92 Science Religion and Reality 



their religion is in contrast to their scientific and philosophical 

 development for which, as some think, way was thus made. At a 

 remarkably early stage in their development the Greeks observed 

 not only that their world was subject to laws, but that by investiga- 

 tion these laws are ever further and further discoverable. A belief 

 in such natural laws plays no part in the more ancient Hebrew 

 scriptures, which, moreover, contain very little of that curiosity 

 which is the parent of science. It was with the Ionian Greeks 

 that the scientific idea was born, and it can be traced back among 

 them with some clearness to the sixth century B.C. 



In order to avoid misunderstanding it is necessary to enlarge 

 a little on this statement that the scientific idea begins with the 

 Ionian Greeks of the sixth century B.C. It is not suggested that 

 the careful and accurate observation of nature began with them — 

 in such observation every hunter must be an expert, and we have 

 evidence of its existence far back in palaeolithic times. Nor is 

 it even suggested that the Ionian Greeks were the first to formulate 

 general laws concerning natural phenomena. Thus the Ahmes 

 papyrus of about 1700 B.C., believed to be founded on much older 

 work, shows that the Egyptians were in possession of certain 

 mathematical laws even at that date. The Ionian Thales of 

 Miletus [c. 640-f. 546 B.C.), the founder of Greek geometry, 

 astronomy, and philosophy, predicted the eclipse that took place on 

 May 28, 585 B.C., but he did this from data derived from Mesopo- 

 tamian sources. Astronomical observatories were, as we know, 

 to be found in the great cities of the Euphrates valley at least as far 

 back as the eighth century B.C., when professional astronomers 

 were taking regular observations of the heavens. Similarly 

 rational Greek medicine can be shown to have been preceded, 

 in some of its findings, by the Ebers Papyrus of about 1500 B.C., 

 by the Edwin Smith Papyrus of about 1700 B.C., and by the 

 Babylonian records. 



It was thus not the practice of science which the Greeks 

 invented, but the scientific idea, the conception that the world was 

 knowable inasmuch and in so far as it could be investigated. In 

 ancient times this idea led to a special point of view and to some 

 amelioration of man's lot. In modern times it has led to a complete 

 transformation of our mode of life, to a profound modification of 

 the interrelations of peoples, and to an alteration in our attitude 

 to each other and to the world around us. It would be idle to 



