THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



other heresies that for centuries distracted and divided 

 the Christian church. It was not until the latter 

 part of the ninth century that the church began to 

 teach in its schools the principles of philosophy apart 

 from, but by the side of, its theological learning. 



The repeated invasions of the barbarians had, by 

 the end of the fifth century, destroyed the Roman 

 Empire. Rome itself, conquered and sacked, over 

 and over again ; the country around it the campagna 

 grown pestilential and uninhabitable from the fill- 

 ing up of its drains and watercourses, seemed to 

 await the fate of Babylon or Carthage, so that even 

 its ruins might have perished and its site been lost. 

 The conquests of Theodoric the Great, King of the 

 Ostrogoths, known in the Teutonic legends as the 

 half-mythical "Dietrich of Berne," gave for a time 

 the promise of better days. Under him Italy again 

 became prosperous. The arts revived, the advance 

 of the semi-savage Franks under Clovis was checked, 

 and peace and civilization seemed again established. 

 But his successors did not possess his abilities; they 

 could not defend what he had conquered ! After 

 sixty years their kingdom fell ; the invasion of the 

 Lombards completed the conquest of Italy, and the 

 night of the Dark Ages shut down on Europe. For 

 six hundred years all learning ceased, and much that 

 had existed was forever lost. 



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