"The failure [of a Greek or Roman science] is generally assigned to a complete disregard of Observation and Experiment, together with a "fondness for abstract reasoning." ...A survey... detects the existence of two causes: a psychological and an historical cause. The first lies in the nature of the Method pursued; the second lies in the condition of knowledge at the period. On the Method pursued by the ancients, no satisfactory issues could have been reached, even had it been backed by the stored-up wealth of modern research... [The second,] there was no stored up material to form the basis of extensive discovery. Science is a growth. The future must issue from seeds sown in the past. The bare and herbless granite must first be covered with mosses and lichens, if from their decay is to be formed the nidus of a higher life."
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Aristotle: a Chapter from the History of Science
Aristotle: a Chapter from the History of Science, including Analyses of Aristotle's Scientific Writings was written by George Henry Lewes and published in 1864.
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