Criticism of religious doctrines and of political and social
institutions is free. Hopeful people may feel confident that the victory
is permanent; that intellectual freedom is now assured to mankind as a
possession for ever; that the future will see the collapse of those
forces which still work against it and its gradual diffusion in the more
backward parts of the earth. Yet history may suggest that this prospect
is not assured. Can we be certain that there may not come a great set-
back? For freedom of discussion and speculation was, as we saw, fully
realized in the Greek and Roman world, and then an unforeseen force, in
the shape of Christianity, came in and laid chains upon the human mind
and
[249] suppressed freedom and imposed upon man a weary struggle to
recover the freedom which he had lost. Is it not conceivable that
something of the same kind may occur again? that some new force,
emerging from the unknown, may surprise the world and cause a similar
set-back?
The possibility cannot be denied, but there are some considerations
which render it improbable (apart from a catastrophe sweeping away
European culture). There are certain radical differences between the
intellectual situation now and in antiquity. The facts known to the
Greeks about the nature of the physical universe were few. Much that was
taught was not proved. Compare what they knew and what we know about
astronomy and geography--to take the two branches in which (besides
mathematics) they made most progress.
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