X 



A RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE AT CLASSICAL 

 SCIENCE 



IT is a favorite tenet of the modern historian that 

 history is a continuous stream : The contention 

 has fullest warrant. Sharp lines of demarcation are 

 an evidence of man's analytical propensity rather 

 than the work of nature. Nevertheless it would be 

 absurd to deny that the stream of history presents 

 an ever- vary ing current. There are times when it 

 seems to rush rapidly on; times when it spreads out 

 into a broad seemingly static current; times when 

 its catastrophic changes remind us of nothing but a 

 gigantic cataract. Rapids and whirlpools, broad est- 

 uaries and tumultuous cataracts are indeed part of 

 the same stream, but they are parts that vary one 

 from another in their salient features in such a way as 

 to force the mind to classify them as things apart and 

 give them individual names. 



So it is with the stream of history ; however strongly 

 we insist on its continuity we are none the less forced 

 to recognize its periodicity. It may not be desirable 

 to fix on specific dates as turning-points to the extent 

 that our predecessors were wont to do. We may not, 

 for example, be disposed to admit that the Roman 

 Empire came to any such cataclysmic finish as the 

 year 476 A.D., when cited in connection with the over- 



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