And yet after these great and hopeful stirrings, the philosophy of nature gradually froze up again in scholastic rigidity – though not entirely this time. The reason for this short splendour and long decline can be summed up in a single phrase: the rediscovery of Aristotle had changed the intellectual climate of Europe by encouraging the study of nature; the concrete teachings of Aristotelian science, elevated into dogmas, paralysed the study of nature. If the schoolmen had merely listened to the cheerful and encouraging timbre in the Stagyrite’s voice, all would have been well; but they made
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