Page:Science and medieval thought. The Harveian oration delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, October 18, 1900 (IA sciencemedievalt00allbrich).pdf/39

33 of the human mind-as subjective conceptions. For Ockham, says Hauréau, an idea was but a modality of the thinking subject. Abstractions then for these thinkers were but mental machinery for analysis of the concrete. Aristotle was as obscure and inconsistent in his language herein, and often elsewhere, as he was profound and scru- pulous; but when his works came to be studied as a whole, and in the original tongue, the influence of his method, rather than the close consistency of his language, told against realism: virtually he was a conceptualist, and he found reality, where Plato denied it, in the particular object of sense ¹.

1 Thus it was difficult to claim his authority for one side or the other. The metaphysical treatises were not known till the later part of the twelfth century. (See p. 75, note 2.) At the outset of the Physics Aristotle discusses what nature is in itself, and defines first elements; in the Second Analytics on the other hand, although thinking of science as deductive and expository, he strongly opposes the primary existence of ideas, though these are predicable of many individuals. By excess of logical formations, the division of properties, the use of such terms as "yém úrokeipeva," &c. &c., he laid himself open to misconception, and so was readily platonised by his commentators. It would seem indeed that for Aristotle uni- vorsals were not merely propositions obtained by negation of individual variations, but something more active. A vónots became somehow a roinois; e.g. "Sppropyjouru piois." His position may be appreciated briefly thus:--In the Cato- gories Aristotle speaks of individuals as primarily existent, 3 A.