34 



NATURE 



[January 12, 1922 



history (though they were afterwards superseded by 

 childish ideas), and the first phase of the history of 

 thought upon organic evolution began with early 

 Greek philosophers in the seventh century before the 

 opening of our era, while its effects on Christian 

 theology and Arabic philosophy were felt for more 

 than two thousand years. Acquaintance with these 

 and other achievements of Greek genius should be 

 part of the intellectual equipment of every educated 

 man, and the science student can find even more to 

 admire in that wonderful age than can the purely 

 literary scholar. 



While, however, we hold the philosophers of 

 Greek antiquity in highest honour, it must be con- 

 fessed that the whole of Greek natural knowledge 

 has little bearing upon the principles, methods, and 

 practice of modern science. Scarcely a scientific 

 work of to-day contains a reference to contributions 

 to the subject by Greek philosophers, and their 

 guesses or observations may be said to be disregarded 

 by scientific discoverers generally. While the mathe- 

 matician esteems the achievement of Euclid and the 

 investigations of Archimedes, and the physician finds 

 much to admire in the works attributed to Hippo- 

 crates, the chemist and experimental biologist are 

 disposed to regard Greek speculation on their respec- 

 tive subjects as fruitless. Indeed, from the point 

 of view of practical chemistry, it would be more 

 reasonable to study Arabic literature than Greek. The 

 creative genius of the early Greeks is undoubted, 

 but its results are negligible in comparison with the 

 work of modern science. 



The value of acquaintance with Greek learning is 

 not in the material knowledge itself, but in the spirit 

 which created it. The Greeks possessed to a high 

 degree the spirit of scientific curiosity and the desire 

 to find a natural explanation for the origin and exist- 

 ence of things which is the ground motive of progress 

 in science. The aim of Greek thought was the unifi- 

 cation of disconnected knowledge. This laid .the 

 foundation of synthetic science, but carried with it 

 the tendency to reduce natural phenomena to a rigid 

 geometrical or logical system. It is possible that 

 the modern science student would be all the better if 

 given a trend in the same direction, as experimental 

 inquiry alone is apt to be narrow and must be special- 

 ised. Even neglecting this philosophical aspect of 

 science, the early Greeks manifested supremely the 

 characteristics of true apostles of science. Passion- 

 ate regard for truth, disinterested research, imagina- 

 tion, acute reasoning, and creative intelligence were 

 the essence of the Greek spirit, and they are elements 

 of the unalterable germ-plasm which transmits the 

 scientific temper throughout the ages. Because 

 NO. 2724, VOL. 109] 



inspiration and constructive thought are necessary to 

 the student of natural knowledge, the writings of 

 Greek philosophers cannot be neglected by him with- 

 out detriment to his intellectual equipment. 



It is the human side of Greek thought and action 

 that the science student should know, and the scien- 

 tific facts themselves- are ancillary to it as a means 

 of training. Science as studied in most schools is 

 a spiritless performance and has not that contact 

 with human nature required to make it appeal to 

 most pupils. Attention to the history of great scien- 

 tific discoveries may perhaps tend to counteract the 

 conception of science as a mere repository of facts 

 and a vocational study. Greek philosophy can use- 

 fully take an important place in such a course, but 

 consideration must be given to the most appropriate 

 stage at which to introduce it. It is now generally 

 agreed that there should be no specialisation of 

 studies below the age of about sixteen years, so 

 that up to this stage all students should have formed 

 the same foundations of a general education, in- 

 cluding both the literary and the scientific elements. 

 If the preliminary training thus received in classics 

 enabled an average pupil to read original Greek 

 texts by sixteen years of age, the value of this 

 attainment to the student who then proposes to 

 devote himself mainly to science cannot be doubted. 

 As, however, such proficiency is rare, it would 

 appear that the case for the teaching of Greek or 

 Latin holds chiefly for those who propose to con- 

 tinue the study to an advanced stage, and that for 

 students who propose to specialise in other directions 

 preliminary instruction which is necessarily trun- 

 cated serves no very useful purpose. 



A subject of study should be considered as an 

 instrument of service — mentally, morally, and 

 materially — as a working part of the machinery of 

 life. If the preliminary training in classics cannot 

 reach this stage of attainment for science students, 

 then obviously it would be better to absorb the spirit 

 of Greece through translations than to spend time 

 at what must prove a vain study so far as reading 

 original' texts with intelligence is concerned. No 

 student who proposes to devote himself to science 

 could hope to render Aristotle into English in the 

 style of the translation now being published by the 

 Clarendon Press under the editorship of Mr. W. D. 

 Ross, or of Sir Arthur Hort's translation of the 

 " Enquiry into Plants " from the Greek of Theo- 

 phrastus published in the Loeb Classical Library, 

 to mention two instances only. Whatever may be 

 urged as to the value of the study of the classics 

 to science students must refer chiefly to the sub- 

 stance of the best works in these languages, and 

 that can be gained from translations. 



