In the middle ages 279

There is a second doctrine which also involves

the philosophical mentality, and which is closely

connected with that which we have just exposited.

This is intellectualism, or the royal rule of reason

in man, and in all that concerns human life. It

introduces the supremacy of reason into all depart-

ments of human activity." Thomas Aquinas and

Duns Scotus are its striking representatives; but

it is also found though in a lesser degree, in all of

the scholastic philosophers.

It is because the dominant philosophy of the

thirteenth century was an intellectual philosophy,

that it promoted a love of clearness and precision;

that it struggled against the perplexing vagueness

of Arabian mysticism; that it introduced into dis-

cussions an atmosphere of precision and exactness

which exercised on the formation of the developing

minds the most beneficent influence. It is to this

mental discipline that the philosophical Latin of

the masters owes its pliability, — and to the same

source the modern languages are indebted for large

portions of their vocabularies.^* We have already

seen how this intellectualism and love of clarity are

revealed in the most important forms of thirteenth

century culture.^"

But, in addition to individualism and intellec-

tualism, there is a third deep lying character which

2 Cf. ch. VIII.

2a Cf. above, p. 176.

2" See ch. VII, v.

280 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION

enters into the temperament of those who framed

and developed scholastic philosophy. And this is

their spirit of moderation, — a moderation revealed

in considered choice. Their philosophy is the via

media between the views of Plato and of Aristotle ;

it tempers the naturalism of the latter with the

ideaHsm of the former. Thus the equilibrium which

appears in all the social forces of that age manifests

itself in their dominant philosophy.

We have seen^ how scholastic metaphysics is a

dynamic philosophy; but its dynamic character is

moderate, — because the form or the principle of

any given perfection, that may reside in each be-

ing, unfolds in matter. It gives the corporeal

world an evolutionary interpretation; but this is a

mitigated evolution, since it does not apply to the

essences themselves. Thus, for example, their con-

ception of evolution combines efficient causality

and finality; it furnishes a moderate realistic solu-

tion, by reconciling the individual nature of ex-

ternal reahties with the abstract character of our

corresponding concepts.*

Scholastic psychology is a moderate form of

idealism, since abstract ideas arise in sense-percep-

tion,^ and man is regarded as a unitary combination

of both soul and body. Similarly, this moderation

finds expression in their ethics, which explains the

3 Sec ch. IX, iii and iv.

4 See above, pp. 59 and 181.

6 Cf. ch. VIII, i.