The Occamists had also been before him in attacking Aristotle. The fact that many esteemed this philosopher too highly gave rise in their camp to bitter and exaggerated criticism, and to excessive abuse of the Stagirite. Against the blind Aristotelians d’Ailly had already written somewhat unkindly: “In philosophy, i.e. in the teaching of Aristotle, there are no, or but few, convincing proofs ... we must call the philosophy or teaching of Aristotle an opinion rather than a science.”[393] Gregory of Rimini, whom Luther made use of and who was not ignorant of Occamism, says that Aristotle had shockingly gone astray (“_turpissime erravit_”) on many points, and, in some, had contradicted himself. Such were the minds that inspired Luther at the time when he was already making for a theological goal different from that of the “rationalists,” wise ones of this world, and loquacious wiseacres, as he calls all the Scholastics indiscriminately in his Commentary on Romans. Wherever theology has made a right and moderate use of philosophical proofs, philosophy has always shown itself as the _ancilla theologiæ_, and has been of assistance in theological development. After expelling reason from the domain of supernatural knowledge Luther was forced to fall back on feeling and inward experience, i.e. on elements, which, owing to their inconstancy and variability, did not deserve the place he gave them. This was as harmful to faith as the denial of the rights of reason. Gerson had lamented, concerning the misuse of philosophical criticism in religious matters, that the methods of the Nominalists made faith grow cold,[394] and it may be that Luther had experienced these effects in himself, since, in his lectures on the Psalms, he acknowledges and regrets the cooling of his life of faith.[395] But, surely, in the same way the predominance of feeling and so-called religious experience was also to be regretted, as it crippled faith and deprived it of a sure guide. Staupitz spoke from feeling and not from a clear perception of facts when, in his admiration, he praised Luther as exalting Christ and His grace. He applauded Luther, as the latter says “at the outset of his career”: “This pleases me in your teaching, that it gives honour and all to God alone and nothing to man. We cannot ascribe to God sufficient honour and goodness, etc.”[396] Staupitz sought for enlightenment in a certain mysticism akin to Quietism, instead of in real Scholasticism. On such mystic by-ways Luther was sure to fall in with him, and, as a matter of fact, from the point of view of a false mysticism, Luther was to denounce “rationalising wisdom” and to speak in favour of religious feeling even more strongly than he had done before.