THE MEDIEVAL MIND 75 



which gave them birth passed over into the new religion 

 of the Northern race. At first awed not only by the 

 light of the Gospel but also by the setting of patristic 

 theology and decadent Latin culture in which it had 

 become enshrined, they were long held in free sub- 

 mission to the form and constitution of the faith they 

 had accepted. " If I and my Franks had been there, 

 we would have avenged Him," said Clovis when 

 told the story of the Crucifixion ; and, to them, the 

 Gospel message which moved their hearts was in- 

 separable from the organization and prestige of the 

 Church, Arian or Roman, in which it reached them. 



But, when the first bright charm wore off, famili- 

 arity with the tyranny of ecclesiastical power wrought 

 a change in their mental state. With alternate en- 

 thusiastic championship and rough chafing at the 

 slowly tightening chain of Roman Catholic theology, 

 their characteristic genius breaks out again and again 

 in history ; sometimes repressed with fire and sword, 

 with rack and stake, but triumphant at the last, till 

 the bonds are broken, till freedom of action and speech 

 and thought are established in all the lands where the 

 Teutons hold sway, established by the clash of the 

 warring parties and sects into which their independent 

 spirit for ever leads and sometimes betrays them. 

 Such is the race which laid the foundations and built 

 most of the superstructure of modern science. 



Differences in genius among the various branches 

 of the race, ancient and modern, may be detected. 

 The Greek was too self-centred and consequently too 

 philosophical to grasp the essential spirit of experi- 

 mental science. The Roman had too little power of 

 abstract thought and too much fondness for legal 



