VI SCIENCE AND CULTURE 14? 



quisite for the satisfaction of everyday wants 

 should have any bearing on human life was far 

 from the thoughts of men thus trained. Indeed, 

 as nature had been cursed for man's sake, it was 

 an obvious conclusion that those who meddled with 

 nature were likely to come into pretty close contact 

 with Satan. And, if any born scientific investigator 

 followed his instincts, he might safely reckon upon 

 earning the reputation, and probably upon suffer- 

 ing the fate, of a sorcerer. 



Had the western world been left to itself in 

 Chinese isolation, there is no saying how long this 

 state of things might have endured. But, happily, 

 it was not left to itself. Even earlier than the 

 thirteenth century, the development of Moorish 

 civilisation in Spain and the great movement of 

 the Crusades had introduced the leaven which, 

 from that day to this, has never ceased to work. 

 At first, through the intermediation of Arabic 

 translations, afterwards by the study of the origi- 

 nals, the western nations of Europe became 

 acquainted with the writings of the ancient philo- 

 sophers and poets, and, in time, with the whole of 

 the vast literature of antiquity. 



Whatever there was of high intellectual as- 

 piration or dominant capacity in Italy, France, 

 Germany, and England, spent itself for centuries 

 in taking possession of the rich inheritance left 

 by the dead civilisations of Greece and Rome. 

 Marvellously aided by the invention of printing, 



