Books and Science i7i the Middle Ages 549 ancient writers that they could find, and by 1430 Greek books Greek were once more known in the West, after a thousand years of brought"?^ neglect. • ^^"'^ In this way western Europe caught up with ancient times ; The scholars could once more know all that the Greeks and Romans had known and could read in the original the works of Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, and other philosophers, historians, orators, and tragedians. Those who devoted their lives to a study of the literature of Greece and Rome were called Humanists. The name is derived from the Latin word Juunanitas^ which means " culture." In time the colleges gave up the exclusive study of Aristotle and substituted a study of the Greek and Latin literature, and in this way what is known as our " classical " course of study originated. Section 96. Beginnings of Modern Inventions So long, however, as intellectual men confined themselves to studying the old books of Greece and Rome they were 'not likely to advance beyond what the Greeks and Romans had known. In order to explain modern discoveries and inventions we have to take account of those who began to suspect that Aristotle was ignorant and mistaken upon many important matters, and who set to work to examine things about them with the hope of find- ing out more than any one had ever known before. Even in the thirteenth century there were a few scholars who Roger criticized the habit of " relying upon Aristotle for all knowledge, attack on The most distinguished faultfinder was Roger Bacon, an English Franciscan monk (d. about 1290), who declared that even if Aristotle were very wise he had only planted the tree of knowl- edge and that this had " not as yet put forth all its branches nor produced all its fruits." " If we could continue to live for end- less centuries we mortals could never hope to reach full and complete knowledge of all the things which are to be known. No one knows enough of nature completely to describe the scholas- ticism
