Two of his treatises on the relation of philosophy and the-
••logy
have been published in (ierman translation by M.
Windelband - History of Philosophy
II.
(Hamburg, 1842); W.
Preger, Gesch'.
d.
dentschen Mystik im Mittelalter (Leips.
1876, 1881) ; also the different editions and articles by S.
Denifle.
On Eckhart in particular, J.
Bach, M.
E.
der Vater der dentschen Speculation (Vienna, 1864); A.
Lasson, M.
E.
*r Mystiker (Berlin, 1868).
In its farther development German Mysticism branched into the heresies of the Beghards and of the " Friends of God " of Basle ; in the case of the former it led to the most radical connection with the Averroistic pantheism. It took the form of popular preaching with John Tauler at Strassburg (1300-1361), and of poetic song with Heinrich Sato of Constance (1300-1366). Its theoretical doctrines maintained themselves, while the heterodoxy was diminished, in the " German Theology" (first edited by Luther, 1616).
The Augustinian Platonic opposition against the suspected Aristotelianism of the Arabians has as its main supporters : —
William of Auvorgno, from Aurillac, teacher and Bishop in Paris, where he died in 1249, author of a work De Universo. He is treated by K. Werner, Die Philosophie des W. v. A. (Vienna, 1873).
Henry of Ghent (Henricus Gandavensis, Heinrich Goethals of Muda near Ghent, 1217-1293), the valiant defender of the primacy of the will against Thomism. Besides a theological compendium, he wrote a Summa QuaMionum
Ordinarium, and principally Quodlibeta Theologica. Cf . K. Werner, H. v. G. als Jieprdsentant des chrUtlichen Platonismus im 13 Jahrhundert (Vienna, 1878).
Richard of Middletown (R. de Mediavia, died 1300) and William de la Marre, the author of a violent Correctorium Fratris Thomm, may also be named here. In the following centuries an Augustinian theology proper main tained itself by the side of Thomism and Scotism. jEgydius of Colonna is regarded as its leader (Mg. Romanus, 1247-1316). Cf. K. Werner, Schol. d. spat. M. -A. , III.
The sharpest opposition to Thomism grew out of the Franciscan order. Roger Bacon's was a mind fruitfully stimulating in all directions, but not appearing in a fixed and definite form in any one of them. He was born in 1214, near Ilchester, educated in Oxford and Paris, several times persecuted on account of his occupations and theories, which were directed in the line of natural research, protected only for a time by Pope Clement IV. . and died soon after 1292. His doctrines are embodied in the Opus Mains (ed. by Bridges, Oxford, 1897), and in the form of extracts in his Opus Minus (ed. by Brewer, Iiond. 1869). Cf. E. Charles, R. B. , sa vie, ses outrages, ses doctrines (Paris, 1861), and K. Werner, in two articles on his psychology, theory of knowledge, and physics (Vienna, 1879).
Duns Scotus. His home (Ireland or Northumberland) and the year of his birth, which was about 1270, are not certainly known. At first a scholar and teacher in Oxford, he then won high reputation at Paris, where he was active after 1304, and in 1308 moved to Cologne, where he died soon after his arrival —all too early. The edition of his works prepared by his Order (12 vols. , Lyons, 1639) contains, besides the genuine writings, much that is not genuine or that has been worked over, and especially transcripts of his disputations and
The most important thinker of the Christian Middle Ages was Johannes
CaA*. 2. ] Second Period. 815
lectures. To the latter belongs the so-called Opus Pnriritnte, which forms a com mentary upon the Sentences of the Lombard. The Questioned Quodlibctalcs have a similar origin. The Opus Ozoniense, the original commentary upon the Lom bard, is his own writing. Besides this there are his commentaries upon Aristo telian writings and some smaller treatises. His doctrine is expounded in Werner and Stockl. No exhaustive monograph, corresponding to his importance, exists.
Among his numerous adherents, Francis of Mayro, who died 1325, is the best known. The controversy between Thomists and Scotists was a very active one at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and brought many intermediate theories into the field ; but soon both parties had to make common cause in defence against Terminiam.
Among the logical school books of the later Scholasticism, the most influen tial was that of Petrua Hispanua, who died 1277 as Pope John XXI. His Summulce Logitales were a translation of a Byzantine-Greek text-book, the In*^i« tit tj)» 'KptarorfKovt Xoyutr)* tTivr^nvr by Michael Psellos (in the eleventh century ) . Imitating the processes in this latter treatise {ypdnimra fypa^t y/n- *iJt r«xrur6t ), the well-known barbarous mnemonic designations for the modes of the syllogism were Introduced in the Latin version (Barbara, eelarent, etc. ). Terminism, developed in the nominalistlc direction from this rhetorical and grammatical logic, contrasted itself as logiea moderna with the logica antiqua of the Realists, including both Scotists and Thomists under this latter title.
In the renewal of Nominalism we find William Durandus of St. Pour- cain, who died 133*2 as Bishop of Meaux, and Petrus Aureolus, who died at Paris, 1321, the former coming from Thomism, the latter from Kcotism. Much more important is William of Occam, the Abelard of the second period. With a broad and keen vision for reality, and with a bold, unresting eagerness for innovation, he unites in himself all the elements with the help of which the new science forced its way out of Scholasticism. Born in a village in the County of Surrey, trained under Duns Scotus, he became Professor at Paris, then took an active part in the conflicts of his time between Church and Stale by joining with Philip the Fair and Lewis of Bavaria in combating the papacy. ( Disputatio inter elericum et militem super potentate eeelesiastica pr<f latin atque ynnripihu* terrarum commissa, and the Defensorium against Pope John XXII. ), and died 1347 at Munich. There is no complete edition of his works, but the most important are : Summa Totius Logics, JCzpositio Aurea super Artem
Vetrrem, Quodlibeta Septem, Ctntilogium Theologicum, and a commentary on Peter Lombard. Cf. W. A. Schreiber, Die polititchen und religibsen Dortrinen nnter LuduHg dem Baier (Landshut, 1868). C. Prantl, Der UniversaUenstreit im dreixeAnten und vierxehnten Jahrhundtrt (Sitx. -Ber. der Miinchener Akad. , 1074). Occam, too, still waits his philosophically competent biographer.
Of the supporters of termlnistic Nominalism in the fourteenth century, Johannes Buridan, ltector of the University at Paris, and co-founder of that at Vienna, and Marsilius of Inghen, one of the first teachers at Heidelberg, are usually named. A union of mystical doctrines with the nominalislic rejection of metaphysics Is found in Pierre d'Ailly (Petrus de Alliaco, 1:160-1426), and in Juhannea Gerson (Charlier, 1363-1429).
The attempt at a purely rational exposition of Church doctrine in the interest of apologetics and propagation was made by Raymundua Lullus of Catalonia (1236-1315), who is principally known by his curious discover)' of the "Great Art. " that is, a mechanical device which by combining the fundamental concepts was intended to present the system of all possible cognitions. An extract from this may be found in J. K. Krdmann, History of Phil. , I. § 206 [Kng. tr. ed. by Hough]. His efforts were repeated in the fifteenth century by Raymund of Bllilinrla a Spanish physician, who taught in Toulouse and gained respect by his
ThetAogia Xaturalis (sire Liber Creaturarum). On him cf. I). Matzke (llreslau, 1M0); M. Huttler (Augsburg. 1861).
The philosophy of Iflcolaus Cusanua ( Nicolaus Chrypffs, born in Kues (Cum) war Trier, 1401, died as Cardinal and Bishop of Brixen, 1404), offers an inter esting comprehensive view of the intellectual condition of the departing Middle Ages. The main treatise bears the title De Dortn Ignorant ia (ed. In German together with his other most important writings by F. A. Scharpff, Freiburg i. B.
1882).
Cf. K. Falckenberg, Urundtugt der Philos. da \. *. C. (Brealau, 1880).
316 Medieval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III
Brief Survey of the Arabian and Jewish Philosophy of the Middle Ages.
This period is certainly more interesting from a literary and historical point of view than from that of philosophy, and as yet no competent presentation of the period as a whole has been made. Nor has complete clearness been attained as yet by investigation, but from the literature concerning it the following are to be emphasised : —
Mohammed al Schahrestani, History of Religious and Philosophical Sect* among the Arabs (German by Haarbrlicker, Halle, 1860 f. ); A Schmolders, Documenta Philosophuz Arabum (Bonn, 1836), and Essai sur les Ecoles Phi- losophiqties chez les Ar. (Paris, 1842); Fr. Dieterici, Die Philosophie der Ar. im zehnten Jahrhundert (8 Hefte, Leips. 1866-76). Cf. also Hanimer-Purgstall, Oesch. der arabischen Litteratur.
S. Munk, Melanges de philosophie juive et arabe (Paris, 1859), and the same author's articles on the individual philosophers in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques. [W. Wallace, Art. Arabian Phil, in Enc. Brit. , Utberweg, Krdmann. ]
M. Eisler, Vorlesungen Uber die, j'udischeu Philosophen des Miltelalters (3 vols. , Vienna, 1870-84) ; M. Jo61, Beitrage zur Oeschichte der Philosophic (Bres lau, 1876). Cf. also Furst's Bibliotheca Judaica, and histories of Judaism by Graetz and Geiger.
