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THE "SUMMA THEOLOGICA"

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ENCYCLICAL OF LEO XIII. xxvii<br />

praise, and admiration even from the enemies of tile Catholic<br />

name. It is well known that there have not been wanting<br />

heresiarchs who openly said that, if the doctrine of Thomas<br />

Aquinas could only be got rid of, they could 'easily give<br />

battle to other Catholic Doctors, and overcome them, and<br />

so scatter the Church.' A vain hope indeed, but no vain<br />

testimony !<br />

For these reasons, Venerable Brothers, so often as We<br />

look at the goodness, the force, and the exceedingly great<br />

usefulness of that philosophical doctrine in which our fathers<br />

took such delight, We judge that it has been rashly done<br />

when this doctrine has not always, and everywhere, been<br />

held in its own rightful honour. Especially do We judge<br />

this to be the case, since it is plain that long use and the<br />

judgment of the greatest men, and, what is more than all,<br />

the consent of the Church, have favoured the Scholastic<br />

method. Here and there a certain new kind of philosophy<br />

has taken the place of the old doctrine ; and because of this,<br />

men have not gathered those desirable and wholesome fruits<br />

which the Church and civil society itself could have wished.<br />

The aggressive innovators of the sixteenth century have<br />

not hesitated to philosophize without any regard whatever<br />

to the Faith, asking, and conceding in return, the right to<br />

invent anything that they can think of, and anything that<br />

they please. From this it quickly foUowed, of course, that<br />

systems of philosophy were multiplied beyond all reason,<br />

and that there sprang up conflicting opinions and diverse<br />

opinions even about some of the chief things which are<br />

within human knowledge. From a multitude of opinions<br />

men very often pass to uncertainty and doubt ; while there<br />

is no one who does not see how easily their minds glide from<br />

doubt into error.<br />

But, since man is drawn by imitation, we have seen these<br />

novelties lay hold of the minds of some Catholic philosophers,<br />

who, undervaluing the inheritance of ancient wisdom, have<br />

chosen rather to invent new things than to extend and<br />

perfect the old by new truths, and that certainly with unwise<br />

counsel, and not without loss to science ; for such a manifold

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