THE COMMENTATORIAL SPIRIT. 201 



The philosophical notions of up and down are too much at variance 

 with the obvious suggestions of our senses, to be held steadily and justly 

 by minds uudisciplined in science. Perhaps it was some misunderstood 

 statement of the curved surface of the ocean, which gave rise to the 

 tradition of there being a part of the sea directly over the earth, from 

 which at times an object has been known to fall or an anchor to be 

 let down. Even such whimsical fancies are not without instruction, 

 and may serve to show the reader what that vagueness and obscurity 

 of ideas is, of which I have been endeavoring to trace the prevalence 

 in the dark ages. 



We now proceed to another of the features which appears to me to 

 mark, in a very prominent manner, the character of the stationary 

 period. 



CHAPTER II. 



The Commextatorial Spirit of the Middle Ages. 



WE have already noticed, that, after the first great achievements of 

 the founders of sound speculation, in the different departments 

 of human knowledge, had attracted the interest and admiration which 

 those who became acquainted with them could not but give to them, 

 there appeared a disposition among men to lean on the authority of 

 some of these teachers ; — to study the opinions of others as the only 

 mode of forming their own ; — to read nature through books ; — to at- 

 tend to what had been already thought and said, rather than to what 

 really is and happens. This tendency of men's minds requires our 

 particular consideration. Its manifestations were very important, and 

 highly characteristic of the stationary period; it gave, in a great de- 

 gree, a peculiar bias and direction to the intellectual activity of many 

 centuries ; and the kind of labor with which speculative men were oc- 

 cupied in consequence of this bias, took the place of that examination 

 of realities which must be their employment, in order that real knowl- 

 edge may make any decided progress. 



In some subjects, indeed, as, for instance, in the domains of morals, 

 poetry, and the arts, whose aim is the production of beauty, this op- 

 position between the study of former opinion and present reality, may 

 not be so distinct ; inasmuch as it may be said by some, that, in these 

 subjects, opinions are realities ; that the thoughts and feelings which 



