I

MEDIAEVAL SCIENCE


The following selections will give an idea of the natural science of
the Middle Ages. In introducing them, the Editor will attempt to give
some connected account of them to show that though their study seems
to involve a few difficulties, their explanation is simple, and will
not make too great a demand on the reader's patience.

From the earliest times men have asked themselves two questions about
nature: "Why?" and "How?" Mediaeval science concerned itself with the
former; modern science thinks it has learnt that no answer to that
question can be given it, and concerns itself with the latter. It thus
happens that the more one becomes in sympathy with the thought of our
time, the less one can interest one's self in the work of the past,
distinguished as it is by its disregard of all we think important, and
by its striving for an unattainable goal.

It is, however, necessary, if we would enjoy Chaucer, Dante, and
Shakespeare, to obtain some notion of that system of the universe from
which they drew so many of their analogies. The symbolism of Dante
appears to us unnaturally strained until we know that the science of
his day saw everything as symbolic.

And how could we appreciate the strength of Chaucer's metaphor:

"O firste moving cruel firmament,