Close as the relations may be which the philosophy of the two civilised Semitic peoples sustained to their religious interests, Arabian science especially, owes its peculiar character to the circumstance that its founders and supporters were, for the most part, not members of the clergy, as in the West, but physi cians (cf. F. WUstenfeld, Oesch. der arab. Aerzte und Naturforscher, Gottingen,
Thus from the beginning the study of ancient medicine and natural science went on hand in hand with that of philosophy. Hippocrates and Galen were as much translated (in part through the medium of the Syrian. ) and read as were Plato, Aristotle, and the Neo-Platonists. Hence in Arabian metaphysic* dialectic is always balanced by natural philosophy. But well as this was adapted to afford scientific thought a broader basis of knowledge of facts, we must not, on the other hand, overestimate the independent achievements of the Arabs in medicine and natural science. Here, too, mediaeval science is essentially learned tradition. The knowledge which the Arabs were later able to deliver to the
West had its origin, in the main, in the books of the Greeks. Nor did even experimental knowledge experience an essential extension through the Arabs' own work ; only in some fields, as, for example, chemistry and mineralogy and in some parts of medicine, e. g. physiology, do they appear more independent. In their method, however, in their principles by which they apprehend the uni verse, and in their entire system of philosophical conceptions, they stand, so far as our information on the subject reaches, entirely under the combined influence of Aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism ; and the same is true of the Jews. Nor can it be maintained that a national peculiarity becomes disclosed in their appro priation of this material. It is rather the case that this whole scientific culture was artificially grafted upon the Arabian civilisation, it can strike no true roots into it, and after a short period of bloom it withers away without vital force. In the history of science as a whole, its mission is only to give back in part to the development of the Western mind the continuity which the latter had itself temporarily lost.
From the nature of the case, the appropriation of ancient science in this case also was completed gradually and by working backward. Beginning with the Neo-Platonism which was still current in Syrian tradition, and which was received with sympathy on account of its religious colouring, the Arabian thinkers proceeded to ascend to the better sources ; but the consequence remained that they saw Aristotle and Plato through the spectacles of Plotinus and Proclus. During the rule of the Abassidse an active scientific life prevailed in Bagdad, stimulated especially by the Caliph Almamun at the beginning of the ninth century. The Neo-Platonists, the better commentators, almost the entire didactic writings of Aristotle, and the Republic, Laics, and Timirus of
1840).
Plato, were known in translations.
Chap: 3. ] Arabian and Jewish Philoiophy. 317
The first distinctly emerging personalities, Alkendi, who died about 870, and Alfarabi, who died 960, are scarcely to be distinguished in their teachings from the Neo-Platonic elucidators of Aristotle. A greater importance belongs to Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 080-1037), whose "Canon" became the fundamental book of medieval medicine in the West, as well as in the East, and who also txercised a powerful influence by his extremely numerous philosophical writ ings, especially his Metaphysics and Logic. His doctrine comes nearer again to pare Aristotelianism. and perhaps the nearest among all the Arabians.
But the extension of these philosophical views was regarded with jealous eyes by Mohammedan orthodoxy, and the scientific movement experienced so vio lent persecutions in the tenth century that it took refuge in tin- secret league of the *' Pure Brothers. " Avicenna himself was also persecuted. The above- named league embodied the extremely excellent compass of the knowledge of the time in a number of treatises (on this see above, Dieterici), which neverthe less, in contrast with Avicenna, seem to show a stronger leaning toward Neo- Platonism.
Of the scientific achievements of their opponents we know on the one hand the strange metaphysics of the orthodox Motekallemin. who, as against the' Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic view of Nature as a living whole, developed an extreme exaggeration of the sole causality of God, and resorted to a distorted Atomism in the greatest metaphysical embarrassment ; on the other hand, in the writings of Algazel (1069-1111, Dextructio Philosophorum) there appears a sceptical and mystical analysis of philosophy.
These latter tendencies won the victory in the Orient the more readily, as the spiritual exaltation of Mohammedanism quickly declined in that quarter. The continuance of Arabian science is to be sought in Andalusia, where Mohamme dan civilisation found its short after-bloom. Here, under freer conditions, philosophy developed to vigorous naturalism, which in turn bore a strongly
S'ro- Platonic stamp.
A characteristic exposition of the doctrine of knowledge in this philosophy is
f«und in the Conduct of the Solitary by Avempace, who died 1138, and similar thoughts culminate with Abubacer (Ibn Tophail, died 1186) in an interesting ounparisnn of natural with positive religion. The latter author's philosophi cal romance The l. iriny One, the Son of the Waking One, which sets forth the intellectual development of a man upon a lonely island, excluded from all his torical and social relations, was published in a Latin translation by Pocock as
niti. tr/phu* Autodidactus (Oxford, 1671 and 1700, — not twenty years before the *p|x>arance of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe! ) and in a German translation as /vr Saturmrnsch by Eichhom (Berlin, 1783).
But the most important and independent among Arabian thinkers was Averroe* who was born 1120 in Cordova, was for a time judge, and then {•hyician in ordinary to the Caliph, was driven afterward by religious perse cution to Morocco, and died in 1198. He treated in paraphrases and longer or
shorter commentaries, which were printed in the older editions of Aristotle, almost all the didactic writings of Aristotle, who was esteemed by him as the li nines t teacher of truth. Of his own works (Venice, 1663; some exist now niily in the Hebrew version) the refutation of Algazel, Drstrurtio Destructionis, is moot important.
Two of his treatises on the relation of philosophy and the- ••logy have been published in (ierman translation by M. J. MUller (Munich, 1875). Cf. E. Kenan, Averrois et V Arerroisme (3d ed. , Paris. 1869).
With the expulsion of the Arabians from Spain traces of their philosophical activity are lost.
Jewish philosophy of the Middle Ages is, in the main, an accompaniment ot the Arabian, and dependent upon it. The only-exception to this is the Cab bala, that fantastic secret doctrine whose fundamental outlines, which, to be sure, were later much elaborated, show the same peculiar amalgamation of Oriental mythology with ideas of Hellenistic science as does Christian Gnosti cism, and go back to the same period and to the same agitated condition of thought attendant upon the mingling of religions. Cf. A. Franck. Systhne de la Kabbale (Paris, 1848; German by Jellinek, Leips. 1844); H. Joel, Dim
Religionsphilosophie des Sohar (Leips. 1849). On the other hand, the main works of Jewish philosophy were originally written in Arabic, and not trans lated Into Hebrew until a relatively late time.
^v <y "^r
tion which forms the presupposition of their thought. In the CP earlier period all knowledge and thought had arranged itself, as it were, of its own accord within the system of relifripng mptnpTiygir-B •
and now there appeared by the side of this a powerful, finely articu lated, coherent body of thought which the age? thirsting after real contents in its barren dialectic, was ready to take up eagerly. The manifold relations between these two systems which mutually laid hold upon one another and interpenetrated, determine the scientific character of the last centuries of the Middle Ages, and the general course of the development was, that these antagonistic systems, starting from an attitude of abrupt opposition, strove toward recon ciliation and adjustment, only to diverge all the more violently after the goal seemed to have been reached. This course of things appeared as necessarily in the conception of the reciprocal relations of the different sciences, as in the view of the ultimate relations of things. In both lines the attempt at synthesis was followed by a separation that went all the deeper.
The religious thought of the West, whose highest problem had been to understand the working of divine grace, was confronted by Oriental philosophy in which the old Grecian philosophical tendency toward knowledge of Nature had at last attained metaphysical
318 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III.
The book of Saadjah Fajjumi (died 942), Concerning Religions and Philoso phies, which aims to furnish an apology for Jewish doctrine, is related to the earliest Arabian Aristotelianism, and still more closely to the free-thinking
Mohammedan theologians, the so-called Mutazilin. In the Neo-Platonic line we meet Avicebron (Ibn Gebirol, a Spanish Jew of the eleventh century), of whose Fons Vitas, Hebrew and Latin versions are extant. Moses Maimonidea (1135-1204) is regarded as the most important Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages. In his culture and doctrine be belongs to the phase of Arabian doctrine which has Averrogs as its centre. His main treatise, Ouide to the Perplexed (Doctor Perplexorum), has been published in Arabic and French with a com mentary by Munk (3 vols. , Paris, 1856-66) [Eng. tr. by Friedlander, Trtibner, Lond. l. The attachment to AverroSs is still closer in the case of Hereonides
(Levi ben Gerson, 1288-1344).
The Jews, by means of their widely extended mercantile relations, were the
chief contributors to the extension of Oriental philosophy in the West, by sale and translation ; in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries especially their schools in Southern France formed the medium for this wide-reaching activity.
