The fact that the channels of thought during the middle ages were determined in this way is usually expressed by saying that reason in the middle age is sub ject to authority. It has not the free play which characterizes its activity in Greece and in the philosophy of modem times. Its conclusions are predetermined, and the initiative of the individual thinker is almost confined, therefore, to formal details in the treatment of his thesis. To the church, reason is the handmaid of faith (ancilla fidei). But this principle of the subordination of the reason wears a different aspect according to the century and writer referred to. In Scotus Erigena, at the beginning of the Scholastic era, there is no such subordination contemplated, be cause philosophy and theology in his work are in implicit unity. "Conficitur inde veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, con versimque veram religionem esse veram philosophiam" (De divine praedestinatione, Proem). Reason in its own strength and with its own instruments evolves a system of the universe which coincides, according to Erigena, with the teaching of Scripture. For Erigena, therefore, the speculative reason is the supreme arbiter; and in accordance with its results the utterances of Scripture and of the church have not infrequently to be subjected to an allegorical or mystical interpretation. But this is only to say again that Erigena is more of a Neoplatonist than a Scholastic. Hence Cousin suggested in respect of this point a threefold chronological division—at the outset the absolute subordination of philosophy to theology, then the period of their alliance, and finally the beginning of their separation. In other words, we note philosophy gradually extending its claims. Dialectic is, to begin with, a merely secular art, and only by degrees are its terms and distinctions applied to the subject-matter of theol ogy. The early results of the application, in the hands of Berengarius and Roscellinus, did not seem favourable to Christian orthodoxy. Hence the strength with which a champion of the faith like Anselm insists on the subordination of reason. To Bernard of Clairvaux and many other churchmen the application of dialectic to the things of faith appears as dangerous as it is impious. Later, in the systems of the great Schoolmen, the rights of reason are fully established and acknowledged. The relation of reason and faith remains external, and certain doctrines—an increasing number as time goes on—are withdrawn from the sphere of reason. But with these exceptions the two march side by side; they establish by different means the same results. For the conflicts which accompanied the first intrusion of philosophy into the theological domain more profound and cautious thinkers with a far ampler apparatus of knowledge had substituted a har mony. "The constant effort of Scholasticism to be at once phi losophy and theology" seemed at last satisfactorily realized. But
the further progress of Scholastic thought consisted in a with drawal of doctrine after doctrine from the possibility of rational proof and their relegation to the sphere of faith. Indeed, no sooner was the harmony apparently established by Aquinas than Duns Scotus began this negative criticism, which is carried much farther by William of Occam. But this is equivalent to a confes sion that Scholasticism had failed in its task, which was to ra tionalize the doctrines of the church. The Aristotelian form refused to fit a matter for which it was never intended; the matter of Christian theology refused to be forced into an alien form. The end of the period was thus brought about by the internal decay of its method and principles quite as much as by the variety of external causes which contributed to transfer men's interests to other subjects.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Besides the numerous works quoted in articles on the individual philosophers, see Haureau, Histoire de la philosophie scolastique (2 vols., 185o; revised and expanded in 187o as Histoire de la phil. scol.), Kaulich, Geschichte d. schol. Philosophic (1863) ; Stockl, Gesch. der Phil. des Mittelalters (3 vols., 1864-66) ; Karl Werner, Die Scholastik des spiiteren Mittelalters (4 vols., 1881-87) ; and, on a smaller scale, de Wulf's Histoire de la phil. medievale (Iwo; 5th ed., 1924-25). Supplementary details are given in Haureau's Singularites historiques et litteraires 0860 and in R. L. Poole's Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought (1884), while much light is thrown upon the minuter history of the period by the Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis edited by Denifle and Chatelain in 1894, by Haureau's Notices et extraits de quelques MS. latins de la Bibliotheque Nationale (6 vols., 189o-1895) and by the Beitriige zur Geschichte d. Phil. d. Mittelalters. The accounts of mediaeval thought by Ritter, Erdmann, Ueberweg and Windelband are very good. There are also notices of the leading systems in Milman's History of Latin Christianity (6 vols.,
The psychology of the Scholastic writers is ably dealt with in Siebeck's Die Psychologie von Aristoteles bis zu Thomas von Aquino (1885). Jourdain's Recherches critiques sur Page et l'origine des traductions latines d'Aristote (1819 ; 2nd ed 1843) ; Rousselot's Etudes sur la philosophie dans le mayo.! age
5842), Cousin's Introduction to his Ouvrages inedits d Abelard (1836), and Prantl's Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande (4 vols., 1855-187o) are invaluable aids in studying the history of mediaeval thought. For modern views see C. Baeumker, Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters (1923) ; G. Ritter, Studien zur Splitscholcts tik (1921, etc.) ; A. C. A. Schneider, Die Erkenntnislehre bei Beginn der Scholastik (1921) ; H. 0. Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind, 2 vols. (1925) ; 0. Wichmann, Die Scholastiker (1921) ; N. de Wulf, Histoire de la philosophie medievale (1924, etc.).