In the middle ages 47

Priscian, and Remi of Auxerre), but also a study

of the classics themselves, — such as Virgil, Seneca,

Horace, and others. Cicero and Quintilian and

Marius Victorinus are mentioned as among the

authors preferred for instruction in rhetoric/ For

a long time law was also regarded as a branch of

rhetoric; and it was not until the time of Irnerius

of Bologna that law was taught as a branch dis-

tinct from the liberal arts course."" About the mid-

dle of the twelfth century the study of dialectics in-

cluded all the Org anon of Aristotle. As for the

teaching of the quadrivium, it always lagged behind

that of the tiivium. Euclid is the master in mathe-

matics. The study of astronomy was given a cer-

tain impulse by Adelard of Bath, who was initiated

into the Arabian science in Spain about the middle

of the twelfth century.

But such a program was felt to be too narrov/

in the twelfth century, and philosophy notably re-

ceived a definite place outside the liberal arts, —

which it leaves below, with theology above.

It has been long supposed, and people still say,

that philosophy in the Middle Ages was confused

with dialectics (one of the three branches of the

trivium above described) ; that it reduced to a hand-

ful of arid disputes quarrels on the syllogism and

6 Clerval, Les ecoles de Chartres du moyen dge du V'e au XVI'e

sUcles, pp. 221 ff.

6* Be it observed, however, that the study of Roman law had never

been wholly abandoned in Western Europe.

48 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION

\ on sophisms. This thesis has a seeming founda-

tion, thanks to certain dialectical acrobats who, in

the eleventh and twelfth centuries, emptied philoso-

phy of all ideas and rendered it bloodless and bar-

ren {" eocsanguis et sterilis/" are John of Salisbury's

words). But the truth is quite otherwise. These

"virtuosi," with their play on words and verbal

discussions, were strongly combated; and the men

of real worth — such as Anselm of Canterbury,

Abaelard, Thierry of Chartres, John of Salisbury,

and others — not only practiced dialectics or formal

logic with sobriety and applied it in accordance

with doctrine, but they created a place for philoso-

phy separate from and beyond the liberal arts, and

consequently beyond dialectics. Their writings

treat of the problems of metaphysics and psychol-

ogy, which is matter quite different from formal

dialectics.

While it hardly exists in the "glosses" of the

Carlovingian schools, philosophy rapidly progresses

towards the end of the eleventh century, and in the

middle of the twelfth century consists of a con-

siderable body of doctrine, which the following

centuries were to make fruitfid.

Now when philosophy had gained its distinct po-

sition, the propaedeutic character of the liberal

arts became evident: they serve as initiation to

liiglier studies. Men of the twelfth century take

tliem into consideration, and the first who are en-

gaged with tlie classification of the sciences ex-