Page:The Myth of Occams Razor.djvu/4

348 the former (cc. 5 and 7). Two (if not more) equivalent phrases are common to Ockham and Scotus: Pluralitas, etc., and Frustra fit, etc.


 * (a) "Nunquam est ponenda pluralitas sine necessitate," appears in the Scotian Commentary In Metaphysica (Aristotelis): i., Q. 4, Scholium 3, p. 532 (10) of Wadding's tom. iv.
 * (b) "Pluralitas non est ponenda, nisi ubi est necessitas": Opus Oxon., i., D. 3, Q. 6, Scholium 5, p. 525 (12) of tom. v.
 * (c) "Ista opinio ponit pluralitatem sine necessitate, quod est contra doctrinam Philosophorum": Opus Oxon., iv., D.1, QQ. 4 and 5, Scholium 3, p. 84 (7) of tom. viii.
 * (d) And in the next Scholium (4) he declares: "Sicut sequenti rationem naturalem, non sunt ponenda plura, nisi quae ratio naturalis concludit, ita sequenti fidem non sunt ponenda plura quam veritas fidei requirat": p. 90 (9) of tom. viii.
 * (e) A peculiar variant occurs on page 737 (4) of tom. iv.: In Metaphysica, viii., Q. 1, Scholium 2: "Positio plurium semper debet dicere necessitatem manifestam".
 * (f) "Frustra fit per plura, quod potest fieri per pauciora:" is found on page 30 (3) of tom. ii.: In Physica (Aristotelis), i., Q. 8.
 * (g) This is expanded into: "Generale enim principium est, quod si aliquid potest aeque bene fieri per pauciora, sicut per plura, nullo modo talis pluralitas debet poni": De Rerum Principio, Q. 1, art. 2, Scholium on page 92 (9) of tom. iii.
 * (h) Another peculiar Scotian variant is given in the Reportata Parisiensia, ii., D. 15, Q. 1, Scholium 5, on page 348 of tom. xi.: "Paucitas est ponenda, ubi pluralitas non est necessaria".

8. The Metaphysical (or Methodological) Law of Parcimony (or Logical Frugality), indicated but not very distinctly expressed by Aristotle, was fully and finally established, not by Ockham (†1347), but by his teacher Duns Scotus (†1308): the greatest mind of the later Middle Ages, so unhappily cut off when he was only beginning to pass from the critical to the constructive stage. According to some biographers he died at thirty-four. Though unintelligently described by Leibnitz and others as an Extreme Realist, his Universal was only an Ens Rationis; a Brain-tool having a merely metaphorical entity. "Ens (Reale seu Naturale) est concretum," he said in his Tractatus de Modis Significandis, i., c. 25 (12): page 58b in tom. i. "Ens est duplex, naturae et rationis ... Ens Rationis ... cujusmodi sunt Genus, Species, Definitio:" in his [[In Elenchorum LL., Q. 1, page 224 (2) in tom. i. "Est enim Species tenuis similitudo Singularium": in his Super Universalia Porphyrii, Q. 4, page 90 (4) in tom. i. The "Formalism" of the Most Subtle Doctor looks like the tentative and temporary device of a public teacher in Holy Orders; who did not wish to break openly with the dominant tradition of Realism; but was feeling his way to the "Terminism" boldly professed by his independent contemporary Bishop Durand of Meaux (†1332), and