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 Thomas the universe is a perfect animal organism, wherein all the parts are held together in a most intimate union and relation by the soul; whereas to Scotus it is only a vegetable organism, as he himself expresses it, whose different members spring from a common root, but branch out in different directions; to the Nominalist, however, it is merely a mass of atoms arbitrarily heaped together. These general differences of mode of conception manifest themselves in almost all the particular differences of doctrine.

III. About the beginning of the fourteenth century the classical and creative period of mediaeval scholasticism came to a close. In the two following centuries no real progress was made. The acquisitions gained in the period of prosperity were reproduced and elaborated to meet the hypercritical and destructive attacks made at this time both on the teaching and the public action of the Church. Nominalism springing from, or at least occasioned by Scotism (partly as an exaggeration of its critical tendencies, partly as a reaction against its realism), destroyed the organic character of the revealed doctrines and wasted its energies in hair-splitting subtlety. Pierre Aureole (Aureolus, a Frenchman, d. 1321) led the way and was followed by the rebellious William of Occam (d. 1347), who was educated at Oxford and at Paris. Both of these were disciples of Scotus. Oxford now almost disputed the pre-eminence with Paris. St. Edmund of Canterbury (d. 1242) had introduced there the study of Aristotle, and his great follower was Roger Bacon, a Franciscan (d. 1292), the author of the Opus Majus, the true Novum Organum of science. The Oxford Friars, especially the Franciscans, attained a high reputation throughout Christendom. Besides St. Edmund and Roger Bacon, the university claimed as her children Richard Middleton, William Ware, William de la Marre, Duns Scotus, Occam, Grosteste, Adam Marsh, Bungay, Burley, Archbishop Peckham, Bradwardine, Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, Thomas Netter (Waldensis), and the notorious Wyclif.

Many of the theologians present at the councils of Constance and Basle, notably Pierre d’ Ailly (Alliacensis, d. 1425),