Occam. The "Tractatus" is divided into three parts. The first part treats of terms, definition, division, the categories, and the nominalist theory of universals; the second of propositions; and the third of syllogisms and fallacies. Each part is subdivided into chapters; and the whole treatise is developed with singular clearness and power. The name of Occam is now popularly associated with the struggle of Realism with the nominalist neology of the fourteenth century, which takes so conspicuous a place in the civil and ecclesiastical, as well as in the literary history of that period. What has been called Nominalism was not then indeed entirely new. More than two centuries before a similar doctrine was taught at Paris by Roscelinus, and recommended to his crowded audience by the eloquence of Abelard. What was then a philosophical paradox failed, however, to secure general acceptance, and was forgotten in the din of Thomist and Scotist controversy, in which both parties were partisans of the dominant Realism. The heresy of Abelard was revived, and pressed into its consequences with more logical energy than ever, by the Invincible Doctor of the fourteenth century. The dispute soon agitated the French, German, and English universities. It was felt to be vitally connected with the favourite and traditional forms of theological thought of that age. The civil rulers of France and Germany took part in the contest. The Emperor Louis of Bavaria rewarded Occam for his literary assistance in the controversy with the pope by associating himself with the Nominalists; and the French king, taking part with the Realists, subjected their antagonists to a severe persecution. The reality of Universals, or their independence of the conscious act, was the recognized assumption of the philosophy of that age. Universal essences were the idols of the schools. Occam was the great iconoclast. Universals with him are only modes of thought; ideas are modes of consciousness, and not real things. There is nothing intermediate between them and individuals. Universals are only words, which, by general consent, represent the many in their own formal unity. Demonstrative science is only nominal, the creature of human notions, of which the Real is quite independent. The so-called real ideas or universal substances may be accounted for, according to Occam, by the process of abstraction, by means of which the mind ranges objects in classes, and represents the classes by symbols. This common-sense rationalism seemed, at the point of view of that age, to make scientific knowledge impossible, and to remove the very foundations of faith. In Occam was seen the patron of scepticism. If ideas are not real and substantial, wherein does science differ from mere empiricism? where is absolute certainty to be found? If our inability to rationalize universal entities is a sufficient reason for their rejection, what defence can be offered for the most sacred mysteries of the faith? At this point of view the controversy is seen to run deep, and we cannot here follow it further. Occam, indeed, withdraws his logic from the awful mystery of the Divine Being. The sphere of the logician he limits to the finite, and forbids him to attempt to rationalize the Infinite and Eternal. Of God in his essential nature, man, he says, can form no adequate conception. Our notion of the Supreme cannot adequately represent its object, although it is the highest which human understanding can entertain. In the unfinished philosophy of Occam, we find many anticipations of later doctrines—some promulgated by his countrymen Hobbes and Locke, and others, matters of discussion in our own generation; while, when we look back, we see that the iron logic and unconquerable will of the Invincible Doctor render him, in the history of opinion, the conspicuous figure of the century in which he lived.—A. C. F.
OCCLEVE See Hoccleve.
OCELLUS, Lucanus, a Pythagorean philosopher of Lucania in Italy. He is supposed to have lived about 500 b.c. Several treatises were ascribed by antiquity to Ocellus, and one small work entitled "On the Nature of the Air" is still extant. It is written in the Ionic dialect, and consists chiefly in speculations on cosmogony. There is a translation into English by Thomas Taylor, 1831. Modern criticism, however, has clearly shown that this treatise, so far from being a genuine relic of Ocellus, cannot even have been composed by a Pythagorean.—G.
