Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/171

Rh evolution of humanity. Egypt, China, Chaldea, Assyria and Babylonia typified the childhood of the race with its characteristic dependence upon nature apparent even in its culture; Greece with its love of form, self-consciousness and passion for freedom represented the adolescent stage; while physical development culminated in the forceful and prosaic Roman spirit, typical of manhood. The birth at this time of the Child, in Bethlehem in Judea, was then not a casual event but a necessity. The first Adam had been made a living soul, and in slow process of time had attained his majority. The second Adam was made a quickening spirit, creating a new form of energy which thenceforward was destined to transform religion, philosophy, art, music, science, language and sociology. Well may the Germans call its founder "der Einzige."

The connecting link between ancient and modern civilization during this transition period was found in the church. Early in its history the church had developed the institution of monasticism in the attempt to check the flagrant social evils of the east and preserve the purity of the northern races. The institution so established soon spread over all Europe, one order alone, the Benedictines, having at one time over 40,000 monasteries. The spirit of brotherhood thus manifested by the church was also apparent in the state in the development of feudalism from slavery, and more especially in the principle of chivalry.

The church, however, had a more direct influence upon culture by reason of the schools which sprang up in the shelter of the monasteries, and later developed into the early medieval universities. All learning, and particularly mathematics, was confined to these conventual schools, and comprised practically nothing more than was essential to the church. Learning was divided into the trivium and quadrivium, the trivium consisting of grammar, logic and rhetoric, or, in short, the mastery of the Latin language in which the services of the church were conducted, and the quadrivium consisting of arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy. The latter were also limited to the needs of the church, comprising arithmetic for keeping accounts, music for use in church services, geometry for surveying the extensive property of the church, and astronomy for the calculation of Easter. These constituted the seven liberal arts, as enumerated in the line

and marked the limit of attainment, or, as expressed in a verse of the eleventh century,

The most significant effect produced by the church upon culture, however, arose in a manner unintentional and unforeseen. The rapid growth of papal authority had led the church to undertake violent measures for its own aggrandizement, chief of which was the crusades.