Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/454

 440 PHILOSOPHY Through the close connection of the Jews and Moors in Spain, Jewish and Arabic philosophy were at some points correlated. The Jewish Oahala was a system of emanations, reflecting the influence of Plato and Aristotle, making the idea of God transcendent, and exalting him above space and time. Avicebron (Solo- mon ben Gabirol) wrote (1059) under Neo- Platonic sympathies. A reaction favorable to Aristotle followed, and the attempt was made to reconcile his philosophy with Jewish theol- ogy. Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), a pupil of Averroes, ascribed to Aristotle uncondition- al authority in science. Levi ben G-erson dis- tinguished himself as a commentator on Aver- roes ; and when Arabian philosophy was pro- scribed by Mohammedan rulers, it found an asylum among Spanish Jews. By their trans- lations, the Aristotelian philosophy was more fully brought to the knowledge of the scholas- tics. This better acquaintance with Aristotle contributed to the ascendancy of nominalism. His philosophy was applied to natural the- ology, and its theistic character favored its spread. But its ascendancy was not secured without a conflict. Albertus Magnus (died in 1280) first shaped scholasticism in harmony with the Aristotelian system. Blending ISTeo- Platonist notions with those of Aristotle, he originated disputes on matter and form, es- sence and being. Thomas Aquinas (died in 1274), the greatest thinker of his age, followed Augustine on some points, and anticipated Leibnitz on others. Like his great opponent Duns Scotus (died in 1308), the founder of the Scotists, he was a realist, blending Platonism with his Aristotelian philosophy. Scotus as- serted that the universal is contained in the individual, that it is not created by the under- standing, but communicated to it; while in theology he sought to fortify the cosmological proof of the existence of God. He excluded philosophy from the sphere of dogma, thus going beyond Aquinas, who denied that the non-eternity of the world was demonstrable on philosophical grounds. William of Occam (died in 1347), without constructing a positive system, was the powerful assailant of realism, denying its fundamental doctrine, or that ideas can exist except in the understanding, and, while refuting at length the theory of objec- tive images, unintentionally perhaps gave an impulse to empiricism and skepticism. His opponents were numerous, but nominalism, under Gerson and D'Ailly, held its ground at Paris ; and when the French theologians re- turned from the council of Constance, they boasted that in the sentence of Huss their philosophy had triumphed over realism. But dissatisfaction with the dubious results of speculation had encouraged mystical tenden- cies. John Bonaventura had set an example which was followed by the illustrious Gerson. Scholasticism was weakened by its internal discords and the secession of the mystics. Its dictatorial tone provoked opposition ; the phi- lologists of the renaissance attacked it; the reformers did not spare it ; the revival of the Platonic philosophy in Italy contributed to its discomfiture ; the mathematicians and natural philosophers openly broke with it ; and bold and sometimes rash speculators, like Paracel- sus, Cardan, and Pomponatius, undermined the old philosophical strongholds. Although the credit of Aristotle was maintained by Melanch- thon (in his riper years) and Camerarius, and commanded respect in England as well as on the continent, far on into the 17th century, it was already on the wane. He was opposed by Telesius, refuted by Patrizzi, rejected by Bruno, who in some of his theories of God and nature anticipated Spinoza, and confront- ed also by the skepticism of an age that found its expositors in Montaigne and Charron. The 16th century stimulated thought, but gave to philosophy no systematic development. Sci- ence made great progress, and daring specu- lators were not wanting. But in the early part of the 17th century the foundations of two systems, the objective and subjective, or empiricism and idealism, were laid by Bacon and Descartes. Bacon's attention was strong- ly attracted to physical science. He rejected the mysteries of alchemy, and all the a priori assumptions which anticipated the conclusions of science. These conclusions, he held, must be reached, not by Aristotelian logic or sub- mission to the dicta of speculatists, but by a careful investigation and comparison of phe- nomena. This method is induction, the key to natural philosophy, and the only proper method to extend the solid foundations of knowledge. Nature must be interpreted, not anticipated, and anterior to experience there is no place for hypothesis. In this empiricism was the skeptical element of the Baconian philosophy, of which Hobbes made effective use in his manifold ethical and metaphysical speculations. The result was a materialism which derived all knowledge from sense ; and although sharply attacked by the Cambridge Platonists, More and Cudworth, it did not fail to leave its impress upon the philosophy of Locke. Bacon had excluded from the field of investigation preconceived notions which might put a false interpretation on the facts of nature. Locke, rejecting the theory of innate ideas, made the mind a tabula rasa, but capa- ble of reflecting upon the impressions receiv- ed through the sense. Of outward things it knows only the qualities that impress the sense, not the nature or the substance of the things. Upon the knowledge thus acquired the mind operates, and all its knowledge is from the two sources of sensation and reflection. In Italy Campanella, a half century before Locke, had more than anticipated him in making sensation the source of knowledge. He re- solved into sensation all the operations of the mind. Two years (1637) before his death ap- peared the Discours de la methode of Descartes, the text book which laid the foundations of