Einstein once expressed the opinion that the development of Western Science is based on two great achievements; the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry ) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility to find out causal relationships by systemic experiment (during the Renaissance). Only after combining the two did Western Science initiate the four centuries of ever-accelerating material progress that history now records. "In my opinion, one has not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not made those steps. The astonishing thing is that those discoveries were made at all."
~ Letter to J.S. Switzer, April 23, 1953; Einstein Archive 61-381
