34 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Vol. XXV, 1918 



you." Yet as much as this inertia has retarded thought it has 

 exerted a stead3''ing influence that may have prevented stam- 

 pedes whenever some cried aloud, "Lo, here" or "lo, there." 

 Autocracy of thought should not be confused with the inertia of 

 conservatism. There is great difference between conditions 

 when we are told "you have no right to think" and when we 

 passively accept the thoughts of others. In the first case we are 

 restrained from action, and in the second we have no desire for 

 action. Both of these influences affect the evolution of thought. 

 Probably no better illustration of this can be found than in the 

 history of science. 



The Greek philosophers evidently were fearless and inde- 

 pendent thinkers ; independent insofar as independence is pos- 

 sible. There seemed to be no ancient authority back of them. 

 They were not bound by tradition. A result of their freedom and 

 their vigor was that they added a sum total of incalculable value 

 to our intellectual inheritance. In the zoological pathway, 

 Aristotle tells us that his was the flrst step and that it must be 

 judged accordingly. The "Golden Age" passed but it left a 

 legacy to all future generations. And in the time when autocracy 

 of thought became powerful it unconsciously paid tribute to 

 democracy of thought when men were practically told that 

 Aristotle and Galen were infallible. But, in the early centuries 

 A. D., soon after the time of Galen, the educated men of the 

 world for some inexplicable reason forgot a fundamental teach- 

 ing of a man of the common people of the Jews, that the truth 

 shall make you free; or possibly instead of forgetting, they 

 never fully comprehended its import. The right of every in- 

 dividual to search for the truth was denied. Only a chosen few 

 were to think for the world, and their activity was self limited 

 for they believed it was not allowable to wander far afield from 

 the accepted authorities of the olden time. The struggle that 

 gradually assumed form, the strugsle between the inquiring 

 mind and the autocracy of authority, the struggle between 

 democracy and autocracy of thought, was to continue for cen- 

 turies ; a struggle that wns to develop the idea that the torture 

 of the physical man could control the thought processes of the in- 

 tellectual man. Social ostracism, loss of place and fortune, and 

 physical torture had a temporary effect in suppressing publicity, 

 but the divine intellectuality of man could not be conquered. As 

 time passed there was enforced yielding of autocracy here and 



