VI SCIENCE AND CULTURE 147 



requisite for the satisfaction of everyday wants — 

 should have any bearing on human life was far 

 from the thoughts of men thus trained. Indeed, 

 as nature had been cursed for man's sake, it was 

 an obvious conclusion that those who meddled 

 with nature were likely to come into pretty close 

 contact with Satan. And, if any born scientific 

 investigator followed his instincts, he might safely 

 reckon upon earning the reputation, and probably 

 upon suffering the fate, of a sorcerer. 



Had the western world been left to itself in 

 Chinese isolation, there is no saying hovv^ long this 

 state of things might have endured. But, happily, 

 it was not left to itself. Even earlier than the 

 thirteenth century, the development of Moorish 

 civilisation in Spain and the great movement of 

 the Crusades had introduced the leaven which, 

 from that day to this, has never ceased to work. 

 At first, through the intermediation of Arabic 

 translations, afterwards by the study of the origi- 

 nals, the western nations of Europe became ac- 

 quainted with the writings of the ancient philoso- 

 phers and poets, and, in time, with the whole of 

 the vast literature of antiquity. 



Whatever there was of high intellectual as- 

 piration or dominant capacity in Italy, France, 

 Germany, and England, spent itself for centuries 

 in taking possession of the rich inheritance left 

 by the dead civilisations of Greece and Rome. 

 jMarvellously aided by the invention of printing, 



