The Press.
London, England, 1856-12-06 00:00:00

ground, by assuming that his reader can dis-
pense with links in the chain of reasoning,
and also by an apparent dislike of the em-
ployment of foriuul, which, however dry,
are indispensable to the comprehension of

logic.
Abelard's theological heresy sprang directly
from his theory of dialectics and this fact
alone should suffice to show that the medieval
logic was not that sapless, lifeless, heap of
verbiage which it is vulgularly supposed to
be. Was not the Trinity in Unity and the
Unity in Trinity only another exhibition of
the fundamental doctrine of Realism? This
seems to have been the doubt by which
Abelard's mind was tormented. The idea of
one divine nature which existed equally and
essentially in all three Persons of the God-
head was repugnant to the position ho had
assumed in his controversy with William of
Champeaux. This, at least, is what we collect
from Mr. Maurice's statement, which here
again might well he rendered fuller and
clearer. The end of it was that Abelard's
book on the Trinity was burnt before his eyes
at the Council of Soissons, and the innovator
retired to his monastery crushed and

The first of the schoolmen who formally
enunciated any doctrine resembling that of
conceptualism, as at present understood, was
John of Salisbury. So far he wa s in advance of
his teachers; but he was also a staunch chain.
pion of the deductive method of inquiry, and
adopted the " Quadrivium " of Boethius as
the only " true Mathi-Isis." After John, the next
name of any note is that of Albertus Magnus
(born A.D. 1205), celebrated in his day for his
knowledge of physical philosophy. By his
time theology had in great measure got the
upper hand of logic, and Albertus headed a
reaction in favour of Aristotle. But the great
hero of the schoolmen was yet to appear, the
Angelical Doctor, Thomas of Aquino.
Aquinas seems rather to have gathered
together and cemented the work of preceding
generations, than to have brought any original
tribute to the treasury of philosophy. The
character of his mind was disputative, and
thus the reader is always sure of finding the
opposite argument given in its integrity. A
good specimen of his method is given by Mr.
Maurice in an extract from the " Quodlibeta,"
one of Aquinas's earlier works. One of the
questions there discussed is, " whether those
" things which are impossible to Nature are
" possible to God." Aquinas brings forward
nine reasons on the negative and eight on the
affirmative side, arid, after all, appears to arrive
at no very definite conclusion. But the value
of the argument consists in its minute and
conscientious investigation of every shade of
opinion. Persons who have not sufficient
power of continuous thought to follow a long
and subtle train of reasoning may call this
elaborate analysis trifling. Mr. Maurice, how-
ever, does justice to Aquinas's intellect ; and
the' value of his labours, though we think it
might have been accorded with a less timid
hand, is fully acknowledged. The great work
of Aquinas was his " Summa Theologice,"
from which, in pursuance of our plan of tracing
the progress of logical inquiry, we extract the
following remarks upon ideas

:-

" What is called Idea in Greek, is called Form in Latin.
Wherefore by ideas are understood the forms of certain
things over and above the things themselves. Now the
form of anything existing over and above the thing itself,
may be either the exemplar of that thing, or the principle
of the knowledge of it in the mind of the knower. It is
necessary to assume ideal in both senses. For in all
things that are not generated by chance, the Form is the
end of the generation. lint an agent does not act on
account of the form, except in so far as the similitude of it
is in him. The similitude exists naturally in those agents
that act by nature, as man generates man, and fire fire.
The similitude exists intellectually in those agents which
act by intellect. Thus the similitude of a house pre-exists
in the mind of a builder, and this may be called the idea
of the house, because the artificer intends to assimilate the
house to this form. Seeing, therefore, that the world is
not made by chance, but is made by God acting through
intellect, it is necessary there should be in the Divine
mind a Form after the similitude of which the world has
been made." Then, in disposing of some of the objections
to the existence of Ideas, he says that " God does not
understand things according to an idea existing without
Him," and therefore that Aristotle was right in denouncing
the opinion of Plato concerning ideas, inasmuch as he
made them self-existing, not existing in the intellect.
The great doctors of the Franciscan order
were Bonaveatura and Duns Scotus, who up-