Spread of Christianity from Syria.-Its Antagonism to Imperialism ; their Conflicts.-Position of Affairs under Diocletian.--The Policy of Constantine.-He avails himself of the Christian Party, and through it attains supreme Power.-His personal Relations to it. The Trinitarian Controversy.-Story of Arius.—The Council of Nicea. The Progress of the Bishop of Rome to Supremacy. — The Roman its primitive subordinate Position.-Causes of its increasing Wealth, Influence, and Corruptions. — Stages of its Advancement through the Pelagian, Nestorian, and Eutychian Disputes.-Rivalry of the Bishops of Constantinople, Alexandria, and Rome. Necessity of a Pontiff in the West and ecclesiastical Councils in the East. -Nature of those Councils and of pontifical Power. The Period closes at the Capture and Sack of Rome by Alaric.—Defence of that Event by St. Augustine.-Criticism on his Writings. Character of the Progress of Thought through this Period.--Destiny of Consolidation of the Byzantine System, or the Union of Church and State. The consequent Paganization of Religion and Persecution of Political Necessity for the enforcement of Patristicism, or Science of the Fathers.-Its peculiar Doctrines. Obliteration of the Vestiges of Greek Knowledge by Patristicism. The Libraries and Serapion of Alexandria.-Destruction of the latter by Theodosius.—Death of Hypatia.--Extinction of Learning in the Easi THE PERSIAN ATTACK leads to the Loss of Syria and Fall of Jerusalem, -The true Cross carried away as a Trophy.--Moral Impression of THE ARAB ATTACK.-—Birth, Mission, and Doctrines of Mohammed. Rapid Spread of his Faith in Asia and Africa.-Fall of Jerusalem.- Dreadful Losses of Christianity to Mohammedanism.-The Arabs Review of the Koran.-Reflexions on the Loss of Asia and Africa by The Age of Faith in the West is marked by Paganism.— The Arabian military Attacks produce the Isolation and permit the Independence of GREGORY THE GREAT organizes the Ideas of his Age, materializes Faith, allies it to Art, rejects Science, and creates the Italian Form of An Alliance of the Pàpacy 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 CHAPTER XIII. DIGRESSION ON THE PASSAGE OF THE ARABIANS TO THEIR AGE OF REASON. INFLUENCE OF MEDICAL IDEAS THROUGH THE NESTORIANS AND JEWS. The intellectual Development of the Arabians is guided by the Nestorians and the Jews, and is in the Medical Direction.—The Basis of this Alliance is theological. Antagonism of the Byzantine System to Scientific Medicine. --Suppres- sion of the Asclepions.---Their Replacement by Miracle-cure. The resulting Superstition and Ignorance. Affiliation of the Arabians with the Nestorians and Jews. 1st. The Nestorians, their Persecutions, and the Diffusion of their Sec- tarian Ideas.—They inherit the old Greek Medicine, Sub-digression on Greek Medicine.—The Asclepions. — Philosophical Importance 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 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 Origin of IMAGE-WORSHIP.— Inutility of Images discovered in Asia and Africa during the Saracen Wars.-- Rise of Iconoclasm. The Emperors prohibit Image-worship.--The Monks, aided by court Females, sustain it.- Victory of the latter. Image-worship in the West sustained by the Popes.—Quarrel between the Emperor and the Pope.—The Pope, aided by the Monks, revolts and allies himself with the Franks. THE MONKS.-History of the Rise and Development of Monasticism.- Hermits and Canobites.-Spread of Monasticism from Egypt over Europe.—Monk Miracles and Legends.-Humanization of the monastic Establishments.—They materialize Religion, and impress their Ideas THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE. CHAPTER I. ON THE GOVERNMENT OF NATURE BY LAW. The subject of this work proposed. Its difficulty. Gradual Acquisition of the Idea of Natural Government by Law. Eventually sustained by Astronomical, Meteorological, and Physiological Discoveries.-Illustrations from Kepler's Laws, the Tradewinds, Migrations of Birds, Balancing of Vegetable and Animal Life, Variation of Species and their Permanence. Individual Man is an Emblem of Communities, Nations, and Universal Humanity. They exhibit Epochs of Life like his, and, like him, are under the Control of Physical Conditions, and therefore of Law. Plan of this Work.-The Intellectual History of Greece.--Its Five characteristic Ages.-European Intellectual History. Grandeur of the Doctrine that the World is governed by Law. I INTEND, in this work, to consider in what manner the advancement of Europe in civilization has taken the subject place, to ascertain how far its progress has been proposed. 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 ? In a philosophical examination of the intellectual and political history of nations, an answer to these questions is to be found. But how difficult it is to master the mass of facts necessary to be collected, to handle so great an accumulation, to place it in the clearest point of view; VOL. I. B how difficult it is to select correctly the representative Its difficulty men, to produce them in the proper scenes, and and grandeŭr. 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. Man is the archetype of society. Individual development is the model of social progress. Some have asserted that human affairs are altogether determined by the voluntary action of men, some that the Providence of God directs us in every step, some that all events are fixed by Destiny. It is for us to ascertain how far each of these affirmations is true. The life of individual man is of a mixed nature. In Individual part he submits to the free-will impulses of life of a mixed himself and others, in part he is under the kind. inexorable dominion of law. He insensibly changes his estimate of the relative power of each of these influences as he passes through successive stages. In the confidence of youth he imagines that very much is under his control, in the disappointment of old age very little. As time wears on, and the delusions of early imagination vanish away, he learns to correct his sanguine views, and prescribes a narrower boundary for the things he expects to obtain. The realities of life undeceive him at last, and there steals over the evening of his days an unwelcome conviction of the vanity of human hopes. The things he has secured are not the things he expected. He sees that a Supreme Power has been using him for unknown ends, that he was brought into the world without his own knowledge, and is departing from it against his own will. Whoever has made the physical and intellectual history of individual man his study, will be prepared to admit in what a surprising manner it foreshadows social history. The equilibrium and movement of humanity are altogether physiological pheno Yet not without hesitation may such an opinion be frankly avowed, since it is offensive to the pride, and to many of the prejudices and interests of our age. An author It fore- mena. |