George Croom Robertson and James Thomson Shotwell

“ In his devotion to science, he had hitherto lived a very regular life, varied only by the excitement of conflict: now, at the height of his fame, other passions began to stir within him. There lived at that time, within the precincts of Notre-Dame, under the care of her uncle, the canon Fulbert, a young girl named Heloise, of noble extraction, and born about 1101. Fair, but still more remarkable for her knowledge, which extended beyond Latin, it is said, to Greek and Hebrew, she awoke a feeling of love in the breast of Abelard ”

“ Outside of his dialectic, it was in ethics that Abelard showed greatest activity of philosophical thought; laying very particular stress upon the subjective intention as determining, if not the moral character, at least the moral value, of human action. ”

“ Forcing upon the Realist a material change of doctrine, he was once more victorious, and thenceforth he stood supreme. His discomfited rival still had power to keep him from lecturing in Paris, but soon failed in this last effort also. From Melun, where he had resumed teaching, Abelard passed to the capital, and set up his school on the heights of St Geneviève, looking over Notre-Dame. From his success in dialectic, he next turned to theology and attended the lectures of Anselm at Laon. ”

“ As a boy, he showed an extraordinary quickness of apprehension, and, choosing a learned life instead of the knightly career natural to a youth of his birth, early became an adept in the art of dialectic, under which name philosophy, meaning at that time chiefly the logic of Aristotle transmitted through Latin channels, was the great subject of liberal study in the episcopal schools. ”

“ Becoming also tutor to the maiden, he used the unlimited power which he thus obtained over her for the purpose of seduction, though not without cherishing a real affection which she returned in unparalleled devotion. ”