DISCOVERY 



A MONTHLY POPULAR 

 JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE 



Vol. in, No. 26. FEBRUARY 1922. 



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DISCOVERY. A Monthly Popular Journal of Know- the geometrist and astronomer, returned from Egypt, 



ledge. 



Edited by Edward Liveing, B.A., Rothersthorpe, 

 Northampton, to whom all Editorial Communications 

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 act as Scientific Adviser.) 



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Editorial Notes 



The presidential address delivered at the general 

 meeting of the Classical Association held early in 

 January was a fine summary of what both scholars and 

 scientists have lately come to see more clearly than 

 was the case not long ago, nameh', that there is no 

 essential antagonism between science and the classics, 

 and that their combination in education is fruitful of 

 the best results. We feel that Lord Milner expressed 

 what is a steadily growing belief amongst our leading 

 men of intellect when he said that " all modem science 

 had its roots in the classics, and, on the other hand, 

 no man imbued with the spirit of the great classical 

 writers could be lacking in respect for science or fail 

 to recognise its supreme importance to the progress 

 of mankind." Another, and to our mind extremely 

 important, point in Lord Milner 's address — important 

 because of its bearing on the present international 

 problems — ^was his insistence on the vast share of 

 Greece and Rome in the fabric of European civilisa- 

 tion. 



^ :{; ;ic :*: :{: 



With regard to Lord Milner's first point, this can 

 be illustrated simply enough. We know, of course, 

 that the Babylonians and Egyptians possessed rudi- 

 mentary' mathematical ideas, but it was the Greeks 

 who after the early sixth centurv' B.C., when Thales, 



developed those ideas into a complex theoretical as 

 well as practical science. Again, no modem student 

 of Natural Science will deny his debt to Aristotle, and 

 doctors recognise that the main origins of their art 

 spring from the writings of Hippocrates, who lived in 

 the fifth century B.C. These are merely a few obvious 

 examples. For a full account by well-known scieit- 

 tific and scholastic experts of the extent of our debt 

 to the early Greek "scientists," we refer our readers 

 to a recently published book. The Legacy of Greece.^ 

 To appreciate the stupendous achievement of the 

 Greeks, we need to take a bird's-eye view of the 

 world's history. Man had existed on the earth for 

 several million years before their appearance. He 

 had existed, sometimes as in Eg\-pt, with a certain 

 degree of nebulous questioning as to his existence 

 that resulted in fantastic religions ; but on the whole, 

 existence without too much questioning had been 

 sufficient for him. Now the Greeks started to probe 

 the problem of existence very thoroughly, and from 

 what knowledge they possessed to formulate and test 

 theories about the origin of life, the soul, the earth, 

 the heavens, etc. In their resultant discussions 

 and writings they laid the foundations of what we 

 modems call " science." 



***** 



This questioning spirit of the Greeks laid not only 

 the foundations of science, but of Westem civilisa- 

 tion. Let us for the moment still keep our bird's-eye 

 view. As Professor Gilbert Murray " has lately pointed 

 out : "In the total age of the world or of man the 

 two thousand odd years between us and Pericles do 

 not count for much. . . . Yet in a sense the world 

 was 5'oimg then, at any rate our Western world, the 

 world of progress and humanity. For the beginnings 

 of nearly all the great things that progressive minds 

 now care for were then being laid in Greece." 

 That is just it. Our vaunted "civilisation," which 

 has marked Europe and modem America from the 



1 Edited by R. W. Livingstone and published by the Claren- 

 don Press, Oxford, 192 1, 7s. 6d. 



2 In his introductory contribution to The Legacy of Greece 

 on The Value of Greece to the Future of the World. 



29 



