OF THE LOSOPHY. St. Bernard was at this period cultivating a mo- CHAP. nastic life in the retirement which he had founded at XII. Clairvaux. Of his sincere piety, his general ability, HISTORY and of his earnest devotion, there can be no question. SCHOLASThat cities were to him like a prison, and a solitude TIC PIIhis paradise, he felt, and he declared.25 His virtues procured him a reputation, and his character gave him St. Barnard. an influence, which made him one of the intellectual sovereigns of his day. Hence, tho withdrawn. from the world into his cell, he was still solicited to interfere in its concerns, and he became active in several negotiations and disputes, and was tremulously sensible to all its religious agitations. The fame of Abelard attracted his notice, and he examined his opinions with a critical minuteness which, perhaps, might have been better spared; and he addressed an accusing letter against him to the bishops and cardinals,26 and afterwards to pope Innocent," complaining of some parts of his book on Theology, and of his other, intitled Sententiarum. The pope issued his rescripts against him, and enjoined him to perpetual silence.28 One of his scholars, Berengarius, wrote in his justification.29 Abelard suffered much from the opposition raised against him; and some kind religious friends interfered to procure a general reconciliation of the contending parties. Peter, the abbot of Clugny, solicited the pope in his behalf. He states in his mediating letter, that Abelard had become reconciled with Bernard; that he had dismissed his schools, and retired from the contentious tumult of his studies, and had sought to fix his final residence at Clugny. "This," says the abbot, "we have granted, as it suited 25 S. Bernard, Ep. p. 323. VOL. IV. 26. Abel. Op. p. 271. H H VI. HISTORYOF ENGLAND. Abelard's BOOK his age, his weakness, and his religious feelings; and we implore you to let the last days of his life and old LITERARY age, which cannot now be many, be ended there. Let no one now expel him from the roof, to which, like the swallow, he has flown; nor from the nest, in which, latter days. like the dove, he delights to find himself; but as you cherish every good man, and once loved him, so now protect him with the shield of your apostolical de fence." 30 The same worthy abbot sometime afterwards sent a kind and consoling letter to Heloise, describing Abelard's latter days, his meekness, humility, abstinence, and mild virtues; he was always reading; often praying, and usually silent. The abbot expresses his surprise that a man so famous should have become so humble and resigned. His mind, his tongue, his occupations, were always divine, philosophical and learned. He meditated, he taught, and he confessed: No moment passed in which he was not at his devotions, or reading, or writing, or dictating. His strength declined gradually away, and he died with every devout, lowly, and sanctified feeling." Peter completed his friendship for Abelard by an affectionate epitaph." 32 Abelard wrote a work against the irreligious opinions of his day, which he enumerates under the de 30 Abel. Op. 336. 31 Ib. 337-342. 32 It will shew how highly he was esteemed in his day ABELARD was: but he then became the victor above all, XII. OF THE LOSOPHY. nomination of heresies; and being, tho not nomi- CHAP. nally the first, yet in popularity the first founder of the new scholastic philosophy, which had not then HISTORY lost the old name of dialectics, he defended it against SCHOLASthose who discountenanced it. These branded its TIC PRIdogmas as sophisms, and thought them rather de ceptions than reasons. His resentment at the attack denied their knowlege of what they censured, and called them foxes, who said the cherries were of a bad taste, because, when they leapt up to reach them, they only fell down disappointed, from what hung too high. He admitted, however, that the appetite for quarrelling and the puerile ostentation of tricking an adversary were to be avoided. He allowed that there were many sophistical arguments, many false reasonings and false conclusions, very closely imitating what was true, that would delude, not only the dull, but even the ingenious, if they were not diligently attentive. But, drawing a distinction between the dialectical and the sophistical art, he contended, from his own admission, that in order to make this discrimination, men must qualify themselves to distinguish the false and the misleading from the true and the apt; and, therefore, must study the logical discipline. 34 33 It is intitled Adversus Hereses.' Op. p. 452-488. 