Page:Readings in European History Vol 2.djvu/637

 CHAPTER XLI EUROPE OF TO-DAY I. Development of Natural Science Whewell, in his History of the Inductive Sciences ; thus characterizes the attitude of a great part of the mediaeval thinkers towards science We have already stated that real scientific progress re- quires distinct general ideas applied to many special and certain facts. In the period of which we now have to speak, namely, the mediaeval, men's ideas were obscured ; their disposition to bring their general views into accord- ance with facts was enfeebled. They were thus led to employ themselves unprofitably among indistinct and un- real notions ; and the evil of these tendencies was further inflamed by moral peculiarities in the character of those times, — by an abjectness of thought, on the one hand, which could not help looking towards some intellectual superior ; and by an impatience of dissent, on the other. 1 . . . The fact that mere collections of the opinions of physical philosophers came to hold a prominent place in literature, already indicated a tendency to an indistinct and wan- dering apprehension of such opinions. . . . Even Aristotle himself is much in the habit of enumerating the opinions of those who have preceded him. To present such state- ments as an important part of physical philosophy shows an erroneous and loose apprehension of its nature. . . . Such diversities of opinion convey no truth ; such a multi- plicity of statements of what has been said in no degree 493. Con- trast between the mediaeval and the modern atti- tude toward natural science. 1 This latter tendency has by no means disappeared (see below, p. 605). 599