ABSTRACT
'Sovereignty of the Object' can only repose on an overcoming and in no wise on a brushing aside of the subjectivities. 'Sovereignty of the Object' can only be exercised over a Subject that has been brought up to full receptivity towards it, not over a subject that has vanished—the philosophizing mind cannot know truth except as set against a background of error. Intellectual humility is humility before the Object alone, and before proven authorities in so far only as they offer channels of communication with the Object; it is incompatible with the pride taken in 'belonging' to a privileged circle of intellectual 'initiates' and indeed with any concept of an esoteric 'science'. This chapter degenerates a kind of parrot-like learning by rote of texts and formula-including 'demonstrations', 'solutions of difficulties', ways of 'disposing of objections'-is not something inherent in the doctrine and is entirely contrary to the intentions of the leading and serious sponsors of Thomism, however 'strict' or fanatical.
