Page:The Myth of Occams Razor.djvu/2

 he probably became known as the Singular Doctor. It must not, however, be supposed that Albertus Magnus was called the Universal Doctor, for a similar though opposite reason. He, like Aristotle and Francis Bacon, "took all knowledge to be his province".

3. Ueberweg indeed, whose History of Philosophy was first published in 1863 (ten years after the revised edition of Hamilton's Discussions in 1853), said in §16 of his second volume (§104 of the English translation by Morris and Porter): "William of Occam founds his rejection of Realism on the principle; Entia non sunt multplicanda præter necessitatem. He combats the realising and hypostatising of abstractions (Sufficiunt Singularia, etc.)": p. 462 in the first volume of the English translation by Morris (1872), and §36 page 307 of theil ii., in the new German edition of 1898. No reference is given; and Ueberweg cannot always be trusted, even when he does give a reference. On the previous page (461) of §104, he refers to the Scotis Petrus Aureolus (†1322, Archbishop of Aix): In SS., ii., D. 12, Q. 1, for an assertion that: "He (P.A.) enounced the principle subequently known as the Law of Parcimony: Non est Philosophicum, pluralitatem rerum ponere sine causa; frustra enim fit per plura, quod fieri potest per pauciora". But there are no such clauses in the locus indicated; and the Index gives no clue to their presence anywhere else. It is indeed possible that he has written them somewhere; because the words had previously been used by his master Duns Scotus: a fact, with which Ueberweg does not seem to have been acquainted. Aureolus actually says (In SS., i., D. 3, on p. 164 of vol. i.), referring to Aristotle's Physica (i.): "In principiis debet tanta paucitas, quanta sufficit ad salvandum ea, quæ sunt in natura necessaria".

4. My note of April, 1915, asking for references to Ockham from readers of, had the same fate as Prof. W. R. Sorley's inquiry in July, 1904 (p. 456), for the source of T.H. Green's fictitious quotation from Kant (so long beloved of Oxford examiners): "Macht zwar der Verstand die Natur, aber er schafft sie nicht". There was no response; and, I venture to think, for the same reason. The earliest use of the popular phrase, which I had then lighted upon, occurs in an Inaugural Dissertation by Leibnitz in 1670: De Stylo Philosophico Marii Nizolii, §28 (De Secta Nominalium). He does not, however, profess to quote, but says in oratio obliqua: "Generalis autem Regula est, quo Nominales passim untuntur, Entia non esse multiplicanda præter necessitatem". The words do not appear in the only philosophical work of Mario Nizzoli: De veris principiis et vera ratione philosophandi: published at Parma in 1553. Another editition was published at Frankfurt in 1674, under the new title Anti-barbarus Philosophicus;