Page:EB1911 - Volume 24.djvu/370

Rh tendency. In order to see the difference in this respect between the schools we have only to compare the peaceful and fortunate life of William of Champeaux (who enjoyed the friendship of St Bernard) with the agitated and persecuted existence of Roscellinus and, in a somewhat less degree, of Abelard. But now the greater boldness of the dialecticians awakened a spirit of general distrust in the exercise of reason on sacred subjects, and we find even a Realist like Gilbert de la Porree arraigned by Bernard and his friends before a general council on a charge of heresy (at Rheims, 1148). Though Gilbert was acquitted, the fact of his being brought to trial illustrates the growing spirit of suspicion. Those heresy-hunts show us the worst side of St Bernard, yet they are in a way just the obverse of his deep mystical piety. The same attitude is maintained by the mystical school of St Victor. Hugo of St Victor (1097-1141) St Victor declares that " the uncorrupted truth of things cannot be discovered by reasoning." The perils of dialectic are manifold, especially in the overbold spirit it engenders. Nevertheless Hugo, by the composition of his Summa sententiarum, endeavoured to give a methodical or rational presentation of the content of faith, and was thus the first of the so-called Summists. Richard of St Victor, prior of the monastery from 1162 to 1173, is still more absorbed in mysticism, and his successor Walter loses his temper altogether in abuse of the dialecticians and the Summists alike. The Summists have as much to say against the existence of God as for it, and the dialecticians, having gone to school to the pagans, have forgotten over Aristotle the way of salvation. Abelard, Peter Lombard, Gilbert de la Porree and Peter of Poitiers he calls the "four labyrinths of France."

This anger and contempt may have been partly justified by the discreditable state into which the study of logic had fallen. The speculative impulse was exhausted which marks the end of the 11th and the first half of the 12th century logic - a period more original and more interesting in many ways than the great age of Scholasticism in the 13th century. By the middle of the century, logical studies had lost to a great extent their real interest and application, and had degenerated into trivial displays of ingenuity. On the other hand, the Summists occupied themselves merely in the systematizing of authorities. The mystics held aloof from both, and devoted themselves to the practical work of preaching and edification. The intellect of the age thus no longer exhibited itself as a unity. And it is significant of this that the ablest and most cultured representative of the second half of the century was rather an of historian of opinion than himself a philosopher or a theologian. John of Salisbury (Johannes Sarisberiensis) was educated in France in the years 1136-1148. The autobiographical account of these years contained in his Metalogicus is of the utmost value as a picture of the schools of the time; it is also one of the historian's chief sources as a record of the many-coloured logical views of the period. John recoiled from the idle casuistry which occupied his own logical contemporaries; and, mindful probably of their aimless ingenuity, he adds the caution that dialectic, valuable and necessary as it is, is " like the sword of Hercules in a pigmy's hand " unless there be added to it the accoutrement of the other sciences. Catholic in spirit rather than dogmatic, John ranks himself at times among the Academics, " since, in those things about which a wise man may doubt, I depart not from their footsteps." It is not fitting to subtilize overmuch, and in the end John of Salisbury's solution is the practical one, his charitable spirit pointing him in particular to that love which is the fulfilling of the law.

The first effects of this immense acquisition of new material were markedly unsettling on the doctrinal orthodoxy of the time. The apocryphal Neoplatonic treatises and the views of the Arabian commentators obscured for the effects of first students the genuine doctrine of Aristotle, and the the new 13th century opens with quite a crop of mystical knowledge. heresies. The mystical pantheism taught at Paris by Amalrich of Bena (d. 1207; see and ), though based by him upon a revival of Scotus Erigena, was doubtless connected in its origin with the Neoplatonic treatises which now become current. The immanence of God in all things and His incarnation as the Holy Spirit in themselves appear to have been the chief doctrines of the Amalricans. They are reported to have said, " Omnia unum, quia quicquid est est Deus." About the same time David of Dinant, in a book De tomis (rendered by Albertus De divisionibus), taught the identity of God with matter (or the indivisible principle of bodies) and nous (or the indivisible principle of intelligences) - an extreme Realism culminating in a materialistic pantheism. If they were diverse, he argued, there must exist above them some higher or common element or being, in which case this would be God, nous, or the original matter. The spread of the Amalrican doctrine led to fierce persecutions, and the provincial council which met at Paris in 1209 expressly decreed " that neither the books of Aristotle on natural philosophy, nor commentaries on the same, should be read, whether publicly or privately, at Paris." In 1215 this prohibition is renewed in the statutes of the university of Paris, as sanctioned by the papal legate. Permission was given to lecture on the logical books, both those which had been known all along and those introduced since 1128, but the veto upon the Physics is extended to the Metaphysics and the summaries of the Arabian commentators. By 1231, however, the fears of the church were beginning to be allayed. A bull of Gregory IX. in that year makes no mention of any Aristotelian works except the Physics. Finally, in 1254, we find the university officially prescribing how many hours are to be devoted to the explanation of the Metaphysics and the principal physical treatises of Aristotle. These dates enable us to measure accurately the stages by which the church accommodated itself to, and as it were took possession of, the Aristotelian philosophy. Growing knowledge of Aristotle's works and the multiplication of translations enabled students to