34 



NATURE 



[September 8, 192 1 



year by year in different parts of the king- 

 dom in order to direct attention to scientific 

 work and stimulate local effort and sup- 

 port. Only a relatively small proportion of 

 the population of any centre will become 

 members, but a large proportion can appreciate 

 the spirit and service of science and understand 

 the value of scientific knowledge and method in 

 the conduct of provincial and national affairs. The 

 Citizens' Lectures were instituted by the Associa- 

 tion for this purpose, and it would be worth while 

 to arrange for the delivery of a couple of these at, 

 say, five o'clock in the afternoon, in addition to 

 the usual evening lectures. Whatever is done to 

 create interest and belief in scientific aims and 

 work among the general public is to the benefit 

 of science, and it is the privilege of the Associa- 

 tion to fulfil this function. 



An organisation which is approaching the cen- 

 tenary of its foundation cannot readily be modified 

 to make it fit new conditions of vitality, yet the 

 Association is re-shaping itself, and is thus mak- 

 ing itself strong to survive for many years yet as 

 the annual Parliament of science in these islands. 

 The Edinburgh meeting promises to be a memor- 

 able event in a long and worthy record. 



Science in the Middle Ages. 



Mediaeval Contributions to Modern Civilisation: 

 A Series of Lectures delivered at King's College, 

 University of London. Edited by Prof. F. J. C. 

 Hearnshaw. With a preface by Ernest Barker. 

 Pp. 268. (London and Sydney : George G. 

 Harrap and Co., Ltd., 192 1.) 105. 6d. net. 



PROF. HEARNSHAW has produced a volume 

 of a valuable type which is happily be- 

 coming more and more common. It is a com- 

 posite book, written mainly by professors at 

 King's College, where it was given as lectures 

 last winter, and the various chapters hang more 

 or less closely together as an account of the debt 

 which the modern world owes to the Middle Ages. 

 This is a conception of history which has gained 

 ground in recent years, and is specially connected 

 with the name of Benedetto Croce. We are 

 coming to see that, as history is a living thing, and 

 the present nothing but tl]e realisation of the past, 

 that part of the past deserves our most serious 

 attention of which we can say with most assurance 

 that it lives and moves in and around us to-day. 



Prof. Hearnshaw has applied this conception to 

 the work of the Middle Ages — i.e. to the millennium 

 lying, broadly speaking, between the fifth and the 

 NO. 2706, VOL. 108] 



fifteenth centuries of the Christian era. He has 

 selected writers who deal with religion, philo- 

 sophy, science, art, poetry, education, society, 

 economics, and politics. The range is compre- 

 hensive. One feels that the choice of contributors 

 might with advantage have been somewhat more 

 comprehensive also. One would have welcomed 

 Dr. A. J. Carlyle on. the political theories and 

 political activities of the Middle Ages, and no one 

 would have spoken with more acceptance than 

 Prof. W. V. Ker on the literary aspect of the 

 period, though Sir Israel Gollancz has, of course, 

 treated the English contribution with his usual 

 mastery. The editor has, in fact, adhered a little 

 too closely to the staff of his own college. But we 

 are deeply grateful for what he has given us, and 

 in particular for the two studies on the art and 

 science of the Middle Ages by Dr. Percy Dearmer 

 and Dr. Charles Singer. The latter is one of 

 those happily added from outside to the King's 

 College team, and his contribution specially con- 

 cerns the readers of Nature. 



It is perhaps strange that the essay on 

 " Science " in the medieval world — the department 

 of human thought in which unquestionably the 

 Middle Ages added least to modern civilisation — 

 should stand out so prominently in this volume as 

 a model of learning well arranged, judgment 

 soundly exercised, and progress clearly exhibited. 

 Yet this is so, and Dr. Singer's paper appears 

 to us worthy of some slight enlargement and 

 publication as a separate work. 



He strikes the right keynote within the first 

 four pages. "Medievalism," from the point of 

 view of science, " was a slow process by which the 

 human mind, without consciously increasing the 

 stock of phenomenal knowledge, sank slowly into 

 an increasing ineptitude." It reached a nadir 

 about the tenth century, and after this may be 

 discerned a slow ascent; but the date for the end 

 of medieval and the birth of modern science is 

 fixed by the point when men interested in pheno- 

 mena, and especially physicists, began to look 

 to the future rather than to the past. The essential 

 bases of the new movement, which became definite 

 towards the middle of the sixteenth century, are 

 hope in mankind and the idea of progress. The 

 medieval period is the thousand years which pre- 

 ceded this and foljowed the downfall of the 

 Western Empire. 



Dr. Singer maps out this millennium admirably 

 in the chronological table which concludes the 

 essay. There was first the "Dark Age" proper, 

 extending from the fifth century to the end of the 

 ninth, from Martianus Capella to Erigena. Then 

 came the intermediate and transitional age of 



