rerum multiplicioribus invidiam fecerunt, suam vero philosophiam frugalitatis nomine extulerunt. Reales vicissim qui principium illud, mirum entium avaritiam quam tamen natura non amet, in Scholas importasse, simulque; multas interemisse veritates dicti-
tarent, Nominalibus avaritiam probi loco objecerunt." It is possible that Leibnitz, who was only twenty-four in 1670, may have got the notion of connecting Parcimony (or Logical Frugality) with Nominalism, from some earlier expression of opinion by the elder Thomasius.[1] Some of the very words of Thomasius appear in Morhof's Polyhistor (1688), Tom. II. (1), c. 13, p. 75: which is followed in Brucker's History of Philosophy (1766), Tom. III., p. 904, §27.
- (5) Still, even then, nobody connected Ockham in particular, with the newly-accepted Scotist-Nominal formula. That connexion may be dated apparently from 1812; when Tennemann in his Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (§271), wrote of Ockham as following the Rule: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem: without expressly ascribing to him the actual use of the very words. They had not been mentioned in his previous larger History (1810), which had quoted "Frustra fit" in a note on page 851 of band viii. Tennemann's loose anachronistic use of the post-mediaeval formula seems to have misled Ueberweg; and had previously caused misunderstanding in Britain. His
Manual had been translated in 1832 by Rev. Arthur Johnson, from the posthumous edition of 1829 as revised by Wendt. Hamilton never noticed the anachronism, though he reviewed Johnson's translation very severely in the Edinburgh Review of October, 1832. He indeed tacitly adopted it in 1853, after inventing the label Occam's Razor. That label was at first (in 1852) applied by him to the Law of Parcimony in general. Hamilton, moreover, seems to have previously devised that very title, Parcimony, in place of the older Frugality. So far as I can find, it first appeared in his edition of Reid's Works (1846), in a note to Reid's First Essay on the Intellectual Powers (chap. iii., p. 236), and in his Supplementary Note A, §2, p. 751.
- ↑ 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. Franciscus Sylvester Ferrariensis O.P. (+1526) cites 'Frustra fit etc.' (in substance), and ascribes its origin to Aristotle, in his Questions on the Physica: I., Q. 9, p. 35b. He says there: "Quod potest fieri per pauciora, superfluum est, si fiat por plura": and (a few lines lower), "Natura non agit per plura, quod fieri per pauciora potest". The latter seems to be borrowed from Averroes: Comment. de Physico Auditu (Aristotelis). N. 50, on p. 31b of the Latin translation by Jacob Mantinus (Venice, 1574). See also NN. 40 (27c) and 41 (26a).
