volume 24, pages 468-470.)

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EDUCATION: Mediæval. The Chaos of Barbaric Conquest.

"The utter confusion subsequent upon the downfall of the Roman Empire and the irruption of the Germanic races was causing, by the mere brute force of circumstance, a gradual extinction of scholarship too powerful to be arrested. The teaching of grammar for ecclesiastical purposes was insufficient to check the influence of many causes leading to this overthrow of learning. It was impossible to communicate more than a mere tincture of knowledge to students separated from the classical tradition, for whom the antecedent history of Rome was a dead letter. The meaning of Latin words derived from the Greek was lost. ... Theological notions, grotesque and childish beyond description, found their way into etymology and grammar. The three persons of the Trinity were discovered in the verb, and mystic numbers in the parts of speech. Thus analytical studies like that of language came to be regarded as an open field for the exercise of the mythologising fancy; and etymology was reduced to a system of ingenious punning. ... Virgil, the only classic who retained distinct and living personality, passed from poet to philosopher, from philosopher to Sibyl, from Sibyl to magician, by successive stages of transmutation, as the truth about him grew more dim and the faculty to apprehend him weakened. Forming the staple of education in the schools of the grammarians, and metamorphosed by the vulgar consciousness into a wizard, he waited on the extreme verge of the dark ages to take Dante by the hand, and lead him, as the type of human reason, through the realms of Hell and Purgatory."

_J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: the Revival of Learning; chapter 2._

EDUCATION: Mediæval. Gaul: 4th-5th Centuries.

"If institutions could do all, if laws supplied and the means furnished to society could do everything, the intellectual state of Gaulish civil society at this epoch [4th-5th centuries] would have been far superior to that of the religious society. The first, in fact, alone possessed all the institutions proper to second the development of mind, the progress and empire of ideas. Roman Gaul was covered with large schools. The principal were those of Trèves, Bordeaux, Autun, Toulouse, Poitiers, Lyons, Narbonne, Aries, Marseilles, Vienne, Besançon, &c. Some were very ancient; those of Marseilles and of Autun, for example, dated from the first century. They were taught philosophy, medicine, jurisprudence, literature, grammar, astrology, all the sciences of the age. In the greater part of these schools, indeed, they at first taught only rhetoric and grammar; but towards the fourth century, professors of philosophy and law were everywhere introduced. Not only were these schools numerous, and provided with many chairs, but the emperors continually took the professors of new measures into favor. Their interests are, from Constantine to Theodosius the younger, the subject of frequent imperial constitutions, which sometimes extended, sometimes confirmed their privileges. ... After the Empire was divided among many masters, each of them concerned himself rather more about the prosperity of his states and the public establishments which were in them. Thence arose a momentary amelioration, of which the schools felt the effects, particularly those of Gaul, under the administration of Constantius Clorus, of Julian, and of Gratian. By the side of the schools were, in general, placed other analogous establishments. Thus, at Trèves there was a grand library of the imperial palace, concerning which no special information has reached us, but of which we may judge by the details· which have reached us concerning that of Constantinople. This last had a librarian and seven scribes constantly occupied--four for Greek, and three for Latin. They copied both ancient and new works. It is probable that the same institution existed at Trèves, and in the great towns of Gaul. Civil society, then, was provided with means of instruction and intellectual development. It was not the same with religious society. It had at this epoch no institution especially devoted to teaching; it did not receive from the state any aid to this particular aim. Christians, as well as others, could frequent the public schools; but most of the professors were still pagans. ... It was for a long time in the inferior classes, among the people, that Christianity was propagated, especially in the Gauls, and it was the superior classes which followed the great schools. Moreover, it was hardly until the commencement of the fourth century that the Christians appeared there, and then but few in number. No other source of study was open to them. The establishments which, a little afterwards, became, in the Christian church, the refuge and sanctuary of instruction, the monasteries, were hardly commenced in the Gauls. It was only after the year 360 that the two first were founded by St. Martin--one at Ligugé, near Poitiers, the other at Marmoutiers, near Tours; and they were devoted rather to religious contemplation than to teaching. Any great school, any special institution devoted to the service and to the progress of intellect, was at that time, therefore, wanting to the Christians. ... All things in the fifth century, attest the decay of the civil schools. The contemporaneous writers, Sidonius Apollinaris and Mamertius Claudianus, for example, deplore it in every page, saying that the young men no longer studied, that professors were without pupils, that science languished and was being lost. ... It was especially the young men of the superior classes who frequented the schools; but these classes ... were in rapid dissolution. The schools fell with them; the institutions still existed, but they were void--the soul had quitted the body. The intellectual aspect of Christian society was very different. ... Institutions began to rise, and to be regulated among the Christians of Gaul. The foundation of the greater portion of the large monasteries of the southern provinces belongs to the first half of the fifth century. ... The monasteries of the south of Gaul were philosophical schools of Christianity; it was there that intellectual men meditated, discussed, taught; it was from thence that new ideas, daring thoughts, heresies, were sent forth. ... {688} Towards the end of the sixth century, everything is changed: there are no longer civil schools; ecclesiastical schools alone subsist. Those great municipal schools of Treves, of Poitiers, of Vienne, of Bordeaux, &c., have disappeared; in their place have arisen schools called cathedral or episcopal schools, because each episcopal see had its own. The cathedral school was not always alone; we find in certain dioceses other schools, of an uncertain nature and origin, wrecks, perhaps, of some ancient civil school, which, in becoming metamorphosed, had perpetuated itself. ... The most flourishing of the episcopal schools from the sixth to the middle of the eighth century were those of: 1. Poitiers. There were many schools in the monasteries of the diocese at Poitiers itself, at Ligugé, at Ansion, &c. 2. Paris. 3. LeMans. 4. Bourges. 5. Clermont. There was another school in the town where they taught the Theodosian code; a remarkable circumstance, which I do not find elsewhere. 6. Vienne. 7. Châlons-sur-Saone. 8. ArIes. 9. Gap.

