Page:Science and medieval thought. The Harveian oration delivered before the Royal College of Physicians, October 18, 1900 (IA sciencemedievalt00allbrich).pdf/45

 thought must make some declaration on the nature and place of universals; the problem was no hair splitting, it dealt with the very nature and origin of being; it agitated the minds of thinking meu at a time of the most fervid and widespread en- / thusiasm for knowledge which the Western world has ever known,-at a time when Oxford counted its students by thousands, and when in Paris a throng athirst for knowledge would stretch from

theology. "Il a cherché à reconcilier des morts (i.e. Plato and Aristotle) qui, toute leur vie, se sont contredits." But even sceptics contradict themselves; and it is fair to add that St Thomas pushed universals back to immanence in the Divine mind. For Plato the ideas are thoughts of universal mind; for Aristotle God, or Nature by its thoughts or plans determines the lines of phenomena: thus Plato and Aristatle were more alike than Thomas knew, or Hauréau admits. There was no such thing of course as The Scholastic Philo- sophy, of which I read again but the other day in a modern work. Seholasticism is the very various teaching of the schools of the xi-xvth centuries; though its general tendency was to search rather into the origin and nature than into the functions of being. The philosophy of the thirteenth century on the whole was eclectic ;-though perhaps eclectic by con- fusion rather than by reconciliation. The rule of authority prevented an appreciation of the relative values of opinions; the recognised authorities were equally true, and had to be dovetailed together somehow. Critical interpretation had not beguti.

1 The objection should not lie against hair splitting, for thought cannot be too penetrating; but against the splitting of imaginary hairs.