Scholastic Philosophy.-Its character and its origin.-Division of Scholasticism into three epochs.-First epoch.-Second epoch.-Third epoch. Birth of philosophical independence; quarrel of nominalism and realism, which represent idealism and sensualism in Scholasticism.-John Occam. His partisans and his adversaries.-Decrial of the two systems and of Scholasticism.-Mysticism.-Chancellor Gerson. His Mystic Theology. Extracts from this work.-Conclusion.
HITHERTO, both in India and in Greece, we have constantly seen philosophy spring from religion; and at the same time we have seen that it springs not from it at once, that a single day is not enough for it to raise itself from the humble submission by which it begins, to the absolute independence in which it terminates. Hitherto we have seen it passing through an epoch, somewhat preparatory, therein trying its forces in the service of a foreign principle, reduced to the modest employment of governing and regulating creeds which it did not establish, in expectation of the moment when it shall be able to search out truth itself at its own risk and peril. Modern philosophy presents the same phenomenon. It is also preceded by an epoch which serves it as an introduction, and, thus to speak, as a vestibule. This epoch is scholasticism. As the middle age is the cradle of modern society, so scholasticism is that of modern philosophy.. What the middle age is to the new society, scholasticism is to
* These outlines of the entire system of Scholastic philosophy need to be strengthened and in some points rectified by study more limited but more solid than may be found in the Introduction of a work entitled: Euvres inédites d'Abélard, Paris 1836, in-4. This Introduction, with some additions, forms the 3d volume of the Fragments philosophiques.