OF THE SCHOOL BY THOMAS HARPER S. J. VOL. II. οὐ γάρ τι νῦν γε κἀχθὲς, ἀλλ ̓ ἀεί ποτε London MACMILLAN AND CO. 1881 [All rights reserved] PREFACE. THE author thinks it necessary to remind his readers that the Scholastic doctrine touching the genesis and constitution of material substances necessarily includes a consideration of the efficient cause, without which it cannot be completely understood. This important Chapter in the Book on Causes will occupy the greater part of the next Volume; not only because it is fruitful of important metaphysical questions, but likewise because it offers the most appropriate place for considering the harmony that exists between the metaphysics of the School and the latest physical discoveries. He takes occasion to notice an error which has inadvertently been allowed to appear in the first Volume. It occurs in the sixty-fifth Proposition, (Book III, Ch. ii, art. 4, p. 347). An illustration is there given, as follows: 'In like manner, water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen; a Mode is, consequently, required for the combination of these two, in order to the evolution of a new substantial Form. The statement in Italics is not true; since the combination is the evolution of the form of water and the corruption of the oxygen and hydrogen. A mode is, therefore, neither necessary nor possible. There are two clerical errors in the same Volume, which might cause perplexity. In p. 204, l. 9, 'perfection' should be 'perception'; and in the same page, 1. 25, 'division' should be 'indivision.' |