THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE 285 



philosophy simply reflect the actual subjection of 

 the individual to that associated and corporate life 

 which, in conserving the past, provided the princi 

 ple of control. 



But the eager, hungry barbarian was there, im 

 plicated in this universalism. He must be active 

 in receiving and in absorbing the truth authorita 

 tively doled out to him. Even the most rigid forms 

 of medieval Christianity could not avoid postulat 

 ing the individual will as having a certain initiative 

 with reference to its own salvation. The impulses, 

 the appetite, the instinct of the individual were all 

 assumed in medieval morals, religion, and politics. 

 The imagined medieval tyranny took them for 

 granted as completely as does the modern herald 

 of liberty and equality. But the medieval civil 

 ization knew that the time had not come when 

 these appetites and impulses could be trusted to 

 work themselves out. They must be controlled by 

 the incorporate truths inherited from Athens and 

 Rome. 



The very logic of the relationship, however, re 

 quired that the time come when the individual 

 makes his own the objective and universal truths. 

 He is now the incorporation of truth. He now has 

 the control as well as the stimulus of action within 

 himself. He is the standard and the end, as well 

 as the initiator and the effective force of execution. 

 Just because the authoritative truth of medieval- 



