Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/92

86 to church dogmas and woe to him who dared insinuate that whatever was taught by the church was not also the logical outcome of human reasoning.

Thus, freedom of the intellect had to contend not only with formidable difficulties imposed from without, but with no less effective hindrances, wrong conceptions and limitations that came from within. While these conditions lasted the net result was sterility. In time, however, that innate longing to escape the bonds of ignorance, that patient and zealous striving after truth which stimulates all lofty endeavor, these impulses gradually became more assertive; and, triumphant at last, gave rise to our modern critical science.

It would be impossible to attempt here even a superficial sketch of the remarkable rise and expansion of empirical knowledge that took place during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, by virtue of which Dante's era merits its appellation of secolo d'oro. The innumerable commentaries that have been devoted to the most striking figure of the middle ages attest the difficulty of preparing an adequate survey of contemporary knowledge. Remember, too, that the peerless poet stands out from the midst of a notable company of erudite laymen and clerical scholars. It will be sufficient to recall only such names as those of Ser Brunetto Latini, whom Dante expressly calls his 'master,' and whose encyclopedic work embraces practically all the science of his time; Albertus Magnus, often styled the "Universal Doctor," and his famous disciple, St. Thomas Aquinas; those brilliant Anglican geniuses. Roger Bacon and William of Ockham, forerunners of the modern spirit of investigation; and those twain Italian luminaries whose souls were fired with the glow of ancient and of the newly revived culture, Petrarch and Boccaccio. Still earlier, and entirely independent of Christian influences, the Arabian circle of sciences had gained new luster from Averroës, its chief exponent and adornment.

But besides these greater lights there shone many of feebler intensity, yet none the less worthy of grateful esteem, since their combined rays helped toward clearness of vision. There was one erudite scholar, for instance, who was formerly rated as a mere imitator and plagiarist of Albert of Bollstädt; whereas we now know that the reverse was true, in that the master drew largely upon his disciple for materials in preparing his huge compendium on natural history. This was Thomas of Cantimpré, who wrote during the third and fourth decades of the thirteenth century, and whose works were widely read and translated. His chief contribution to science was a treatise entitled "De naturis rerum," which served at once for the source and model of Conrad of Megenburg's "Buch der Natur," the earliest of its kind to be written in the German vernacular.-

Conrad, however, considerably amplified the work of his Brabant