To the Arabian and Jewish literature, which was taken up by Christian science about 1200, belongs finally a number of pseudonymous and anonymous writings, which arose in the latest periods of Neo-Platonism, and in part per haps were of still later date. Among these the principal are the Theology of Aris totle (Arabic and German by Dieterici, Leips. 1882-83), and the Liber de Causis (De essentia pura; bonitatis), an extract from the o-7-oixeWit 0eo\o7«i} ascriLod to Proclus, published in Arabic, Latin, and German by O. Bardenhewer (Frei burg i. B. 1882).
§ 25. The Realm of Nature and the Realm of Grace.
Among all the philosphers of the Middle Ages we find existing, \yJ* vfith greater or less clearness, a lively feeling of the twofold tradi-
Chap. 2, § 25. ] The Two Realm* : Averroism. 319
supremacy : and here, too, again the process of appropriation began with the adoption of the last consequences, to ascend only by degrees back to the premises.
1. Hence the form in which Arabian science was first taken up was that of Averroism. In this, however, science had marked off its boundaries in the most definite manner as against positive religion. This had taken place not only in reaction against the attacks to which the philosophical movement in the East had been subjected, but still more in consequence of the great mental revolutions which the age of the Crusades experienced through the intimate contact of the three monotheistic religions. The more ardently these relig ions fought iu the sphere of historical reality, the more the sharp ness of their contrasting doctrines became blunted from the point of view of theory. Those who passed through this conflict of relig ions as thinking observers could not resist the impulse to seek the common element behind the differences, and to establish above the fields of battle the idea of a universal religion. 1 In order to attain this, every form of special historical revelation must be stripped off, and the path of universally valid scientific knowledge must be taken. So with the aid of Neo- Platonic memories, a return was made to the thought of a universal religion, founded upon science, and the ulti
mate content of this common conviction was formed by the moral law. As Abelard in his own way had already reached this result, so Roger Bacon later, under Arabian influences, designated morality as the content of the universal religion.
This scientific natural religion, however, had had stamped upon it more and more by the Arabs the exclusive character of an esoteric doctrine. The distinction originating with Philo, and current in the entire patristic thought, between a verbal-historical and a spiritually timeless sense' of religious documents (cf. § 18, U) here became the doctrine that positive religion is an indispensable need for the mass of the people, while the man of science seeks the real truth back of religion, and seeks it only there, — a doctrine in which Averroes and Maimonides were at one, and which completely corresponded to the social relations of Arabian science. For Arabian science always moved within narrow and closed circles, and as a foreign growth
1 Tb« court of the highly cultured Hohenstaufen Frederick II. in Sicily appears as a chief neat of this mode of thought, and in general of the exchange of thought between Kant and Went.
• Representing this opinion, the Kternal UttoptX of Joachim of Florls was circulated among the Averroi. itic Anialricana. This completed for the entire compass of ChrUtian dogma, the transformation of everything external into the mternal. all the historical into the titnelesgly valid : the " pneumatic gospel " of Origen (ci. | 18, 2) was asserted to have here attained reality, the period of lb*
1 to hate begun. Cf. J. N. Schneider (Dillingen,
1874).
ft \tyf> . . ^^
820 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III
never gained true sympathy with the mass of the people: Averroes, nevertheless, expressly honours Aristotle as the founder of this high est, most universal religion of the human race. "
Thus in line with this thought, Abubaoer made his Man in a State of Nature," who had attained in his isolation to the philosoph ical knowledge of God, come into contact again at last with histori cal humanity, and in so doing discover that what he had known clearly and in abstract thought, is here believed in its picturate wrappings, and that what holds for him as a self-evident demand of the reason is here extorted from the multitude by means of reward and punishment.
If now it is hereby admitted that natural and revealed religion have ultimately the same content, it still follows that they necessa rily differ, at least in their expression of the common truth, — that the conceptions which form the expression of philosophical religion are not understood by believers, while the picturate ideas of believ ers are not regarded as the full truth by philosophers. If, then, by theology, we understand the exposition of the positive doctrine of religion, arranged and defended according to the formal laws of science, i. e. Aristotelian logic, — and this was the form which the relation of theology to religion had taken in the West as in the East, — it follows that something may be true theologically which is not true philosophically, and vice versa. Thus is explained that doctrine of the twofold truth,* theological and philosophical, which went through the entire later Middle Ages, although we cannot exactly fix the authorship of this formula. 2 It is the adequate expression of the mental state necessarily brought about by the opposition of the two authorities under which the Middle Ages
religious
stood, viz. Hellenistic science and tradition ; and while at
^a*er time it often served to
persecution of the Church, it was for the most part, even in these cases, the honest expression of the inner discord in which just the most important minds of the age found themselves.
2. The science of the Christian peoples accepted this antithesis, and while the doctrine of the twofold truth was expressly pro claimed by bold dialecticians such as Simon of Tournay, or John of Brescia, and was all the more rigidly condemned by the power of
1 Cf. M. Maywald, Die Lthrt von der txeeifachen Wahrheit (Berlin, 1871).
* As little can it be fixed with certainty what the origin of that widely ex tended formula was, which designated the founders of the three great positive religions as the three "deceivers" of mankind. Cnhistorical, as is every Enlightenment, the philosophical opposition of that day could explain to itself only by empirical interests the mythical which could not stand before compara tive criticism.
^ \f/^^ fivAr
. tf^>
*,
\fj&? 'v
,f\yr vr
jj^
protect
scientific theories from the
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Jfi\
CKAf. 25. ] The Two Realme Albert, Thoinat. 321
the Church, the leading minds could not evade the fact that philos ophy, as had been developed under the influence of Aristotle and the Arabians, was, and must remain, in its inner nature, alien to precisely those doctrines of the Christian religion which were spe cific and distinctive. With full consciousness of this opposition, Albert proceeded to his great task. He understood that the distinc-
ntUurai and rececUed religion, which he found in exist ence, COUld ho longer De put out of sight, that philosophy ami theology could no longer be identified, but he hoped and laboured with all his strength that this distinction might not be allowed to necome contradiction. He abandoned the doctrine that the " mys teries " of theology, the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incar nation, can be made rational, and, on the other hand, he corrected in favour of the Church doctrine the teaching of the " Philosopher " on such important points as the question concerning the eternity or temporal duration of the world. He sought to show that all which
known in philosophy by the "natural light" (lumine naluruli) holds good also in theology, but that the human soul can know completely only that, the principles of which carries within itself, and that, therefore, in such questions as those in which philosophical knowledge comes to no finally valid decision and must remain standing before the antinomy of different possibilities, revelation gives the decision, — view in which Albert follows mainly the results of Maimonides. Faith meritorious just because cannot be proved or established by any natural insight Revelation above reason, but nut uuutrary to reaaoti;
This standpoint for harmonising~hatural and revealed theology
essentially that taken by Thomas, although he seeks to limit still more, possible, the extent of that which to be withdrawn from philosophical insight and given into the possession of faith. Accord ing to the fundamental thoughts of his system, moreover, he
f&h
MM
this relation as relation of different stages of development, and sees accordingly, in philosophical knowledge, possibility given in man's natural endowment, which brought to full and entire realisation only by the grace active in revela tion.
It therefore important to notice that Scholasticism, just in this it/highest point, was far from identifying philosophy and theology, or from making the task of the former, as has often been repre- tented, an unresting comprehension of dogma. This conception hrlongs to the beginnings of mediaeval science, e. g. to Ansel in, and
found sporadically in the times when Scholasticism was entering upon its dissolution. So, for example, Raymundus Lullus projected
apprehends
is
is
is
is
if
'J, $
is
is it
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322 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III
his "Great Art ", essentially in the opinion that this, by making possible a systematic explanation of all truths, will be adapted to convince all " unbelievers " of the truth of the Christian religion. So, too, later, Raymond of Sabunde aimed to prove with the help of Lull's Art that if God has revealed himself in a double manner, in the Bible (liber scriptus) and in Nature (liber vivus), the contents of these two revelations, of which the one lies at the basis of theol ogy, the other at the basis of philosophy, must evidently be the same. But in the classical time of Scholasticism the distinction between natural and revealed theology was always kept in mind, and was drawn the more sharply, the more the Ch-irch haa occasion ' to guard against the contusion of its finnt. rmp with jj natural theology. " f. hp ghn
3. Hence there were very faithful sons nf nVmrnVi hrnaifonftri again t. hp r. lpft, fopfrwoon pV. i1r,er. p>iy o^^ +l»Q»l^rj Qrr| n]f;. mately made it so wide that it could not be bridged. At their head stands y»»3 AYwiia^who taught that theology should be conceived and treated only as a practical discipline ; philosoptty, on the con trary, as pure theory. Hence for him and for the continuers of his doctrine, the relation between the two is no longer chat of supple mentation, but that of separation. Between the two opposing terri tories of revelation and of rational knowledge, natural theology shrivels into an extreme poverty of domain. The compass of the mysteries of theology that are inaccessible for natural knowledge
increases more and more ; with Duns Scotus the beginning of the created world in time and the immortality of the human soul belong to this sphere ; and Occam even denies the cogency of the usual arguments with which rational theology was wont to prove the existence of God.
