欧洲文化入门课后习题答案
欧洲文化入门课后习题答案：
Division one: Greek culture and Roman culture
希腊、罗马文化
Ⅰ.Greek culture 希腊文化
1.What are the major elements in European culture?
There are two main elements ——the Greco-Roman element and the Judeo-Christian element.
2.What were the main features of ancient Greek society?
In Greek society, only adult male citizen had real power and the citizenship was a set of rights which a man inherited from his father.The economy of Athens rested on an immense amount of slave labo r. Slaves worked for their masters. The exploitation was a serious social problem. The Greeks loved sports. They often took part in the contests of sports in Olympus Mount, thus Olympic Games came into being.
3.What did Homer do? Why is he important in the history of European
literature?
He depicted the great Greek men who lived in the period 1200-1100B.C.and wars happening at that time. As an author of epics, he employed fine literary language to describe wars and men, even though they were dull. He stood in the peek of Greek literature and exerted a great influence on his followers.
4.Who were the outstanding dramatists of ancient Greece? What important
plays did each of them write?
Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides were three outstanding dramatists of ancient Greece.
Aeschylus:Prometheus Bound, Persians, Agamemnon
Sophocles: Oedipus the King, Electra, Antigone
Euripides:Andromache, Medea, Trojan Women
5.Were there historians then? Who were they? What did each of them write
about?
Yes, there are. They were Herodotus and Thucydides.
Herodotus wrote about the wars between Greeks and Persians. Thucydides wrote about the war between Athens and Sparta and between Athens and Syracuse.
6. Would you say that philosophy was highly developed then? Who were the major philosophers?
No, I wouldn’t. Because those philosophical ideas were only idealism or simple materialism or metaphysics.Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were the major philosophers at that time.
7. Did Socrates write any book? How then do we know about him? What distinguished his philosophy?
No, he didn’t. We know Socrates chiefly through what Plato recorded of him in the famous Dialogues written by Plato. He considered that philosophy rested with the dissect of oneself and virtue was high worth of life. His method of argument, by questions and answers, was known as the dialectical method. 8. Tell some of Plato’s ideas. Why do people call him an idealist?
(1) Men have knowledge because of the existence of certain general ―ideas‖, like beauty, truth, and goodness. (2) We should not look at the things which are not seen: for the things which are not seen eternal. Because he emphasized the importance of ―ideas‖ and believed that ―thought‖ had created the world, people
call him an idealist.
9. In what important ways was Aristotle different from Plato? What are some of Aristotle’s works that are still influential today?
(1) Aristotle emphasized direct observation of nature and insisted that theory should follow fact. This is different from Plato’s reliance on subjective thinking.
(2) He thought that“idea”and matter together made concrete individual realities in which he differed from Plato who held that ideas had higher reality than the political world.His significant works includes: Ethics, Politics and Rhetoric.
10. Who were some of the other philosophers active in that period? Does the word “Epicurean”in its modern sense convey the true meaning of the philosophy of the ancient Epicureans? What were their views on pleasure?
(1) They were Heracleitue, Democritus, Diogenes, Pyrrhon, Epicurus and Zeno.
(2)No, it doesn’t. The ancient Epicureans believed pleasure to be the highest worth of life, but by pleasure they meant, not sensual enjoyment but that attained by the practice of virtue. But this idea was misled by modern people, in their sense, the word ―Epicurean‖ has come to mean indulgence in luxurious living. 11. Say something about Greek sculpture, pottery and architecture. What was the most famous Greek temple? Is it still there?
(1) Along with the formation of Greek civilization, Greek sculpture, pottery and architecture got many great achievements. Greeks put into works of art the things they admired and worshiped, the scientific rules they discovered. Greek art evolved from the archaic period to the classical period which marked its maturity.
(2) the most famous temple was the Acropolis at Athens. (3) Yes, it is still there.
12. Give some examples to show the enormous influence of Greek culture on English literature.
Some examples:
(1) A Freudian term ―Oedipus Complex‖ of 19th century originating from a Greek tragedy in which king Oedipus unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. (2) In the early part of the 19th century , in England alone, three young Romantic poets expressed their admiration of Greek culture in works which have themselves become classics:Byron’s Isle of Greece, Shelley’s Hellas and Prometheus Unbound and Keats’ s Ode on a Grecian Urn. (3) In the 20th century, there are Homeric parallels in the Irishman James Joyce’s modernist masterpiece Ulysses.
