3. Yet literature and learning were not negligently or even unsuccessfully prosecuted in England during this which we call the Norman period; and this is a fact which we must learn to see in its true light, in order to understand aright the rise of English literature in the fourteenth century. Again, the intellectual awakening which spread to England in the eleventh and twelfth, and produced valuable literary results there in the thirteenth century, cannot be understood except in connection with the general European movement of mind which ensued upon the consolidation of society following the long troubled night of the dark ages. Something must therefore be said about the origin of that movement, about the course it took, and about the great thinkers whose names are for ever associated with it.

4. Strange as it may seem, the revival of intellectual activity at the end of the eleventh and in the twelfth century is clearly traceable to the labours and the example of Mahometans. Charlemagne, indeed, had made a noble effort in the ninth century to systematise education, and to make literature and science the permanent denizens of his empire, but the wars and confusion of every kind which ensued upon the partition of that empire among his sons extinguished the still feeble light. A happier lot had befallen the powerful and populous kingdoms founded by the successors of Mahomet. Indoctrinated with a knowledge of the wonderful fertility and energy of the Greek mind, as exemplified especially in Aristotle and Plato, by Syrian Nestorians (whose forefathers, fleeing from persecution into Persia after the council of Chalcedon, carried with them Syriac versions of the chief works of the Greek philosophers, and founded a school at Gondisapor, near Bagdad), Haroun-alRaschid (whose reign was contemporary with that of Charlemagne), and Al Mamoun, his successor, saw and assisted in the commencement of a brilliant period of literary activity in the nations of Arabian race, which lasted from the ninth to the fourteenth century. Among the Arabian kingdoms none entered into this movement with more earnestness and success than the Moorish kingdoms in Spain. We hear of the Universities of Cordova, Seville, and Granada; and the immense number of Arabic manuscripts on almost every subject contained at this day in the library of the Escurial at Madrid attests the eagerness with which the Moorish writers sought after knowledge, and the universality of their literary tastes. Of their poetry, and the effect which it had on that of Christian Europe, we shall speak presently. Their proficiency in science

1

1 Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe.

is evidenced by the remarkable facts which William of Malmesbury relates of Gerbert, afterwards Pope Sylvester II. After having put on the monastic habit at Flory, in France, his thirst for knowledge led him to quit his cloister and betake himself to the Moorish community in Spain, about the year 1000. At Seville, we are told, he 'satisfied his desires,' becoming an adept, not only in astrology and magic, but also in the lawful sciences' of music and astronomy, arithmetic and geometry. 'These,' says Malmesbury, with great perseverance he revived in Gaul, where they had for a long time been wholly obsolete.' Allowing for some exaggeration in this statement, since the studies of the Trivium and Quadrivium,' among which the said lawful sciences were included, had never been wholly discontinued in the West since the fall of the Roman Empire, we may yet easily conceive that Gerbert was the first who popularised in Gaul the use of the Arabic numerals, without which arithmetic could never have made any considerable progress; and that by importing the astronomical instruments used by the Moors, together with a knowledge of the mechanical principles on which they were constructed, he may have placed the study of astronomy on a new footing. He became a public professor on his return into Gaul, and had many eminent persons among his scholars.

5. Our next forward step transports us to the monastery of Bec, in Normandy. There the abbots Herluin, Lanfranc, and St. Anselm formed a line of great teachers, whose lectures were eagerly attended, both by laymen and ecclesiastics. Whether the intellectual life of Bec was directly influenced by the writings of the great Arabian thinkers, it is difficult to ascertain. Avicenna, the physician and philosopher, died in 1037; therefore, in point of time, his expositions of the Aristotelian philosophy might have become known to Lanfranc and Anselm. The Organon, however, which was translated by Boethius and was known to Beda and Alcuin, had never ceased to be used in the schools, and the writings of St. Anselm do not, we believe, contain any proof that he was acquainted with any other of the works of the Stagirite besides the Aristotelian logic. Still, it is not only possible, but probable, that the reports brought by Gerbert and others of the palmy state of literature among the Moors, and of the zeal both of teachers and students in their universities, may have indirectly had a stimulating effect on the studies of Bec.

6. St. Anselm, abbot of Bec after Lanfranc had been called

1 The Trivium consisted of grammar, logic, and rhetoric; the Quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.

into England in 1070, is considered by many the founder of the scholastic philosophy. At any rate, he seems to have been the first to apply, on a large scale, philosophy and its formulæ to the doctrines of religion. Yet, as he did not originate a method, and his writings do not form a systematic whole, it would seem that he cannot fairly be called the founder of scholasticism. What the true scholastic method was, and by whom originated, we shall presently see. St. Anselm merely handles, with greatly subtlety and dialectical skill, certain special subjects, such as the divine essence, the Trinity, original sin, &c., but does not treat of theology as one connected whole. For these doctrines he endeavours to find irrefragable intellectual proof, and to show that they must be as necessarily accepted on grounds of reason as on grounds of faith. Thus he defines his Proslogium, a treatise on the existence of God, to be 'faith seeking understanding' (fides quærens intellectum), and says that he has framed the work under the character of one endeavouring to lift up his mind to the contemplation of the Deity, and seeking to understand what he believes.' Yet we may be certain that St. Anselm himself, like all the saints, derived the certainty of his religious convictions through the will rather than through the reason; he believed and loved, therefore he knew. He, and those who were like-minded to him, could safely philosophise upon the doctrines of faith, because they already possessed, and firmly grasped, the conclusions to which their argumentation was to lead. But what if a thinker were to arise, who should follow the same path without the same preservative? What if a being of brilliant genius, of captivating eloquence, of immense ambition, should undertake to philosophise upon religion, without the safeguard of personal sanctity?

