ABELARD
We can have few more apposite illustrations
of at once the strength and weakness of what[{10}]
may be called the University principle, of what
it can do and what it cannot, of its power to
collect students, and its impotence to preserve and
edify them, than the history of the celebrated
Abelard. His name is closely associated with[{15}]
the commencement of the University of Paris;
and in his popularity and in his reverses, in the
criticisms of John of Salisbury on his method,
and the protest of St. Bernard against his
teaching, we read, as in a pattern specimen, what a[{20}]
University professes in its essence, and what it
needs for its "integrity." It is not to be supposed,
that I am prepared to show this here, as fully as
it might be shown; but it is a subject so
pertinent to the general object of these Essays, that it[{25}]
may be useful to devote even a few pages to it.
The oracles of Divine Truth, as time goes on,
do but repeat the one message from above which
they have ever uttered, since the tongues of fire
attested the coming of the Paraclete; still, as
time goes on, they utter it with greater force and[{5}]
precision, under diverse forms, with fuller
luminousness, and a richer ministration of thought
statement, and argument. They meet the
varying wants, and encounter the special resistance
of each successive age; and, though prescient of[{10}]
coming errors and their remedy long before, they
cautiously reserve their new enunciation of the
old Truth, till it is imperatively demanded. And,
as it happens in kings' cabinets, that surmises
arise, and rumors spread, of what is said in[{15}]
council, and is in course of preparation, and secrets
perhaps get wind, true in substance or in direction,
though distorted in detail; so too, before the
Church speaks, one or other of her forward
children speaks for her, and, while he does anticipate[{20}]
to a certain point what she is about to say or
enjoin, he states it incorrectly, makes it error
instead of truth, and risks his own faith in the
process. Indeed, this is actually one source, or
rather concomitant, of heresy, the presence of[{25}]
some misshapen, huge, and grotesque foreshadow
of true statements which are to come. Speaking
under correction, I would apply this remark to
the heresy of Tertullian or of Sabellius, which may
be considered a reaction from existing errors, and[{30}]
an attempt, presumptuous, and therefore unsuccessful,
to meet them with those divinely
appointed correctives which the Church alone can
apply, and which she will actually apply, when
the proper moment comes. The Gnostics boasted
of their intellectual proficiency before the time[{5}]
of St. Irenæus, St. Athanasius, and St.
Augustine; yet, when these doctors made their
appearance, I suppose they were examples of that
knowledge, true and deep, which the Gnostics
professed. Apollinaris anticipated the work of[{10}]
St. Cyril and the Ephesine Council, and became
a heresiarch in consequence; and, to come down
to the present times, we may conceive that
writers, who have impatiently fallen away from
the Church, because she would not adopt their[{15}]
views, would have found, had they but trusted
her, and waited, that she knew how to profit by
them, though she never could have need to
borrow her enunciations from them; for their
writings contained, so to speak, truth in the ore, truth[{20}]
which they themselves had not the gift to
disengage from its foreign concomitants, and safely
use, which she alone could use, which she would
use in her destined hour, and which became their
stone of stumbling simply because she did not[{25}]
use it faster. Now, applying this principle to
the subject before us, I observe, that, supposing
Abelard to be the first master of scholastic
philosophy, as many seem to hold, we shall have still
no difficulty in condemning the author, while we[{30}]
honor the work. To him is only the glory of
spoiling by his own self-will what would have
been done well and surely under the teaching
and guidance of Infallible Authority.
Nothing is more certain than that some ideas
are consistent with one another, and others[{5}]
inconsistent; and, again, that every truth must be
consistent with every other truth—hence, that
all truths of whatever kind form into one large
body of Truth, by virtue of the consistency
between one truth and another, which is a[{10}]
connecting link running through them all. The science
which discovers this connection is logic; and,
as it discovers the connection when the truths are
given, so, having one truth given and the
connecting principle, it is able to go on to ascertain[{15}]
the other. Though all this is obvious, it was
realized and acted on in the middle age with
a distinctness unknown before; all subjects of
knowledge were viewed as parts of one vast
system, each with its own place in it, and from[{20}]
knowing one, another was inferred. Not indeed
always rightly inferred, because the art might
be less perfect than the science, the instrument
than the theory and aim; but I am speaking of
the principle of the scholastic method, of which[{25}]
Saints and Doctors were the teachers—such
I conceive it to be, and Abelard was the ill-fated
logician who had a principal share in bringing it
into operation.
