CHAP. II. Latin version that he found ready to his hand'. But, however this may have been, it is certain that the prestige which necessarily invested the labours of the head of the Church soon cast into the shade those of the English ecclesiastic, and though the name of William Shyreswood was long remembered at Oxford, his reputation in Europe could not compare with that of Petrus Hispanus. For two centuries and a half the of the treatise Summula Logicales of the latter writer reigned supreme in

Extensive

popularity

by Petrus Hispanus.

the schools, and during the hundred and thirty years that followed upon the invention of printing, no less than fortyeight editions are enumerated by Prantl as issuing from the presses of Cologne, Leipsic, Leyden, Venice, and Vienna; while already, with the commencement of the fourteenth century, the importance of this new element had become so generally recognized, that to reconcile the same with the previously accepted dicta of authority had become a task which no one who aspired to be regarded as a teacher of the age found it possible to decline. Just therefore as it had devolved upon Albertus and Aquinas to decide how far the Arabian commentators could be reconciled with the orthodox interpretation of Aristotle, so did it devolve upon Duns Scotus to incorporate or to shew reasons for rejecting the new Influence of thought presented in the Byzantine logic. The element, accordingly, which in Albertus, Aquinas, and Grosseteste, is than merely but an exceptional phenomenon (vereinzelten Erscheinungen),

the Byzantine

logic some

thing more

technical.

now becomes in the great schoolman of Oxford a predominant feature; a feature which Prantl in his almost exhaustive treatment of the subject has fully investigated; and though it is neither practicable nor desirable for us to attempt to follow him into those technical details which belong to the special province of his work, it is, on the other hand, essential to our main purpose to make some attempt at explaining the con

struction placed upon the Byzantine logic and the direction CHAP. II. in which it operated. One might easily be inclined to suppose,' observes our authority, 'that its influence belonged purely to the literature of the schools, and had nothing at all to do with the Arabian Aristotelianism and the controversies springing from thence, but the sequel shews that this Byzantine weed-growth sent its offshoots deep into the logical party contentions, and hence into the so-called philosophy of that time, and that (since Occam and his followers) a knowledge of the Byzantine material is the only key to the solution of the oft-lamented unintelligibility of many entire writings as well as of isolated passages.'

mate in

fluence of

the New Aristotle

neutralised

Byzantine

It will here be necessary, in order to gain a correct impres- The legitision of the precise position of Duns Scotus in relation to the philosophy of the time, briefly to recall those important partially modifications of theory that had already resulted from the by the events of the preceding century. The first effects of the new logic. Aristotle upon the schools would seem, as may be naturally supposed, to have tended towards some diminution of that excessive estimation in which logic had hitherto been held. So long as the Isagoge, the Categories, and the De Interpretatione represented the sum of the known thought of the Stagirite, the importance of logical science had been unduly exalted and the study had commanded exclusive attention. But as soon as it was discovered that Aristotle himself had recognised such branches of philosophy as physics, metaphysics, ethics, and that it was difficult to say how far it could be proved that he had regarded logic as anything more than an instrument of enquiry, while the Aristotelian tradition had undoubtedly been that it was an art and not a science, that is, that it had for its subject-matter no fundamental laws of thought, but was merely an arbitrary process constructed for the better investigation of real knowledge',-the prestige of

1 The distinction between a Science and an Art, that the former has for its object-matter that which is necessary or invariable, the latter that which is contingent and variable, dates back as far as Aristotle. See Ars Poet. 1, ii. Topica, vi, viii. 1.

Sir William Hamilton (see Article
in Edin. Rev. Vol. LVII. p. 203) says,
The Stoics in general viewed it
(logic) as a Science. The Arabian
and Latin schoolmen did the same.
In this opinion Thomist and Scotist,
Realist and Nominalist concurred;

CHAP. II. the dialectic art became correspondingly lessened. Aquinas and Roger Bacon, little as they agreed in other respects, seemed in some sense at unison on this point. The subjectmatter of logic,' said the former, 'is not an object of investigation on its own account, but rather as a kind of scaffolding to other sciences; and hence logic is not included in speculative philosophy as a leading division, but rather in subserviency thereto, inasmuch as it supplies the method of enquiry, whence it is not so much a science as an instrument'. The view of Bacon, according to which he regarded the logica utens as a natural inborn faculty, and the logica docens as merely ancillary to other sciences, has already come under our notice. That such views failed to find expression in a corresponding modification of practice, and that, notwithstanding the more intelligent estimate of science that now undoubtedly began to prevail, logic continued for more than two centuries to occupy the same 'bad eminence' both at Oxford and at Cambridge, must be attributed to the Byzantine logic, to Petrus Hispanus, and to Duns Scotus.

6

Presence of the Byzan

The logic of Duns Scotus,' says Prantl, which gave tine logic in birth to an abundant crop of Scotistic literature, does not

Duns Scotus.

indeed proceed in entirely new paths which he had opened
up for himself, he is, on the contrary, as regards the tra-
ditional material, just as dependent and confined (abhängig
und bedingt) as all the other authors of the Middle Ages.
But he is distinguished, in the first place, by a peculiarly
copious infusion of Byzantine logic, and secondly, by the
comprehensive precision and consistency with which he incor-
porates the Aristotelian, Arabian, and Byzantine material, so
that by this means many new views are, in fact, drawn from
the old sources, and, in spite of all opposition, the transition
to Occam effected". The treatise of Psellus, as translated by
Petrus Hispanus, thus enunciates the theory which Duns
Scotus developed ;-Dyalectica est ars artium, scientia scien-

an opinion adopted, almost to a man,
by the Jesuit, Dominican, and Fran-
ciscan Cursualists.' More accurate
enquiry has shewn this to be by far
too sweeping an assertion.

