deemed substance as that which stands underneath phenomena; the most universal of universals, the ultimate, the highest in order of generalization.  The ultimate essence or substance is indivisible; God is substance; God is indivisible.  The divine substance is incapable of alteration or accident; all other substance is liable to alteration or accident; therefore, the divine substance differs from all other substance.  A substance is a universal; as for example, Humanity, or the Human, is a universal and indivisible; the Man Socrates, for instance, is not a universal, but an individual; therefore, the substance Humanity, being indivisible, must exist entire and undivided in Socrates.

The form of logic most fascinating to youthful minds, as well as to some minds that are only too acute, is the reductio ad absurdum; the forcing an opponent into an absurd alternative or admission; and the syllogism lent itself happily to this use.  Socrates abused the weapon and Abelard was the first French master of the art; but neither State nor Church likes to be reduced to an absurdity, and, on the whole, both Socrates and Abelard fared ill in the result.  Even now, one had best be civil toward the idols of the forum.  Abelard would find most of his old problems sensitive to his touch to-day.  Time has settled few or none of the essential points of dispute.  Science hesitates, more visibly than the Church ever did, to decide once for all whether unity or diversity is ultimate law; whether order or chaos is the governing rule of the universe, if universe there is; whether anything, except phenomena, exists.  Even in matters more vital to society, one dares not speak too loud.  Why, and for what, and to whom, is man a responsible agent?  Every jury and judge, every lawyer and doctor, every legislator and clergyman has his own views, and the law constantly varies.  Every nation may have a different system.  One court may hang and another may acquit for the same crime, on the same day; and science only repeats what the Church said to Abelard, that where we know so little, we had better hold our tongues.

According to the latest authorities, the doctrine of universals which convulsed the schools of the twelfth century has never received an adequate answer.  What is a species? what is a genus or a family or an order?  More or less convenient terms of classification, about which the twelfth century cared very little, while it cared deeply about the essence of classes!  Science has become too complex to affirm the existence of universal truths, but it strives for nothing else, and disputes the problem, within its own limits, almost as earnestly as in the twelfth century, when the whole field of human and superhuman activity was shut between these barriers of substance, universals, and particulars.  Little has changed except the vocabulary and the method.  The schools knew that their society hung for life on the demonstration that God, the ultimate universal,