XII. HISTORY OF THE TIC PHI LOSOPHY. mental superiority, and was at least original and plau- CHAP. sible. These claims were sufficient to excite the popular admiration, and to engage the popular pursuit. Even the sloth and luxury of the cloister could not resist the spirit-stirring study. Monks aspired to attain, and were industrious to spread it. Many admirers of this new sect," says Salisbury, "have entered the cloisters of the monks and clergy; but while a portion of these became sensible of their error, and confessed that what they had learnt was mere vanity and vexation, others, hardening themselves in their insanity, swelling with their inveterate perverseness, preferred to rave in their folly, than to be taught faithfully by those humble minds to whom God has given grace. If you do not believe me," he adds, " go into the cloisters; examine the manners of the brethren; and you will find there all the arrogance of Moab intensely glowing." 51 Our venerable author discloses to us another fact, that these new-directed and ardent minds, feeling their logical philosophy to excite without satisfying their understandings, applied themselves to the study of physic, to give them the solid knowlege they panted for. Some went to the best schools abroad, to study the art of medicine; 52 and altho the moral satirist, unable then to discern the connexion between their pursuits and the improvement of society, attacks this new direction of their curiosity with fresh satire, we can have no hesitation to class these 53 51 Metalog. 1. 1. c. 4. p. 742. 52-He says, that others of this new school, beholding a defect in their philosophy, go to Salernum or Montpelier, and are made there Clientuli Medicorum. Ib. p. 743. 53 His sneer is, that just as they became philosophers, so in a moment they burst out physicians. They boast of Hippocrates and Galen; they protrude words unheard of before; they apply their aphorisms to every thing, and strike the human mind like thunder, with their tremendous phrases. Ib. . VI. BOOK venturous reasoners, thus seeking to combine physical science with scholastic acuteness, and striving to, raise LITERARY the human mind to new paths of inquiry, among the most important benefactors to the British intellect in its early vegetation.. HISTORYOF of From the work of this ingenious churchman, we perceive that he himself had gone deep into these fashionable studies. I do not know where to point out a neater and more comprehensive summary the logical and metaphysical works of Aristotle, than in the Metalogicus of John of Salisbury.54 As so profound a student had well qualified himself to judge, he had acquired a right to censure. Having, like Solomon, fully enjoyed and exhausted the pleasure of a favorite pursuit, his experience united with his reason to condemn its inanity, and to satirize its abuse. Weighing it in the balances strictly by itself, his criticism was correctly right: It disclosed no knowlege; it communicated no wisdom; its benefits lay hid in its consequences, which had not then been evolved. The very bursting of the bands of venerated authority, tho perhaps the result often rather 54 It forms the main theme of his book, after he has discharged his bile at the innovating schoolmen. It is another proof of the importance of these men whom he was depreciating, that he himself attempts in this work to raise the study of rhetoric with all its tropes, colores and puerilities, into the public estimation again. Hence, he praises St. Bernard for his manner of teaching the figuras grammaticæ, the colores rhetorices, and the cavillationes sophismatum. p. 782. 55 It is just to the memory of W. Occam, to say, that he directed his scholastic talents against the usurpations and conduct of the Roman pontiff. He wrote De utili dominio rerum ecclesiasticarum et abdicatione bonorum temporalium in perfectione status monachorum et clericorum adversus erroris Johannis papa. This was printed at Lyons, 1495.-He also wrote a Tractatum quod Benedictus 12, papa nonnullas hereses Joannis 22, amplexus est et defendit. This was in MS. at Paris, in Bibl. Colbertina. He composed also the Compendium errorum Joannis 23, papæ, Tanner Bib. 555; and a Defensorum logices, quo convellit violentum Romani episcopi imperium; and an Invectivum contra possessiones Rom. Pont. Leland, Descript. Brit. vol. 2. p. 323. As he attacked the pope, the pope excommunicated him. He accused the pope of teaching 77 heresies. XII. OF THE SCHOLAS of proud vanity than of enlightened reason, was good, CHAP. not so much in its immediate produce as in its future effects. A torpefying spell was taken off from the HISTORY human mind; and if the first schoolmen only used their new liberties in extravagance and insolence, TIC PHIthey were soon followed by better thinkers, who combined knowlege with reasoning, and, by a wise moderation, made the freedom they assumed, valuable to themselves and useful to the world." 56 LOSOPHY. schoolmen. It will be unnecessary to detail all the names that Other may be collected from ancient documents, of the English students of the scholastic philosophy. Pullen, who became a cardinal;"-Simon Langton, to whom we owe, in a great measure, Magna Charta; -the intrepid and patriotic bishop Grosteste, foremost in every useful pursuit of his day; the friend and cultivator of poetry, scholastic philosophy, Ara 56 In quitting John of Salisbury, I cannot forbear noticing the account which he gives of his studies, as it shews the laborious appli cation with which the scholars of the middle ages pursued the knowlege they valued. He says, that in the year after Henry I. died, he went to the Peripatetic school at Paris, on the Mount of St. Genevieve, and there studied logic; he afterwards adhered to Master Alberic, as opinatissimus dialecticus and an acerrimus impugnator of the Nominal sect. He was two years with him, and Robert Metridensis an Englishman, both men acuti ingenii et studii pervicacis. He then for three years transferred himself to William de Conchin, to imbibe his grammatical knowlege. After this, he followed Richard, called the Bishop, retracing with him what he had learnt from others, and the quadrivium; and also heard the German Harduin. He re-studied rhetoric, which he had learnt from Master Theodoric, and more completely from Peter Helias. Being poor, he supported himself by teaching the children of the noble, and contracted an intimate acquaintance with Master Adam, an Englishman, and a stout Aristotelian. He prosecuted afterwards the study of logic with William of Soissons. Returning at the end of three years, he heard Master Gilbert on logic, and on divine subjects; then Robert Pullen, and also Simon Periacensis, a faithful reader, but a heavy disputer. These two last were his only teachers in theology. Thus, he adds, I passed twelve years occupied by these various studies. Metal. 