One of Saint Thomas' most note*orthy con tributions to philosophy was his elucidation in the Christian and theistic sense of some of the more obscure points of Aristotelian teach ing. Having before him a translation made di rectly from the Greek text — a translation which is indeed, far from correct, yet which in spite of many ludicrous verbal blunders is immeas urably superior to the translations made through the medium of Syriac and Arabic—he sought to free from the accretion of Neo Platonic and Arabian commentary the original doctrine of Aristotle on the question of the nature of the Active Intellect. Rejecting what may be called the transcendentalist view, which held the Active Intellect to be something more than human,, something akin to God and in some way common to all men, he defended the anthropological view, which held that the Active Intellect is a part of the individual soul, and, therefore, not common to all, but proper to each. In this way, he strengthened the defense of the immortality of the individual soul.
Saint Thomas founded a school within the schools. To the Franciscan teachers, such as Alexander of Hales, Saint Bonaventure and Roger Bacon, certain doctrines of Saint Au gustine recommended themselves, to the detri ment of the strict Aristotelianism which they professed. These Franciscan teachers were op posed by the Dominicans, who, like Albert the Great and Saint Thomas, recognized in the Augustinian doctrines in question an element of Platonism which was inconsistent with thor ough Aristotelianism. The struggle between Augustinianism (q.v.) and Aristotelianism (q.v.) was waged in the schools, especially at Paris, during the first decades of the 13th cen tury. The doctrines under discussion were mostly psychological: for instance, the Aristo telians maintained that there is but one sub stantial form in man, the soul, while the Au gustinians maintained that there are several substantial forms; the latter contended that there is no real distinction between the soul and its faculties, while the former defended the real distinction; the Aristotelians main tained that there are subsistent forms, that is to say, purely spiritual created substances, without any matter, while the Augustinians taught that all creatures, even the angels, are composed of matter and form. On all these questions Saint Thomas took the part of the Aristotelians and thus became the leader in the Dominican, or as it is sometimes called, the Thomistic school in the stricter sense of the word.
The controversies between the Dominican and the Franciscan schools brought out an im portant general trait of Saint Thomas' philoso phy. Duns Scotus (1274-1308), the ablest of
the Franciscan opponents of Saint Thomas, adopting the principle of voluntarism, brought to the surface the intellectualism which per vades Saint Thomas' speculative system. Saint Thomas pushed to its utmost consequences the intelligo ut credam of the earlier scholastics: he made intellect superior to will and sought in every thing to find an intellectual basis for be lief. Scotus maintained that on many ques tions of the highest importance reason fails to give a satisfactory explanation or proof and that we must fall back on will.
To say, however, that Saint Thomas was an Aristotelian in the Christian, as opposed to the Averroistic, sense; that he gave final form to the idea which inspired scholastic, and indeed all Christian, speculation; that he was a mod erate Realist ; that he held to the strict sys tematic Aristotelianism and excluded certain Augustinian and Platonic, elements; that he was an intellectualist, is to give but a faint idea of his claims to pre-eminence as a repi-e sentative of scholastic johilosophy. Of him, as of all the great speculative thinkers, it may be said that the spirit of his work is more potent than the letter. To the modern mind, especially, he appeals in virtue of the spirit in which he undertook the work of adjusting his beliefs as a Christian to the scientific and philosophic thought of his age. To this task he addressed himself with an instinctive sense of completeness which impelled him to leave nothing incomplete or imperfect except so far as everything human is incomplete and imper fect. He brought to his task a mind appre ciative of the value of truth wheresoever truth is found, whether in pagan, Jew or Gentile, and a belief — stronger in him than in any other Christian writer since Saint Au gustine — that all truths and all contributions to knowledge, from whatsoever source they are derived, must be capable of harmonious adjustment.
Bibliography.— Vaughan, (Life and Labors of Saint Thomas' (London 1871, 2 vols.) ; Werner, (Der Heil. Thomas von Aquino' (Re gensburg 1858, 3 vols.) ; Touron,
de S. Thomas
(Paris 1773); De Wulf,
de la phil. medievale' (Louvain 1900), pp. 259ff ; Stock], (Gesch. der Phil. des Mittelalters' (Mainz, 1864ff), II, 421ff ;