III. =Bridging the Gulf from the Side of Mysticism.=--At the school of the monastery of St. Victor in Paris, founded by William of Champeaux after his defeat at the hands of Abælard, an attempt was made during the first half of the 12th century to combine mysticism and dialectic in the treatment of theology. The peaceable heads of this school would indeed have nothing to do with the speculations of Abælard and his followers which tended to overthrow the mysteries of the faith. But the mystics of St. Victor made an important concession to the dialecticians by entering with as much energy upon the scientific study and construction of dogmatics as they did upon the devout examination of Scripture and mystical theology. They exhibited a speculative power and a profundity of thought that won the hearty admiration of the subtlest of the dialecticians. By far the most celebrated of this school was =Hugo of St. Victor=. Descended from the family of the Count of Halberstadt, born in A.D. 1097, nearly related to St. Bernard, honoured by his contemporaries as _Alter Augustinus_ or _Lingua Augustini_, Hugo was one of the most profound thinkers of the Middle Ages. Having enjoyed a remarkably complete course of training, he was enthusiastically devoted to the pursuit of science, and, endowed with rich and deep spirituality, he exerted a most healthful and powerful influence upon his own and succeeding ages, although church and science had to mourn their loss by his early death in A.D. 1141. In his _Eruditio didascalica_ we have in 3 bks. an encyclopædic sketch of all human knowledge as a preparation to the study of theology, and in other 3 bks. an introduction to the Bible and church history.[301] His _Summa sententiarum_ is an exposition of dogmatics on patristic lines, an ecclesiastical counterpart of Abælard’s _Sic et Non_. The ripest and most influential of all his works, and the most independent, is his _De sacramentis christ. fidei_, in 2 bks., in which he treats of the whole contents of dogmatics from the point of view of the Sacraments (§ 104, 2). His exegetical works are less important and less original. His mysticism is set forth _ex professo_ in his _Soliloquium de arrha animæ_ and in the series of three tracts, _De arca morali_, _De arca mystica_, and _De vanitate mundi_. He makes Noah’s ark the symbol of the church as well as of the individual soul which journeys over the billows of the world to God, and, by the successive stages of _lectio_, _cogitatio_, _meditatio_, _oratio_, and _operatio_ reaches to _contemplatio_ or the vision of God.--Hugo’s pupil, and from A.D. 1162 the prior of his