Science and the government

About four centuries ago, our ancestors in Europe brought back into sharp focus a method of reasoning about the material world—namely science—which the Greeks had used on and off to some advantage for nearly a millennium, first in their own Aegean culture and then in the Greek culture that blossomed both in Egypt and under the Romans. The reawakening in Renaissance Europe, which occurred after several centuries of critical probing of the Greek manuscripts following the Crusades, was heralded by men such as Bacon and Descartes, who acted as sentinels along the highway which the new dynamic civilization of the West was traversing in the new age. These men realized that the coupling of the scientific method to the peculiar institutions of the new Europe, with its spirit of liberalism, its scholarship, and its devotion to technology for both adventure and conserving labor, could open a vast new universe of knowledge and power to man. It is interesting to note in passing that the brilliant young Descartes was optimistic enough to believe that the entire scientific revolution could come into golden fruition in his own lifetime as a result of his own efforts. He plunged into his life’s work with this goal in mind. Actually, the golden age of science that Bacon and Descartes foresaw has not been reached until this century. In fact, science passed through two stages before reaching the one we are now witnessing, in which technological progress is very directly related to scientific discoveries.