40 VITALISM AND SCHOLASTICISM 



the Scholastic Philosophy Thomism, if you 

 like is in a sense the official philosophy of the 

 Church, and more than ever so since the pub- 

 lication of Leo XIII. 's Encyclical, Aeterni 

 Patris, and that many explanations of Catholic 

 dogmata are closely wrapped up with its 

 methods and nomenclature. Hence it is un- 

 likely that it will ever cease to be the official 

 philosophy, but it would be quite incorrect to 

 suppose that it has not had and, in some eyes, 

 still has rivals such as the Augustinian, which 

 in some matters departs considerably from the 

 Thomistic, and the Rosminian which, however, 

 never met with such acceptance as the others 

 just named, and was condemned in 1887 by 

 the Holy Office. Further, there were the 

 Scotists or Franciscans of the 14th and later 

 centuries. For several centuries Cartesianism 

 was quite common in the Church. The Suares- 

 ian interpretation of St Thomas, adopted com- 

 monly by the Jesuits, is another form of philo- 

 sophy accepted within the Church. 



Having made this distinction clear, we may 

 now turn to consider what scholastic philo- 

 sophy does teach about Vitalism, since that 

 teaching has been so much ignored and mis- 

 understood by certain writers. As the object 

 of this book is in part to set forth the relations 

 between modern ideas on the subject it deals 



