of Edinburgh, Session 1870-71. 
443 
anything, however good in itself, which differed from their old 
theories. They called the logic of the old tradition the “ Vetus 
Logica f and its upholders “ Antiqui .” 
Now, curiously enough these terms had been applied half a cen- 
tury before, and in a very different manner. When Roscellinus had 
startled the orthodox world by saying that universals were only 
“ flatus vocisf and had drawn many heretical conclusions in logic 
and in theology, from this doctrine, his opponents said that he was 
the author of a “ new ” kind of logic, and called his followers 
“ moderni.” The “old ” logic, of the days of Roscellinus, treated 
logic from a realist point of view, the “ new ” logic treated logic 
from a nominalist point of view (so far as the words “ realist ” and 
“ nominalist ” can be used with accuracy of any doctrine at this 
early period of scholasticism). The Antiqui of the time of Ros- 
cellinus became realists in the time of Thomas of Aquino, and 
the “moderni ” were the nominalists of later days. 
Here then we have a confusion in the terminology, on the one 
hand Yetus Logica meant the introduction of Porphyry, the trea- 
tises on the Categories, and on Interpretation ; Nova Logica, the 
Prior and Posterior Analytics, the Topics and the book on Falla- 
cies ; Antiqui, those who thought that Logic Proper was contained 
in this Yetus Logica; Moderni, those who thought that this Nova 
Logica was the true Logic. On the other hand, Yetus Logica 
meant logic treated from a realist point of view ; Nova Logica, 
logic treated from a nominalist point of view ; while Antiqui and 
Moderni corresponded very much to the latter terms of Realist 
and Nominalist. 
This confusion does not really last throughout the period of 
Scholasticism. The meaning of the terms did fluctuate somewhat, 
as all terms do, but upon the whole they preserved a great uni- 
formity of meaning. “Yetus” and “Nova Logica,” became 
dissociated from “ Antiqui ” and “ Moderni,” with which they 
were at first so closely united, and, curiously enough, while the 
one set of terms kept to one of their primitive meanings, the other 
set kept to the opposite meaning. “ Yetus ” and “ Nova Logica ” 
were used of divisions of Aristotle’s Organon ; while Antiqui and 
Moderni became more or less, though never quite, equivalent to 
Realist and Nominalist. 
