146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The first distinct impulse which lifted mankind toward a 

 higher view of research into natural laws was given by the philos- 

 ophers of Greece. It is true that philosophical opposition to 

 physical research was at times strong, and that even a great . 

 thinker like Socrates considered certain physical investigations 

 as an impious intrusion into the work of the gods ; it is also true 

 that Plato and Aristotle, while bringing their thoughts to bear 

 upon the world with great beauty and force, did much to draw 

 mankind away from those methods which in modern times have 

 produced the best results. 



Plato developed a world in which the physical sciences had 

 little if any real reason for existing ; Aristotle, a world in which 

 the same sciences were developed not so much by observation of 

 what is, as of speculation on what ought to be. From the former 

 of these two great men came into Christian theology many germs 

 of niediseval magic, and from the latter sundry modes of reason- 

 ing which aided in the evolution of these; yet the impulse to 

 human thought given by these great masters was of inestimable 

 value to our race, and one legacy from them was especially 

 precious ; — the idea that a science of Nature is possible, and that 

 the highest occupation of man is the discovery of its laws. Still 

 another gift from them was greatest of all, for they gave scien- 

 tific freedom : they laid no interdict upon new paths ; they inter- 

 posed no barriers to the extension of knowledge ; they threatened 

 no doom in this life or in the next against investigators on new 

 lines ; they left the world free to seek any new methods and to 

 follow any new paths which thinking men could find. 



This legacy of belief in science, of respect for scientific pur- 

 suits, and of freedom in scientific research, was especially re- 

 ceived by the school of Alexandria, and above all by Archimedes, 



the same author, third edition, pp. 115 et seq., also p. 380 ; also Andrew Lang, Myth, Ritual, 

 and Religion, vol. i, chap. iv. For magic in Egypt, see Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, chaps, 

 vi-viii ; also Maspero, Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de 1' Orient ; and especially the citations 

 from Chabas, Le Papyrus Magique Harris, in chap, vii ; also Maury, La Magie et 1'Astrologie dans 

 l'Antiquite et au Moyen Age. For magic in Chaldea, see Lenormant as above. For examples of 

 magical powers in India, see Max Miiller's Sacred Books of the East, vol. xvii, pp. 121 et seq. 

 For a legendary view of magic in Media, see the Zend Avesta, Part I, p. 14, translated by 

 Darmsteter ; and for a more highly developed view, see the Zend Avesta, Part III, p. 239, 

 translated by Mill. For magic in Greece and Rome, and especially in the Xeoplatonic school 

 as well as in the middle ages, see especially Maury, La Magie et 1'Astrologie, chaps, iii-v. 

 For various sorts of magic recognized and condemned in our sacred books, see Deuteronomy, 

 xviii, 10, 11 ; and for the burning of magical books at Ephesus under the influence of St. 

 Paul, see Acts, xix, 14. See also Ewald, History of Israel, Martineau's translation, fourth 

 edition, ii, 55-63 ; iii, 45-51. For a very elaborate summing up of the passages in our 

 sacred books, recognizing magic as a fact, see De Haen, " De Magia," Lips., 17V5, chaps, i, 

 ii, and iii, of first part. For general subject of magic, see Ennemoser, History of Magic, 

 translated by Howitt, which, however, constantly mixes sorcery with magic proper. 