OCHINO, Bernardino, an eminent Italian reformer, was born at Sienna in 1487. After receiving an imperfect education he joined the order of St. Francis, and in 1534 he attached himself to the Capuchins, who had separated themselves from the Franciscans in 1525, in order to practise a more stringently ascetic discipline. Soon after he began to draw attention by his powers as a popular preacher. In 1536 he preached at Naples, where Charles V. on hearing him remarked, "This man could move the very stones." Here he made the acquaintance of the Spanish reformer Juan Valdez, and of Peter Martyr Vermigli, and soon after began to fall under suspicion of heresy. As the suspicion, however, was suggested rather by his omitting to preach upon certain subjects than by the doctrines which he actually proclaimed, it did not hinder his being appointed, in 1538, general of the Capuchin order, or his being chosen by Pope Paul III. to be his confessor. He was regarded in fact as an eminent saint of the Roman church; Cardinal Bembo confessed to him, he said, as he would have done to Christ himself. The churches where he preached could not contain the multitudes who flocked to hear him. At last, however, his convictions of evangelical truth impelled him to condemn publicly the proceedings of the inquisition against the Lutherans; he was cited to appear at Rome; and falling in at Florence on his way to Rome with Peter Martyr, who was himself at that moment in flight from Italy, he was induced to follow his example. The desertion of these two eminent preachers made a profound sensation in Italy, and the pope had thoughts for some time of suppressing on Ochino's account the whole Capuchin order. Ochino fled to Geneva, where he was welcomed by Calvin, and became preacher to the numerous Italian exiles who had preceded and who followed him in his flight to that city. Calvin speaks of him in a letter to Farel, October, 1543, as a man in every sense great—Vir magnus omnibus modis. Here he published six small volumes of sermons, "Prediche," 1542-44, which were intended to operate upon his countrymen in Italy, and were afterwards translated into French, German, and English. In 1545 he removed to Augsburg, where he became pastor of an Italian congregation, and continued to labour till 1547, when the violent imposition of the Interim by Charles V. made it necessary for him to leave. He repaired to Strasburg, where he again met with his friend Martyr, and was invited soon after by Cranmer to accompany the latter to England, where he became minister of the Italian refugees in London. At the accession of Mary he was compelled to return to the continent, and settling at Zurich as pastor of the exiles of Locarno, he lived on terms of intimacy with Bullinger and the other divines of that city. At this period, however, he began to manifest unregulated speculative tendencies, and to enter into suspicious associations, which created uneasiness among his friends. He was fond of the conversation of Castalio and Lelio Sozzini, and several publications from his pen indicated a disposition to unsettle men's minds, rather than to build them up and confirm them in the faith. This was particularly the character of his "XXX. Dialogi in duos libros divisi," 1563. One of these dialogues was on the subject of the Trinity, and another on polygamy, in both of which he appeared to state the argument more strongly on the side of error than of truth. Beza warned Bullinger against the bad tendency of the book; Bullinger took alarm, and the magistrates of Zurich demanded of the ministers of the city their judgment of the work. That judgment was condemnatory, and Ochino was at once banished from the city. Rejected also from Basle and Mühlhausen, he sought refuge in Nürnberg, then in Cracow, but found rest at last only in the grave. He died at Schlackau in Moravia in the beginning of 1565. He is regarded as one of the founders of modern antitrinitarianism. His countryman Zanchi wrote largely against him as such, and Beza employed his pen against his polygamistic views. He was a man of great parts, but his learning was superficial, and his habit of thought rather impulsive than circumspect and profound—forming in this respect a strong contrast to his friend Vermigli. It was only when the check which the sound judgment of the latter put upon his wayward intellectual tendencies was removed by death, that Ochino gave full scope to his daring genius.—P. L.
OCHTERLONY, Sir David, Major-general, first baronet, a distinguished Anglo-Indian officer, was the son of a Boston (U.S.) gentleman, and was born in 1758. At eighteen he went to India as a cadet, and literally fought his way up in the army. In 1803 he was a lieutenant-general, and deputy adjutant-general under Lord Lake, after whose successful campaign of that year he was appointed resident at Delhi. In 1814 he was a major-general, and commanded a division of the army in the wars with Nepaul. His operations were much the most successful of the campaign; and appointed to the chief command, he skilfully
