numerous inmates of the nunneries (§ 107). § 99.2. =The Philosophical Basis of Dialectic Scholasticism= was obtained mainly from the Aristotelian philosophy, which, down to the end of the 12th century, was known at first only from Latin renderings of Arabic and even Hebrew translations, and afterwards from Latin renderings of the Greek originals (§ 103, 1). Besides Aristotle, however, Plato also had his enthusiastic admirers during the Middle Ages. The study of the writings of Augustine and the Areopagite (§ 90, 7) led back again to him, and the speculative mystics vigorously opposed the supremacy of Aristotle.--At the outset of the philosophical career of scholasticism in the 11th century we meet with the controversy of Anselm and Roscellinus [Roscelin] about the relations of thinking and being or of the idea and the substance of things (§ 101, 3). =The Nominalists=, following the principles of the Stoics, maintained that General Notions, _Universalia_, are mere abstractions of the understanding, _Nomina_, which as such have no reality outside the human mind, _Universalia =post= res_. =The Realists=, on the contrary, affirmed the reality of General Notions, regarding them as objective existences before and apart from human thinking. But there were two kinds of realism. The one, based on the Platonic doctrine of ideas, taught that General Notions are really existent before the origin of the several things as archetypes in the Divine reason, and then also in the human mind before the contemplation of the things empirically given, _Universalia =ante= res_. The other, resting on Aristotle’s doctrine, considered them as lying in the things themselves and as first getting entrance into the human mind through experience, _Universalia =in= rebus_. The Platonic Realism thought to reach a knowledge of things by pure thought from the ideas latent in the human mind; the Aristotelian, on the other hand, thought to gain a knowledge of things only through experience and thinking upon the things themselves.--Continuation, § 103, 1.