ontributed something to the first vague notions of
science and scientific investigation. But the great migrations of the
fourth century had destroyed the classical world of the Mediterranean,
and the Christian Church, which was more interested in the life of
the soul than in the life of the body, had regarded science as a
manifestation of that human arrogance which wanted to pry into divine
affairs which belonged to the realm of Almighty God, and which therefore
was closely related to the seven deadly sins.

The Renaissance to a certain but limited extent had broken through
this wall of Mediaeval prejudices. The Reformation, however, which had
overtaken the Renaissance in the early 16th century, had been hostile to
the ideals of the "new civilisation," and once more the men of science
were threatened with severe punishment, should they try to pass beyond
the narrow limits of knowledge which had been laid down in Holy Writ.

Our world is filled with the statues of great generals, atop of prancing
horses, leading their cheering soldiers to glorious victory. Here and
there, a modest slab of marble announces that a man of science has found
his final resting place. A thousand years from now we shall probably
do these things differently, and the children of that happy generation
shall know of the splendid courage and the almost inconceivable devotion
to duty of the men who were the pioneers of that abstract knowledge,
which alone has made our modern world a practical possibility.

Many of these scientific pioneers suffered poverty and contempt and
humiliation. They lived in garrets and died in dungeons. They dared not
print their names on the title-pages of their books and they dared not
print their conclusions in the land of their birth, but smuggled the
manuscripts to some secret printing shop in Amsterdam or Haarlem. They
were exposed to the bitter enmity of the Church, both Protestant
and Catholic, and were the subjects of endless sermons, inciting the
parishioners to violence against the "heretics."

Here and there they found an asylum. In Holland, where the spirit
of tolerance was strongest, the authorities, while regarding these
scientific investigations with little favour, yet refused to interfere
with people's freedom of thought. It became a little asylum for
intellectual liberty where French and English and German philosophers
and mathematicians and physicians could go to enjoy a short spell of
rest and get a bre