76 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



forms. Thus it was the Teuton, observant, pains- 

 taking, sure, who created modern science, which still 

 remains chiefly a Teutonic achievement. 



Even the Teutons, by the manifestation of their 

 typical genius, may be subdivided. For example, in 

 English history, the Saxons of the south and middle 

 west have most often excelled in administration and 

 imaginative literature, and it is to the Angles and 

 Danes of the east and north-east that we must turn 

 for the most frequent output of scientific ability. The 

 small, dark, indigenous race of the west have been 

 singularly barren of original scientific achievement. 



But, in early mediaeval times, all this was still in 

 the womb of the future ; there was as yet little sign 

 of the birth of modern science. The great work of 

 that age was preparation, the consolidation of nations, 

 in which afterwards knowledge might develop in 

 accordance with the special genius of each people. 

 The traditional Latin culture survived in part in 

 countries where it had taken root, and permeated 

 slowly those which successively made their way into 

 the European comity. But, for some centuries, little 

 save this local tradition came over from the past. 

 For eight hundred years Greek was almost an un- 

 known language in the West, and Greek and Roman 

 learning but the faint trickle which found a tortuous 

 path through the late Latin writers of compendiums, 

 and the interpretations which mediaeval minds, satu- 

 rated with theological preconceptions, put in their 

 turn upon the views of those Latins. 



In Italy, which might have given the best field for 

 direct contact of old and new, the population had 

 been corrupted too long and too completely by alien 



