35 



claimed a real existence apart from the wills of suc- 

 cessive generations of individual and variable men; 

 she taught that Man had fallen not only in many 

 or all individual cases, but as a kind having a real 

 existence 1 , and again that in the Mass there is change 

 of hypostasis 2 while then realism was essential to 

 the Faith, yet if forms pre-exist ("ante rem") then 

 the acts of God must be predetermined "fatis" 

 non "avolsa voluntas" ; or if forms are only "in re" 

 God must be form, living in each and every act 

 and thing, which is Pantheism (" materia omnium 

 Deus"): an impersonal conception and a dissolution 

 of dogma which the Church must and did abhor. 

 " Pessimus error " there is the abyss, cried Albert, 

 avoiding it by dialectical juggles. Erigena, the bril- 

 liant prophet and protestant 3 of the first period of 



1 As St Anselin put it, "Participatione speciei plures 

 homines sunt unus homo." Out of humanity individual men 

 proceed. 



8 Vid. p. 32, note. 



3 Erigena, "the miracle of the Holy Ghost"; a figure of 

 almost mythical grandeur, arising in the far west, full of new 

 learning, of lyric enthusiasm, and heroic courage. He did not 

 protest, with St Columba, against the Papacy only ; he pro- 

 tested against authority, and he protested against mighty 

 ignorance ; neither of which should withstand the persuasion 

 of right reason. "Ratio immutabilis...qu3e...nullms auctori- 

 tatis adstipulatione roborari indiget." His works were pro- 

 scribed and burned. 



32 



