(^52) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
find no disciples. In consequence, the more sophisticated of his
achievements became incomprehensible to following generations. But
the basic scientific texts were common property everywhere."^10 Basic
texts, a kind of canonical writ, are not enough; worse, they may even
chill thought.
Europe came to printing centuries after China. It should not be
thought, however, that printing made the book and invented reading.
On the contrary, the interest in the written word grew rapidly in the
Middle Ages, especially after bureaucracy and the rise of towns in
creased demand for records and documents. Government rests on
paper. Much of this verbiage, moreover, was written in the vernacular,
shattering the hieratic monopoly of a dead but sacred tongue (Latin)
and opening the way to wider readership and a literature of dissent.
As a result, scribes could not keep up with demand. All manner of
arrangements were conceived to increase reading material. Manuscripts
were prepared and bound in separable fascicles; that divided the labor
of writing while enabling several people to read the book at the same
time. And as in China, block printing came in before movable type,
yielding flysheets more than books and once again copiously illus
trated. So when Gutenberg published his Bible in 1452-55, the first
Western book printed by movable type (and arguably the most beau
tiful book ever printed), he brought the new technique to a society that
had already vasdy increased its output of writing and was fairly pant
ing after it. Within the next half century, printing spread from the
Rhineland throughout western Europe. The estimated output of in
cunabula (books published before 1501) came to millions—2 million
in Italy alone.
In spite of printing's manifest advantages, it was not accepted every
where. The Muslim countries long remained opposed, largely on reli
gious grounds: the idea of a printed Koran was unacceptable. Jews and
Christians had presses in Istanbul but not Muslims. The same in India:
not until the early nineteenth century was the first press installed. In
Europe, on the other hand, no one could put a lid on the new tech
nology. Political authority was too fragmented. The Church had tried
to curb vernacular translations of sacred writ and to forbid dissemina
tion of both canonical and noncanonical texts. Now it was over
whelmed. The demons of heresy were out long before Luther, and
printing made it impossible to get them back in the box.
- Gunpowder. Europeans probably got this from the Chinese in the
early fourteenth, possibly the late thirteenth century. The Chinese