tion that
suggests itself that is subject for serious thought. Written as it
was some years after the great tragedy of his life, it was a
portrait that somehow seems out of focus. We know that during his
early years in Paris Abelard was a bold and daring champion in the
lists of dialectic; brilliant, persuasive, masculine to a degree;
yet this self-portrait is of a man timid, suspicious, frightened of
realities, shadows, possibilities. He is in abject terror of
councils, hidden enemies, even of his life. The tone is querulous,
even peevish at times, and always the egotism and the pride
persist, while he seems driven by the whip of desire for
intellectual adventure into places where he shrinks from defending
himself, or is unable to do so. The antithesis is complete and one
is driven to believe that the terrible mutilation to which he had
been subjected had broken down his personality and left him in all
things less than man. His narrative is full of accusations against
all manner of people, but it is not necessary to take all these
literally, for it is evident that his natural egotism, overlaid by
the circumstances of his calamity, produced an almost pathological
condition wherein suspicions became to him realities and terrors
established facts.

It is doubtful if Abelard should be ranked very high in the list of
Mediaeval philosophers. He was more a dialectician than a creative
force, and until the development of the episode with Heloise he
seems to have cared primarily for the excitement of debate, with
small regard for the value or the subjects under discussion. As an
intellectualist he had much to do with the subsequent abandonment
of Plato in favour of Aristotle that was a mark of pure
scholasticism, while the brilliancy of his dialectical method
became a model for future generations. Afer the Calamity he turned
from philosophy to theology and ethics and here he reveals
qualities of nobility not evident before. Particularly does he
insist upon the fact that it is the subjective intention that
determines the moral value of human actions even if it does not
change their essential character.

The story of this philosophical soldier of fortune is a romance
from beginning to end, a poignant human drama shot through with
passion, adventure, pathos and tragedy. In a sense it is an epitome
of the earlier Middle Ages and through it shines the bright light
of an era of fervid living, of exciting adventure, of phenomenal