During the last few centuries, from about AD 1600 onwards, the progress of science has been continuous and without a break; so we are tempted to extend the curve back into the past and to fall into the mistaken belief that the advance of knowledge has always been a continuous, cumulative process along a road which steadily mounts from the beginnings of civilization to our present dizzy height. This, of course, is not the case. In the sixth century BC, educated men knew that the earth was a sphere; in the sixth century AD, they again thought it was a disc, or resembling in shape the Holy
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