Others will consider the great St. Anselm and[{30}]
the school of Bec, as the proper source of Scholasticism;
I am not going to discuss the question;
anyhow, Abelard, and not St. Anselm, was the
Professor at the University of Paris, and it is
of Universities that I am speaking; anyhow,
Abelard illustrates the strength and the[{5}]
weakness of the principle of advertising and
communicating knowledge for its own sake, which I have
called the University principle, whether he is,
or is not, the first of scholastic philosophers or
scholastic theologians. And, though I could not[{10}]
speak of him at all without mentioning the
subject of his teaching, yet, after all, it is of him and
of his teaching itself, that I am going to speak,
whatever that might be which he actually taught.
Since Charlemagne's time the schools of Paris[{15}]
had continued, with various fortunes, faithful, as
far as the age admitted, to the old learning, as
other schools elsewhere, when, in the eleventh
century, the famous school of Bec began to
develop the powers of logic in forming a new[{20}]
philosophy. As the inductive method rose in
Bacon, so did the logical in the mediæval
schoolmen; and Aristotle, the most comprehensive
intellect of Antiquity, as the one who had
conceived the sublime idea of mapping the whole[{25}]
field of knowledge, and subjecting all things to
one profound analysis, became the presiding
master in their lecture halls. It was at the end
of the eleventh century that William of
Champeaux founded the celebrated Abbey of St.[{30}]
Victor under the shadow of St, Geneviève, and by
the dialectic methods which he introduced into his
teaching, has a claim to have commenced the
work of forming the University out of the Schools
of Paris. For one at least, out of the two
characteristics of a University, he prepared the way;[{5}]
for, though the schools were not public till after
his day, so as to admit laymen as well as clerks,
and foreigners as well as natives of the place, yet
the logical principle of constructing all sciences
into one system, implied of course a recognition[{10}]
of all the sciences that are comprehended in it.
Of this William of Champeaux, or de Campellis,
Abelard was the pupil; he had studied the
dialectic art elsewhere, before he offered himself for
his instructions; and, in the course of two years,[{15}]
when as yet he had only reached the age of
twenty-two, he made such progress, as to be
capable of quarreling with his master, and
setting up a school for himself.
This school of Abelard was first situated in[{20}]
the royal castle of Melun; then at Corbeil, which
was nearer to Paris, and where he attracted to
himself a considerable number of hearers. His
labors had an injurious effect upon his health;
and at length he withdrew for two years to his[{25}]
native Britanny. Whether other causes coöperated
in this withdrawal, I think, is not known;
but, at the end of the two years, we find him
returning to Paris, and renewing his attendance
on the lectures of William, who was by this time[{30}]
a monk. Rhetoric was the subject of the lectures
he now heard; and after a while the pupil
repeated with greater force and success his
former treatment of his teacher. He held a
public disputation with him, got the victory,
and reduced him to silence. The school of[{5}]
William was deserted, and its master himself became
an instance of the vicissitudes incident to that
gladiatorial wisdom (as I may style it) which was
then eclipsing the old Benedictine method of the
Seven Arts. After a time, Abelard found his[{10}]
reputation sufficient to warrant him in setting
up a school himself on Mount St. Geneviève;
whence he waged incessant war against the
unwearied logician, who by this time had rallied
his forces to repel the young and ungrateful[{15}]
adventurer who had raised his hand against him.
Great things are done by devotion to one idea;
there is one class of geniuses, who would never
be what they are, could they grasp a second.
