its English garb; for the language is as simple as if the author were
speaking by word of mouth, and at the same time is pleasant, and not
lacking a certain quaint floweriness, which makes it all the easier to
retain the subject-matter of the book.

Altogether, this introduction to the study of the Mediaeval
Encyclopaedia, and the insight which such works give us into the
thought of the past and its desire for knowledge, make a book at once
agreeable and useful; and I repeat that it is a hopeful sign of the
times when students of science find themselves drawn towards the
historical aspect of the world of men, and show that their minds have
been enlarged, and not narrowed, by their special studies--a defect
which was too apt to mar the qualities of the seekers into natural
facts in what must now, I would hope, be called the just-passed epoch
of intelligence dominated by Whig politics, and the self-sufficiency
of empirical science.

WILLIAM MORRIS.




INTRODUCTION

THE PROLOGUE OF THE TRANSLATOR

MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE

MEDIAEVAL MANNERS