7. Such a being was the famous Abelard. This is not the place to enlarge upon his story, which in every subsequent age has attracted the regards alike of the poet and the philosopher. Suffice it to say that he developed a great scheme, of what we should now call rationalism, through taking up St. Anselm's argumentative way of proving religious doctrine, without his spirit of docile submission to authority. He made faith and reason identical (charitas Dei per fidem sive rationis donum infusa), and his scholars demanded from him, he informs us-evidently placing his own sentiments in their mouths not words but ideas, not bare dogmatic statements but clear enunciations of their philosophical import. His

1 It has been handled by Bayle, Cousin, Pope, Cawthorn, &c.

lectures, at Paris, Melun, and Troyes, were attended by enthusiastic multitudes. Roused from its long intellectual slumber, the Western world, like a man whose limbs have been numbed by long inaction, delighted in the vigorous exercise of its mental powers for the mere exercise's sake; or else was eager to try their edge upon whatever subject came in their way. Hence, on the one hand, the endless logical combats, the twistings and turnings of the syllogism in every shape, the invention of innumerable sophisms and solutions of sophisms; on the other hand, that undue extension of rational methods to objects of faith which we have ascribed to Abelard. The danger was great; already Abelard's definitions and explanations trembled on the verge of heresy, if they did not go beyond it; but the ground-tone of his philosophy was still more inconsistent with a traditional scheme of belief than any particular expressions.

8. At this crisis St. Bernard appeared to check the growing evil. He turned back the stream of philosophy, or rather he forced it back within its own limits, and forbade it to encroach upon a domain which did not belong to it. In answering Abelard, he denied that Faith and Reason were identical, or that the doctrines of faith could be discovered and proved independently by any argumentative process. The objects of faith, he said, are given to us from above; they are revealed by God exactly because it is impossible that they should be discovered by man. Quid magis contra rationem, quam ratione rationem conari transcendere?' A conference between the two, to be held at Soissons, was agreed to; but when the time came for vindicating his philosophy, Abelard's heart failed him, and he appealed to the Pope. He was on the whole leniently treated; he seems to have had misgivings that he had wandered into a wrong path; and his life of struggle and suffering found its close in the peaceful seclusion of Cluny, whose abbot, Peter the Venerable, generously sheltered and protected his unhappy friend.

We must not suppose, however, that St. Bernard's influence as a thinker was mainly of a negative sort. On the contrary, this last, and not least eloquent, of the Fathers scarcely ever employed his penetrating and versatile genius except for some end of practical edification. Whether he addresses his own monks at Clairvaux, or writes to Pope Eugenius, or kindles the crusading zeal of nations, or counsels the Knights of the Temple, or composes Latin hymns, the evident aim of his labours is always to enlighten, animate, and do good to his neighbour. His Latin is admirable; far superior

to that of St. Anselm; and the charm of genius unites with the halo of saintliness in giving attractiveness to his writings.

9. Scholasticism, then, made what we may call a false start in the school of Bec; its true commencement dates a little later, and from Paris. Peter Lombard, the Master of the Sentences, hit upon the most convenient method of presenting theology under philosophical forms. The data of religion— the substance of revealed truth-he took from tradition; and reserved to philosophy the subordinate office of presenting it in a connected form, of deducing inferences, solving difficulties, and harmonising apparent discrepancies. The Book of Sentences, which appeared in 1151, is a complete body of theology in four books. It commences with God-His being and attributes ;then treats of the Creation, first of angels, then of man; of the Fall, and original and actual sin. In the third book it treats of the remedy of the Fall-the Incarnation, of the theological virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit; in the fourth, of the sacraments, purgatory, the resurrection, the last judgment, and the state of the blessed. All these doctrines

are given in the form of sentences,' extracted from the writings of the Fathers. The sentences are interspersed with numerous 'quæstiones,' in which the author proposes and attempts to solve any difficulties that may arise. The conveniences of this plan are manifest, and it was at once adopted. Alexander Hales, Albertus Magnus, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth century-Duns Scotus, and William of Occam in the fourteenth-whatever may be their differences, agree in treating theology as a whole, in seeking its data from authority, not from speculation, and in confining themselves to the discussion of special questions. Extraneous impulses were not wanting. The metaphysical and ethical works of Aristotle became known in the West about this period, chiefly through the commentaries of the celebrated Spanish Arab Averrhoes (1120-1198), and powerfully stimulated the speculative genius of the schoolmen. But the admiration of the Greek philosopher degenerated into an extravagance, and his authority was at last considered infallible in the schools. It was as if the age, in its horror of losing its way, would have a sheet anchor for the mind as well as for the soul, and chain the progressive intellect of man to the Aristotelian philosophy, because the unchanging interests of the soul demanded fixity and certainty in the eternal Gospel. So it ever is, that a true and valuable principle, once found, is sure to be strained in the application.

10. The scholastic method, having thus taken its rise in