472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and reduced the conquered nations to their own condition, inaugurating 

 in the completest manner the reign of brute-force and mental dark- 

 ness. If they afterward espoused Christianity, they molded it to 

 their own savage superstition, till at last naught was left of the divine 

 dispensation but its name, to cover the most degrading idolatry and 

 demonism. At the time we begin our specific examination we find 

 that, in the then so-called Christian nations 



1. There existed no science worthy of the name, no schools what- 

 ever. Reading, writing, and ciphering, were separate and distinct 

 trades. The masses, the nobility, the poor and the rich, were wholly 

 unacquainted with the mysteries of the alphabet and the pen. A 

 few men, known as clerks, who generally belonged to the priesthood, 

 monopolized them as a special class of artists. They taught their 

 business only to their seminarists, apprentices ; and beyond themselves 

 and their few pupils no one knew how to read and write, nor was it 

 expected of the generality, any more than it would be nowadays, that 

 everybody should be a shoemaker or a lawyer. Kings did not even 

 know how to sign their names, so that when they wanted to subscribe 

 to a written contract, law, or treaty, which some clerk had drawn up 

 for them, they would smear their right hand with ink, and slap it 

 down upon the parchment saying, " Witness my hand." At a later 

 date, some genius devised the substitute of the seal, which was im- 

 pressed instead of the hand, but oftener besides the hand. Every 

 gentleman had a seal with a peculiar device thereon. Hence the sac- 

 ramental words now in use, " Witness my hand and seal," affixed to 

 modern deeds, serve at least the purpose of reminding us of the ig- 

 norance of the middle ages. 



In fact, in those days a nobleman considered it below his dignity to 

 have any knowledge of letters. This was left to persons of inferior 

 rank. The use of arms, horsemanship, and war, were the sole avoca- 

 tion of the lords of the land. As all authority, and indeed safety, de- 

 pended upon force and success in battle, skill at arms was necessarily 

 the genteelest of the arts. The nobility knew no other ; and the 

 workmen they admired the most were those who forged their uncouth 

 armor, ungainly shields, and clumsy swords. 



Society was divided into orders : at the top were the prelates and 

 priesthood, the kings and nobles ; at the bottom the serfs who were 

 the bulk of the people ; and intermediate were a few free workmen 

 and burgesses who enjoyed a sort of quasi exemption from personal 

 servitude, but were subject to the despotic rule of the king and 

 lords. 



All persons were also unmitigated believers in magic, sorcery, 

 witchcraft, enchantments, amulets, astrology, evil-eye, conjuration, fas- 

 cination, divination, fetichism, charms, evocation of ghosts, specters 

 and devils, talismans, incantations, fortune-telling, palmistry, cabalistic 

 arts, spells, divining-rods, bargains with the occult powers, and the 



