otherwise expressed in the sub-title of his Proslogion, Fides quaerens intellectum. He endeavoured to give a philosophical demonstration not only of the existence of God but also of the Trinity and the Incarnation, which were placed by the later Scholastics among the “mysteries.” The Christological theory of satisfaction expounded in the Cur Deus Homo falls beyond the scope of the present article. But the Platonically conceived proof of the being of God contained in the Monologion shows that Anselm’s doctrine of the universals as substances in things (universalia in re) was closely connected in his mind with the thought of the universalia ante rem, the exemplars of perfect goodness and truth and justice, by participation in which all earthly things are judged to possess these qualities. In this way he rises like Plato to the absolute Goodness, Justice and Truth, and then proceeds in Neoplatonic fashion to a deduction of the Trinity as involved in the idea of the divine Word (see further Anselm).
Besides its connexion with the speculations of Anselm, the doctrine of Roscellinus was also of decisive influence within the schools in crystallizing the opposite opinion. William of Champeaux (1070–1121), who is reputed the founder of a definitely formulated Realism, muchWilliam of Champeaux. as Roscellinus is regarded as the founder of Nominalism, was instructed by Roscellinus himself in dialectic. Unfortunately none of William’s philosophical works have survived, and we depend upon the statements of his opponent Abelard, in the Historia calamitatum mearum, and in certain manuscripts discovered by Cousin. From these sources it appears that he professed successively two opinions on the nature of the universals, having been dislodged from his first position by the criticism of Abelard, his quondam pupil. There is no obscurity about William’s first position. It is a Realism of the most uncompromising type, which by its reduction of individuals to accidents of one identical substance seems to tremble on the very verge of Spinozism. He taught, says Abelard, that the same thing or substance was present in its entirety and essence in each individual, and that individuals differed no whit in their essence but only in the variety of their accidents. Thus “Socratitus” is merely an accident of the substance “humanitas,” or, as it is put by the author of the treatise De generibus et speciebus,[1] “Man is a species, a thing essentially one (res una essentialiter), which receives certain forms which make it Socrates. This thing, remaining essentially the same, receives in the same way other forms which constitute Plato and the other individuals of the species man; and, with the exception of those forms which mould that matter into the individual Socrates, there is nothing in Socrates that is not the same at the same time under the forms of Plato. . . . According to these men, even though rationality did not exist in any individual, its existence in nature would still remain intact” (Cousin, Introduction, &c., p. cxx.). Criticism was speedily at work upon William of Champeaux’s position. He had said expressly that the universal essence, by the addition of the individual forms, was individualized and present secundum totam suam quantitatem in each individual. But if homo is wholly and essentially present in Socrates, then it is, as it were, absorbed in Socrates; where Socrates is not, it cannot be, consequently not in Plato and the other individua hominis. This was called the argument of the homo Socraticus; and it appears to have been with the view of obviating such time and space difficulties, emphasized in the criticism of Abelard, that William latterly modified his form of expression. But his second position is enveloped in considerable obscurity. Abelard says, “Sic autem correxit sententiam, ut deinceps rem eamdem non essentialiter sed individualiter diceret.” In other words, he merely sought to avoid the awkward consequences of his own doctrine by substituting “individualiter” for “essentialiter” in his definition. If we are to put a sense upon this new expression, William may probably have meant to recall any words of his which seemed, by locating the universal in the entirety of its essence in each individual to confer upon the individual an independence which did not belong to it - thus leading in the end to the demand for a separate universal for each individual. In opposition to this Nominalistic view, which implied the reversal of his whole position, William may have meant to say that, instead of the universal being multiplied, it is rather the individuals which are reduced to unity in the universal. The species is essentially one, but it takes on individual varieties or accidents. If, however, we are more ill-natured, we may regard the phrase, with Prantl, as simply a meaningless makeshift in extremities; and if so, Abelard’s account of the subsequent decline of William’s reputation would be explained. But there is in some of the manuscripts the various reading of “indifferenter” for “individualiter,” and this is accepted as giving the true sense of the passage by Cousin and Rémusat (Hauréau and Prantl taking, on different grounds, the opposite view). According to this reading, William sought to rectify his position by asserting, not the numerical identity of the universal in each individual, but rather its sameness in the sense of indistinguishable similarity. Ueberweg cites a passage from his theological works which apparently bears out this view, for William there expressly distinguishes the two senses of the word “same.” Peter and Paul, he says, are the same in so far as they are both men, although the humanity of each is, strictly speaking, not identical but similar. In the Persons of the Trinity, on the other hand the relation is one of absolute identity.
