SCIENCE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 35 



which, even from the earliest times, was untrammelled 

 by all theological preconceptions. 



The beginnings of mediaeval philosophy and science 

 had to work under the hampering condition of a re- 

 ligious system of cast-iron dogma, which completely 

 dominated the thoughts of all men, even those working 

 at other problems, and supplied to all physical and 

 biological questions, as well as to those of metaphysics 

 and theology, an interpretation not to be gainsaid. 

 Hence, in the Middle Ages and at the Renaissance, 

 philosophy and science had to struggle for freedom 

 almost before they could begin their struggle for 

 existence. 



In the growth of Greek natural philosophy the 

 circumstances were different. All things are com- 

 parative. Outward obstacles, of course, were not 

 wanting. Anaxagoras was driven from Athens as 

 an atheist, and the same charge was one of the counts 

 in the indictment of Socrates. Aristophanes could 

 not refrain his inimitable jesting at the expense of the 

 physical speculations current in his day. If as 

 nothing compared with the universal and vigilant 

 outward oppression and inward scrutiny of the Roman 

 Church, and later of its Inquisition, these obstacles 

 doubtless had a very real effect. 



But, in the Middle Ages, a barrier to the birth and 

 development of rational ideas of nature greater than 

 the persuasions of the rack and the stake must be 

 recognized in the inevitable mental attitude even of 

 the physical enquirers themselves. The mediaeval 

 mind was completely dominated by the ideas of a 

 theology formulated in the last classical ages, and 

 crystallized into greater definiteness and rigidity by the 