34 Ab. Op. 238-242. As Abelard was arraigned by St. Bernard, for many erroneous opinions, it is just to him to hear his own answer to the accusation :- I may have written some things by mistake, which I ought not, but I never did so with any evil intention, or from presumption. I have spoken many things in many schools, but always openly. I expressed what seemed to me to be salubrious to religion and morals, and whatever I wrote I exposed willingly to all, that they might be my judges, not my disciples; and I am at all times desirous to correct or expunge any mischievous expressions. In contradiction to the charges against him, he denies solemnly his imputed disbelief of the Divine Trinity, My opinion is, that both the Son and the Holy Spirit are from the Father, and of the same subsistence, will and power. Their subsistence or HI II 2 VI. HISTORYOF ENGLAND. His character. BOOK - It is obvious, from Abelard's own account of his life, that an ardent vanity, and an ungovernable vivaLITERARY city of mind, were his prevailing qualities. Those awful topics connected with the divine nature, which the Greeks were as fond of agitating as if they had concerned a mineral or a bird, which they could examine as they pleased, and of which they had full and visible knowlege, he was eager to discuss, and proud to revive. He said he was anxious to give a reason for all things, even of those which are above reason, and to believe nothing which his reason could not touch. This sounds plausibly, and would be just, if our knowlege of things were as universal and as boundless as nature; but it involves the manifest absurdity, of making our ignorance the judge and the criterion of truth. To disbelieve what we do not know, can be the maxim only of the most rustic infatuation. At first the babe knows nothing, and therefore believes nothing; but this defect is caused by his baby essence is entirely the same, and there cannot be a diversity of will or inequality of power. The Son became incarnate to deliver us from the yoke of sin and Satan, and by his death has opened to us the gates of everlasting life.' He proceeds to assert his eternal generation, and the procession of the Holy Spirit, as the third Person in the Trinity from both the preceding personalities. On two other contested points he adds The Divine Grace is so necessary to us, that without it neither the faculties of nature, nor freedom of our will, can be sufficient for salvation; for that grace, by its previous operation, excites us to will, accompanies us to give the ability to perform, and associates itself with us to enable us to persevere. I believe that God does those things only which it is proper that he should do, and that he might do many things which he will never do. Bad actions done thro ignorance are faults; but especially if thro our negligence we be ignorant of what we ought to know. The Deity frequently hinders evil. He frequently defeats the effects of those intending it, so that what they would they cannot do; and often changes their will, that they should be diverted from what they meditate. From Adam we have contracted fault as well as punishment; because his sin is the origin and cause of all ours.'-See his Apologue, or Confessio, 330-3. 35 Ab. Op. 277. XII. OF THE SHOLAS LOSOPHY. hood, and is the mark of it. As he grows up, some CHAP. knowlege gradually comes in, but only of a very small portion of existing facts and truths, and still less of HISTORY what have passed. The manly maturity of the body is mistaken for the full possession of knowlege, rea- TIC PHIson and judgment; whereas the individual is but very little more advanced in his information, tho completed in his external form. His ignorance is yet in the proportion of one truth to a thousand which surround him in nature; and notwithstanding this visible certainty, he assumes himself to be competent to decide on all things that concern the Deity, and his revelations and nature, and to deny their existence, justice and utility, as if he possessed all that was knowable, and had examined all that was true. Having attained myriads of facts on all the sciences, which Abelard was neither acquainted with nor would have thought within human acquisition, we feel strongly the absurdity of his making his rushlight information the rule and limit of his belief. But the lesson is not less applicable to ourselves. The existing unknown must never be forgotten, or disbelieved, for every day is proving to us its reality, and educing from it new truths that were never before suspected to have a being. His presumption brought again into fashion those pernicious exercises of the mind, which only end in new collocations of words, new absurdities, and new resentments. His rashness made others vindictive. He provoked persecutions, discreditable to those who used them, and always ineffective to cure the evil they seek to remedy,36 but of 36 I remember to have heard Mr. Fox say in the House of Commons, I thought with great truth-'I declare, I do not know how to fight opinion; but this I am sure of, that neither swords nor bayonets, racks nor |