vi SCIENCE IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY 



classical studies on ancient philosophy, particularly the 

 excellent work of my colleague and friend, M. Leon 

 Robin, La Pensee Grecque, may serve as an introduction 

 to them. But, at the same time, being both a philoso- 

 pher and a man of science, he has been able to place 

 the technical exposition in the atmosphere best adapted 

 to put in relief the tendency of Hellenic science, the 

 curve of its growth, and its destiny. 



The achievements of science are not to be confused 

 with its field. The latter comprises all the questions 

 studied by men who are called men of science, whilst 

 the former comprises only those problems which they 

 have succeeded in solving. The achievements of 

 Greek science are extremely limited compared with the 

 field which the savants of antiquity have explored. 

 But within these limits the human mind did reach the 

 exactitude of demonstration ; it gave to truth the 

 characteristics of certainty and security without which 

 the appeal to truth is nothing but a mask for idleness 

 or presumption. As M. Reymond remarks, the pre- 

 tension to universal infallibility could easily find satis- 

 faction in the primitive mentality which attributes 

 the apparent inconsistency of natural phenomena to 

 the fundamental caprice of invisible powers. It is 

 quite another kind of infallibility that the Hellenic 

 genius has apprehended, when it has established the 

 methodology of mathematical proof. 



The success of this methodology was not without its 

 drawback. With it came an intricate connection 

 between logic and mathematics, which was only broken 

 by the Cartesian philosophy. This solidarity, to which 

 we owe two masterpieces, the Analytics of Aristotle 

 and the Elements of Euclid, made Greek science timid 

 in face of its own conquests. As M. Reymond rightly 

 insists, the illusory shadow of Zeno of Elea must have 

 weighed upon the genius of Archimedes and prevented 

 him from giving to the intellectual treatment of the 



