March 21, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



'85 



■"penetrated into the wilderness of scholasticism." When one 

 remembers that Thomas Aquinas is the accredited exponent of 

 the theology of the Roman Catholic Church, this seems hardly 

 •creditable to English scholarship; nor is it to our credit that the 

 only idea which so many persons have of these philosophers and 

 theologians of the middle ages is derived from the grotesque 

 and silly discussions in which they are popularly represented as 

 delighting. But the dispute as to the nature of universals, 

 which has been the special occasion of the cheap ridicule visited 

 upon them, is not a mere word-play. Its historical genesis 

 .and its intellectual affiliation are in the concepts of Socrates, 

 the ideas of Plato, the forms of Aristotle. However alien in 

 spirit and form to the Greek philosophy, scholasticism is its 

 'Continuation, and nominalism and realism are only the med- 

 iseval way of expressing the antithesis of sense and reason, 

 phenomena and noumena, the empirical and the ideal, which, 

 under one name or another, appears in every age of human 

 thought. That this antithesis should have taken a theological 

 form was only natural under the circumstances then existing: 

 in the absence of a knowledge of nature, there was little else 

 to philosophize about, except the data furnished by the Scrip- 

 tures. It is easy, no doubt, to blame the scholastic thinkers 

 because they did not adopt the inductive method as expounded 

 by modern authorities; but we all know that men must be 

 judged by the standards of their time, and it is certain, that, 

 in its best period, scholasticism was immensely stimulating 

 and influential. We cannot easily understand how these dry 

 and subtle abstractions of logic and metaphysics could have 

 been so interesting; but we know that the old curriculum, in- 

 herited from the declining days of the empire, — the trivium 

 and quadrivium, — was abandoned on all sides for this new 

 instrument of discipline and culture ; that admiring pupils 

 flocked in vast numbers to listen to masters like Abelard and 

 Scotus ; that even the street brawls of the students turned on the 

 issues between the nominalists and the realists. One can have 

 little of the historic spirit who supposes that these great results 

 were accomplished by what Erasmus contemptuously described 

 as ' 'quibblings about notions, and relations, and f ormalitations, 

 and quiddities, and haecceities. " This medieval philosophy 

 and theology was a genuine expression of the human mind, as 

 good a theory of the universe as the times made possible. 



The number of eminent men who taught in the schools of 

 England, France, and Germany during the predominance of 

 scholasticism was by no means small. Such men as Albertus 

 Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, William of Occam, 

 would command respect in any age of the world. The greatest 

 of them all according to modern standards, Roger Bacon, we 

 can hardly regard as a product of the spirit of his time so much 

 as a protest against it; and we find in his case, as in that of 

 others, that powerful influences in behalf of intellectual and 

 spiritual freedom proceeded from schools of scholastic learning. 

 Few movements in English history have taken deeper hold 

 upon the masses of society than that of Wycliffe, the centre of 

 whose activity was at Oxford. At the reforming councils of 

 Constance and Basle the deputies from the universities were 

 conspicuously independent ; John Huss was supported by the 

 influence and enthusiasm of the University of Prague. Thus in 

 this age anticipations of a new era of human thought appeared. 

 It is to the honor of the early universities of Europe that they 

 were produced by this first intellectual awakening of the modem 

 world, and that they so effectively contributed to it. 



The great defect of the intellectual life of the middle ages 

 was that it had not at its command sufficient material of 

 knowledge. In keenness and subtlety, and in constructive 

 ability, the mediasval thinkers have perhaps never been sur- 

 passed : but a far wider range of facts was necessary, that these 

 powers might be profitably employed. The revival of ancient 

 learning, therefore, which, beginning at least a century earlier, 

 spread so rapidly throughout Europe after the middle of the 

 fifteenth century, was a natural and indispensable step in the de- 

 velopment of thought. It restored the continuity of history; it 

 made antiquity and classic culture again objects of knowledge. 

