79 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fortune to meet with a perfect fool. "When I have brought to the in- 

 quiry the patience and long-suffering which become a scientific inves- 

 tigator, the most promising specimens have turned out to have a good 

 deal to say for themselves from their own point of view. And, some- 

 times, calm reflection has taught the humiliating lesson that their point 

 of view was not so different from my own as I had fondly imagined. 

 Comprehension is more than half-way to sympathy, here as else- 

 where. 



If we turn our attention to scholastic philosophy in the frame of 

 mind suggested by these prefatory remarks, it assumes a very differ- 

 ent character from that which it bears in general estimation. No 

 doubt it is surrounded by a dense thicket of thorny logomachies and 

 obscured by the dust-clouds of a barbarous and perplexing terminology. 

 But suppose that, undeterred by much grime and by many scratches, 

 the explorer has toiled through this jungle, he comes to an open coun- 

 try which is amazingly like his dear native land. The hills which he 

 has to climb, the ravines he has to avoid, look very much the same ; 

 there is the same infinite space above, and the same abyss of the un- 

 known below ; the means of traveling are the same, and the goal is the 

 same. 



That goal for the school-men, as for us, is the settlement of the 

 question how far the universe is the manifestation of a rational order ; 

 in other words, how far logical deduction from indisputable premises 

 will account for that which has happened and does happen. That was 

 the object of scholasticism, and, so far as I am aware, the object of 

 modern science may be expressed in the same terms. In pursuit of 

 this end, modern science takes into account all the phenomena of the 

 universe which are brought to our knowledge by observation or by ex- 

 periment. It admits that there are two worlds to be considered, the 

 one physical and the other psychical, and that though there is a most 

 intimate relation and interconnection between the two, the bridge from 

 one to the other has yet to be found ; that their phenomena run, not 

 in one series, but along two parallel lines. 



To the school-men the duality of the universe appeared under a 

 different aspect. How this came about will not be intelligible unless 

 we clearly apprehend the fact that they did really believe in dogmatic 

 Christianity, as it was formulated by the Roman Church. They did 

 not give a mere dull assent to anything the Church told them on Sun- 

 days, and ignore her teachings for the rest of the week ; but they lived 

 and moved and had their being in that supersensible theological world 

 which was created, or rather grew up, during the first four centuries 

 of our reckoning, and which occupied their thoughts far more than the 

 sensible world in which their earthly lot was cast. 



For the most part, we learn history from the colorless compendiums 

 or partisan briefs of mere scholars, who have too little acquaintance 

 with practical life, and too little insight into speculative problems, to 



