the philosophy of the new times. Now, the middle age is nothing else than the absolute reign of ecclesiastical authority, whose political powers are merely instruments more or less manageable. Scholasticism, or the philosophy of the middle age, could not then be any thing else than the labor of thought in the service of faith, and under the inspection of religious authority. Such is scholastic philosophy. Its employment is limited, its bounds narrow, its existence precarious, inferior, subordinate. Well here again philosophy is philosophy; and scarcely has it fortified itself by time, scarcely is the hand which was over it removed, or become less weighty, when philosophy resumes its natural course, and produces again the four different systems which it has already produced both in India and in Greece. In the absence of chronology we cannot form a precise idea of the epoch corresponding to scholasticism in Indian philosophy. We distinguish the Mimansa school from the Sankhya school. But when did the Mimansa begin? When did the Sankhya begin? We are ignorant of this. Induction leads us to believe that the Mimansa must have preceded the Sankhya; nevertheless facts, in this India where every thing endures so long, where every thing exists in a state of confusion, facts show the Mimansa to be of a recent epoch. Thus Koumarila, the famous Mimansa doctor of whom I have spoken, was of the fourteenth century of our era. In Greece, we know at least when philosophy began; it began six centuries before our era with Thales and Pythagoras. But the epoch which precedes, that of the Mysteries, is covered with profound darkness. What took place between Orpheus and Pythagoras, between Musæus and Thales? How did the human mind go from the sanctuary of the temples to the schools of Ionia and of Greece at large? We know but ill, or rather we do not know at all. In regard to the middle age we are much more fortunate. We know when scholasticism began, we know when it ceased, and we know its development between these two periods; we know its starting point, its progress, and its end. When was scholasticism born? That is asking when the middle age was born; for scholasticism is the philosophic expression of the middle age. In order that scholasticism should have existed it was necessary that the middle age should exist, since scholasticism is only the middle age developed in the philosophy appropriate to it. The middle age, or the new society, was conceived, thus to speak, during the first century of the Christian era; but it appeared only with the triumph of its principle, that is, with the Christian religion; and the Christian religion arrived at perfect dominion only after having been delivered from all the ruins of the ancient civilization, and after the soil of our Europe, at last secure against further invasions and barbarian devastations, had become more firm and capable of receiving the foundations of the new society which the Church bore in its bosom. Europe and the Church were firmly established only at the time of Charlemagne and by the aid of Charlemagne. Charlemagne is the genius of the middle age; he opens it and he constitutes it. He represents essentially the idea of order: his is above all the spirit of a founder and an organizer. He had more than one task to accomplish, and he was sufficient for all. 1st, It was necessary to establish material order, by putting an end to those invasions of every kind, which, continually agitating Europe, opposed every fixed establishment. So, with one hand Charle magne arrested the Saracens in the South, and with the other the barbarians of the North, of whom he himself was a descendant, and thus he ceased to be a stranger in Europe; he became a European, a man of the new civilization. 2d, It was necessary to establish moral order. This could not be done except on the basis of the only moral authority of the times, religious authority; so this Charles, whose personality was so strong, did not hesitate to ask the crown which was already on his head by pontifical authority. 3d, It was necessary to establish scientific order. It was by example of Charlemagne that his successors, or his rivals, Charles the Bald and Alfred the Great, everywhere sought the least sparks of ancient culture, in order to rekindle the flame of science. It was Charlemagne who first opened the schools, schola.* These schools were the abodes of science then thus the science of that time was called Scholasticism. Behold the origin of the thing and of the word, and the character of scholasticism is already in its very origin. In fact, where did Charlemagne institute, and where could he institute schools? In places where most instruction still remained, where there was most leisure to acquire, where it was a duty to seek it and spread it abroad; that is, in the Episcopal sees, in the monasteries, in the cloisters, in the convents. Yes, the convents are the cradle of modern philosophy, as the Mysteries have been that of Greek philosophy; and scholasticism is stamped from its origin with an ecclesiastical character. dle As you now know its origin, let us see what was its end. Scholasticism ended when the middle age ended; and the midage ended when ecclesiastical authority ceased to be supreme, when other powers, and particularly political power, without neglecting the just deference and veneration always due to religious power, claimed and conquered its independence. It could not, then, be otherwise than that philosophy which always follows in the train of the great movements of society, should have claimed also its independence and conquered it little by little. I say little by little; for the revolution which caused philosophy to rise from the condition of