L'Éthique protestante et l'Esprit du capitalisme

A PRODUCT of modern European civilization, studying any problem of universal history, is bound to ask himself to ^hat ^combination of circumstances the fact should be attributed that in Western civilization, and in Western civilization only, cultural phenomena have appeared which(äs we like to think) lie in a line~of development having^ universal significance and value. Only in the West does science exist at a stage of development which we recognize to-day as valid. Knrpiriral knowledge, reflection on problems of the cosmos and of life, philosophical and theological wisdom of the most profound sort, are not confined to it. thougiTm the case of Ihe last the full development of a_§ystematic theology must be credited to Christianity under the influence of Hellenism, since there were only fragments m Islam and in a few Indian sects. In short, knowledge and observation of great refinement have existed elsewhere, above all in India, China, Babylonia, Egypt. But in Babylonia and elsewhere astronomy lacked — ^which makes its development all the more astounding — ^the mathematical foundation which it first received from the Greeks. The Indian geometry had no rational proof; that was another product of the Greek intellect, also the creator of mechanics and physics. The Indian natural sciences, though well developed in observation, lacked the method of experiment, which was, apart from beginnings in antiquity, essentially a product of the Renaissance, as was the modern laboratory. Hence medicine, especially in India, though highly developed The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism