INTRODUCTION XXV 



de PhUosophie, or Ecole saint Thomas d'Aquin. Outlining the 

 program of the Institut, Msgr, Mereier said, " The science of 

 today is above all a science of the most exact individual re- 

 search. . . . Let us train, in greater numbers, men who will 

 devote themselves to science for itself, without any aim that is 

 professional or directly apologetic, men who will work at first 

 hand in fashioning the materials for the edifice of science." The 

 new Institut was to be a center of study and research where 

 work would be done on " science in the making." Msgr. Mereier 

 accepted the tripartite division of speculative knowledge ex- 

 plained by St. Thomas: natural philosophy, mathematics and 

 metaphysics. Natural philosophy and experimental science 

 constituted a unified discipline of mind, quite distinct from 

 metaphysics. But, as Mereier expressed it, Thomistic natural 

 philosophy seeks ' ultimate ' causes (projiter quid) , while ex- 

 perimental science seeks ' proximate ' causes (quia) . Mercier's 

 distinction, which was accepted by his distinguished associates, 

 Michotte and Nys, is still found in many modem manuals of 

 scholastic philosophy. 



The influence of Mereier was very great, both at Louvain and 

 elsewhere. The example of Louvain was soon followed by the 

 Catholic institutes and universities of Munich, Milan, Paris, 

 Cologne, Miinster, Fribourg, Nijmegen, the " Gregorian," the 

 " Angelicum " and the Catholic University of America. 



After the death of Cardinal Mereier in 1926, a number of 

 Louvain professors under the inspiration of Femand Renoirte 

 have come to see a sharp distinction between the non-causal 

 explanations of modern science and the causal explanations of 

 Thomistic philosophy. For them St. Thomas' natural philoso- 

 phy seems to be of the metaphysical order and different from 

 the technique of modern science. In effect, this was a return 

 to the Wolffian conception of philosophy, although today it is 

 presented as the authentic teaching of St. Thomas. Alumni of 

 Louvain have made this view widely known in the Netherlands 

 and in the United States. According to this view the philosophy 

 of nature is a metaphysical study, differing essentially from the 



