By such a blunder as this may be measured the stagnation of the secular thought of the time. Of Greek science only remnants were in existence, and these were regarded with indifference. Writers like Isidore might use them, but they did not hesitate to mangle and distort them. Moreover they were given only second place even in the science of the day; the first place was held by the notions of the natural world expressed in the Scriptures. Each one of these, no matter how primitive or how figurative, had to be taken seriously into account and given its proper weight in building up the general scheme. In this intellectual activity Isidore is more at home than when he is handling the ideas of the pagans, as may be perceived from his discussion of the shape of the firmament: “As to its shape, whether it covers the earth from above like a plate, or like an egg-shell shuts the whole creation in on every side, thinkers take opposite views. For the mention the Psalmist makes of this when he says: _Extendas coelum sicut pellem_,[65] does not conflict with either opinion, since when his own skin covers any animal, it envelopes equally every part all around, and when it is removed from the flesh and stretched out, there is no doubt that it can form a chamber either rectangular or curved.”[66] [65] _Cf. Psalms_, 104, 2. [66] _De Ordine Creaturarum Liber_, 4, 1–2. The vastness of the physical universe is an idea not presented in Isidore’s writings. It was for his mind really a small universe, and one limited sharply by definite boundaries both in time and space. It had begun at the creation, its matter being constituted at that time out of nothing, and it was to have an end as sharply marked. It extended from the earth to the sphere of the heavens which revolved about the earth, and what was beyond scarcely appears even as a question. It was a universe in which high winds might, and sometimes did, dislodge particles from the fiery heavens;[67] and in which the sun approached so close to some of the inhabitants of the earth as to scorch them.[68] In truth, Isidore’s universe was reduced to rather stifling proportions. [67] 3, 71, 3. [68] _De Natura Rerum_, ch. 10. A fundamental part of Isidore’s world-philosophy was his view of the constitution of matter. This is closely bound up with his conception of the form of the universe, and it is also the most important of his ideas in the field of natural science.