanity, that it cannot be should apply themselves rather to lay
made anew, as it cannot either be a new grasp on the ancient wisdom
unmade, but only obtained by inheri- of Catholicism with one hand, and
tance and amplified and extended by with the other to repulse and discomfelicitous discoveries; not consider- fit the audacious and execrable crowd
ing, I say, any of these things, they of modern errors. Assuredly, when
believe that out of the present age the doctrine as well of the fathers
there ought to issue a new and mag- relatively to the Platonic system, as
nificent rational philosophy; just as of the greater schoolmen to the metathere certainly has issued a new and physics of Aristotle, shall have been
stupendous literature, a geometry to- first placed in a better light and looked
tally renovated and enlarged to most at in its multffon~ aspects by means
gigantic proportions, and a system of various and judicious investigations,
of physics in great part construct- it will be made universally manifest
e~t anew, corrected by experiments that the Platonism and Aristotdianism
and elucidated by better hypothe- of the heathen were not in any wise
ses. But I pray and hope that the identical with the ontologism and
time of undeceiving has arrived, and psychologism of the Catholic masthat the Catholic masters (the others ters; that the war between the Acawill turn back when this happens) demics and Peripatetics was annihiwill apply themse{ves in earnest to lated and put aside by the rigor and
pick up again the thread of perfect integrity of Catholic thought; that, in