however that in general he appears to have regarded his CHAP 1 Arabian teacher rather as a pagan deserving compassion in his ignorance, than as a blasphemer to be execrated. The details of the system pursued by Aquinas obviously F lie beyond the range of our enquiry, but in pursuance of our endeavour at elucidating the peculiar manner in which the philosophy of these times entered into their whole spirit of instruction, we propose to briefly point out how, on one important point, the method of the schoolmen failed equally to avert the censure of authority and the reproach of the philosopher. The theory respecting the intellect which Aristotle sets Expecte forth, in the third book of the De Anima', is familiar to all students of psychology. He regards the intellectual faculty as existing under a twofold form,-the passive principle a and the active principle. This theory has its basis in a presumed analogy; as, throughout nature, we are conscious, on the one hand, of matter, representing the potential existence of objects, and on the other of the causative principle, or form, which gives them an actual existence, so we are entitled to look for a like duality in the human intellect; and hence the Aristotelian division of the soul into two distinct principles-the active intelligence, or irredexcía, and the passive intelligence, v dvviper. Of these the former is the superior, and to it we ascribe the attributes of imperishability and impassibility; this is the eternal principle which endures, while the merely passive principle is the subject of change, and, separated from the active principle, perishes. Such is the theory unfolded in the De Anima,—a theory scarcely in harmony, it is true, with other portions of the Peripatetic philosophy, being a reflex apparently of the vots of Anaxagoras, but where recognised almost invariably interpreted as a decisive utterance on the part of Aristotle CHAPL against the belief in the immortality of the soul'. Such teaching, it is evident, could not fail to encounter the condemnation of the Church; but his own heterodoxy was almost lost sight of in the still less ambiguous theory maintained by his Arabian commentator. It was not impossible for the schoolmen to maintain, as later interpreters have done, that Aristotle did not really mean to deny the immortality of the soul, and that the inferences that appear warranted by the De Anime are contradicted by the tenour of passages in his other writings; but the corollary appended to the theory by Averroes admitted of no dispute. The active principle, said this philosopher, if alone possessed of immortality must necessarily be anterior to the passive principle. But when we take the individual man we find the potential principle preceding the active, and it is consequently evident that the active principle, the imperishable and ever-existent, must not be sought for in the individual. The active principle is devoid of personality, is one and absolute. It was thus that Averroes deduced the doctrine of the Unity of the Intellect, known in the time of Leibnitz as Monopsychism. Extension Even to this Arabian commen taters How far this reasoning represents a legitimate deduction theory by the from Aristotle we are not here called upon to enquire, but it is well known that his Arabian commentators have frequently brought into undue prominence questions which he has but very briefly indicated, or essayed in a purely tentative manner. His immediate followers had certainly 1 Il a bien dit que l'entendement était un principe divin dans l'homme, indestructible, éternel. Il a bien dit aussi que ce principe était en nous une véritable substance. Mais quelle substance? Nous l'avons vu; dans l'entendement lui-même, il y a une partie périssable, comme sont périssables l'imagination, la sensibilité, la nutrition et cette partie, c'est la partie passive, celle qui est, en quelque sorte, la matière de l'intelligible. L'intelligence active, celle qui fait l'intelligible, survit éternellement au corps, qui seul doit périr. Mais dans cette vie nouvelle, il ne reste rien de la personalité humaine, de cette personalité sans laquelle l'immortalité de l'âme n'est qu'un vain mot et un leurre.' Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, Psychologie d'Aristote, Preface, p. xxxix. L'opinion du philosophe à cet égard ne saurait être douteuse. L'intellect universel est incorruptible et séparable du corps; l'intellect individuel est périssable et finit avec le corps.' Renan, Averroès et l'Averroisme, p. 153. See also Mr. Grote's Essay on the Psychology of Aristotle, appended to the third edition of Mr. Bain's Senses and the Intellect. 