Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/225

 adducing sixteen arguments for the existence of a single cause, at once efficient, formal, and final, of all things. It is noticeable, however, that he makes no attempt to establish the identity of the first cause with an intelligent and moral being (ib. qu. i.). This he assumes. Such an attempt is indeed found in a fragment entitled ‘De Primo Rerum Principio,’ but is too feeble to require notice, and the authenticity of the fragment, which is full of devotional expressions, and otherwise very unlike the usually severe style of Duns, may be doubted. Having reached the existence of God per saltum, he argues against Avicenna that his unity is not incompatible with his being the immediate cause of plurality. Following Aristotle (Metaph. ii. c. ii.) he holds that the immutability of the divine will is not inconsistent with but implied in the existence of change. ‘God,’ he says, ‘sees all things “uno intuitu,” does all things “uno actu volendi”’ (ib. qu. iii. sects. 7–20). With this doctrine he attempts to reconcile the existence of contingent matter by distinguishing between that which is necessary absolutely and that which is necessary secundum quid, a distinction which it is not easy to grasp. The creation he attributes to the goodwill and pleasure of God, whom he regards as an absolutely free agent (ib. qu. iv. art. ii. sect. v. qu. v.). From Ibn Gebirol (fl. 1045), a Spanish Jew, author of a philosophical work entitled ‘Fons Vitæ’ and some hymns, whom he knew only by the name of Avicebron, and probably supposed to be an Arabian, he adopts the theory controverted by St. Thomas and Albert of Cologne of a universal matter, the common basis of all, even spiritual existences. The idea is probably traceable to a Neo-Platonic source, but it was known to Western Europe simply as the doctrine of Avicebron. Duns labours hard to show that the objections of St. Thomas and Albert were based on a misconception (ib. qu. viii.) The soul he holds to be the ‘specific form’ of the body, and present in its entirety in every part thereof. On the question of immortality he is silent. With regard to the origin of the soul he held the creationist theory (ib. qu. ix. x. xii.) Unity, whether specific, generic, or merely numerical, he regards as a reflection of the Divine unity (ib. qu. xvi.) Time he reckons to be subjective in respect of its modes, but to have an objective cause (ib. qu. xviii.) He does not deal with the problem of space. The treatise terminates abruptly in the middle of a discussion of the curious question ‘utrum creatura rationalis sit capax gratiæ vel alicujus accidentis antequam sit in effectu’ (ib. qu. xxvi.). Neither in this work nor elsewhere does Duns show any tendency to take refuge in innate ideas. Of his psychological doctrine we have no authentic exposition. A fragment on the ‘De Anima’ of Aristotle was printed for the first time by Wadding in vol. ii. of his edition, with annotations and a lengthy supplement by MacCaghwell. It is probably spurious (see remarks on Wadding's edition, vol. ii. infra). The theological views of Duns are expounded in a commentary on the ‘Sententiæ’ of Peter Lombard, supposed to have been written at Oxford, and hence known as the ‘Opus Oxoniense,’ by distinction from the ‘Reportata Parisiensia,’ which is a digest and epitome of the same work. It is not possible here to do more than indicate a few salient points in his system. This is in a certain sense positive, i.e. he denies the possibility of rational theology, and bases dogma entirely upon the authority of the church. The function of reason is merely to articulate the dogmatic system, and to defend it against attacks. Such knowledge of God as natural reason affords is ‘equivocal, indistinct, obscure.’ All dogmas are alike indemonstrable (Works, xi. 21). His cardinal principle is the omnipotence and absolute freedom of God. Everything, even the distinction between right and wrong, depends upon the will of God (ib. x. 252), who created the world de nihilo, and sustains the fabric from moment to moment (ib. xi. 247, 252, 877). Hence he rejects Anselm's theory of the Atonement, and rests the necessity and sufficiency of the sacrifice solely upon the will of God (ib. 719, vii. 423 et sqq.). Duns also held the absolute freedom of the human will, and that such freedom was nevertheless contingent upon the will and compatible with the fore-knowledge of God (ib. 85, 913, and ‘De Rer. Princ.’ qu. iv. sects. 36–51). He exhibits no tendency towards mysticism. Among his contemporaries Siger of Brabant, who taught in Paris in the last decade of the thirteenth century, and there, according to Dante (Par. x. 138), ‘sillogizzò invidiosi veri,’ Peter of Auvergne and Alexander of Alexandria were more or less influenced by Duns, but the first decided Scotist was Antonius Andreæ, a Spaniard (fl. 1310), as to whose writings see remarks on Wadding's edition of Duns, infra. Others followed, such as Petrus Aureolus (d. 1321), Franciscus de Mayronis (d. 1325), Nicholaus de Lyra (d. 1340), both apparently Frenchmen, Joannes de Bassolis, John Dumbleton, Walter Burleigh (fl. 1330), and William of Occham (d. 1347) [q. v.] With Occham a schism, the germ of which is already traceable in Petrus Aureolus, developed itself on the question of ‘intelligible species,’ Occham disputing their existence on the ground that ‘entia non sunt multiplicanda præter neces-