This represents, not Mr. Thomson's highest point in poetry, but the interesting element in his thought. Finer poetry he has written, as in some stanzas To Our Ladies of Death, and in the really splendid Lord of the Castle of Indolence, in which he shows once more his appreciation of the bright side of life. But we have not space to dwell on these, and must therefore, in conclusion, simply call attention to the startling contrast between these two un-Christian poets. Paganism like Mr. Thomson's is one of the facts of life which the jubilant paganism of Mr. Swinburne refuses to face. Pessimism may be a false theory of life, but the misery which causes and is caused by it is in the world, and Man, before he can become the Master of things,' must master his own despair. The mind cannot but demand a theory of life which shall face, if it does not explain, all the facts; and unless Mr. Swinburne can prove to us that, in the struggle for existence, his paganism will survive, and the paganism of pessimism will vanish, it must be acknowledged that we have some justification in clinging to a faith which is founded upon those very facts that he ignores. We do not appeal to any profound philosophy, but to the simplest and best-known sayings of Christ, when we assert that Christianity is strong and durable because Christ recognized the feelings of despair and misery that have always existed in human nature. The religion which offers rest to the weary and heavy-laden will outlast many systems of hasty and confident optimism, adorned though they may be by the richest fascination of poetry. ART. VIII.-THE WRITINGS AND LIFE OF SCOTUS ERIGENA. 1. De Divisione Natura. (Published at Oxford by Thomas Gale, 1681.) British Museum. 2. I. Scotus Erig. in Johan. (Published by M. Ravaisson.) Rapports au Ministre de l'instruction publique sur les Bibliothèques des départements de l'Ouest, suivies de pièces inédites. Paris, 1841. 3. Fean Scote Erigène et la Philosophie Scolastique. S. RENÉ TAILLANDIER. Paris, 1873. THE Pope has recently revived an interest in the Schoolmen, by advising a renewed application to the works of S. Thomas Aquinas. To follow accurately the close-knit syllogisms of the angelical doctor requires great effort, and is no doubt an excellent training for the logical powers. The European mind has issued from the Middle Ages, greatly strengthened by its violent, though somewhat confined, exercise in the schools. In spite of this we may well question the pre-eminent advantage of returning in general to studies which have indeed played a noble part in the cause of Christianity and the development of thought, but have long since fulfilled their allotted task. Leo XIII. has, however, conferred a permanent benefit by turning attention to an important moment in the history of Philosophy and Christianity: a moment, which, from its position, must contain some of the germs which have unfolded themselves in the difference between ancient and modern thought. English writers allow themselves to speak in a strangely careless manner about the Schoolmen. Those who have penetrated at all into the volumes which, thick with dust, encumber some of our libraries, return with scraps of knowledge ill-arranged or imperfectly understood, like travellers from some undescribed land with tales about which they need not be very particular, as no one is likely to find his way there to inquire for himself. Others have all their information at second-hand, and, while attempting to teach,1 do not even affect to conceal their ignorance. That the necessary documents for the study of Scholasticism exist at all, is, in great part, owing to the affectionate care with which the Church of Rome has preserved the memories and works of her great men. Towards the time when a Roman Catholic revival was attempted under James II., people began to turn their eyes back anxiously upon the Middle Ages, and books forgotten, or supposed to be lost, were republished: among them the writings of Johannes Scotus Erigena, vindicated from the charges of heresy with which they had been loaded. Foreigners have long recognized the important position which this remarkable thinker occupies. German 2 Roman Catholic 1 See for instance the very small amount of information with which Mr. Lewes was obliged to content himself in his History of Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 2 sqq. 2 Staudenmayer, Professor of Theology at the Roman Catholic University of Fribourg, tried to show in an elaborate book the importance and orthodoxy of Scotus. Schlegel, Baader, and Gunther also wrote about him. S. René Taillandier, Scote Erigène et la Philosophie Scolastique, part 3, chap. vi. divines, towards the beginning of this century, published several treatises upon him. The French, later on, proud of anyone connected with the School of the Palace, which did so much to maintain the light of learning when it burned but feebly, expended much trouble in clearing up the history of his times. Guizot and Cousin have not neglected the intimate friend 'inter seria et jocosa' of Charles the Bald. Finally S. René Taillandier devoted an entire volume to collecting all that is known about the author of the De Divisione Naturæ, and to an interesting, if sometimes rather fanciful, discussion upon the place which he holds in the history of thought. In default of any more recent works of sufficient extent or authority, it is necessary to have recourse to this book as well as to the writings of Scotus Erigena himself. The mind of a prominent thinker often contains and illustrates a system. In dissecting the De Divisione Naturæ, we find the different parts of the scholastic whole, and touch nerves which run tingling almost down to our own time. As, therefore, Scholasticism has once more become a topic of the day, it is interesting to see it through such a medium. Certain ideas moreover, once set going, are apt to run the same intellectual course as they did before. If it is not exactly true that the same heresies reappear with the 'like revolutions in the heavenly bodies,' it is very probable that with the