Mozley: A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of

236 Scholastic Theory CHAP. ix.
tions, and expands them with argumentative subtlety and
power. And the vast amount of statements and positions
which his mind includes and thus expands and treats argumentatively
is surprising ; showing a truly enormous grasp
and capacity, somewhat analogous to that of a great states
man, who, without penetrating far below or aiming at a
deeper understanding of the particular subjects and ques
tions presented to his consideration than he practically
wants, embraces an immense quantity of such particulars ;
all of which he treats argumentatively and is ready to
discuss, and come to a conclusion and decision upon them.
The argumentative edifice, however, of Aquinas, for want
of this later and inward attitude of mind, shows deep
deficiencies ; and especially that great vice of the scholastic
intellect distinguishing without a difference ; a fault which
arises from accepting the superficial meaning of statements,
or the words themselves, without going into their real
meaning, which would often show that different words really
meant the same thing.
Taking Aquinas, therefore, as the representative of
medieval Augustinianism, I shall endeavour in this and
the following chapter to give an account of his system so
far as it touches on the particular subject of the present
a
treatise. The examination will disclose some forms of
thought and modes of arguing with which a modern mind
will not sympathise, but to which it will rather appeal as
showing how differently the intellect of man reasons in
different
ages, and how the received thought of one period
becomes quaint and obsolete in another. The system,
however, will be found as a whole to rest upon some broad
and common assumptions, which have always formed, and
always will form, an important portion of the basis of
human opinion.
The doctrine of predestination, then, in the system of
Aquinas, rests mainly on philosophy, and rises upon the
idea of the Divine Power. This fundamental position was
laid down, this
religious axiom stated with jealous exactness
and the most scientific strength of language, and the rest
was deduced by way of logical consequence from it. God