But the Church was alive to the danger. Fiercely she fought
the tide of opposition, and at last won back the allegiance of the Universities. Through the Schoolmen ecclesiasticism once more triumphed, and the reign of Theology was resumed. Soon scholasticism absorbed the whole mental energy of the student world. The old enthusiasm for knowledge died down; science was discredited, and literature in its purer forms became extinct.
The scholastic philosophy, so famous for several ages, has passed away and been forgotten. We cannot deny that Roscelin, Anselm, Abelard, Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus and Ockham were men of acute and even profound understanding, the giants of their own generation. But all their inquiries after truth were vitiated by two insurmountable obstacles—the authority of Aristotle and the authority of the Church. For Aristotle, whom the scholastics did not understand, and who had been so long held at bay as the most dangerous foe of mediæval faith, whom none but Anti-Christ could comprehend, was now turned, by the adoption of his logical method in the discussion and definition of theological dogma, into its unexpected ally. It was this very method which led to that “unprofitable subtlety and curiosity” which Lord Bacon notes as the vice of the scholastic philosophy.
Yet the scholastic mode of dispute, admitting of no termination and producing no conviction, was sure in the end to cause scepticism, just as the triviality of the questions on which the schoolmen wasted their amazing ingenuity was sure at last to produce disgust. What could be more trifling than a disquisition about the nature of angels, their means of conversing, and the morning and evening states of their understanding, unless perhaps it were a subtle and learned dispute as to whether a chimæra, buzzing in a vacuum, can devour second intentions? John of Salisbury observed of the Parisian dialecticians in his own time, that after several years absence he found them not a step advanced, and still employed in urging and parrying the same arguments. His observation was applicable to the succeeding centuries. After three or four hundred years the scholastics had not untied a single knot or added one equivocal truth to the domain of philosophy. Then men discovered at last that they had given their time for the promise of wisdom, and had been cheated in the bargain. At the revival of letters the pretended science had few advocates left, save among the prejudiced or ignorant adherents of established systems.
And yet, in the history of education and of the historical events which education directs, the discussions of the schoolmen hold a place not altogether contemptible. Their disputes did at least teach men to discuss and to define, to reason and to inquire. And thus was promoted the critical spirit which was boldly to challenge the rights of the Pope, and to receive and profit by the great disclosures of knowledge in a future age.
Of the early schools and the buildings which sprang into existence to mark the first beginnings of the University, no trace remains.