On the other hand, the spirit of intellectual inquiry promoted by the Universities, ecclesiastical bodies though they were, threatened the supremacy of the Church. The sudden expansion of the field of education diminished the importance of those purely ecclesiastical and theological studies, which had hitherto absorbed the whole intellectual energies of mankind. For, according to the monastic ideal, theology was confined to mere interpretation of the text of Scripture and the dicta of the Fathers or Church. To this narrow science all the sciences were the handmaids. They were regarded as permissible only so far as they contributed to this end. But the great outburst of intellectual enthusiasm in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries created a momentary revolution in these matters. The whole range of science as revealed by the newly discovered treasures of Greek thinkers and Roman Jurists was now thrown open to the student. And this faint revival of physical science, this temporary restoration of classical literature, a re-discovery as it were of an older and a greater world, and contact with a larger, freer life, whether in mind, in society or politics, introduced a spirit of scepticism, of doubt, of denial, into the realms of unquestionable belief. But the Church was alive to the danger. Fiercely she fought [Illustration: Garden Front S John's College] the tide of opposition, and at last won back the allegiance of the Universities. Through the Schoolmen ecclesiasticism once more triumphed, and the reign of Theology was resumed. Soon scholasticism absorbed the whole mental energy of the student world. The old enthusiasm for knowledge died down; science was discredited, and literature in its purer forms became extinct. The scholastic philosophy, so famous for several ages, has passed away and been forgotten. We cannot deny that Roscelin, Anselm, Abelard, Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus and Ockham were men of acute and even profound understanding, the giants of their own generation. But all their inquiries after truth were vitiated by two insurmountable obstacles--the authority of Aristotle and the authority of the Church. For Aristotle, whom the scholastics did not understand, and who had been so long held at bay as the most dangerous foe of mediæval faith, whom none but Anti-Christ could comprehend, was now turned, by the adoption of his logical method in the discussion and definition of theological dogma, into its unexpected ally. It was this very method which led to that "unprofitable subtlety and curiosity" which Lord Bacon notes as the vice of the scholastic philosophy.