In the middle ages 167

vation, and philosophy also — to their personal striv-

ing for Christian happiness. There was here no

difference between them and the painters or sculp-

tors or architects, who also worked for the glory of

God and their own salvation, or even princes and

kings, who were all moved by the desire to avoid

hell and to merit heaven, and who did not conceal

this in their official acts. But the intention was a

matter of moral consciousness; it changed in no re-

spect either the politics of kings or the beauty of

works of art or the value of philosophical systems.

Scholastics would have applied to their case the

famous distinction of "finis opens" (the work it-

self) and "finis operantis" (the intention with

which it was done).

To sum up: Neither the social superiority of

theologians nor the constitution of theological apol-

ogetics nor the religious tendency of thinkers was

an obstacle to the independence of philosophy.

However, these three facts make perfectly plain

just how philosophy also in the thirteenth centuiy

was bathed in a general atmosphere of religion

which pervaded everything else.

V

But, since we have raised in general terms the

question of the relations between philosophy and

religion in the thirteenth century, there is a last

class of ties of which it remains to speak, and which

touch very closely philosophic doctrine itself —

168 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVH^IZATION

the prohibitive or negative subordination of phi-

losophy to theology. Profoundly convinced that

Catholic dogma is the expression of the infallible

word of God ; convinced, on the other hand, that the

truth cannot overthrow the truth, without over-

throwing the principle of contradiction and involv-

ing all certainty in this ruin, the scholastics drew

this conclusion: that philosophical doctrine cannot

in reality contradict theological doctrine, — there

fore it is prohibited from doing so.

To understand the precise meaning of this pro-

hibition we must note three points : First, that it is

based on the principle of the solidarity of truth,

second, that it involves the denial of contradiction,

and not the assertion of positive proof; and, third,

that it affects philosophy in part only, namely, so

far as its domain belongs at the same time (but

from another point of view) to theology. Let us

consider each of these in turn.

Truth cannot contradict truth. Music, writes

Thomas Aquinas, depends on the apphcation of

mathematical principles, which it cannot, therefore,

contravene ; but it is not concerned with their foun-

dation, — that is not its affair. Assuming the fact

of a revelation — and in the heart of the Middle

Ages no one doubted it — the attitude of the^schol-

astics is logical. Henry of Ghent puts the matter

concisely, when he says: "If we admit (supposito)