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the judgment , to create a spirit of criticism , and to naturalize an independence and an activity of inquiry , Uich has contributed powerfully to strengthen and enlarge the British intellect . _ . .
, . , . } t was in the eleventh century that this new species of dialectic philosophy sprang up in vigour , and spread for two ages with unceasing popularity * and upon an attentive
compavisbn of all the facts that can be traced as to its origin , I think that the British islands and their Bretagne colony , may justly claim the credit of its existence in Christian Europe .
The man who first introduced into the west that subtilizing spirit of logical and metaphysical reasoning on the abstract subjects of human thought , which characterize the school men , was John the Irishman , usually called
Joannes Scotus , or Erigena , which implies " born in Erin , " or Ireland . He was the favoured literary friend of two of the greatest sovereigns of modern times , Charlemagne and Alfred : and in his book , De Divisioiie
iSaturae , he has left us a curious specimen of his refined metaphysical reasoning . He had derived the spirit and some of the matter from those Grecian dogmatists , who had studied theology with the eyes of Aristotle : and it is in his hands , as
it was in their ' s , little else than a well organized skeleton of plausible phrase . Adding to their dialectical subtleties bis own refining genius , lie produced an acute and elaborate work , which txercist's , but rarely informs the
14 Hist . Ang-1 . Sax . v . ii . p . 377—379 . 15 Ana . stasius said truly , in his letter to Charles , . that be was astonished how such a Vir barbarus , placed in the very ends of ' « world , so remote from conversation *« th mankind , as this Irishman John was ,
« onW comprehend such thing's with his "HelWct , and transfuse them into another ^ giiage so ably . He justly ascribes it to ^ vivacious genius , that quality in which ^ iand has never been deficient . —Sed hoc i >« atus est ille artifex spiritus qui hunc ^ ente m parite r et locnientem fecit . Anast . rf J e 8 tlm - Prefixed by Gale to his edition w the work . to to ? refers *» the Works ascribed wony 81 us Areopagita , and to Gregorius Jfa ^ i gU 8 > as his s Pn " rcesj—and also to tit od S . Whose Sch > l" * on Gregory he * tthe a % V ° JLatin See theitt P » inte < l « nd of his own work . Oxon . 1681 .
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mind , 17 It amused a few at the time of its first appearance ; but it produced no immediate fruit either in England or in France . This is not to be regretted . It would but have revived those pernicious controversies from which the Arabian imposture had emancipated the world . It had also bad tendencies . It went to
countenance that pantheistic theory , which gives to Atheism a colour that has seduced a Spinoza and a Toland , and has even found votaries among the Bramins of Hindustan . It has been remarked that no heresies
appeared in the tenth century . It is an observation ominous of evil to mankind . It announces a death-like
17 Mr . Berrington has ably stated the substance of Erigena ' s work , " He divides it into , that which creates , and is not created . ^ that which is created , and
creates ; that which is created , and doth not create ; and that which neither creates , nor is created . "—Under these heads , he comprises all thing's , mixing * sacred with profane , and heaping paradox on paradox ; from which , however , this general doctrine is deduced , that as all
thing's orig-inalljr were contained , in God , and proceeded from him into the different classes by which they are now distinguished , so shall they finally return to him , and be resolved into the source from which they came ; in other words , that as before the world was created , there was no being but
God , and the causes of all thing ' s were in him ; so , after the end of the world , there will he no being * but God , and the causes of all thing-s in him . This final resolution he elsewhere denominates deification ^ or , in tlie Greek language , which he affected to use , Sreoucri s ! Lit . Hist . p . 173 .
John was the author of the Vocalem , or , as it was afterwards called , the nominal and universal system , which Abelard defended . Of this , Bayie says , Spinozaism is but an extension of this opinion , for , according to the disciples of Scot , the universal natures are inch visibly the same in each of the-individuals . The human
nature of Paul is individually the same as that of Peter . Hence , Spinoza said , there is but one substance in the universe , and all that we see is a modification of it . ' * Diet . Voc . l 9 The Brain in who conversed with M .
Dicmer , expressed the doctrine with a simplicity that best elucidate * its absurdity , u The whole universe , is God ; what now speaks in me , \ s God ; what animates a dog , is God * j and when he retires out of the dog , the dog mtist die immediately , "~~ Ohrist . Obs . Sept . 1814 .
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History of the Scholastic Philosophy . 1 S 5
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1815, page 135, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1758/page/7/
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