Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/762

A curious parallel, not unsuggestive, is thus displayed. As in Greece the art of bridge-building arose in connection with the national sanctuaries, and as in Rome the building of bridges was the function of a priestly college, the implication appears to be that since in those days building a bridge was one of the most difficult of undertakings, it naturally fell into the hands of those who were reputed to have the greatest knowledge and skill—the priests. And, probably, the connection between the priesthood and this piece of applied science was furthered by the apparent supernaturalness of the arch—a structure which must have seemed to the people incomprehensible. But alike in science and in philosophy, the Romans were the pupils of the Greeks; and hence possibly may have arisen the parallelism between a certain function of the philosopher in Greece and one he exercised in Rome.

The philosopher "was generally to he found in a large mansion acting almost like a private chaplain, instructing in ethics those who wished to learn, and attending the death-beds of members of the family."

Most likely, the ethics and the consolations here indicated were more or less tinged with ideas theologically derived; but even if not, the function described appears semi-priestly.

 

During those dark days which followed the fall of the Roman Empire, nothing to be called science existed. But when, along with gradual reorganization, the re-genesis of science began, it began as in earlier instances among the cultured men—the priesthood. It was not, indeed, a re-genesis de novo, but one which took its departure from the knowledge, the ideas, and the methods, bequeathed by the older civilizations. From these, long buried, it was resuscitated, almost exclusively in the monasteries. In his Science and Literature in the Middle Ages Lacroix writes:—

"At the death of Charlemagne, the exact sciences, which had flourished for a brief space at his court, seemed to shrink into the seclusion of the monasteries. . . . The order of St. Benedict had almost made a monopoly of the exact sciences, which were held in high honor at the Abbeys of Mount Cassini, in Italy; of St. Martin, at Tours (France); of St. Arnulph, at Metz; of St. Gall, in Switzerland; of Prum, in Bavaria; of Canterbury, in England, etc."

A significant parallelism has here to be noted. We saw that in India, in Assyria, and in Egypt, the earliest steps in science were made in subservience to religious needs: their primary purpose was to regulate the times of religious sacrifices so as to avoid offense to the gods. And now, strange to say, mediæval records show that among Christian peoples science was first called in for fixing the date of Easter.

How on the Continent was illustrated the monopoly of science