SCHOLASTIC PRELUDE TO MODERN SCIENCE. 737 



much weakened. At the beginning of the twelfth century a great 

 school of law was founded by Pepo and Irnerius at Bologna, and for 

 two centuries produced an illustrious line of jurists, to which students 

 flocked from all parts of Europe. 



But the most remarkable and original product of the middle ages 

 was the Scholastic Philosophy ; and, as the Baconian philosophy was 

 the reaction against it, it is necessary to give a brief outline of it. 



Socrates was the first to perceive that all systematic reasoning in 

 science and philosophy must be based upon general concepts, ideas, or 

 definitions of terms. The dialogues of Plato are full of discussions on 

 the meanings of terms the Good, the Beautiful, the Holy, the Just, 

 and numerous others. If any action was said to be holy or just, it was 

 first of all necessary to define the holy, or the just. Thus the Platonic 

 dialogues are full of inductive reasonings as to fundamental concepts. 

 Now, when a certain moral concept is formed in the mind, it does not 

 by any means follow that it should be realized in any actual person, 

 nor that it should be seen in any action. It is quite possible to form 

 a mental concept of the holy or the just, without there being any holy 

 or just person, or any one doing a holy or just action. 



From this it followed that general concepts might have an actual 

 and real existence without being embodied in any concrete form. 

 Plato argued by analogy from the moral to the physical world. He 

 held that all nature was framed in accordance with certain ideas, or 

 notions existing in the Divine mind, which were quite independent of 

 any particulars. Thus, there was an idea or notion of a man, horse, 

 etc., before there was any actual man or horse though he was rather 

 staggered at the notion of there being eternal ideas of mud, hair, dirt, 

 etc. Thus, besides the world of spiritual existences, Plato held that 

 there is also a distinct world of invisible, self-existent, eternal, and 

 unchangeable ideas. These, with some variations, were the doctrines 

 which were called realism in the middle ages. Aristotle, the disciple 

 of Plato, combated these doctrines in several of his works. He main- 

 tained that these universals, as they were called, could not be separated 

 from their particulars : he denied that universals could have a separate 

 reality from the particulars. Hence the universals were mere names 

 for certain particulars. This, somewhat modified, was termed nomi- 

 nalism in the middle ages. t 



The Greeks were the first to discover tbat there is an innate power 

 of discerning truth in the human mind ; and that there is a science of 

 truth, which can be reduced to a systematic form. This science is 

 termed logic. Zeno, of Elea, was the first to employ this science, to 

 prove the fallacy of the arguments of his opponents. It was much 

 used by Socrates and Plato in their discussions and dialogues ; but 

 Aristotle was the first to reduce it to a systematic form. He first 

 showed that all error can be exposed and all truth set forth in a sys- 

 tematic form. 



vol. xx. 47 



