91 



teenth century, dark, rough and perilous. As in 

 all times of transition, still the weight of defunct 

 systems rolled inertly along ; and while the new 

 forces seemed to slumber stresses were accumu- 

 lating. In Oxford and Cambridge the influence 

 of Linacre, and even of Caius 1 , seems to have been 

 rather humanist than scientific 2 ; in Oxford the 

 text rather than the inspiration of Aristotle pre- 

 vailed, while in Cambridge the platonist school, of 

 which the charming Henry More was the leader, 

 full of inspiration as it was, soon evaporated into 

 mysticism, or obscurantism. Bacon and Harvey 

 seem to have left Cambridge for Paris and 

 Padua respectively as Locke left Oxford 3 , under 

 some discouragement. Of Paris the great days 



1 I venture to say "even of Caius," though Caius was a 

 competent and indeed for his time an able clinical physician, 

 as we observe in his work on the sweating sickness. (Vid. note, 

 p. 96.) 



2 Oxford fell in the first instance under Franciscan in- 

 fluence, yet Alexander Hales (of this order) gave the peripa- 

 tetic bent to Oxford which it retains to this day. Creed rather 

 than conduct was the dominant note of the Faith (p. 85) ; it 

 is interesting therefore to learn that for Oxford Robert of 

 Lincoln and Adam Marsh translated, or procured a transla- 

 tion of, the Ethics. On the probability that Grosseteste had 

 some substantial knowledge of Greek, see p. 75, note 2. 



3 In Casaubon's diary we get a glimpse of Oxford in 1613. 

 The University was wealthy enough ; it had escaped the Paris 



