THREE:The immortality of the soul is a subject on which idealistic philosophers habitually express themselves in terms of apparently studied ambiguity, and this is especially true of Plotinus. Here, as elsewhere, he repeats the opinions and arguments of Plato, but with certain developments which make his adhesion to the popular belief in a personal duration after death considerably more doubtful than was that of his master. One great difficulty in the way of Platos doctrine, as commonly understood, is that it attributes a permanence to individuals, which, on the principles of his system, should belong only to general ideas. Now, at first sight, Plotinus seems to evade this difficulty by admitting everlasting ideas of individuals no less than of generic types.514 A closer examination, however, shows that this view is even more unfavourable than Platos to the hope of personal immortality. For either our real self is independent of our empirical consciousness, which is just what we wish to have preserved, or, as seems more probable, the eternal existence which it enjoys is of an altogether ideal character, like that which Spinoza also attributed to the346 human soul, and which, in his philosophy, certainly had nothing to do with a prolongation of individual consciousness beyond the grave. As Madame de Sta?l observes of a similar view held at one time by Schelling, cette immortalit-l ressemble terriblement la mort. And when, in addition to his own theory of individual ideas, we find Plotinus adopting the theory of the Stoics, that the whole course of mundane affairs periodically returns to its starting-point and is repeated in the same order as before,515 we cannot help concluding that human immortality in the popular sense must have seemed as impossible to him as it did to them. We must, therefore, suppose that the doctrine of metempsychosis and future retributions which he unquestionably professes, applies only to certain determinate cycles of psychic life; or that it was to him, what it had probably been to Plato, only a figurative way of expressing the essential unity of all souls, and the transcendent character of ethical distinctions.516So matters stood when the introduction of Aristotles entire system into western Europe brought about a revolution comparable to that effected two centuries later by the complete recovery of ancient literature. It was through Latin translations from the Arabic, accompanied by Arabic commentaries, that the Peripatetic philosophy was first revealed in its entirety; and even Albertus Magnus, living in the thirteenth century, seems to have derived his knowledge of the subject from these exclusively. But a few years after the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204, the Greek manuscripts of Aristotle were brought to Paris; and, towards the middle of the century, a new Latin version was made from these under the supervision of St. Thomas Aquinas.536 The triumph of Aristotle was now, at least for a time, secured. For, while in the first period of the Middle Ages we find only a single great name, that of Ablard, among the Nominalists, against a strong array of Realists, in the second period the proportions are reversed, and Realism has only a single worthy champion, Duns Scotus, to pit against Albertus, Aquinas, and William of Ockham, each of them representing one of the principal European nations.537 The human intellect, hitherto confined within the narrow bounds of logic, now ranged over physics, metaphysics, psychology, and ethics; and although all these subjects were368 studied only at second-hand, and with very limited opportunities for criticism, still the benefit received must have been immense. The priceless service of the later Schoolmen is to have appropriated and successfully upheld, against Platonism on the one hand and theological mysticism on the other, a philosophy which, however superficial, took in the whole range of natural phenomena, derived all knowledge from external observation, and set an example of admirable precision in the systematic exposition of its results. If no positive addition was made to that vast storehouse of facts and ideas, the blame does not lie with Aristotles method, but with the forcible suppression of free mental activity by the Church, or its diversion to more profitable fields by the study of Roman jurisprudence. Even as it was, Aristotle contributed largely to the downfall of ecclesiastical authority in two ways: directly by accustoming men to use their reason, and indirectly by throwing back mysticism on its proper officethe restoration of a purely personal religion.