The most flourishing of the monastic schools of the same epoch were those of: 1. Luxeuil, in Franche-Comté. 2. Fontenelle, or Saint Vandrille, in Normandy; in which were about 300 students. 3. Sithiu, in Normandy. 4. Saint Médard, at Soissons. 5. Lerens.

It were easy to extend this list; but the prosperity of monastic schools was subject to great vicissitudes; they flourished under a distinguished abbot, and declined under his successor. Even in nunneries, study was not neglected; that which Saint Cesaire founded at Aries contained, at the commencement of the sixth century, two hundred nuns, for the most part occupied in copying books, sometimes religious books, sometimes, probably, even the works of the ancients. The metamorphosis of civil schools into ecclesiastical schools was complete. Let us see what was taught in them. We shall often find in them the names of sciences formerly professed in the civil schools, rhetoric, logic, grammar, geometry, astrology, &c.; but these were evidently no longer taught except in their relations to theology. This is the foundation of the instruction: all was turned into commentary of the Scriptures, historical, philosophical, allegorical, moral, commentary. They desired only to form priests; all studies, whatsoever their nature, were directed towards this result. Sometimes they went even further: they rejected the profane sciences themselves, whatever might be the use made of them."

_F. Guizot, History of Civilization to the French Revolution, volume 2, lecture 4 and 16._

EDUCATION: Ireland. Scotland. Schools of Iona.

