2. HOLDING SACRED THAT WHICH IS NOT SACRED

2. Holding Sacred that which is not Sacred ~ 93 ~ the Greeks was not science but philosophy. Science, as we now understand it had never existed in Greece. Science, or knowledge based on experimentation, is the invention of the Muslims. It was the Muslims who first attained to knowledge through observation, and then communicated it to other nations, particularly those situated in Europe. Bertrand Russell has rightly said: Science, ever since the time of the Arabs, has had two functions: (1) to enable us to know things and (2) to enable us to do things. The Greeks, with the exception of Archimedes, were only interested in the first of these ... interest in the practical uses of science came first through superstition and magic.46 He goes on to say: To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascertained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained