FREEDOM OF ENQUIRY

~ 34 ~ philosophy. Their contribution to the field of science—with the exception of Archimedes’ hydrostatics—was actually quite negligible. It is an indisputable fact that for scientific enquiry and scientific progress, an atmosphere of intellectual freedom is absolutely essential. But such an atmosphere did not exist in any of the countries of ancient times, and neither did it exist in Greece. Socrates, for example, was forced to commit suicide by drinking hemlock as a punishment for his encouraging free enquiry among the youth of Athens. And Archimedes was struck down by a Roman soldier in 212 B.C. while pondering over geometrical problems in the sand.7 According to Plutarch, in The Ancient Customs of the Spartans, the Spartans learned to read and write for purely practical reasons, and all other educational influences—books and treatises, as well as the discourses of learned men—were banned. The arts and philosophy flourished in democratic Athens, yet many artists and philosophers, among them Aeschylus, Euripides, Phidias, Socrates, and Aristotle were either exiled, imprisoned or executed, or they took flight.