Body of the Redeemer; how faithfully he commended his body and soul to Him; our brothers are witness, and the whole society of that Monastery. Thus Master Peter finished his days, and he who was known throughout the world for an unparalleled master of science, persevering in the learning of Him who said 'learn of Me for I am meek and lowly of heart,' passed, as we have a right to believe, into His presence." or Abelard's intellect. troduction to lard pour histoire de la en France Cousin. 23. The Book of Calamities and the correspondence with Heloise New lights, were for a long time without any commentary except what was position and furnished by certain theological writings of Abelard. These were manifestly insufficient to explain the passages in the biography which have reference to his dialectical exploits. They were not even sufficient to illustrate those passages which directly refer to him as a theologian, the other character being, as we have seen, that which was evidently predominant in him. The world is there- See the Infore under very great obligations to M. Cousin for the discovery is inwhich, either in his own person or through some of his fellow- édites d'Abelabourers, he made in the King's library at Paris, of a whole trea- servir à l' tise on logic, of various commentaries on Boethius and Porphyry, Philosophie and above all, of an Essay on Genera and Species, which are Scolastique probably genuine works of Abelard. The learned exposition and Publiées par historical sketch with which the Editor has accompanied them, M. Victor add immensely to their value, and may well secure our forgiveness Paris, 1836. for any extravagant language in which he has indulged respecting Abelard as the first champion of free inquiry; that praise itself being considerably modified by the remarks which M. Cousin has Great value made respecting Roscellinus and William of Champeaux, when he ofM. Cousin's has descended from the panegyrist into the philosophical historian. Elucidations. No student of Middle Age philosophy ought to overlook this introduction, though no one, we think, should hastily take its statements or its method for granted. The former will sometimes suggest important corrections of the latter. We are not quite sure whether M. Cousin's ingenious and plausible arguments establish the fact that Abelard was the pupil of Roscellinus at a very early age in Brittany, and overthrow the strong negative argument which has been drawn from the omission of his name in the Book of Calamities. But, supposing that point to be proved, it will lead us to conclusions respecting the history of this period which appear to us very sound, but which are not the same with those of M. Cousin. Our first knowledge of Roscellinus is derived from a treatise of Anselm, to which we merely alluded in our sketch of that philo- his connecsopher, his treatise on the Trinity, and the Incarnation of the Anselm of Word. It is this treatise, as M. Cousin well points out, which exhibits in an earlier form the conflict respecting Universals, to which Abelard introduces us in his remarks on William of Champeaux. Strict history therefore requires us to consider the controversy as historical Roscellinus: tion with Bec. In what the heresy of Roscellinus to consist. Relation of this argu contained in the Pros logion. starting from this point. Abelard may have first separated the dialectics from the theological principles with which they were involved, then in his later days have recombined them; but they had an earlier association, the subject of Universals first became important through its connection with the doctrine about which Anselm and Roscellinus dissented. 24. It was not any form of Arianism, far which Anselm imputed to his opponent. less of Sabellianism, It was that opinion was alleged which is the direct opposite of Sabellianism, which Sabellianism is a contrivance to avoid. Roscellinus could conceive of three distinct persons; their unity he could not conceive of. Was there anything inconsistent with orthodoxy in his saying so? In one sense he was asserting the very maxim of the creed to which Anselm yielded the most hearty assent. The teacher of Bec undoubtedly believed this unity to be inconceivable, quite as much as the Breton did. But we have seen how much Anselm built upon the argument, that our power of acknowledging that which is beyond our conception proves it to exist. We have already exment to that pressed our opinion that in his discussions upon this point he was on the edge of a precipice, balancing himself no doubt with great skill, walking steadily because his eyes were upwards and not towards his feet, but still marking out a track in which many would try and scarcely any would be able to follow him, without great stumbling. He was appealing to the mind against itself; he was bringing into the strangest juxtaposition the conceiving power with that which is beyond it, and sustaining the last upon the first. The consequence was inevitable. He had no wish to do Roscellinus injustice. But he saw on the one hand that all theology was subverted he believed that all unity among men would be subverted-if Tritheism came in under the protection of Logic. On the