God. It involved the rise of Mohammedanism. Its result was, that
much of Asia and Africa, with the historic cities Jerusalem,
Alexandria, and Carthage, were wrenched from Christendom, and the
doctrine of the Unity of God established in the larger portion of
what had been the Roman Empire.

This political event was followed by the restoration of science,
the establishment of colleges, schools, libraries, throughout the
dominions of the Arabians. Those conquerors, pressing forward
rapidly in their intellectual development, rejected the
anthropomorphic ideas of the nature of God remaining in their
popular belief, and accepted other more philosophical ones, akin
to those that had long previously been attained to in India. The
result of this was a second conflict, that respecting the nature
of the soul. Under the designation of Averroism, there came into
prominence the theories of Emanation and Absorption. At the close
of the middle ages the Inquisition succeeded in excluding those
doctrines from Europe, and now the Vatican Council has formally
and solemnly anathematized them.

Meantime, through the cultivation of astronomy, geography, and
other sciences, correct views had been gained as to the position
and relations of the earth, and as to the structure of the world;
and since Religion, resting itself on what was assumed to be the
proper interpretation of the Scriptures, insisted that the earth
is the central and most important part of the universe, a third
conflict broke out. In this Galileo led the way on the part of
Science. Its issue was the overthrow of the Church on the
question in dispute. Subsequently a subordinate controversy arose
respecting the age of the world, the Church insisting that it is