e
clear and calm discrimination of philosophy. However this may be, it
cannot be doubted that the controversies agitated in the church during
these two centuries must have diverted studious minds from profane
literature, and narrowed more and more the circle of that knowledge
which they were desirous to attain.

The torrent of irrational superstitions which carried all before it in
the fifth century, and the progress of ascetic enthusiasm, had an
influence still more decidedly inimical to learning. I cannot indeed
conceive any state of society more adverse to the intellectual
improvement of mankind than one which admitted of no middle line between
gross dissoluteness and fanatical mortification. An equable tone of
public morals, social and humane, verging neither to voluptuousness nor
austerity, seems the most adapted to genius, or at least to letters, as
it is to individual comfort and national prosperity. After the
introduction of monkery and its unsocial theory of duties, the serious
and reflecting part of mankind, on whom science most relies, were turned
to habits which, in the most favourable view, could not quicken the
intellectual energies; and it might be a difficult question whether the
cultivators and admirers of useful literature were less likely to be
found among the profligate citizens of Rome and their barbarian
conquerors or the melancholy recluses of the wilderness.

Such therefore was the state of learning before the subversion of the
Western Empire. And we may form some notion how little probability there
was of its producing any excellent fruits, even if that revolution had
never occurred, by considering what took place in Greece during the
subsequent ages; where, although there was some attention shown to
preserve the best monuments of antiquity, and diligence in compiling
from them, yet no one original writer of any superior merit arose, and
learning, though plunged but for a short period into mere darkness, may
be said to have languished in a middle region of twilight for the
greater part of a thousand years.

But not to delay ourselves in this speculation, the final settlement of
barbarous nations in Gaul, Spain, and Italy consummated the ruin of
literature. Their first irruptions were uniformly attended with
devastation; and if some of the Gothic kings, after their establishment,
proved humane and civilized sovereigns, yet the nation gloried in its
original rudeness, and viewed with no unreaso