2 ESSAYS BIOGRAPHICAL AND CHEMICAL 



idea of the condition of life in the centuries before the 

 Christian era, in so far as pursuit of science is concerned. 

 Even with the example of adjoining nations, whose 

 prosperity is in great part due to the attention they 

 have paid to the cultivation of scientific knowledge, the 

 Turks and the Moors display a total lack of interest. 

 Much less, then, could people such as those be expected 

 to show any eagerness in the discovery of Nature's 

 secrets. 



Yet from time to time there have been minds who 

 refused to accept the daily drudgery of life as sufficient 

 for their needs. Questions such as : Whence did this 

 world arise ? What does it consist of ? What will be its 

 ultimate fate ? perplexed them, as they perplex us ; and 

 in an endeavour to answer questions like these, scientific 

 discovery was begun. Many nations, however, were 

 instructed by the priests of their religion that it is 

 impious to make such inquiries ; and it is not until the 

 era of the early Greek civilisation, when the current 

 mythology had ceased to retain its hold on abler minds, 

 that we find any serious attempt to grapple with funda- 

 mental problems like those stated. But even among the 

 Greeks we meet with a disinclination to take trouble 

 about matters which were imagined to have little if any 

 relation to human affairs; even Socrates, one of their 

 greatest thinkers, taught that it was foolish to abandon 

 those things which more nearly concern man for 

 things external to him. Plato, who chronicled the sayings 

 of Socrates, wrote in the seventh book of the Republic : 

 1 We shall pursue astronomy with the help of problems, 

 just as we pursue geometry; but if it is our desire to 

 become acquainted with the true nature of astronomy, 

 we shall let the heavenly bodies alone.' And he states 

 in another place, that even if we were to ascertain these 

 things, we could neither alter the course of the stars, 



