THE GREEK AGE OF REASON.
RISE OF SCIENCE.
THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN.--_Disastrous in its political Effects
to Greece, but ushering in the Age of Reason._
ARISTOTLE _founds the Inductive Philosophy.--His Method the
Inverse of that of Plato.--Its great power.--In his own hands
it fails for want of Knowledge, but is carried out by the
Alexandrians._
ZENO.--_His Philosophical Aim is the Cultivation of Virtue and
Knowledge.--He is in the Ethical Branch the Counterpart of
Aristotle in the Physical._
FOUNDATION OF THE MUSEUM OF ALEXANDRIA.--_The great Libraries,
Observatories, Botanical Gardens, Menageries, Dissecting
Houses.--Its Effect on the rapid Development of exact
Knowledge.--Influence of Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes,
Apollonius, Ptolemy, Hipparchus, on Geometry, Natural
Philosophy, Astronomy, Chronology, Geography._
_Decline of the Greek Age of Reason._
[Sidenote: The Greek invasion of Persia.]
The conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great is a most important event
in European history. That adventurer, carrying out the intentions of his
father Philip, commenced his attack with apparently very insignificant
means, having, it is said, at the most, only thirty-four thousand
infantry, four thousand cavalry, and seventy talents in money. The
result of his expedition was the ruin of the Persian empire, and also
the ruin of Greece. It was not without reason that his memory was cursed
in his native country. Her life-blood was drained away by his successes.
In view of the splendid fortunes to be made in Asia, Greece ceased to be
the place for an enterprising man. To such an extent did military
emigration go, that Greek recruits were settled all over the Persian
empire; their number was sufficient to injure irreparably the country
from which they had parted, but not sufficient to Hellenize the dense
and antique populations among whom they had settled.
[Sidenote: Its ruinous effect on Greece.]
[Sidenote: Injury to Athens from the founding of Alexandria.]
Not only was it thus by the drain of men that the Macedonian expedition
was so dreadfully disastrous to Greece, the political consequences
following those successful campaigns added to the baneful result.
Alexander could not have more effectually ruined Athens had he treated
her as he did Thebes, which he levelled with the ground, massacring six
thousand of her citizens, and selling thirty thousand for slaves. The
founding of Alexandria was the commercial end of Athens, the finishing
stroke to her old colonial system. It might have been well for her had
he stopped short in his projects with the downfall of Tyre, destroyed,
not from any vindictive reasons, as is sometimes said, but because he
discovered that that city was an essential part of the Persian system.
It was never his intention that Athens should derive advantage from the
annihilation of her Phoenician competitor; his object was effectually
carried out by the building and prosperity of Alexandria.
[Sidenote: Scientific tendency of the Macedonian campaigns.]
[Sidenote: Origin of the influence of Aristotle through Alexander.]
Though the military celebrity of this great soldier may be diminished by
the history of the last hundred years, which shows a uniform result of
victory when European armies are brought in contact with Asiatic, even
under the most extraordinary disadvantages, there cannot be denied to
him a profound sagacity and statesmanship excelled by no other
conqueror. Before he became intoxicated with success, and,
unfortunately, too frequently intoxicated with wine, there was much that
was noble in his character. He had been under the instruction of
Aristotle for several years, and, on setting out on his expedition, took
with him so many learned men as almost to justify the remark applied to
it, that it was as much a scientific as a military undertaking. Among
those who thus accompanied him was Callisthenes, a relative and pupil of
Aristotle, destined for an evil end. Perhaps the assertion that
Alexander furnished to his master 250,000_l._ and the services of
several thousand men, for the purpose of obtaining and examining the
specimens required in the composition of his work on the "History of
Animals" may be an exaggeration, but there can be no doubt that in these
transactions was the real beginning of that policy which soon led to the
institution of the Museum at Alexandria. The importance of this event,
though hitherto little understood, admits of no exaggeration, so far as
the intellectual progress of Europe is concerned. It gave to the works
of Aristotle their wonderful duration; it imparted to them not only a
Grecian celebrity, but led to their translation into Syriac by the
Nestorians in the fifth century, and from Syriac by the Arabs into their
tongue four hundred years later. They exercised a living influence over
Christians and Mohammedans indifferently, from Spain to Mesopotamia.
[Sidenote: Scientific training and undertakings of Alexander.]
[Sidenote: His unbridled passions and iniquities.]