Ⅱ. Roman culture 罗马文化
1.What did the Roman have in common with the Greeks? And what was the
chief difference between them?
(1)The Romans had a lot in common with the Greeks. Both peoples had traditions rooted in the idea of the citizen-assembly, hostile to monarchy and to servility.Their religions were alike enough for most of their deities to be readily identified —Greek Zeus with Roman Jupiter, Greek Aphrodite with Roman Venus, and so on—and their myths to be fused. Their languages worked in similar ways and were ultimately related, both being members of the Indo-European language family which stretches from Bangladesh to Iceland. (2) There was one big difference.The Romans built up a vast empire. The Greeks didn’t, excepted for the brief moment of Alexander’s conquests, which soon disintegrated.
2.Explain Pax Romana.
In the year 27 B.C., Octavius took supreme power as emperor with the title of Augustus. Two centuries later, the Roman empire reached its greatest extent in the North and East. The emperors mainly relied on a strong army—the famous Roman Legions and an influential bureaucracy to exert their rules. Thus the Romans enjoyed a long period of peace lasting 200 years. This remarkable phenomenon in the history is known as Pax Romana.
3.What contributions did the Romans make to the rule of law?
In Roman’s earliest stage, only a number of patricians knew the customary legal procedure. When the rules were put into writing in the middle of the third century B.C. it marked a victory for the plebeians. There was further development of law under the emperors until it was codified, eventually to become the core of modern civil and commercial law in many Western countries.
4.Who were the important prose writers in ancient Rome?What does
“Ciceronian” mean? Did Cicero write that kind of rhetorical prose all the time?
<1>Marcus Tullius Cicero and Julius Caesar were two important prose writers.
<2> Ciceronian means Cicero’s eloquent oratorical manner of writing, Which has had an enormous influence on the development of European prose.<3> No, he didn’t. Because Cicero appears as a different man with a different style, far less rhetorical, but colloquial and intimate.
5.Give the example of the terse style of Julius Caesar’s prose.
An example: I came, I saw, I conquered (models of succinct Latin).
6.Who was Lucretius? What did he do?
(1)Lucretius was a poet of ancient Rome.(2)He wrote the philosophical poem On the Nature of Thing to expound the ideas of Epicurus the Greek atomist.
7.What is the book for which Virgil has been famous throughout the
countries? In what ways is the book linked with the Greek past?
(1)The book was Aeneid. (2)The story was about Aeneas, one of the princes of Troy, who escaped from that burning city when it fell to the Greeks, to carry on the Trojan cause in a new place, Rome. He didn’t go alone, but, carrying his father on his shoulders and leading his little son by the hand, a family group of three generations moved together. Thus in this way the book is linked with the Greek past.
8.Why do we say Aeneus is a truly tragic hero?
Because Aeneas had to betray the great passion of his life, his love for Dido, queen of Carthage, so that he could fulfill his historic mission.
9.What is the chief Roman achievement in architecture? Give some
examples.
(1)The Romans were great engineers. They covered their world from one end to
the other with roads, bridges, aqueducts, theatres and arenas.
(2)Some examples:
A.The Pantheon: the greatest the best preserved Roman temple built in 27
B.
C..
B.Pont du Gard: it is an exceptionally well-preserved aqueduct that spans a wide
valley in southern France.
10.W hy are the wall-paintings of the ancient Romans still significant to us
today?
Roman painting was strongly influenced by the art of Greece. And it also had
pecularities of its own. Unfortunately much of the painting no longer exists. There are, however, some wall-paintings from Pompeii and other towns near Naples. These wall-paintings include still lives, landscape paintings and figure paintings. Among them were Lady Musician and Young Girl, the Maiden Gathering Flowers and the Landscape.
Division two: the Bible and Christianity
基督教及其《圣经》
1.What was the Hebrew’s major contribution to world civilization?
The history of the Hebrews was handed down orally from one generation to another in the form of folktales and stories, which were recorded later in the Old Testament, which still later became the first part of the Christian Bible. Thus the Hebrews made one of the greatest contributions to the world civilization.
2.Why do we say Judaism and Christianity are closely related?
