lesson which leads directly to pure rationalism, and indeed to the rehabilitation of the human as against the superhuman.  No wonder that Roscellin came into conflict with the church authorities, and had to flee to England.  Abelard afterwards modified his nominalism and behaved somewhat unhandsomely to him, but never escaped from the influence of his teaching.  Abelard was a rationalist and an asserter of the human.  Accordingly, when, definitely adopting the vocation of the scholar, he went to Paris to study dialectic under the then famous William of Champeaux, a declared Platonist, or realist as the designation then was, he gave his teacher infinite trouble by his subtle objections, and not seldom got the better of him.

These victories, which made him disliked both by his teacher and his fellow-pupils, went to increase his natural self-appreciation, and induced him, though a mere youth, to leave William and set up a rival school at Melun.  Here his splendid personality, his confidence, and his brilliant powers of reasoning and statement, drew to him a large number of admiring pupils, so that he was soon induced to move his school to Corbeil, near Paris, where his impetuous dialectic found a wider field.  Here he worked so hard that he fell ill, and was compelled to return home to his family.  With them he remained for several years, devoting himself to study,—­not only of dialectic, but plainly also of theology.  Returning to Paris, he went to study rhetoric under his old enemy, William of Champeaux, who had meanwhile, to increase his prestige, taken holy orders, and had been made bishop of Chalons.  The old feud was renewed, and Abelard, being now better armed than before, compelled his master openly to withdraw from his extreme realistic position with regard to universals, and assume one more nearly approaching that of Aristotle.

This victory greatly diminished the fame of William, and increased that of Abelard; so that when the former left his chair and appointed a successor, the latter gave way to Abelard and became his pupil (1113).  This was too much for William, who removed his successor, and so forced Abelard to retire again to Melun.  Here he remained but a short time; for, William having on account of unpopularity removed his school from Paris Abelard returned thither and opened a school outside the city, on Mont Ste. Genevieve.  William, hearing this, returned to Paris and tried to put him down, but in vain.  Abelard was completely victorious.

After a time he returned once more to Palais, to see his mother, who was about to enter the cloister, as his father had done some time before.  When this visit was over, instead of returning to Paris to lecture on dialectic, he went to Laon to study theology under the then famous Anselm.  Here, convinced of the showy superficiality of Anselm, he once more got into difficulty, by undertaking to expound a chapter of Ezekiel without having studied it under any teacher.