58 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



original stimulus. At Alexandria, a school of thought 

 arose, influenced alike by Hellenic culture and Jewish, 

 mingled with Babylonian, tradition. It must be re- 

 membered that but a small, and relatively unim- 

 portant, number of the Jews returned to Palestine 

 after the close of the Babylonian captivity, and that 

 many of the rest of the nation, establishing them- 

 selves as traders in the cities of Asia Minor and the 

 Levant, formed a network of communication, com- 

 mercial, political and intellectual, throughout the 

 East. Alexandria was the commercial, as Jerusalem 

 remained the religious, centre of this scattered but 

 most influential community. It was by their means 

 that much of the Greek influence retained its vitality, 

 and took part in the formation of thought in the 

 early Christian churches. The ideas of Plato thus 

 passed into the Christian philosophy, and became 

 current in mediaeval Europe long before their origin 

 was suspected by the schoolmen, who were afterwards 

 amazed to find the familiar doctrine imbedded in the 

 works of the heathen philosophers. Then, too, when 

 the natural line of descent failed in the fall of Rome, 

 the ancient learning found a way into the schools of 

 mediaeval Europe through the Moorish dominions 

 and the Arab conquerors of Spain, who themselves 

 obtained it from Alexandria. 



