The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 THE GENIUS OF THE WEST 57things of this world. But it condemnedthe enslavement of prisonersas an infringement of Godgivenhuman dignity. And, sinceJesus had been a carpenter and St.Paul a tent-maker and St. Peter afisherman, it saw no reason to objectwhen the monks in the firstmonasteries made a virtue of work.In time the Middle Ages developedan entirely different attitude towardlabor-saving devices than wasprevalent in Greek and Romantimes. Louis Rougier makes a fascinatingstory of the linkage betweenthe "social revolution ofChristianity" and the developmentof the water mill, the wind mill, thehydraulic hammer, and 'the variouslifting tools that were needed tocover Europe "with a white robe ofcathedrals." Without intending itas such, the church unleashed somethingof a medieval technologicalrevolution. Slaves became serfs,cities grew, and the stage was setfor the "new humanism" of theRenaissance.The Christian attitude towardwork was the first lucky break ofthe West in the time of Rome'scollapse. But work, with its premiumon practical inventions suchas the lifting jack, would not haveflowered in a scientific revival ifthe church itself had not changedsufficiently to permit a secularizationof life during much of theworking week. By a second luckyaccident the elders of the City ofFlorence happened to entertain aByzantine scholar, Manuel Chrysoloras,who was traveling in Italy ona diplomatic mission. The Florentineelite flocked to hear Chrysolorastell about Homer, Plato, Thucydides,and Xenophon, and soonthere was a horde of Florentinesdescending on Byzantium, buyingforgotten Greek texts. If it hadn'tbeen for the rediscovery of theGreek and Latin writers whoseworks had somehow survived thegreat burning of pagan documentsthat marked the advent of Christianity,the modern scientific, economic,and political revolutionswould never have come to pass.Inquiry Halted in OrientDuring the so-called Dark Ages,Arab civilization seemed to promisemuch more than anything thatwas happening in western Europe.And the Chinese were way aheadof the West is such things as theuse of coal, gunpowder, and printingwith movable letters. But theTurks, as Louis Rougier puts it,"imposed their· heavy yoke on Islam;and Islam, returning to itssources, paralyzed inquiry with aformula which brooked no answer:Allah aalam, God knows best whatis." As for the Chinese, instead oftrying to dominate nature theysought an adjustment that·stressedfinding contentment in the midst