The opening of XXXV. THE EARLY SCHOLASTICS: PETER ABELARD AND HUGH OF ST. VICTOR
Relation of scholastic theology to our theme--Character of Abelard’s learning--Incorrect statements of his views--The nature of the stars--Prediction of natural and contingent events--The Magi and the star--Demons and forces in nature--Magic and natural science--Hugh of St. Victor--Character of the Didascalicon--Meaning of Physica--The study of history--The two mathematics: astrology, natural and superstitious--The superlunar and sublunar worlds--Discussion of magic--Five sub-divisions of magic--De bestiis et aliis rebus.
[Sidenote: Relation of scholastic theology to our theme.]
The names of Peter Abelard, 1079-1142, and Hugh or Hugo of St. Victor, 1096-1141, have been coupled as those of the two men who perhaps more than any others were the founders of scholastic theology. Our investigation is not very closely or directly concerned with scholastic theology, which I hope to show did not so exclusively absorb the intellectual energy of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as has sometimes been asserted. Our attention will be mainly devoted as heretofore to the pursuit of natural science during that period and the prominence both of experimental method and of magic in the same. But our investigation deals not only with magic and experimental science, but with their relation to Christian thought.