Popular accounts represent St. Patrick as "founding at least a hundred monasteries, and even those who consider that the greater number of the Irish colleges were raised by his followers after his death, admit the fact of his having established an episcopal monastery and school at Armagh, where he and his clergy carried out the same rule of life that he had seen followed in the churches of Gaul. ... The school, which formed a portion of the Cathedral establishment, soon rose in importance. Gildas taught here for some years before joining St. Cadoc at Llancarvan; and in process of time the number of students, both native and foreign, so increased that the university, as we may justly call it, was divided into three parts, one of which was devoted entirely to students of the Anglo-Saxon race. Grants for the support of the schools were made by the Irish kings in the eighth century; and all through the troublous times of the ninth and tenth centuries, when Ireland was overrun by the Danes, and so many of her sanctuaries were given to the flames, the succession of divinity professors at Armagh remained unbroken, and has been carefully traced by Usher. We need not stop to determine how many other establishments similar to those of Armagh were really founded in the lifetime of St. Patrick. In any case the rapid extension of the monastic institute in Ireland, and the extraordinary ardour with which the Irish cœnobites applied themselves to the cultivation of letters remain undisputed facts. 'Within a century after the death of St. Patrick,' says Bishop Nicholson, 'the Irish seminaries had so increased that most parts of Europe sent their children to be educated here, and drew thence their bishops and teachers.' The whole country for miles round Leighlin was denominated the 'land of saints and scholars.' By the ninth century Armagh could boast of 7,000 students, and the schools of Cashel, Dindaleathglass, and Lismore vied with it in renown. This extraordinary multiplication of monastic seminaries and scholars may be explained partly by the constant immigration of British refugees who brought with them the learning and religious observances of their native cloisters, and partly by that sacred and irresistible impulse which animates a newly converted people to heroic acts of sacrifice. In Ireland the infant church was not, as elsewhere, watered with the blood of martyrs. ... The bards, who were to be found in great numbers among the early converts of St. Patrick, had also a considerable share in directing the energies of their countrymen to intellectual labour. They formed the learned class, and on their conversion to Christianity were readily disposed to devote themselves to the culture of sacred letters. ... It would be impossible, within the limits of a single chapter, to notice even the names of all the Irish seats of learning, or of their most celebrated teachers, everyone of whom has his own legend in which sacred and poetic beauties are to be found blended together. One of the earliest monastic schools was that erected by Enda, prince of Orgiel, in that western island called from the wild flowers which even still cover its rocky soil, Aran-of-the-Flowers, a name it afterwards exchanged for that of Ara-na-naomh, or Aran-of-the-Saints. ... A little later St. Finian founded his great school of Clonard, whence, says Usher, issued forth a stream of saints and doctors, like the Greek warriors from the wooden horse. .... This desolate wilderness was soon peopled by his disciples, who are said to have numbered 3,000, of whom the twelve most eminent are often termed the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. ... Among them none were more famous than St. Columba, St. Kieran, and St. Brendan. The first of these is known to every English reader as the founder of Iona; and Kieran, the carpenter's son, as he is called, is scarcely less renowned among his own countrymen. ... It was in the year 563 that St. Columba, after founding the monasteries of Doire-Calgaich and Dair-magh in his native land, and incurring the enmity of one of the Irish kings, determined on crossing over into Scotland in order to preach the faith to the Northern Picts. Accompanied by twelve companions, he passed the Channel in a rude wicker boat covered with skins, and landed at Port-na Currachan, on a spot now marked by a heap of huge conical stones. {689} Conall, king of the Albanian Scots, granted him the island of I, Hi, or Ai, hitherto occupied by the Druids, and there he erected the monastery which, in time, became the mother of three hundred religious houses. ... Iona, or I-Colum-kil, as it was called by the Irish, came to be looked on as the chief seat of learning, not only in Britain, but in the whole Western world. 'Thither, as from a nest,' says Odonellus, playing on the Latin name of the founder, 'these sacred doves took their flight to every quarter.' They studied the classics, the mechanical arts, law, history, and physic. They improved the arts of husbandry and horticulture, supplied the rude people whom they had undertaken to civilise with ploughshares and other utensils of labour, and taught them the use of the forge, in the mysteries of which every Irish monk was instructed from his boyhood. They transferred to their new homes all the learning of Armagh or Clonard. ... In every college of Irish origin, by whomsoever they were founded or on whatever soil they flourished, we thus see study blended with the duties of the missionary and the cœnobite. They were religious houses, no doubt, in which the celebration of the Church office was often kept up without intermission by day and night; but they were also seminaries of learning, wherein sacred and profane studies were cultivated with equal success. Not only their own monasteries but those of every European country were enriched with their manuscripts, and the researches of modern bibliopolists are continually disinterring from German or Italian libraries a Horace, or an Ovid, or a Sacred Codex whose Irish gloss betrays the hand which traced its delicate letters."

_A. T. Drane, Christian Schools and Scholars, chapter 2._

EDUCATION: Charlemagne.

