un is the establishment of the universities of Europe
attributable. Those of Paris and Oxford carry their claims to antiquity
to the times of Alfred and Charlemagne, but it is said that the real
claims of Paris stop with Phillip Augustus in the twelfth century. In
the year 1264 Merton College was founded by Walter de Merton, Lord
Chancellor of England and Bishop of Rochester, but the honorable title,
"Mother of Universities of Europe" is due to Bologna. It was in her
walls that learning, in the eleventh century, first attempted to raise
her head.

It is said upon good authority that 10,000 students were assembled here
in the next century, that is, somewhere about the beginning of the
fourteenth century, and that each country in Europe had its resident
regents and professors at Bologna. Here the studies of the civil and
canon law constituted the almost exclusive objects of application, but
Paris directed the attention of her scholars to theology. Oxford began
at this time to acquire fame and to rival the foreign universities in
the ability of its professors and the multitude of its members; in the
year 1340 they amounted to 30,000. Many other universities were soon
established upon the models of Bologna, Paris and Oxford. In these logic
and scholastic divinity were for centuries the reigning subjects of
pursuit. The works of Aristotle were studied with great eagerness. Upon
the logic of Aristotle was founded the cultivation of scholastic
theology and casuistry, which is a department of morals; its object is
to lay down rules for directing us _how_ to act where there is any room
for doubt or hesitation. To this belongs the decision of what are called
cases of conscience, that is, cases in which we are under obligation,
but which, from certain surroundings, give rise to doubt, or how far the
obligation may be dissolved; such as the obligation to keep a promise
obtained by fraud or force.

To make nice distinctions between one word and another, to separate
subjects by infinite divisions, not as the real nature of things, but as
fancy directed, and to draw conclusions with no moral end in view, were
the pursuits of the schoolmen. The decrees of the councils of the Church
of Rome, its edicts and ceremonial and ritual observances, were
scrupulously regarded instead of obedience to the pure and practical
elements of Christianity. Classical learning was entirely neglected.
Here is the feature of Roman church history which infid