52 THE AIM AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 



Once more we have to distinguish the " secular conative 

 process " here initiated from Science. That the Greeks collected 

 material indispensable to the structure of Science is not to be 

 disputed, whatever estimate we adopt of the actual value of 

 their achievements on the whole and in detail. As a result of 

 recent research that estimate has undoubtedly tended to rise.* 

 We^an no longer accuse them of an entire neglect of physical 

 experiment, and. the late Professor Huxley, after a careful 

 . consideration of the existing records, arrived at " a very favour- 

 able estimate of the oldest anatomical investigations among" 

 them.f Burnet has, moreover, defended the hastiness with 

 which hypotheses were advanced upon the warrant of a very 

 slender bridge of facts, regarding this haste as naturally 

 characteristic of early undisciplined enthusiasm, and retorting 

 effectively that the same fault is by no means absent from 

 the history of modern investigation.}: -Finally, Jowett has 

 attributed to these " general notions " a positive value, regarding 

 them as " necessary to the apprehension ofjDarticular facts . . . 

 Before men can observe the world, they must be able to conceive 



it.- 



Against these apologies it must be maintained that, with 

 certain exceptions that hardly affect the argument, the 

 "scientific" achievements of the Greek thinkers were simply 

 incidental to the search for the " abiding reality " which is the 

 predominant characteristic of the whole intellectual movement. 

 This which was true of Milesian Nature-philosophy, was still 

 more obviously true when their speculations gave place to the 

 " moralised " conceptual investigations in Being and Becoming 

 of Heraclitus and his Eleatic opponents. We must maintain 

 the same of Empedocles, though he " anticipated " the theory 



* See Mach, Science of Mechanics, 2nd Eng. ed., App. I. 

 t On certain Errors attributed to Aristotle in Science and Culture, 

 p. 193. 



| Burnet, op. cit., p. 26. 



Introduction to the Timaeus : Dialogues, iv, p. 416. 



