In the middle ages 181

similating it to itself and therefore by divesting it

of every particularized condition.

The question naturally arises, just how does the

intellect form these abstract ideas through contact

with concrete objects of sense? The scholastic

would reply by reference to his theory of the intel-

lectus agens. But this would take us too far afield

for our purposes here.^ Their conclusion alone is

significant for our present study; namely, abstract

knowledge differs from sense perception not in de-

gree but in kind. For, the content of our abstract

ideas, — the motion and force and life of our horses

and carriages, in the above illustration — is quite in-

dependent of the particular ties of time and space,

and of all material conditions in which reality as

perceived by the senses is involved. Consequently,

abstract knowledge is superior to sense perception;

abstraction is the royal privilege of man. This

superiority of intellect is as much a matter of grate-

ful pride to the scholastics as it was to Plato and

to Aristotle.

II

Intellectualism furnishes also a solution in the

field of epistemology, — the problem of the value of

knowledge; for it establishes truth on a firm foun-

dation, while at the same time it fixes the limits of

reason. Truth is something which pertains to the

3 For detailed account of this conception see D. Mercier, Psychol-

ogie, Louvain, 1912, vol. II, pp. 39 ff.

182 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION

intellect. "For truth consists in saying that a being

is when it is, or that it is not when it is not."* Con-

sequently certitude, which is nothing but a firm

assent to truth, is a possession of understanding and

reason; it does not depend on will or on sentiment

or on pragmatical efficiency. Here is one of the

basic differences between scholastic philosophy and

an important contemporary tendency in epistemol-

ogy, which insists on some "non-intellectualistic"

criterion of certitude.^

The intellect grasps "being" ; it can somehow as-

similate all that is: intellectus potest quodammodo

omnia fieri. Moreover, when it grasps being, it is

infallible. "In the figure of Ezekiel, "writes Meis-

ter Eckhart, who with his wonderful power for

imagery expresses splendidly this particular idea,

"the intellect is that mighty eagle, with wide reach

of wing, which descended upon Lebanon and seized

the cedar's marrow as its prey, — that is to say, the

constitution of the thing — and plucked the topmost

bloom of foliage."" There is no error in the under-

standing itself; it is always true as regards being,

4 Thomas Aquinas, Perihermeneias, I, 3.

5 For fuller details, see my Histoire de la Philosophie Medievale,

p. 2'46.

6 Intellectus enim est in figura aquila ilia grandis Eze. 17 longo

membrorum ductu, que venit ad Lybanum et tulit medullam cedri,

id est, principia rci, et summitatem frondium ejus avulsit. Edit.

Denifle (Arrhiv fiir Litteratur tind Kirchengeschichte des Mittel-

alters, 1886, p. 566).