History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [250]
Most of the learned men of the time were less devoted to dialectic than Abélard was. There was, especially in the School of Chartres, a humanistic movement, which admired antiquity, and followed Plato and Boethius. There was a renewed interest in mathematics: Adelard of Bath went to Spain early in the twelfth century, and in consequence translated Euclid.
As opposed to the dry scholastic method, there was a strong mystical movement, of which St Bernard was the leader. His father was a knight who died in the first Crusade. He himself was a Cistercian monk, and in 1115 became abbot of the newly-founded abbey of Clairvaux. He was very influential in ecclesiastical politics—turning the scales against antipopes, combating heresy in Northern Italy and Southern France, bringing the weight of orthodoxy to bear on adventurous philosophers, and preaching the second Crusade. In attacking philosophers he was usually successful; but after the collapse of his Crusade he failed to secure the conviction of Gilbert de la Porrée, who agreed with Boethius more than seemed right to the saintly heresy-hunter. Although a politician and a bigot, he was a man of genuinely
religious temperament, and his Latin hymns have great beauty.4 Among those influenced by him, mysticism became increasingly dominant, till it passed into something like heresy in Joachim of Flora (d. 1202). The influence of this man, however, belongs to a later time. St Bernard and his followers sought religious truth, not in reasoning, but in subjective experience and contemplation. Abélard and Bernard are perhaps equally one-sided.
Bernard, as a religious mystic, deplored the absorption of the papacy in worldly concerns, and disliked the temporal power. Although he preached the Crusade, he did not seem to understand that a war requires organization, and cannot be conducted by religious enthusiasm alone. He complains that 'the law of Justinian, not the law of the Lord' absorbs men's attention. He is shocked when the Pope defends his domain by military force. The function of the Pope is spiritual, and he should not attempt actual government. This point of view, however, is combined with unbounded reverence for the Pope, whom he calls 'prince of bishops, heir of the apostles, of the primacy of Abel, the governance of Noah, the patriarchate of Abraham, the order of Melchizedek, the dignity of Aaron, the authority of Moses, in judgeship Samuel, in power Peter, in unction Christ'. The net result of St Bernard's activities was, of course, a great increase of the power of the Pope in secular affairs.
John of Salisbury, though not an important thinker, is valuable for our knowledge of his times, of which he wrote a gossipy account. He was secretary to three Archbishops of Canterbury, one of whom was Becket; he was a friend of Hadrian IV; at the end of his life he was bishop of Chartres, where he died in 1180. In matters outside the faith, he was a man of sceptical temper; he called himself an Academic (in the sense in which St Augustine uses this term). His respect for kings was limited: 'an illiterate king is a crowned ass'. He revered St Bernard, but was well aware that his attempt to reconcile Plato and Aristotle must be a failure. He admired Abélard, but laughed at his theory of universals, and at Roscelin's equally. He thought logic a good introduction to learning, but in itself bloodless and sterile. Aristotle, he says, can be improved on, even in logic; respect for ancient authors should not hamper the critical exercise of reason. Plato is still to him the 'prince of all philosophers'. He knows personally most of the learned men of his time, and takes a friendly part in scholastic debates. On revisiting one school of philosophy after thirty years, he smiles to find them still discussing the same problems. The atmosphere of the society that he frequents is very like that of Oxford Common Rooms thirty years ago. Towards the end of his life, the cathedral schools gave place to universities, and
universities, at least in England, have had a remarkable continuity from that day