THE DARK AGES 151 



other way, and in times of bigotry and ignorance this is deserving 

 of credit. Dreyer. 



Arguing elsewhere that the soul perceives what the bodily eye 

 cannot, Augustine avails himself of the geometrical analogy of 

 the ideal straight line which shall have length without breadth or 

 thickness, but he lapses into mysticism when he passes to the 

 circle. 



The biographer of St. Eligius (writing in 760 under Pepin) says 

 'What do we want with the so-called philosophies of Pythagoras, 

 Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, or with the rubbish and nonsense of 

 such shameless poets as Homer, Virgil and Menander ? What serv- 

 ice can be rendered to the servants of God by the writings of the 

 heathen Sallust, Herodotus, Livy, Demosthenes or Cicero ?' Frede- 

 gar . . . complains (about 600) that ' The world is in its decrepitude, 

 intellectual activity is dead, and the ancient writers have no suc- 

 cessors/ . . . G. H. Putnam, Books of the Middle Ages. 



The following is a broad survey of the whole period : 



The soft autumnal calm . . . which lingered up to the Antonines 

 over that wide expanse of empire from the Persian Gulf to the Pillars 

 of Hercules and from the Nile to the Clyde . . . was only a misleading 

 transition to that bitter winter which filled the half of the second 

 and the whole of the third century, to be soon followed by the abiding 

 dark and cold of the Middle Ages. The Empire was moribund when 

 Christianity arose. Rome had practically slain the ancient world 

 before the Empire replaced the Republic. The barbarous Roman 

 soldier who killed Archimedes absorbed in a problem, is but an in- 

 stance and a type of what Rome had done always and everywhere by 

 Greek art, civilization and science. The Empire lived upon and con- 

 sumed the capital of preceding ages, which it did not replace. Popu- 

 lation, production, knowledge, all declined and slowly died. . . . 



The sun of ancient science, which had risen in such splendour 

 from Thales to Hipparchus, was now sinking rapidly to the horizon ; 

 and when it at last disappeared, say, in the fifth century, the long 

 night of the Middle Ages began. . . . The pursuit of knowledge for 

 knowledge's sake was out of place. . . . All the outlets through 

 which modern energy is chiefly expended were then closed ; a man 

 could not serve the state as a citizen, he could not serve knowledge 



