2 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



duce a purely modern form of mental activity, which oftentimes not 

 only leads to certitude in the experimental science, but even evokes 

 new phenomena. Thales already was acquainted with " the soul of 

 amber," and the power of the Heracleian Stone was well known to the 

 ancients as a matter of simple curiosity. But they never got beyond 

 the first crude observation of those effects out of which the modern 

 mind has developed a whole world of facts and ideas. 



In the time of Alexander the Great, however, interest in remarkable 

 natural curiosities was so far developed that he used to send back from 

 his expeditions such objects to his teacher Aristotle. But how little 

 was done later by the Romans toward utilizing the unparalleled oppor- 

 tunities they enjoyed for increasing the knowledge of Nature ! From 

 every quarter of their immense empire they gathered animals for their 

 vulgar shows and feasts. At enormous expense they raised all manner 

 of animals for food. We read, too, of their aviaries. But we learn 

 nothing of any establishment in Rome for exhibiting plants and ani- 

 mals a managerie or a botanic garden such as we find even among 

 the Aztecs. 1 



Without scientific observation, experiment, and sound theory, no 

 enduring progress can be made in the useful arts. Such progress 

 necessarily depends on conscious utilization of natural forces observed 

 in their orderly workings. Of this, on the whole, the ancients had no 

 idea. True, they carried to a high state of perfection some few branches 

 of useful art. In architecture, road-making, and bridge-building, in 

 bronze-casting and the art of cutting precious stones, they were masters. 

 The art of fortification and the siege enginery of the later Romans are 

 truly wonderful. But, if we would estimate aright the degree of tech- 

 nical skill reached by the ancients, we must compare it with the results 

 attained by other nations. The technical skill wherein they excelled 

 belongs to a comparatively low grade of culture. In architecture, for 

 instance, the Egyptians, too, as well as the Assyrians, the Hindoos, and 

 even the Peruvians under the Incas, were very proficient. A much 

 higher degree of culture is marked by the invention of the mariner's 

 compass, gunpowder, and printing. Next comes the steam-engine, an 

 invention which we owe to modern European civilization. 



The second of these stages of technical evolution the ancients never 

 attained. On the other hand, it was reached at a comparatively early 

 date by the civilized peoples of Eastern Asia, who, in other respects, 

 seem barbarous as compared with the Greeks and Romans. These 

 Asiatics, it is true, only employed the compass on land-journeys, used 

 gunpowder only for fireworks, and they did not in printing employ 

 movable types, owing to the clumsiness of their mode of writing. But, 

 even in their pottery and textile fabrics, the classic^ nations were sur- 

 passed by the Hindoos, the Chinese, and the Japanese. The ancient 

 civilization always stood, so to speak, with one foot in the bronze age. 

 1 Prescott, " Conquest of Mexico," vol. i., p. 124, et scq. ; vol. ii., pp. 60, 108, et seg. 



