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THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST.

The Age of Faith in the West is marked by Paganism.-The Arabian

military Attacks produce the Isolation and permit the Independence of

the Bishop of Rome.

GREGORY THE GREAT organizes the Ideas of his Age, materializes Faith,
allies it with Art, rejects Science, and creates the Italian Form of Re-
ligion.

An Alliance of the Papacy with France diffuses that Form.-Political
History of the Agreement and Conspiracy of the Frankish Kings and
the Pope.—The resulting Consolidation of the new Dynasty in France,
and Diffusion of Roman Ideas.-Conversion of Europe.

The value of the Italian Form of Religion determined from the Papal

Biography

The Intellectual Developement of the Arabians is guided by the Nestorians
and the Jews, and is in the Medical Direction.-The Basis of this Alli-
ance is Theological.

Antagonism of the Byzantine System to scientific Medicine.-Suppression
of the Asclepions.-Their Replacement by Miracle-cure.-The resulting
Superstition and Ignorance.

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Affiliation of the Arabians with the Nestorians and Jews.

1st. The Nestorians, their Persecutions, and the diffusion of their Sectarian
Ideas. They inherit the old Greek Medicine.

Sub-digression on Greek Medicine.-The Asclepions.-Philosophical Im-
portance of Hippocrates, who separates Medicine from Religion.-The
School of Cnidos.-Its Suppression by Constantine.

Sub-digression on Egyptian Medicine.—It is founded on Anatomy and

Physiology. Dissections and Vivisections.-The great Alexandrian

Physicians.

2nd. The Jewish Physicians.-Their Emancipation from Superstition.—
They found Colleges and promote Science and Letters.

The contemporary Tendency to Magic, Necromancy, the Black Art.-The
Philosopher's Stone, Elixir of Life, etc.

The Arabs originate scientific Chemistry.-Discover the strong Acids,

Phosphorus, etc.-Their Geological Ideas.-Apply Chemistry to the

Practice of Medicine.—Approach of the Conflict between the Saracenic

material and the European supernatural System

ERRATUM.-Page 23, line 4 from top, for "not easily accessible," read "not

only easily accessible."

THE

INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPEMENT

OF EUROPE.

I

CHAPTER I.

ON THE GOVERNMENT OF NATURE BY LAW.

INTEND, in this work, to consider in what manner the The subject advancement of Europe in civilization has taken place,

to ascertain how far its progress has been fortuitous, and how far determined by primordial law.

Does the procession of nations in time, like the erratic phantasm of a dream, go forward without reason or order? or, is there a predetermined, a solemn march, in which all must join, ever moving, ever resistlessly advancing, encountering and enduring an inevitable succession of events?

proposed.

ty and

In a philosophical examination of the intellectual and poli- Its difficultical history of nations, an answer to these questions is to be grandeur. found. But how difficult it is to master the mass of facts necessary to be collected, to handle so great an accumulation, to arrange it in the clearest point of view! how difficult it is to select correctly the representative men, to produce them in the proper scenes, and to conduct successfully so grand and complicated a drama as that of European life! Though in one sense the subject offers itself as a scientific problem, and in that manner alone I have to deal with it, in another it swells into a noble epic,—the life of humanity, its warfare and repose, its object and its end.

VOL. I.

B

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