THE CHALLENGE TO THE TRADITIONAL IDEAL OF SCIENCE 467 



herent doctrine of science is possible; and metaphysics is, in 

 essence, a scientific elaboration of our natural insight into the 

 nature and properties of being. If we wish to further the resto- 

 ration of metaphysics, and by the aid of that supreme science 

 to defend the proper hierarchy of the sciences and to indicate 

 their nature and extent, we must emphasize the difference be- 

 tween the process of generalization, by which the logical con- 

 cept of being is obtained, and the genuinely metaphysical 

 process, quite distinct from ordinary abstraction, by which the 

 full and rich ontological content of being is grasped. To see 

 being, grasped in this way, as the primary object of all our 

 thought, and the source of the intelligibility of all that we can 

 know, allows us to distinguish and to order the various forms 

 of knowing of which we are capable, while preserving their 

 specifically distinct natures and procedures, all realising, in 

 different ways, the common analogical notion of science. 



The contemporary Thomist should be attentive to trends in 

 modern science that recall the traditional notion, and to those 

 movements in modem philosophy that defend the autonomy 

 and necessity of metaphysics. He can find much in such ten- 

 dencies that may aid him in his efforts to re-build and make 

 acceptable the grandiose medieval synthesis; and he is admir- 

 ably equipped to perceive where so many theories fail, or 

 adverse criticisms miss the mark. With regard to the problem 

 of science, he notes that the traditional notion is attached both 

 on the side of its principles and of its factual basis. The exist- 

 ence of universally valid principles is questioned both by the 

 Formalists and the Relativists; on the factual side we find a 

 reluctance to grant more than statistic probability. Formalism 

 and relativism can be adequately met only by showing how all 

 our knowledge and all principles are grounded on the knowl- 

 edge of being, and share in the objectivity and certainty of such 

 knowledge. In this connection one might use to great advan- 

 tage the concrete approaches to being characteristic of the 

 Existentialists, the eidetic intuition of the Phenomenologists, 

 and join hands with the mathematical Intuitionists who seek to 

 trace out the order in which our primitive mathematical con- 



