One of the subtile questions which agitated the world in the tenth century, relating to dialectics, was concerning _universals_ (as for example, man, horse, dog, &c.) signifying not _this_ or _that_ in particular, but _all_ in general. They distinguished _universals_, or what we call abstract terms, by the _genera_ and _species rerum_; and they never could decide whether these were _substances_--or _names_! That is, whether the abstract idea we form of a horse was not really a _being_ as much as the horse we ride! All this, and some congenial points respecting the origin of our ideas, and what ideas were, and whether we really had an idea of a thing before we discovered the thing itself--in a word, what they called universals, and the essence of universals; of all this nonsense, on which they at length proceeded to accusations of heresy, and for which many learned men were excommunicated, stoned, and what not, the whole was derived from the reveries of Plato, Aristotle, and Zeno, about the nature of ideas, than which subject to the present day no discussion ever degenerated into such insanity. A modern metaphysician infers that we have no ideas at all! Of the scholastic divines, the most illustrious was Saint THOMAS AQUINAS, styled the Angelical Doctor. Seventeen folio volumes not only testify his industry but even his genius. He was a great man, busied all his life with making the charades of metaphysics. My learned friend Sharon Turner has favoured me with a notice of his greatest work--his "Sum of all Theology," _Summa totius Theologiæ_, Paris, 1615. It is a metaphysicological treatise, or the most abstruse metaphysics of theology. It occupies above 1250 folio pages, of very small close print in double columns. It may be worth noticing that to this work are appended 19 folio pages of double columns of errata, and about 200 of additional index! The whole is thrown into an Aristotelian form; the difficulties or questions are proposed first, and the answers are then appended. There are 168 articles on Love--358 on Angels--200 on the Soul--85 on Demons--151 on the Intellect--134 on Law--3 on the Catamenia--237 on Sins--17 on Virginity, and others on a variety of topics. The scholastic tree is covered with prodigal foliage, but is barren of fruit; and when the scholastics employed themselves in solving the deepest mysteries, their philosophy became nothing more than an instrument in the hands of the Roman Pontiff. Aquinas has composed 358 articles on angels, of which a few of the heads have been culled for the reader. He treats of angels, their substance, orders, offices, natures, habits, &c., as if he himself had been an old experienced angel! Angels were not before the world! Angels might have been before the world!