realism. z The party division may therefore be dated
from the close of the ninth century. Remigius was a far
more important person than Heric. At Rheims, and
afterwards at Paris, he was unrivalled as a teacher of
grammar, dialectic, and music ; and the rapidly advancing
greatness of the Paris school, assisted by the reputation
not only of the teacher but of such of his pupils as a Odo,
the second abbat of Cluny and the creator of its fame,
would naturally tend to fix the principles of Remigius
in an age which had no mind for independent thought.
Thus, with apparently the single exception of the learned
centre of b Saint Gall, realism held everywhere an undis
puted reign. Gerbert, whose dialectical activity is repre
sented for us by a debate in which he took part before
Otto the Third, and by a slight treatise in which he pur
sued a little further one of the points raised on that occasion,
was hardly at all in sympathy with the subjective aims
of metaphysics ; although c probably his literary interest
and his energy as a teacher were the means of restoring
to the use of the schools some of the materials for logical
study which had fallen into neglect in the century before
him. <i Otherwise his practical temper was satisfied to
accept the tradition as he found it. It was not until
thought was again turned to religious questions, and
doctrine subjected to the test of reason, that the opposition
was revived.
The principles of the realist combined readily with a Christian idealism : he relied upon the safe foundation of authority the various elements of the church tradition, the Bible, the fathers, the canons of councils, and the decretals of popes; and treated logic as its useful but docile handmaid.[1] The nominalist on the contrary, though he might not wish to overthrow the ancient and respectable fabric of authority, reduced its importance
- ↑ Quae tamen artis humanao peritia, says saint Peter Damiani, (Jpusc. xxxvi. 5, si quando trac- tandis sacris cloquiisadhibetur,non debet ius magisterii sibimet arro- ganter arripere,sed velut ancillado- minae quodam familiatus obsequio subservire, ue si praecedit oberret.
