966 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVI. No. 416. 



lislied the beginning of the iimuisewv, based 

 on the four corner-stones of science and 

 culture, the university, the academy, the 

 library and the museum; and this institu- 

 tion maintained its prestige for centuries. 

 We have here an association of scholars that 

 surpasses anything to be found in Greece 

 or Rome, and one indeed that approaches 

 an ideal more nearly than any existing 

 institution. Supported by the govern- 

 ment, we find men of science living to- 

 gether and working together, a system of 

 lectures, a library of 600,000 titles and the 

 like. To these conditions we may attrib- 

 ute the work of Aristarchus, Eratosthenes, 

 Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Archimedes, Euclid, 

 Herophilus and others, who in many ways 

 established the principles of science. Sim- 

 ilar if less important centers of learning 

 arose in Bagdad, Damascus and elsewhere ; 

 and there was a series of Arabian astron- 

 omers, physicians and mathematicians, 

 who never permitted the torch of learning 

 to become extinct, until it was merged in 

 the dawning light of modern science. 



The records of Roman history are chiefly 

 of wars and politics ; but its institutions still 

 dominate the world. The names of Pliny, 

 Galen and Lucretius prove that science was 

 cultivated. It is said that there were 

 twenty-eight public libraries in Rome in 

 the fourth century; and the schools of the 

 Roman Empire never became extinct. 

 Rome was the center whence first empire 

 and then the church spread civilization 

 throughout Europe. The removal of the 

 seat of empire to Byzantium, the ever re- 

 curring invasions of the barbarians from 

 the north, and the tenets of the christian 

 church are supposed to have extinguished 

 learning and culture ; and the period from 

 the decline of the Roman empire to the 

 revival of learning in Italy is called the 

 dark ages. But perhaps these centuries 

 are only dark in so far as they are ob- 

 scured from our sight. It may seem absurd 



for an amateur in history to make an asser- 

 tion contrary to the common views; but 

 the scientific man, saturated with the doc- 

 trine of evolution, is loth to accept a spon- 

 taneous generation of culture at the period 

 of the late Italian renaissance. Students 

 of medieval history are indeed beginning 

 to date back this period of awakening to the 

 thirteenth or even to the eleventh century ; 

 but there appears to be much evidence for 

 a gradual extension of civilization and cul- 

 ture throughout Europe from the sixth to 

 the eleventh centuries. 



It is a long way from the love passages 

 of the Phsedrus to those of the Vita Nuova, 

 from the fawn of Praxiteles to the madonna 

 of Giotto, from the Phrygian mysteries to 

 the order of St. Francis. The christian 

 church is said to have been inimical to cul- 

 ture and science, but to it we owe the es- 

 tablislmient of monasteries, schools and 

 libraries throughout Europe. It is natural 

 that the civilizations of Athens and of 

 Rome should have become merged in the 

 surrounding peoples. We might as well 

 wonder why Shakespeare did not give rise 

 to a line of poets, as to wonder why the 

 Athens of Pericles was not permanent. 

 When Rome came in contact with the 

 peoples of the north, an average resulted 

 ■which was in the end an extension of 

 civilization. The barbarians who overran 

 Italy and sacked Rome were themselves 

 converted to Christianity, and the tradi- 

 tions of culture were carried beyond the 

 Rhine and the English Channel. 



Boetius, whose birth coincided with the 

 fall of the western empire, wrote on sci- 

 ence as well as on philosophy. Prom his 

 death, in 525, education and learning were 

 in the hands of the church. Gregory the 

 tfreat, pope from 590 to 604, encouraged 

 primary education ; and monasteries, being 

 at once schools, libraries and academies of 

 learned men, were established everywhere 

 under the early popes. Bede, born about 