Whether this view is to be traced to William or not, it is certain that the theory of “indifference” or “non-difference” (indifferentia) was a favourite solution in the Realistic schools soon after his time. The inherent difficulties of Realism led to a variety of attempts to reach a more satisfactory formula.Theory of indifference. John of Salisbury, in his account of the controversies of these days (Metalogicus, ii. 17) reckons up nine different views which were held on the question of the universals, and the list is extended by Prantl (ii. 118) to thirteen. In this list are included of course all shades of opinion, from extreme Nominalism to extreme Realism. The doctrine of indifference as it appears in later writers certainly tends, as Prantl points out, towards Nominalism, inasmuch as it gives up the substantiality of the universals. The universal consists of the non-different elements or attributes in the separate individuals, which alone exist substantially. If we restrict attention to these non-different elements, the individual becomes for us the species, the genus, &c.; everything depends on the point of view from which we regard it. “Nihil omnino est praeter individuum, sed et illud aliter et aliter attentum species et genus et generalissimum est.” Adelard of Bath (whose treatise De eodem et diverso must have been written between 1105 and 1117) was probably the author or at all events the elaborator of this doctrine, and he sought by its means to effect a reconciliation between Plato and Aristotle:—“Since that which we see is at once genus and species and individual, Aristotle rightly insisted that the universals do not exist except in the things of sense. But, since those universals, so far as they are called genera and species, cannot be perceived by any one in their purity without the admixture of imagination, Plato maintained that they existed and could be beheld beyond the things of sense, to wit, in the divine mind. Thus these men, although in words they seem opposed, yet held in reality the same opinion.” Prantl distinguishes from the system of indifference the “status” doctrine attributed by John of Salisbury to Walter of Mortagne (d. 1174), according to which the universal is essentially united to the individual, which may be looked upon, e.g. as Plato, man, animal, &c., according to the “status” or point of view which we assume. But this seems only a different expression for the same position, and the same may doubtless be said of the theory which employed the outlandish word “maneries” (Fr. maniere) to signify that genera and species represented the different ways in which individuals might be regarded. The concessions to Nominalism which such views embody make them representative of what Haureau calls “the Peripatetic section of the Realistic school.”
Somewhat apart from current controversies stood the teaching of the school of Chartres, humanistically nourished on the study of the ancients, and important as a revival of Platonism in opposition to the formalism of the Aristotelians. Bernard of Chartres, at the beginning of the 12th century, endeavoured,School of Chartres. according to John of Salisbury, to reconcile Plato and Aristotle; but his doctrine is almost wholly derived from the former through St Augustine and the commentary of Chalcidius. The universalia in re have little place in his thoughts, which are directed by preference to the eternal exemplars as they exist in the supersensible world of the divine thought. His Megacosmus and Microcosmus are little more than a poetic gloss upon the Timaeus. William of Conches, a pupil of Bernard’s, devoting himself to psychological and physiological questions, was of less importance for the specific logico-metaphysical problem. But Gilbert de la Porree, according to Haureau, is the most eminent logician of the Realistic- ↑ This treatise, first published by Cousin in his Ouvrages inédits d’Abélard, was attributed by him to Abelard, and he was followed in this opinion by Hauréau; but Prantl adduces reasons which seem satisfactory for believing it to be the work of an unknown writer of somewhat later date (see Prantl. Geschichte d. Logik, ii. 143).