 The relation of schools of learning to this eager study of the 



past was modified by a variety of circumstances. In Italy, 

 where the passion for classical studies was earliest and most 

 intense, private patrons played the most prominent part in 

 the movement. The collection and transcription of manu- 

 scripts, the formation of libraries, the encouragement of learned 

 men, — these services were more munificently rendered by 

 powerful families like the Medicis, by Popes like Nicholas V. 

 and Leo X., by the academies which sprang up in all the lead- 

 ing cities, than by the universities. Of them — in Italy and in 

 every other country — the scholastic philosophy had possession. 

 It is not strange that everywhere it declined to yield its ground. 

 Within limits, the resistance to new methods and new mate- 

 rials of thought, of which the history of education furnishes so 

 many examples, may be admitted as reasonable. Institutions 

 stand in historical relations to the past and to the future, and 

 must act in view of these, making sure that a given change is 

 wholesome before sanctioning it. But the conservative impulse 

 has ordinarily been in excess: habit and sentiment and vested 

 interest have made change more difficult than the public good 

 would dictate. In particular, efi:ete and outworn disciplines 

 have always offered bitter resistance to competitors. The 

 phase of scholasticism which had become prevalent in the fif- 

 teenth century combined a strenuous assertion of orthodoxy with 

 fundamental scepticism. The nominalism of William of Occam 

 denying objective validity to general notions, making them 

 mere words or names not answering to reality, carried with it, 

 of course, the consequence that reasonings founded upon general 

 terms are invalid; that no conclusions can be reached by 

 rational argument; that no tenets of theology or philosophy 

 are rationally demonstrable ; that faith and the authority of the 

 Church are the foundations of belief. We cannot wonder that 

 a mode of thought so suicidal, which renounced all natural and 

 verified knovpledge, should have recognized an irreconcilable 

 opposition between itself and a broadly human and rational 

 movement like the revival of learning. 



It must be remembered, also, that humanism passed into 

 various extravagances which might well awaken the alarm of 

 those who adhered to the ancient faith. Even so ardent a 

 friend of the new learning as Erasmus dreaded the results of 

 its importation into the north. "One scruple still besets my 

 mind," he said, "lest under the cloak of revived literature 

 Paganism should strive to raise its head." How largely a 

 refined and sceptical Epicureanism pervaded Italian society at 

 the time of the classical revival, the art and literature of the 

 period abundantly testify. The cynical frankness with which 

 even high ecclesiastics avowed their unbelief is something 

 startling. The theoretical preference of Paganism to Christian- 

 ity was not uncommon. "Christianity," said Machiavelli, 

 "teaches men to support evils, and not to do great deeds." It 

 must be admitted that the opposition of the academic ad- 

 herents of scholasticism was not wholly without excuse. 



It would, however, be a mistake to suppose, that, even where 

 the traditional influences were strongest, schools of learning 

 were without share in this decisive and critical movement of 

 human thought. The opposition of the existing authorities was 

 in some cases avoided through the expedient of founding col- 

 leges. Thus through the institution by Francis I., in 1531, of 

 the Royal College of Three Languages, the Univers ty of Paris, 

 a stronghold of the old dialecticians, became an important centre 

 of Greek and Hebrew scholarship. This expedient was much 

 employed by the patrons of the new learning in England. The 

 preponderance of the colleges in the English university system 

 is largely due to the fact that so many sprang into being, or 

 into a more vigorous life, at this time, as instruments of the 

 new culture. Nowhere was the classical revival more effec- 

 tively promoted than in the English universities. There are 

 few chapters of literary history more fascinating than that 

 which, beginning, let us say, with the gift of classical books 

 at Oxford by Shakspeare's "good Duke Humphrey" about 1435, 

 and ending with the death of Sir Thomas More in 1535, should 

 indicate the leading events and personages of this century of 

 intellectual revolution. The prevalence of Greek scholarship 

 at Oxford and Cambridge is often attributed to the influence of 



