86 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



task to absorb and adapt the new material to Middle- 

 Age Christian thought, and the work was not effected 

 without misgiving. 



It is difficult now to understand the immense 

 influence that Aristotle came to possess over the 

 schoolmen of the thirteenth century. It is perhaps 

 easier to sympathize in the detestation with which 

 some of the harbingers of the Renaissance regarded 

 that philosopher and all his works, the loathing for 

 an authority that checked their eager minds at every 

 turn. But to the mediaeval churchman, convinced 

 of the intellectual supremacy of his Church as the 

 recipient of all revealed knowledge and the only 

 begetter of true thought, it was marvellous to find the 

 cherished doctrines enshrined in the work of men 

 who lived and died centuries before the revelation of 

 their Lord. It never entered their consciousness that 

 the recovered volumes were actually the source of 

 much of the inspiration of the holy Fathers. We may 

 realize some of their confusion in Dante's treatment of 

 his pagan master Virgil, who ranks highest amongst 

 mortal men, and is competent to guide the Christian 

 pilgrim far on his way and need only turn back at the 

 threshold of the supreme accomplishment. 



At first the Arabian channels by which Aristotle 

 reached the West mixed his philosophy with some 

 Averrhoist leanings, and mystical heresies were the 

 result. Aristotle's works were condemned by the 

 provincial Council which met at Paris in 1209, and 

 this prohibition was renewed later. But the new 

 knowledge was irresistible, and in 1255 the University 

 of Paris formally placed Aristotle's works upon the 

 list of books to be studied. 



