210 UNIVERSITIES : ACTUAL AND IDEAL vm 



cared not to return to the familiar ways of home 

 and fatherland, though they lay, at arm's length, 

 overhead. Cardinals were more familiar with 

 Virgil than with Isaiah ; and Popes laboured, with 

 great success, to re-paganise Rome. 



The second influence was the slow, but sure, 

 growth of the physical sciences. It was discovered 

 that some results of speculative thought, of im- 

 mense practical and theoretical importance, can be 

 verified by observation ; and are always true, how- 

 ever severely they may be tested. Here, at any 

 rate, was knowledge, to the certainty of which no 

 authority could add, or take away, one jot or tittle, 

 and to which the tradition of a thousand years 

 was as insignificant as the hearsay of yesterday. 

 To the scholastic system, the study of classical 

 literature might be inconvenient and distracting, 

 but it was possible to hope that it could be kept 

 within bounds. Physical science, on the other 

 hand, was an irreconcilable enemy, to be excluded 

 at all hazards. The College of Cardinals has not 

 distinguished itself in Physics or Physiology ; and 

 no Pope has, as yet, set up public laboratories in 

 the Vatican. 



People do not always formulate the beliefs on 

 which they act. The instinct of fear and dislike 

 is quicker than the reasoning process; and I 

 suspect that, taken in conjunction with some 

 other causes, such instinctive aversion is at the 



