Long before he knowsthat grass is grass, or self is
self, he knows that somethingis something. But we mean that they were purely
fictitious; and St. Everything is Being;but it is not true that everything is Unity.
Is there real hope of settling these things by human reason;and has that any
authority? Thomas, had he beena member of the Tip-Cat Club, would have meant just
the opposite.
And savagery is not history; it is either the
beginning of historyor the end of it.
Who was it who began the inane habit of referring
to Dr. But if he reasoned rightly, however rapidly,he reasoned syllogistically. Here
I leave the reader, on the very lowest rung of those laddersof logic, by which
St.
The Thomist begins by being theoretical,but his
theory turns out to be entirely practical. They are those who maintain that there is
something that isboth Yes and No. If things deceive us, it is by being more real
than they seem.
What they generallydid produce was a wildly
unscientific contradiction. Anyhow, upon that marriage,or whatever it may be called,
the whole system of St.
He will not take away the numbers he first thought
of,though there may be quite a number of them.
Thomas Aquinas, perhaps more than he is anything
else,is a great anthropologist. The obvious example is in the pivotal word
form.
He is still true tothe first truth and refusing the
first treason.
Thomas is really devotedto the intrinsic idea of
Sapientia.
He will not denywhat he has seen, though it be a
secondary and diverse reality. Augustine who was,among other things a wit.
Unfortunately, good temper issometimes more irritating than bad temper.
Thomas, had he beena member of the Tip-Cat Club,
would have meant just the opposite.
They have it in them to be more real than they are.
Suppose two entirely new paths open before the progress ofCreative Evolution. Thomas
must have made a certain number of enemies, though he hardlyever treated them as
enemies.
Thomass work has a constructive quality absent from
almostall cosmic systems after him.
Long before he knowsthat grass is grass, or self is
self, he knows that somethingis something. Augustine who was,among other things a
wit.
But the point is that, even apart from being right
he is real.
Thomas is really devotedto the intrinsic idea of
Sapientia. He had been a revolutionist against Augustine and a traditionalistagainst
Averrhoes.
Thomas besieged and mounted the Houseof
Man.
Perhaps the impression is connected with the fact
that painters dealwith things without words. In that respect it can be repeated,
most emphatically, that he isarguing for common sense.