OOSTACKER
259
OPHIR
likewise, presuppose the same foundations. Never-
theless ontology is dependent in the order of analysis,
though not in the order of synthesis, on these depart-
ments of knowledge; it starts from their data and uses
their information in clarifying their presuppositions
and principles. Ontology is accused of dealing with
the merely abstract. But all science is of the abstract,
the universal, not of the concrete and individual. The
physical sciences abstract the various phenomena
from their individual subjects; the mathematical
sciences abstract the quantity — number and dimen-
sions — from its setting. Ontology finally abstracts
what is left — the essence, existence, substance, causalty ,
etc. It is idle to say that of these ultimate abstrac-
tions we can have no distinct knowledge. The very
negation of their knowableness shows that the mind
has some knowledge of that which it attempts to deny.
Ontology simply endeavours to make that rudimen-
tary knowledge more distinct and complete. There is
a thoroughly developed ontology in every course of
Catholic philosophy; and to its ontology that philoso-
phy owes its definiteness and stability, while the lack
of an ontology in other systems explains their vague-
ness and instability.
II. History. — It was Aristotle who first constructed a well-defined and developed ontology. In his " Meta- physics" he analyses the simplest elements to which the mind reduces the world of reaUty. The medieval philosophers make his writings the groundwork of their commentaries in which they not only expand and illustrate the thought, but often correct and enrich it in the light of Revelation. Notable instances are St. Thomas Aquinas and Suarez (1548-1617). The " Dis- putationes Metaphysica;" of the latter is the most thorough work on ontology in any language. The Aristotelean writings and the Scholastic commenta- ries are its groundwork and largely its substance; but it amplifies, and enriches both. The work of Father Harper mentioned below attempts to render it avail- able for EngUsh readers. The author's untimely death, however, left the attempt far from its pros- pected ending. The movement of the mind towards the physical sciences — which was largely stimulated and accelerated by Bacon — carried philosophy away from the more abstract truth. Locke, Hume, and their followers denied the reality of the object of ontology. We can know nothing, they held, of the essence of things; substance is a mental figment, acci- dents are subjective aspects of an unknowable nou- menon; cause is a name for a sequence of phenomena. These negations have been emphasized by Comte, Huxley, and Spencer.
On the other hand the subjective and psychological tendencies of Descartes and his followers dimmed yet more the vision for metaphysical truth. Primary no- tions and principles were held to be either forms innate in the mind or results of its development, but which do not ex-press objective reahty. Kant, analysing the structure of the cognitive faculties — perception, judg- ment, reasoning — discovers in them innate forms that present to reflection aspects of phenomena which ap- pear to be the objective realities, being, substance, cause, etc., but which in truth arc only subjective views evoked by sensory stimuli. The subject matter of ontology is thus reduced to the types which the mind, until checked by criticism, projects into the external world. Between these two extremes of Em- piricism and Idealism the traditional philosophy re- tains the convictions of common sense and the subtle analysis of the Scholastics. Being, essence, truth, sub- stance, accident, cause, and the rest, are words ex- pressing ideas but standing for realities. These reali- ties are objective aspects of the individuals that strike the senses and the intellect. They exist concretely out- side of the mind, not, of course, abstractly as they are within. They are the ultimate elementary notes or forms which the mind intuitively discerns, abstracts,
and reflectively analyses in its endeavour to compre-
hend fundamentally any object. In this reflective
analysis it must employ whatever information it can
obtain from empirical psychology, llntil recently this
latter auxiliary has been insufficiently recognized by
the philosophers. The works, however, of Maher and
Walker mentioned below manifest a just appreciation
of the importance of psychology's co-operation in the
study of ontology.
