The Elements of Intellectual Philosophy

THE author who should attempt to write a book on the elements of intellectual philosophy should in our opinion strictly attend to, and be guided by, the following principles, which have reference to the language, to the style, and to the matter of the book. I. The book should be written in English. The matter treated of in philosophy is hard enough to understand, even by the brightest intellect which just comes from the study of belles-lettres, fascinated by the matchless beauties of the ancients clothed in the finest language, to undertake to master hard, dry things, without flesh and blood, but abstract and immaterial. Now, to present such things in a foreign language is to render the difficulty of apprehending them unnecessarily greater, and to heighten the aversion which young minds naturally feel for abstract ideas. It is like covering a beautiful painting with a double veil. For language, after all, is a veil which covers the idea. Now, if you clothe an idea in language foreign to the student, no matter how well he may be supposed to know it, you oblige him, in order to look at the idea, first to uncover the veil of the foreign language to make room for the veil of his own native language, and then to catch the idea. In other words, you oblige the student first to translate into his own language, and then to grasp the matter. In the second place, to write a book on the elements of philosophy in the Latin language is to confine the study of this most necessary science only to those who have gone through a classical course; whereas we know by sad experience how necessary and how important it is for all our young men to be imbued with proper, true philosophical principles, to the absence of which we may attribute all the errors and evils which afflict society. With regard to the style, of course it must be of a didactic nature-that if-, brief and concise, but above all perfectly clear. Nor would we be averse now and then, when the occasion presents itself, from changing the nature of the style for one a little more pleasing and attractive, so as to lighten the difficulty and mix the useful with the sweet. Finally, with regard to the matter, a book of elementary philosophy should contain nothing but the doctrine. received by the best and greatest of Christian schools, the doctrine most received in the Church, that upon which the Huly See has. Always looked upon with marked and never-ceasing partiality.