Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/304

 Towards the end of the century, however, the reaction begins, and comes from two distinct sources. On one side Pomponat lectured at Padua on the de anima, but interprets it by the aid of Alexander of Aphrodisias and discards Averroes, setting forth his doctrines in the form of essays instead of the time-honoured commentary on the Aristotelian text. From this time (circ. 1495) the university of Padua was divided into two factions, the Averroists and the Alexandrians. Pomponat was at the same time a representative of more distinctly rationalist theories, towards which the Italian mind was then tending. It was not that Alexander was more difficult to reconcile with the Christian faith than Averroes, but that those whose scepticism was inclined to be more freely expressed took advantage of these new methods of interpretation to give free vent to their own opinions. Quite independent of these Alexandrians were the humanists proper, who objected most to the barbarous Latinity of the text-books in general use, and especially to the terminology employed in the translations made from the Arabic commentators. Representative of these was Thomæus, who about 1497 began to lecture at Padua on the Greek text of Aristotle, and to treat it very largely as a study of the Greek language and literature.

Philosophical controversy at this time was centred chiefly in the psychological problems connected with the nature of the soul, and especially with its separate existence and the prospects of immortality. This