SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 17 



actions of men alike animated by a strong and disin- 

 terested desire to promote the welfare of their fellows, 

 is easily discovered. 



At that time, in fact, if any one desired knowledge 

 beyond such as could be obtained by his own observa- 

 tion, or by common conversation, his first necessity was 

 to learn the Latin language, inasmuch as all the higher 

 knowledge of the western world was contained in works 

 written in that language. Hence, Latin grammar, with 

 logic and rhetoric, studied through Latin, were the fun- 

 damentals of education. "With respect to the substance 

 of the knowledge imparted through this channel, the 

 Jewish and Christian Scriptures, as interpreted and sup- 

 plemented by the Romish Church, were held to contain 

 a complete arid infallibly true body of information. 



Theological dicta were, to the thinkers of those days, 

 that which the axioms and definitions of Euclid are to 

 the geometers of these. The business of the philosophers 

 of the middle ages was to deduce from the data furnished 

 by the theologians, conclusions in accordance with eccle- 

 siastical decrees. They were allowed the high privilege 

 of showing, by logical process, how and why that which 

 the Church said was true, must be true. And if their 

 demonstrations fell short of or exceeded this limit, the 

 Church was maternally ready to check their aberrations, 

 if need be, by the help of the secular arm. 



Between the two, our ancestors were furnished with 

 a compact and complete criticism of life. They were 

 told how the world began, and how it would end ; they 



