74 THE PATH OF SCIENCE 



The final blow to the study of science came from the de- 

 velopment of Neoplatonism in Alexandria. This philosophy 

 derived mainly from Plato, but in part also from Stoicism. 

 In it, matter was considered to be governed by the Platonic 

 "Idea" as the soul governs the body, and the factual study of 

 science disappeared into mysticism. Neoplatonism lasted 

 only about a century, but it passed into Christianity largely 

 through the work of St. Augustine. With the coming of 

 Christianity both the classical science and the classical philos- 

 ophy vanished, and men devoted their intellects to the study 

 of theology. Through this period there survived a memory 

 of the writings of Aristotle, whose alleged views on the struc- 

 ture of the universe formed the framework on which the 

 whole of medieval science came to be built. It was held that 

 Aristotle felt that the stars were noble beings and exercised 

 influence over the human destinies— a more definite and sys- 

 tematized astrology than that of the ancients; that the circle 

 was a perfect geometrical figure; and that the stars, therefore, 

 must move regularly in circles. Thus arose the doctrine of 

 determinism, every man's life being assumed to be written 

 at the time of his birth, a determinism that reached its most 

 extreme development in the theological field with John 

 Calvin. 



This whole era filled one of the periods of great depression 

 in the cycles of civilization. It followed the long decay of 

 the Roman Empire, and for a time the world lay almost pros- 

 trate, ruined economically by the internecine struggles of 

 the feudal system and lost spiritually in the squabbles of the 

 monks, who, in the monasteries, carried on the only intellec- 

 tual life. Francis Bacon said of the inhabitants of these 

 monasteries: 



Having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, 

 and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up 

 in the cells of a few authors [chiefly Aristotle, their dic- 

 tator], as their persons were shut up in the cells of monas- 

 teries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of 

 nature or time, [they] did out of no great quantity of 



