210 UNIVERSITIES: ACTUAL AND IDEAL vin 



wa3's of home and fatherland, though they 

 lay, at arm's length, overhead. Cardinals were 

 more familiar with Virgil than with Isaiah; and 

 ro})es laboured, with great success, to re-paganise 

 liome. 



The second influence was the slow, but sure, 

 growth of the physical sciences. It was discov- 

 ered that some results of speculative thought, of 

 immense practical and theoretical importance, can 

 be verified bv observation; and are alwavs true, 

 however severely they may be tested. Here, at 

 any rate, was knowledge, to the certainty of which 

 no authority could add, or take away, one jot or 

 tittle, and to which the tradition of a thou- 

 sand years was as insignificant as the hearsay of 

 yesterday. To the scholastic system, the study 

 of classical literature might be inconvenient 

 and distracting, but it was possible to hope 

 that it could be kept within bounds. Physical 

 science, on the other hand, was an irreconcilable 

 enemy, to be excluded at all hazards. The 

 College of Cardinals has not distinguished it- 

 self in Physics or Physiology; and no Pope 

 has, as yet, set up public laboratories in the 

 Vatican. 



People do not always formulate the beliefs on 

 which they act. The instinct of fear and dislike 

 is quicker than the reasoning process; and I sus- 

 pect that, taken in conjunction with some other 

 causes, such instinctive aversion is at the bottom 



