II. Nature of Scholasticism. — The inquiry into the changing import of the name scholastic is equally nec- essary for the due apprehension of th(! ordinary employ- ment of the term and for understanding its appropria- tion by the scholastic philosojihers. There is a large
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class of words which denote shifting conditions, social fluctuations, ex])anding or altering forms, that can be duly appreciated only by attention to tlieir historical modifications. Civilization is a word of this kind, scho- lasticism is another. The definitions of scholasticism given in the dictionaries are for the most part tautolog- ical— idem per idem — and habitually partial. They con- vey little information to those not already acquainted with the subject; they generally proceed by cross-refer- ence. Tiie inquirer is baffled by a game of verbal bat- tledore and shuttlecock between the reciprocally impli- cated terms scholasticism, scholastic philosophy, and schoolmen. The distinctions of the historians of phi- losophy are of course more satisfactorj^, but they are seldom adequate. Brucker enters into the history of the term; but Ueberweg is almost dumb on this point. He says {/list. Phil, i, 35b), " Scholasticism was the re- production of ancient phikisophy under the control of ecclesiastical doctrine, with an accommodation, in cases of discrepancy between them, of the former to the lat- ter." Then Abelard, who did not touch theology till an advanced period of his career, was not a scholastic during his brilliant course at Paris. Others, who never touched theology at all, were never scholastics. Occam, and those who rejected ecclesiastical authority in whole or in part, were not scholastics. Then Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus ceased to be scho- lastics when composing their vast commentaries on Ar- istotle: but became so, suddenly, when commenting on Peter Lombard and submitting their speculations to the discipline of the Church. Then Roger Bacon would not be a schoolman. Evidently there is no such com- pendious definition of scholasticism as Ueberweg and many of his fellow-historians suppose. The application of the Aristotelian logic to the exposition of Christian doctrine, and the subordination of the logical deductions to the orthodox dogmas of the Church, characterized the most brilliant period of scholasticism, and consti- tuted scholastic theology. See Scholastic Theology. But these characteristics did not belong to the whole period, nor to all the schoolmen, nor to all the labors of theological scholastics in any i)eriod. John Scotus Erigena with his Platonism, and Pico di Mirandola with his Cabalism were schoolmen as much as Bonaventura or Bradwardine. So also were essentially the Jew IMaimonides and the Saracen Avicenna. It is necessary to regard the wavering import of the term scholasti- cism, to note its various use, and to trace tlie progress of the scholastic procedure, in order to obtain a full knowl- edge of its meaning, and to detect the grounds of its di- verse, and particularly of its inost familiar, application.
Scholasticism, so contemplated, will be found to have meant, under the emperors of Rome, the functions of a teacher of rlietoric, embracing all knowledge in his course, then the possession of such knowledge with the refinement which it was siqjposed to bestow. As uni- versal learning shrank up, even in the times of Cassio- dorus, to tlie Trivium and Quadrivium, scholasticism suffered eclipse, but still claimed dominion over all the learning of the time. When rhetoric was supplanted by logic, scholasticism became the application of deduc- tive reasoning to all departments of inquiry ; and, at a later time, in accordance with the temper, associations, and necessities of wliat is regarded as distinctively the scholastic period, pre-eminently, though never exclu- sively, to theology.
Scholasticism will thus be the employment of logic, not the Peripatetic philosophy as such, in all depart- ments of learning, whether suited to them or not — the substitution of dialectics for investigation, of authority for facts. Lord Bacon did much, but very much less than his followers, to confirm the delusion tliat Aristotle handled everything in subservience to the logical sci- ence wliich he had created. Such an error can never be entertained by any one who has read his iXatiiroi History, his Parts iif Amm/ils, his Politirs, or even his Rhetoric or his FAhics. This exclusive application of
logic to all subjects and on all occasions was alike the defect and the characteristic of the schoolmen, practiced, even when condemned and opposed, by Roger Bacon.
IIL Oriyin of the Scholastic Mode oj' Philosophizing. — The notices of the origin of the name and of the nat- ure of scholasticism furnish indications of the genetic development of that notable method of speculation. They do not supply the historical explanation of its growth, nor reveal its relation to the changing circum- stances in the social and intellectual condition of the darkening ages which determined its appearance and progressive ascendency. Several writers, among whom may be named Brucker, St. Ililaire, Remusat, have rec- ognised in John of Damascus the progenitor of the scho- lastic system. He flourished in the earlier half of the 8th century. Long before him, germs of scholasticism and scholastic tendencies may be detected in both Chris- tian and pagan writers. There are many evidences in Aulus Gellius that eristic dialectics constituted an ha- bitual occupation of scholars before the middle of the 2d century (see especially Koci. A tt. I, ii). There is a manifest disposition in Tertullian and other fathers of the early Church to treat religious topics in a manner analogous to that pursued a thousand years later by the most illustrious among the schoolmen. Scholasticism was a natural growth, not an arbitrary invention. It may be deemed to have been inevitable that this mode of intellectual procedure should be pursued when a re- vealed religion, appealing exclusively to faith in the revelation, and whose fundamental tenets " came not by observation," was disseminated amid a highly cultivated but sceptical society, in antagonism to previouslj' ex- isting systems of religious belief, and to all the conclu- sions of its past thought and experience. Authority, divine authority, was the basis of the new truth, and furnished the jiremises for controversy and for ai)olo- getics alike. Tlie inspired Scriptures were the expres- sion of this divine authority, and were neither to be es- tablished by observation nor tested by experiment. In exegetics as well as in polemics there was thus a neces- sity of proceeding from the maxims of faith to the con- sequences of such maxims, which could be reached only by deduction. The need of accommodating the argu- ments adduced to the hostile temperaments and adverse habitudes of a pagan age would naturally soften and obscure the sharp precision and harsh angularities of dialectical demonstration. But the scholastic method, and even the scholastic subtleties and quodlibets, very soon appeared, and may be discerned in early patristic literature. When Christianity became prevalent and was established as the religion of the State, especially as there was a coincident decay of general culture and secular letters, the logical spirit, with its texts, its ab- stractions, its distinctions, its divisions, and its refine- ments, became predominant. This tendency is very pronoimced in the Confessions of St. Augustine, in his other writings, and in the productions of his contempo- raries and immediate successors. It is not without rea- son that Augustine has been signalized as one of the chief promoters of the scholastic method. As letters continued to shrivel up, and as cultivation of intellectual graces and refinements became impossible or mistimed in the midst of social anarchy, barbarian incursion, and general wretchedness, tlie deductive method of argu- mentation and exposition would unavoidably prevail. The extension of the practice and the exclusiiveness of such pursuits would also be greatly favored by the re- striction of study to the ecclesiastical circle, and by the mighty task imposed upon the whole mediicval period of converting the pagan barbarians who had occupied the Western empire, and of civilizing them through the instrumentality of the Christian faith to which they were to be converted. Of course, as logic was the chief method of theological persuasion, the intlnence of Aris- totle and of the Aristotelian spirit grew with the prog- ress of time and with the progress of theological dispu- tation, for there neither is nor ever can be any logic