Chapter II.

The Philosophy of the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Centuries.

135. Résumé. -- The first forward movement of scholastic thought may be detected in the study of the Universals (Art. I., § 1). We can follow here, step by step, the gradual growth of inquiry, the discovery and cultivation of psychology, and the slow elaboration of a solution which was to be ratified by the researches of subsequent centuries. In the eleventh century St. Anselm (Art. I., § 2) made the first attempt to systematize the results so far achieved. His synthesis, necessarily incomplete, was gradually enriched and perfected by the generations that followed him.

In John Scotus Eriugena we see the father of the anti-scholastics. In his philosophy we find the germs of all the hostile tendencies which troubled scholasticism down to the close of the twelfth century (Art. II.). A separate article (Art. III.) will deal with theological controversies in their relations to philosophy.