THE DECLINE OF ANCIENT LEARNING 53 



Despite all this, it is unfair to this important period of 

 European history to suppose that its science amounted to 

 nothing more than what could be gleaned from tradition and 

 later an infusion from the Arab learning. The scientific 

 knowledge of the past often seems curious and amusing in 

 the light of the present. We forget how knowledge grows 

 from half truths and sometimes from positive errors. For 

 example, it is now universally acknowledged among intelli- 

 gent persons that it is idle to regard the Scriptures as a 

 source of scientific information. Nevertheless the most 

 interesting and original constructive work of the Middle 

 Ages, in the field of science, was done on the basis of evidence 

 furnished by the Bible. This may be illustrated by the 

 work of Cosmas to which we have previously alluded. The 

 point is, that the men who desired to know something of 

 natural phenomena, turned to the supposed source of wisdom 

 in the Written Word. The efforts of the medieval scholar 

 who struggled under the cloud of supernaturalism are pa- 

 thetic and not ridiculous. In spite of the prevailing doctrine, 

 the Middle Ages produced a number of enlightened scien- 

 tific thinkers as well as sane men who condemned the popu- 

 lar errors and beliefs. 



Occasional men and events prove that there was intellec- 

 tual progress in spite of persecution and a stifling mental 

 atmosphere. St. Augustine (354-430), with all his ortho- 

 doxy, seems to have doubted some of the current beliefs; for 

 he explicitly declared that neither good nor evil neces- 

 sarily flowed from the conjunction of the planets; and from 

 time to time men of real scientific attainments came to the 

 fore. Charlemagne's reformation of the Church was a 

 period of intellectual culture which has been characterized 

 as an " Earlier Renaissance." 17 Agobard (779-840), an 



abstinence and mortification the only safe rules of life: These were the fixed 

 ideas of the ascetic medieval church." Symonds, J. A., "Renaissance in 

 Italy." 



17 Burckhardt, Jacob, "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy." 



