”8 and it is a striking coincidence that
“ cord-fastener,
_ the oldest Indian geometrical treatise is called the
" Culvasutras or “rules of the cord.” These things point
to the use of the triangle of which the sides are 3, 4, 5,
and which has always a right angle. We know that
this triangle was used from an early date among the
Chinese and the Hindus, who doubtless got it from
Babylon, and we shall see that Thales probably learnt
the use of it in Egypt.* There is no reason whatever
for supposing that any of these peoples had in any
degree troubled themselves to give ἃ theoretical
1 For a fuller account of this method, see Gow, Short History of Greek Mathematics, pp. 127 544. ; and Milhaud, Sczence grecque, p. 99.
2 Re Po. 188.
3 The real meaning of ἁρπεδονάπτης was first pointed out by Cantor. The gardener laying out a flower-bed is the true modern representative of the ‘‘ harpedonapts.”
4 See Milhaud, Sccence grecque, Ὁ. 103.
Introduction 25
demonstration of its properties, though Demokritos
would certainly have been able to do so. Finally,
we must note the highly significant fact that all
mathematical terms are of purely Greek origin.’
XII. The other source from which the Ionians Babylonian
directly or indirectly derived material for their cos- eee
mology was the Babylonian astronomy. There is no
doubt that the Babylonians from a very early date had
recorded all celestial phenomena like eclipses. They
had also studied the planetary motions, and determined
the signs of the zodiac. Further, they were able to
predict the recurrence of the phenomena they had
observed with considerable accuracy by means of
cycles based on their recorded observations. I can see
no reason for doubting that they had observed the
phenomenon of precession. Indeed, they could hardly
have failed to notice it; for their observations went
back over so many centuries, that it would be quite
appreciable. We know that, at a later date, Ptolemy
estimated the precession of the equinoxes at one degree
in a hundred years, and it is extremely probable that
this is just the Babylonian value. At any rate, it
- agrees very well with their division of the celestial
circle into 360 degrees, and made it possible for a
century to be regarded as a day in the “Great Year,”
a conception we shall meet with later on.’
1 The word πυραμίς is often supposed to be derived from the term piremus used in the Rhind papyrus, which does not mean pyramid, but “ridge.” It is really, however, a Greek word too, and is the name of a kind of cake. The Greeks called crocodiles lizards, ostriches sparrows, and obelisks meat-skewers, so they may very well have called the pyramids cakes. We seem to hear an echo of the slang of the mercenaries that carved their names on the colossus at Abu-Simbel.
2 Three different positions of the equinox are given in three different Babylonian tablets, namely, 10°, 8° 15’, and 8° ο΄ 30” of Aries. (Kugler, Mondrechnung, p. 103; Ginzel, X7io, i. p. 205.) Given knowledge of this
26 Early Greek Philosophy
We shall see that Thales probably knew the cycle
which the Babylonians used to predict eclipses (§ 2}5
but it would be a mistake to suppose that the pioneers
of Greek science had any detailed knowledge of the
Babylonian astronomy. It was not till the time
of Plato that even the names of the planets were
known,’ and the recorded observations were only
made available in Alexandrian times. But, even if
they had known these, their originality would remain.
The Babylonians studied and _ recorded celestial
phenomena for what we call astrological purposes, not
from any scientific interest. There is no evidence at
all that their accumulated observations ever suggested
to them the least dissatisfaction with the primitive
view of the world, or that they attempted to account
for what they saw in any but the crudest way. The
Greeks, on the other hand, with far fewer data to go
upon, made at least three discoveries of capital
importance in the course of two or three generations.
In the first place, they discovered that the earth is a
sphere and does not rest on anything. In the second
kind, and the practice of formulating recurrences in cycles, it is scarcely conceivable that the Babylonians should not have invented a cycle for precession. It is equally intelligible that they should only have reached a rough approximation ; for the precessional period is really about 27,600 years and not 36,000. It is to be observed that Plato’s ‘‘ perfect year” is also 36,000 solar years (Adam’s Repudiic, vol. ii. p. 302), and that it is probably connected with the precession of the equinoxes. (Cf. 7772. 39 ἃ, a passage which is most easily interpreted if referred to precession.) This suggestion as to the origin of the ‘‘ Great Year ” was thrown out by Mr. Adam (of. cit. p- 305), and is now confirmed by Hilprecht, 7e Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1906).
1 In classical Greek literature, no planets but “Eoepos and ‘Ewo¢épos are mentioned by name at all. Parmenides (or Pythagoras) first identified these as a single planet (8 93). Mercury appears for the first time by name in Tim, 38 6, and the other divine names are given in Zin. 987 Ὁ sq., where they are said to be ‘* Syrian.” The Greek names Φαίνων, Φαέθων, Πυρόεις, Φωσφόρος, Στίλβων, may be older, but this cannot be proved.
Introduction 27
place, they discovered the true theory of lunar and
solar eclipses ; and, in close connexion with this, they
came to see, in the third place, that the earth is not
the centre of our system, but revolves round it like the
other planets. Not very much later, certain Greeks
even took, at least tentatively, the final step of identify-
ing the centre round which the earth and the planets
revolve with the sun. These discoveries will be dis-
cussed in their proper place; they are only mentioned
here to show the gulf between Greek astronomy and
everything that had preceded it. The Babylonians
had as many thousand years as the Greeks had
centuries to make these discoveries, and it does not
appear that they ever thought of one of them. The
Originality of the Greeks cannot be successfully
questioned till it can be shown that the Babylonians
had even an incorrect idea of what we call the solar
system.
