Philosophy and Writings. — Occam introduced no new principles into philosophy. He did introduce a new spirit. The tenets on which his system rested had all been advocated before. He rocombined previous opin- ions, and placed them in a new and clearer light. He was not an Eclectic, though there is something of eclec- ticism in his procedure. He has habitually been rep- resented as the restorer of nominalism. This has recent- ly been denied, and too strenuously denied. Individ- ual Nominalists may, indeed, be found among his im- mediate predecessors and older contemporaries, but they were few and unnoted among the multitude of Kealists — rari nantes in rptryite vasto. Occam rendered nomi- nalism again a power in the realm of speculation : it became dominant in liis hands, and thenceforward con- tinued to advance in public regard till it introduced a general tendency to rationalism. The Nominalists who follow him and issue from his school may not blaze as brilliantly as earlier philosophers of the Middle Ages, because scholasticism itself was smitten with a slow de- cay by the procedure adopted by the Venerahilis Incep- tor ; and speculation was directed into other and broader chamiels by his impulse. It is a grave misapprehension to accuse the great schoolmen of wasting their powers over vain and abstract disputations. In their most rar- efied abstractions thc\' comprehended the urgent prob- lems of the time, though it is with ditficulty that our hasty glance can now discern, in their dry light, the vital issues of the hour. They clothed them in the cos- tume of the day, and the fashions have entirely changed. We can recognise the more obviously practical discus- sions of Occam and his successors, and their rapid move-
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ment in the direction of modern thought. If Occam was the last of the great sclioohnen, he was the lierald of the intelk'Ctual revohition wliich produced the mod- ern world. Wliat was most distinctive in his specula- tions was his statement of older theses in the language and lorms of the Byzantine Logic, latelj' introduced to the admiration of the ^^'est by the tSKmimihc of Fetrus Hispanus. Witli tlie Byzantines he preceded Locke in recognising and exhibiting the close coherence between logic and grammar; he preceded Hobbes in regarding words as nothing more than the counters of thought — as voces hypothetice reprmsentivte, rather than as voces essentialiter sir/nijicn/ica ; he preceded Hume, though employing different terms and ascending to higher alti- tudes, in insisting upon the wide ditference between impressions and ideas. These anticipations display both the modern habitudes of his mind and his sceptical or antidogmatic tendency. Even a more notable charac- teristic of his philosoph}' was his straightforward, un- equivocating application of his doctrine and dialectics to the questions which rent the spiritual and the secu- lar society of his century. If he assailed his master. Duns Scotus, and the Kealists, he attacked, with less restraint, popes, hierarchs, and synods, and vulgar er- rors in both theology and government. "In all the struggles, disputes, and controversies, political, ecclesi- astical, and theological, with emperor, pope, and uni- versities, Occam was the chief actor. He thrust him- self into every European strife, the biggest, burliest figure — a man who never seemed able to get enough of fighting. He has put into clear and authoritative words every great question which men were dumbly or inar- ticulately striving to express; and the whole life of his age centres in him, and is mirrored in his conduct." In the opening of his career he stood by the side of the haughty and tyrannical Philip le Bel of France, in the defence of temporal sovereignty, against the usurpations of the more haughty and imperious Boniface VIII. In the closing years of his life he maintained with equal resolution the cause of the empire, in the fierce duel be- tween Louis of Bavaria and the popes John XXII. Ben- edict XII, and Clement VI. In the interval between these congruous extremes he stubbornly insisted upon the strict observance of the vows of his order, advocated apostolical destitution with extravagant vigor, and de- nounced the immoralities of popes, papal courts, and clergy. Excommunicated, he disregarded excommu- nication, and lived under the sternest papal commina- tion, perhaps dying without care for its removal. It will thus be seen how much more prominent and potent was the action of Occam than his theoretical specula- tions. His public course, however, grew necessarily out of his philosophy and dialectics, in combination with the sincere and unswerving temper of the man.
Unfortunately, Occam's writings are almost inacces- sible, and can scarcely be found outside of the rich re- positories of mediaeval lore and medi;eval thought in monastic libraries, or in libraries plundered from mo- nastic collections. They have not been revealed to our long research, and we derive our imperfect knowl- edge, through many successions, from others. Before the middle of the 17th century Naud.-cus lamented the prospect that '■ the followers of Occam would be eternal- ly denied the sight of his works," and declared that " the hope was alinost lost of ever seeing them printed." They had been printed a century and a half before, but had become as rare as manuscripts. They may have been consumed in the fires and popular excesses of the Reformation ; but their character was calculated to con- sign them to early obscurity. Occam gave an impulse to the times, which enabled ensuing generations to leave him neglected on the strand— "st at /ndf/iii 7wminis nm- bni." We must note, with such second-hand materials as are available, the most striking opinions of Occam.