his inheritance and birthright for the fascinations of literature and
philosophy. His name was Peter Abélard, on the whole the most brilliant
and interesting man whom the Middle Ages produced,--not so profound as
Anselm, or learned as Peter Lombard, or logical as Thomas Aquinas, or
acute as Albertus Magnus, but the most eloquent expounder of philosophy
of whom I have read. He made the dullest subjects interesting; he
clothed the dry bones of metaphysics with flesh and blood; he invested
the most abstruse speculations with life and charm; he filled the minds
of old men with envy, and of young men with admiration; he thrilled
admirers with his wit, sarcasm, and ridicule,--a sort of Galileo,
mocking yet amusing, with a superlative contempt of dulness and
pretension. He early devoted himself to dialectics, to all the arts of
intellectual gladiatorship, to all the sports of logical tournaments
which were held in such value by the awakened spirits of the new
civilization.

Such was Abélard's precocious ability, even as a youth, that no champion
could be found to refute him in the whole of Brittany. He went from
castle to castle, and convent to convent, a philosophical
knight-errant, seeking intellectual adventures; more intent, however, on
_éclat_ and conquest than on the establishment of the dogmas which had
ruled the Church since Saint Augustine. He was a born logician, as
Bossuet was a born priest, loving to dispute as much as the Bishop of
Meaux loved to preach; not a serious man, but a bright man, ready, keen,
acute, turning fools into ridicule, and pushing acknowledged doctrines
into absurdity; not to bring out the truth as Socrates did, or furnish a
sure foundation of knowledge, but to revolutionize and overturn. His
spirit was like that of Lucien,--desiring to demolish, without
substituting anything for the dogmas he had made ridiculous.
Consequently he was mistrusted by the old oracles of the schools, and