"Newman possessed a copy of one of Joseph Kleutgen's works, La Philosophie Scholastique..marked...noted: 'Formalism inconceivably absurd to the modern mind; i.e. Occam. Nominalism highly plausible.'" (64)

Newman possessed a copy of one of Joseph Kleutgen's works, La Philosophie Scholastique and he had marked the first volume at a section noting the two extremes in solving the problem of universal concepts and had noted: "Formalism inconceivably absurd to the modern mind; i.e. Occam. Nominalism highly plausible." ⁽⁶⁴⁾ 

64. Cf. Edward Sillem, The Philosophical Notebook of John Henry Newman I, 240. Cf. also The Theological Papers of John Henry Newman on Faith and Certainty, 56: "A very difficult question arises whether the subject of ideas comes directly into the province of Logic. Or, in other words, whether names of terms stand for ideas or for things. It will be said that ideas and things go together, and therefore the question is unimportant - but there is the case in which there is, or is imagined, an idea without a thing, that is, the case of Universals - Accordingly those then on the side of Things against Ideas, say that there are not universal ideas; and a controversy ensues which is nothing else than a portion of the old scholastic controversy, between the Nominalists, Realists and Conceptionists." Of this controversy Newman says: "It is usual with Catholic writers to take the part of Universals - and in consequence to take the part of Ideas against Things. My own long habit has been the same - and it is difficult for me for that reason to do otherwise, but I confess the onus probandi is with those who maintain Universals, and it is difficult to prove their necessity - and taking that question away, it certainly does seem more simple and natural to say the words stand for things." https://lonergan.org/online_books/Liddy/chapter_two_john_henry_newman.htm#N_64_]