The Manner of Demonstrating in Natural Philosophy by Melvin A. Glutz, C. P. (review)

:BOOK REVIEWS 865 The Manner of Demonstrating in Natural Philosophy. By MELVIN A. GJLUTZ, C. P. Des Moines, Iowa: St. Gabriel Monastery, 1956. Pp. 196. $3.00. Modern scholastic philosophy is somewhat characterized by two opposing tendencies. The one is largely owing to the role which such philosophy plays in the intellectual formation of seminarians, where philosophical theses are of fundamental importance for the study of sacred theology. This tendency manifests itself in an attempt to synthesize into a concentrated course an entire body of knowledge relating to logic, natural philosophy, ethics and metaphysics, and is seen at its worst in the approach adopted by some scholastic manuals, where all problems are worked out in cut-and-dried fashion, adversaries are disposed of with a few well-chosen words, and philosophy itself is reduced to a system of predigested definitions and syllogistic arguments. The other tendency, obviously reactionary to the first, shows itself in a great concern over problems that have arisen outside the scholastic tradition, and is basically motivated by the desire to build a bridge to modern thought. It utilizes modern terminology and methodological procedures, and although loyal to the fundamental tenets of scholasticism, shuns the stereotyped expression of the manualists as being mere " empty formulas," while searching for a deeper penetration of reality which will throw new light on modern problems. Both tendencies, although understandable in their origins, could well lead to extremist positions detrimental to the well-being and development of scholastic philosophy. Both can be checked by a rediscovery of the philosophical methodology which characterized scholastic philosophy in its golden era, and produced the great syntheses of Albert, Thomas, and the medievals. Fortunately, a good start in the direction of such a rediscovery has recently been offered by Fr. Glutz in his Manner of Demonstrating in Natural Philosophy, a penetrating study of Aristotelian methodology in natural philosophy. Exposing a field which has been sadly neglected since the thirteenth century and is practically unknown to modern scholars, the author presents an antidote to sterile " manual-philosophy " and to present-day dialectical approaches alike, and has thereby made an outstanding contribution to modern scholasticism. Father Glutz's dissertation is written in a simple, unassuming style, and takes its exemplification largely from the natural science of Aristotle, while systematically expounding the doctrine contained in the Posterior Analytics and the second Book of the Physics. The first chapter is a resume of the common teaching on demonstration, after which the author devotes a second chapter to the subject of natural philosophy in order to delineate the scope of his further investigations. Then follows an aU-important third 866 BOOK REVIEWS chapter on certitude and necessity in natural philosophy, in which is presented the basic problem of how a propter quid science of changeable, contingent things is at all possible, and the lines of solution to the problem indicated. The fourth chapter sketches in a general way the manner of demonstrating in natural philosophy, explaining the role of induction and experience, the possibility of demonstrating through all four causes, and the essentially qualitative, causal analysis which is characteristic of Aristotelian natural science. The concluding four chapters then launch into a discussion of specific cases and constitute a highly original study of the whole corpus of Aristotelian natural science, analyzing numerous examples to show how demonstrations through each of the four causes were actually utilized by Aristotle in elaborating his science of nature. The scope of the resulting treatment can be indicated by a mere enumeration of the demonstrations analyzed in Fr. Glutz's work. Those through formal causality range through the proper subject of motion, the spirituality of the human soul, the freedom of the win, the intensity and pitch of musical notes, the nearness of planets, and the nature of ice" The demonstrations through efficient causality are more restricted, treating mainly of topics in meteorology such as the sphericity and waxing of the moon, eclipses, thunder, the falling of leaves, the rainbow, and the rising of the Nile. Under material causality is first discussed a mathematical demonstration, the angle in a semicircle, which has been consistently misunderstood by methodologists; then, on the basis of this analysis, the following demonstrations...