PHtLOSOPHIC SCIENCES. S3 



-. 

 Chartres, had attended in his youth all the principal masters of his time, 



and had not attached himself to any of their schools. A man of refined 

 mind, a gifted writer, a great admirer of antiquity, ho had no inclination for 

 the frigid subtleties of the logicians of his day, and though he was animated 

 by a sincerely religious faith, he inclined towards scepticism in philosophy. 



The abuses of dialectics encountered a fierce opposition from two monks of 

 the Abbey of St. Victor, Hugh, and Richard, his disciple, both of whom 

 were familiar with the profane sciences, and, to a certain extent, friends of 

 philosophy, but both the declared adversaries of arid speculations, and 

 partisans of that method which raises us to God less by the light of the mind 

 than by that of the heart, less by reason than by faith and love. They were, 

 in the twelfth century, the representatives of Catholic mysticism. 



At that time, however, Christian Europe had not got beyond the logical 

 works of Aristotle ; but at the close of the twelfth century the " Physics," the 

 " Metaphysics," and the "Ethics "'of that great philosopher travelled westward. 

 They found their way into the Catholic Universities in Latin translations, some 

 from the Greek text, others from the Arabic version which had long been 

 employed in the Mahometan schools. To these translations must be added 

 the commentaries from the pens of Arab writers. The unlooked-for appear- 

 ance of these monuments of the philosophical genius of Greece and of the 

 East made a profound impression upon men's minds. Some men lost their 

 heads, such as Amaury de Bene, David of Dinant, and their disciples, a great 

 number of whom perished at the stake, victims of their errors and of the alarm 

 they had caused in the ranks of Christian society. Others, more circumspect, 

 more attached to tradition, endeavoured to turn to the profit of religion 

 these treatises and commentaries, hitherto unknown, which had enriched the 

 literature of the West. They sought to discover in them truths which the 

 Church was accustomed to teach, and which they set to work to advocate 

 (Fig. 40). The "Physics" and "Metaphysics," first of all proscribed, gradually 

 became, for the most pious of the doctors, subjects of assiduous study and the 

 source from which they drew a part of their doctrines. Alexander of Hales, 

 surnamed the Irrefutable Doctor, who died in 1245, was one of the most able 

 interpreters of the philosophy of Aristotle. After him, William of 

 Auvergne, who had studied the philosophers of the Neo-Platonist school of 

 Alexandria and the Arab philosophers, employed his theological erudition in 

 combating the erroneous consequences which the modern partisans of these 



