44 PHILOSOPHIC SCIENCES. 



adopted in the schools of the Middle Ages as the poetic summary of the 

 teaching which it attributes to the seven liberal arts grammar, dialectics, 

 rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music. This great work, 

 which is more remarkable for wit and imagination than for learning and 

 good taste, may be looked upon as the final flicker of ancient thought as the 

 first glimmer of the dawn of modern thought. 



. Almost contemporaneous with Martianus Capella comes the patrician 

 Boethius, minister of Theodoric, put to death by order of his master, the 

 learned interpreter of Aristotle's treatises on Logic, and author of a work in 

 prose and in verse, which he entitled, " Of the Consolation of Philosophy" (Figs. 

 35 and 36), and which was one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages. 

 A contemporary and friend of Boethius at the court of Theodoric was Cassio- 

 dorus, also famous for his learning and for his fondness for ancient works, copies 

 of which he had made, and which he, more than any one else, was instrumental 

 in preserving for the benefit of future generations. Cassiodorus was the 

 author of a treatise on the Mind, another on the Seven Liberal Arts, a great 

 work on Divine Institutions, and letters which form a very valuable contribu- 

 tion to the history of his time. 



A century after Boethius and Cassiodorus, the part which they had played 

 in Italy fell in Spain to Isidore of Seville, who, discouraged at first by the diffi- 

 culties of study, obtained by force of perseverance the foremost place amongst 

 the writers of his time for the extent and variety of his works. In addition 

 to Commentaries on Holy Writ, and a History of the Visigoth Kings, he has 

 left a great work, " De Originibus, or the Etymologies," in the twenty volumes 

 composing which he sums up the elements of theology, jurisprudence, natural 

 history, agriculture, mechanics, and the liberal arts. 



In another part of Europe, Ireland, converted to Christianity by St. 

 Patrick, became rapidly covered with monasteries, as densely populated as 

 many towns, and which still retained some remnants of literary culture. In 

 England, at the monastery of Jarrow (Durham), was educated the venerable 

 Bede ; there he lived, taught, and died (735), just as he was completing the 

 commentary of a Psalm, leaving behind him various works, amongst which 

 are several treatises useful as an introduction to the study of science. 



It was in an English monastery, too, at York, that Alcuin, the most 

 energetic and learned of the assistants employed by Charlemagne to improve 

 the condition of his schools, was brought up. The books which he has left 



