reduced Aristotle's writings to a system. His pupil, Thomas Aquinas, "the angelic doctor," soon followed in his steps, rejecting all the texts of Platonism, denying innate ideas, or à priori reasoning in theology; but he is so far a realist that he recognises the existence of universals ante rem—that is, in the divine mind; and post rem—that is, obtained by the effort of the individual reason. His contemporary, Duns Scotus, "the subtle doctor," went further, and assailed Platonism with every weapon that the logic of his age supplied; while, later on, William of Ockham, "the invincible doctor," revived Nominalism, and regarded universals as a mere conception of the mind. Realism passed out of date with Descartes in the sixteenth century, and the tendency of all modern philosophy has been distinctly towards Nominalism. Our own great philosophical writers, Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, and Locke, all maintain that it is possible to have general names as the signs or images of general ideas.
Bacon, the contemporary of Descartes, denounced the wisdom of the Greeks as being "showy and disputatious;" their logic he considers useless, their induction haphazard, their dialectic "the mere chattering of children;" and among one of the grand causes of human error—"the idols of the theatre," as he terms them[1]—he ranks the Platonic "Ideas."
Once again an attempt was made to revive Platon-
- ↑ "I look upon the various systems of the philosophers," says Bacon, "as merely so many plays brought out upon the stage—theories of being which are merely scenic and fictitious."—Nov. Org., i, 44.