Judaism and Christianity are closely related:⑴it was the Jewish tradition which gave birth to Christianity;⑵both originated in Palestine—the hub of migration and trade route, which led to exchange ideas over wide areas.
3.When did the great exodus take place?
Around 1300 B.C., Moses, the famous Hebrew leader, went to see the pharaoh of Egypt, telling him that Yahweh wanted the pharaoh to end Hebrew slavery and let the Hebrew leave Egypt. With this began the Exodus, which lasted forty years.
4.Who was Moses? What did he do for the Hebrews?
Moses was a famous Hebrew leader. Around 1300 B.C., Moses led the Hebrews
to leave Egypt for the Promised Land. This was called the Exodus which lasted forty years. When the wandering Hebrews left the desert and entered the mountainous Sinai, Moses climbed to the top of the mountain to receive form god message, which came to be known as the Ten Commandments. He died shortly before the Hebrews arrived at their homeland.
5.What are the Ten Commandments about?
The Ten Commandment are a set of rules Moses commands all Israel to obey in the name of God:⑴Yahweh is the only God all Israel should worship;⑵Do not carve and serve any idol to worship;⑶Do not take the name of God in vain;
⑷Keep the Sabbath day and labor in the other six days;⑸Honor and respect one’s parents;⑹Do not kill;⑺Do not commit adultery;⑻Do not steal;⑼Do not bear false witness against people;⑽Do not desire one’s neighbor’s wife, nor his house, nor his field, nor his servants, nor his livestock, nor anything else.
6.What writings make up the New Testament?
The New Testament consists of 14 books. The four accounts, which were believed to have been written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, four of Jesus’early followers, are the first part of the New Testament and tell of the birth, teaching, death and Resurrection of Jesus. Then come: the Acts of the Apostles, a history of the early Christian movement: the Epistles, or letters to the church groups around the Mediterranean; and lastly the book of Revelation, a visionary account of the final triumph of God’s purpose.
7.How did the relations between Christians and the Roman government
change?
The early Christian were subject to persecutions by the Roman government.
Jesus Christ was crucified by the Roman government. After Jesus died, his disciplines St. Peter and St. Paul suffered martyrdom under the Roman Emperor Nero about 65 A.D. Nero even burned Christians in his garden in 64 A.D. For 240 years after the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, persecutions of Christians continued. The chief persecutions were under Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Valerian and Diocletian. Despite these persecutions, Christians continued to spread steadily over the Mediterranean region. It began to draw men and women from all classes and the attitude of the Roman government toward Christianity began to change. By 305 Diocletian gave up his effort to destroy the young religion. When ConstantineⅠwon the throne from his rivals, he believed that God had helped him, and in 313 he issued the Edict of Milan which granted religious freedom to all and made Christianity legal. Under Constantine Christianity made great contribution of the empire. The emperors who followed ConstantineⅠcontinued pro-Christian policies. In 392 A.D., Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the empire and outlawed all other religions. Now Christianity had changed from an object of oppression to a weapon in the hands of the ruling class to crush their opponents.
8.How did Christian monks help Western civilization survive?
The Christian monks helped western civilization survive in many ways: ⑴The Christian monks spread Christianity to the Mediterranean region and some of them even suffered martyrdom;⑵Some monks translated the Old Testament into Greek and St. Jerome translated the whole Bible into Latin. Later some such as John Wycliffe and William Tyndale translated the Bible into the vernacular;
⑶In the Middle Ages, people in Western Europe were mainly divided into three
classes: clergy, lords and peasants. Of these three classes, the only literate section was the clergy. The Christian monks did a lot to help preserve and transmit a large part of the traditional heritage of the western culture. They not only translated the Bible into Latin or the Vernacular but also copied or translated the ancient works into the vernacular, such as the monks in these monasteries set up by Charlemagne and Alfred the Great.
9.Why do we say the Bible has shaped Western culture more decisively
than anything else ever written?
