CHAP. XXII.] CONSTITUTION OF THE INTELLECT. 415 



to it the perfect union of opposite qualities,* or to the remarkable 

 treatises of Anselm, designed to establish a theory of the universe 

 upon the analogies of thought and being.f The primal unity is 

 there represented as having its abode in the one eternal Truth. 

 The conformity of Nature to her laws, "the obedience of moral 

 agents to the dictates of rectitude, are the same Truth seen in 

 action; the world itself being but an expression of the self-reflect- 

 ing thought of its Author.J Still more marked was the revival 

 of the older forms of speculation during the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries. The friends and associates of Lorenzo the 

 Magnificent, the recluses known in England as the Cambridge 

 Platonists, together with many meditative spirits scattered 

 through Europe, devoted themselves anew, either to the task of 

 solving the ancient problem, De Uno, Vero, Bono, or to that of 

 proving that all such inquiries are futile and vain. The logical 

 elements which underlie all these speculations, and from which 

 they appear to borrow at least their form, it would be easy to 

 trace in the outlines of more modern systems, more especially 

 in that association of the doctrine of the absolute unity with the 

 distinction of the ego and the non-ego as the type of Nature, 

 which forms the basis of the philosophy of Hegel. The attempts 

 of speculative minds to ascend to some high pinnacle of truth, 

 from which they might survey the entire framework and con- 



* See especially the lofty strain of Hildebert beginning " Alpha et Q magne 

 Deus." (Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry.) The principle upon which all these 

 speculations rest is thus stated in the treatise referred to in the last note. 

 Ovdt v ovv aroirov, t? a^vdpwv IIKOVWV tirl TO TTOLVTUV ainov 'avajSdvraQ, virep- 

 KOGIIIOLQ 600aXjuoi Oehjprjffat TrdvTa Iv T( TTO.VTMV din'<>, teal TO. aXXrjXoiQ ivav- 

 ria fjiovotidwQ Kal vfw/zsvwe De Divinis Nominibus, cap. v. And the kind of 

 knowledge which it is thus sought to attain is described as a "darkness beyond 

 light," vTrtpQ&TOG yvotyoQ. (De Mystica Theologia, cap. i.) Milton has a simi- 

 lar thought 



" Dark with excessive bright Thy skirts appear." 



Par. Lost, Book in. 

 Contrast with these the nobler simplicity of 1 John, i. 5. 



f Monologium, Prosologium, and De Veritate. 



J " Idcirco cum ipse summus spiritus dicit seipsum dicit omnia qua? facta 

 sunt." Monolog. cap. xxin. 



See dissertations in Spinoza, Picus of Mirandula, H. More, &c. Modern 

 discussions of this nature are chiefly in connexion with aesthetics, the ground of 

 the application being contained in the formula of Augustine : " Omnis porro 

 pulchritudinis forma, unitas est." 



