A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



his discoveries by ''intending" his mind in a certain 

 direction continuously. It is probable that the same 

 explanation may be given of almost every great scien- 

 tific discovery. Anaxagoras could not have thought 

 out the theory of the moon's phases ; Aristarchus could 

 not have found out the true mechanism of the solar 

 system; Eratosthenes could not have developed his 

 plan for measuring the earth, had not each of these in- 

 vestigators "intended" his mind persistently towards 

 the problems in question. 



Nor can we doubt that men lived in every generation 

 of the dark age who were capable of creative thought 

 in the field of science, had they chosen similarly to 

 "intend" their minds in the right direction. The 

 difficulty was that they did not so choose. Their 

 minds had a quite different bent. They were under 

 the spell of different ideals ; all their mental efforts were 

 directed into different channels. What these dif- 

 ferent channels were cannot be in doubt they were 

 the channels of oriental ecclesiasticism. One all- 

 significant fact speaks volumes here. It is the fact 

 that, as Professor Robinson * points out, from the 

 time of Boethius (died 524 or 525 A.D.) to that of 

 Dante (1265-1321 A.D.) there was not a single writer 

 of renown in western Europe who was not a pro- 

 fessional churchman. All the learning of the time, 

 then, centred in the priesthood. We know that the 

 same condition of things pertained in Egypt, when 

 science became static there. But, contrariwise, we 

 have seen that in Greece and early Rome the scientific 

 workers were largely physicians or professional teachers ; 

 there was scarcely a professional theologian among them. 



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