_The Organization of public Intellect is the End to which European Civilization is tending._ THE INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPE. CHAPTER I. THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. THE THREE ATTACKS: NORTHERN OR MORAL; WESTERN OR INTELLECTUAL; EASTERN OR MILITARY. THE NORTHERN OR MORAL ATTACK ON THE ITALIAN SYSTEM, AND ITS TEMPORARY REPULSE. _Geographical Boundaries of Italian Christianity._--_Attacks upon it._ _The Northern or moral Attack.--The Emperor of Germany insists on a reformation in the Papacy.--Gerbert, the representative of these Ideas, is made Pope.--They are both poisoned by the Italians._ _Commencement of the intellectual Rejection of the Italian System.--It originates in the Arabian doctrine of the supremacy of Reason over Authority.--The question of Transubstantiation.--Rise and development of Scholasticism.--Mutiny among the Monks._ _Gregory VII. spontaneously accepts and enforces a Reform in the Church.--Overcomes the Emperor of Germany.--Is on the point of establishing a European Theocracy.--The Popes seize the military and monetary Resources of Europe through the Crusades._ The realm of an idea may often be defined by geometrical lines. [Sidenote: The geographical boundaries of Latin Christianity.] If from Rome, as a centre, two lines be drawn, one of which passes eastward, and touches the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus, the other westward, and crosses the Pyrenees, nearly all those Mediterranean countries lying to the south of these lines were living, at the time of which we speak, under the dogma, "There is but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet;" but the countries to the north had added to the orthodox conception of the Holy Trinity the adoration of the Virgin, the worship of images, the invocation of saints, and a devout attachment to relics and shrines. [Sidenote: Forces acting upon it.] I have now to relate how these lines were pushed forward on Europe, that to the east by military, that to the west by intellectual force. On Rome, as on a pivot, they worked; now opening, now closing, now threatening to curve round at their extremes and compress paganizing Christendom in their clasp; then, through the convulsive throes of the nations they had inclosed, receding from one another and quivering throughout their whole length, but receding only for an instant, to shut more closely again. It was as if from the hot sands of Africa invisible arms were put forth, enfolding Europe in their grasp, and trying to join their hands to give to paganizing Christendom a fearful and mortal compression. There were struggles and resistances, but the portentous hands clasped at last. Historically, we call the pressure that was then made the Reformation. Not without difficulty can we describe the convulsive struggles of nations so as to convey a clear idea of the forces acting upon them. I have now to devote many perhaps not uninteresting, certainly not uninstructive, pages to these events.