The calm philosophical mind, which[{20}]
contemplates parts without denying the whole, and the
whole without confusing the parts, is notoriously
indisposed to action; whereas single and simple
views arrest the mind, and hurry it on to carry
them out. Thus, men of one idea and nothing[{25}]
more, whatever their merit, must be to a certain
extent narrow-minded; and it is not wonderful
that Abelard's devotion to the new philosophy
made him undervalue the Seven Arts out of which
it had grown. He felt it impossible so to honor[{30}]
what was now to be added, as not to dishonor
what existed before. He would not suffer the
Arts to have their own use, since he had found a
new instrument for a new purpose. So he
opposed the reading of the Classics. The monks
had opposed them before him; but this is little[{5}]
to our present purpose; it was the duty of men,
who abjured the gifts of this world on the
principle of mortification, to deny themselves
literature just as they would deny themselves
particular friendships or figured music. The doctrine[{10}]
which Abelard introduced and represents was
founded on a different basis. He did not
recognize in the poets of antiquity any other merit
than that of furnishing an assemblage of elegant
phrases and figures; and accordingly he asks[{15}]
why they should not be banished from the city
of God, since Plato banished them from his own
commonwealth. The animus of this language is
clear, when we turn to the pages of John of
Salisbury and Peter of Blois, who were champions of[{20}]
the ancient learning. We find them complaining
that the careful "getting up," as we now call it,
"of books," was growing out of fashion. Youths
once studied critically the text of poets or
philosophers; they got them by heart; they analyzed[{25}]
their arguments; they noted down their fallacies;
they were closely examined in the matters which
had been brought before them in lecture; they
composed. But now, another teaching was
coming in; students were promised truth in a[{30}]
nutshell; they intended to get possession of the sum-total
of philosophy in less than two or three
years; and facts were apprehended, not in their
substance and details, by means of living and,
as it were, personal documents, but in dead
abstracts and tables. Such were the[{5}]
reclamations to which the new Logic gave occasion.
These, however, are lesser matters; we have
a graver quarrel with Abelard than that of his
undervaluing the Classics. As I have said, my
main object here is not what he taught, but why[{10}]
and how, and how he lived. Now it is certain
his activity was stimulated by nothing very high,
but something very earthly and sordid. I grant
there is nothing morally wrong in the mere desire
to rise in the world, though Ambition and it are[{15}]
twin sisters. I should not blame Abelard merely
for wishing to distinguish himself at the
University; but when he makes the ecclesiastical
state the instrument of his ambition, mixes up
spiritual matters with temporal, and aims at a[{20}]
bishopric through the medium of his logic, he
joins together things incompatible, and cannot
complain of being censured. It is he himself,
who tells us, unless my memory plays me false,
that the circumstance of William of Champeaux[{25}]
being promoted to the see of Chalons, was an
incentive to him to pursue the same path with an
eye to the same reward. Accordingly, we next
hear of his attending the theological lectures of
a certain master of William's, named Anselm, an[{30}]
old man, whose school was situated at Laon. This
person had a great reputation in his day; John
of Salisbury, speaking of him in the next
generation, calls him the doctor of doctors; he had been
attended by students from Italy and Germany;
but the age had advanced since he was in his[{5}]
prime, and Abelard was disappointed in a teacher,
who had been good enough for William. He left
Anselm, and began to lecture on the prophet
Ezekiel on his own resources.
Now came the time of his great popularity,[{10}]
which was more than his head could bear; which
dizzied him, took him off his legs, and whirled
him to his destruction. I spoke in my foregoing
Chapter of those three qualities of true wisdom,
which a University, absolutely and nakedly[{15}]
considered, apart from the safeguards which
constitute its integrity, is sure to compromise.
Wisdom, says the inspired writer, is desursum, is
pudica, is pacifica, "from above, chaste,
peaceable." We have already seen enough of Abelard's[{20}]
career to understand that his wisdom, instead of
being "pacifica," was ambitious and contentious.
An Apostle speaks of the tongue both as a blessing
and as a curse. It may be the beginning of a fire,
he says, a "Universitas iniquitatis"; and alas![{25}]
such did it become in the mouth of the gifted
Abelard. His eloquence was wonderful; he
dazzled his contemporaries, says Fulco, "by the
brilliancy of his genius, the sweetness of his
eloquence, the ready flow of his language, and the[{30}]
subtlety of his knowledge." People came to
him from all quarters—from Rome, in spite of
mountains and robbers; from England, in spite
of the sea; from Flanders and Germany; from
Normandy, and the remote districts of France;
from Angers and Poitiers; from Navarre by the[{5}]
Pyrenees, and from Spain, besides the students
of Paris itself; and among those, who sought his
instructions now or afterwards, were the great
luminaries of the schools in the next generation.
Such were Peter of Poitiers, Peter Lombard, John[{10}]
of Salisbury, Arnold of Brescia, Ivo, and Geoffrey
of Auxerre. It was too much for a weak head
and heart, weak in spite of intellectual power;
for vanity will possess the head, and worldliness
the heart, of the man, however gifted, whose[{15}]
wisdom is not an effluence of the Eternal Light.