Addendum to my recent mediæval-related posts:
In Will Durant’s Story of Philosophy, the chapter on Aristotle ends like this:
[A] few months after leaving Athens (322 B.C.) the lonely Aristotle died. In the same year, and at the same age, sixty-two, Demosthenes, greatest of Alexander’s enemies, drank poison. Within twelve months Greece had lost her greatest ruler, her greatest orator, and her greatest philosopher. The glory that had been Greece faded now in the dawn of the Roman sun; and the grandeur that was Rome was the pomp of power rather than the light of thought. Then that grandeur too decayed, that little light went almost out. For a thousand years darkness brooded over the face of Europe. All the world awaited the resurrection of philosophy.
And then the next chapter is on Francis Bacon.
When I teach either Hellenistic philosophy or mediæval philosophy, I sometimes read that passage to my students and then throw the book across the room. (Such violence toward books is not my usual wont, but it’s a cheap, sturdy paperback, and it does serve to wake them up.)
I wonder if Rand read Durant’s book.