SCIENCE AND CULTURE. 23 



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 

 has 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 Greeks a thousand years 

 before. The foundations of mathematics were so well 

 laid by them, that our children learn their geometry 

 from a book written for the schools of Alexandria two 

 thousand years ago. Modern astronomy is the natural 

 continuation and development of the work of Hipparchus 

 and of Ptolemy ; modern physics of that of Democritus 

 and of Archimedes; it was long before modern bio- 

 logical science outgrew the knowledge bequeathed to us 

 by Aristotle, by Theophrastus, and by Galen. 



We cannot know all the best thoughts and sayings 

 of the Greeks unless we know whatthey thought about 

 natural phenomena. We cannot fully apprehend their 



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criticism of life unless we understand the extent to 

 which that criticism was affected by scientific concep- 

 tions. We falsely pretend to be the inheritors of their 

 culture, unless we are penetrated, as the best minds 

 among them were, with an unhesitating faith that the 

 free employment of reason, in accordance with scientific 



method, is the sole method of reaching truth. 



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