INDISTINCTNESS OF IDEAS. 273 



only a few years before Columbus visited the other 

 hemisphere. 



8. Intellectual Condition of the Religious Or- 

 ders. It must be recollected, however, that though 

 these were the views and tenets of many religious 

 writers, and though they may be taken as indi- 

 cations of the prevalent and characteristic temper 

 of the times of which we speak, they never were 

 universal. Such a confusion of thought affects the 

 minds of many persons, even in the most enlight- 

 ened times ; and in what we call the Dark Ages, 

 though clear views on such subjects might be more 

 rare, those who gave their minds to science, enter- 

 tained the true opinion of the figure of the earth. 

 Thus Boethius 12 (in the sixth century) urges the 

 smallness of the globe of the earth, compared with 

 the heavens, as a reason to repress our love of 

 glory. This work, it will be recollected, was trans- 

 lated into the Anglo-Saxon by our own Alfred. 

 It was also commented on by Bede, who, in what 

 he says on this passage, assents to the doctrine, 

 and shows an acquaintance with Ptolemy and his 

 commentators, both Arabian and Greek. Gerbert, 

 in the tenth century, went from France to Spain 

 to study astronomy with the Arabians, and soon 

 surpassed his masters. He is reported to have 

 fabricated clocks, and an astrolabe of peculiar con- 

 struction. Gerbert afterwards, (in the last year 

 of the first thousand from the birth of Christ,) 



* Boethius, Cons. ii. pr. 7- 

 VOL. I. T 



