FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 27: Book III. Letter V. Melmoth's translation.] [Footnote 28: Book I. Letter XVI.] QUODLIBETS, OR SCHOLASTIC DISQUISITIONS. The scholastic questions were called _Questiones Quodlibeticæ_; and they were generally so ridiculous that we have retained the word _Quodlibet_ in our vernacular style, to express anything ridiculously subtile; something which comes at length to be distinguished into nothingness, "With all the rash dexterity of wit." The history of the scholastic philosophy furnishes an instructive theme; it enters into the history of the human mind, and fills a niche in our literary annals. The works of the scholastics, with the debates of these _Quodlibetarians_, at once show the greatness and the littleness of the human intellect; for though they often degenerate into incredible absurdities, those who have examined the works of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus have confessed their admiration of the Herculean texture of brain which they exhausted in demolishing their aërial fabrics. The following is a slight sketch of the school divinity. The christian doctrines in the primitive ages of the gospel were adapted to the simple comprehension of the multitude; metaphysical subtilties were not even employed by the Fathers, of whom several are eloquent. The Homilies explained, by an obvious interpretation, some scriptural point, or inferred, by artless illustration, some moral doctrine. When the Arabians became the only learned people, and their empire extended over the greater part of the known world, they impressed their own genius on those nations with whom they were allied as friends, or reverenced as masters. The Arabian genius was fond of abstruse studies; it was highly metaphysical and mathematical, for the fine arts their religion did not permit them to cultivate; and the first knowledge which modern Europe obtained of Euclid and Aristotle was through the medium of Latin translations of Arabic versions. The Christians in the west received their first lessons from the Arabians in the east; and Aristotle, with his Arabic commentaries, was enthroned in the schools of Christendom.