a servant of theology to that of an independent power, was not accomplished in a day; it began in the fifteenth century but was completed at a later period, and modern philosophy did not really begin, as you know, until Bacon and Descartes. The two extreme points are then settled; on the one hand the century of Charlemagne, on the other that of Bacon and Descartes, the eighth century and the seventeenth. It now remains to determine what occurred between these two extreme points; * See the work of Launoy, de celebrioribus Scholis a Carolo Magno et post ipsum instauratis, Paris, 1672. Several times reprinted. nothing is more simple. What is the commencement of scholasticism? the absolute submission of philosophy to theology. What is the end of scholasticism? the end of this submission and the claim of independence of thought. Then, the middle state of scholasticism must have been a condition between servitude and independence, an alliance wherein theology and philosophy lend to each other mutual support. Hence three distinct periods in scholasticism: 1st, absolute subordination of philosophy to theology; 2d, alliance of philosophy and theology; 3d, commencement of a separation, feeble at first, but which little by little increases, is extended and terminates in the birth of modern philosophy. The first epoch of scholasticism is nothing else than the employment of philosophy as a simple form based on Christian theology. Theology comprised, with the holy Scriptures, tradition and the holy Fathers, especially the Latin Fathers, for the Greek Fathers were little known out of Constantinople; and among the Latin Fathers, he who represented all the others was Saint Augustine. All the resources of philosophy were reduced to a few ordinary writings, half-literary and half-philosophical, which contained the little knowledge that had escaped barbarism. These were the writings of Mamert,* of Capella,t of Boëthius, of Cassiodorus,§ of Isadorus, of the venerable Bede. He, into whose hands Charlemagne confided this regeneration of the human mind, Alcuinus,** had at his disposal no other aids than * Of Vienna, in Dauphiny, died about 477 A. C. De Statu Anima. Often reprinted. Marcien Capella, of Madaura, in Africa, flourished 474. Satyricon de Nuptiis philologia et Mercurii, et de VII. Artibus liberalibus. Often reprinted. Born in 470; senator of the Gothic king Theodoric, commented on Aristotle, wrote the treatise de Consolationæ philosophia in his prison of Pavia, which he left only to be beheaded. Opera, Basle, 1570, 1 vol. in-fol. § Born at Squillace about 480, died in 575. De Septem Disciplinis. Opp., 2 vol. in-fol. Rothomag., 1679. Bishop of Seville, died 636. Originum seu Etymologiarum, lib. xx. Opp., Romæ, 1796, 7 vol. in-4. Anglo-Saxon, born 673, died 785. Opp., Cologne, 1612, 8 vol. in-fol. ** Born at York, 726, died 804. Opp., Ratisbonne, 2 vol. in-fol., 1777. He these, with the Organum of Aristotle.* That this first epoch may be well understood, it is necessary never to separate in the mind Saint Augustine and the Organum; hence the grandeur of the theological basis and the poverty of the form. We encounter at this period an order of ideas and even of arguments much superior to these barbarous times; and if we are not aware of its source, we are tempted to admire too much these first essays of the philosophy of the middle age; it is to Christianity and to Saint Augustine that our admiration must be referred. As to the form, it is, as I have said, poor, feeble, uncertain; and this form was then the whole of philosophy. The masters of scholasticism during this epoch do little else than comment on that beautiful expression of one of them: "There had as a pupil Rhabanus Maurus, died Archbishop of Mayence, 856. Opp., 6 vol. in-fol., Colog., 1626. See, on some unpublished writings on dialectics of Rhaban, the Fragments de Philosophie scholastique, pp. 104-110, and p. 311. * Or rather some of its parts. For, strictly speaking, nothing was then known of the Organum except the Introduction of Porphyry, the Categories, and the Interpretation. See the Fragments de Philosophie scholastique, p. 70, 8qq. nem... John Scot, de Prædestinatione (Collection of Maugin, vol. 1, p. 103). "Non aliam esse philosophiam aliudve sapientiæ studium, aliamve religioQuid est de philosophia tractare nisi veræ religionis, qua summa et principalis omnium rerum causa. Deus, et humilitur colitur et rationabiliter investigatur, regulas exponere? Conficitur inde veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam." Alain de Lille, Alanus de Insulis, who closes this epoch of scholasticism, speaks like Scot, who begins it. Alain was a monk of Clairvaux, and a pupil of Saint Bernard; he died in 1203. Opp., Antwerpæ, 1 vol. in-fol., 1654. His principal work is entitled: Ars fidei Catholica, it is dedicated to Pope Clement III. (B. Pez. Thesaurus anecdotorum novissimus, Vol. 1, Col. 475.) Here is the introduction: "Cum nec miraculorum mihi gratia collata est, nec ad vincendas hæreses sufficiat auctoritates inducere, cum illas hæretici aut prorsus respuant aut pervertant, probabiles fidei nostræ rationes, quibus perspicax ingenium vix possit resistere, studiosius adornavi ut qui prophetiæ et Evangelio acquiescere contemnunt, humanis saltem rationibus inducantur, et nunc quasi per speculum contemplentur quod postea demum in perfecta scientia comprehendant. Itaque hoc opus in modum artis compositum, definitiones, distinctiones, propositiones ordinato successu propositas exhibet." It is divided in five books: 1st, de uno eodemque trino Deo, qui est una omnium causa; 2d, de mundo, deque angelorum et hominum creatione et libero arbitrio; 3d, de reparatione hominis lapsi; 4th, de Ecclesiæ Sacramen |