1 Ad Boeth. de Trinitate, (Vol. XVII 2) p. 134. quoted by Prantl, 108.

2 Geschichte der Logik, 111 203.

tiarum, ad omnium methodorum principia viam habens. Sola CHAP. II. enim dyalectica probabiliter disputat de principiis omnium aliarum scientiarum. Et ideo in acquisitione scientiarum dyalectica debet esse prior 'Physics, mathematics, metaphysics,' said Albertus Magnus, are the three speculative sciences, and there are no more,-logic is not concerned with being or any part of being, but with second intentions?' It Theory of the was in connexion with this doctrine of the intentio secunda Secunda. that Duns Scotus sought to find that 'consistency' of which Prantl speaks, and to retain or even to augment the old supremacy of logic.

Intentio

controversy Duns Scotus.

Arabians.

It may be desirable briefly to restate the question as State of the it presented itself before the enunciation of this theory. prior to Logic, said the Thomist, is an art and not a science; a science is concerned with real facts, with veritable entities, not with artificial processes or arbitrary laws. Metaphysics are a science, astronomy is a science, but logic, as concerned only with those secondary processes of the mind which it seeks to define and regulate, has no pretentions to rank as such. While therefore they accepted, as Albertus has done, the Theory of Arabian theory of the intentio secunda, by far the most important contribution to metaphysics since the time of Aristotle, they stopped short precisely at the point where that theory touched upon the question of the right of logic to be included among the sciences. That theory admits of being stated in a few words. The intellect as it directs itself (intendens se) towards external objects, discerns, for example, secundas.' Metaph. I 1, 1. The only sense in which Albertus appears to have been able to recognize logic as a science was as Logica Utens: see quotations in Prantl, III 92.

6

3 The principal material added by the Arabians to the text of Aristotle is the celebrated distinction between first and second intentions. This is found in the epitome of the Categories by Averroes. It has also been traced to Avicenna. To the Arabians also are probably owing some of the distinguishing features, though certainly not the origin, of the Scholastic Realism.' Dean Mansel, Introd. to Artis Log. Rud. p. xxix.

1 Prantl remarks, 'dieser Satz fehlt in unserem Texte des Psellus; er ist wohl aus der gewöhnlichen boethianischen Tradition aufgenommen.' I 41. In the edition of the Synopsis by Axinger we have, however, the original Greek: Διαλεκτική ἐστι τέχνη τεχνῶν καὶ ἐπιστήμη ἐπιστημῶν πρὸς τὰς ἁπασῶν τῶν μεθόδων ἀρχὰς ὁδὸν ἔχουσα, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐν τῇ κτήσει τῶν ἐπιστημῶν πρώτην εἶναι τὴν διαλεκτικὴν χρή. 1 1, p. 1, quoted by

Prantl.

"

2 Istæ igitur sunt tres scientiæ speculativæ, et non sunt plures. Scientiæ logicæ non considerant ens et partem entis aliquam, sed intentiones

CHAP. II. Socrates in his pure individuality, and the impression thus received is to be distinguished as the intentio prima. But when the existence of Socrates has thus been apprehended, the reflective faculty comes into play; Socrates, by a secondary process, is recognized as a philosopher or as an animal; he is assigned to genus and species. The conception thus formed constitutes the intentio secunda. But the intentio secunda exists only in relation to the human intellect, and hence cannot be ranked among real existences; while the objects of the external world, and Universals which have their existence in the Divine Mind, would exist even if man were not. It was in respect of this theory of the non-reality Duns Scotus. of the intentiones secundæ, that Duns Scotus joined issue

Counter theory of

Logic a science as well as an art.

with the Thomists. It is true, he replied, that existence
must of necessity be first conceded to the objects which
correspond to the primary intention, but it by no means fol-
lows that it is therefore to be denied to the conceptions
which answer to the intentio secunda, that these are nothing
more than creations of the intellect, and have consequently
only a subjective existence. They are equally real, and
though the recognition of their existence is posterior to that
of the phenomena of the external world, 'man' and 'animal'
are not less true entities than Socrates himself. Hence we
may affirm that logic equally with physical science is con-
cerned with necessary not contingent subject-matter, and is a
science not less than an art1.

"

1 Auch den Unterschied, welcher zwischen Logik und Metaphysik neben manchen Berührungspunkten doch als ein wesentlicher besteht, erblickt Scotus ebenso wie all seine älteren und jüngeren Zeitgenossen in jener intentio secunda, welcher wir nun seit den Arabern stets schon begegneten, und er spricht in mannigfaltigen Wendungen wiederholt es aus, dass die Logik jene Momente, welche von ratio oder von intellectus oder von conceptus ausgehen, kurz also der subjectiven Werkstätte angehören, auf das objective Wesen der Dinge "anwende," applicare. Eben hiedurch entscheidet er auch jene Frage, ob die Logik als modus sciendi selbst eine Wis

senschaft sei, im Ausschlusse an Alf-
arabi dahin, dass die Logik einerseits
als docens wirklich eine Wissenschaft
ist und andrerseits als utens den
modus für alle übrigen enthält, so dass
wir hier...den Begriff einer " ange-
wandten Logik" treffen.' Prantl,
Geschichte der Logik, III 204-5.
According, therefore, to this view we
have, Logica Docens Pure Logic=a
Science; Logica Utens-Applied Logic
=an Art. This appears almost
identical with the view subsequently
espoused by Wolf, and by Kant, who,
in defining the Logica Docens as

The Science of the Necessary Laws
of Thought,' arrived, though by a
very different process, at the same

=