ORIGINS OF SCIENCE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 29 



was long supposed to be the case. Its most unique feature 

 was the receptivity of the primitive Hellene to the legacy of 

 the ancient East and his capacity to make this legacy his 

 own. 15 



The distinctive accomplishments of the three antecedent 

 civilizations had been practical and materialistic. Despite 

 their diversified attainments, the analytical quality appears 

 to have been lacking in both Egypt and Mesopotamia. Of 

 the Minoan culture we know little in this regard, because the 

 inscriptions are, as yet, mainly undecipherable. The im- 

 portance of the Hellenic culture in relation to science lies in 

 its philosophical analysis of natural phenomena, including 

 those of human social organization. Explanation of the 

 physical universe, which is now the function of natural 

 science, was first seriously attempted by the Greek philos- 

 ophers. Their intellectual superiority lay in their ability to 

 generalize and to abstract. Hard thinking and close reason- 

 ing were distinctive traits. These appear in their art, their 

 literature, their philosophy and their science. They general- 

 ized and grasped the principles that lie behind the products 

 of human eyes and hands. They showed an ability to 

 separate meaning from existence. Nothing approaching 

 their capacity for abstraction appears in the records of ante- 

 cedent civilizations, unless the monotheism of the Hebrews 

 can be taken as an example of a similar capacity within the 

 ethical field. In any history of science, the Greek is of over- 

 shadowing importance because of his scientific turn of mind. 16 



15 We seem to see a race suddenly coming to its own "False, boastful and 

 licentious perhaps, but with a sense of beauty, a confident joy in life, a warmth 

 of affection that bespeak a gallant, vigorous, open-minded, conquering people, 

 a people of extraordinarily brilliant original intellectual endowment, tempered 

 and purified by the rigors of the North, and then placed in a land of glorious 

 beauty, where the wine-dark sea brought the trade and knowledge of the 

 world to their doors, where the climate smiled upon their fortified homesteads, 

 where abundant slaves made life easy, and gave leisure for the growth of the 

 highest forms of philosophy, literature and art." Whetham, loc. cit., p. 33. 



18 Mahaffy, J. P., "What Have the Greeks Done for Modern Civilization?", 

 Chap. VIII. 



