substantially identical with the commonly accepted opinion about the nature of abstract ideas at the present time. The class term has no objective existence as such; it exists only as a thought, a concept in our minds. But neither is it a mere breath or word, out of all relation to things themselves. The concept exists in the particular things as a similarity or identity of qualities, through whose abstraction by a mental act the concept is formed; and as the expression of this similarity it is objectively valid. There is even a sense in which we might say that the concept exists independently of the things as an idea, that is, in the mind of God. A divine idea, then, a likeness existing among qualities in objects, and an abstraction of these qualities by the human mind to form a class term with a universal meaning these for Conceptualism are the factors which enter into the problem of universals.

But the clearness and independence of Abelard's mind showed itself in other fields also. He brought the same rationalistic temper to subjects more directly connected with the dogmas of the Church. With surprising frankness he condemns the credulity which is willing to take beliefs on trust, without a rational justification. "A doctrine is not believed," he declares, "because God has said it, but because we are convinced by reason that it is so." Doubt is no sin, as the Church thought; "by doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the truth." He confesses to an admiration for the ancient philosophers, and finds expressed in them the essential doctrines of religion and morality. The noteworthy attempt is made to establish a theory of ethics independent of dogmatic sanctions. Christianity itself seems to him first of all the rehabilitation of the natural moral law, which was revealed to the Greek sages as well; that which was mysterious in Christianity he decidedly inclined to minimize. "Shall we people hell," he says, "with "with men whose life and teachings are truly evangelical and apostolic in their perfection, and differ in nothing, or very

little, from the Christian religion?" This naturalistic tone appears in his treatment of the particular dogmas; the three persons of the Trinity, for example, are resolved into three attributes of God-power, wisdom, and goodnessunited in a single personality.

§ 23. The Second Period. The Revival of Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas. Duns Scotus. William of Occam

I.

Arabian Philosophy. The Crusades. - Abelard's views were condemned by the Church; but this did not prevent the spread of the rationalistic and independent spirit which he embodied. For a time it almost looked as if the Renaissance might be anticipated by several centuries. A large factor in this was the growing influence of Arabian thought. While Europe had been asleep, learning had taken refuge among the Mohammedans. The works of Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle's, were preserved and studied when they were known to Christian scholars only in the most fragmentary form. In the courts of the Eastern caliphs, and in the kingdom of the Moors in Spain, there came about a brief period of culture in which a considerable scientific activity went along with a vigorous, though not very original, philosophical revival. The most important name among the Arabian commentators and philosophers who influenced the later Scholasticism, is that of Averroës (1126–1198).

The reception of this influence was made easier by a change which was beginning to come over the whole spirit of the age, and which was furthered in particular by the Crusades. These great religious wars had turned out quite otherwise than their promoters had anticipated. The religious results, from the standpoint of Catholicism, were almost nothing, while of consequences entirely opposed to the Church's desires there were a great number. The men of Europe had their dormant wits violently and effectually shaken by contact with other peoples, and by

the novel experiences which their wanderings brought them. Christendom found to its surprise that those whom it had been accustomed to look upon with contempt as heretics, were in reality a brave and warlike people, with many virtues of their own, and a civilization in some respects superior to that of Europe. Contact with them inevitably rubbed off to some extent the provincialism, and the unreasoning horror of ideas at all dissimilar to their own, on which the hold of the Church largely depended; and the feeling of respect which the field of battle engendered facilitated an exchange of ideas. So also two other tendencies, which were to weaken the power of the Church, received a decided stimulus from the Crusades. The emulation and rivalry resulting from a coming together of men from every country in Europe, brought to the surface a new sense of national spirit, which was opposed to the pretensions of the Church. Furthermore, commercial activity was given an immense impetus, owing to the necessity of transporting the large armies of the Crusaders, and furnishing the supplies required, as well as to the closer communication brought about between the East and the West, and the revelation of new luxuries and new wants. Both of these things tended to give an emphasis to the new secular spirit as opposed to the religious.

Many of the conditions, accordingly, seemed to be favorable to a breaking away from the authority of the Church. And, indeed, on a small scale, many of the features of the Renaissance were anticipated. The widespread interest in learning is shown in the rise of the great Universities, while in the court of Frederick the Second, especially, a new culture was introduced which was as thoroughly pagan as that which characterized the Italian cities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To Frederick all religion was alike untrue; Mohammed and Christ alike impostors. But the movement was premature. It had no sufficient knowledge to back it, and the hold of the Church was still too great to be broken. The new forces were

turned safely into ecclesiastical channels, and spent themselves in infusing fresh life into Scholasticism, rather than in breaking away from it. The Church philosophy got possession of the Universities, where it remained intrenched even after a different spirit had come over the outer world; and the awakening was postponed for several centuries.

1. The Revival of Aristotle. Aquinas. In turning the new tendencies to her own account, the Church showed her usual astuteness. The chief incentive to the threatened revolution in the intellectual world was due to the opening for the first time to Europe of a knowledge of the real Aristotle, and the coming of its scholars into contact with a mind of the first order, whose thinking was not specifically theological. It is the influence of Aristotle which is the dominant factor in the whole of the following period. At first the Church had been alarmed at the evident dangers involved in the situation, and it had tried to avert them by condemning Aristotle. But as the Greek text came to be known, and the rationalistic and pantheistic tinge which Aristotle had taken from his Arabian commentators was found not to be necessary to his interpretation, the attitude of the Church was altered. She began to realize that she had in Aristotle a possible instrument for her own ends. And so effectively did she use this, that when, later on, the emancipation of the intellect was brought about, Aristotle, instead of being, as he now promised to be, the agent of that emancipation, was the one chiefest obstacle against which the new spirit had to make war. By setting up the dictatorship of Aristotle, the Church had set bounds to the intellect more effectually than she had ever been able to do by means of dogma. There had been no recognized authority in the realm of pure reason in the earlier Middle Ages, and accordingly, within the limits of certain dogmatic results, the reason had had free play. By establishing now the supreme authority of Aristotle in every sphere to which reasoning

applies the natural world as well as the metaphysical, - and by interpreting Aristotle in her own way, a tool was at hand for holding the reason in check, without at the same time denying it its rights. Aristotle was himself identical with reason, not to be denied or questioned. Even in matters of science the question was, not what does nature reveal, but what does Aristotle say; and when science began to emerge, the authority of the philosopher was actively used to check its growth. "My son," so, according to an anecdote, was the reply made to one who thought he had discovered spots in the sun, "I have read Aristotle many times, and I assure you that there is nothing of the kind mentioned by him. Be certain therefore that the spots which you have seen are in your eyes, and not in the

sun." In the formulation of Scholasticism in Aristotelian terms by St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor (12251274), the most comprehensive task of medieval thought was performed, and Catholic philosophy was determined definitely for the future.

In Aquinas, the formula was at last attained which was to be accepted by the Church as the final statement of the relation that exists between philosophy and revelation, between reason and faith. The naïve confidence in the ability of reason to justify the full content of religious belief had not been supported by experience. It came to be recognized that there are heights to which reason cannot possibly reach. The higher truths of revelation belong to a sphere where it is incompetent to decide; they are mysteries, to be accepted only on the ground of faith in authority. But while the fields of reason and of faith are thus not coextensive, and while therefore philosophy cannot hope to make theology fully intelligible to the limited powers of the human mind, there need not for all that be any actual contradiction between the two. So far as it goes, reason is harmonious with faith; but there comes a point where it no longer is able to pass judgment, and here faith steps in as a more ultimate principle, which stands to the natural