About the time this book appeared the works of Aristotle were introduced to the attention of students, translated into Latin from the Saracenic language. Aristotle had already been commented upon by Arabian scholars in Spain,--among whom Averroes, a physician and mathematician of Cordova, was the most distinguished,--who regarded the Greek philosopher as the founder of scientific knowledge. His works were translated from the Greek into the Arabic in the early part of the ninth century.
The introduction of Aristotle led to an extension of philosophical studies. From the time of Charlemagne only grammar and elementary logic and dogmatic theology had been taught, but Abélard introduced dialectics into theology. A more complete method was required than that which the existing schools furnished, and this was supplied by the dialectics of Aristotle. He became, therefore, at the close of the twelfth century, an acknowledged authority, and his method was adopted to support the dogmas of the Church.
Meanwhile the press of students at Paris, collected into various schools,--the chief of which were the theological school of Notre Dame, and the school of logic at Mount Geneviève, where Abélard had lectured,--demanded a new organization. The teachers and pupils of these schools then formed a corporation called a university (Universitas Magistrorum et Scholarium), under the control of the chancellor and chapter of Notre Dame, whose corporate existence was secured from Innocent III. a few years afterwards.
Thus arose the University of Paris at the close of the twelfth century, or about the beginning of the thirteenth, soon followed in different parts of Europe by other universities, the most distinguished of which were those of Oxford, Bologna, Padua, and Salamanca. But that of Paris took the lead, this city being the intellectual centre of Europe even at that early day. Thither flocked young men from Germany, England, and Italy, as well as from all parts of France, to the number of twenty-five or thirty thousand. These students were a motley crowd: some of them were half-starved youth, with tattered clothes, living in garrets and unhealthy cells; others again were rich and noble,--but all were eager for knowledge. They came to Paris as pilgrims flocked to Jerusalem, being drawn by the fame of the lecturers. The old sleepy schools of the convents were deserted, for who would go to Fulda or York or Citeaux, when such men as Abélard, Albert, and Victor were dazzling enthusiastic youth by their brilliant disputations? These young men also seem to have been noisy, turbulent, and dissipated for the most part, "filling the streets with their brawls and the taverns with the fumes of liquor. There was no such thing as discipline among them. They yelled and shouted and brandished daggers, fought the townspeople, and were free with their knocks and blows." They were not all youth; many of them were men in middle life, with wives and children. At that time no one finished his education at twenty-one; some remained scholars until the age of thirty-five.
Some of these students came to study medicine, others law, but more theology and philosophy. The headquarters of theology was the Sorbonne, opened in 1253,--a college founded by Robert Sorbon, chaplain of the king, whose aim was to bring together the students and professors, heretofore scattered throughout the city. The students of this college, which formed a part of the university, under the rule of the chancellor of Notre Dame, it would seem were more orderly and studious than the other students. They arose at five, assisted at Mass at six, studied till ten,--the dinner hour; from dinner till five they studied or attended lectures; then went to supper,--the principal meal; after which they discussed problems till nine or ten, when they went to bed. The students were divided into hospites and socii, the latter of whom carried on the administration. The lectures were given in a large hall, in the middle of which was the chair of the master or doctor, while immediately below him sat his assistant, the bachelor, who was going through his training for a professorship. The chair of theology was the most coveted honor of the university, and was reached only by a long course of study and searching examinations, to which no one could aspire but the most learned and gifted of the doctors. The students sat around on benches, or on the straw. There were no writing-desks. The teaching was oral, principally by questions and answers. Neither the master nor the bachelor used a book. No reading was allowed. The students rarely took notes or wrote in short-hand; they listened to the lectures and wrote them down afterwards, so far as their memory served them. The usual text-book was the "Book of Sentences," by Peter Lombard. The bachelor, after having previously studied ten years, was obliged to go through a three years' drill, and then submit to a public examination in presence of the whole university before he was thought fit to teach. He could not then receive his master's badge until he had successfully maintained a public disputation on some thesis proposed; and even then he stood no chance of being elevated to a professor's chair unless he had lectured for some time with great éclat Even Albertus Magnus, fresh with the laurels of Cologne, was compelled to go through a three years' course as a sub-teacher at Paris before he received his doctor's cap, and to lecture for some years more as master before his transcendent abilities were rewarded with a professorship. The dean of the faculty of theology was chosen by the suffrages of the doctors.
