EAST AND WEST 141 



ducted by scholars of many nationalities all over the Near East 

 are keeping it in a state of flux which is in itself a stimulus. It is 

 perhaps wiser not to indulge in predictions with regard to such a 

 live subject; yet it is safe to say that, however numerous the 

 Greek borrowings may prove to have been, the blossoming of the 

 Greek scientific genius remains almost equally difficult to account 

 for. Students of art and literature are confronted with a similar 

 difficulty, and when we speak of the "Greek miracle" we do noth- 

 ing but confess to it and admit our ignorance. In fact the diffi- 

 culty and the miracle are even greater in the case of science than 

 in that of art, for there are Egyptian statues of the early dynasties 

 which are not a whit inferior to the best Greek productions, while 

 the Egyptian scientific treatises, however remarkable, especially 

 when their high antiquity is considered, do not begin to compare 

 with their Greek offspring. Between the scribe Ahmose (the 

 writer of the Rhind papyrus) and, say, Hippocrates of Chios, 

 there is such a gigantic difference that some critics have gone so 

 far as to deny the scientific nature of the Egyptian work altogether 

 and to consider it only as a collection of empirical recipes. In this 

 they were certainly mistaken, for the Egyptian knowledge was far 

 from being fragmentary and accidental; it was already methodical 

 to a degree, and hence scientific. Yet the doubts of these critics 

 are somewhat justified by the immensity of the gap. We do not 

 know what happened between the seventeenth and the sixth cen- 

 turies b.c, and it would be rash to conclude that the Egyptian 

 knowledge was not gradually improved; however the chances are 

 that the main improvements were made not by Egyptians, nor by 

 Minoans or Mycenaeans (whoever these were), but by Greeks, 

 the favored people whose earliest ff Book" and witness was the 

 Iliad. And these improvements were of such magnitude that they 

 raised science to a higher level. When a student of ancient science 

 grows a little rhapsodical about it, we may be tempted to ascribe 

 his enthusiasm to the one-sidedness and the consequent blindness 

 of his devotion. But I have devoted far more time and thought to 

 the science of the Middle Ages than to that of Antiquity, and my 