Catholic; Harper, The Metaphysics of the School (London, 1879-84); De Wulf, Scholasticism Old and New. tr. CoFPET (Dublin, 1907); Perkier, The revival of Scholastic Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century (New York. 1909) (full bibliography); RiCKABY, General Metaphysics (London. 1898); Walker. Theo- ries of Knowledge (London, 1910) ; Maher. Psychology (London. 1903); Balmes, FuridamCTifa; Philosophy (tr., New York. 1864); Turner, History of Philosophy (Boston, 1903) ; Mekcier, Ontologie (Louvain, 1905) ; DoMET de Vorges, Abrege de meta- physique (Paris, 1906); De Regnov, M.i,ir:h,,^„,,ie des causes
(Paris, 1906); Gutberlet, AUgrtt 1/ • ' / it (Munster,
1897); Urraburh, 77is(t(u(t07ies j^/m/. ■ \ Ul:idoUd, 1891) ;
TiLjtSC. Dictionnaire de philosophii {[■: . , ; "
Non-Catholic: McCosh, First u/i.; / i.,. j, .,..,, .'.i; Truths (New York, 1894); Idem, The Intuitions of the Mind (New York, 1880); Ladd, Knowledge, Life and Reality (New York, 1909) ; Taylor, Elements of Metaphysics (London, 1903) ; Windelband, History of Philosophy (tr., New Y'ork, 1901); Baldwin, Didionor!/ of Phi- losophy and Psychology (New Y'ork, 1902) ; Eisler, Worterbuch der philos. Begriffe (Berlin, 1904). F. P. SlEGPRIED.
Oostacker, Shrine of, a miraculous shrine of the Bles.sed Virgin, and place of pilgrimage from Belgium, Holland, and Northern France. It takes its name from a little hamlet two miles from Ghent in the Prov- ince of East Flanders, Belgium. Its origin as a cen- tre of pilgrimage is comparatively recent, dating from 1873. In 1871 the Marquise de Calonne de Courte- bourne had built in the park of her estate at Oostacker an aquarium in the form of an artificial cave or grotto. One day, while on a visit to the park, M. I'abbd RIoreels, the parish priest, suggested that a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes be placed among the rocks. For two years the grotto remained simply an aqua- rium, but gradually the members of the family formed the habit of stopping there to recite a Hail Mary. Soon it was decided to bless the statue publicly. The ceremony took place on 23 June, 1873, and was at- tended by nearly all the inhabitants of the village. The pious Flemish peasants asked permission of the owner to come frequently to the park to give vent to their devotion. Accordingly, access was allowed them on Sunday afternoon. At that time the world was ringing with the fame of Lourdes, and the shrine at Oostacker soon became popular; marvellous graces and wonderful cures were reported. Before long Sun- day afternoon no longer sufficerl to receive the throngs of pilgrims, and the park was thrown open to the pub- lic by the generous owner. Then a large Gothic church was built, the comer-stone being laid on 22 May, 1875, by Mgr Bracq. A priest's house followed, and the marchioness in memory of her son, a deceased Jesuit, confided shrine, church, and house to the Society of Jesus. The fathers took possession on 8 April, 1877, and on 11 September of the same year the Apostolic nuncio, SeraphLno VannutelU, consecrated the church. That part of the estate, in which the grotto was, was now definitively given over to the service of Our Lady, a long avenue being built from the road to the shrine and a Way of the Cross erected. Fully 60,000 pilgrims come annually from Belgium, Holland, and Northern J'rance, in about 450 organized pilgrimages.
PoNCELET, La Compagnie de Jesus en Belgique (Brussels, 1907) ; PHerinages ceUbres aux sanctuaires de Notre Dame (Paris, 1901); Schiehlinck, Lourdes en Ftandre (Ghent, 1874).
J. Wilfrid Parsons.
Ophir, in the Bible, designates a people and a
country.
The people, for whom a Semitic descent is claimed, is mentioned in Gen., x, 29, with the other "sons of Jectan ", whose dwelling " was from Messa as we go on as far as Sehar, a mountain in the east" (Gen., x, 30).
The place Ophir was that from which the Bible
