390 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY 



only a consideration of the properties of straight lines and circles, but 

 much more, a development of those properties by processes of thought 

 from axioms laid down as a basis. If the modern mathematician can 

 see defects of logic in much that has been handed down, he still 

 follows Greece in the method of thought by which he deduces one 

 result from another. Those same methods, indeed, are used to criticize 

 the defects of the early work and that he is able to do so is chiefly due 

 to the extended range of ideas which the developments of all forms of 

 science have been able to give him. Some of the great names of an- 

 tiquity in what we now term the humanities, are also great names in 

 the history of science; Plato and Aristotle played no small part in the 

 early developments. 



The Greek school appears to have started about the seventh century 

 before Christ, and it lasted nearly a thousand years, coming to an end 

 finally after a long struggle against the stifling effect of the Roman 

 conquest For the first three hundred years Greece, a free nation, or at 

 least under the government of its own citizens, found leisure to devote 

 to intellectual pursuits, as a host of great names testifies. The invasion 

 and repulse of Asia in the fifth century B. C. seems to have quickened 

 rather than retarded the development of literature, science and the 

 arts, perhaps under the spur of the construction of a single nation with 

 democratic ideals from numerous small states. The conquest of Greece 

 by Alexander in 330 B. C. transferred the sceptre nominally to Egypt 

 through the enlightened policy of the Ptolemys who founded and en- 

 couraged schools of learning in Alexandria. But those who taught 

 and worked there were all under Greek inspiration, and most of the 

 advances were made by those of Greek origin. Apparently the foreign 

 soil and alien patronage, however, gave only a temporary lease of life, 

 for a decline started soon after and was accentuated in the first century 

 B. C. when the Romans conquered Egypt and gained command of the 

 whole civilized world. They themselves contributed little. The Fall 

 of the Roman Empire through the incursion of the northern tribes, the 

 rise and spread of Mohammed's followers, who, it is true, brought in 

 other sources of knowledge from the eastern world but contributed 

 little themselves, the domination and repression of free thought by 

 ecclesiastics, left no opportunity for schools of science to grow. But 

 few names appear in this period and those who sought to study the 

 problems of nature had little opportunity to extend the borders of 

 knowledge. 



The first signs of awakening appeared towards the end of the 

 fifteenth century. Revolts against ecclesiastical authority in England 

 by the reigning sovereign, and later in Germany by Luther, the great 

 geographical enterprises which soon resulted in a knowledge of the 

 principal land areas of the earth, the curbing of royal ambitions by 