Judeo-Christian tradition constitutes one of the two major components of European culture. The Bible which is virtually related to every phase of human life greatly influences people’s daily life, especially in the Middle Ages when almost everyone was a Christian; The Bible has great impact upon western literature. For a long period of time, the Latin Bible was accepted as the authority and Latin was official language of the Roman Catholic Church, so most Europe literature at that time was in Latin. Besides it is generally accepted that the English Bible and Shakespeare are two great reservoirs of Modern English. Furthermore, the use of Biblical themes has been a literary tradition. In fact few great English and American writers of the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th century can be read and appreciated with satisfaction without a sufficient knowledge of the Bible; The study of the Christian teaching especially the Bible has become an important branch of knowledge—scholasticism which has been prevalent for centuries; The Bible has also influenced western philosophies and science. Thus the Bible has shaped western culture more decisively than anything else ever written.
Division three: The Middle Ages
中世纪
1.What happened in Western Europe after the decline of the Roman
Empire?
After the Roman Empire lost its predominance, a great many Germanic Kingdoms began to grow into the nations know as England, France, Italy, and Germany in its place. These nations of Western Europe were in the scene of frequent wars and invasions. The political unity had given way to widespread destruction and confusion. Hunger and disease killed many lives and village fell into ruin and great areas of land lay waste. There was no central government to keep the order. The only organization that seemed to unite Europe was the Christian church. Christianity was almost the all and the one of Medieval lives in western Europe and took lead in politics, law, art, and learning for hundreds years.
2.What were the cultural characteristics of the period from 500 to 1000? Above all, the cultural characters of this period were the heritage and achievement of Roman culture and the emergence of Hebrew and Gothic culture.
3.Who was Charles Martel?
Charles Martel was a Frankish ruler who gave his soldiers estates known as fiefs as a reward for their services in 732.
4.What was the relationship between lord and vassal?
Lords granted parts of their lands known as fiefs to vassals. In return, the vassals promised to fight for the lords.
5.Into what three groups were people divided under feudalism?
Under feudalism, people of their Western Europe were mainly divided into three classes: clergy, lords, and peasants.
6.What was the different between a serf and a free man?
A serf had no land and no freedom. He was bond to the land where he had been born. A free man was a peasant who usually was a worker who made the ploughs, shod the horses, and made harnesses for oxen and horses.
7.What is the importance of the using of vernacular languages in Medieval
literature?
In the Middle Ages, some ―national epics‖were written in vernacular language—the language of various national states that came into being at that period, and some monks advocated translating the Bible in vernacular. Literary works were no longer all written in Latin. It was the starting point of a gradual transition of European literature from Latin culture that was the combination of a variety od national characteristics.
8.In what ways did Gothic art differ from Romanesque art?
⑴Although Gothic was an outgrowth of the Romanesque, it was given directions by a different aesthetic and philosophical spirit and reflected a much more ordered feudal society with full confidence.
⑵Romanesque architecture is characterized by massiveness, solidity, and monumentality with an overall blocky appearance. Sculpture and painting, primary in churches, developed a wonderful unity with architecture. Both arts often are imbued with symbolism and allegory. They are not based on natural forms but use deliberate distortions for expressive impact.
⑶Gothic cathedrals soared high, their windows, arched and towers reaching heavenward, flinging their passion against the sky. They were decorated with beautiful stained glass windows and sculptures more lifelike than any since ancient Rome.
9.What was the merit which Charlemagne and Alfred the Great share? Both Charlemagne and Alfred the Great contribution greatly to the European culture. Both of them encouraged learning by setting up monastery schools. The scholars in Alfred the Great’s monasteries translated the Latin works into the vernacular. Thus both helped preserve the ancient classics and culture.
Division four: Renaissance and Reformation
文艺复兴与宗教改革
1.What made Italy the birthplace of the Renaissance?
Because of its geographical position, foreign trade developed early in Italy. This brought Italy into contact with other cultures and gave rise to urban economy and helped Italy accumulate wealth which was an essential factor for the flowering of art and literature.
For two centuries beginning from the late 15th century, Florence was the golden city which gave birth to a whole generation of poets, scholars, artists and sculptors. There was in Florence a revival of interest in classical learning and rising of humanist ideas. And to spread the new ideas, libraries and academies were founded. In the 15th century printing was invented and helped to spread humanist ideas.
2.What are the main elements of humanism? How are these elements
reflected in art and literature during the Italian Renaissance?
