ANSELM, St, archbishop of Canterbury, in the reigns of William Rufus and Henry I. He was born in the year 1033, at Aosta, a town in Piedmont, at the foot of the Alps. He became a monk in the abbey of Bec in Normandy, of which he was afterwards chosen prior, and then abbot. In the year 1092 he was invited over to England by Hugh earl of Chester; and in the year following was prevailed on to accept the archbishopric of Canterbury. He enjoyed celibacy on the clergy, for which he was banished by King Rufus; but recalled by Henry on his coming to the crown. In conformity to Pope Urban's decree, he refused to consecrate such bishops as were invested by the king, denying it to be the royal prerogative: for this he was banished again, till, the pope and king agreeing, he was recalled in 1107. In short, from the day of his consecration to that of his death, he was continually employed in extending the encroachments of the church against the prerogative of the crown; and for that purpose spent much of his time in travelling between England and Rome, for the advice and direction of his Holiness. He may be regarded as having been, besides A'Becket, the only English prelate who strenuously pursued in his ecclesiastical relations that policy distinguished as ultramontane. At the council of Bari, in the kingdom of Naples, the pope being puzzled by the arguments of the Greeks against the Holy Ghost's proceeding from the Father, called upon Anselm to answer their objections, which he did with great success. He wrought many miracles, if we may believe the author of his life, both before and after his death, which happened at Canterbury in the 76th year of his age, A.D. 1109, and was canonized in the reign of Henry VII. His death was that of a saint and a philosopher; his ardour for science glowed upon his death-bed. His disciples were around him weeping and praying; the last holy rites had already enveloped him in the atmosphere of eternity; infi-
nite truths were now to be unfolded to him in clear vision; when at this last moment he cast his thoughts over the obscurities of earthly science, and recalling the efforts he had made to render them more clear, said to his disciples, 'I could have wished before my death to have put down in writing my ideas upon the origin of evil, for I had got some explanations which will now be lost.' A few moments after he passed to where all problems are solved.
Anselm deserves to be remembered as one of the principal revivers of literature, after three centuries of profound ignorance. In a philosophical relation, he may be regarded as the founder of the scholastic metaphysics, and his ontological argument for the existence of Deity entitles him to be considered as one of the acutest of natural theologians. His speculations on that subject are contained in his two treatises entitled Monologium and Proslogium, composed while he was prior of the Abbey of Bec. The arguments used in the first of these are to be found in the writings of previous philosophers, though not so fully and rigorously developed as is done by Anselm. But the argument contained in the Proslogium, originally suggested by St Augustine, and afterwards known as the Cartesian argument, is that on which the peculiar fame of Anselm as a metaphysician is founded. It may be briefly expressed thus,—The human mind possesses the idea of a Being than whom it can conceive none other higher. This perfect Being is in virtue of that very perfection conceived as really existent. Therefore he does so exist. Anselm sought a general principle for the foundation of all science, a principle such as should unite logical and real universality, i.e., at once comprehend all other ideas and express a reality conceived as the source of all other realities. This principle he found in the idea of God—of infinite perfection. To deny to this idea a corresponding reality involves a contradiction, for then there must be a higher perfection conceivable, viz., this absolute perfection not merely as possible but as existing, since it is more perfect to exist than to be merely possible. Here Anselm found the principle he was in search of, this idea of God involving both logical and real universality, since on the one hand all other ideas are contained under this, as the lesser is contained in the greater; and on the other, it constitutes the necessary source of all finite existences.
This argument of Anselm seems not to have been generally admitted during the middle ages, and was decisively rejected by such men as Aquinas. It was replied to in his own time by a monk named Gaunilon, in a treatise entitled Liber pro insipiente adversus Anselmi in Proslogio rationationem, which contains implicitly all the objections subsequently raised against it as developed by Descartes; the principal and fatal objection being the logical incompetency of deducing the reality of existence from the necessity of thought, of passing from the finite ideas of the human mind to the infinite reality of a Divine existence.
The works of Anselm have been often reprinted. The best edition is that of Father Gerberon, printed at Paris in 1675, in two vols. folio.
ANSELM of Laon, a famous theologian, who taught at Paris with great success about the year 1076. With the assistance of his brother Ralph de Laon, he established in his native place a school of philosophy, which became famous throughout Europe. Anselm died in 1117. His interlinear gloss on the Scriptures has frequently been printed.