Aristotelian form is activity. The very meaning of a potential intellect is one which can apprehend, and form itself into a likeness of anything, no matter what; and this same intellect is active because it has a power of spontaneous activity which causes it to rise up as soon as it is roused by sense, and to pronounce judgment on its own sensations according to laws of its own. It is this which is meant by its being a tabula rasa and its having no innate ideas. It is not like a blank inanimate page, to be written on by sense, nor like the white sheet on which a magic-lantern throws its unreal phantasmagoria, nor even like the chemically prepared plate on which nature photographs herself. Though it has no innate thoughts, it has intuitions of its own; and by these it has the power of creating its own ideas, which, be it remembered, are not mere names for a collection of particulars, for they are not merely notional, but have a real outward basis corresponding to them, the general wrapped up in the particulars of sense.

The parentage then of Aristotle's views is simple enough. They are not akin to any views which look upon the idea as a passive copy of a number of sensations. The universal is an original creation of the mind, corresponding to a reality existing in the individual, not a mere name to register the experiences of sense. It is quite true that many Catholic writers speak of the universal as though it were contained in the particular, like a nut in its shell, and of the action of the intellect as though it were a mere stripping off of the phantasms and a transference of the universal contained therein to the intellect. They seem to dread all manner of scepticisms, unless the very identical sensible species, only denuded of its material phenomena, is apprehended by the mind, unless they restricted the action of the mind to the discovery of the naked universal with its clothes taken off. Such is not the language of Catholic writers who look for things under formulas. Kleutgen even acknowledges a temptation to find a resemblance to Kant in the Aristotelian theory of cognition. In both, the notion or concept is the result of the independent action of the intellect upon sensations. In both, the intellect draws upon its own treasures and furnishes its quota to the result. The principles of the active intellect underived from sense are to Aristotle's intelligible species what the forms of the sensible

*Kleutgen, 732, denies the form to be a force, but asserts it to be the active principle in matter. V. S. Thomas, quoted in note. The difference is immaterial for our purpose.

+ Kleutgen, "Philosophie der Vorzeit," 341.

intuition are to Kant's concept. The difference, however, is enormous between a form in the Kantian sense, which is purely subjective and has no corresponding reality in the object, and the principles of the intellect which Aristotle considered to be the laws of being, and to be valid for all objects external to the mind. But how is it possible that the laws of the material universe should find their expression in the immaterial soul? What is this mysterious universal which exists in the particulars of sense, and which can be copied by the intellect? Have we got back again to the unity of being and thought of Parmenides or to the Hegelian notion? The answer to this question throws a great light on the functions of the Form in the Aristotelian system. This universal is the Form mentally conceived. The failure in understanding this has misled both Mr. Grote and Mr. Mill* in their views of Aristotle. They have not seen that this universal is really the mind's apprehension of the Form which we have described as existing in all individuals. The essence, the substance, the nature of the thing, that which corresponds to the notion in Aristotle's system are really various aspects of the Form in different relations, and the universal is the same Form apprehended by the mind.† This is the real point of contact between the physical and spiritual world. We have already described the Form as the principle which gives unity and activity to the phenomena, in other words, it fulfils the functions of modern Force. Activity or Form is the very thing which is common to material objects and to spirit. This explains such passages as the following in Kleutgen, directed against language respecting abstraction, which would reduce the schoolmen to an inferior species of Locke, as well as against such as would confound the scholastic theory with that of Kant. "According to the definition which scholasticism gave of abstraction, concepts although obtained by way of abstraction, are thus far à priori, that they are not obtained by comparing and completing the sensible images. However they do not for this reason presuppose the categories as

* In his review of Grote's Aristotle, in the "Fortnightly Review," Mr. Mill says, "Those forms which are in reality the attributes of objects, are thus the actual creators of objects, as they exist in vreλexeia or completedness; and this attribution to forms of a kind of active power made it difficult to avoid regarding them as substantive entities" (p. 37). It is not only difficult but impossible not to regard them as entities, only not substances, because they must exist in some matter. Mr. Mill would not have called them attributes if he had remembered that there is only one substantial orm to each object.

+ "Philosophie der Vorzeit," 94.

Mr. Hutton and Mr. Martineau.

303

forms à priori existing in the mind through which the activity of the intellectual faculty is determined. The peculiarity of that cognitive faculty, or lumen intellectuale, consists, according to the schoolmen, in that it apprehends in things that which does not belong to them in as far as they are material, but which they have in common with immaterial things, and in that by means of these highest ideas (such as Being, Substance, Oneness, &c.) it perceives in objects that which sense cannot reach, namely their essence."* When therefore the schoolmen use such expressions as "species intelligibiles a phantasmatibus abstrahere," they do not mean "to purify the sensible image by stripping off (abstreifen) the material parts." + The function of the intellectus agens is to take the mind's attention off the mere material phenomena of the sensible image, and to fix it upon the fact that they are qualities radiating from a central force or Form. This Form the intellectus possibilis converts into a concept and calls "the essence," for, says Kleutgen," according to S. Thomas, the essence is another name for the form." By induction, or a frequent recurrence of similar individuals, this concept becomes a universal notion; but it must not be forgotten that the universal, as such, exists only in the mind. "According to the true Realism," says Kleutgen, "the universal exists in objects because the real essence of the individual thing corresponds to that which is apprehended by the universal notion; but as such, that is in its universality, it is only in the thinking subject." It is thus a fabrication of the mind though not an arbitrary one. It is the mode in which the human mind represents to itself, according to its own laws, the real Form which exists out of it in the individual.

