64 



the oppression to the gradual enfranchisement of 

 knowledge. 



Necessary for the welding of western society 

 in the Middle Ages as was authority in all spheres 

 of thought and action, and, heavy as the price of 

 its inertia has been since its work was done, yet in 

 the celebration of the founders of natural science 

 it would be untrue to assume that before them, 

 even in the earlier scholastic period, the indomitable 

 spirit of man had lain under tyranny in silence. 

 " Mevei TO Oelov 8ov\ia irep ev $pevt" The way had 

 been prepared for them. By the Crusades of the 

 twelfth and thirteenth centuries fury and devas- 

 tation were diverted in part from Europe, and 

 hurled upon Asia ; which soon closes up again. 

 The naive serenity of the Faith was gone, but 

 as its great minsters arose it forgot its dangers ; 

 and the social bonds of orthodoxy rudely shaken 

 were renewed. The Schools grew as great as the 

 churches : Naples, Pa via, Bologna and Padua ; 

 Paris, Orleans, Bourges, Toulouse, Montpellier, 

 the Sorbonne ; Oxford and Cambridge. Even the 

 Friars Preachers and Minors were driven to fight 

 with the new weapons ; first rivalling the univer- 

 sities, then possessing themselves of their chairs. 



