PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 743 



temples (which, served also as king's palaces) were in early times 

 the sole permanent and finished buildings (the rest being of wood 

 or of sun-dried clay) it is inferable that this great division of 

 science, first employed in the orientation and laying out of them, 

 took its earliest steps in the service of religion. Returning now 

 from this parenthesis to the subject of Greek science, we find 

 that development of it can be but in very small measure ascribed 

 to the priesthood. From Curtius we learn that " the localities of 

 the oracles became places where knowledge of various kinds was 

 collected, such as could not be met with elsewhere," and that 

 " the Greek calendar fell under the superintendence of Delphi," 

 and also that " the art of road-making and of building bridges 

 took its first origin from the national sanctuaries, especially from 

 those of Apollo : " some culture of science being thus implied. 

 But, practically, the scientific advances made by the Greeks were 

 not of sacred but of secular origin. So, too, was it with their phi- 

 losophy. Though Mahaffy thinks " we have no reason to doubt the 

 fact that philosophers were called in professionally to minister in 

 cases of grief," and though in ministering they assumed a function 

 characteristic of priests, yet we can not assume that they acted in 

 a religious capacity. Evidently in the main their speculations 

 took their departure not from theological dogmas but from the 

 facts which scientific observation had elsewhere established. Be- 

 fore there was time for an indigenous development of science and 

 philosophy out of priestly culture, there was an intrusion of that 

 science and philosophy which priestly culture had developed 

 elsewhere. 



The normal course- of evolution having been in Rome, still 

 more than in Greece, interrupted by intruding elements, an un- 

 broken genealogy of science and philosophy is still less to be 

 looked for. But it seems as though the naturalness of the con- 

 nection between priestly culture and scientific knowledge led to a 

 re-genesis of it. Mommsen, after stating that there were origi- 

 nally only two "colleges of sacred lore "the augurs and the 

 pontifices, says : 



" The five ' bridge-builders ' (pontifices) derived their name from their 

 function, as sacred as it was politically important, of conducting the build- 

 ing and demolition of the bridge over the Tiber. They were the Roman 

 engineers who understood the mystery of measures and numbers; whence 

 there devolved upon them also the duties of managing the Calendar of 

 the State, of proclaiming to the people the time of the new and full moon 

 and the days of festivals, and of seeing that every religious and every judi- 

 cial act took place on the right day . . . thus they acquired . . . the gen- 

 eral oversight of Roman worship and of whatever was connected with it 

 and what was there that was not so connected ? ... In fact the rudiments 

 of spiritual and temporal jurisprudence as well as of historical composition 

 proceeded from this college." 