Humanist is the essence of Renaissance. Humanists in renaissance believed that human beings had rights to pursue wealth and pleasure and they admires the beauty of human body. This belief ran counter to the medieval ascetical idea of poverty and stoicism, and shifted man’s interest from Christianity to humanity, from religion to philosophy, from heaven to earth, from the beauty of God to the beauty of human in all its joy, senses and feeling.
The philosophy of humanism is reflected in the art and literature during the Italian Renaissance in the literature works of Boccaccio and Petrarch and in the art of Giotto, Brunelleschi, Donatello, Giorgione, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian, etc. In their works they did not stress death and other world but call on man to live and work for the present.
3.Why do we look upon Petrarch as the father of modern poetry? Petrarch was a prominent figure of his time, a great figure in Italian literature and one of the great humanists during the Renaissance. He has written numerous lyrics, sonnets and canzonets. Petrarch rejected medieval country conventions and sang for true love and earthly happiness in his sonnets. Later sonnets became a very important literary form of poetry in Europe and a lot of poets, such as Shakespeare, Spencer, and Mrs. Browning, were indebted to him. Thus we look upon him as the father of modern poetry
4.How did Italian Renaissance art and architecture break away from
medieval traditions?
The Italian Renaissance art and architecture radically broke away from the medieval methods of representing the visible world. Compared with the latter, the
former has the following distinct features:
⑴Art broke away from the domination of church and artist who used to be craftsmen commissioned by the church became a separate strata doing noble and creative works;
⑵Themes of painting and architecture changed from purely celestial realm focusing on the stories of the Bible, of God and Mary to an appreciation of all aspects of nature and man;
⑶The artists studied the ruins of Roman and Greek temples and put many of the principles of ancient civilization into their works;
⑷Artists introduced in their works scientific theories of anatomy and perspective.
5.In what way was Da Vinci important during the Renaissance?
Leonado da Vinci was a man of many talents, a Renaissance man in the true sense of the word. He was a painter, a sculptor, an architect, a musician, an engineer, and a scientist all in one.
As an artist, he was very important. He has left to the world famous works such as Last Supper and Mona Lisa. Then his excellent use of contrast between light and darkness showed him as an excellent painter. Most important of all, da Vinci had profound understanding of art. In his 5000 notebooks, he put down his observations of life and his sketch drawing. In his painting he stressed the expression of emotional states. His understandings of art exerted great influence upon painters of his own generation and generations to follow.
He was also very important in the science of medicine. During his life he dissected more than thirty corpses and was a great anatomist in Italy. He placed
art in the service of anatomy as a science based on extensive research.
6.What are the doctrines of Martin Luther? What was the significance of
the reformation in European civilization?
In Reformation began in 1517, Martin Luther put forth the following doctrines: ⑴He rejected the absolute authority of the Roman Catholic church and replace it with absolute of the Bible. People can communicate with God directly instead of through the church;
⑵He opposed the purchase of indulgences and called for institutional reform of the church;
⑶advocated translating the whole Bible into vernaculars and made the Bible accessible to every man;
⑷He preached love and ideals of equality, and he was a fighter for democracy and nationalism, a humanist who helped to build a competent educational system in Germany.
The Reformation was significant in the European civilization. Before Reformation, Europe was essentially feudal and medieval. In all aspects of politics, economy and spirit, it was under the absolute rule of the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire. But after the Reformation things were different. In educational and cultural matters, the monopoly of the church was broken. In religion, Protestantism brought into being different forms of Christianity to challenge the absolute rule of the Roman Catholic Church. In language, the dominant position of Latin had to give way to the national languages as a result of various translations of Bible into vernacular. In spirit, absolute obedience became out-mode and the spirit of quest, debate, was ushered
in by the reformists. In word, after the reformation Europe was to take a new course of development, a scientific revolution was to be under way and capitalism was to set in with its dynamic economic principles.
7.What was Counter—Reformation? Who were the Jesuits? Are they still
active now?
The counter the Reformation and to bring back its vitality, the Roman Catholic Church mustered their forces to examine the Church institutions and introduce reforms and improvements. In time, the Roman Catholic Church did re-establish itself as a dynamic force in European affairs. This recovery of power is often called by historians the Counter-Reformation. The seed-bed for this Catholic reformation was Spain with the Spanish monarchy establishing the inquisition to carry out cruel suppression of heresy and unorthodoxy.