This criticism is rooted essentially in the purpose to assure to faith its just right, and in tins purpose it is completely honest. In connection with the metaphysical dualism which had again become pronounced (see below, No. 5) the knowledge of the understanding, bound as it was to sense-perception, seemed incapable of searching
1 This wrong-headed, and yet in many respects interesting and therefore frequently attempted, discovery, consisted in a system of concentric rings, each of which bore a group of concepts divided into circular compartments. By shifting these rings, all possible combinations between concepts were to be brought about, problems given, and their solutions stated. Thus there was a Kigura A (Dei) which contained the whole theology, a Figura Animse which contained psychology, etc. Mnemo-technic attempts, and such as aim at the discovery of a universal language, or of a system of symbols for expressing philosophical thoughts, have frequently been attached to this art combinatorial. The introduction of the algebraic method of reckoning by letters is also con nected with these efforts.
Chap. 2, § 25. ] The Two Realms : Duns Scotus, Occam. 323
the mysteries of the supernatural world. Thus men like Geraon ' based their mystical doctrine precisely upon Nominalism. Thp ilfffprpnrp het. wepn philnHopJTjjtiid theology is npppssary; f. hp prm-
tradiction between knowledge and faith is unavoidable. Revelation has its source in grace, and has the divine realm ot grace for its con tent ; rational knowledge is a natural process of reciprocal inter action between the knowing mind and the objects of perception. Therefore, though Nominalism escaped from the scholastic method with difficulty, and was late in reaching its goal, it necessarily ended in regarding Nature as the sole object of science. At all events, philosophy now set itself as" secular science, over against theology as dmnjjscienjff"
So Duns Scotus and Occam employed language which externally is quite in harmony with the " twofold truth. " That definition of the boundaries was intended to assert, that in matters of faith dia lectic has nothing to say. But it could not fail to be the result, that in the case of others, this separation would lead to the oppo site consequence and back to the original meaning of the claim of a double truth. It became a charter of liberty for the "secular philosophy. " Dialectical investigation could be pursued even to the boldest propositions, and yet all offence might be avoided if one only added that the proposition was so secundum, rationem, but that secundum fidem the opposite was of course true. This occurred so frequently that the Thomists and Lullists became zealous against it. In the case of many, to be sure, who availed themselves of this principle, we cannot doubt that this was their honest opinion ; but it is just as sure that others, with full consciousness of their pro cedure, found in this only a convenient pretext, in order to present under the protection of this restriction the doctrines of a philosophy that in its inner spirit was at variance with faith. At all events, this applies to the school of the Averroists which flourished in Padua toward the end of the fifteenth century.
4. Parallel to this changeful process of transformation in the relation between theology and philosophy, and in closest connection with goes an analogous development of metaphysical psychology, and both have reference in like measure to the fundamental relatiou between the supersensuous and the sensuous worlds^ Here, too, dualism the starting-point, and afterwards again the end. This dualism had been developed to an especial degree of sharpness by the Victoriues at the close of the first period. In this Mysticism the last bonds between body and soul were cut, and reconciliation
was made impossible. The spiritual and material worlds fell apart as separate spheres of the universal reality.
it, is
324 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III.
Now, however, Aristotelianism fulfilled its historical mission of overcoming the two-worlds theory in Augustine, as formerly in Plato, and in the Tliomist psychology the conception of development, and of the gradual building up of phenomena, was intended to' bridge that separation. While Hugo of St. Victor had drawn the dividing line in the created world through the midst of man's nature, by emphasising the complete impossibility of any comparison be tween the two substances there brought together, the human soul was now to be understood as just that connecting link, through the medium of which the two worlds come into organic interaction in the one course of development of allthings!
Thomas attains this result by an extraordinarily acute transfor mation of the Aristotelian doctrine of Forms and their relation to matter. The material and the immaterial worlds are characterised by the fact that, in the latter, pure Forms (formce separatee ; called also subsistent Forms) are real or actual as active intelligences with out any attachment to matter, while in the former, Forms realise themselves only in union with matter (inherent Forms). The hu man soul, as lowest of the pure intelligences, is a forma separata
(on which rests its immortality) and, at the same time, as entelechy of the body, it is the highest of those Forms which realise them selves in matter. But these two sides of its nature are bound together in it to an absolute substantial unity, and this unity is the only Form which is at the same time subsistent and inherent. 1 In this way the series of individual beings proceeds from the lowesT" Forms ot material existence, on past plant and animal life, through the human soul, with uninterrupted continuity over into the worTd ofpure intelligences — the angels,2 and finally to the absolute j'orm — the deitjr:—Th« cleft between the two worlds is closed in Thomisui by this central position of metaphysical psychology.
o. But it seemed to the following period that the cleft was closed only by being plastered over, as it were, and that the union of so heterogeneous attributes as the entelechy of the body and the sub sistence of a pure intelligence was more of a load than the con ception of individual substance was able to bear. Hence Duns Scotus, whose metaphysics likewise moves naturally within the Aristotelian terminology, introduced an (inherent) forma corporei- tatis between the intelligent soul, which he too designates as the
1 In this is concentrated in a conception the anthropocentric way of viewing the world, which even Thomism did not overcome.
* Thomas constructs his scale of forms in the material world according to Aristotle, in the spiritual world according to Dionysius the Areonagite.
" essential Form " of the body, and the body itself ; and thus the
Chap. 2. § 25. ] The Two Realms : Thomas, Scotus, Occam. 325
Augustinian and Victorinian separation of the conscious essence from the physiological vital force was again re-established.
Occam not only made this distinction his own, but, forced to insert another gradation, analysed the conscious soul into an intel lectual and a sensitive part, and ascribed real importance to this separation. It seems to him that the sensuous activities of con sciousness can as little be united with the rational nature whose vocation it is to behold the immaterial world, as can the form and motion of the body. Thus for him the soul is split up into a num ber of individual faculties, to determine the relation of which occasions great difficulties, especially with regard to their spatial inter-relation.
6. The essential thing in this is that the world of conscious- ness and that of corporeal bodies become again completely sepa rated -L and this is shown especially in Occam's theory of knowledge, which proceeded from these presuppositions to an extremely signifi cant innovation. "
"
ations, the old Greek idea, that in the knowing process, by means of the co-operation of the soul and of the external object, a copy of the latter arises, which is then apprehended and beheld by the soul. Occam strikes out these species intelligibiles as a useless doubling ' of the external reality, which according to this view, in so far as it is an object of knowledge, would be assumed as having still another existence (in psychical reality). But by this act sensuous knowledge loses for him its character of being a copy as compared with its object. An idea (concept us, intellectio rei) is as such a state or an act of the soul (passio — intentio animas), and forms in this a sign (signum) for the corresponding external thing. But this inner structure is something of a different nature from the outer reality of which it is the sign, and therefore it is no copy of it. We can speak of a " re semblance " only in so far as in this case the inner reality (esse objective = content of consciousness) and the outer reality (esse for- maliter or subjective = objective reality in the present sense of the word "objective " ') necessarily relate to each other, and, so to spoak, form corresponding points in the two heterogeneous spheres.
Thus the beginning of a psychological and episteraological idealism
In their doctrine of the
the two "Realists," Thomas and Duns Scotus, had alike followed, though with some vari
species intelligibiles
1 According to hU methodical principle : entia prater necessitateTM non esse mmltiplleanda.
•The term* "objective" and "fubjective" In the Middle Aftei have accord ingly a meaning exactly the reverse of that which they have in preiteiu
326 Mediaeval Philosophy . Second Period. [Part 1IL
develops among the Terminists out of the old duality of mind and body : the world of consciousness is another world than the world of things. What is found in the former is not a copy, but only a sign for something without which corresponds to it. Things are other than our ideas (idece) of them.
7. Lastly, Augustine's dualism appeared in its complete bald ness in his conception of history. The realm of God and that of the devil, the Church and the political state, here confronted each other in rigid antithesis. The historical conditions of which this doctrine was the reflex, had become changed completely since Augustine's day. But hitherto the Middle Ages had not only lacked historical conceptions which would have been adapted to correct this doctrine, but scientific thought had been employed in such a one-sidedly theo logical and dialectical manner, that ethical and social problems had remained farther outside the horizon of philosophers than had phys ical problems. And yet at the same time, history was seeing move ments of such grand dimensions that science also must necessarily take a position with regard to it. If she was able to do this in the second period in a manner completely worthy of the greatness of the subject, she owed her strength for this again to the Aristotelian system, which gave the means into her hand of mastering in thought the great connected structures of political and historical life, of arranging in her metaphysics these forms of the series of develop ment, and thus of putting into conceptions the mighty import of that which she was living through. Indeed, in this line in which the Arabian commentators had not gone before lies the most brilliant achievement of mediaeval philosophy,1 and since Albert's interest lay
more on the side of physics, the chief credit here falls to Thomas. Thomas regards the political state, not as did Augustine, as a con sequence of the fall, but as a necessary member in the world's life. In his view, therefore, law or right also flows from the divine nature
and must be so conceived ; above all human institutions stands the lex naturalis, upon which rest morality and the life of society. In
particular, however, as is proved by language, by the need of help which the individual feels, and by the impulse toward society, man is by his nature destined for life in a state.