other hand he could not admit the impossibility which Roscellinus proclaimed, though it might be so well justified by principles which he confessed, without injuring the validity of that mode of reasoning which had become almost a part of himself and was blended with his most sacred convictions. He therefore refutes the implicit Tritheism, by a course of reasoning which, as M. Cousin has well remarked, combines the most inconsistent propositions. He treats the question as if it was only between the senses and the spiritual perception. Of course, we only see things in their separate individualities. But are we not obliged to conceive of something beyond that of humanity, for instance, and not merely of a man: the reality of of colours, for instance, and not merely of that which is coloured? Plato (in his Republic) had with infinite pains vindicated the doctrine of a substantial political unity underlying the acts and thoughts of individual men. But he had as carefully endeavoured in his Theatethus to prove that colour has no such reality, that it is simply The consequence to Anselm's reasoning. The reality of colours asserted as strongly as Mankind. a product of the eye and the object. Here we have Platonism and anti-Platonism in the strangest fellowship; and inevitably. For there is a conception of colour as well as a conception of humanity; if the reality depends upon the conception, the first is as substantial as the second; nay, it appears to be more substantial, because sense lends its aid to the very mental act that is set in opposition to it; the colour is seen, though it is never seen in that separate condition under which the mind takes account of it. Latin Realist. Theology in 25. M. Cousin has justified by his high authority the remark Boethius, the which we have so often made in this sketch, that Boethius first dropped that seed in the Latin mind which germinated in the controversies between the Realists and Nominalists. He has vindicated also by his theory respecting the spiritual pedigree of Abelard, what we said respecting the inadequacy of the logic of Boethius to produce such grave consequences, if it had not been combined with more transcendent ideas, of which, in his formal treatises at all events, the Roman statesman appeared to take little account. But M. Cousin has not, we think, perceived how much the after Union of history of this great struggle depends upon the blending of these Logic and apparently incongruous elements; how little we can understand this strife. what was at issue between the two parties in the schools if we violently separate their controversy from the practical one with which it was mingled and reduce it to the terms in which Porphyry and Boethius would have stated it. Abelard, perhaps warned by the dangers to which Roscellinus had been exposedperhaps merely influenced by a just opinion that his own genius fitted him far better for dialectical than theological exercises-undoubtedly made the experiment. But we have seen from his own Illustrations statement that he did not, that he could not, persevere in it. An from be impulse which he could not resist drew him into the vortex, from which he appeared to have escaped; whatever might be the wisdom of severing his doctrine of Universals from questions directly concerning the faith of the Church, he could not do it justice, or satisfy his own peculiar impulses, without putting forth the statements which exposed him to the indignation of Bernard and the decrees of the Council of Soissons. lard's life. names which 26. In truth, the twofold name which this controversy bears is The two only intelligible when we are content to trace its origin historically. the ControModern philosophers dwell too exclusively on the words Realism versy bears. and Nominalism, as if they were adequate to describe its subject and its issues. Abelard has told us how much more, in his judgment, it deserved to be called a battle concerning Universals. Before he became the pupil of Anselm of Laon,-while he was still the restless hearer or the bold defier of William of Champeaux-the ques tion that was uppermost in his mind concerned the presence of the whole in each individual thing. How did this question arise? Why it be came so colemn. Use of the words Real minalism. Why perplexing. Greatness of divinity. Insignifi What gave it, even when it exhibited itself in its driest and most technical form, such a personal and human interest? Allow anything you please for the passions of disputants which any big-orlittle endian theory may arouse to madness-still the zeal of the bystanders their conviction that heaven and earth were earnest spectators of the combat-demands explanation. If there was a thought - ever so imperfectly realized that the very nature of the Being whom men worshipped, into whose name they were baptized, was involved in this logical argumentation-if the reasoners, however they might shrink from the reflection or hide it under terms of the understanding, yet ever and anon were tormented with the doubt whether what they were contending for might not contain the assertion or the denial that there was a whole, a unity, at the basis of their idea of God--that he was the All in All-does it require much experience to know that what was strongest in their minds would claim the benefit of the imputation, or would repel it; that what was pettiest would be justified and, in a certain sense, glorified? 