In the middle ages 139

the personal property of him who finds it. On the

contrary, it is a great common patrimony which

passes from one generation to the next, ever in-

creased by continuous and successive contributions.

"So shall it be to the end of the world," says Roger

Bacon, "because nothing is perfect in human

achievements." And he goes on to say: "Always

those who come later have added to the work of

their predecessors; and they have corrected and

changed a great deal, as we see especially in the case

of Aristotle, who took up and discussed all the ideas

of his predecessors. Moreover, many of the state-

ments of Aristotle were corrected in turn by Avi-

cenna and by Averroes."" Nor does Thomas Aqui-

nas speak otherwise of the impersonal constitution

of philosophy and of its improvement. Referring

to Aristotle's Metaphysics, he writes: "That which

a single man can bring, through his work and his

genius, to the promotion of truth is little in com-

parison with the total of knowledge. However,

from all these elements, selected and co-ordinated

and brought together, there arises a marvelous

thing, as is shown by the various departments of

learning, which by the work and sagacity of many

have come to a wonderful augmentation."*

3 Nam semper posteriores addiderunt ad opera priorum, et multa

correxerunt, et plura mutaverunt, sicut patet per Aristotelem, max-

ima, qui omnes sententias praecedentium discussit. Et etiam Avic-

cenna et Averroes plura de dictis ejus correxerunt, O'pus Majus,

Pars I, c. 6 (ed. Bridges, vol. Ill, p. 14).

4 7ra lib. II Metaphys., Lectio 1.

140 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION

Do not these declarations call to mind the beauti-

ful thought of Pascal, who also reflected deeply and

shrewdly on the role of tradition in the continuity

. of philosophy. "It is owing to tradition," he says,

J^ "that the whole procession of men in the course of

_J^- so many centuries may be considered as a single

man, who always subsists, who learns continually." '

There is, then, no break in the continuity of philos-

ophy, any more than there is in the other depart-

ments of civihzation; and a chain of gold joins the

Greeks to the Syrians, the Syrians to the Arabs,

and the Arabs to the Scholastics.

The impersonality of scholastic philosophy is

further revealed in the fact that those who build it

disclose nothing of their inner and emotional life.

Works like the autobiography of Abaelard are as

exceptional as the Confessions of Augustine. Only

the mystics speak of that which passes in the soul's

inmost life. In the voluminous works of Thomas

Aquinas, for instance, there is only a single passage

where the philosopher exhibits any emotions;*'

everywhere else his thought runs without haste or

emotion, as tranquil and as majestic as a river.

Ill

The thirteenth century drew from these princi-

ples, in the form of corollaries, its characteristic

^ Pascal, Opuscules, edit. Bninschvigg, p. 80.

В« De unitate inteUectns contra Averroistas, (in fine), where his in-

dignation is deeply stirred.