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1909 Nov 4 AM 1 Significs & LOGIC 6
learning. The universities were in church hands, and approved the new learning. The Greeks Constantinopolitans and their disciples knew nothing of logic or metaphysics, but finding the obscurantists of the universities were Dunces, - that is, followers of Duns, men whose subtile reasonings they were utterly unable to cope with, -- they naturally struck hands with the only enemy adversaries of the great Duns analyst who dared to enter the lists of controversy with his disciples; and these were the Nominalists. They the promoters of the revival accordingly adopted the Nominalist opinion, -- in words: for they never gave thought enough to the subject to know what is was to which they were assenting; Having and having given their assent, they dropped the whole distasteful subject; for to these mere enjoyers of literature, severe reasoning, especially upon abstract subjects, was a pain that they lacked the fortitude to
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1909 Nov 4 AM 9:45 Significs & LOGIC 7
endure. The philosophers who followed them really never went into the question; but one and all have ever since been bred in Nominalism, and never seriously questioned it; and only disputed between a more and a less extreme form of the doctrine. Thus, the whole modern world has remained Nominalistic, in spite of the fact that Nominalism is flatly opposed to some most of the best founded results of modern science; and it is a curious instance of the force of tradition, that when a man discovers this, he will usually give up abandon, not the Nominalism, for which he can give no evidence whatsoever, but will try to modify his scientific belief so as to fancy he has made room for Nominalism. What is Nominalism? Is is the doctrine that nothing real is general usually stated in the form,, 'Nothing "General" is Real'. But what do these two words mean? The words
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1909 Nov 4 AM 10:45 Significs & LOGIC 8
"Real", besides its Metaphysical meani sense, is used in a legal way, as when we speak of "real" property; and that legal use, which is far older than the one that here concerns us, is so utterly unrelated to the latter, being derived from a different sense of res, that it ought and should I think to be considered as a different word. At any rate, we have nothing to do with it. As for the metaphysical word realis, I have a strong impression that I have met with it in Alexander of [Thales?] or Albertus Magnus, or some of the earlier XIIIth century scholastics; but it certainly remained an unfamiliar extremely unusual expression until Duns Scotus took it up and used it so constantly that its convenience was forced upon the attention of every scholar in the University of Paris or in that of Oxford; and so it passed into the English and French of everyday life. Many persons I think I may say most use it familiarly