study of a system the errors and tendencies which belong to it would once more come into being. The Pope, perhaps, could he succeed in imbuing the young mind of the Roman Catholic Church with S. Thomas Aquinas, to the extent which he appears to desire, might have little reason from his own point of view to congratulate himself upon the result. Once put dialectical weapons in the hands of men, place them on the path of metaphysical inquiry, and no human authority can say with any possibility of enforcing the command, ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no further.' The Papacy at the zenith of its power, when it had cord, axe, and faggot at its command, was unable to do so. It is hardly probable that it should succeed now. Certain tenets, which the Church has always condemned, were involved in mediæval philosophy and the necessary result of the mental state which produced scholasticism. So typical a book as the De Divisione Naturæ is well worth study, both in view of the possible recurrence of such ideas, and because it throws great light on the opinions of the most advanced intellects of that age, which have a true connexion, not merely with the Roman Catholic Church, but with all Christian thought. Scotus holds an almost unique position. He was at once the last of the Alexandrians, and the first of the Schoolmen. S. René Taillandier takes a great deal of rather unnecessary trouble to prove, in contradiction to M. Guizot, that he was rather a Schoolman than an Alexandrian. This is of quite minor importance, in view of the interesting fact, that we have in him the point of contact between the great current of ancient thought and the recently Christianized barbarian mind. We can for the first time seize, and define, elements, which had been developing for some time, and recognize the essential attributes of medieval Christian philosophy side by side with the thinly veiled pantheism of the false Denys. The most striking characteristic is the desire for an allembracing system-a synthesis, which shall contain all things human and divine. When the Church took possession of the schools, she proclaimed herself mistress of what was taught there. The Trivium and Quadrivium covered the sciences and arts as far as they were then known, and were henceforth to belong to Christ. This explains the fact that we find so many men of various parts dowered with such gorgeous titles; among them even Roger Bacon, whose attempts at experimentation were looked upon with so much suspicion; for in the roll-call of famous names, beside 'Aquinas the angelical,' and 'Bonaventura the seraphic,' stands 'Roger Bacon the wonderful.' The architectural genius of the age, which built such glorious cathedrals, also attempted to unite reason and faith into one vast fabric. The stones were to be the authority of the Fathers, texts from Scripture, the opinions of philosophers; anything and everything that might be pressed into that service. The binding cement was to be some method: Aristotle's was thought to be the most suitable. The fair proportions which summed all into one were found in the leading truths of Christianity, not contrary to, but rather identical with, reason. Not the least remarkable characteristic of Scotus Erigena is the completeness of his theory, which, collecting the ideas of others in an original combination, attempts upon the basis of reason to reduce, without destroying their individuality, the diversity of things into a whole. In one place he tells us that reason is prior to authority, in order of nature. In another, he proclaims that 'vera religio est vera ratio.' It is said that Scholasticism from the beginning was an insurrection of reason against authority, and many people suppose that it was not until her dogmas were attacked that the Church had recourse to her adversaries' weapons. It is quite true that the Apologists and Fathers found themselves under the necessity of spoiling the Egyptian, as S. Jerome expressed it, to defend themselves. At the time in which Scholasticism had its first beginning, no such need existed. The triumph over the philosophers had been consummated. They had been driven from their first and last seat at Athens as far as Persia, whence their opinions were at a later period to return by way of Arabia and Spain. Christians, looking back upon the past, had no reason to suppose that these opinions, vanquished while yet very powerful, could once more establish a predominance. The intellectual movement in reality arose within, and had as its first impulse the necessity of setting at rest certain internal questions, and of arranging and systematizing doctrine. It is impossible to read Scotus Erigena, above all, without admiring his intense and honest conviction, that religion and reason were not only not contrary, but actually one, and envying the exuberant, almost childish, confidence with which he believed, that by merely unfolding his plan, he could demonstrate that it was so. Universal nature, says he, allows of four divisions, which are I. That which creates, but is not created. 2. That which creates, and is created. 3. That which is created, but does not create. These Again, as one and four may be resolved into one-God: so two and three may be included in one—the creation. two are again adunated, and the Absolute, as we are tempted to call it, is complete. The procession from God into God, the outcoming and incoming of all things from and into the one semper manens,' in whose bosom they are nevertheless contained, takes place according to the analytical manner. There is no rational division in the mind, which cannot return by the same way as it set out. Analytics means both the ascent from particulars to generals, and the descent from generals to particulars. God from the beginning made all things in His eternal Word or Wisdom, in which they were one; at the creation they became separated into different causes, and flowed out into their effects, and these effects will once more, by the same steps, come back into God. We can best understand this by the familiar example which he employs : |