x.J SCIENCE OF THE OLD WOELD. 235 



their attempt. The mud-ocean of ignorance and fear 

 in which they struggled so manfully was too strong for 

 them ; the mud- waves closed over their heads finally, 

 as the age of the Antonines expired] and the last 

 effort of GrEeco-Roman thought to explain the universe 

 was Neoplatonism the muddiest of the muddy an 

 attempt to apologise for, and organise into a system, 

 all the nature-dreading superstitions of the Roman 

 world. Porphyry, Plotinus, Proclus, poor Hypatia 

 herself, and all her school they may have had 

 themselves no bodily fear of Nature; for they were 

 noble souls. Yet they spent their time in justifying 

 those who had; in apologising for the superstitions of 

 the very mob which they despised : just as it some- 

 times seems to me some folk in these days are like to 

 end in doing ; begging that the masses might be 

 allowed to believe in anything, however false, lest 

 they should believe in nothing at all : as if believing 

 in lies could do anything but harm to any human 

 being. And so died the science of the old world, in a 

 true second childhood, just where it began. 



The Jewish sages, I hold, taught that science was 

 probable; the Greeks and Romans proved that it was 

 possible. It remained for our race, under the teaching 

 of both, to bring science into act and fact. 



Many causes contributed to give them this power. 

 They were a personally courageous race. This earth 

 has yet seen no braver men than the forefathers of 

 Christian Europe, whether Scandinavian or Teuton, 

 Angle or Frank. They were a practical hard-headed 

 race, with a strong appreciation of facts, and a strong 

 determination to act on them. Their laws, their society, 

 their commerce, their colonisation, their migrations by 



