Historical Relations 103 



application of the scientific method is perhaps impossible. Matter 

 is for the ancient physical philosophy, as for modern science, un- 

 creatable and indestructible. This is the condition under which 

 alone investigation of the material universe becomes worth while. 

 " That nothing," says Aristotle in his " Metaphysics " (xi. § 6), 

 " comes to be out of that which is not, but everything out of that 

 which is, is a doctrine common to nearly all the natural philo- 

 sophers." Nor is the position altered by those modern conceptions 

 which would reinterpret matter in terms of physical forces. We 

 may note in passing that among the ancients there were those who 

 did, in fact, reinterpret matter in such terms somewhat in the 

 manner of modern physicists, though, of course, in a much more 

 elementary fashion. 



The Greek scientific scheme developed along such lines as 

 these a complete and coherent view of the universe. This concep- 

 tion would doubtless have found itself in violent conflict with the 

 religious system of the day if formal religion among the Greeks 

 had reached the high rational level that it had attained among the 

 Hebrews. We shall see the clash in later Jewish and early 

 Christian thought under Greek influence. Among the pagan 

 Greeks, however, little opposition is encountered, at least until 

 very late times. With Greek popular religion in so relatively 

 primitive a state, there were, in fact, few points of contact between 

 priest and philosopher. The two went on independent of each 

 other. The philosophy of the age carried with it certain religious 

 implications and satisfied the religious aspirations of those who 

 studied it. Thus, though there was no great open conflict between 

 religion and science in the pagan world, yet the popular religion 

 continued to be steadily undermined by the physical philosophy. 



There were, however, certain necessary corollaries to the 

 physical philosophy which ultimately brought to an end not only 

 the popular religion but the ancient civilisation itself. In a world 

 in which, to use the phrase of Lucretius {c. 60 B.C.), " nothing is ever 

 begotten of nothing by divine will," and in which too " things cannot 

 then ever be turned again to naught," it must needs be that all things 

 act by those rules which are inherent in everlasting matter. What 

 is there then left that is ourselves, our real inner self-conscious 

 selves } The question was variously answered by various schools 

 of thought. It is a question that is asked to this very day. The 

 Stoic philosophy, which was the most popular and one of the most 



