The Metaphysical Foundation of Buddhism and Modern Science

side of Plato’s interest was notably absent among the Christian
population. I believe it to be true that no Christian made any original
contribution to mathematical science before the revival of science at the
time of the Renaissance. Pope Silvester II – Gerbert, who reigned in the
year 1000 A.D. – studied mathematics. But he added nothing. Roger Bacon
proclaimed the importance of mathematics and named contemporary
mathematicians. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the
University of Oxford cherished mathematics. But none of these
mediaeval Europeans advanced the subject. An exception must be made in
favour of Leonardo of Pisa who flourished at the beginning of the
thirteenth century. He was the first Christian to make an advance in the
science which in his early history illustrates the cultural union of the
Hellenistic Greeks with the Near East. But, subject to this qualification,
sixteenth-century mathematics was entirely based upon non-Christian
sources. Among the Christians mathematics and magic were confused.
The Pope himself hardly escaped. We can hardly hope for a better
illustration of the curious limitations of epochs and schools of civilization.
It is especially interesting in view of the dominant influence of Plato upon
Christian thought.
But the Platonic doctrine of the interweaving of Harmony with
mathematical relations has been triumphantly vindicated. The
Aristotelian classifications based upon qualitative predicates have a very
restricted application apart from the introduction of mathematical
formulae. Indeed Aristotelian Logic, by its neglect of mathematical