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 ONTOLOGISM

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ONTOLOGISM

and adultery is the sole ground on which it is granted. In 1907 Parliament granted 3 divorces for Ontario; in 1908, 8; in 1909, 8; and in 1910, 14. Ontario courts recognize a foreign divorce only where it is valid ac- cording to the law of the state in which it is obtained, and the husband had at the time a bona fide domicile, as understood in English law, in such state. Subject to a saving jirovision in favour of a person who, in good faith and on rcasDn.ihle grounds, believes his or her spouse to be dead, ami of a person whose spouse has been continually absent for seven years and who has not known such spouse to be alive at any time during that period, any married person, not validly divorced, who goes through a second form of marriage in Canada commits bigamy: any such person who, being a British subject resident in Canada, goes through such cere- mony elsewhere, if he left Canada with intent to do so, also commits bigamy under Canadian law.

Nullitj/. — The Ontario High Court has jurisdiction to adjudge marriage void, and it has special statutory power to declare a marriage null, if the plaintiff was under the age of eighteen when married, and the cere- mony was without the consent required by law, and was not necessary to prevent illegitimacy. The action must be brought before the plaintiff attains the age of nineteen, and it must be proved in open court and after notice to the attorney-general (who is authorized to intervene) that there has not been cohabitation after the ceremony.

Fraser, History of Ontario (Toronto, 1907); Kingsford, His- tory of Canada (Toronto and London, 1SS7 — ) ; Dawson. North America (London. 1S97); Canada Year Book (Ottawa, 1909); On- tario Gorcrntnint Ripnrts en Agriculture, Industries, Mining, For- ests, M i/nn ,,>.:' s;.!i I !,, I I 'i;(-i9io) ; //faion's ^nnuaZ (Toronto, 19U1I, ■ ' I >'"ctory (Toronto, \910); The Official

Cathni //, \i ' ii;l and New York. 1910); Anolin.

Calhi'li /, ' V ' '•( /!j r.n^.i.ln in its Relation to the Civil Authority (Columbua, Uhio, I'JKI); Statutes of Canada; Statutes of Ontario.

Frank A. Anglin.

Ontologism (from fii-, Sr, SvTot, being, and X67os, sciencTi, an idculogical system which maintains that God and Divine ideas are the first object of our intel- ligence anil the intuition of God the first act of our intellectual knowledge. Exposition. — Malebranche (q. V.) developed his theory of "la vision en Dieu" in different works, particularly " Recherche de la verite", III, under the influence of Platonic and Cartesian phi- losophies, and of a misunderstanding of St. Augustine's and St. Thomas's principles on the origin and source of our ideas. It is also in large part the consequence of his theory of occasional causes (see Occasional- ism). Our true knowledge of things, he says, is the knowledge we have of them in their ideas. The ideas of things are present to our mind, endowed with the essential characteristics of universality, necessity, and eternity, and are not the result of intellectual elabora- tion or representations of things as they are, but the archetypes which concrete and temporal things real- ize. Ideas have their source and real existence in God; they are the Divine essence itself, considered as the infinite model of all things. "God is the locus of our ideas, as space is the locus of bodies." God is then always really present to our mind; we see all things, even material and concrete things, in Him, Who contains and manifests to our intelligence their nature and existence. Vincenzo Gioberti (1801-52) developed his Ontologism in "Introduzione alio studio della filosofia" (1840), I, iii; II, i. Our first act of intellectual knowledge is the intuitive judgment "ens creat existentias" (Being creates existences). By that act, he says, our mind apprehends directly and immediately in an intuitive synthesis (a) being, not simply in general nor merely as ideal, but as necessary and real, viz., God ; (b) existences or contingent beings; (c) the relation which unites being and existences, viz., the creative act. In this judgment being is the subject, existences the predicate, the creative act the copula. Our first intellectual perception is, therefore, XL— 17

an intuition of God, the first intelligible, as creating existences. This intuition is finite and is obtained by means of expressions or words {la parola). Thus the prinmm philosophicum includes both the primum on- totogicum and the primum jusiirholnqirum. and the ordo sciendi is identified with \\v iir,l,> rmiiii. This for- mula was accepted and dflrndrd li\rcstcs A. Brown- son. (Cf. Brownson's Works, Detruit, 1.SS2; I, "The Existence of God", 267 sq.; "Schools of Philosophy, 296 sq.; "Primitive Elements of Thought", 418 sq. etc.)

Ontologism was advocated, under a more moderate form, by some Catholic philosophers of the nineteenth century. Maintaining against Malebranche that con- crete material things are perceived by our senses, they asserted that our universal ideas endowed with the characteristics of necessity and eternity, and our notion of the infinite cannot exist except in God; and they cannot therefore be known except by an intuition of God present to our mind and perceived by our in- telligence not in His essence as such, but in His essence as the archetype of all things. Such is the Ontologism taught by C. Ubaghs, professor at Louvain, in " Essai d'ideologie ontologique" (Louvain, 1860); by Abb6 L. Branchereau in " Praelectiones Philosophic^"; by Abbe F. Hugonin in "Ontologie ou etudes des lois de la pens^e" (Paris, 1856-7) ; by Abbe J. Fabre in "De- fense de I'ontologisme " ; by Carlo Vercellone, etc. We find also the fundamental principles of Ontologism in Rosmmi's philosophy, although there have been many attempts to defend him against this accusation (cf. G. Morando, "Esame critico delle XL proposizione rosminiane condannate dalla S.R.U. inquisizione", Milan, 1905). According to Rosmini, the form of all our thoughts is being in its ideality (I'essere ideale, I'essere iniziale). The idea of being is innate in us and we perceive it by intuition. Altogether indeter- mined, it is neither God nor creature; it is an appurte- nance of God, it is something of the Word ("Teo- sophia", I, n. 490; II, n. 848; cf. " Rosminianarum propositionum trutina theologica", Rome, 1892). At the origin and basis of every system of Ontologism, there are two principal reasons: (1) we have an idea of the infinite and this cannot be obtained through abstraction from finite beings, since it is not contained in them; it must, therefore, be innate in our mind and perceived through intuition; (2) our concepts and fundamental judgments are endowed with the charac- teristics of universality, eternity, and necessity, e. g., our concept of man is applicable to an indefinite num- ber of individual men ; our principle of identity "what- ever is, is", is true in itself, necessarily and always. Now such concepts and judgments cannot be obtained from any consideration of finite things which are par- ticular, contingent, and temporal. Gioberti insists also on the fact that God being alone intelligible by Himself, we cannot have any intellectual knowledge of finite things independently of the knowledge of God; that our kniiwlcdg<' to be truly scientific must follow theontologiial, or real, order and therefore must begin with the knowledge of God, the first being and source of all existing beings. Ontologists appeal to the au- thority of the Fathers, especially St. Augustine and St. Thomas.

Ref Illation. — From the philosophical point of view, the immediate intuition of God and of His Divine ideas, as held by Ontologists, is above the natural power of man's intelligence. We are not conscious, even by reflection, of the presence of God in our mind; and, if we did have such an intuition we would flnd in it (as St. Thomas rightly remarks) the full satisfaction of all our aspirations, since we would know God in His essence (for the distinction between God in His essence and God as containing the ideas of things, as advanced by Ontologists, is arbitrary and cannot be more than logical) ; error or doubt concerning God would be im- possible. (Cf. St. Thom. in Lib. Boetii de Trinitate,