242 PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



illustrates ? What chemical doctrine rests for its support on the 

 phenomena of gunpowder, or glass, or steel ? What new harmonical 

 truth was illustrated in the Gregorian chant? What mechanical 

 principle unknown to Archimedes was displayed in the printing-press ? 

 The practical value and use, the ingenuity and skill of these inventions 

 is not questioned ; but what is their place in the history of speculative 

 knowledge ? Even in those cases in which they enter into such a 

 history, how minute a figure do they make ! how great is the contrast 

 between their practical and theoretical importance ! They may in 

 their operation have changed the face of the world ; but in the history 

 of the principles of the sciences to which they belong, they may be 

 omitted without beino- missed. 



As to that part of the objection which was stated by asking, why, 

 if the arts of our age prove its scientific eminence, the arts of the 

 middle ages should not be received as proof of theirs ; we must reply 

 to it, by giving up some of the pretensions which are often put for- 

 wards on behalf of the science of our times. The perfection of the 

 mechanical and other arts among us proves the advanced condition of 

 our sciences, only in so far as these arts have been perfected by the 

 application of some great scientific truth, with a clear insight into its 

 nature. The greatest improvement of the steam-engine was due to 

 the steady apprehension of an atmological doctrine by Watt ; but 

 what distinct theoretical principle is illustrated by the beautiful man- 

 ufactures of porcelain, or steel, or glass ? A chemical view of these 

 compounds, which would explain the conditions of success and failure 

 in their manufacture, would be of great value in art ; and it would also 

 be a novelty in chemical theory ; so little is the present condition of 

 those processes a triumph of science, shedding intellectual glory on 

 our age. And the same might be said of many, or of most, of the 

 processes of the arts as now practised. 



2. Arabian Science. — Having, I trust, established the view I have 

 stated, respecting the relation of Art and Science, we shall be able 

 very rapidly to dispose of a number of subjects which otherwise might 

 seem to require a detailed notice. Though this distinction has been 

 recognized by others, it has hardly been rigorously adhered to, in con- 

 sequence of the indistinct notion of science which has commonly pre- 

 vailed. Thus Gibbon, in speaking of the knowledge of the period now 

 under our notice, says, 1 " Much useful experience had been acquired in 



1 Decline and Fail, vol. x. p. 43. 



