It will naturally be inferred from these observations
that the friar was popular with the mercantile classes ;
and this is evident from the facts of his history? Who
else so welcome at the houses of men to whom scientific
skill and information, scanty as they might be, were yet
of no inconsiderable service and attraction? He alone
of learned and unlearned possessed some knowledge of
foreign countries and their productions ;. he alone was
acquainted with the composition and decomposition of
bodies, with the art of distillation, with the construction
of machinery, with the use of the laboratory. Un-


a Tp d——— M —————————— P ÓÉ (€ ——— APE tah — ADO nd


! The observations made by them |


on their journey do notshow that
they were blinded by the Predi-


caments of Aristotle. It is amusing
to see the grave way in which
modern historians  reprove the


schoolmen for too great a deference
to the authority of Aristotle, and
their indifference to facts; these


historians all the while displaying
the most servile deference to vulgar
prejudices respecting the schoolmen,
and retailing for facts their own
shallow and unsupported assump-
tions.
? See Sir Francis Palgrave's tale
of “ The Merchant and the Friar.”


xlvi PREFACE.
