334 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



middle ages; we shall understand the snares that lie latent in words 

 which at first glance seem obvious in meaning. 



In comparing the view-point of different ages with our own we 

 continually meet with surprises. The uncritical attitude of the men 

 of the thirteenth century towards miracles and wonders is little less than 

 astounding to us. Our thought seems to be ages in advance of theirs. 

 On the other hand, we often meet with an insight that has what we 

 call the distinctly modern note. An instance from literature will 

 illustrate : 



A man's character is his fate 

 is a sentence that one would assign to Taine or to Stendhal in the 

 nineteenth century, if one did not know it to have been written by 

 Heracleitus in the fifth century before Christ. In like manner, some 

 of the scientific processes of Hipparchus, Archimedes and Eoger Bacon 

 are so 'modern' as to bring a glow of delighted wonder when they 

 are met with. Their failure to draw certain conclusions that seem 

 almost obvious to us is equally astonishing. A formal explanation of 

 the differences and of the resemblances of ancient ages with our own 

 may be had somewhat as follows. We may suppose that a completely 

 developed man of our day has educated his sympathies and intelligence 

 to have outlets in a certain large number of directions — let us say, in 

 the directions 



A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, 0, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z. 

 It is possible, however, that some few of these outlets are absent, or 

 nearly closed, E and for instance. The men of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury may be supposed to have had fewer outlets, and those of the thir- 

 teenth still fewer ; but the intensity and refinement of their sympathies 

 in certain directions may not have been less but greater than ours. 

 The feeling of the thirteenth century for religion, and of the sixteenth 

 for art, for example, were not only different in intensity, but very dif- 

 ferent in quality from our own. When we make a formal comparison 

 of our age with that of St. Thomas Aquinas and of jSTewton the table 

 might stand thus : 



A, B, C, D, -, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, - P, Q, R, X, Y, Z. .twentieth century 



a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, -,-,-, m, n thirteenth century 



a, i, -, -, -, -, g, h, i, j, k, I, m, n, o, p, q, r eighteenth century 



If in a comparison of the thirteenth century with our own the dis- 

 course is upon the matters A, B, C and D we may find their insights, 

 a, b, c, d, singularly like our own. The case may be the same for the 

 matters G, H, I compared with g, h, i. But if, by chance, we are 

 comparing their insight e with our absence of insight or our X, Y, Z, 

 with the blanks in their experience, we are astonished at the difference 

 of outlook. This formal and unimaginative illustration may not be 

 quite useless in clarifying one's thought upon a matter easy to de- 

 scribe in words and exceedingly difficult to realize. It is essential 



