te: "Cu

inarily the work of a comparatively small number of scientists and artists. Now if in any particular period or among any special people, we find a relatively larger group of intellectual leade

e: Greek

ion about the nature of the universe, all manner of hypothetical answers to the eternal questions-Whence do we come, What are we doing, Where do we go?-and this was the foundation of modern philosophy and metaphysics. From the same Greeks came our geometry and the rudiments of our sciences of astronomy and medicine. It was th

e: Roman

ich strewed their empire. They adapted the fine forms of Greek literature to their own more pompous, but less subtle, Latin language. They

Mohammeda

ronomy, and medicine. From eastern Asia they borrowed algebra, the Arabic numerals, and the compass, and, in their own great cities of Bagdad, Damascus, and Cordova, they themselves deve

: Medieva

theology. Great institutions of higher learning-the universities- were now founded, in which centered the revived study not only of philosophy but of law and medicine as well, and over which appeared the first cloud-wrapped dawn of modern experimental science. And side by side with the sonorous Latin tongue, which long continued to be used by scholars, were formed the vernacular languages-German, English, French,

ments in Culture o

ions to the original store, which help to explain not only the social, political, and ecclesiastical activities of that time but also many of our present-day actions and ideas. The essentially new factors in sixteenth-century culture may be reckoned as (1) the d

NTION OF

in Europe [Footnote: For an account of early printing in China, Japan, and Korea, see the informing article "Typography" in the Encyclop?dia Britannica, 11th edition, Vol. XXVII, p. 510.] was laboriously written by hand, [Footnote: It is interesting to note the meaning of our present word "manuscript," which is derived from t

s complete. Among the most essential elements of the perfected process are movable type with which the impression is made, and paper,

Developme

very expensive and heavy, and not at all suitable for printing. Parchment, the dressed skins of certain animals, especially sheep, which became the standard

lax were again substituted for cotton, and the resulting linen paper was used considerably in Castile in the thirteenth century and thence penetrated across the Pyrenees into France and gradually all over western and central Europe. Parchment, however, for a long time kept its preeminence over silk, cotton, or linen paper, because of its greater firmness and durability, and notaries were long forbidde

velopment of

nked and applied to writing material they would leave a clear impression. Medieval kings and princes frequently had their signatures cut on these blocks of wo

s of metal, all of the same height and thickness, and then arranging them in any desired sequence for printing. The great advant