SOURCE: Gardner, Alice. “Scotus as Optimist” and “Scotus as Subjective Idealist.” In Studies in John the Scot (Erigena): A Philosopher of the Dark Ages, pp. 97-132. London: Henry Frowde, 1900.

In the following essays, Gardner discusses the roots of Eriugena's optimism and examines his views on existence, thought, and knowledge.

But yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill. 

—Tennyson.

It has already been sufficiently pointed out that the principal ecclesiastical controversies with which the name of Scotus is associated were none of his own seeking, nor were they concerned with problems which he had set himself to solve. The questions whether predestination is single or double, and what is the precise change undergone by the sacramental elements in the process of priestly consecration, would probably never have troubled his mind if they had not been directly presented to him for solution. But there...