William M. Thorburn

“ My note of April, 1915, asking for references to Ockham from readers of Mind, had the same fate as Prof. W. R. Sorley's inquiry in July, 1904 (p. 456) , for the source of T.H. Green's fictitious quotation from Kant [2] (so long beloved of Oxford examiners) : "Macht zwar der Verstand die Natur, aber er schafft sie nicht". There was no response; and, I venture to think, for the same reason. The earliest use of the popular phrase, which I had then lighted upon, occurs in an Inaugural Dissertation by Leibnitz in 1670: De Stylo Philosophico Marii Nizolii, §28 (De Secta Nominalium) . ”

“ The value of this warning has just now received signal illustration from the very recent discovery of Chemical Isotopes; which has proved (e.g.) , that what had previously been simply called "lead" is infinitely complex in its composition. ”

“ In the First, the paging leaps from 383 to 400: 386 thus becoming 402. ↑ Thomasius says obscurely of "Entia non etc." (loc. cit.) : "Quod a Ferrariensibus discimus, frequentissime Nominalea usurpasse". But I cannot find any mention of collaborate Ferrarienses (like the Salmanticenses and Conimbricenses) in any work of reference. Brucker (Hist. Phil., III., 866) classifies Hieronymus Fantonus (or Fontanus) de Ferrariis O.P. (+1532) as a Nominalis, but this Grand Inquisitor's Repertorium Scoti (or Loci Communes) contains no allusion to the Law of Parcimony in any form. ”

“ Andrews (†1540) , each of whom has been called, "The Last of the Schoolmen," are satisfied with their Master's Pluralitas or Frustra fit. [3] Reference may be made for the German, to his In Sententias, iii., D. 3, Q. 2, N. 4 (Conclusio 1) , or (for applications) to i., D. 26, Q. 1, A. 1 (Conclusio 3) . And for the Scot, to his Logica (1516) , Tractatus Primus Summularum, folio 28, col. 4.
7. On the other hand, De Wulf might have said with perfect accuracy, that Scotus, no less than Ockham, accepts and systematically applies the Law of Parcimony ”

“ De Wulf in §335 accuses Duns Scotus of: "creating fictitious, misleading, and superfluous beaconlights, - in defiance of a precept which he himself pretended to approve of: entia non sunt multiplicanda præter necessitatem". But he gives no reference, and I cannot find the formula anywhere in the text of the Subtle Doctor's writings. It appears substantially indeed in Wadding's edition (1639) , tom. ”

“ He selects: "Frustra fit per plura, quod potest fieri per pauciora": as distinctive of Ockham in this connexion. So did the earlier historian Tenneman: Geschichte der Philosophie, p. 851 in band viii. (1810) . In England this phrase even became a legal maxim: as we may see in Wingate's Maxims of Reason (1658) , no. ”

“ He, like Aristotle and Francis Bacon, "took all knowledge to be his province".
3. Ueberweg indeed, whose History of Philosophy was first published in 1863 (ten years after the revised edition of Hamilton's Discussions in 1853) , said in §16 of his second volume (§104 of the English translation by Morris and Porter) : "William of Occam founds his rejection of Realism on the principle; Entia non sunt multplicanda præter necessitatem. He combats the realising and hypostatising of abstractions (Sufficiunt Singularia, etc.) ": p. ”