SCIENCE IN EARLY ENGLAND. 733 



possible. Hence he infers that light travels in straight lines, and gives 

 the law of reflection correctly, but accounts for refraction by hinting 

 that the ray is less weakened by this process than the other. He might 

 have learned all his optics and more from Euclid and Ptolemy. 



Now, quitting the list of authors, we may glance at some of their 

 works, taking here and there an extract where the quaintness or inter- 

 est appears to demand it. 



Among the arithmetical problems in vogue we have the folio wiug: 

 "The swallow once invited the snail to dinner; he lived just one league 

 from the spot, and the snail traveled at the rate of an inch a day. How 

 long would it be before he dined?" This problem casts an unworthy 

 slur upon the powers of locomotion possessed by the gasteropocl, and 

 even upon his intelligence, though it does not specifically say that the 

 swallow's invitation was accepted. Here is another, which has been 

 battered to and fro throughout the centuries, but which is still recog- 

 nizable as an old friend: " Three men and their wives came to the side 

 of a river, where they found but one boat capable of carrying over only 

 two persons at once. All the men were jealous of each other. How 

 must they contrive so that no one should be left in company with his 

 neighbor's wife?" A third instance shows that the arithmetical bogey 

 of school books, who, when asked a straightforward question, answers 

 it in the most crooked way he can think of — stretches his line far back. 

 "An old man met a child. ' Good day, my son,' says he, l may you live 

 as long as you have lived and as much more, and thrice as much as all 

 this, and if God give you one year in additiou to the others, you will be 

 just a century old.' What was the lad's age?" To prevent a needless 

 waste of exertion, I hasten to say tbat he was eleven. These problems 

 were current in the tenth and eleventh centuries. 



Some sciences were taught by dialogue, never a good method even 

 in our day, but it might have been given up earlier with advantage if 

 the following are fair samples. To the question, "Where does the sun 

 shine at night?" The answer is returned that "It shines in three 

 places: First in the belly of the whale called leviathan, next it shines 

 in hell, and afterwards on the island called Glith, where the souls of 

 holy men rest till doomsday." 



Q. Where is a man's soul? — A. In his head, and it comes out at his 

 mouth. 



Q. Where resteth the soul of a man when his body sleepeth? — A. I 

 tell thee it is in three places — in the brain, the heart, and the blood. 



Occasionally they degenerate into riddles: Q. What is that from 

 which if you take the head it becomes higher? —A. Go to your bed 

 and you will find it. 1 



The "Popular Treatise on Science," above mentioned, comprise: (1) 

 A tract on astronomy in Anglo-Saxon, abridged from Bede's De 

 Natura llerum, by an unknown author, probably about 990. (2) The 

 Livre des Creatures, by Philippe de Thaun. (3) The Bestiary, by the 



1 The head of the occupier is that which becomes higher. 



