VI SCIENCE AND CULTURE 151 



pious persons, worthy of all respect, favour us 

 with allocutions upon the sadness of the antagon- 

 ism of science to their mediaeval way of thinking, 

 which betray an ignorance of the first principles 

 of scientific investigation, an incapacity for under- 

 standing what a man of science means by veracity, 

 and an unconsciousness of the weight of estab- 

 lished scientific truths, which is almost comical. 



There is no great force in the tu quoque argu- 

 ment, or else the advocates of scientific education 

 might fairly enough retort upon the modern 

 Humanists that they may be learned specialists, 

 but that they possess no such sound foundation 

 for a criticism of life as deserves the name of 

 culture. And, indeed, if we were disposed to be 

 cruel, we might urge that the Humanists have 

 brought this reproach upon themselves, not 

 because they are too full of the spirit of the 

 ancient Greek, but because they lack it. 



The period of the Renascence is commonly 

 called that of the " Revival of Letters," as if the 

 influences then brought to bear upon the mind of 

 Western Europe had been wholly exhausted in 

 the field of literature. I think it is very 

 commonly forgotten that the revival of science, 

 effected by the same agency, although less con- 

 spicuous, was not less momentous. 



In fact, the few and scattered students of 

 nature of that day picked up the clue to her 

 secrets exactly as it fell from the hands of the 