To sum up this discussion, it is in the notion of Form that lie both the contrast and the similitude between Aristotle and modern thought. By the doctrine that the Form really exists in the particular, he saves the reality of the outward world. By the view that the Form reappears in the mind under the shape of the universal, he makes that outward world accessible to the intellect.

While this account of Aristotle's theory of cognition is fresh in the reader's mind, it is best somewhat to invert the pro

Ibid., 92. § Ibid., 74.

* Kleutgen, 305. + Ibid., 74. Kleutgen, 367. We are not sure that we should not call this Conceptualism, that is, according to Mr. Mill, the doctrine that "generality is not an attribute solely of names but also of thoughts." (Examination of Hamilton, c. 17.) He there makes the astounding assertion that Realism was the only orthodox doctrine "imposed as a religious duty in the Middle Ages." Yet Gilbert de la Porée was a realist, and was condemned.

posed order of this article, and to quote a passage of Mr. Martineau's Essays by way of showing his substantial agreement without concealing his differences. By a comparison of the following passage with the above quotations from Kleutgen, it will be seen that Force occupies in Mr. Martineau's system precisely the position assigned to Form in the Aristotelian view. It is the middle term between matter and spirit.

Is there any middle term which can aid the mutual understanding between the Religious and the Scientific view of nature?—any fundamental thought common to both, or passing as an essential from the one to the other? We think there is, viz., the idea of Force. That this really is an intermediate conception, more than physical, less than theological, will probably be conceded on both sides. It is less than theological; for in league with the epithet “material” it can quit the Theist, and take service with the Atheist. It is more than physical; for the term certainly goes beyond the meaning of the word "Law"; it expresses neither any observable phenomenon nor any mere order of co-existence or succession among phenomena. To our objective Perception and Comparison nothing is given but movements or changes; to our Inductive Generalization, nothing but the shifting and grouping of these in space and time. Such mental aggregates or series of phenomena complete what we mean by a law; but are only suggestive signs of a Force in itself imperceptible. As defined by Mr. Grove, the word denotes "that active principle inseparable from matter which induces its various changes." So well aware, indeed, are the more rigorous Inductive logicians (as Comte and Mill) of the hyperphysical character of this notion, that they would expel it as a trespasser on the Baconian domain; or, if it stays, strip it of its native significance, in order to reduce it to their service. Let any one, however, only imagine the sort of jargon into which, agreeably to this advice, our language of Dynamics would have to be translated; let him try to express the several intensities in terms of Time-succession, and he will need no other proof of the utter helplessness of physics without this hyperphysical idea. Mr. Grove most justly remarks: "The word 'Force,' and the idea it aims at expressing, might indeed be objected to by the purely physical philosopher as representing a subtle mental conception, and not a sensuous perception or phenomenon. To avoid its use, however, if open to no other objection, would be so far a departure from recognized views, as to render language scarcely intelligible.

It is admitted, then, that we have here a physical postulate indispensable to the interpretation of nature, yet not physically known. Its objective reality is guaranteed; the suspicion of its being a "mental figment" is excluded by the same security on which we hold the infinitude of Space and the impossible co-existence of different Times, viz., its subjective necessity as a condition for conceiving objects and phenomena at all; a necessity, we must add, evident in the habitual language, not only of those who consciously acknowledge it, but equally of those who, like the Positivists, affect to believe in a yéveous of things without a dúvaus. Being thus, at the same time real in its existence and ideal in its cognition, Force admits of being investi

gated both physically and metaphysically and take it up in which aspect you will, the results are remarkable and concurrent.

It is impossible to read this passage without perceiving how similar are the Aristotelian Form and the modern conception of Force. It leads us to indulge the hope that the time may come when men will begin again to understand one another. While, however, Mr. Martineau's views of substance are so similar to those of Aristotle, we must not neglect to notice what seems to us a difference. That the substance, in his mind, is no figment but represents reality, is plain. Does he hold that the phenomena give us a real insight into the qualities of the object? We cannot help doubting it.

We begin rather ungraciously by finding faults in a book, with the general tendencies of which our object is to show our agreement. Mr. Martineau quotes a remarkable passage from Professor De Morgan, which seems to us very like one form of the doctrine held by some schoolmen. He seems to say that the idea or notion is imparted by the object and contained in the act of perception. "The idea of a horse is the horse in the mind," says Mr. De Morgan, "and we know no other horse. We admit that there is an external object, a horse which may give a horse in the mind to twenty different persons; but no one of these twenty knows the object; each one knows only his idea." This is certainly rather strong language, and we should prefer to say that the twenty persons did know the object through the idea, yet it contains what we conceive to be the truth; the idea is a product of the action of the mind, by which it represents the object to itself. This however seems to us to be precisely what Mr. Martineau denies. He objects to the whole notion of a representative idea on the ground of the impossibility of pronouncing on the likeness between an image and an invisible reality, or "an inaccessible thing." It may be that this is intended as an argumentum ad hominem, addressed to those who consider that the idea stands vicariously instead of an unknown reality. If it is so, we beg his pardon for our mistake. We cannot however but think that his own doctrine is that the act of perception gives us a bare notion of a non-ego, and in no way lets us into the nature of the object. Does not his theory, that all force can be resolved into will, imply that force has no nature at all of its own, that there is nothing intermediate between God's Will and ourselves, no forces, to be known as objects of cognition apart from them? A tempting doctrine this, but we cannot think it true. We cannot help thinking that the idea is truly representative, not because it acts a vicarious part for the unknown thing, but because the thing is accessible and is