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WILLIAM

wich. There are 5 other cases given for the twelfth century, 15 for the thirteenth, 10 for the fourteenth, 16 for the fifteenth, 13 for the sixteenth, 8 for the seventeenth, 15 for the eighteenth, and 39 for the nineteenth, going right up to the year 1900. There have been more recent cases still in Eastern Europe. Ritual murder as a Jewish institution has been learnedly and conclusively disproved, e. g. by Strack, op. cit. below, and in the case of St. Wilham the evidence is totally insufficient. It seems, however, quite possible that in some cases at least the deaths of these victims were due to rough usage or even de- liberate murder on the part of Jews and that some may actually have been slain in odium fidei. In this connexion we may notice the first case of aU, and the only one before St. William, in which Jews are known to have been accused of murdering a Christian child. In 415 at Inmcstar in Syria some Jews in a drunken frolic kiUed a Christian child in mockery of the death of Christ (Socrates, VII, xvi). Many popes have either directly or indirectly con- demned the blood accusation, and no pope has ever sanctioned it (Strack, op. cit., 177 and v).

Thomas of Monmouth, Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich, ed. jESaop and James (Cambridge, 1896) : Vacandard, Question du meurtre rituel in Etudes de critique et d'histoire reli- gieuse.lll (Paris, 1912); Strack, Blut im Glauben und Abergtauben (Munich, 1900); Acta SS., Ill March; Thurston, Antisemilism and the Charge of Ritual Murder in The MorUh. XC (London, 1898), 561: Lea. Santo Niflo de la Guardia in English Historical Review, IV (London, 1889), 229.

Raymund Webster.

William of Ockham, fourteenth-century Scholastic philosopher and controversial writer, b. at or near the village of Ockham in Surrey, England, about 1280; d. probably at Munich, about 1349. He is said to have studied at Merton College, Oxford, and to have had John Duns Scotus for teacher. At an early age he entered the Order of St. Francis. Tow- ards 1310 he went to Paris, where he may have had Scotus once more for a teacher. About 1320 he be- came a teacher (magister) at the University of Paris. During this portion of his career he composed his works on Aristotelean physics and on logic. In 1323 he resigned his chair at the university in order to de- vote himself to ecclesiastical politics. In the contro- versies which were waged at that time between the advocates of the papacy and those who supported the claims of the civil power, he threw his lot with the imperial party, and contributed to the polemical litera- ture of the day a number of pamphlets and treatises, of which the most important are "Opus nonaginta dierum", "Compendium errorum Joannis Paps XXII", "Quaestiones octo de auctoritate summi pon- tificis". He was cited before the pontifical Court at Avignon in 1328, but managed to escape and join John of Jandun and Marsilius of Padua, who had taken refuge at the Court of Louis of Bavaria. It was to Louis that he made the boastful offer, "Tu me defendas gladio; ego te defendam calamo".

In his controversial writings William of Ockham appears as the advocate of secular absolutism. He denies the right of the popes to exercise temporal power, or to interfere in any way whatever in the affairs of the Empire. He even went so far as to advocate the validity of the adulterous marriage of Louis's son, on the grounds of political expediency, and the absolute power of the State in such matters. In philosophy William advocated a reform of Scholas- ticism both in method and in content. The aim of this reformation movement in general was simplifi- cation. This aim he formulated in the celebrated "Law of P.arciniony", commonly called "Ockham's Razor": "Rntia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessi- tate". With this tendency towards simplification was united a very marked tendency towards skepti- cism, a distrust, namely, of the ability of the human mind to reach certitude in the most important prob-

lems of philosophy. Thus, in the process of simpli- fication, he denied the existence of intentional species, rejected the distinction between essence and exis- tence, and protested against the Thomistic doctrine of active and passive intellect. His skepticism appears in his doctrine that human reason can prove neither the immortality of the soul nor the existence, unity, and infinity of (!od. These truths, he teaches, are known to us by Revelation alone. In ethics he is a voluntarist, maintaining that all distinction between right and WTong depends on the will of God. William's best known contribution to Scholas- tic philosophy is his theory of universals, which is a modified form of Nominalism, more closely alUed to Conceptuahsm than to Nominalism of the extreme type. Tlie universal, he says, has no existence in the world of reality. Real things are known to us by intuitive knowledge, and not by abstraction. The universal is the object of abstractive knowledge. Therefore, the universal concept has for its object, not a reality existing in the world outside us, but an internal representation which is a product of the understanding itself and which "supposes" in the mind, for the things to which the mind attributes it, that is it holds, for the time being, the place of the things which it represents. It is the term of the re- flective act of the mind. Hence the universal is not a mere word, as Roscelin taught, nor a scrmo, as Abelard held, namely the word as used in the sentence, but the mental substitute for real things, and the term of the reflective process. For this reason Ockham has been called a "Terminist", to distinguish him from Nominalists and Conceptualists.

Ockham's attitude towards the established order in the Church and towards the recognized system of philosophy in the academic world of his day was one of protest. He has, indeed, been called "the first Protestant". Nevertheless, he recognized in his polemical writings the authority of the Church in spiritual matters, and did not diminish that author- ity in any respect. Similarly, although he rejected the rational demonstration of several truths which are fundamental in the Christian system of theology, he held firmly to the same truths as matters of faith. His effort to simplify Scholasticism was no doubt well- intentioned, and the fact that simplification was the fashion in those days would seem to indicate that a reform was needed. The over-refined subtleties of discussion among the Scholastics themselves, the multiplication of "formalities" by the followers of Scotus, the undue importance attached by some of the Thomists to their interpretation of the inten- tional species, and the introduction of the abstruse system of terminology which exceeded the bounds of good taste and moderation — all these indicated that the period of decay of Scholasticism had set in. On the other hand, it must be said that, while his purpose may have been the best, and while hia effort was directed towards correcting an abuse that really existed, Ockham carried his process of sim- plification too far, and sacrificed much that was essential in Scholasticism while trying to rid Scholas- ticism of faults which were incidental.

See Ockham's works: Quodlibeta (Strasburg, 1491); Summa logicesCVeBice, 1508); Super Libras SenHLyoua, 1495). See also Denifle, Chartul. Unir. Paris., II (Paris, 1891), pt. I: StOcku Qesch.der Phil, des M. A., II (Maim. 18fi5), 986 sqq.. tr. Finlat (Dulilin, 1903): D« Wulf. Hist, of Med. Phil., tr. Copfet (New York, 1909), 420 sqq.; Turner, Hist, of Phil. (Boston, 1903), 404 sqq.

William Turner.

William of Paris, Saint, Abbot of Eskill in Den- mark, b. 1 lO."); (1. 1202. Howaaborn of a noble French family, and became a .secular canon at Ste GeneviSve- (hi-Mont and, after Super's ri-form, a canon regular. He was sub-prior of the monastery when Bishoi) Absalom of Lund, who had heard rejjortsof William's sanctity, sent Saxo Grammaticus to Paris to request his assist-