SCIENCE AND CULTUEE. 19 



upon earning the reputation, and probably upon suffering 

 the fate, of a sorcerer. 



Had the western world been left to itself in Chinese 

 isolation, there is no saying how long this state of things 

 might have endured. But, happily, it was not left to 

 itself. Even earlier than the thirteenth century, the de- 

 velopment of Moorish civilisation in Spain and the great 

 movement of the Crusades had introduced the leaven 

 which, from that day to this, has never ceased to work. 

 At first, through the intermediation of Arabic transla- 

 tions, afterwards, by the study of the originals, the west- 

 ern nations of Europe became acquainted with the writ- 

 ings of the ancient philosophers and poets, and, in time, 

 with the whole of the vast literature of antiquity. 



"Whatever there was of high intellectual aspiration or 

 dominant capacity in Italy, France, Germany, and Eng- 

 land, spent itself for centuries in taking possession of 

 the rich inheritance left by the dead civilisations of 

 Greece and Rome. Marvellously aided by the invention 

 of printing, classical learning spread and flourished. 

 Those who possessed it prided themselves on having at- 

 tained the highest culture then within the reach of man- 

 kind. 



And justly. For, saving Dante on his solitary pin- 

 nacle, there was no figure in modern literature at the 

 time of the Renascence to compare with the men of anti- 

 quity ; there was no art to compete with their sculpture ; 

 there was no physical science but that which Greece had 

 created. Above all, there was no other example of per- 



