The Metaphysical Foundation of Buddhism and Modern Science
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epletion. With Aristotle <strong>and</strong> Epicurus, the science <strong>of</strong> modern civilization<br />
reached adolescence.<br />
Section II. <strong>The</strong>re is a clear-cut obviousness about Aristotle’s doctrines<br />
which is entirely lacking to Plato’s cosmology. Of course neither Plato, nor<br />
Aristotle, originated his own particular line <strong>of</strong> thought. <strong>The</strong>re was a<br />
history behind them <strong>of</strong> three or four generations <strong>of</strong> thinkers, back to<br />
the dim figures <strong>of</strong> Thales <strong>and</strong> Pythagoras, <strong>and</strong> even beyond them. Also<br />
Aristotle worked for twenty years in the Academy <strong>of</strong> Plato, <strong>and</strong> derived<br />
ideas from that active, speculative group <strong>of</strong> thinkers, to whom the<br />
modern world owes its speculation, its criticism, its deductive <strong>and</strong><br />
inductive sciences, <strong>and</strong> the civilization <strong>of</strong> its religious concepts. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
were the narrow channel through which passed the confused traditions<br />
<strong>of</strong> Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, <strong>and</strong> <strong>of</strong> the sea-borne Greek civilization.<br />
From this Academy <strong>and</strong> its Aristotelian <strong>of</strong>f-shoot, there emerged the<br />
various lines <strong>of</strong> thought which the subsequent schools <strong>of</strong> Alex<strong>and</strong>ria<br />
turned into the first phase <strong>of</strong> modern science, natural <strong>and</strong> humane.<br />
Undoubtedly the world then lost picturesqueness. For prophets were<br />
superseded by pr<strong>of</strong>essors. In other words, as the movement has<br />
penetrated into habits <strong>of</strong> thought, intuitive conviction has wilted in the<br />
face <strong>of</strong> criticism. But amid all the limitations <strong>of</strong> humanity, w<strong>and</strong>ering<br />
dazed in the abundant universe, knowledge has reconditioned human life,<br />
<strong>and</strong> has made possible that virtue which requires such measure <strong>of</strong><br />
intellectual analysis.