Ignatius, a Spaniard who devoted his life to defending the Roman Catholic Church, and his followers called them the Jesuits members of the Society of Jesus.
Today the Society of Jesus is still active with a membership of 31,000, having institutions in various parts of the world.
8.What did French Renaissance writers propose in their writings?
⑴The French Renaissance writer Rabelais expressed hid ideas in Gargantua and Pantagruel that the only rule of the house was ―Do As Thou Wilt‖—to follow our natural instinct;
⑵Ronsard held that man of letters should write in a style that was clear and free from useless rhetoric;
⑶The Essais of Montaigne records his views on life, death and his skepticism
towards knowledge, in simple, straightforward style, his famous motto is ―What do I know?‖
9.Why did England come later than other countries during the Renaissance?
In what way was English Renaissance different from that of other countries? Who were the major figures and what their contributions? Because of the War of Roses within the country and its weak and unimportant position in world trade, Renaissance came later in England than other European countries. Compared with the Renaissance in other countries, the Renaissance in England has the following features:
⑴It came later; but when it did come, it was to produce some towering figures in English literature and the world literature;
⑵The Renaissance in England found its finest expression in drama, crowned by Shakespeare;
⑶The Renaissance in England enjoyed a period of political and religious stability under the reign of Elizabeth Ⅰ.
The major figures of this period were William Shakespeare, Edmund Spencer, Sir Thomas more, Francis Bacon, and etc. Shakespeare has contributed to the world a legacy of literature heritage by turning out so many outstanding plays and poems. He was one of the two reservoirs of modern English language. Thomas More has written Utopia and depicted in this work an ideal non-Christian state where everybody lives a simple life and shares the goods in common. He contributed to the western tradition of envisioning an ideal state. Spencer has influenced many English poets.
10.W hat were some of scientific advances during the Renaissance?
During the Renaissance, many sciences has made great progress.
Firstly, it was an age of geographical discoveries: Columbus has discovered the New World in 1492; Dias discovered the Cape of Good Hope in 1487; da Gama discovered the route to India round the Cape of Good Hope in 1497; Amerigo discovered and explored the mouth of the Amazon and accepted South America as a new continent.
Secondly, Copernicus believed that the earth and other planets orbit about the sun and that earth is not at the center of the universe. Here began the modern astronomy.
Thirdly, both da Vinci and Vesalius were good at anatomy. Vesalius wrote Fabrica and was regarded as the founder of modern medicine.
Fourthly, printing was invented in Italy.
Finally, Dante, Machiavelli, and V osari have contributed a great deal to political science and historiography. Machiavelli was called ―Father of political science‖in the west.
Division five: The seventeenth Century
17世纪
1.What were Galileo’s contributions to modern science?
Galileo is the greatest name in physics in the 17th century. He has made contributions to the world:
⑴He was the first to apply telescope to the study of the skies. He even made a telescope for himself and used it to observe the stars;
⑵In 1609 he announced a series of astronomical discoveries which caught the
attention of the whole of Europe. With the help of telescope, e proved that Ptolemy’s system would not work and that Copernicus’s hypothesis had been right;
⑶Galileo discovered the importance of acceleration in dynamics and the law of inertia;
⑷Galileo was the first to establish the law of falling bodies;
⑸He invented thermometer.
2.How did Kepler’s laws clarify and amend Copernican theory? Copernicus heliocentric theory was put forward only as a hypothesis. It was Kepler who supported him scientifically. Kepler is best known for his discovery of ht three laws of planetary motion, the three laws being called Kepler’s laws published in 1609 an 1619. They may be stated as follows:
①Each planet moves in an ellipse, not a perfect circle, with the sun at one focus;
②Each planet moves more rapidly when near the sun than farther from it;
③The distance of each planet from the sun bears a definite relation to the time period the planet took to complete a revolution around the sun. This law was reduced to a mathematical formula: the square of the period of revolution of a planet about the sun is proportional to the cube of the mean distance of the planet from the sun.
Kepler’s laws supported, clarified and amended the Copernican system and turned the system from a general description of the sun and the planets into a precise mathematical formula/ these three laws formed the basis of all modern planetary astronomy and led to Newton’s discovery of the laws of gravitation. 3.Why Newton is generally considered to be the greatest scientist that ever