In its farther development German Mysticism branched into the heresies of the Beghards and of the " Friends of God " of Basle ; in the case of the former it led to the most radical connection with the Averroistic pantheism. It took the form of popular preaching with John Tauler at Strassburg (1300-1361), and of poetic song with Heinrich Sato of Constance (1300-1366). Its theoretical doctrines maintained themselves, while the heterodoxy was diminished, in the " German Theology" (first edited by Luther, 1616).
The Augustinian Platonic opposition against the suspected Aristotelianism of the Arabians has as its main supporters : —
William of Auvorgno, from Aurillac, teacher and Bishop in Paris, where he died in 1249, author of a work De Universo. He is treated by K. Werner, Die Philosophie des W. v. A. (Vienna, 1873).
Henry of Ghent (Henricus Gandavensis, Heinrich Goethals of Muda near Ghent, 1217-1293), the valiant defender of the primacy of the will against Thomism. Besides a theological compendium, he wrote a Summa QuaMionum
Ordinarium, and principally Quodlibeta Theologica. Cf . K. Werner, H. v. G. als Jieprdsentant des chrUtlichen Platonismus im 13 Jahrhundert (Vienna, 1878).
Richard of Middletown (R. de Mediavia, died 1300) and William de la Marre, the author of a violent Correctorium Fratris Thomm, may also be named here. In the following centuries an Augustinian theology proper main tained itself by the side of Thomism and Scotism. jEgydius of Colonna is regarded as its leader (Mg. Romanus, 1247-1316). Cf. K. Werner, Schol. d. spat. M. -A. , III.
The sharpest opposition to Thomism grew out of the Franciscan order. Roger Bacon's was a mind fruitfully stimulating in all directions, but not appearing in a fixed and definite form in any one of them. He was born in 1214, near Ilchester, educated in Oxford and Paris, several times persecuted on account of his occupations and theories, which were directed in the line of natural research, protected only for a time by Pope Clement IV. . and died soon after 1292. His doctrines are embodied in the Opus Mains (ed. by Bridges, Oxford, 1897), and in the form of extracts in his Opus Minus (ed. by Brewer, Iiond. 1869). Cf. E. Charles, R. B. , sa vie, ses outrages, ses doctrines (Paris, 1861), and K. Werner, in two articles on his psychology, theory of knowledge, and physics (Vienna, 1879).
Duns Scotus. His home (Ireland or Northumberland) and the year of his birth, which was about 1270, are not certainly known. At first a scholar and teacher in Oxford, he then won high reputation at Paris, where he was active after 1304, and in 1308 moved to Cologne, where he died soon after his arrival —all too early. The edition of his works prepared by his Order (12 vols. , Lyons, 1639) contains, besides the genuine writings, much that is not genuine or that has been worked over, and especially transcripts of his disputations and
The most important thinker of the Christian Middle Ages was Johannes
CaA*. 2. ] Second Period. 815
lectures. To the latter belongs the so-called Opus Pnriritnte, which forms a com mentary upon the Sentences of the Lombard. The Questioned Quodlibctalcs have a similar origin. The Opus Ozoniense, the original commentary upon the Lom bard, is his own writing. Besides this there are his commentaries upon Aristo telian writings and some smaller treatises. His doctrine is expounded in Werner and Stockl. No exhaustive monograph, corresponding to his importance, exists.
Among his numerous adherents, Francis of Mayro, who died 1325, is the best known. The controversy between Thomists and Scotists was a very active one at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and brought many intermediate theories into the field ; but soon both parties had to make common cause in defence against Terminiam.
Among the logical school books of the later Scholasticism, the most influen tial was that of Petrua Hispanua, who died 1277 as Pope John XXI. His Summulce Logitales were a translation of a Byzantine-Greek text-book, the In*^i« tit tj)» 'KptarorfKovt Xoyutr)* tTivr^nvr by Michael Psellos (in the eleventh century ) . Imitating the processes in this latter treatise {ypdnimra fypa^t y/n- *iJt r«xrur6t ), the well-known barbarous mnemonic designations for the modes of the syllogism were Introduced in the Latin version (Barbara, eelarent, etc. ). Terminism, developed in the nominalistlc direction from this rhetorical and grammatical logic, contrasted itself as logiea moderna with the logica antiqua of the Realists, including both Scotists and Thomists under this latter title.
In the renewal of Nominalism we find William Durandus of St. Pour- cain, who died 133*2 as Bishop of Meaux, and Petrus Aureolus, who died at Paris, 1321, the former coming from Thomism, the latter from Kcotism. Much more important is William of Occam, the Abelard of the second period. With a broad and keen vision for reality, and with a bold, unresting eagerness for innovation, he unites in himself all the elements with the help of which the new science forced its way out of Scholasticism. Born in a village in the County of Surrey, trained under Duns Scotus, he became Professor at Paris, then took an active part in the conflicts of his time between Church and Stale by joining with Philip the Fair and Lewis of Bavaria in combating the papacy. ( Disputatio inter elericum et militem super potentate eeelesiastica pr<f latin atque ynnripihu* terrarum commissa, and the Defensorium against Pope John XXII. ), and died 1347 at Munich. There is no complete edition of his works, but the most important are : Summa Totius Logics, JCzpositio Aurea super Artem
Vetrrem, Quodlibeta Septem, Ctntilogium Theologicum, and a commentary on Peter Lombard. Cf. W. A. Schreiber, Die polititchen und religibsen Dortrinen nnter LuduHg dem Baier (Landshut, 1868). C. Prantl, Der UniversaUenstreit im dreixeAnten und vierxehnten Jahrhundtrt (Sitx. -Ber. der Miinchener Akad. , 1074). Occam, too, still waits his philosophically competent biographer.
Of the supporters of termlnistic Nominalism in the fourteenth century, Johannes Buridan, ltector of the University at Paris, and co-founder of that at Vienna, and Marsilius of Inghen, one of the first teachers at Heidelberg, are usually named. A union of mystical doctrines with the nominalislic rejection of metaphysics Is found in Pierre d'Ailly (Petrus de Alliaco, 1:160-1426), and in Juhannea Gerson (Charlier, 1363-1429).
The attempt at a purely rational exposition of Church doctrine in the interest of apologetics and propagation was made by Raymundua Lullus of Catalonia (1236-1315), who is principally known by his curious discover)' of the "Great Art. " that is, a mechanical device which by combining the fundamental concepts was intended to present the system of all possible cognitions. An extract from this may be found in J. K. Krdmann, History of Phil. , I. § 206 [Kng. tr. ed. by Hough]. His efforts were repeated in the fifteenth century by Raymund of Bllilinrla a Spanish physician, who taught in Toulouse and gained respect by his
ThetAogia Xaturalis (sire Liber Creaturarum). On him cf. I). Matzke (llreslau, 1M0); M. Huttler (Augsburg. 1861).
The philosophy of Iflcolaus Cusanua ( Nicolaus Chrypffs, born in Kues (Cum) war Trier, 1401, died as Cardinal and Bishop of Brixen, 1404), offers an inter esting comprehensive view of the intellectual condition of the departing Middle Ages. The main treatise bears the title De Dortn Ignorant ia (ed. In German together with his other most important writings by F. A. Scharpff, Freiburg i. B.
1882).
Cf. K. Falckenberg, Urundtugt der Philos. da \. *. C. (Brealau, 1880).
316 Medieval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III
Brief Survey of the Arabian and Jewish Philosophy of the Middle Ages.
This period is certainly more interesting from a literary and historical point of view than from that of philosophy, and as yet no competent presentation of the period as a whole has been made. Nor has complete clearness been attained as yet by investigation, but from the literature concerning it the following are to be emphasised : —
Mohammed al Schahrestani, History of Religious and Philosophical Sect* among the Arabs (German by Haarbrlicker, Halle, 1860 f. ); A Schmolders, Documenta Philosophuz Arabum (Bonn, 1836), and Essai sur les Ecoles Phi- losophiqties chez les Ar. (Paris, 1842); Fr. Dieterici, Die Philosophie der Ar. im zehnten Jahrhundert (8 Hefte, Leips. 1866-76). Cf. also Hanimer-Purgstall, Oesch. der arabischen Litteratur.
S. Munk, Melanges de philosophie juive et arabe (Paris, 1859), and the same author's articles on the individual philosophers in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques. [W. Wallace, Art. Arabian Phil, in Enc. Brit. , Utberweg, Krdmann. ]
M. Eisler, Vorlesungen Uber die, j'udischeu Philosophen des Miltelalters (3 vols. , Vienna, 1870-84) ; M. Jo61, Beitrage zur Oeschichte der Philosophic (Bres lau, 1876). Cf. also Furst's Bibliotheca Judaica, and histories of Judaism by Graetz and Geiger.
