Page:Van Loon--The Story of Mankind.djvu/493

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THE AGE OF SCIENCE

BUT THE WORLD HAD UNDERGONE ANOTHER CHANGE WHICH WAS OF GREATER IMPORTANCE THAN EITHER THE POLITICAL OR THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONS. AFTER GENERATIONS OF OPPRESSION AND PERSECUTION, THE SCIENTIST HAD AT LAST GAINED LIBERTY OF ACTION AND HE WAS NOW TRYING TO DISCOVER THE FUNDAMENTAL LAWS WHICH GOVERN THE UNIVERSE


THE PHILOSOPHER
The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, the Greeks and the Romans, had all contributed 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.

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