The development of science among nations / by Justus Liebig.
- Justus von Liebig
- Date:
- 1867
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The development of science among nations / by Justus Liebig. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![greatest tliinkers of any age, could not raise his mind to the conception of an attractive force. Our present conception that gravity is innate, inherent, and essential to matter, ap- peared to Newton as so great an absurdity, that ‘ he could not believe it possible for any man, who in philosophical matters had an average power of thinking, to fall into such an error and in rejecting the Newtonian doctrine that the heavenly bodies are moved by the composition of a centri- petal with an original projectile force, the great Leibnitz said that God could not make a body revolve round a distant centre, unless by some impelling mechanism or by a miracle, ‘ qxi’il mit un ange a ses trousses’ It is a very general opinion that there exists a ga]i between the cessation of scientific inquiries amongst the Greeks and their recommencement, in the fifteenth century ; thus it is that the Middle Ages are described by historians as a period of stagnation, and the fifteenth century as one of a re-awakening of science. This view, as regards Europe, is only partially correct, and cannot apply to Germany, England, and what is now called France, in which Grecian and Eoman learning could not have been extinguished in the Middle Ages, as it was onl} introduced into these countries at a much later period. We must take into consideration that at the time when learning was at its maximum in Athens, Western Europe was in- habited by half-savage tribes, whose only dress was the skins of wild beasts. In the time of Charlemagne, the chief state officials and the most powerful barons could not write their own names. We must remember that even in the thirteenth centurj^ Eome was the centre of commerce for Christian B](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22350196_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
