78 THE LIFE OF SCIENCE 



offensive and defensive experimenting. Anyhow, whether he 

 chose to take the initiative or not, these experiments were the 

 fountainhead of his genius. To be sure, he had also a genuine in- 

 terest in science, and the practical problems which he encountered 

 progressively allured him to study it for its own sake, but that took 

 time : once more the craftsman was the father of the scientist. 



I would not have the reader believe that everything was wrong 

 and dark in the Middle Ages. This childish view has long been 

 exploded. The most wonderful craftsmanship inspired by noble 

 ideals was the great redeeming feature of that period — unfortu- 

 nately never applied outside the realm of religion and of beauty. 

 The love of truth did not exalt mediaeval craftsmen, and it is un- 

 likely that the thought of placing his art at the service of truth 

 ever occurred to any of them. 



Now, one does not understand the Renaissance if one fails to 

 see that the revolution — I almost wrote, the miracle — which hap- 

 pened at that time was essentially the application of this spirit of 

 craftsmanship and experiment to the quest of truth, its sudden ex- 

 tension from the realm of beauty to the realm of science. That is 

 exactly what Leonardo and his fellow investigators did. And 

 there and then modern science was born, but unfortunately Leo- 

 nardo remained silent, and its prophets came only a century 

 later. . . . 



Man has not yet found a better way to be truly original than 

 to go back to nature and to disclose one of her secrets. The 

 Renaissance would not have been a real revolution, if it had been 

 simply a going back to the ancients; it was far more, it was a 

 return to nature. The world, hitherto closed-in and pretty as the 

 garden of a beguinage, suddenly opened into infinity. It gradu- 

 ally occurred to the people — to only very few at first — that the 

 world was not closed and limited, but unlimited, living, forever 

 becoming. The whole perspective of knowledge was upset, and 

 as a natural consequence all moral and social values were trans- 



