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7G. Short Abstract of a Paper on ' Ancient and Modern Science.' 



By Robert Brodie, M.A. 



(Eead before the C. M. & N. H. S., on May 8tli, 1889.) 



It is not difficult to contrast the mental and material condition 

 of the most advanced peoples in ancient and modern times. A 

 comparison of Athens at the end of the 5th century b.c, with 

 the most highly civilised nations of modern Europe, shows that 

 while in painting, sculpture, architecture, history, poetry, philo- 

 sophy, and the drama, the Athenians have not been surpassed, 

 they were almost wholly unacquainted with the principles of 

 physical science now known and applied to locomotion, manufac- 

 tures, and all the needs of daily life. In some branches of 

 philosophy, such as deductive logic, ethics, and metaphysics, 

 their great thinkers have left works which will be valuable for all 

 time ; but physical science they either neglected altogether, or 

 else they employed wrong methods in its cultivation, so that the 

 conclusions at which they arrived were worthless. A sketch of 

 the history of Greek philosophy, from Thales to Aristotle, shows 

 how differently the ancients and the moderns approach the study 

 of the laws of nature. The first man who deserves the title of 

 "man of science" is Archimedes, 300 b.c. Between the time of 

 Archimedes and the 7th century, a.d., some few discoveries were 

 made, but from that time till the middle of the 16th century, 

 science was at a standstill. In the " dark ages " few people had 

 any knowledge, and those that had any wanted enlightenment to 

 enable them to use it. By degrees the idea of liberty in the 

 State, in religion, and in knowledge grew up, and by the time 

 that Lord Bacon wrote his ' Novum Orgaiium,' the world was 

 prepared for a change in the methods of enquiry. Already 

 Copernicus had laid the foundations of the new astronomy, 

 and Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo, were all at work during 

 some part of the period covered by Bacon's life, 1561-162G. In 

 IGi'A Newton was born, and from the latter half of the 17th 

 century to the present day, the progress of science has been 

 uninterrupted. In the days of Galileo there was some reason 

 for the expectation that bigotry, by the aid of persecution, might 

 stifle enquiry, and perpetuate the ignorance that served the 

 purpose of the bigots. But all such hope has happily long 

 ceased to exist, except in the minds of those who are intel- 

 lectually on the level of the opponents of knowledge three 

 hundred years ago. The torch kindled in the 16th century 

 has been passed from hand to hand, and each generation has 

 entrusted it to the next, blazing with a far brighter light than 

 when it received it from its predecessor. "When this great 