"If there ever was a man who by his mere natural endowments soared above other men, it was Charlemagne. His life, like his stature, was colossal. Time never seemed wanting to him for anything that he willed to accomplish, and during his ten years campaign against the Saxons and Lombards, he contrived to get leisure enough to study grammar, and render himself tolerably proficient as a Latin writer in prose and verse. He found his tutors in the cities that he conquered. When he became master of Pisa, he gained the services of Peter of Pisa, whom he set over the Palatine school, which had existed even under the Merovingian kings, though as yet it was far from enjoying the fame to which it was afterwards raised by the teaching of Alcuin. He possessed the art of turning enemies into friends, and thus drew to his court the famous historian, Paul Warnefrid, deacon of the Church of Rome, who had previously acted as secretary to Didier, king of the Lombards. ... Another Italian scholar, St. Paulinus, of Aquileja, was coaxed into the service of the Frankish sovereign after his conquest of Friuli; I will not say that he was bought, but he was certainly paid for by a large grant of confiscated territory made over by diploma to 'the Venerable Paulinus, master of the art of grammar.' But none of these learned personages were destined to take so large a part in that revival of learning which made the glory of Charlemagne's reign, as our own countryman Alcuin. It was in 781, on occasion of the king's second visit to Italy, that the meeting took place at Parma, the result of which was to fix the English scholar at the Frankish court. Having obtained the consent of his own bishop and sovereign to this arrangement, Alcuin came over to France in 782, bringing with him several of the best scholars of York, among whom were Wizo, Fredegis, and Sigulf. Charlemagne received him with joy, and assigned him three abbeys for the maintenance of himself and his disciples, those namely, of Ferrières, St. Lupus of Troyes, and St. Josse in Ponthieu. From this time Alcuin held the first place in the literary society that surrounded the Frankish sovereign, and filled an office the duties of which were as vast as they were various. Three great works at once claimed his attention, the correction of the liturgical books, the direction of the court academy, and the establishment of other public schools throughout the empire. ... But it was as head of the Palatine school that Alcuin's influence was chiefly to be felt in the restoration of letters. Charlemagne presented himself as his first pupil, together with the three princes, Pepin, Charles, and Louis, his sister Gisla and his daughter Richtrude, his councillors Adalard and Angilbert, and Eginhard his secretary. Such illustrious scholars soon found plenty to imitate their example, and Alcuin saw himself called on to lecture daily to a goodly crowd of bishops, nobles, and courtiers. The king wished to transform his court into a new Athens preferable to that of ancient Greece, in so far as the doctrine of Christ is to be preferred to that of Plato. All the liberal arts were to be taught there, but in such a way as that each should bear reference to religion, for this was regarded as the final end of of all learning. Grammar was studied in order better to understand the Holy Scriptures and to transcribe them more correctly; music, to which much attention was given, was chiefly confined to the ecclesiastical chant; and it was principally to explain the Fathers and refute errors contrary to the faith that rhetoric and dialectics were studied. 'In short,' says Crevier, 'the thought both of the king and of the scholar who laboured with him was to refer all things to religion, nothing being considered as truly useful which did not bear some relation to that end.' At first Alcuin allowed the study of the classic poets, and in his boyhood, as we know, he had been a greater reader of Virgil than of the Scriptures. ... The authors whose study Charlemagne and Alcuin desired to promote, were not so much Virgil and Cicero, as St. Jerome and St. Augustine; and Charlemagne, in his excessive admiration of those Fathers, gave utterance to the wish that he had a dozen such men at his court. The 'City of God' was read at the royal table, and the questions addressed by the court students to their master turned rather on the obscurities of Holy Writ than the difficulties of prosody. In one thing, however, they betrayed a classic taste, and that was in their selection of names. The Royal Academicians all rejoiced in some literary soubriquet; Alcuin was Flaccus; Angilbert, Homer; but Charlemagne himself adopted the more scriptural appellation of David. The eagerness with which this extraordinary man applied himself to acquire learning for himself, and to extend it throughout his dominions, is truly admirable, when we remember the enormous labours in which he was constantly engaged."

_A. T. Drane, Christian Schools and Scholars, chapter 5._

See, also, SCHOOL OF THE PALACE, CHARLEMAGNE'S,

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EDUCATION: England King Alfred.

