within the bounds of their subject.

Just exactly the same thing was true in the realm of natural science.
Strange as it may seem to those {23} who have allowed themselves to be
led into thinking that only for the last century or a little more have
men made observations on nature, and only comparatively recently have
the conclusions which they reached with regard to natural phenomena
been of any real significance, there is no doubt at all that men made
great achievements in physical science in the Middle Ages, some of
which unfortunately were lost sight of later, but many of which
remained to form the basis on which our modern scientific knowledge
has been built. In order to obtain a proper appreciation of this, all
that is necessary is to study the works of the investigating scholars
of the early history of the universities, and see how much that is
considered very modern they anticipated in their writings. They must
be read for themselves, not be judged by excerpts chosen by prejudiced
readers, much less by critics who were bent on not finding anything
good in the Middle Ages. There is need of sympathetic interpretation
to replace the ignorant contempt which has so far dominated this
period of the history of education. The precious lesson that men may
learn from the unfortunate misunderstanding, however, is how much
old-time prejudice still dominates the attitude even of scholars--nay,
even of scientists and educators, with regard to certain periods in
history.

To most people it will be utterly uncomprehensible, however, that
after all that they have heard about Church opposition to science and
Papal discouragement of education as dangerous to faith, there should
now be an absolute denial of the supposed grounds for the assertions
in this matter. Most readers, even among educated people, will be very
prone to think that their impressions in these matters cannot be
entirely wrong, and {24} that previous writers on the subject cannot
have been either deceiving or deceived. In all that relates to the
Roman Catholic Church, however, before the date of the so-called
reformation, it is important to remember that there came into
existence a definite body of Protestant tradition, the creation of the
reformers who wished to blacken the memory of the Old Church as much
as possible to justify their own apostasy, and who therefore spared no
means to pervert the facts of history or to exaggerate the
significance of historical d