Close as the relations may be which the philosophy of the two civilised Semitic peoples sustained to their religious interests, Arabian science especially, owes its peculiar character to the circumstance that its founders and supporters were, for the most part, not members of the clergy, as in the West, but physi cians (cf. F. WUstenfeld, Oesch. der arab. Aerzte und Naturforscher, Gottingen,
Thus from the beginning the study of ancient medicine and natural science went on hand in hand with that of philosophy. Hippocrates and Galen were as much translated (in part through the medium of the Syrian. ) and read as were Plato, Aristotle, and the Neo-Platonists. Hence in Arabian metaphysic* dialectic is always balanced by natural philosophy. But well as this was adapted to afford scientific thought a broader basis of knowledge of facts, we must not, on the other hand, overestimate the independent achievements of the Arabs in medicine and natural science. Here, too, mediaeval science is essentially learned tradition. The knowledge which the Arabs were later able to deliver to the
West had its origin, in the main, in the books of the Greeks. Nor did even experimental knowledge experience an essential extension through the Arabs' own work ; only in some fields, as, for example, chemistry and mineralogy and in some parts of medicine, e. g. physiology, do they appear more independent. In their method, however, in their principles by which they apprehend the uni verse, and in their entire system of philosophical conceptions, they stand, so far as our information on the subject reaches, entirely under the combined influence of Aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism ; and the same is true of the Jews. Nor can it be maintained that a national peculiarity becomes disclosed in their appro priation of this material. It is rather the case that this whole scientific culture was artificially grafted upon the Arabian civilisation, it can strike no true roots into it, and after a short period of bloom it withers away without vital force. In the history of science as a whole, its mission is only to give back in part to the development of the Western mind the continuity which the latter had itself temporarily lost.
From the nature of the case, the appropriation of ancient science in this case also was completed gradually and by working backward. Beginning with the Neo-Platonism which was still current in Syrian tradition, and which was received with sympathy on account of its religious colouring, the Arabian thinkers proceeded to ascend to the better sources ; but the consequence remained that they saw Aristotle and Plato through the spectacles of Plotinus and Proclus. During the rule of the Abassidse an active scientific life prevailed in Bagdad, stimulated especially by the Caliph Almamun at the beginning of the ninth century. The Neo-Platonists, the better commentators, almost the entire didactic writings of Aristotle, and the Republic, Laics, and Timirus of
1840).
Plato, were known in translations.
Chap: 3. ] Arabian and Jewish Philoiophy. 317
The first distinctly emerging personalities, Alkendi, who died about 870, and Alfarabi, who died 960, are scarcely to be distinguished in their teachings from the Neo-Platonic elucidators of Aristotle. A greater importance belongs to Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 080-1037), whose "Canon" became the fundamental book of medieval medicine in the West, as well as in the East, and who also txercised a powerful influence by his extremely numerous philosophical writ ings, especially his Metaphysics and Logic. His doctrine comes nearer again to pare Aristotelianism. and perhaps the nearest among all the Arabians.
But the extension of these philosophical views was regarded with jealous eyes by Mohammedan orthodoxy, and the scientific movement experienced so vio lent persecutions in the tenth century that it took refuge in tin- secret league of the *' Pure Brothers. " Avicenna himself was also persecuted. The above- named league embodied the extremely excellent compass of the knowledge of the time in a number of treatises (on this see above, Dieterici), which neverthe less, in contrast with Avicenna, seem to show a stronger leaning toward Neo- Platonism.
Of the scientific achievements of their opponents we know on the one hand the strange metaphysics of the orthodox Motekallemin. who, as against the' Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic view of Nature as a living whole, developed an extreme exaggeration of the sole causality of God, and resorted to a distorted Atomism in the greatest metaphysical embarrassment ; on the other hand, in the writings of Algazel (1069-1111, Dextructio Philosophorum) there appears a sceptical and mystical analysis of philosophy.
These latter tendencies won the victory in the Orient the more readily, as the spiritual exaltation of Mohammedanism quickly declined in that quarter. The continuance of Arabian science is to be sought in Andalusia, where Mohamme dan civilisation found its short after-bloom. Here, under freer conditions, philosophy developed to vigorous naturalism, which in turn bore a strongly
S'ro- Platonic stamp.
A characteristic exposition of the doctrine of knowledge in this philosophy is
f«und in the Conduct of the Solitary by Avempace, who died 1138, and similar thoughts culminate with Abubacer (Ibn Tophail, died 1186) in an interesting ounparisnn of natural with positive religion. The latter author's philosophi cal romance The l. iriny One, the Son of the Waking One, which sets forth the intellectual development of a man upon a lonely island, excluded from all his torical and social relations, was published in a Latin translation by Pocock as
niti. tr/phu* Autodidactus (Oxford, 1671 and 1700, — not twenty years before the *p|x>arance of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe! ) and in a German translation as /vr Saturmrnsch by Eichhom (Berlin, 1783).
But the most important and independent among Arabian thinkers was Averroe* who was born 1120 in Cordova, was for a time judge, and then {•hyician in ordinary to the Caliph, was driven afterward by religious perse cution to Morocco, and died in 1198. He treated in paraphrases and longer or
shorter commentaries, which were printed in the older editions of Aristotle, almost all the didactic writings of Aristotle, who was esteemed by him as the li nines t teacher of truth. Of his own works (Venice, 1663; some exist now niily in the Hebrew version) the refutation of Algazel, Drstrurtio Destructionis, is moot important.
Two of his treatises on the relation of philosophy and the- ••logy have been published in (ierman translation by M. J. MUller (Munich, 1875). Cf. E. Kenan, Averrois et V Arerroisme (3d ed. , Paris. 1869).
With the expulsion of the Arabians from Spain traces of their philosophical activity are lost.
Jewish philosophy of the Middle Ages is, in the main, an accompaniment ot the Arabian, and dependent upon it. The only-exception to this is the Cab bala, that fantastic secret doctrine whose fundamental outlines, which, to be sure, were later much elaborated, show the same peculiar amalgamation of Oriental mythology with ideas of Hellenistic science as does Christian Gnosti cism, and go back to the same period and to the same agitated condition of thought attendant upon the mingling of religions. Cf. A. Franck. Systhne de la Kabbale (Paris, 1848; German by Jellinek, Leips. 1844); H. Joel, Dim
Religionsphilosophie des Sohar (Leips. 1849). On the other hand, the main works of Jewish philosophy were originally written in Arabic, and not trans lated Into Hebrew until a relatively late time.
^v <y "^r
tion which forms the presupposition of their thought. In the CP earlier period all knowledge and thought had arranged itself, as it were, of its own accord within the system of relifripng mptnpTiygir-B •
and now there appeared by the side of this a powerful, finely articu lated, coherent body of thought which the age? thirsting after real contents in its barren dialectic, was ready to take up eagerly. The manifold relations between these two systems which mutually laid hold upon one another and interpenetrated, determine the scientific character of the last centuries of the Middle Ages, and the general course of the development was, that these antagonistic systems, starting from an attitude of abrupt opposition, strove toward recon ciliation and adjustment, only to diverge all the more violently after the goal seemed to have been reached. This course of things appeared as necessarily in the conception of the reciprocal relations of the different sciences, as in the view of the ultimate relations of things. In both lines the attempt at synthesis was followed by a separation that went all the deeper.
The religious thought of the West, whose highest problem had been to understand the working of divine grace, was confronted by Oriental philosophy in which the old Grecian philosophical tendency toward knowledge of Nature had at last attained metaphysical
318 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III.
The book of Saadjah Fajjumi (died 942), Concerning Religions and Philoso phies, which aims to furnish an apology for Jewish doctrine, is related to the earliest Arabian Aristotelianism, and still more closely to the free-thinking
Mohammedan theologians, the so-called Mutazilin. In the Neo-Platonic line we meet Avicebron (Ibn Gebirol, a Spanish Jew of the eleventh century), of whose Fons Vitas, Hebrew and Latin versions are extant. Moses Maimonidea (1135-1204) is regarded as the most important Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages. In his culture and doctrine be belongs to the phase of Arabian doctrine which has Averrogs as its centre. His main treatise, Ouide to the Perplexed (Doctor Perplexorum), has been published in Arabic and French with a com mentary by Munk (3 vols. , Paris, 1856-66) [Eng. tr. by Friedlander, Trtibner, Lond. l. The attachment to AverroSs is still closer in the case of Hereonides
(Levi ben Gerson, 1288-1344).
The Jews, by means of their widely extended mercantile relations, were the
chief contributors to the extension of Oriental philosophy in the West, by sale and translation ; in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries especially their schools in Southern France formed the medium for this wide-reaching activity.
