SCHOLASTIC 
A scholarship not half maintains. 
And college rules are heavy chains; 
So, scorning the late wish’d-for prize, 
For a fat fellowship he sighs. If arton. 
SCHOLA'STIC, aclj. [from scholasticus, Lat.] Per¬ 
taining to the school; practised in schools.— Scholastic^ 
education, like a trade, does so fix a man in a particular way, 
that he is not fit to judge of any thing that lies out of that 
way. Burnet .—Befitting to the school; suitable to the 
school; pedantic; needlessly subtle.—Sir Francis Bacon 
was wont to say, that those who left useful studies for useless 
scholastick speculations, were like the Olvmpick gamesters, 
who abstained from necessary labours, that they might be fit 
for such as were not so. Bacon. 
SCHOLA'STIC, s. One who adheres to the niceties or 
method of the schools.—The shallow commenting of scho- 
lasticks and canonists. Milton. 
SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY, a name given to the 
dialectic or Aristotelian philosophy, which, loaded with me¬ 
taphysical subtleties, had been studied and professed by se¬ 
veral of the clergy towards the close of the 11th century, and 
which began at the opening of the 12th to be publicly 
taught in the schools, and to take the lead of every other 
kind of learning. It gained esteem at this period, because it 
was supposed to be the key of theology, without which it 
would be impossible to unlock the mysteries of sacred 
wisdom. It was on account of this fancied alliance between 
logic and theology, that the former was made the principal 
object of study in all the schools, and that those who ex¬ 
celled in the dialectic art were regarded with the highest 
admiration, and attended by crowds of pupils. There were 
also other collateral circumstances which contributed to the 
prevalence of a taste for logical disputations. The Aris¬ 
totelian philosophy had for several centuries been studied by 
the Saracens, and was at this time taught in their schools 
in Spain. These schools were visited by many of the 
western Christians, who learned Arabic, that they might 
be able to read translations of Aristotle, and other philo¬ 
sophical writers in that language, and who afterwards 
translated many Arabic books into the European tongues. 
The first person who undertook this task seems to have 
been Constantine Afer, a monk of Cassino. Daniel Morley 
also, of Norfolk, a student in the universities of Oxford and 
Paris, visited Spain, and learned mathematics in the Arabic 
tongue at Toledo, - and on his return published books in 
Latin, one “ De inferiori et superiori parte Mundi,” and 
another, “ De Principiis Mathematicis.” He was followed 
by Robert Retin, archdeacon of Pampelona in Spain, who 
wrote a Latin translation of the Koran, and Adelard, an 
English monk of the Benedictine monastery at Bath, in the 
reign of Henry I., who learned Arabic, and translated from 
that language many Greek writings, among which were the 
Elements of Euclid. 
Another cause which seemed to establish a general taste of 
the Peripatetic philosophy, and particularly for the Aristo¬ 
telian logic, was the circumstance, that about this period many 
Greek copies of the writings of Aristotle were brought from 
Constantinople into the west. This fondness for logical 
disputations, however, occasioned an inundation of new opi¬ 
nions, which alarmed the guardians of the church ; and the 
synod of Paris passed a sentence, prohibiting the use of the 
physical and metaphysical writings of Aristotle in the 
schools; which sentence was afterwards confirmed by the 
council of Lateran, under pope Innocent III. These vio¬ 
lent measures increased the evils against which they were 
directed; and it was at length found necessary, by degrees, 
and under certain restrictions, to favour the study of Aris¬ 
totle ; so that his dialectics, physics, and metaphysics, were 
by express statute received into the university of Paris. In 
several other countries, the Aristotelian philosophy was re¬ 
ceived with less opposition. The name of Aristotle, from the 
end of the 12th century, obtained universal dominion; and his 
writings were so far from falling under the censure of coun- 
Vol. XXII. No. 1540. 
PHILOSOPHY. 781 
cils and popes, that the Aristotelian and Saracenic philo¬ 
sophy became the main pillars of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. 
During the period that elapsed from the 12th to the 14th. 
century, though many persons professed to philosophise, 
true philosophy and learning made little progress. The 
Scholastics lost themselves in metaphysical darkness. They 
carried on their disputes with such vehemence, that many 
ludicrous and many bloody frays happened among them. 
The whole world was disturbed with the idle contests of the 
scholastic philosophy from the 12th century to the Reforma¬ 
tion ; and so deeply did this philosophy take root, that even 
to this day it has not been entirely extirpated. 
The origin of the scholastic philosophy may be easily 
traced. The high reputation which St. Augustine obtained 
in the Christian Church, gave his treatise on dialectics 
universal authority, and led those who were inclined to phi¬ 
losophise, implicity do follow his method of applying the 
subtleties of Stoic reasoning, and the mysteries of the Pla¬ 
tonic doctrine, to the explanation of the sacred doctrines of 
revelation. The dialectic art, thus introduced, was further 
encouraged by Latin versions of some of the writings of 
Aristotle, and of Porphyry’s Introduction to the Cate¬ 
gories. The study of logical subtleties was pursued under 
these guides in the schools of the monasteries, particularly 
in Ireland, whence many scholars from England and Scot¬ 
land carried this kind of philosophy into their own countries; 
and from Britain it afterwards passed into France, and other 
parts of Europe. 
From this time, the ecclesiastics, who, during a long 
period of tumult and barbarism, kept the small remains of 
learning and philosophy in their own hands, made no other 
use of them than as pillars to support the hierarchy, or as 
weapons of defence against its adversaries. The whole his¬ 
tory of the church, from the 8th to the 11th century, 
proves that scholastic men, that is, the professors of philo¬ 
sophy and theology in the monastic schools, studied and 
taught philosophy only for this purpose; and there cap be 
no doubt, that the violent ecclesiastical disputes of these 
times fostered that disposition towards subtle refinement in 
speculation, which at length brought the scholastic philosophy 
to maturity. Towards the close of the 11th century, this 
spirit so generally prevailed, that disputation upon theology 
and philosophy became the chief occupation and amusement 
of the learned ; and, in process of time, various sects sprung 
up in which questions purely logical were confounded with 
points of theology, and dialectics were applied to the ex¬ 
planation of the scriptures. This kind of philosophy was 
taught not only in the monastic schools, but in public aca¬ 
demies; and Aristotle, at first imperfectly represented in 
Arabic and Latin versions, and afterwards brought into 
full view in his own original writings, obtained sovereign 
authority in the whole Christian world. Thus the scho¬ 
lastic philosophy appears not to have been the invention of 
any one man, but to have risen up by almost imperceptible 
degrees from the ^th to the 12th century, when it attained 
its maturity. 
The leading character of the scholastic philosophy was, 
that it employed itself in an ostentatious display of ingenuity, 
in which axioms assumed without examination, distinctions 
without any real difference, and terms without any precise 
meaning, were made use of as weapons of assault and de¬ 
fence, in controversies upon abstruse questions, which, after 
endless skirmishes, it was impossible to bring to any issue, 
and which, notwithstanding all the violence of the contest, 
it was of no importance to determine. The scholastic logic 
is not to be confounded with the genuine art of reasoning, 
from which it differs as much as dross from pure gold. 
These disputants made use of dialectics, not to assist the 
human understanding in discovering truth conducive to the 
happiness of man, but to secure to themselves the honours 
of conquest in the field of controversy. John of Salisbury 
complains, that the scholars of his time consumed not ten 
or twenty years, but their whole lives, in these disputes; and 
that when, through old age, they became incapable of any 
9 N other 
