Monotheism and the Temple Mount—Postscript
China and Science
Some readers took exception to my statement that science did not develop among the Chinese. This is the position advanced by philosopher-scientist Alfred North Whitehead. In his marvelous book, Science and the Modern World, he writes:
“… there have been in China acute and learned men patiently devoting their lives to study. Having regard to the span of time, and to the population concerned, China forms the largest volume of civilization which the world has seen. There is no reason to doubt the intrinsic capacity of individual Chinamen for the pursuit of science. And yet Chinese science is practically negligible. There is no reason to believe that China if left to itself would have ever produced any progress in science. The same may be said of India.”
Whitehead credits monotheism as the original source of science—that is to say, of a coherent conception of the universe, one that seeks to explain the fleeting phenomena of existence to lawfulness. Judaism must therefore be credited with contributing enormously to science. Indeed, no less than Nietzsche has written that it has been the task of the Jews to bring mankind to raison.
