PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES. 



most daring statements, some wholesome and others dangerous, which took 

 root a little later ; and the thirteenth century shows us the thinkers of the 

 Middle Ages grappling vigorously with barbarism, and gradually attaining a 

 philosophy which reconciled the verities of the faith and rational concep- 

 tions. But this philosophy was, in turn, attacked by daring innovators, 



Fig. 35. Boetiiius takes counsel of Dame Philosophy. Miniature of the "Consolation of 

 Boethius," Translation of Jean de Meung, Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century. Lihrary 

 of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot. 



and, well founded as it was, could not resist their onslaught. Men's minds 

 became very agitated, new systems came into existence, and the Christian 

 faith grew weaker ; and so we find ourselves no longer in the century of 

 St. Louis, but in that of Francois I. and Leo X. 



Such are the principal phases through which philosophy passed during 