If the letter quoted by Plutarch as having been written by Alexander to
Aristotle be authentic, it not only shows how thoroughly the pupil had
been indoctrinated into the wisdom of the master, but warns us how
liable we are to be led astray in the exposition we are presently to
give of the Aristotelian philosophy. There was then, as unfortunately
there has been too often since, a private as well as a public doctrine.
Alexander upbraids the philosopher for his indiscretion in revealing
things that it was understood should be concealed. Aristotle defends
himself by asserting that the desired concealment had not been broken.
By many other incidents of a trifling kind the attachment of the
conqueror to philosophy is indicated; thus Harpalus and Nearchus, the
companions of his youth, were the agents employed in some of his
scientific undertakings, the latter being engaged in sea explorations,
doubtless having in the main a political object, yet full of interest to
science. Had Alexander lived, Nearchus was to have repeated the
circumnavigation of Africa. Harpalus, while governor of Babylon, was
occupied in the attempt to exchange the vegetation of Europe and Asia;
he intertransplanted the productions of Persia and Greece, succeeding,
as is related, in his object of making all European plants that he
tried, except the ivy, grow in Mesopotamia. The journey to the Caspian
Sea, the expedition into the African deserts, indicate Alexander's
personal taste for natural knowledge; nor is it without significance
that, while on his death-bed, and, indeed, within a few days of his
decease, he found consolation and amusement in having Nearchus by his
side relating the story of his voyages. Nothing shows more strikingly
how correct was his military perception than the intention he avowed of
equipping a thousand ships for the conquest of Carthage, and thus
securing his supremacy in the Mediterranean. Notwithstanding all this,
there were many points of his character, and many events of his life,
worthy of the condemnation with which they have been visited; the
drunken burning of Persepolis, the prisoners he slaughtered in honour of
Hephæstion, the hanging of Callisthenes, were the results of
intemperance and unbridled passion. Even so steady a mind as his was
incapable of withstanding the influence of such enormous treasures as
those he seized at Susa; the plunder of the Persian empire; the
inconceivable luxury of Asiatic life; the uncontrolled power to which he
attained. But he was not so imbecile as to believe himself the
descendant of Jupiter Ammon; that was only an artifice he permitted for
the sake of influencing those around him. We must not forget that he
lived in an age when men looked for immaculate conceptions and celestial
descents. These Asiatic ideas had made their way into Europe. The
Athenians themselves were soon to be reconciled to the appointment of
divine honours to such as Antigonus and Demetrius, adoring them as
gods--saviour gods--and instituting sacrifices and priests for their
worship.
[Sidenote: The Greek age of Reason ushered in.]
[Sidenote: Its inability to accomplish the civilization of Europe.]
Great as were the political results of the Macedonian expedition, they
were equalled by the intellectual. The times were marked by the ushering
in of a new philosophy. Greece had gone through her age of Credulity,
her age of Inquiry, her age of Faith; she had entered on her age of
Reason, and, had freedom of action been permitted to her, she would have
given a decisive tone to the forthcoming civilization of Europe. As
will be seen in the following pages, that great destiny did not await
her. From her eccentric position at Alexandria she could not civilize
Europe. In her old age, the power of Europe, concentrated in the Roman
empire, overthrew her. There are very few histories of the past of more
interest to modern times, and none, unfortunately, more misunderstood,
than this Greek age of Reason manifested at Alexandria. It illustrates,
in the most signal manner, that affairs control men more than men
control affairs. The scientific associations of the Macedonian conqueror
directly arose from the contemporaneous state of Greek philosophy in the
act of reaching the close of its age of faith, and these influences
ripened under the Macedonian captain who became King of Egypt. As it
was, the learning of Alexandria, though diverted from its most
appropriate and desirable direction by the operation of the Byzantine
system, in the course of a few centuries acting forcibly upon it, was
not without an influence on the future thought of Europe. Even at this
day Europe will not bear to be fully told how great that influence has
been.
[Sidenote: The writings of Aristotle are its prelude.]
The age of Reason, to which Aristotle is about to introduce us, stands
in striking contrast to the preceding ages. It cannot escape the reader
that what was done by the men of science in Alexandria resembles what is
doing in our own times; their day was the foreshadowing of ours. And yet
a long and dreary period of almost twenty centuries parts us from them.
