SCIENCE AND PROGRESS 



the shrines of a hundred saints." It is interesting 

 reading. 



We may agree with Draper in his lament over 

 this degrading influence, and applaud his eloquent 

 denunciations of what he terms the Patristic spirit. 

 But I do not share his belief that here was the suf- 

 ficient cause of the Dark Time. The influence of 

 the Christian Church was evil, incomparably evil. 

 We are not out from under its baleful effects 

 yet. But if the right conditions had been present, 

 it would never have prevailed. The theological 

 spirit is with us still ; in point of mere numbers it 

 is immeasurably stronger than ever. But there is 

 now a balancing force. It was numbers that en- 

 lightenment lacked. It has them now. The eclipse 

 of science was due to the fact that its adherents, its 

 exponents, were too few. They were lost. 



Consider for a moment that the Greek spirit was 

 supreme for eight or ten centuries. From Thales 

 to Ptolemy and Galen is a longer period by half 

 than from the discovery of America to our own day. 

 Consider the meagre list of great men of science, 

 and the scantiness of their results, compared with 

 the long roll that begins with Roger Bacon and 

 ends not with Darwin. 



Science in the old days lacked numbers. It 

 lacked them because in the old order of society it 

 had no solid means of support. The old order of 



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