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On the History of Greek Literature in England
On the History of Greek Literature in England Author:George Young Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. "This low man, with a little thing to do, Sees it, and does it. This high man, with a great thing to pursue, Dies, ere he knows it. That, ... more »has the world's good; if he need the next, Let the world mind him! This throws himself on God, and unperplexed, Seeking, shall find Him." Robert Browning. Nothing in all the marvels of past history is so astonishing to us, when we try to epitomize the revolutions and development of thought, as the great mass of speculation and learning contained in folios of the Schoolmen. Nothing perhaps is more perplexing to the historians of philosophy than the impossibility of giving any notion, by an epitome, of the phases through which the human race was then passing. The inevitable result of it is to convey, to the reader desirous of appreciating the spirit of that age, the most profound contempt of the Schoolmen, the schools, and the scholastic philosophy. We know, from our faith in those who have ventured on the dreary desert, that such contempt is ill bestowed. We cannot but accede to the commendations, earnestly enforced, of the acute- ness, subtilty, and depth of their understanding. We canmore easily appreciate their occasional independence and honesty; above all, their faith in their work and teaching. But with the pile of folios the list of their achievements has an end; when we look for the result in history, we find none. We see the whole fabric suddenly overshadowed by another growth, a vigorous and apparently opposite tendency of thought, which has risen, reached maturity, and produced its fruit; and has left us no room for recollection or regret over those masses of forgotten learning. It is like some huge edifice in a growing city, slowly completed with the labour of years, and destined for a mansion and ...« less