340 PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



risian teachers, that, after several years' absence he 

 found them not a step advanced, and still employed 

 in urging and parrying the same arguments; and 

 this, as Mr. Hallam remarks 19 , "was equally appli- 

 cable to the period of centuries." The same knots 

 were tied and untied ; the same clouds were formed 

 and dissipated. The poet's censure of " the Sons of 

 Aristotle," is as just as happily expressed : 



They stand 



Locked up together hand in hand; 

 Every one leads as he is led, 

 The same bare path they tread, 

 And dance like Fairies a fantastic round, 

 But neither change their motion nor their ground. 



It will, therefore, be unnecessary to go into any 

 detail respecting the history of the 'school philo- 

 sophy of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth 

 centuries. We may suppose it to have been, during 

 the intermediate time, such as it was at first and at 

 last. An occasion to consider its later days will be 

 brought before us by the course of our subject. 

 But, even during the most entire ascendency of the 

 scholastic doctrines, the elements of change were 

 at work. While the doctors and the philosophers 

 received all the ostensible homage of men, a doc- 

 trine and a philosophy of another kind were gradu- 



Inventi sunt, qui fuerant, et ubi ; neque enim ad palmam visi 

 sunt processisse ad qua?stiones pristinas dirimendas, neqno pro- 

 positiunculam imam adjecerant. Quibus urgebant stimulis eisdem 

 et ipsi urgebantur." &c. Metalogicus, lib. ii. cap. 10. 

 19 Middle Ages, iii. 537- 