We may sum up all this by saying that the Greeks
did not borrow either their philosophy or their science
from the East. They did, however, get from Egypt
certain rules of mensuration which, when generalised, ©
gave birth to geometry; while from Babylon they —
learnt that the phenomena of the heavens recur in
cycles with the greatest regularity. This piece of
knowledge undoubtedly had a great deal to do with
the rise of science; for to the Greek it suggested
further questions such as the Babylonian did not
dream of."
1 The Platonic account of this matter is to be found in the Zpznomes, 986 e 9 sqq., and is summed up by the words λάβωμεν δὲ ὡς ὅτιπερ ἂν “Ἕλληνες βαρβάρων παραλάβωσι, κάλλιον τοῦτο els τέλος ἀπεργάζονται (987 ἃ 9).
The point is well put by Theon (Adrastos), 2 χ2. p. 177, 20 Hiller, who speaks of the Chaldaeans and Egyptians as ἄνευ φυσιολογίας ἀτελεῖς
The scientific
character of
the early ©
Greek cos-
mology.
28 Early Greek Philosophy
XIII. It is necessary to say something as to the
scientific worth of the philosophy we are about to
study. We have just seen that the Eastern peoples
were, at the time of which we write, considerably richer
than the Greeks in accumulated facts, though these
facts had certainly not been observed for any scientific
purpose, and their possession never suggested a revision
of the primitive view of the world. The Greeks, how-
ever, stw.in them something that could be turned to
account; and they were never as a people slow to act
on the maxim, Chacun prend son bien partout ou i le
trouve. The most striking monument of this spirit
which has come down to us is the work of Herodotos;
and the visit of Solon-to-Croesus which he describes,
however unhistorical it may be, gives a very lively and
faithful picture of it. Croesus tells Solon that he has
heard much of “his wisdom and his wanderings,” and
how, from love of knowledge (φιλοσοφέων), he has travelled over much land for the purpose of seeing what was to be seen (Oewpins εἵνεκεν). The words Gewpin, φιλοσοφίη, and ἱστορίη are, in fact, the catch- words of the time, though they had, we must remember, a somewhat different meaning from that which they were afterwards made to bear at Athens." The idea that underlies them all may, perhaps, be best rendered in English by the word Curzoszty ; and it was just this ποιούμενοι Tas μεθόδους, δέον ἅμα καὶ φυσικῶς περὶ τούτων ἐπισκοπεῖν " ὅπερ οἱ παρὰ τοῖς “Ἕλλησιν ἀστρολογήσαντες ἐπειρῶντο ποιεῖν, τὰς παρὰ τούτων λαβόντες ἀρχὰς καὶ τῶν φαινομένων τηρήσεις. The importance of this last passage is that it represents the view taken at Alexandria, where the facts were accurately known.
1 Still, the word θεωρία never wholly lost its early associations, and the Greeks always felt that the θεωρητικὸς Bios meant literally ‘‘ the life of the
spectator.” Its special use, and the whole theory of the ‘‘ three lives,” seem to be of Pythagorean origin. See my edition of Aristotle’s Z¢hzcs,
p- 19n.
Introduction 29
' great gift of curiosity, and the desire to see all the
wonderful things—pyramids, inundations, and so forth
—that were to be seen, which enabled the Greeks to pick
up and turn to their own use such scraps of knowledge
as they could come by among the barbarians. No
sooner did a Greek philosopher learn half a dozen
geometrical propositions, and hear that the phenomena
of ‘the heavens recur in cycles, than he set to work to
look for law everywhere in nature, and, with a splendid
audacity, almost amounting to ὕβρις, to construct a hw
system of the universe. We may smile, if we please, at the strange medley of childish fancy and true scientific insight which these Titanic efforts display, and some- times we feel disposed to sympathise with the sages of the day who warned their more daring contemporaries | “to think the thoughts befitting man’s estate” (ἀνθρώπινα φρονεῖν). But we shall do well to remember at the same time that even now it is just such hardy anticipa- tions of experience that make scientific progress possible, and that nearly every one of the early inquirers whom) we are about to study made some permanent addition. to the store of positive knowledge, besides opening up. new views of the world in every direction. |
There is no justification either for the idea that
Greek science was built up solely by more or less lucky
guesswork, instead of by observation and experiment.
The nature of our tradition, which mostly consists of
Placita—that is, of what we call “results ”—tends, no
doubt, to create this impression. We are seldom told
why any early philosopher held the views he did, and
the appearance of a string of “opinions” suggests
dogmatism. There are, however, certain exceptions to
the general character of the tradition; and we may
30 Early Greek Philosophy
reasonably suppose that, if the later Greeks had been interested in the matter, there would have been many more. We shall see that Anaximander made some remarkable discoveries in marine biology, which the researches of the nineteenth century have fully con- firmed (§ 21), and even Xenophanes supported one of his theories by referring to the fossils and petrifactions of such widely separated places as Malta, Paros, and Syracuse (§ 59). This is enough to show that the theory, so commonly held by the earlier philosophers, _ that the earth had been originally in a moist state, was ἙΝ not mythological in origin, but was Ῥαβεὰ on, or at J any rate confirmed by, biological and palaeontological observations of a thoroughly modern and _ scientific type. It would surely be absurd to imagine that the men who could make these observations had not the curiosity or the ability to make many others of which the memory is lost. Indeed, the idea that the Greeks . were not observers is almost ludicrously wrong, as is
~ proved by two simple considerations. The anatomical
_ accuracy of Greek sculpture bears witness to trained
habits of observation, and those of the highest order,
while the fixing of the seasons by the heliacal rising
and setting of the stars shows a familiarity with
_, celestial phenomena which is by no means common
at the present day:’ We know, then, that the Greeks
could observe well in matters affecting agriculture,
urious about the world. Is it conceivable that they
| did not use their powers of observation to gratify that
curiosity? It is true, of course, that they had not our