SCHOLASTIC PRELUDE TO MODERN SCIENCE. 741 



These two, with William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris (1218-1248), 

 consolidated that system called the Scholastic Philosophy, which saved 

 Catholicism from the heretical wisdom of the Arabians. 



The greatest of the three was Albert, and twenty folio volumes 

 attest his industry. He commented on all the works of Aristotle. 

 Albert perceived that general concepts are at the base of all philoso- 

 phies. He held that they existed independently of the mind ; but he 

 did not recognize a being called Humanity independent of actual 

 human being ; nor of Animality beyond actual animals. He held that 

 the genus is an essence which only exists in particulars, but does not 

 depend upon them. It emanates from the mind of God. Thus hu- 

 manity and all other essences are the concepts, ideas, or forms existing 

 in the mind of God, realized in individual beings. Hence, to find the 

 origin of the universal, it was necessary to go back to the first cause. 

 Albert was thus a modified realist. All realities were supposed to exist 

 as concepts of the Divine mind ; and also all concepts of the Divine 

 mind had corresponding realities. 



By this means all knowledge of external nature was to be found in 

 the concepts or ideas of the mind ; and these mental abstractions were 

 supposed to be real physical existences. 



Now, theology is the creation of the human mind, and consists in 

 abstract concepts ; and these were formed into a logical system of 

 dogmatic theology. This being granted, these great master-minds saw 

 the prodigious use of the Aristotelian logic in forming the subject 

 into a great scientific system. In fact, if the freedom of inquiry could 

 be curbed, and opinion restrained to certain orthodox fundamental 

 concepts, there was nothing like the Ai-istotelian logic for reducing 

 them to systematic form. Hence the Aristotelian logic, instead of 

 being adverse to the Church, was now its greatest defender. 



The greatest of all the scholastic doctors was Thomas Aquinas, the 

 pupil of Albert of Cologne ; and his works are the very incarnation of 

 the scholastic philosophy. 



It was then supposed that theology comprehended every other sci- 

 ence ; and physics was framed in the same spirit as theology. All 

 physical science was supposed to be founded on certain mental con- 

 cepts, which were supposed to be real. But all reference to Nature 

 herself was prohibited, as savoring of heresy, and from fear of con- 

 tradicting some doctrine of theology. Aristotle's theory of matter 

 and form Avas adopted the matter being the physical substance and 

 quality of things, and form being that which distinguishes them into 

 different classes. 



Thus all physical science was reduced to syllogisms ; and it was 

 supposed that by varying these all physical truth might be discovered. 

 The system was therefore entirely a priori ; it began with the highest 

 abstractions pure fictions of the mind and reasoned deductively from 

 causes to effects. By this means the idealism of Plato, together with 



