"He enjoyed marvellous facility of speech, but his thought was without value, even without good sense. The fire that he kindled filled his house with smoke, but did not illuminate it. He was a tree dense with foliage and beautiful from afar, but found fruitless when examined more closely. I had come to him to gather fruit; I found in him the fig tree cursed by the Lord, or the old oak to which Lucan compares Pompey: But the shadow of a great name, the lofty oak in the midst of the fruitful field." With such an opinion of his preceptor, it is not surprising that Abélard grew impatient and talked imprudently. The immediate result was that the young scholar proved, to his own satisfaction and apparently to that of his hearers, that he could lecture on theology, as Anselm understood theology, by the aid of ordinary intelligence alone. The ultimate result was that he made an enemy of Anselm. He returned to Paris--about 1115--in triumph, was given the chair formerly held by Guillaume de Champeaux, and became a canon of the cathedral of Notre Dame. During the three or four years that followed this signal triumph over his old master, Abélard enjoyed a popularity and a reputation for learning almost without parallel. He was of handsome presence, polished and winning in manners, accomplished even in the little arts and graces of the society of the period. All this would account for his personal popularity; but his was really a brilliant mind, fascinatingly if dangerously logical, and straightforward in dealing with vexed questions of philosophy and theology. And with all his learning he knew how to meet the difficulties of ordinary minds, to present his arguments in a style not only simple but lucid and entertaining. He brought to his work a precious quality--enthusiasm. From all parts of Europe students flocked to him, by hundreds, by thousands; and with the offerings they brought he was rich. Then it was that pride prepared his ruin. "Believing myself henceforth the only living philosopher, fancying that I had no more opposition to encounter or accusation to fear, I commenced to give rein to my passions, I who had always lived in the greatest continence. The more I advanced in the paths of philosophy and theology, the further I was getting, by my impure life, from philosophers and saints." How much of this confession is real humility, and how much mere pretence, exaggeration, and vain rhetoric, we cannot say. It is an unfortunate fact that what is recognized as the language of religion is so highly colored, so tropical, so manifestly not to be taken in its absolute and literal sense, that one cannot estimate a character by autobiographic testimony of this sort. What Rousseau meant when he confessed that he "gave rein to his passions" we know full well, for he tells us. What, or rather how much, Abélard means we cannot tell, since his language is evidently in large part figurative. We do not think, however, that he was ever really a libertine.