Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/76

 64 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE ledge themselves and to disseminate it among the people. The older Humanists were not opposed to the clerical scholastic philosophy itself, but only to the barren, life- less formalism in which it was at that time embodied, and the endless pedantic disputations, hair-splittings, and sophistries of dry scholasticism. Hence the old Humanists were not looked upon as dangerous and destructive innovators by the scholastic theologians and philosophers at the head of the colleges. Amongst the two parties into which the scholastic camp was divided, the so-called Nominalists and Eealists, the former indeed numbers few conspicuous promoters of the Humanist movement ; for nominalism was in its intrinsic and entire character rather negative, destruc- tive and analytical, than positive, constructive and creative. On the other hand, it was to the Eealists that we owe the introduction of Humanist studies into the colleg-es and universities. Even those amongst the Eealists who were considered as the worst obscurantists helped and encouraged the Humanist tendencies and efforts so long as they did not threaten the doctrine and discipline of the Church and the principles of Chris- tianity. The conflict only began, and could not then but begin, when the younger Humanists rejected all the old theologic and philosophic teaching as sophistry and barbarism, claimed reason and right for their own views alone, acknowledged no other source of enlightenment than the ancient classics, and in short rose up to un- compromising enmity against the Church and Christen- dom, not unfrequently outraging the Christian code of morality by the wanton levity of their lives. The older and younger schools of Humanists were