bending them into one world-theory. The tyrannical reign of 

 dogmatic theology was, however, not to last forever, and, with the 

 rise of the second period of Mediaeval philosophy, signs of a newer 

 life are evident. 



At the beginning of the thirteenth century Christian Europe, 

 it would seem, knew nothing of Aristotle's writings except a part 

 of the Organon, and that was mainly misunderstood. But, owing to 

 the Arabians, who in the eleventh and twelfth centuries had trans- 

 lated and commented upon much of the rest of Aristotle's work, 

 Christian students in Europe were gradually becoming acquainted 

 with his ethics and metaphysics. The Church, coldly conservative, 

 at first paid little attention to this innovation but soon began to 

 discern signs of trouble, and so in 1209 it condemned Aristotle's 

 physics and in 1215 his metaphysics. Nothing should rival its 

 imperious authority. But it had made a mistake, and in 1250 the 

 Church revoked its decisions and permitted lectures on Aristotle 

 to be given, seeing the possibility thereby of gaining a powerful ally. 

 In 1300 the Stagirite was the Church's official philosopher, and to 

 contradict him was tantamount to heresy. 



Thomas Aquinas, the greatest of the Scholastics, tried to re- 

 produce for his own day the Aristotelian system, confident, too, 

 that the philosophy he was establishing was not at variance with the 

 teachings of the Church. But the separation and definition of 

 the territories of each discipline militated against their union. 

 Philosophy was gradually emerging from its theological thraldom 

 and, having received official sanction from the church, and, having 

 been given again a more or less definite task apart from that of 

 theology, it was beginning a new development. The separation of 

 philosophy from theology was hastened by the attitude of such men 

 as Duns Scotus who, jealous for the fame of the Franciscan order, 

 undertook a criticism of Aquinas, and fearlessly championed reason 

 as a higher authority than revelation. Another factor of tremen- 

 dous influence was the ultimate triumph of the opponents of Real- 

 ism in the great controversy over the universals, as it is called. 

 This controversy formed one of the outstanding features of the 

 history of thought in the Mediaeval Ages. The problem was 

 formulated at the beginning of the period in very concise language 

 by Porphyry in his "Introduction to the Categories of Aristotle", 



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