96 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



revolt against the union of philosophy and religion 

 which the scholastics sought, and which his age 

 believed Thomas Aquinas to have finally and con- 

 clusively achieved. A revival of dualism appears, 

 essentially unsatisfying and incomplete, yet necessary 

 as a stage of progress in order that philosophy may 

 be set free from its bondage as the " handmaid of 

 theology," free in fertile union with experiment to give 

 birth to science. 



The process went much further in William of 

 Occam, a native of Surrey (d. 1347), wno denied that 

 any theological doctrines were rationally demon- 

 strable, and showed the irrational nature of many of 

 the doctrines of the Church. He attacked the extreme 

 theory of papal supremacy, and headed a revolt of 

 Franciscans against the control of Pope John XXII. 

 His writings in defence of this action led to his trial 

 for heresy and imprisonment at Avignon. But he 

 escaped and sought protection of the Emperor Louis 

 of Bavaria, and aided him in his long controversy with 

 the Pope. 



This principle of the twofold nature of truth, the 

 acceptance by faith of the doctrines of the Church, 

 and the examination by reason of the subjects of 

 philosophy, was bound up with the revival of nomi- 

 nalism, the belief in the sole reality of individual 

 things, and the reference of universal ideas to the rank 

 of mere names or mental concepts. Stress was laid on 

 the objects of immediate sense-perception, in a spirit 

 that distrusted abstractions, and made eventually 

 for direct observation and experiment, for inductive 

 research. 



The new nominalism was opposed and banned by 



