254 PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Most likely, the etliice and the consolations here indicated 

 were more or less tinged with ideas theologically derived; 

 but even if not, the function described appears semi-priestly. 



690. During those dark days which followed the fall 

 of the Roman Empire, nothing to be called science existed. 

 But when, along with gradual reorganization, the re-genesis 

 of science began, it began as in earlier instances among the 

 cultured men the priesthood. It was not, indeed, a re- 

 genesis de novo, but one which took its departure from the 

 knowledge, the ideas, and the methods, bequeathed by the 

 older civilizations. From these, long buried, it was resusci 

 tated, almost exclusively in the monasteries. In his Science 

 and Literature in the Middle Ages Lacroix writes : 



u At the death of Charlemagne, the exact sciences, which had flour 

 ished for a brief space at his court, seemed to shrink into the seclusion 

 of the monasteries. . . . The Order of St. Benedict had almost made a 

 monopoly of the exact sciences, which were held in high honour at the 

 Abbeys of Mount Cassini, in Italy ; of St. Martin, at Tours (France) ; 

 of St. Arnulph, at Metz; of St. Gall, in Switzerland; of Prum, in 

 Bavaria; of Canterbury, in England, &c.&quot; 



A significant parallelism has here to be noted. We saw 

 that in India, in Assyria, and in Egypt, the earliest steps in 

 science were made in subservience to religious needs : their 

 primary purpose was to regulate the times of religious sacri 

 fices so as to avoid offence to the gods. And now, strange to 

 say, mediaeval records show that among Christian peoples 

 science was first called in for fixing the date of Easter. 



How on the Continent was illustrated the monopoly of 

 science and philosophy by the priesthood in early days, 

 scarcely needs pointing out. Such philosophical dogmas 

 as were current during the ages of darkness were supple 

 mentary to the current theological dogmas and in subordina 

 tion to them. When, in the time of Charlemagne, some 

 intellectual life began, it was initiated by the establishment 

 of schools in connexion with all abbeys throughout his 

 dominions. These schools, carried on under priestly rule, 



