DOGMATISM OF THE STATIONARY PERIOD. 331 



by God to man, must be identical ; and therefore, 

 that Theology is the only true Philosophy. Indeed, 

 the Neoplatonists had already arrived, by other 

 roads, at the same conviction. John Scot Erigena, 

 in the reign of Alfred, and consequently before the 

 existence of the Scholastic Philosophy, properly so 

 called, had reasserted this doctrine 2 . Anselm, in 

 the eleventh century, again brought it forward 3 ; 

 and Bernard de Chartres, in the thirteenth 4 . 



This view was confirmed by the opinion which 

 prevailed, concerning the nature of philosophical 

 truth ; a view supported by the theory of Plato, the 

 practice of Aristotle, and the general propensities 

 of the human mind : I mean the opinion that all 

 science may be obtained by the use of reasoning 

 alone ; that by analyzing and combining the no- 

 tions which common language brings before us, we 

 may learn all that we can know. Thus Logic came 

 to include the whole of Science ; and accordingly 

 this Abelard expressly maintained 5 . I have already 

 explained, in some measure, the fallacy of this be- 

 lief, which consists, as has been well said 6 , " in mis- 

 taking the universality of the theory of language 

 for the generalization of facts." But on all accounts 

 this opinion is readily accepted ; and it led at once 

 to the conclusion, that the Theological Philosophy 

 which we have described, is complete as well as 

 true. 



8 Deg. iv. 351. 3 Ib. iv. 388. 4 Ib. iv. 418. 



6 Ib. iv. 407. " Enc. Met. 807- 



