SIGNIFICANCE OF THE UNIVERSAL " UT NUNC " 33 



Tentatively we must go beyond what we know, starting from 

 hints, as it were, and then proceeding from what we have 

 posited as if it were true. It is as if, to move on, our mind 

 must come to rest, provisionally, in a myth, a verisimilitude, 

 and even in strictly logical fictions. But it must do so wittingly, 

 which is what it does in fact by recognizing the type of uni- 

 versality we are concerned with here as being no more than 

 ut nunc. 



As we get closer to things in their concretion, the universals 



that a defect of much scholastic philosophy, especially in the manual form, has 

 consisted in treating so many things as falling under dici de omni absolutely and 

 as though subject to rigorous demonstration. The great scholastics, however, were 

 never under such illusion. St. Albert, for instance, especially with respect to the sort 

 of knowledge we have in the investigation of nature, says the following: 



" It is plain, then, from what has been pointedly considered in natural things, 

 that every definition or notion of natural forms is conceived with matter, which is 

 subject to motion or change or to both; and it must therefore be conceived with 

 time inasmuch as time is in the temporal thing. Because of this, much opinion is 

 involved in this sort of knowing, so that it cannot attain to the firm, constant and 

 necessary habit of science, as Ptolemy says." After contrasting the " doctrinal 

 sciences (mathematics) with such knowledge, St. Albert adds: ". . . the habits 

 acquired by the speculative intellect have been given the name of true science, and 

 are called doctrinal and teachable; and the reason is that they are taught from 

 unchanging principles, which the disciple receives from the teacher by sheer notifi- 

 cation of the terms, without need of experience, as Aristotle says in Book IV, but 

 by the teacher's simple demonstration the intellect of the disciple comes to rest; 

 hence it is that adolescents, without experience, can so often excel in these matters — 

 something which is in no way possible in the natural sciences, where experience is 

 of far greater account than doctrine by demonstration." In I Metaph., Tract. I, 

 cap. 1, (Borgnet, VI) pp. 1-2. 



(Constat autem ex his quae subtiliter in naturis considerata sunt, omnem difRni- 

 tionem aut rationem formarum phj-^sicarum conceptam esse cum materia, quae motui 

 subjacet, aut mutationi, aut utrique; et ideo concipi oportet cam cum tempore 

 secundum quod tempus est in re temporali. Propter quod etiam id quod scitur de 

 hujusmodi, multum miscetur opinioni, et pertingere non potest ad confirmatum 

 constantem et necessarium scientiae habitum, sicut dicit Ptolemaeus. . . . habitus 

 per speculativum intellectum adepti verae scientiae nomen acceperunt, et doctrinales 

 et disciplinales vocantur, ideo quia ex principiis non mutantibus quae discipulus a 

 magistro non accepit nisi per terminorum notitias, docentur, experientia non indi- 

 gentes, ut dicit Aristoteles libro quarto, sed simplici demonstratione doctoris 

 constante intellectu discipuli: propter quod etiam juvenes inexperti ut plurimum 

 magis excellunt in ipsis: quod nullo modo possible fuit in physicis speculabilibus, 

 in quibus experientia multo plus confert quam doctrina per demonstrationem) . 



