It is hardly necessary to point out how entirely the non-Roman theology of the nineteenth century has accepted Abélard’s spirit and conclusions. The broadest feature of the history of theology during the century has been the resumption and the development of the modifying process which was started by Abélard eight centuries ago. The world at large has taken up his speculations on the Incarnation, the atonement, original sin, responsibility, inspiration, confession, hell and heaven, and so many other points, and given them that development from which the dutiful son of the Church inconsistently shrank.[39] A curious and striking proof of this may be taken from Tholuck’s dissertation on ‘Abélard and Aquinas as interpreters of Scripture.’ The distinguished German theologian, who is the author of a well-known commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, says that when he read Abélard’s commentary on that Epistle, in preparing his own work, he seriously hesitated whether it would not suffice to republish the forgotten work of Abélard instead of writing a new one. When one recollects what an epitome of theology such a commentary must be, one can appreciate not only the great homage it involves to the genius of the man whom Bernard scornfully calls a ‘dabbler in theology,’ but the extent to which Abélard anticipated the mature judgment of theological science. [39] A typical illustration of the perplexity and inconsistency which resulted from the conflict of Abélard’s critical moral sense with apparently fixed dogmas is seen in his treatment of original sin in the _Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans_. He finds two meanings for the word sin—guilt and punishment; and he strains his conscience to the point of admitting that we may inherit Adam’s sin in the latter sense. Then comes the question of unbaptized children—whom Bernard calmly consigned to Hades—and he has to produce the extraordinary theory that the Divine Will is the standard of morality, and so cannot act unjustly. But his conscience asserts itself, and he goes on to say that their punishment will only be a negative one—the denial of the sight of God—and will only be inflicted on those children who, in the divine prescience, would have been wicked had they lived! It seems, however, a superfluous task to point out the acceptance of Abélard’s spirit, method, and results by theology in general. The more interesting and important question is the acceptance of his ideas by the Church of Rome. That we have abundantly established, and we may now proceed to inquire whether, and to what extent, Abélard had a direct influence in the abandonment of the mystic attitude and the adoption of one which may be fairly entitled ‘rationalistic.’