OUR OBLIGATIONS TO GREEK THOUGHT. 231 
lated and principles enunciated by a succession of inquiring minds. 
No science in its mature form was ever created by one mind, or 
even by one generation of minds. One age borrows from another. 
I do not think the doctrine of Pangenesis is established, but, with 
a view to illustration, I may say that if we were to apply that 
doctrine to sciences and scientific mental processes with the same 
reference to detail phenomena as Dr. Darwin and Mr. Galton have 
applied it to account for the peculiarities in human bodies, we 
should perhaps see, in the manifestation of a modern development, . 
the expression, in definite form, of a germinal fact or thought that 
has been latent in inherited mental life for centuries, Continuity 
prevails in the sphere of mind, modified, it may be, by the element 
of spontaneity in our will. The Induction of Herschel and Mill 
is a great advance on that of Bacon, but finds its roots in his; while 
the Induction of Bacon, whether essentially an advance on the 
Greek or not, has its roots in minds prior to the Elizabethan age. 
The other fact to remember is, that, for some cause in nature or 
society, the scientific tendency of the human mind received, soon 
after the decease of Aristotle, a decided check. Whether in the 
enormous and, considering the conditions, almost superhuman toil 
of the Greek intellect, between the appearance of Thales and the 
age of Aristotle, nature overstrained herself, or whether the social 
and political changes that supervened diverted the ablest minds to 
inferior purposes—at all events, history bears witness to a check 
on mental development in the direction of science as a whole, and 
of scientific processes as the absolute condition of all successful 
research. Not a man had the power to take up the great themes 
of Plato and Aristotle, and raise upon their labours a permanent 
superstructure. With the exception of an incidental discovery 
here and there, by such men as Aristarchus of Samos, and Hip- 
parchus; a fanciful reproduction of Plato in Alexandria; a 
Lucretian poem on the Democritan theory, and a few additions to 
Aristotelian formal logic by Porphery and Galen, we have scarcely 
anything of scientific interest. There is no originality, no strong 
and masterly development of principles laid down by the great 
Greek thinkers in Cicero or Seneca. What might have been done 
for ancient Greece and Rome had minds of equal energy and 
insight to those of Aristotle and Plato successively arisen, and, 
eliminating for further development the sound principles of their 
great ancestors, applied them to the interpretation of nature, this 
Q 2 
