rabic
Aristotle: which itself was not immediately taken from the Greek, but
from a Syriac medium. Ginguene, Hist. Litt. de l'Italie, t. i. p. 212
(on the authority of M. Langles).

It was not only a knowledge of Aristotle that the scholastics of Europe
derived from the Arabic language. His writings had produced in the
flourishing Mohammedan kingdoms a vast number of commentators, and of
metaphysicians trained in the same school. Of these Averroes, a native
of Cordova, who died early in the thirteenth century, was the most
eminent. It would be curious to examine more minutely than has hitherto
been done the original writings of these famous men, which no doubt have
suffered in translation. A passage from Al Gazel, which Mr. Turner has
rendered from the Latin, with all the disadvantage of a double remove
from the author's words, appears to state the argument in favour of that
class of Nominalists, called Conceptualists, with more clearness and
precision than any thing I have seen from the schoolmen. Al Gazel died
in 1126, and consequently might have suggested this theory to Abelard,
which however is not probable. Turner's Hist. of Engl. vol. i. p. 513.

[841] Brucker, Hist. Crit Philosophiae, t. iii. I have found no better
guide than Brucker. But he confesses himself not to have read the
original writings of the scholastics; an admission which every reader
will perceive to be quite necessary. Consequently, he gives us rather a
verbose declamation against their philosophy than any clear view of its
character. Of the valuable works lately published in Germany on the
history of philosophy, I have only seen that of Buhle, which did not
fall into my hands till I had nearly written these pages. Tiedemann and
Tennemann are I believe, still untranslated.

[842] Buhle, Hist. de la Philos. Moderne, t. i. p. 723. This author
raises upon the whole a favourable notion of Anselm and Aquinas; but he
hardly notices any other.

[843] Mr. Turner has with his characteristic spirit of enterprise
examined some of the writings of our chief English schoolmen, Duns
Scotus and Ockham (Hist of Eng. vol. i.), and even given us some
extracts from them. They seem to me very frivolous, so far as I can
collect their meaning. Ockham in particular falls very short of what I
had expected; and his nominalism is strangely different from that of
Berkeley. We can hardly reckon a man in the right, who is so by
accident, and through sophistical reasoning. H