60 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



from 1 100 onward, like the dark ages that preceded 

 it, is to the historian of science but a time of pre- 

 paration. The two divisions are part of the same 

 whole, and may well be treated together, though for 

 the historian of politics, literature or art they are 

 distinct and separable. To us, then, the Middle 

 Ages have their old significance the ages that come 

 between the ancient learning and that of the Re- 

 naissance the great dark valley across which mankind 

 had to struggle down the descent on one side from 

 the heights of the thought of Greece and the power 

 of Rome to the slow ascent on the other to the upward 

 slopes of modern science. We look across the cloud- 

 filled hollow and see the hills beyond more clearly 

 than the intervening ground, lit only by "the dim 

 light of scholasticism and theology." 



In order to appreciate the causes which produced 

 the great failure of the Middle Ages to add to our 

 The stores of natural knowledge, it is necessary 

 Patristic Age. to understand the attitude which char- 

 acterized the mediaeval mind ; to realize that the one 

 and overwhelming fact is the universal dominance of 

 the religious motive of salvation. This conception 

 had been founded on the theology framed by the 

 early Fathers in terms of Hebrew dogma and Greek 

 philosophical concepts, and moulded by each succeed- 

 ing age chiefly as an instrument of controversy to 

 defend from the attacks of pagan or heretic the 

 scheme which each regarded as orthodox. Then, in 

 turn, it is necessary to understand why patristic and 

 mediaeval Christianity was inimical in spirit to secular 

 learning ; why under its influence philosophy became 