To the Arabian and Jewish literature, which was taken up by Christian science about 1200, belongs finally a number of pseudonymous and anonymous writings, which arose in the latest periods of Neo-Platonism, and in part per haps were of still later date. Among these the principal are the Theology of Aris totle (Arabic and German by Dieterici, Leips. 1882-83), and the Liber de Causis (De essentia pura; bonitatis), an extract from the o-7-oixeWit 0eo\o7«i} ascriLod to Proclus, published in Arabic, Latin, and German by O. Bardenhewer (Frei burg i. B. 1882).
§ 25. The Realm of Nature and the Realm of Grace.
Among all the philosphers of the Middle Ages we find existing, \yJ* vfith greater or less clearness, a lively feeling of the twofold tradi-
Chap. 2, § 25. ] The Two Realm* : Averroism. 319
supremacy : and here, too, again the process of appropriation began with the adoption of the last consequences, to ascend only by degrees back to the premises.
1. Hence the form in which Arabian science was first taken up was that of Averroism. In this, however, science had marked off its boundaries in the most definite manner as against positive religion. This had taken place not only in reaction against the attacks to which the philosophical movement in the East had been subjected, but still more in consequence of the great mental revolutions which the age of the Crusades experienced through the intimate contact of the three monotheistic religions. The more ardently these relig ions fought iu the sphere of historical reality, the more the sharp ness of their contrasting doctrines became blunted from the point of view of theory. Those who passed through this conflict of relig ions as thinking observers could not resist the impulse to seek the common element behind the differences, and to establish above the fields of battle the idea of a universal religion. 1 In order to attain this, every form of special historical revelation must be stripped off, and the path of universally valid scientific knowledge must be taken. So with the aid of Neo- Platonic memories, a return was made to the thought of a universal religion, founded upon science, and the ulti
mate content of this common conviction was formed by the moral law. As Abelard in his own way had already reached this result, so Roger Bacon later, under Arabian influences, designated morality as the content of the universal religion.
This scientific natural religion, however, had had stamped upon it more and more by the Arabs the exclusive character of an esoteric doctrine. The distinction originating with Philo, and current in the entire patristic thought, between a verbal-historical and a spiritually timeless sense' of religious documents (cf. § 18, U) here became the doctrine that positive religion is an indispensable need for the mass of the people, while the man of science seeks the real truth back of religion, and seeks it only there, — a doctrine in which Averroes and Maimonides were at one, and which completely corresponded to the social relations of Arabian science. For Arabian science always moved within narrow and closed circles, and as a foreign growth
1 Tb« court of the highly cultured Hohenstaufen Frederick II. in Sicily appears as a chief neat of this mode of thought, and in general of the exchange of thought between Kant and Went.
• Representing this opinion, the Kternal UttoptX of Joachim of Florls was circulated among the Averroi. itic Anialricana. This completed for the entire compass of ChrUtian dogma, the transformation of everything external into the mternal. all the historical into the titnelesgly valid : the " pneumatic gospel " of Origen (ci. | 18, 2) was asserted to have here attained reality, the period of lb*
1 to hate begun. Cf. J. N. Schneider (Dillingen,
1874).
ft \tyf> . . ^^
820 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III
never gained true sympathy with the mass of the people: Averroes, nevertheless, expressly honours Aristotle as the founder of this high est, most universal religion of the human race. "
Thus in line with this thought, Abubaoer made his Man in a State of Nature," who had attained in his isolation to the philosoph ical knowledge of God, come into contact again at last with histori cal humanity, and in so doing discover that what he had known clearly and in abstract thought, is here believed in its picturate wrappings, and that what holds for him as a self-evident demand of the reason is here extorted from the multitude by means of reward and punishment.
If now it is hereby admitted that natural and revealed religion have ultimately the same content, it still follows that they necessa rily differ, at least in their expression of the common truth, — that the conceptions which form the expression of philosophical religion are not understood by believers, while the picturate ideas of believ ers are not regarded as the full truth by philosophers. If, then, by theology, we understand the exposition of the positive doctrine of religion, arranged and defended according to the formal laws of science, i. e. Aristotelian logic, — and this was the form which the relation of theology to religion had taken in the West as in the East, — it follows that something may be true theologically which is not true philosophically, and vice versa. Thus is explained that doctrine of the twofold truth,* theological and philosophical, which went through the entire later Middle Ages, although we cannot exactly fix the authorship of this formula. 2 It is the adequate expression of the mental state necessarily brought about by the opposition of the two authorities under which the Middle Ages
religious
stood, viz. Hellenistic science and tradition ; and while at
^a*er time it often served to
persecution of the Church, it was for the most part, even in these cases, the honest expression of the inner discord in which just the most important minds of the age found themselves.
2. The science of the Christian peoples accepted this antithesis, and while the doctrine of the twofold truth was expressly pro claimed by bold dialecticians such as Simon of Tournay, or John of Brescia, and was all the more rigidly condemned by the power of
1 Cf. M. Maywald, Die Lthrt von der txeeifachen Wahrheit (Berlin, 1871).
* As little can it be fixed with certainty what the origin of that widely ex tended formula was, which designated the founders of the three great positive religions as the three "deceivers" of mankind. Cnhistorical, as is every Enlightenment, the philosophical opposition of that day could explain to itself only by empirical interests the mythical which could not stand before compara tive criticism.
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CKAf. 25. ] The Two Realme Albert, Thoinat. 321
the Church, the leading minds could not evade the fact that philos ophy, as had been developed under the influence of Aristotle and the Arabians, was, and must remain, in its inner nature, alien to precisely those doctrines of the Christian religion which were spe cific and distinctive. With full consciousness of this opposition, Albert proceeded to his great task. He understood that the distinc-
ntUurai and rececUed religion, which he found in exist ence, COUld ho longer De put out of sight, that philosophy ami theology could no longer be identified, but he hoped and laboured with all his strength that this distinction might not be allowed to necome contradiction. He abandoned the doctrine that the " mys teries " of theology, the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incar nation, can be made rational, and, on the other hand, he corrected in favour of the Church doctrine the teaching of the " Philosopher " on such important points as the question concerning the eternity or temporal duration of the world. He sought to show that all which
known in philosophy by the "natural light" (lumine naluruli) holds good also in theology, but that the human soul can know completely only that, the principles of which carries within itself, and that, therefore, in such questions as those in which philosophical knowledge comes to no finally valid decision and must remain standing before the antinomy of different possibilities, revelation gives the decision, — view in which Albert follows mainly the results of Maimonides. Faith meritorious just because cannot be proved or established by any natural insight Revelation above reason, but nut uuutrary to reaaoti;
This standpoint for harmonising~hatural and revealed theology
essentially that taken by Thomas, although he seeks to limit still more, possible, the extent of that which to be withdrawn from philosophical insight and given into the possession of faith. Accord ing to the fundamental thoughts of his system, moreover, he
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this relation as relation of different stages of development, and sees accordingly, in philosophical knowledge, possibility given in man's natural endowment, which brought to full and entire realisation only by the grace active in revela tion.
It therefore important to notice that Scholasticism, just in this it/highest point, was far from identifying philosophy and theology, or from making the task of the former, as has often been repre- tented, an unresting comprehension of dogma. This conception hrlongs to the beginnings of mediaeval science, e. g. to Ansel in, and
found sporadically in the times when Scholasticism was entering upon its dissolution. So, for example, Raymundus Lullus projected
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322 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III
his "Great Art ", essentially in the opinion that this, by making possible a systematic explanation of all truths, will be adapted to convince all " unbelievers " of the truth of the Christian religion. So, too, later, Raymond of Sabunde aimed to prove with the help of Lull's Art that if God has revealed himself in a double manner, in the Bible (liber scriptus) and in Nature (liber vivus), the contents of these two revelations, of which the one lies at the basis of theol ogy, the other at the basis of philosophy, must evidently be the same. But in the classical time of Scholasticism the distinction between natural and revealed theology was always kept in mind, and was drawn the more sharply, the more the Ch-irch haa occasion ' to guard against the contusion of its finnt. rmp with jj natural theology. " f. hp ghn
3. Hence there were very faithful sons nf nVmrnVi hrnaifonftri again t. hp r. lpft, fopfrwoon pV. i1r,er. p>iy o^^ +l»Q»l^rj Qrr| n]f;. mately made it so wide that it could not be bridged. At their head stands y»»3 AYwiia^who taught that theology should be conceived and treated only as a practical discipline ; philosoptty, on the con trary, as pure theory. Hence for him and for the continuers of his doctrine, the relation between the two is no longer chat of supple mentation, but that of separation. Between the two opposing terri tories of revelation and of rational knowledge, natural theology shrivels into an extreme poverty of domain. The compass of the mysteries of theology that are inaccessible for natural knowledge
increases more and more ; with Duns Scotus the beginning of the created world in time and the immortality of the human soul belong to this sphere ; and Occam even denies the cogency of the usual arguments with which rational theology was wont to prove the existence of God.