The Organum (philosophy of first principles) of Aristotle was first publicly taught in 1215. This was certainly in advance of the seven liberal arts which were studied in the old Cathedral schools,--grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic (Trivium); and arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (Quadrivium),--for only the elements of these were taught. But philosophy and theology, under the teaching of the Scholastic doctors (Doctores Scholastici), taxed severely the intellectual powers. When they introduced dialectics to support theology a more severe method was required. "The method consisted in connecting the doctrine to be expounded with a commentary on some work chosen for the purpose. The contents were divided and subdivided, until the several propositions of which it was composed were reached. Then these were interpreted, questions were raised in reference to them, and the grounds of affirming or denying were presented. Then the decision was announced, and in case this was affirmative, the grounds of the negative were confuted."
Aristotle was made use of in order to reduce to scientific form a body of dogmatic teachings, or to introduce a logical arrangement. Platonism, embraced by the early Fathers, was a collection of abstractions and theories, but was deficient in method. It did not furnish the weapons to assail heresy with effect. But Aristotle was logical and precise and passionless. He examined the nature of language, and was clear and accurate in his definitions. His logic was studied with the sole view of learning to use polemical weapons. For this end the syllogism was introduced, which descends from the universal to the particular, by deduction,--connecting the general with the special by means of a middle term which is common to both. This mode of reasoning is opposite to the method by induction, which rises to the universal from a comparison of the single and particular, or, as applied in science, from a collection and collation of facts sufficient to form a certainty or high probability. A sound special deduction can be arrived at only by logical inference from true and certain general principles.
This is what Anselm essayed to do; but the Schoolmen who succeeded Abélard often drew dialectical inferences from what appeared to be true, while some of them were so sophistical as to argue from false premises. This syllogistic reasoning, in the hands of an acute dialectician, was very efficient in overthrowing an antagonist, or turning his position into absurdity, but not favorable for the discovery of truth, since it aimed no higher than the establishment of the particulars which were included in the doctrine assumed or deduced from it. It was reasoning in perpetual circles; it was full of quibbles and sophistries; it was ingenious, subtle, acute, very attractive to the minds of that age, and inexhaustible from divisions and subdivisions and endless ramifications. It made the contests of the schools a dialectical display of remarkable powers in which great interest was felt, yet but little knowledge was acquired. In one respect the Scholastic doctors rendered a service: they demolished all dreamy theories and poured contempt on mystical phrases. They insisted, like Socrates, on a definite meaning to words. If they were hair-splitting in their definitions and distinctions, they were at least clear and precise. Their method was scientific. Such terms and expressions as are frequently used by our modern transcendental philosophers would have been laughed to scorn by the Schoolmen. No system of philosophy can be built up when words have no definite meaning. This Socrates was the first to inculcate, and Aristotle followed in his steps.
With the Crusades arose a new spirit, which gave an impulse to philosophy as well as to art and enterprise. "The primum mobile of the new system was Motion, in distinction from the Rest which marked the old monastic retreats." An immense enthusiasm for knowledge had been kindled by Abélard, which was further intensified by the Scholastic doctors of the thirteenth century, especially such of them as belonged to the Dominican and Franciscan friars.
These celebrated Orders arose at a great crisis in the Papal history, when rival popes aspired to the throne of Saint Peter, when the Church was rent with divisions, when princes were contending for the right of investiture, and when heretical opinions were defended by men of genius. At this crisis a great Pope was called to the government of the Church,--Innocent III., under whose able rule the papal power culminated. He belonged to an illustrious Roman family, and received an unusual education, being versed in theology, philosophy, and canon law. His name was Lothario, of the family of the Conti; he was nephew of a pope, and counted three cardinals among his relatives. At the age of twenty-one, about the year 1181, he was one of the canons of Saint Peter's Church; at twenty-four he was sent by the Pope on important missions. In 1188 he was created cardinal by his uncle, Clement III.; and in 1198 he was elected Pope, at the age of thirty-eight, when the Crusades were at their height, when the south of France was agitated by the opinions of the Albigenses, and the provinces on the Rhine by those of the Waldenses. It was a turbulent age, full of tumults, insurrections, wars, and theological dissensions. The old Benedictine monks had lost their influence, and were disgraced by idleness and gluttony, while the secular clergy were ignorant and worldly. Innocent cast his eagle eye into all the abuses which disgraced the age and Church, and made fearless war upon those princes who usurped his prerogatives. He excommunicated princes, humbled the Emperor of Germany and the King of England, put kingdoms under interdict, exempted abbots from the jurisdiction of bishops, punished heretics, formed crusades, laid down new canons, regulated taxes, and directed all ecclesiastical movements. His activity was ceaseless, and his ambition was boundless. He instituted important changes, and added new orders of monks to the Church. It was this Pope who instituted auricular confession, and laid the foundation of a more dreadful spiritual despotism in the form of inquisitions.