e of scholasticism. Bacon spent ten years in prison; but in spite
of everything, he was so much under the influence of scholasticism that
he considered it the task of philosophy to adduce evidence for the truth
of the Christian dogma.

Here it is essential roughly to sketch the essence of the philosophical
thought of that period, and point out the way which led from the
Christianity of the Fathers of the Church and scholasticism to the
religion of unhistorical Christianity, the so-called mysticism.
Scholasticism had reached its climax in the thirteenth century;
universities were founded in Paris, Oxford and Padua, and he who aspired
to the full dignity of learning had to take his degrees there; even
Eckhart did not neglect to obtain his scholastic education in Paris.

Scholasticism was an imposing and yet strangely grotesque system of the
world, built up--before a background of blazing stakes--of scriptural
passages and ecclesiastical tradition, lofty, pure thought and
antique-mediaeval superstition. Its fundamental problem, the
determination of the border line between faith and knowledge, was purely
philosophical. While the older scholasticism, based on Platonic
traditions, endeavoured to bring these into harmony with Christianity,
that is to say, prove the revelations by dialectics, Albertus Magnus
and, authoritatively, his pupil, Thomas Aquinas (1226-1274), strictly
distinguished, by the use of Aristotelian weapons, the rational or
perceptive truths from the supernatural verities or the subjects of
faith. This distinction, made in order to safeguard dogma, quickly
revealed its double-face. The handmaiden philosophy rebelled against her
mistress theology, and asked her for her credentials. According to the
classic and dogmatic doctrine of Thomas, the natural verities alone
could be grasped by human understanding; the supernatural or revealed
truths (the dogmas) were beyond proof and scientific cognition. To
submit them to research was not only an impossible task, but Thomas
stigmatised every effort in this direction as heresy, fondly believing
that he had once and for all safeguarded the position of faith. But more
resolute and profound thinkers, although not in so many words attacking
the authority of the Scriptures, and leaving Thomas' border-line
unquestioned, found the unfathomable truths not in ecclesiastical
tradition but in their own souls, thus investing "faith" with a new
meaning, unassailable by criticism.