36 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



human thought achieved freedom, and real science became pos- 

 sible. 



Mathematics as a science commenced when first some one, prob- 

 ably a Greek, proved propositions about any things or about some 

 things, without specification of definite particular things. White- 

 head. 



INDEBTEDNESS OF GREECE TO BABYLONIA AND EGYPT. It is 

 plain, nevertheless, that Greek civilization and Greek science 

 owed much to Egypt and Chaldea. Herodotus has been quoted 

 already, and Theon of Smyrna (second century A.D.) says : 



In the study of the planetary movements the Egyptians had 

 employed constructive methods and drawing, while the Chaldeans 

 preferred to compute, and to these two nations the Greek astrono- 

 mers owed the beginnings of their knowledge of the subject. 



Again in the third century A.D. Porphyry observes : 



From antiquity the Egyptians have occupied themselves with 

 geometry, the Phoenicians with numbers and reckoning, the Chal- 

 deans with theorems. 



THE GREEK POINT OF VIEW. It is not, however, so much the 

 achievements of the Greeks in positive science which compel our 

 attention and admiration as it is the remarkable spirit which they 

 displayed toward man and the universe. Here for the first time 

 we meet with a new point of view, and while Shelley's well-known 

 dictum, "We are all Greeks, our laws, our literature, our religion, 

 our art have their roots in Greece," must be dismissed as in- 

 correct as well as extravagant, and even Sir Henry Maine's 

 maxim, which stands at the head of this chapter, is undoubtedly 

 an exaggeration, these famous sayings serve well to illustrate 

 the fact that with the Greeks came into the world a new 

 spirit and a new interpretation of Nature. 



In a striking essay entitled "What we owe to Greece," Butcher 

 has portrayed with extraordinary clearness those characteristics 

 of the Greeks which lifted them above all of their predecessors and 

 above most if not all of those that have come after them : 



