Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/278

 PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE JESUITS. 265 most celebrated of Jesuit metaphysicians, who created, so to speak, a School in the School. Scholasticism stands midway between pure Empiricism and absolute Idealism ; it is the ' Empire of the Middle '. But Scholasticism itself being divided into the antagonistic schools of Aquinas and of Duns Scotus, Suarez set up a ' half-way house ' between the two. And if the maxim 'In medio veritas ' be allowed, then Suarez was the most likely of all to get at truth. It is curious to see how respectfully independent he is of the ' Angel of the School,' and how often he follows the leading of the ' Doctor Subtilis,' whilst apparently treating him as of slight account. On the minor philosophical questions he is almost always more or less at variance with St. Thomas. Aquinas, for instance, affirms that essence and existence are really different ; Suarez denies it. Aquinas asserts that the soul gives the human body not only humanity, but corporeity ; Suarez contradicts him. Aquinas thinks that to a complete non-universal human being, ' something ' must be added in order for it to become a person ; Suarez thinks the addition quite unnecessary. Aquinas is of opinion that perfect happiness, or beatitude, is an act of the intelligence con- templation ; Suarez makes it consist in an act of the will love. All these points, together with many others, too numerous to be mentioned here, are matter for divergence ; and as for finding fault with the proofs given by St. Thomas, Suarez is absolutely relentless. He might almost be called captious, were it not true that proofs, in order to be proofs, must resist the sharpest fire of adverse criticism. Still, if he agrees with Scotus on most of the minor points, he is with his adversary on most of the major ones ; particularly in the great problem " whether Ens is a generic term, or a name given to different objects by analogy only " ; and he altogether repudiates the celebrated Scotistic "formal dis- tinction a naturd rei " half real, half logical both arid neither. Such was the liberty which distinguished the Order of Loyola from that of St. Dominic. Here a few words are needed to mark out more distinctly the different spirits that pervaded these two famous bodies of men ; and it may not be amiss to state briefly in what manner the latter society fixed its opinions at once and for ever. Numerous adver- saries of St. Thomas had arisen after his death, which took Slace in 1274. In 1276, the Universities of Paris and of xford had condemned four of his theses as contrary to faith ; and many Dominicans, in England especially, had publicly opposed some of his doctrines. The heads of the