Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/404

 398 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

Through the Feudal Ages^ progressing slowly but inevitably towards the dawn of the renaissance, the seeds sown broadcast by the fallen empire germinated and brought forth fruit. By imperceptible degrees man's mastery over his environment became more complete^ the slow sure grasp of science, never again to be relaxed, compelled nature to yield her secrets one by one. The augmenting industrialism and feats of engineering which heralded the renaissance were the fruit of the un- regarded effort of countless individuals each of whom added a particle of knowledge to the accumulated store of science.

Practical knowledge was far advanced, but had fallen again into the disconnected condition in which the Greeks at an earlier period had received it from the east. Algebra was an independent branch of human thought, bearing no obvious relation to anything of practical import. The scientific discipline of thought, unconsciously employed by every artisan and engineer, had never been consciously formulated or avowed. The material was there, it awaited only the coming of the man who should weld it together and vitalize it with the inspkation of genius.

The man was found in Ben6 Descartes, who^ as he tells us,* in the seclusion of "a room heated by a stove'' wedded algebra to geometry, mathematics to science, and at the same time formulated in words and translated into acts one of the fundamental canons of scientific method, namely "a plurality of suffrages is no guarantee of truth/*

On that day science attained its majority and assumed self-con- sciously the burden of its appointed task. The last link was forged in the long chain of human endeavor which stretches from the insatiable aimless curiosity of our well-nigh Simian ancestors to the sublime con- ceptions of a Newton.

Of all strong tMngs none is more wonderfiill7 strong than man. He can cross the wintry sea, and year by year compels with his plough the unwearied strength of earth, the oldest of the immortal gods. He seizes for his prey the aery birds and teeming fishes, and with his wit has tamed the mountain-ranging beasts, the long-maned horses and the tireless bull. Language is his, and wind- swift thought and city-founding mind; and he has learnt to shelter him from cold and piercing rain; and has devices to meet every ill, but death alone. Even for desperate sickness he has a cure, and with his boundless skill he moves on, sometimes to evil, but then again to good.*


 * Sophocles, "Antigone."

• * * Discourse on Method, ' ' part II.

�� �