256 PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



Gerland and Athelard of Bath yet it is to be remarked of 

 the first that his science was devoted to a religious purpose 

 making a Computus or calculation of Easter and of the 

 other that his scientific knowledge was acquired during 

 travels in the East, and cannot be regarded as an indigenous 

 development. In Richard the First s time flourished Abbot 

 Neckham, who wrote a scientific treatise in Latin verse, and 

 the Bishop-elect Giraldus Cambrensis, who was a topogra 

 pher. Under John we have Bishop Grosseteste, a writer on 

 physical science, and in the next reign comes the Franciscan 

 monk Roger Bacon, whose scientific reputation is familiar. 

 The 15th century yields us among clerical men of science 

 John Lydgate, chiefly know r n for his poetry. When we turn 

 back to see who were the first to occupy themselves with the 

 science of the sciences philosophy we perceive this same 

 connexion. In the old English period lived Scotus Erigena, 

 a philosophical ecclesiastic whose philosophy was theological 

 in its bearings. After a long interval, the next of this class 

 was prior Henry of Huntingdon, who, as a moralist, brought 

 other incentives than divine commands to bear on conduct. 

 Presently came Bishop John of Salisbury, who, besides 

 being classed as a writer on morality, was more distinctly 

 to be classed as a writer on ancient philosophy. Grosseteste 

 to his physical philosophy added mental philosophy, as also 

 did Roger Bacon. 



Joined with the fact that in mediaeval days scarcely any 

 laymen are named as devoted to studies of these kinds, the 

 facts above given suffice to show that in Christian Europe, 

 as in the pagan East, the man of science and the philoso- 

 .pher were of priestly origin. Inductive proof seems need 

 less when we remember that during pre-feudal and feudal 

 days, war and the chase were thought by the ruling classes 

 the only honourable occupations. Themselves unable to 

 read and write, they held that learning should be left to the 

 children of mean people. And since learning was inaccessi 

 ble to the masses, it becomes a necessary implication that the- 



