detested by conservative churchmen who had intellect enough to see the
tendency of his speculations. In proportion to the hatred of orthodox
ecclesiastics like Anselme of Laon and Saint Bernard, was the admiration
of young men and of the infant universities. Nothing embarrassed him. He
sought a reason for all things. He appealed to reason rather than
authority, yet made the common mistake of the scholastics in supposing
that metaphysics could explain everything. He doubtless kindled a spirit
of inquiry, while he sapped the foundation of Christianity and
undermined faith. He was a nominalist; that is, he denied the existence
of all eternal ideas, such as Plato and the early Fathers advocated. He
is said to have even adduced the opinions of Pagan philosophers to prove
the mysteries of revelation. He did not deny revelation, nor authority,
nor the prevailing doctrines which the Church indorsed and defended; but
the tendency of his teachings was to undermine what had previously been
received by faith. He exalted reason, therefore, as higher than faith.
His spirit was offensive to conservative teachers. Had he lived in our
times, he would have belonged to the most progressive schools of thought
and inquiry,--probably a rationalist, denying what he could not prove by
reason, and scorning all supernaturalism; a philosopher of the school of
Hume, or Strauss, or Renan. And yet, after assailing everything
venerable, and turning his old teachers into ridicule, and creating a
spirit of rationalistic inquiry among the young students of divinity,
who adored him, Abélard settled back on authority in his old age,
perhaps alarmed and shocked at the mischief he had done in his more
brilliant years.

This exceedingly interesting man, with all his vanity, conceit, and
arrogance, had turned his steps to Paris, the centre of all intellectual
life in France, after he had achieved a great provincial reputation. He
was then only twenty, a bright and daring youth, conscious of his