THE REVIVAL OF SCIENCE 271 



Dante's and Milton's great epics affords some 

 indication of the advance in knowledge of this 

 world and in the outlook on a future state which 

 measures the progress made between the Middle 

 Ages and the seventeenth century. As a poet 

 (and, indeed, often in other activities of his life) 

 Milton stood above, or at least, outside, the stream 

 of tendency of the times through which he lived. 

 Yet, in his poems (not in his political tractates 

 the most ephemeral of all literature) we see effects 

 of the rising tide of science on literature. 



Milton, one must never forget and indeed, it 

 is not easy to do so was, for some years, a 

 schoolmaster. He took a view of his profession 

 which even now would be thought liberal ; he 

 advocated the teaching of medicine, agriculture 

 and fortification, and, when studying the last of 

 these, remarked that it would be " seasonable to 

 learn the use of the Globes and all the maps/' 

 Like Lord Herbert of Cherbury, he held that the 

 student should acquire some knowledge of medi- 

 cine, he should know " the tempers, the humours, 

 the seasons and how to manage a crudity." 

 Himself a sufferer from gout, he learnt, at any 

 rate, the lesson of moderation. Mathematics, 

 in his curriculum, led to the "instrumental 



