68 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



In the ancient world, the craftsmen were slaves, and it was 

 below the dignity of a man of the upper class to handle 

 materials himself. One profession in Greece was partially 

 exempt from this rule, that of medicine. A genuine experi- 

 mental science in medicine and especially in surgery, diet, 

 and gymnastics was developed by the Greeks. It was em- 

 bodied in the writings attributed to Hippocrates of Cos, in 

 which are described the clinical observations of patients suf- 

 fering from various diseases. The followers of Hippocrates 

 had the correct scientific method, but the development of 

 science in medicine was impossible at that time. The true 

 science of medicine depends upon the advance of physiology', 

 and the physiology of the human body is so complex that 

 medicine is still largely empirical. 



Instead of developing experimental science, the most popu- 

 lar Greek philosophers based their views of nature on a priori 

 assumptions,* and their progress was largely confined to pure 

 mathematics, especially geometry and the theory of numbers. 

 Their actual progress in physics was certainly much handi- 

 capped by their feeling that practical experimental ^vork was 

 not suitable for a philosopher and thinker. If this seems 

 strange, we should remember that the feeling existed in some 

 English universities not more than fifty years ago. Charles 

 L. Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, wrote a most 

 violent diatribe against the supply of funds for scientific re- 

 search at Oxford.f 



The social ban on the practical handling of materials prob- 

 ably did not exist in Egypt, where the rulers not infrequently 

 boast in their tombs of their accomplishments as engineers 

 and where some of the priests were noted for their knowledge 



* Nevertheless, Thales, the first outstanding Greek scientist, enun- 

 ciated the fundamental scientific principle of the sequence of cause and 

 effect. It was largely the influence of the Pythagoreans and of Plato that 

 diverted the Greek mind from observational and experimental science. 



■f Fame's Penny Trumpet, 1876, and also letter to Pall Mall Gazette, 

 "Natural Science at Oxford," Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll, by S. P. 

 Collingwood, p. 187, London, Fisher Unwin, 1898. 



