194. Conclusions. -- (1) The two most striking figures in the history of twelfth-century theology -- Abelard and Hugh of St. Victor -- were philosophers as well as theologians. As philosophers they aimed at formulating a rational explanation of the natural order of things by the light of reason alone. As dogmatic theologians they purposed to set forth systematically the contents of Catholic Belief, and used mainly the argument from authority for this purpose. But by the subsidiary use of the dialectic method, to the advantages of which they were fully alive, they assigned to philosophy the role of an auxiliary science and thus incorporated it in a unity of a higher order. We are thus enabled to understand how philosophy figures under two distinct titles in the Middle Ages: as having an autonomous value; and as a method to serve and strengthen the science of theology (115). Under the former point of view alone is it dealt with in this history.

(2) There were also theologians who would not be philosophers; so far as we know, there were no philosophers who were not, at some moments of their scholastic speculations, theologians also.