SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION 



pense of warrior's virtues. Even late in the mid- 

 dle ages, most of the " noble " heroes were con- 

 tent to leave the despised art of letters to monks 

 and physically weak bookworms. 



On the economic field, production lagged along 

 in its feudal slowness, without stimulating the in- 

 vention of labor-saving machinery, of improved 

 methods of cultivation, or of scientific instruments 

 and processes. Alchemy and astrology occasion- 

 ally stumbled across some great discovery, but 

 did not know what to do with it when they found 

 it. The stone of the wise, the elixir of life, the 

 making of gold by laboratory methods, the idea 

 that phlogiston, or fire-air, was the cause of fire, 

 these and similar things mark the scientific meth- 

 ods on which the philosophy of the middle ages 

 based its speculations, which never dared to de- 

 viate very far from the religious dogma. 



Communication and travel were very difficult 

 and dangerous. Marco Polo, in 1271, was the 

 first great traveler who sought to popularize the 

 results of his travels. Enlightenment inevitably 

 took a religious disguise, as before. This is evi- 

 dent, for instance, in the anti-papal movement of 

 Arnold of Brescia in the middle of the I2th 

 century, and in the struggle of the humanists 

 against the obscurantists in the I5th and i6th 



40 