119 their prestige It will be worth while to note how the uni- CHAP read fared since the time of its memorable secession. ད་-== and 7 ཤགྲ་འཁྱ the students and professors returned from Angers Rome of the heims they found the chairs of instruction occupied Mendicants, and it was only by the exertions of IX on their behalf that they were reinstated in their pava - For twenty years a hollow peace was preserved, duriz with = which the jealousies and rivalry thus evoked conincrease, and at last broke out into open hostility one of the students having been killed in an encounter the citizens, the new orders refused to make common with the university in obtaining redress. The uni vesity appealed to the Pope, and Innocent IV published his famous bull whereby the mendicant orders were subjece to the episcopal authority'. His death, occurring in the following month, was attributed to the prayers of the Dominicans. His policy was altogether reversed by his successor, Alexander IV, who, to use the expression of Crevier, was intent throughout his pontificate upon tormenting the university of Paris. The Mendicants were restored to tir former privileges, and the old warfare was renewed with increased violence. It was at this crisis that William St.) Amour, standing forth as the champion of the university," ailed the new orders with an eloquence rare in the Loile carp. In his Perils of the Last Times, he denounced them as interlopers into the Church, unsanctioned by apt lie Authority, equally wanting in honesty of pure nl in credentials for the high functions they assured. A pins repl-l in his treatise Contra Imp guantes Dei Cultus et Reginem, and William St. Amour was finally arr. grad before the archbishop of Paris on the charge of having phe led a libel de famatory of the Pope. When however the in how the lond the M CHAP. Lintrepid champion of the university appeared, ready to attest his innocence by solemn oaths over the relics of the holy martyrs, the studen who accompanied him made such an imposing demonstration, that the archbishop deemed it prudent to dismiss the charge. A few years later the Dominicans attained their end. The Perils of the Last Times was burnt in the presence of the Pope at Anagni, and William St. Amour was compelled to retire into exile,-a retirement from which, notwithstanding the efforts of the university on his behalf, he was not suffered again to emerge'. Rivalry between the But while the cause of the Mendicants was thus triumphcant, disunion begun to spring up between the two orders. The Franckans fame of Albertus and Aquinas, the latter the chosen counsellor of royalty, and the prestige of the Dominicans, aroused the jealousy of the Franciscans, rankling under the rebuke which their Averröistic sympathies had incurred. They begun, not unnaturally, to scan with critical eye the armour of the great Dominican for some vulnerable point; nor had they long to seek; the teaching of the Stagirite proved but slippery ground from whence to assail the heresies of the Arabians. It formed one of the most notable divergences from Aristotle in the philosophy of Averröes, that while the latter accepted the distinction to which we have already adverted, of matter and form as representative of the principle of potential and actual existence, he differed from his teacher in regarding form as the individualising principle. Aristotle had declared it to be matter, and in this he was The philo implicitly followed by Aquinas. The individualising elements in Sokrates said the Dominican, are hæc caro, hæc ossa; if these be dissolved the Universal, Sokratitas, alone sophy of Aquinas attacked by the FrancisCans 1 'L'Université regretta infiniment son absence, et elle n'omit rien de ce qui pouvait dépendre d'elle pour obtenir son retour à Paris. Déliberations frequentes, mortifications procurées aux Mendians ennemis de ee docteur, députations au pape : tout fut inutile.' Crevier, 11 27. The whole history of the conflict between William St. Aniour and his opponents, which we cannot further follow, forms a significant episode. His genius and eloquence had the remarkable effect of winning the sympathies of the lower orders to the university cause, and we are thus presented with the somewhat singular conjunction of the Pope, the Crown, and the new Orders on the one side, and the university in league with the commonalty on the other. See Bulæus, 111 317, 382. via Roscellinus, here again supplied Art - und rom thence the Franciscans drew ane, they asked, be indeed the princicoun the individual exist in the nonneory would limit the power of the create two angelic natures, if the were lacking. In fact, the whole ng which the Pseudo-Dionysius , threatened to vanish from appreThe Franciscans was eminently suee sympathies of the Church. In vain tom Cologne to the assistance of his van did Egidius at Rome bring for sa support of the Aristotelian doctrine, as had been found in alliance with three years after his death we find the - selected for formal condemnation. ent took place, at Paris under Etienne ander Kilwardby, archbishop of Can bject the repression of philosophie t of articles summed up the doctrines wd condemnation; the Franciscans consolation in the fact that three of wind contra fratrem Thomam'. in the year 1274, and contention, at a d seyson hushed amid the general sense Aya en withdrawn from the Church. We The rector of the university, writing in esters, that the Creator, having as a |