42 Introduction 



archives of mankind. We are happy and proud to be able to write a 

 few of those pages, and we love to read the pages which others have 

 already written; — to read them quietly and thoroughly with all the foot- 

 notes. Those pages touch our hearts, not simply our brains; they repre- 

 sent our noblest tradition, the best that is in us. Some of those traditions 

 take us back to ancient or mediaeval times, others date from yesterday, 

 but whether old or young, they give us pride in the past and faith in the 

 future. They help us to be better men, wiser, kinder and humbler, even 

 more cheerful. 



The historian of science in Antiquity and the Middle Ages is better 

 able to appreciate tradition because the latter takes of necessity as much 

 place in his account as the discoveries and the inventions; the historian 

 of modern science takes tradition for granted, yet it exists and is as fun- 

 damental as ever. Discoveries would be useless if they were not trans- 

 mitted to others, and eventually to the whole of mankind. When we 

 study the distant past every document is important because only a few 

 have survived, and it is our duty to make the most of them. Historians 

 who will be charged to write the history of, say, twentieth century sci- 

 ence will face difficulties of a very different kind. They will be as it 

 were buried under an avalanche of documents, far more than they could 

 possibly examine, let alone read or study. Therefore, they will have 

 to select as well as possible relatively few documents out of the enormous 

 mass and focus their attention upon these few. In the case of ancient and 

 mediaeval science, that preparation has been done by Father Time with 

 splendid indifference and arbitrariness. Future historians will have to 

 replace that random selection by one as rational, impartial and careful 

 as possible. That will require an elaborate division of labor between 

 them, a matter which cannot be explained here and now.^- 



The tradition of experience and knowledge takes another form in 

 modern times than it did in the past, but it loses nothing of its importance 

 and necessity. It is the best part today of our inheritance and tomorrow 

 of our legacy, and we must be worthy of it. 



Appendix 



MONUMENTAL AND ICONOGRAPHIC TRADITION 

 VS. LITERARY TRADITION 



Scientific ideas and remembrances are transmitted not only by literary texts but 

 also by monuments, such as buildings, tombstones, instruments and objects of many 

 kinds. In a sense all the ancient buildings and monuments, irrespective of their 

 original purpose, are witnesses of the ancient men's knowledge as well as of their 



^'' See preliminary views in the author's Remarks concerning the history of 

 twentieth century science (Isis, 26, 53-62, 1936). 



