SCIENCE AND CULTURE 121 



bearing on human life was far from the thoughts of men 

 thus trained. Indeed, as nature had been cursed for 

 man's sake, it was an obvious conclusion that those who 

 meddled with nature were likely to come into pretty close 

 contact with Satan. And, if any born scientific investi- 

 gator followed his instincts, he might safely reckon upon 

 earning the reputation, and probably upon suffering the 

 fate, of a sorcerer. 



Had the western world been left to itself in Chinese 

 isolation, there is no saying how long this state of things 

 might have endured. But, happily, it was not left to 

 itself. Even earlier than the thirteenth century, the 

 development of Moorish civilisation in Spain and the 

 great movement of the Crusades had introduced the 

 leaven which, from that day to this, has never ceased 

 to work. At first, through the intermediation of Arabic 

 translations, afterwards by the study of the originals, 

 the western nations of Europe became acquainted with 

 the writings of the ancient philosophers and poets, and, 

 in time, with the whole of the vast literature of antiquity. 



Whatever there was of high intellectual aspiration or 

 dominant capacity in Italy, France, Germany, and Eng" 

 land, spent itself for centuries in taking possession of 

 the rich inheritance left by the dead civilisations of 

 Greece and Rome. Marvellously aided by the invention 

 of printing, classical learning spread and flourished. 

 Those who possessed it prided themselves on having at- 

 tained the highest culture then within the reach of man- 

 kind. 



And justly. For, saving Dante 4 on his solitary pin- 

 nacle, there was no figure in modern literature at the 



4 Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) wrote La Commedia, usually 

 called the Divine Comedy, a great allegory. The poem is a 

 vision of the next world, as it was then conceived, of hell, of 

 purgatory, and of paradise. 



