THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



but the illiterate masses who filled the cells were 

 without education. Their time was largely taken 

 up with the exercises of devotion; the few who 

 could read and write were occupied in recording the 

 visions, miracles and the partially fabulous lives of 

 their fellow-devotees, who, after death, were often can- 

 onized, and entered into the hagiography of the saints. 

 A few the very few of them preserved copies of 

 the Greek and Latin classics. In the western em- 

 pire the knowledge of Greek practically died out. 

 Latin was preserved in a more or less imperfect form 

 by the necessity of employing in the church services a 

 language that might be equally sacred and at least par- 

 tially intelligible to the Lombard, the Gaul, the Bur- 

 gundian and the Frank. The popular or vulgar dia- 

 lects of each nation were alike unintelligible to the 

 others, especially in France. As the years succeeded 

 each other, the Latin became more and more corrupt; 

 and as the times of the grammarians became more 

 remote, the last remembrances of learning seemed to 

 die out. A few monks might be found in the depths 

 of some of the monasteries who had received and 

 preserved in secret some slight notion of literature; 

 but the intellectual state of the multitude both of the 

 clergy and the monks was that of thoughtless, care- 

 less ignorance.* 



* Historic de la Philosophie Scolastique, par B. Haureau, Membre 

 de L'Institute. Paris, 1872-1880, en Trois Tomes, T. 1., p. 5. 



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