MODERN SCIENCE 21 



for the wprk to be taken up just where the Greeks had 

 left it. w hus Hindu and Arabic mathematical work is 

 vital and real and valuable and has not those stigmata 

 of degeneration to which the historian of Science is so 

 well accustomed in the Biology and Medicine of Indian 

 or Arabian origin. So the story of Mathematics can 

 be told as one continuous progress from early Greek 

 times to our own day. It is true that the scene 

 changes from continent to continent. It is true that 

 progress is sometimes so slow as to be almost inappreci- 

 able. But the progress is there and is continuous, and 

 the historian of Mathematics is able to tell his story as 

 a continuous development of human thought. 



It is of course another question altogether as to 

 whether his task as historian is then complete. It is 

 another question whether he should not rather aim at 

 an account of the mathematical powers, aspirations, and 

 achievements of the human mind as a whole throughout 

 the ages. But the point is that it is possible for him to 

 tell his story as one continuous progress. This is 

 a privilege denied to the historian of Medicine or of 

 Biology. Why ? v/lBecause at many stages the basis of 

 progress, the knowledge of method of investigation, has 

 been concealed and sometimes wantonly concealed. 



O negfthe causes why Chemistry was so long arrested 

 was the_desire of the alchemist to conceal his knowledge. 

 His motives were selfish, personal enrichment or glori- 

 fication by the discovery of the quintessence or of the 

 philosopher's stone. His methods were secret and there- 

 fore his manuscripts are among the most obscure and 

 difficult with which the historian of Science ever has 

 to deal. But the alchemist omitsjiisj>rocesses by choice, 

 the Greek on principle, on the principle that it is the 

 general conclusions that matter and that the processes 



