52 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



results from it. But, with the Greek love of abstract 

 reasoning, Archimedes deduced that law from what 

 he regarded as self-evident propositions. Implicitly, 

 however, the principle of the centre of gravity, which 

 is equivalent to that of the lever, is contained in his 

 proof. Nevertheless, the co-ordination of the law 

 of the lever with ideas which seemed simpler to 

 Archimedes and his contemporaries, was a great step 

 in advance, and the type of all scientific explanation. 



When we turn to biology, we find that there_too_ 

 the Greek love of theorizing without facts sometimes 

 led them astray. Anatomy seems first 

 to have attracted the attention of the 

 philosophers, but such knowledge as existed was 

 gained by the dissection of the lower animals only. 

 Considerable progress was made in purely descriptive 

 work. In natural history Aristotle, as we have seen, 

 put together an extensive collection of observations 

 on the animals then known, with some details of their 

 anatomy, probably gained personally by experimental 

 methods. 



With regard to the earliest practice of medicine, 

 it is interesting to note that in Homer wounds are 

 treated in a simple, straightforward manner, showing 

 the wholesome tradition of a rational spirit in medicine 

 and surgery among the race of Homeric heroes. But 

 it appears that this view was confined to the one class. 

 Among the rest of the people, as in other southern 

 and eastern lands inhabited by Mediterranean stocks, 

 spells and incantations formed the prevalent mode of 

 treatment. Here again in early times the divergent 

 spirit of the two races makes itself manifest. 



