Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/196

178 from human things) I addressed myself to the Peripatetic of Palais, who then presided upon Mount Saint Genovefa, an illustrious teacher and admired of all men. There at his feet I acquired the first rudiments of the dialectical art, and snatched according to the scant measure of my wits,—pro modulo ingenioli mei,—whatever passed his lips with entire greediness of mind. Then, when he had departed, all too hastily, as it seemed to me, I joined myself to master Alberic, who stood forth among the rest as a greatly esteemed dialectician, and verily was the bitterest opponent of the nominal sect. Thus Abailard was for a moment upon the scene of his early triumphs; but not now at Paris but near it (as Paris then was) on the hill of Saint Geneviève. When John of Salisbury heard him in 1136, he was once more, at the age of seven-and-fifty, lecturing as he had begun on dialectics. But his return again to public work doubt less reäwakened the hostility of teachers and churchmen to which he had previously been exposed. He left his school to Alberic, and John of Salisbury knew him no more as a teacher. His successor was a leading advocate of the logical system which he had spent his life in resisting.

Being thus, John continues, for near two whole years occupied on the Mount I had to my instructors in the dialec-