February 9, 1922] 



NATURE 



169 



ortrayed with the arrows of a hunter in their sides, 

 rV>rmed part of a ritual, and were meant to ensure 

 1 successful hunt." The incised sketches on bones 

 ound in the earth of the floor of the caves were 

 robably in some cases the preliminary studies for 

 :ie work on the walls and roof. 



The volume is illustrated by forty-seven plates, 



f which we reproduce one (Fig. i) showing a 



election of incised drawings from the caves of 



Dordogne and Cantabria. All these plates are well 



vlescribed, but they would have proved more useful 



f they had been referred to in the text. In this 



!:d other respects, indeed, the editing of the volume 



leaves much to be desired, but the work is a unique 



addition to the literature of prehistoric archaeology, 



and cannot fail soon to reach a second edition, 



which will afi"ord an opportunity for some useful 



revision. A. S. W. 



The Science of Ancient Greece. 



The Legacy of Greece. Edited by R. W. Living- 

 stone. Pp. xii + 424. (Oxford: Clarendon 

 Press, 1 92 1.) 75. dd. net. 



THIS book redresses, in a remarkable way the 

 injustice done to Ancient Greece in most 

 popular works on the subject. Reference to any 

 short history now in use, such as Bury's, or even to 

 such a fine work as " Hellenica " of the last genera- 

 tion, will show that the author finds " the legacy 

 of Greece " in the city-founding activities of the 

 Greeks, and, above all, in the internecine con- 

 flicts of the cities in their prime, with some short 

 reference to the Periclean ideal and the philosophic 

 differences of Plato and Aristotle. There is 

 little about literature, less about art, and nothing at 

 all about science. Mr. Livingstone, in planning this 

 volume, has deliberately and rightly set himself to 

 correct this and to put the really substantive achieve- 

 ment of the Greeks in the realm of thought in its 

 due place. The result is that a good third of the 

 book is given to science, and if we include Prof. 

 Burnet's article on Philosophy, which shows its con- 

 nection with science, we get a larger proportion 

 still. It is most welcome evidence of a change of 

 mind in the university which stands more than any 

 other among us for Greek studies. 



The eff'ect is amazing to those accustomed to the 

 old and mainly political outlook, and it will be very 

 wholesome. We see that in every branch of science, 

 in biology and medicine as much as in mathematics, 

 the Greeks laid the foundations on which mankind 

 has built ever since. Sir T. L. Heath well brings this 

 out in his article on Mathematics and Astronomy, 

 which is a complete review of the Greek work from 

 Thales to Diophantus ; while Dr. Singer is equally 

 NO. 2728, VOL. 109] 



full on Biology and Medicine. The reader will 

 probably share one impression which was borne in 

 strongly on the present reviewer. The writers who 

 describe the newly admitted branches of the legacy of 

 Greece are so full of their subjects, and so eager to 

 display their richness and wonders, that their essays 

 suffer somewhat in comparison with those which deal 

 more allusively with the more familiar topics. 

 Hence the most readable papers, which leave the 

 clearest impression, are Prof. Burnet's on Philo- 

 sophy, Mr. Livingstone's on Literature, and Mr. 

 Percy Gardiner's on " The Lamps of Greek Art." 

 These are altogether admirable ; the leading features 

 are emphasised, and no attempt is made to be 

 exhaustive. 



But the fault — if it be a fault — in the essays on 

 science is entirely in the right direction. We have 

 here for the first time in a compendious form the 

 main steps of the Greek construction in mathematics, 

 astronomy, biology, and medicine, and the book is 

 well worth buying for this part of it alone. A 

 charming essay by Prof. D'Arcy Thompson on the 

 Science of Aristotle adds to the attractiveness of the 

 volume, but somewhat disturbs the balance of 

 Dr. Singer's excellent articles on biology and medi- 

 cine as a whole. 



The supreme merit of the book is that it 

 puts in unmistakable prominence the intellectual 

 quality of the Greek mind in its prime, its desire to 

 know, and its power of arranging the material it 

 acquired in that connected form which we call scien- 

 tific. This is equally salient on the mathematical 

 and the biological side. Sir T. L. Heath shows us 

 how the Greek philosophers had quite early hit on 

 the fundamental equations in geometry ; within the 

 seven hundred years of their flourishing they had 

 founded trigonometry through the necessities of their 

 astronomy, anticipated the integral calculus by their 

 method of exhaustions, and laid the basis of algebra 

 in the first generalised notation of Diophantus. In 

 the sciences of life Aristotle had given the first 

 rational classification of living things and an incom- 

 parable mass of faithful and detailed description ; 

 while the sound principles of Hippocrates in the 

 fifth century in tracing health and illness to natural 

 causes were far in advance of medical theory and 

 practice until the revival of science a thousand years 

 later. It is by these achievements, more than by 

 any other, that the Greeks still rule us from their 

 tombs, and we are deeply grateful to Mr. Living- 

 stone and his coadjutors for putting them in such a 

 clear light without ignoring the due proportion of 

 political theory, art, and psychological philosophy. 

 The well-chosen illustrations add greatly to the 

 value of the volume. F. S. Marvin. 



