Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/104

86 the spirit of their creed. Its general resemblance to the oriental heresy is plain, but it has long been acknowledged that, however probable the relationship may be, there is no necessity to explain its origin in this way; it might have sprung up by itself, as the result of a rational speculation, tinctured with mysticism: and even if the first impetus was given from abroad, it remains likely that its dissemination at Orleans was assisted by the reviving spirit of enquiry which was already becoming powerful in France.

On the other hand, it would undoubtedly be improper to class these extravagancies with the other manifestations of opinion divergent from the general tenour of catholic belief which we meet with in the eleventh century. They indicate at most a link between the profession of an heresy which seemed to the world repulsive, and the assertion of individual views which might be startling, perhaps on that very account attractive, but which excited the anger of rivals rather than of enemies. To the latter order belong the opinions of Berengar of Tours and of Koscelin, who less by the issues to which they pointed than by the intellectual activity which they roused, are counted among the heralds of the scholastic philosophy. Through their resistance the medieval realism grew into the matured form which it retained until the introduction of the complete works of Aristotle in the thirteenth century. The debate, it is well known, rests upon the problem of the nature of being, a question no doubt insoluble because to all time each man will answer it, spite of argument, according to the special constitution of his own understanding. Existence might be held to reside more truly in the highest and broadest conceptions of which the mind is capable, in truth, in goodness, in every abstraction furthest removed from ocular observation; according to the technical terminology, in the universals. To the realist the ideal was the only true existence; every conception of the mind had necessarily a corresponding reality. The