144 THE LIFE OF SCIENCE 



has often the impression that men can grasp but one idea at a 

 time. 



The reader knows how Greece was finally conquered by Rome, 

 and how in the course of time it conquered its conquerors. Yet the 

 old spirit was subdued, and Roman science even at its best was 

 always but a pale imitation of the Greek. The Romans were so 

 afraid of disinterested research, the excess of which had been one 

 of the causes of the Greek corruption, that they went to the other 

 extreme and discouraged any research the utilitarian value of 

 which was not immediately obvious. 



In the meanwhile, Jesus Christ had appeared and told the world 

 a new message, a message of love and humility, universal in its 

 scope: Charity does not need knowledge; blessed are the pure in 

 spirit, the pure in heart; on the other hand, knowledge without 

 charity is not only useless but pernicious; it can but lead to pride 

 and damnation. The development of Christianity was a first at- 

 tempt to bring together the Hebrew and the Greek spirits, but 

 as the Roman Christians hardly understood the former and mis- 

 understood the latter thoroughly, the attempt was an utter failure. 



A good example of those misunderstandings may be found in 

 the work of Tatian, a Syrian convert who lived in Galen's time. 

 His Greek oration "against the Greeks" contains not only an 

 account of the weaknesses of paganism but the most extravagant 

 claims in behalf of oriental peoples. According to him the Greeks 

 had invented nothing; they had borrowed all their knowledge from 

 others — Assyrians, Phoenicians, Egyptians; their only superiority 

 was in the art of writing and of lying. Thus after centuries of 

 ignorance of Eastern achievements, some Eastern Greeks, whose 

 minds were poisoned against Greek civilization by Christian 

 prejudices, were going to the other extreme. Apparently Greeks 

 and Orientals were not fated to understand one another. 



We may say that the Greek spirit, that disinterested love of 

 truth which is the very spring of knowledge, was finally smothered 

 by the combination of Roman utilitarianism and Christian senti- 

 mentality. Again let us dream for a moment, and wonder what 



