i8 GREEK SCIENCE AND 



it was without instrumental aids and thus could not reach 

 the degree of precision attained by Modern Science. 

 >But this answer does but beg the question and gives 

 * a. very partial view of the difference between the 

 two systems. The whole question is why had they no 

 instruments of precision ? Instruments of precision, like 

 the observations made with their aid, are themselves 

 a product of the scientific method, and the point in 

 discussion is why that scientific method failed in one 

 case and succeeded in the other. We shall, therefore, 

 perhaps get a clearer answer if we apply the scientific 

 method itself to the subject of our discussion and turn 

 from discourse concerning the nature and history of 

 Ancient and of Modern Science to actual observations 

 upon the systems. Let us therefore consider examples 

 of the two methods concretely. 



Now recent Science has developed a characteristic 

 mode of expression in the so-called Journal, a periodi- 

 cal issue of memoirs on special and very narrow 

 problems. Such articles or memoirs have a character- 

 istic and almost constant structure which we may briefly 

 examine : The author of the memoir having stated his 

 problem reviews the efforts made by others to solve it. 

 He points out their errors or he decides to accept their 

 work and to base his own upon it. Perhaps he distrusts 

 their experimentsor would like to reinterpret their results. 

 Having surveyed their labours he proceeds to detail his 

 own experiments and observations. Finally, he gives 

 us his deductions from these. 



But he is not able to tell us of all his experiments 

 and observations. If he did, scientific literature would 

 be even more bulky than it already is and Science would 

 quickly perish, suffocated under the dead weight of its 

 own verbosity. Our author, in fact, omits a great many 