King Alfred "gathered round him at his own court the sons of his nobility to receive, in conjunction with his own children, a better education than their parents would be able or willing to give them in their own households. To this assemblage of pupils Asser has attached the name of school, and a violent controversy once distracted the literary world concerning the sense in which the word was to be understood, and whether it was not the beginning or origin of a learned institution still existing. In speaking of this subject, Asser has taken occasion to enumerate and describe the children who were born to Alfred from his wife Elswitha, daughter of Ethelred the 'Big,' alderman of the Gaini, and a noble of great wealth and influence in Mercia. 'The sons and daughters,' says Asser, 'which he had by his wife above mentioned, were Ethelfled the eldest, after whom came Edward, then Ethelgiva, then Ethelswitha, and Ethelwerd, besides those who died in their infancy, one of whom was Edmund. Ethelfled, when she arrived at a marriageable age, was united to Ethelred, earl of Mercia; Ethelgiva was dedicated to God, and submitted to the rules of a monastic life; Ethelwerd, the youngest, by the Divine counsels and admirable prudence of the king, was consigned to the schools of learning, where, with the children of almost all the nobility of the country, and many also who were not noble, he prospered under the diligent care of his teachers. Books in both languages, namely, in Latin and Saxon, were read in the school. They also learned to write; so that, before they were of an age to practise manly arts, namely hunting and such other pursuits as befit noblemen, they became studious and clever in the liberal arts. Edward and Ethelswitha were bred up in the king's court, and received great attention from their servants and nurses; nay, they continue to this day, with the love of all about them, and shew affability, and even gentleness, towards all, both foreigners and natives, and are in complete subjection to their father; nor, among their other studies which appertain to this life and are fit for noble youths, are they suffered to pass their time idly and unprofitably, without learning the liberal arts; for they have carefully learned the Psalms and Saxon books, especially the Saxon Poems, and are continually in the habit of making use of books.' The schools of learning, to which Asser alludes in this passage, as formed for the use of the king's children and the sons of his nobles, are again mentioned elsewhere by the same author, as 'the school which he had studiously collected together, consisting of many of the nobility of his own nation:' and in a third passage, Asser speaks of the 'sons of the nobility who were bred up in the royal household.' It is clear, then, from these expressions, that the king's exertions to spread learning among his nobles and to educate his own children, were of a most active and personal nature, unconnected with any institutions of a more public character: the school was kept in his own household, and not in a public seat of learning. We may perhaps adduce these expressions of Asser as militating against the notion, that an University or Public Seminary of Learning existed in the days of Alfred. Though it is most probable that the several monasteries, and other societies of monks and churchmen, would employ a portion of their idle time in teaching youth, and prosecuting their own studies; yet there is no proof that an authorized seat of learning, such as the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, existed in England, until many hundred years after the time of Alfred."

_J. A. Giles, Life and Times of Alfred the Great, chapter 21._

EDUCATION: Saracenic and Moorish learning.

"Even as early as the tenth century, persons having a taste for learning and for elegant amenities found their way into Spain from all adjoining countries; a practice in subsequent years still more indulged in, when it became illustrated by the brilliant success of Gilbert, who ... passed from the Infidel University of Cordova to the papacy of Rome. The khalifs of the West carried out the precepts of Ali, the fourth successor of Mohammed, in the patronage of literature. They established libraries in all their chief towns; it is said that not fewer than seventy were in existence. To every mosque was attached a public school, in which the children of the poor were taught to read and write, and instructed in the precepts of the Koran. For those in easier circumstances there were academies, usually arranged in twenty-five or thirty apartments, each calculated for accommodating four students; the academy being presided over by a rector. In Cordova, Granada, and other great cities, there were universities frequently under the superintendence of Jews; the Mohammedan maxim being that the real learning of a man is of more public importance than any particular religious opinions he may entertain. In this they followed the example of the Asiatic khalif, Haroun Alraschid, who actually conferred the superintendence of his schools on John Masué, a Nestorian Christian. The Mohammedan liberality was in striking contrast with the intolerance of Europe. ... In the universities some of the professors of polite literature gave lectures on Arabic classical works; others taught rhetoric or composition, or mathematics, or astronomy. From these institutions many of the practices observed in our colleges were derived. They held Commencements, at which poems were read and orations delivered in presence of the public. They had also, in addition to these schools of general learning, professional ones, particularly for medicine. With a pride perhaps not altogether inexcusable, the Arabians boasted of their language as being the most perfect spoken by man. ... It is not then surprising that, in the Arabian schools, great attention was paid to the study of language, and that so many celebrated grammarians were produced. By these scholars, dictionaries, similar to those now in use, were composed; their copiousness is indicated by the circumstance that one of them consisted of sixty volumes, the definition of each word being illustrated or sustained by quotations from Arab authors of acknowledged repute. They had also lexicons of Greek, Latin, Hebrew; and cyclopedias such as the Historical Dictionary of Sciences of Mohammed Ibn Abdallah, of Granada."

_J. W. Draper, History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, volume 2, chapter 2._

"The Saracenic kings formed libraries of unparalleled size and number. That of Hakem amounted to 600,000 volumes, of which 44 were employed in the mere catalogue. Upwards of 70 public libraries were established in his dominions. 100,000 volumes were numbered in the library of Cairo, and were freely lent to the studious citizen. The taste of the sovereign communicated itself to the subject, and a private doctor declared that his books were sufficient to load 400 camels. {691} Nor were the Saracens less attentive to the foundation of schools and colleges. Eighty of the latter institutions adorned Cordova in the reign of Hakem; in the fifteenth century fifty were scattered over the city and plain of Granada. 200,000 dinars (about £100,000 sterling) were expended on the foundation of a single college at Baghdad. It was endowed with an annual revenue of 15,000 dinars, and was attended by 6,000 students. The princes of the house of Omeya honoured the Spanish academies by their presence and studies, and competed, not without success, for the prizes of learning. Numerous schools for the purpose of elementary instruction were founded by a long series of monarchs. ... In this manner the Arabians, within two centuries, constructed an apparatus for mental improvement which hitherto had not been equalled save in Alexandria, and to which the Church, after ruling the intellect of Europe for more than five hundred years, could offer no parallel."

