62 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



must turn to the influence which displaced that of 

 Origen. 



As we have seen, the older Greek philosophies were 

 founded frankly on observation of the visible world. 

 With Socrates and Plato the enquiry took a deeper 

 turn, and moved from questions of fact to those of 

 reality, from natural to metaphysical philosophy of 

 an idealistic and mystical tendency : " the Greek 

 mind became entranced with its own creations." To 

 Plato, external facts, whether of nature or of human 

 life and history, only become real when apprehended by 

 the mind. Their true meaning must lie in that aspect 

 of them that accords with the mind's consistent scheme 

 of concepts, for thus alone can the facts be thought 

 of, and therefore thus alone can they be. The 

 inconceivable is in truth the impossible. 



Such a philosophy clearly could not foster accurate 

 and unprejudiced observation of nature or of history. 

 The structure of the Universe had to conform to 

 the ideas of Platonic philosophy ; history was in its 

 essence a means of vivifying argument or of pointing 

 illustration. 



Aristotle was more interested in the observation 

 of nature than was Plato, though it was in metaphysic 

 and logic rather than in science that his greatest 

 strength lay. But Aristotle's influence, great though 

 it was, gradually ceased to be dominant, and by the 

 sixth century had passed out of fashion for seven 

 hundred years. We shall be brought back to Aristotle 

 at a later stage of our enquiry, but for the present we 

 may pass on. 



The philosophy of the Stoics was especially suited 

 to the Roman mind, and must not be overlooked in 