27. Is the Universal-that whole, that Unity, which we must Ism and No- attribute to a family, a nation, a race, merely attributed? is it not there? thus did the controversy respecting Universals become the controversy respecting the Real and the Nominal. But the word Real, though inevitable, was decidedly unfortunate. The arguthe Name in ment takes gradually this shape. Is the Universal, the whole, the one, res a thing, or is it nomen a name? How often must the combatants, when this was the issue, have exchanged their rapiers and each have been wounded by his own! In divinity you must speak of a Name as that with which we are sealed; that which is to be hallowed and which is to make all else holy. This is the language of the Baptismal formula and of the Lord's Prayer. Comparative On the other hand, thing (from think,' as 'res' from 'reor')— cance of the (the subject of thought) is opposed in all the highest morality to the Person, the Thinker, the Speaker, the Actor. Yet the necessity of the argument drove him who was vindicating the divine Essence as the foundation of all things to treat it as if it possessed the nature of those things. A consideration of this enormous practical difficulty for such it was, however much it was a verbal difficulty -may well make us tolerant and kindly to both parties. But it cannot make us think lightly-far less, contemptuously-of that which occupied their whole souls. They were often lost in the smoke which they raised; in the darkness they often struck right and left at friend and foe. But it was absolutely needful that the fight should be fought out; if the dread of killing each other for trifles had led them to conclude a hasty and unsatisfactory peace, all generations would have been the worse for it. Thing. 28. The fragment of Abelard on Genera and Species, the most Sangerma Speciebus. 507-550 valuable of all the documents which the diligence of M. Cousin has Fragmentum rescued for us, was written apparently in his later days, when he nense de had leisure to review the whole subject, and when he had learned Generibus et to do justice to some of the opponents of whom in his Book Euvres, pp. of Calamities he had spoken hastily. Theology, which he had avoided through preference for Dialectics in early days, into which he had plunged from logical necessity and from ambition in his middle age, might now be regarded more in its moral aspects. He had probably made his peace with the Doctors and the Pope; subdued and humbled he could have had no wish to awaken questions which had caused him so much sorrow. The treatise therefore is purely what it professes to be. But it asserts the doctrines which Abelard had always maintained on the subject of Universals. The habit of his intellect was not changed, however much his temper might be. totum vel the whole; how far it Solution. 29. We may speak of a house, he says, either as a disintegrated Disgregatum whole or as a continuous whole. Supposing we speak of it as a continuum. continuous whole, some reason thus:—If there is a house there is a wall, and if there is a wall there is a half wall, and if there is the half wall there is the half of the half, and so on to the last stone. Therefore if there is the house, there is this last little stone, and if Necessity of there is not that little stone, there is no house. State this conclu- the part to sion in general terms and there is nothing startling in it. Apply extends. it to a particular house and you become sensible of a contradiction. How then are we to get rid of a conclusion that seems inevitable? William of Champeaux, according to Abelard, escaped from it by referring to the definition of a point that has no parts. Sup- William's posing, then, you take a line consisting of two points, you may say that the part follows its whole in the first case. But when you have got so far you can proceed no farther. Therefore, generally, you cannot assume that, because a part follows its own whole, the same may be affirmed of a part of that part; in other words, there must be a limit. Without objecting to this solution, Abelard suggests another. The part of every continuous whole is either principal or secondary. The principal part is either principal in quantity or principal in essence. I may destroy more than half of The Essential Socrates and he will remain; I destroy his heart or brain, and he and the Nonis destroyed. Apply this to the case of the house, considered as a continuous whole, and you may go on with your divisions of quantity as much as you please: so long as that which is essential to the house or the wall or the half wall remains, so long the house or the wall or the half wall remains. Contemplate the house tion. again as a disintegrated whole, and then every tile or separate particle being destroyed, destroys the house. Thus, supposing I assume a flock to consist of a hundred sheep, the absence of one of these sheep destroys that flock so contemplated. But here essential. Disintegr |