THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



edge from the material world. Phenomena, they 

 thought, could best be explained by reference to gen- 

 eral principles, or axioms, such as that "Nature 

 abhors a vacuum " to account for water ascending a 

 tube when the air is exhausted within it ; that a 

 flame or heated air ascends, owing to the principle of 

 levity; that the sun would breed maggots in a dead 

 dog, for it was the nature of the sun to do so, etc. For 

 the better study of his own mind, Descartes early 

 refused to read any more books. His aim was not 

 to learn, but to think. Even so late as the time of 

 Cowper it was believed to be wiser to think than to 

 learn. He wrote: 



" Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, 

 Have ofltimes no resemblance. 



Knowledge dwells in heads replete with thoughts of other men, 

 Wisdom in minds attentive to their own." * 



In the early days, before the Renaissance, nearly 

 all learning had died out in Christian Europe, and 

 that which later was resuscitated into being had 

 been kept from death by the Arabs only, and was 

 warmed into new life by the Moors in Cordova. All 

 Christendom was ignorant, and only the " Clericus " 

 could read. The most learned monasteries possessed 

 only two or three of the works of Aristotle out of the 

 many later recovered, and few or none of the Monks 



* Cowper. The Task. Book VI. 

 82 



