Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/763

Rh and philosophy by the priesthood in early days, scarcely needs pointing out. Such philosophical dogmas as were current during the ages of darkness were supplementary to the current theological dogmas and in subordination to them. When, in the time of Charlemagne, some intellectual life began, it was initiated by the establishment of schools in connection with all abbeys throughout his dominions. These schools, carried on under priestly rule, eventually became the centers at once of philosophy and science: the philosophy distinguished as scholasticism being of such kind as consisted with the authorized theology, and the science—geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music—being such as did not obviously conflict with it or could be conformed to it. That is to say, alike in their nature and in their agency, the philosophy and science of the time diverged in a relatively small degree from the theology—the differentiation was but incipient. And the long continued identification of the cultivators of philosophy and science with the cultivators of theology is seen in the familiar names of the leading scholastics—William of Champeaux, Abelard, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, etc. To which may be added the notable fact that such independence of theological dogma as was thought to be implied in the doctrine of the Nominalists, was condemned alike by the Pope and by secondary ecclesiastical authorities—the differentiation was slowly effected under resistance.

In England there was a no less clear identity of the priest with the philosopher and the man of science. In his account of the Saxon clergy Kemble writes:—

"They were honorably distinguished by the possession of arts and learning, which could be found in no other class. . . . To them England owed the more accurate calculations which enabled the divisions of times and seasons to be duly settled."

The first illustration is furnished by Bede, a monk who, besides works of other kinds, wrote a work on The Nature of Things, in which the scientific knowledge of his day was gathered up. Next may be named Dicuil, an Irish monk and writer on geography. And then comes Archbishop Dunstan:—

He "was very well skilled in most of the liberal arts, and among the rest in refining metals and forging them; which being qualifications much above the genius of the age he lived in, first gained him the name of a conjurer, and then of a saint."

Though, soon after the Conquest, there lived two cultivators of science who seem not to have been clerical—Gerland and Athelard of Bath—yet it is to be remarked of the first that his science was devoted to a religious purpose—making a Computus or calculation of Easter,—and of the other that his scientific knowledge was acquired during travels in the East, and can not be regarded as