John weighed Abelard and the schools against Bernard and the
cloister, and coolly concluded that the way to truth led rather
through Citeaux, which brought him to Chartres as Bishop in 1176,
and to a mild scepticism in faith. 'I prefer to doubt' he said,
'rather than rashly define what is hidden.' The battle with the
schools had then resulted only in creating three kinds of sceptics:--
the disbelievers in human reason; the passive agnostics; and the
sceptics proper, who would have been atheists had they dared. The
first class was represented by the School of St. Victor; the second
by John of Salisbury himself; the third, by a class of schoolmen
whom he called Cornificii, as though they made a practice of
inventing horns of dilemma on which to fix their opponents; as, for
example, they asked whether a pig which was led to market was led
by the man or the cord. One asks instantly: What cord?--Whether
Grace, for instance, or Free Will?
"Bishop John used the science he had learned in the school only to
reach the conclusion that, if philosophy were a science at all, its
best practical use was to teach charity--love. Even the early,
superficial debates of the schools, in 1100-50, had so exhausted
the subject that the most intelligent men saw how little was to be
gained by pursuing further those lines of thought.
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