ic philosophy. But "certain it is"--to continue the same great
thinker's comment on the Friars--"that if these schoolmen to their great
thirst of truth and unwearied travel of wit had joined variety of reading
and contemplation, they had proved excellent lights to the great
advancement of all learning and knowledge." What, amidst all their errors,
they undoubtedly did was to insist on the necessity of rigid demonstration
and a more exact use of words, to introduce a clear and methodical
treatment of all subjects into discussion, and above all to substitute an
appeal to reason for unquestioning obedience to authority. It was by this
critical tendency, by the new clearness and precision which scholasticism
gave to enquiry, that in spite of the trivial questions with which it often
concerned itself it trained the human mind through the next two centuries
to a temper which fitted it to profit by the great disclosure of knowledge
that brought about the Renascence. And it is to the same spirit of fearless
enquiry as well as to the strong popular sympathies which their very
constitution necessitated that we must attribute the influence which the
Friars undoubtedly exerted in the coming struggle between the people and
the Crown. Their position is clearly and strongly marked throughout the
whole contest. The University of Oxford, which soon fell under the
direction of their teaching, stood first in its resistance to Papal
exactions and its claim of English liberty. The classes in the towns, on
whom the influence of the Friars told most directly, were steady supporters
of freedom throughout the Barons' Wars.

[Sidenote: Its Political Influence]

Politically indeed the teaching of the schoolmen was of immense value, for
it set on a religious basis and gave an intellectual form to the
constitutional theory of the relations between king and people which was
slowly emerging from the struggle with the Crown. In assuming the
responsibility of a Christian king to God for the good government of his
realm, in surrounding the pledges whether of ruler or ruled with religious
sanctions, the mediaeval Church entered its protest against any personal
despotism. The schoolmen pushed further still to the doctrine of a contract
between king and people; and their trenchant logic made short work of the
royal claims to irresponsible power and unquestioning obedience. "He who
would be in truth a king," ran a poem which embodies their teaching at this