7o PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



literature, from the "Divine Comedy" to " Canterbury Tales" 

 as from the " Decamprone " to " Gargantua" or from the 

 " Song of the Niebelung" to "Reynard the Fox"; it is also 

 displayed in mechanical art, from the organ and clocks to 

 fire-arms and the violin. \The taste for learning led to the 

 creation of universities in every land,* and soon to that of 

 public libraries.f How could originality at once so exuberant 

 and inexhaustible draw a line at science ? It did not. The 

 intellectual evolution was manifold and universal : it varied 

 only in degree. It is undeniable that, under these new 

 circumstances, successive multitudes of students J were at- 

 tracted to the universities by Natural Philosophy, just as 

 much as by Jurisprudence and Theology, although natural 

 philosophy was taught in an attenuated form, and under the 

 fiery and watchful eye of jealous and dogmatic churchmen. 

 That natural philosophy was in the air, so to speak, is 

 proved by the numerous adepts in ALCHEMY who, at their 

 peril, were at work everywhere during the Middle Ages. 

 This was the most attractive of the scientific studies then 

 pursued, because it was understood, however vaguely, to be 

 the link between organic and inorganic science, and hence 

 pregnant with potentialities. If they conspicuously failed 

 in the transmutation of metals, they achieved "very con- 

 siderable success in the department of synthesis" and the 

 formation of new combinations one of the main pursuits 

 of the chemists of the present day ; for, " to decompose 



* At Salerno, Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Padua, Naples,. 

 Toulouse, Montpellier, Salamanca, Orleans, Bourges, Angers, Prague, 

 Leipsic, and many others in Germany. Most of these had in time the 

 four Faculties of Theology, Canon-Law, Medicine, and Arts and the 

 Faculty of Arts gave instruction in the Trivium (Grammar, Logic, and 

 Rhetoric), and in, the Quadrivium (Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, As- 

 tronomy). The universities were essentially lay centres of learning, 

 and that was an all-important change : Salerno and Montpellier were 

 schools of medicine, Bologna and Orleans great schools of Roman law, 

 Paris the great theological school ; but if such was in the main their 

 respective strength, they also afforded instruction in all the other 

 channels of learning. 



f Paris, Oxford, Glastonbury Abbey (400 volumes), St. Albans,. 

 Heidelberg, etc. 



J There were as many as 10,000 at Bologna, 5,000 at Oxford, over 

 25,000 at Paris, etc. 



