freedom of thought and of faith. Now the Church is real and it is not only
desirable that she should be real, but even that she alone should possess
reality and that the individuals constituting her should exist by her and
not by themselves. (This is precisely the doctrine with regard to society
now current among certain philosophers: society exists independently of its
members; it has laws of its own independently of its members; it is a
reality on its own basis; and its members are by it, not it by them, and
therefore they should obey it; M. Durckheim is a "realist.")

ABELARD of Nantes, pupil of the nominalist, William of Champeaux,
learned man, artist, man of letters, an incomparable orator, tried to
effect a conciliation. He said: "The universal is not a reality, certainly;
but it is something more than a simple word; it is a conception of the
mind, which is something more than an utterance of the voice. As conception
of the mind, in fact, it lives with a life which goes beyond the
individual, because it can be common to several individuals to many
individuals, and because in fact it is common to them. The general idea
that I have and which I have communicated to my hearers, and which returns
to me from my hearers, is more than a word since it is a link between my
hearers and myself, and an atmosphere in which I and my hearers live. Is
the Church only to be a word? God forbid that I should say so. She is a
bond between all Christians; she is a general idea common to them all, so
that in her each individual feels himself several, feels himself many;
although it is true that were she not believed in by anyone she would be
nothing." At bottom he was a nominalist, but more subtle, also more
profound and more precise, having a better grasp of what William of
Champeaux had desired to say. He shared in his condemnation.

Apart from the great dispute, his ideas were singularly broad and
bold. Half knowing, half guessing at ancient philosophy, he held it in high