1. 2. c. 10. p. 802-805. 57 Robertus Pullen, whose memory is pleasant to all good men, and whom the apostolic seat made a chancellor from a scholastic doctor.' Metal. p. 746. VI. HISTORYOF BOOK bian learning, natural philosophy, mathematics, divinity, and canon and civil law; and the fearless LITERARY and successful assertor of the liberties of the English church, and protector of the English clergy, against the taxations and tyranny of the Pope; 59-Commentators on Lombard's book of Sentences, almost innumerable: These, and many others of equal ap plication, tho of minor fame, shew in their numerous works, the subjects, the nature and the value, of the scholastic philosophy, which appears to have been peculiarly cultivated in England."1 Their scepticism. 60 The schoolmen became divided insensibly into two classes: those, who allowed themselves to discourse without limits; and those, who defended the existing hierarchy and all its theological system. Of these last it will be just to say, that they, and especially Aquinas, Bonaventura, and Duns Scotus, 59 See the copious and astonishing list of his works, most still in MS. in Tanner, Bib. Mon. p. 345-351. They are equal in number to any of the great Arabian philosophers: indeed in one trait he surpassed them, for he also wrote poetry. See his Chastel d'Amour, Harl. MSS. 1121. GO We may guess the number of these, from the facts, that no fewer than nine Englishmen of the Christian name of Richard commented upon hitu-as, R. Rufus, in 1270; R. Cornubiensis, R. Ruys, R. Middleton, 1300; R. Nottingham, 1320; R. Conington, 1330; R. Wilton, 1339; R. Fishacre, 1345; and R. Wickingham, in 1381.-There were also nine Roberts, of the British Islands, who chose the same task; as Rob. Waldock, 1272; R. Crowe, 1300; R. Walsingham, 1310; R. Carew, 1326; R. Cotton, 1340; R. Eliphat, 1340; R. Leicester, 1348; R. Worsop, 1350; R. Walaby, 1399. Also, three Ralphs, as Ralph Loxley, 1310; R. Acton, 1320; R. Radiptor, 1350. Also, Roger Reyseth, and Roger Swinehead, 1350; as also Stephen Petrington, 1417.-As these five Christian names were taken by ine at random, I have no doubt that some others would yield as copious a list of commentators on this celebrated work of the Magister Sententiarum. 61 I infer this from observing, that more English authors on this subject are commemorated in the biography of literature, than of any other country. Indeed I think I shall not exceed the truth if I say, that if you take any subject of literature or knowlege, from the time of the Norman conquest, you will find more English writers on it, than of any other single country-and that, reviewing our writers on each collectively, they have done more on every topic they have handled, than those of any other country. I pen this with a belief that I do not exaggerate.. XII. OF THE SCHOLAS LOSOPHY. stood, usefully at that time, in the gap between phi- CHAP. losophy and theology, and kept them from bitter and irreconcileable variance. But for them, it is not HISTORY improbable that the study of the Arabian metaphysicians, which unfettered, might have diseased the TIC PHI mind by its own extravagancies, and filled the world with scepticism, and with that selfishness and sensuality which the Grecian spirit of debate and incredulity had produced, when the Roman empire fell." The philosophical doctrine of the scholastic age was, that religious knowlege was unnecessary, and that the disciplinæ philosophiæ were sufficient. Hence Thomas Aquinas was forced to begin his elaborate work, by proving logically that the sacra doctrina was also essential, and that it was a real science.64 His exertions, among others, served to keep the mind in a balance between philosophy and religion, till succeeding thinkers could discern the corruption from the primeval truth, and reform, without destroying, the ecclesiastical system.R 65 62 We find from John of Salisbury, that the more scriptural teachers were not only denied to be philosophers, but were scarcely endured as clergymen. They were called the oxen of Abraham, and Balaam's asses -nec modo philosophos negant, imo nec clericos patiuntur, vix homines sinunt esse; sed boves Abrahæ vel asinos Balaamitos duntaxat nominant, imo derident. Metal. p. 746. 63 Among the erroneous opinions of the day, condemned at Paris in 1270, we find such as these-that the world was eternal-that there never was a first man-that the soul dies with the body-that free-will is governed by necessity that the Deity knows nothing but himselfthat human actions are not governed by Divine Providence-that the Deity cannot give immortality to a mortal creature that the first cause cannot make many worlds-and has not any knowlege of the future; together with a great many tenets on the Deity and religion, which certainly went to destroy the belief of his existence, and of Christianity also. See them printed at the end of Lombard's work, ed. Cologne, 1609. 64 T. Aquinas Summa Theolog. p. 1. These topics form his two first articles. 65 Of this description was our venerable Wicliffe. It is remarkable that France has, in the present age of knowlege, furnished no person who united enough of philosophy and of religion, to meliorate without destruc |