f science for its own sake, for the
mere love of knowing, ever entered his head.

In general, then, we must admit that the Egyptian had not progressed far
in the hard way of abstract thinking. He worshipped everything about him
because he feared the result of failing to do so. He embalmed the
dead lest the spirit of the neglected one might come to torment him.
Eye-minded as he was, he came to have an artistic sense, to love
decorative effects. But he let these always take precedence over his
sense of truth; as, for example, when he modified his lists of kings at
Abydos to fit the space which the architect had left to be filled; he
had no historical sense to show to him that truth should take precedence
over mere decoration. And everywhere he lived in the same happy-go-lucky
way. He loved personal ease, the pleasures of the table, the luxuries
of life, games, recreations, festivals. He took no heed for the morrow,
except as the morrow might minister to his personal needs. Essentially
a sensual being, he scarcely conceived the meaning of the intellectual
life in the modern sense of the term. He had perforce learned some
things about astronomy, because these were necessary to his worship
of the gods; about practical medicine, because this ministered to his
material needs; about practical arithmetic, because this aided him in
every-day affairs. The bare rudiments of an historical science may be
said to be crudely outlined in his defective lists of kings. But beyond
this he did not go. Science as science, and for its own sake, was
unknown to him. He had gods for all material functions, and festivals
in honor of every god; but there was no goddess of mere wisdom in his
pantheon. The conception of Minerva was reserved for the creative genius
of another people.

III. SCIENCE OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA

Throughout classical antiquity Egyptian science was famous. We know that
Plato spent some years in Egypt in the hope of penetrating the alleged
mysteries of its fabled learning; and the story of the Egyptian priest
who patronizingly assured Solon that the Greeks were but babes was
quoted everywhere without disapproval. Even so late as the time of
Augustus, we find Diodorus, the Sicilian, looking back with veneration
upon the Oriental learning, to which Pliny also refers with unbounded
respect. From what we have seen of Egyptian science, all this furnishes
us with a somewhat striking commentary upon the attainments of the
G