16 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



tinents of the Old World. The first carriers by sea, acting as inter- 

 mediate agents between the different nations, they exchanged ideas 

 as well as merchandise; their exploration of different countries led 

 to the discovery of new riches; they endowed the West with the 

 products of the East, and the East with the products of the West. 

 They proved to the world that cities can attain a high degree of pros- 

 perity by labour, activity, and economy, and they remain examples of 

 the highest development of purely commercial qualities. Verschoyle. 



THE HEBREWS. South of Phoenicia and lying between the 

 Arabian Desert and the Mediterranean was Palestine : 



The whole literature of the Hebrews is included in the collection 

 of prose and poetry which we call the Bible, or, more accurately, the 

 Old Testament. The simplicity of its narratives, the enthusiasm of 

 its hymns, the joyful or plaintive melody of the psalms, the fiery 

 eloquence of the prophets, place the Bible, independently of its re- 

 ligious and historical importance, high among the great literary 

 monuments of antiquity. Their literature is a proof that the poetic 

 imagination was fully developed amongst the Hebrews, and that the 

 people were deeply thoughtful as well as passionately religious. . . . 

 The Hebrews were not an artistic or an industrial people ; but they 

 possessed an indisputable superiority to all other nations of antiquity 

 in their purely spiritual religion, and in their appreciation of the 

 supreme importance of morals as the proper expression of religion. 

 Religion was their rule of life, the maker of their laws, the pervading 

 spirit of the whole community, as in no other nation before or since. 



Verschoyle. 



THE EMERGENCE OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION. Until very 

 recently little was known of European events before the writings 

 of Herodotus (484-425 B.C.). Within the last half century, how- 

 ever, and largely as a result of the labors of the archaeologists 

 Schliemann and Evans, the existence of a wonderfully rich and 

 complete prehistoric civilization has been revealed on the shores 

 and islands of and near the Greek Peninsula. 



The recent discoveries in Crete have added a new horizon to 

 European civilization. A new standpoint has been at the same time 



