Sinopsis

MENAGE observes that the scholastic questions were called Questiones Quodlibeticæ; and they were generally so ridiculous that we have retained the word Quodlibet in our vernacular language, to express anything ridiculously subtile; something which comes at length to be distinguished into nothingness, “With all the rash dexterity of wit.” The history of the scholastic philosophy might furnish a philosophical writer with an instructive theme; it would enter into the history of the human mind, and fill a niche in our literary annals. The works of the scholastics, with the debates of these Quodlibetarians, at once show the greatness and the littleness of the human intellect; for though they often degenerate into incredible absurdities, those who have examined the