GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



dawning biology, like the cosmological physics 

 of which it appears as part, was free from 

 superstitious fear; it admitted no magic, recog- 

 nized no supernatural; it had little religious 

 awe. Such unembarrassed observation of na- 

 ture, such free and rational conclusions, were 

 unique in the world; and unique the consequent 

 endeavor to build up a systematic body of nat- 

 ural knowledge, with accordant hypotheses, or 

 explanations, which should rationally account 

 for the world in which man lived. Even with 

 the Greeks these intellectual aims were not to 

 become common. And as such an observa- 

 tion of nature was then utterly unknown in 

 Babylonia or Egypt or anywhere else on earth, 

 so outside of the elect of the Greek race and a 

 very few others who imbibed their spirit, it was 

 never accepted by the ancient world. 



And here at once be it said that, taking full 

 account of the admirable Greek achievements 

 in biology and medicine, our modern indebted- 

 ness is less for their substance than for the 

 clear spirit of scientific investigation which was 

 one of the immortal legacies of Greece, how- 

 ever few the men or periods that could accept 

 it. In medicine, in surgery, in every field of 

 science, modern investigation has advanced 

 [6] 



