30 



the Nominalists ; and the issues of it, in the 

 eleventh century, at which time the "Dark Ages" 

 passed into the earlier of the two periods of the 

 Middle Ages, were formulated on the realist side 

 by William of Champeaux, while the Breton Rous- 

 selin, or Roscellinus, had the perilous honour of 

 defining them on behalf of the nominalists 1 . To 

 see the depth of the difference we must step back 

 a little, to a time when metaphysics and psychology 

 were not distinguished from other spheres of 

 science 2 , and all research had for its object the 

 nature of being. Plato himself held ideas not as 

 mere abstractions but in some degree as creative 

 powers ; and we shall see how potent this function 

 became in the thought of the Middle Ages when, 



the universe of things is but a picture produced by the 

 evolution of the phenomena of consciousness. The proper 

 names for these opposite conceptions are of course Nou- 

 menalism and Phenomenalism. Realism proper as a habit 

 of thought, whatever may have been its provisional uses, 

 is now a mischievous habit; noumenalism is a harmless 

 amusement. 



1 Roscellinus, the Roger Bacon of the eleventh century, 

 learned, rebellious, lucid and heroic, withstood the Church 

 for philosophy as did Bacon in the thirteenth for natural 

 science. It would seem that in heroism at any rate Abelard 

 was below his master. 



2 Vid. p. 50. 



