§ 3. ECLECTICS.

315. Summary. -- Between the irreconcilable adversaries and the uncompromising partisans of Thomism, we may recognize a third party which filled up the decades between the death of St. Thomas and the rise of the Scotist system in the schools. This was a group of eclectic, independent thinkers, supporting the older teachings on some points, Thomists on others, propounding solutions of their own on many. They were all contemporaries, many of them colleagues in the same Faculty; and so they enter the lists against one another and attack one another in their controversies. Chief among them are Godfrey of Fontaines, Giles of Rome, James of Viterbo and Henry of Ghent. The nearest to Thomism is Godfrey of Fontaines; the most closely akin to Duns Scotus is Henry of Ghent.