_The Intellectual Revival of the Middle Ages (Westminster Review, January, 1876)._

EDUCATION: Scholasticism. Schoolmen.

In the later times of the Roman empire, "the loss of the dignity of political freedom, the want of the cheerfulness of advancing prosperity, and the substitution of the less philosophical structure of the Latin language for the delicate intellectual mechanism of the Greek, fixed and augmented the prevalent feebleness and barrenness of intellect. Men forgot, or feared, to consult nature, to seek for new truths, to do what the great discoverers of other times had done; they were content to consult libraries, to study and defend old opinions, to talk of what great geniuses had said. They sought their philosophy in accredited treatises, and dared not question such doctrines as they there found. ... In the mean time the Christian religion had become the leading subject of men's thoughts; and divines had put forward its claims to be, not merely the guide of men's lives, and the means of reconciling them to their heavenly Master, but also to be a Philosophy in the widest sense in which the term had been used;--a consistent speculative view of man's condition and nature, and of the world in which he is placed. ... It was held, without any regulating principle, that the philosophy which had been bequeathed to the world by the great geniuses of heathen antiquity, and the philosophy which was deduced from, and implied by, the Revelations made by God to man, must be identical; and, therefore, that Theology is the only true philosophy. ... This view was confirmed by the opinion which prevailed, concerning the nature of philosophical truth; a view supported by the theory of Plato, the practice of Aristotle, and the general propensities of the human mind: I mean the opinion that all science may be obtained by the use of reasoning alone;--that by analyzing and combining the notions which common language brings before us, we may learn all that we can know. Thus Logic came to include the whole of Science; and accordingly this Abelard expressly maintained. ... Thus a Universal Science was established, with the authority of a Religious Creed. Its universality rested on erroneous views of the relation of words and truth; its pretensions as a science were admitted by the servile temper of men's intellects; and its religious authority was assigned it, by making all truth part of religion. And as Religion claimed assent within her own jurisdiction under the most solemn and imperative sanctions, Philosophy shared in her imperial power, and dissent from their doctrines was no longer blameless or allowable. Error became wicked, dissent became heresy; to reject the received human doctrines, was nearly the same as to doubt the Divine declarations. The Scholastic Philosophy claimed the assent of all believers. The external form, the details, and the text of this Philosophy, were taken, in a great measure, from Aristotle; though, in the spirit, the general notions, and the style of interpretation, Plato and the Platonists had no inconsiderable share. ... It does not belong to our purpose to consider either the theological or the metaphysical doctrines which form so large a portion of the treatises of the schoolmen. Perhaps it may hereafter appear, that some light is thrown on some of the questions which have occupied metaphysicians in all ages, by that examination of the history of the Progressive Sciences in which we are now engaged; but till we are able to analyze the leading controversies of this kind, it would be of little service to speak of them in detail. It may be noticed, however, that many of the most prominent of them refer to the great question, 'What is the relation between actual things and general terms?' Perhaps in modern times, the actual things would be more commonly taken as the point to start from; and men would begin by considering how classes and universals are obtained from individuals. But the schoolmen, founding their speculations on the received modes of considering such subjects, to which both Aristotle and Plato had contributed, travelled in the opposite direction, and endeavored to discover how individuals were deduced from genera and species;--what was 'the Principle of Individuation.' This was variously stated by different reasoners. Thus Bonaventura solves the difficulty by the aid of the Aristotelian distinction of Matter and Form. The individual derives from the Form the property of being something, and from the Matter the property of being that particular thing. Duns Scotus, the great adversary of Thomas Aquinas in theology, placed the principle of Individuation in 'a certain determining positive entity,' which his school called Hæcceity or 'thisness.' 'Thus an individual man is Peter, because his humanity is combined with Petreity.' The force of abstract terms is a curious question, and some remarkable experiments in their use had been made by the Latin Aristotelians before this time. In the same way in which we talk of the quantity and quality of a thing, they spoke of its 'quiddity.' We may consider the reign of mere disputation as fully established at the time of which we are now speaking [the Middle Ages]; and the only kind of philosophy henceforth studied was one in which no sound physical science had or could have a place."

_W. Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences,