Krey—John of Salisbury and the Classics. 953 
successor, Alexander III, an almost equal intimacy was enjoyed 
by John. Thus, acquainted with all classes of men from the 
highest in the Church and politics to the humble Monks and 
clerks, he was peculiarly well qualified to criticize the world 
about him. A scholar by nature, to whom leisure without let¬ 
ters was death in life, 1 , he was fortunately in a position to 
gratify his desires to the full. The activities of the world 
passed, as it were, before his eyes, and that cool common-sense 
wdiich had enabled him to delight in the teachings of Abelard, 
and yet not be carried away by them; which made him pleasing 
alike to Bernard and to Abelard, and which had in his boyhood 
repelled the magical leanings of his teacher, now served him as 
a guide in contemplating those activities. He saw their vani¬ 
ties and their weaknesses, and to trace these down to their 
origins, to find the arguments for and against them, and to show 
what their results had been, with a view toward determining 
what they would be, had long been his desire. A period of en¬ 
forced idleness, due to a temporary estrangement with Henry 
II, gave him his opportunity and by the year 1159 while Thomas 
was still with the King before the walls of Toulouse, John pub¬ 
lished the Polycraticus, a compendium of his reflections and re¬ 
searches “De Hugiis Curialibus et Yestigiis Philosophorum.” 
This he dedicated to his friend and patron, the Archbishop to 
whom he owed so much. 
The chief importance of this work is that it is a calm, critical 
picture of the great activities of the time, made by one who was 
in the midst of it all, yet sufficiently aloof to have a clear view. 
It depicts the great struggle in philosophy and criticizes those 
who pursue Aristotle to the exclusion of all else. It gives quo¬ 
tations from the whole Organon of Aristotle and represents a 
wider knowledge of the great Peripatetic than was general at 
that time, yet, it ranks Plato as the first philosopher. John 
repeatedly enrolls himself with the Academicians “as Augustine 
was and as Cicero had been in his later years.” He views 
pathetically the progress of those who were year in, year out, 
engaged in inextricably winding themselves up in the labyrinth 
1 Migne, 199, 388, “quia otium sine litteris mors est, et vivi hominis 
sepultura.” 
5 
