65 



But philosophy, which had lent much to the Faith *, 

 gained nothing from it ; and to philosophy rather 

 than to the Church the sciences looked for their 

 principles and methods. In physics the experi- 

 mental method was creeping into life ; and the 

 substance as well as the form of old controversies 

 was changing. Thus through all these generations 

 was rising a leaven of free thought, and its reforms 

 may roughly be put in a twofold division, into the 

 reform of tradition, and the reform of method ; 

 the reform of texts being again divisible into two 

 periods the Arabian, or second scholastic, and 

 the modern or Renascence period. The chief 

 monuments of learning were stored in Byzantium 2 

 until Western Europe was fit to take care of them. 

 In the peace of Theodoric, in the peace of Charle- 

 magne, under Alfred at Winchester, the arts and 



1 This relation was somewhat one-sided : the philosophers 

 forged doctrines and presented them to the Church ; where- 

 upon the Church consecrated them to eternity, and the 

 philosophers were not allowed thereafter to improve or to 

 restore their own creations. " La theologie n'est quelque 

 chose qu'a condition d'etre tout." 



2 As Erigena and Rabanus knew some Greek, Ireland, 

 like Edessa and Bagdad, seems to have shared the honour 

 of preserving original texts ; we may infer from the doc- 

 trines of Erigena that in Ireland the Timseus was the chief 

 of them. 



A. 5 



