quoted the translation of the text of each passage entire before elucidating the meaning, and thus he brought a great deal of the thought of Aristotle, though passed through a double translation, to the notice of Europe. In commenting upon Aristotle, his attention seems to have been drawn to that passage, above referred to (p. 172), on the difference between the Constructive and the Passive Reason. Following out this idea, he made it the basis of a doctrine of “Monopsychism,” to the effect that the Constructive Reason is one individual substance, being one and the same in Socrates and Plato, and all other individuals; whence it follows that individuality consists only in bodily sensations, which are perishable, so that nothing which is individual can be immortal, and nothing which is immortal can be individual. These doctrines spread from the Arabs to the Jews of Spain, and from them to the Christian schools, and Averroism became a leaven in the scholastic philosophies, causing, as might be expected, the most virulent strife between the opponents and supporters of the theory of “Monopsychism.”
In the latter part of the thirteenth century Aristotle reached the height of his glory. At this time, partly from Arabian copies in Spain and partly from Greek MSS which the Crusaders brought with them from Constantinople, Western Christendom had obtained the whole of his works. He was now commented on by eminent ecclesiastics; indeed he occupied and almost monopolised the most powerful minds of Europe. Chief among these may be mentioned Albert “the Great,” the most fertile and learned of the schoolmen,
