ORIGINS OF THE PROBLEM OF UNITY OF FORM 14«1 



None the less, it is noteworthy that in establishing his point, 

 namely, the unity of the soul in every living being, Alfred urges 

 the same argument advocated before him by Avicenna, and 

 which later will be more elaborately used by Aquinas. 



Turning our attention now to the Paris theologians of the 

 period, we meet with no explicit mention of the problem in 

 Peter of Poitiers (d. 1205) , in Simon of Toumai (d. 1203) , 

 Praepositinus of Cremona (d. 1210) , Robert Curzon, William 

 de Montibus (d. 1213) , or Stephen Langton. William of Aux- 

 erre (d. 1231) , so keen to turn to profit in his Summa aurea 

 (c. 1220) every new topic, and perhaps the first theologian to 

 make wide use of the new learning, is equally silent. 



The earliest, to my knowledge, clear and unmistakable ac- 

 count is found in the faculty of Arts, in the treatise On the 

 Soul of John Blund, written not later than 1210.*" Its main 

 source is undoubtedly Avicenna. This treatise, representative 

 of both Paris and Oxford, is a striking example of the deep 

 penetration in the schools of Avicennian theories, under the 

 cloak of Aristotle, at the beginning of the thirteenth century. 

 Like Gundissalinus and Alfredus Anglicus, John Blund belongs 

 to a period of transition, and joins in the attempt to utilize 

 Eastern philosophy in Western thought, linking up the Arabian 

 world with Scholasticism, 



The elementary way in which the question is treated points 

 unmistakably to its early stage. Its very title, utruvi anhna 

 vegetabilis. sensibilis et rationalis sint in homine eadem anima 

 an diversae, bears the impress of Avicenna. In the table of 

 contents it is described quomodo anima vegetabilis se habeat 

 ad animam sensibilem et rationalem. The chief point of the 

 discussion, in fact, appears to be more logical than psycho- 

 logical, though this is not excluded, namely, whether ' anima ' 

 or ' animatum,' the vegetative soul is a genus or a species; and 

 if a genus, how it is predicated of its species, namely the 

 nutritive soul of animal soul and of rational soul. 



*'See D. A. Callus, "The treatise of John Blund On the Soul," in Autour 

 d' Aristotle. RecueU d' etudes ofert a Mons. A. Mansion (Louvam, 1955), pp. 471- 

 495. This treatise will be published shortly. 



