To those who deny the validity of one of the primary assumptions of the disputants—­who decline, on the ground of the utter insufficiency of the evidence, to put faith in the reality of that other world, the geography and the inhabitants of which are so confidently described in the so-called[16] Christianity of Catholicism—­the long and bitter contest, which engaged the best intellects for so many centuries, may seem a terrible illustration of the wasteful way in which the struggle for existence is carried on in the world of thought, no less than in that of matter.  But there is a more cheerful mode of looking at the history of scholasticism.  It ground and sharpened the dialectic implements of our race as perhaps nothing but discussions, in the result of which men thought their eternal, no less than their temporal, interests were at stake, could have done.  When a logical blunder may ensure combustion, not only in the next world but in this, the construction of syllogisms acquires a peculiar interest.  Moreover, the schools kept the thinking faculty alive and active, when the disturbed state of civil life, the mephitic atmosphere engendered by the dominant ecclesiasticism, and the almost total neglect of natural knowledge, might well have stifled it.  And, finally, it should be remembered that scholasticism really did thresh out pretty effectually certain problems which have presented themselves to mankind ever since they began to think, and which, I suppose, will present themselves so long as they continue to think.  Consider, for example, the controversy of the Realists and the Nominalists, which was carried on with varying fortunes, and under various names, from the time of Scotus Erigena to the end of the scholastic period.  Has it now a merely antiquarian interest?  Has Nominalism, in any of its modifications, so completely won the day that Realism may be regarded as dead and buried without hope of resurrection?  Many people seem to think so, but it appears to me that, without taking Catholic philosophy into consideration, one has not to look about far to find evidence that Realism is still to the fore, and indeed extremely lively.[17]

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The other day I happened to meet with a report of a sermon recently preached in St. Paul’s Cathedral.  From internal evidence I am inclined to think that the report is substantially correct.  But as I have not the slightest intention of finding fault with the eminent theologian and eloquent preacher to whom the discourse is attributed, for employment of scientific language in a manner for which he could find only too many scientific precedents, the accuracy of the report in detail is not to the purpose.  I may safely take it as the embodiment of views which are thought to be quite in accordance with science by many excellent, instructed, and intelligent people.