Lessons in Scholastic Philosophy

There are very few works on Scholasticism in print from a Traditional Catholic viewpoint. It is with great pleasure that we return this work to print for he edification of Catholic clergy, scholars and faithful. Other works available are ABC of Scholastic Philosophy and Scholasticism Old and New. A philosopher is literally a lover of wisdom, a seeker after wisdom. Wisdom means relishable knowledge-in our case, that knowledge which gives the highest and fullest natural satisfaction to the human mind. Now the human mind, by its very nature, thirsts after knowledge-knowledge not of a few things or a few classes of things, but of all things, of all classes of things. Nor is it satisfied with any sort of information about its far-reaching subject-matter; it seeks to know the ultimate causes and reasons of things--what they are, whence they are, why they are, etc. Nor yet again is it satisfied with any obscure or doubtful view; it wants clear, certain, evident knowledge. Hence wisdom or philosophy, the object of the philosopher's quest, is defined-dear, certain, evident knowledge of the ultimate reasons and causes, internal and external, of things, as far as this can be reached by the natural powers of the human mind. The formal object, then, of philosophy, or that which, for its own sake, it investigates, are absolutely ultimate reasons and causes, as far as these are knowable with certainty and evidence by man's natural reason. As its material object or that in which it seeks its formal object, it embraces all things, all Being. Things may be considered either as they are in themselves, or as they are in our thoughts, or as they stand in relation to our will; and thus philosophy divides itself into Metaphysics or the science of real being, Logic or the science of -right thinking, Moral Philosophy or the science of right willing or moral action-. Metaphysics, again, is divided into: - Ontology, whose object is real Being as such, considered In itself and in its highest genera or most general classifications; us; Cosmology, whose object is the irrational world around Anthropology, whose object is Man; Theology, whose object is God. Understanding, then, that we speak of natural knowledge we may say that Logic gives us the ultimate in regard to right mental action; Ontology, in regard to real Being and its primary determinations; Cosmology, in regard to the irrational world; Anthropology, in regard to Man; Theology, in regard to God; Moral Philosophy, in regard to right moral action. Apart, therefore, from its excellence as an instrument of mental discipline and its necessity as a guide in specUlative and practical science, no subject can be worthier of earnest mental effort than this study "Of God, of Nature, and of Human Life."