Abaelard’s discussion of this matter is a discussion of the true content of propositions. His conclusion is not so clear as to have occasioned no dispute. One must not think of him as an Aristotelian--for he knew little of the substantial philosophy of Aristotle. Our dialectician had absorbed more of Plato, through turbid patristic channels and the current translation of the _Timaeus_. So his solution of the question of genus and species may prove an analytic bit of eclecticism, an imagined reconcilement of the two great masters. The universal or general is, says he, “quod natum est de pluribus praedicari,” that which is by its nature adapted to be predicated of a number of things. The universal consists neither in things as such nor in words as such; it consists rather in general predicability; it is _sermo, sermo praedicabilis_, that which may be stated, as a predicate, of many. As such it is not a mere word: _sermo_ is not merely _vox_; that is not the true general predicable. On the other hand, one thing cannot be the predicate of another; _res de re non praedicatur_: therefore _sermo_ is not _res_. Yet Abaelard does not limit the existence of the universal to the concept of him who thinks it. It surely exists in the individuals, since _substantia specierum_ is not different from the _essentia individuorum_. But does not the general concept exist as an objective unity? Apparently Abaelard would answer: Yes, it does thus exist as a common sameness (_consimilitudo_). All this is anything but clear. And the various twelfth-century opinions on universals no longer possess human interest. It is hard for us to distinguish between them, or understand them clearly, or state them intelligibly. They are bound up in a phraseology untranslatable into modern language, because the discussion no longer corresponds to modern ways of thought. But one is interested in the human need which drove Abaelard and his fellows upon the horns of this problem, and in the nature of their endeavours to formulate their thought so as to escape those opposing horns--of an extreme realism which might issue in pantheism, and an extreme nominalism which seemed to deprive predication of substance and validity.[467] So much for Abaelard as sheer logician, formal adjuster of the instrumental processes of thinking. Dialectic was for him a first stage in the actualization of the impulse to know, and bring knowledge to consistent expression. It was also his way of approach to the further systematic presentation of his thoughts upon God and man, human society and justice, divine and human.