This criticism is rooted essentially in the purpose to assure to faith its just right, and in tins purpose it is completely honest. In connection with the metaphysical dualism which had again become pronounced (see below, No. 5) the knowledge of the understanding, bound as it was to sense-perception, seemed incapable of searching
1 This wrong-headed, and yet in many respects interesting and therefore frequently attempted, discovery, consisted in a system of concentric rings, each of which bore a group of concepts divided into circular compartments. By shifting these rings, all possible combinations between concepts were to be brought about, problems given, and their solutions stated. Thus there was a Kigura A (Dei) which contained the whole theology, a Figura Animse which contained psychology, etc. Mnemo-technic attempts, and such as aim at the discovery of a universal language, or of a system of symbols for expressing philosophical thoughts, have frequently been attached to this art combinatorial. The introduction of the algebraic method of reckoning by letters is also con nected with these efforts.
Chap. 2, § 25. ] The Two Realms : Duns Scotus, Occam. 323
the mysteries of the supernatural world. Thus men like Geraon ' based their mystical doctrine precisely upon Nominalism. Thp ilfffprpnrp het. wepn philnHopJTjjtiid theology is npppssary; f. hp prm-
tradiction between knowledge and faith is unavoidable. Revelation has its source in grace, and has the divine realm ot grace for its con tent ; rational knowledge is a natural process of reciprocal inter action between the knowing mind and the objects of perception. Therefore, though Nominalism escaped from the scholastic method with difficulty, and was late in reaching its goal, it necessarily ended in regarding Nature as the sole object of science. At all events, philosophy now set itself as" secular science, over against theology as dmnjjscienjff"
So Duns Scotus and Occam employed language which externally is quite in harmony with the " twofold truth. " That definition of the boundaries was intended to assert, that in matters of faith dia lectic has nothing to say. But it could not fail to be the result, that in the case of others, this separation would lead to the oppo site consequence and back to the original meaning of the claim of a double truth. It became a charter of liberty for the "secular philosophy. " Dialectical investigation could be pursued even to the boldest propositions, and yet all offence might be avoided if one only added that the proposition was so secundum, rationem, but that secundum fidem the opposite was of course true. This occurred so frequently that the Thomists and Lullists became zealous against it. In the case of many, to be sure, who availed themselves of this principle, we cannot doubt that this was their honest opinion ; but it is just as sure that others, with full consciousness of their pro cedure, found in this only a convenient pretext, in order to present under the protection of this restriction the doctrines of a philosophy that in its inner spirit was at variance with faith. At all events, this applies to the school of the Averroists which flourished in Padua toward the end of the fifteenth century.
4. Parallel to this changeful process of transformation in the relation between theology and philosophy, and in closest connection with goes an analogous development of metaphysical psychology, and both have reference in like measure to the fundamental relatiou between the supersensuous and the sensuous worlds^ Here, too, dualism the starting-point, and afterwards again the end. This dualism had been developed to an especial degree of sharpness by the Victoriues at the close of the first period. In this Mysticism the last bonds between body and soul were cut, and reconciliation
was made impossible. The spiritual and material worlds fell apart as separate spheres of the universal reality.
it, is
324 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III.
Now, however, Aristotelianism fulfilled its historical mission of overcoming the two-worlds theory in Augustine, as formerly in Plato, and in the Tliomist psychology the conception of development, and of the gradual building up of phenomena, was intended to' bridge that separation. While Hugo of St. Victor had drawn the dividing line in the created world through the midst of man's nature, by emphasising the complete impossibility of any comparison be tween the two substances there brought together, the human soul was now to be understood as just that connecting link, through the medium of which the two worlds come into organic interaction in the one course of development of allthings!
Thomas attains this result by an extraordinarily acute transfor mation of the Aristotelian doctrine of Forms and their relation to matter. The material and the immaterial worlds are characterised by the fact that, in the latter, pure Forms (formce separatee ; called also subsistent Forms) are real or actual as active intelligences with out any attachment to matter, while in the former, Forms realise themselves only in union with matter (inherent Forms). The hu man soul, as lowest of the pure intelligences, is a forma separata
(on which rests its immortality) and, at the same time, as entelechy of the body, it is the highest of those Forms which realise them selves in matter. But these two sides of its nature are bound together in it to an absolute substantial unity, and this unity is the only Form which is at the same time subsistent and inherent. 1 In this way the series of individual beings proceeds from the lowesT" Forms ot material existence, on past plant and animal life, through the human soul, with uninterrupted continuity over into the worTd ofpure intelligences — the angels,2 and finally to the absolute j'orm — the deitjr:—Th« cleft between the two worlds is closed in Thomisui by this central position of metaphysical psychology.
o. But it seemed to the following period that the cleft was closed only by being plastered over, as it were, and that the union of so heterogeneous attributes as the entelechy of the body and the sub sistence of a pure intelligence was more of a load than the con ception of individual substance was able to bear. Hence Duns Scotus, whose metaphysics likewise moves naturally within the Aristotelian terminology, introduced an (inherent) forma corporei- tatis between the intelligent soul, which he too designates as the
1 In this is concentrated in a conception the anthropocentric way of viewing the world, which even Thomism did not overcome.
* Thomas constructs his scale of forms in the material world according to Aristotle, in the spiritual world according to Dionysius the Areonagite.
" essential Form " of the body, and the body itself ; and thus the
Chap. 2. § 25. ] The Two Realms : Thomas, Scotus, Occam. 325
Augustinian and Victorinian separation of the conscious essence from the physiological vital force was again re-established.
Occam not only made this distinction his own, but, forced to insert another gradation, analysed the conscious soul into an intel lectual and a sensitive part, and ascribed real importance to this separation. It seems to him that the sensuous activities of con sciousness can as little be united with the rational nature whose vocation it is to behold the immaterial world, as can the form and motion of the body. Thus for him the soul is split up into a num ber of individual faculties, to determine the relation of which occasions great difficulties, especially with regard to their spatial inter-relation.
6. The essential thing in this is that the world of conscious- ness and that of corporeal bodies become again completely sepa rated -L and this is shown especially in Occam's theory of knowledge, which proceeded from these presuppositions to an extremely signifi cant innovation. "
"
ations, the old Greek idea, that in the knowing process, by means of the co-operation of the soul and of the external object, a copy of the latter arises, which is then apprehended and beheld by the soul. Occam strikes out these species intelligibiles as a useless doubling ' of the external reality, which according to this view, in so far as it is an object of knowledge, would be assumed as having still another existence (in psychical reality). But by this act sensuous knowledge loses for him its character of being a copy as compared with its object. An idea (concept us, intellectio rei) is as such a state or an act of the soul (passio — intentio animas), and forms in this a sign (signum) for the corresponding external thing. But this inner structure is something of a different nature from the outer reality of which it is the sign, and therefore it is no copy of it. We can speak of a " re semblance " only in so far as in this case the inner reality (esse objective = content of consciousness) and the outer reality (esse for- maliter or subjective = objective reality in the present sense of the word "objective " ') necessarily relate to each other, and, so to spoak, form corresponding points in the two heterogeneous spheres.
Thus the beginning of a psychological and episteraological idealism
In their doctrine of the
the two "Realists," Thomas and Duns Scotus, had alike followed, though with some vari
species intelligibiles
1 According to hU methodical principle : entia prater necessitateTM non esse mmltiplleanda.
•The term* "objective" and "fubjective" In the Middle Aftei have accord ingly a meaning exactly the reverse of that which they have in preiteiu
326 Mediaeval Philosophy . Second Period. [Part 1IL
develops among the Terminists out of the old duality of mind and body : the world of consciousness is another world than the world of things. What is found in the former is not a copy, but only a sign for something without which corresponds to it. Things are other than our ideas (idece) of them.
7. Lastly, Augustine's dualism appeared in its complete bald ness in his conception of history. The realm of God and that of the devil, the Church and the political state, here confronted each other in rigid antithesis. The historical conditions of which this doctrine was the reflex, had become changed completely since Augustine's day. But hitherto the Middle Ages had not only lacked historical conceptions which would have been adapted to correct this doctrine, but scientific thought had been employed in such a one-sidedly theo logical and dialectical manner, that ethical and social problems had remained farther outside the horizon of philosophers than had phys ical problems. And yet at the same time, history was seeing move ments of such grand dimensions that science also must necessarily take a position with regard to it. If she was able to do this in the second period in a manner completely worthy of the greatness of the subject, she owed her strength for this again to the Aristotelian system, which gave the means into her hand of mastering in thought the great connected structures of political and historical life, of arranging in her metaphysics these forms of the series of develop ment, and thus of putting into conceptions the mighty import of that which she was living through. Indeed, in this line in which the Arabian commentators had not gone before lies the most brilliant achievement of mediaeval philosophy,1 and since Albert's interest lay
more on the side of physics, the chief credit here falls to Thomas. Thomas regards the political state, not as did Augustine, as a con sequence of the fall, but as a necessary member in the world's life. In his view, therefore, law or right also flows from the divine nature
and must be so conceived ; above all human institutions stands the lex naturalis, upon which rest morality and the life of society. In
particular, however, as is proved by language, by the need of help which the individual feels, and by the impulse toward society, man is by his nature destined for life in a state.