Politically, Aristotle, through his friendship with Alexander and the
perpetuation of the Macedonian influence in Ptolemy, was the connecting
link between the Greek age of Faith and that of Reason, as he was also
philosophically by the nature of his doctrines. He offers us an easy
passage from the speculative methods of Plato to the scientific methods
of Archimedes and Euclid. The copiousness of his doctrines, and the
obscurity of many of them, might, perhaps, discourage a superficial
student, unless he steadily bears in mind the singular authority they
maintained for so many ages, and the brilliant results in all the exact
parts of human knowledge to which they so quickly led. The history of
Aristotle and his philosophy is therefore our necessary introduction to
the grand, the immortal achievements of the Alexandrian school.
[Sidenote: Biography of Aristotle.]
Aristotle was born at Stagira, in Thrace, B.C. 384. His father was an
eminent author of those times on subjects of Natural History; by
profession he was a physician. Dying while his son was yet quite young,
he bequeathed to him not only very ample means, but also his own tastes.
Aristotle soon found his way to Athens, and entered the school of Plato,
with whom it is said he remained for nearly twenty years. During this
period he spent most of his patrimony, and in the end was obliged to
support himself by the trade of a druggist. At length differences arose
between them, for, as we shall soon find, the great pupil was by no
means a blind follower of the great master. In a fortunate moment,
Philip, the King of Macedon, appointed him preceptor to his son
Alexander, an incident of importance in the intellectual history of
Europe. It was to the friendship arising through this relation that
Aristotle owed the assistance he received from the conqueror during his
Asiatic expedition for the composition of "the Natural History," and
also gained that prestige which gave his name such singular authority
for more than fifteen centuries. He eventually founded a school in the
Lyceum at Athens, and, as it was his habit to deliver his lectures while
walking, his disciples received the name of Peripatetics, or walking
philosophers. These lectures were of two kinds, esoteric and exoteric,
the former being delivered to the more advanced pupils only. He wrote a
very large number of works, of which about one-fourth remain.
[Sidenote: He founds the inductive philosophy.]
The philosophical method of Aristotle is the inverse of that of Plato,
whose starting-point was universals, the very existence of which was a
matter of faith, and from these he descended to particulars or details.
Aristotle, on the contrary, rose from particulars to universals,
advancing to them by inductions; and his system, thus an inductive
philosophy, was in reality the true beginning of science.
[Sidenote: His method compared with that of Plato.]
Plato therefore trusts to the Imagination, Aristotle to Reason. The
contrast between them is best seen by the attitude in which they stand
as respects the Ideal theory. Plato regards universals, types, or
exemplars as having an actual existence; Aristotle declares that they
are mere abstractions of reasoning. For the fanciful reminiscences
derived from former experience in another life by Plato, Aristotle
substitutes the reminiscences of our actual experience in this. These
ideas of experience are furnished by the memory, which enables us not
only to recall individual facts and events witnessed by ourselves, but
also to collate them with one another, thereby discovering their
resemblances and their differences. Our induction becomes the more
certain as our facts are more numerous, our experience larger. "Art
commences when, from a great number of experiences, one general
conception is formed which will embrace all similar cases." "If we
properly observe celestial phenomena, we may demonstrate the laws which
regulate them." With Plato, philosophy arises from faith in the past;
with Aristotle, reason alone can constitute it from existing facts.
Plato is analytic, Aristotle synthetic. The philosophy of Plato arises
from the decomposition of a primitive idea into particulars, that of
Aristotle from the union of particulars into a general conception. The
former is essentially an idealist, the latter a materialist.
[Sidenote: The results of Platonism and Aristotelism.]
From this it will be seen that the method of Plato was capable of
producing more splendid, though they were necessarily more unsubstantial
results; that of Aristotle was more tardy in its operation, but much
more solid. It implied endless labour in the collection of facts, the
tedious resort to experiment and observation, the application of
demonstration. In its very nature it was such that it was impossible for
its author to carry by its aid the structure of science to completion.
The moment that Aristotle applies his own principles we find him
compelled to depart from them through want of a sufficient experience
and sufficient precision in his facts. The philosophy of Plato is a
gorgeous castle in the air, that of Aristotle is a solid structure,
laboriously, and, with many failures, founded on the solid rock.
[Sidenote: Aristotle's logic]
Under Logic, Aristotle treats of the methods of arriving at general
propositions, and of reasoning from them. His logic is at once the art
of thinking and the instrument of thought. The completeness of our
knowledge depends on the extent and completeness of our experience. His
manner of reasoning is by the syllogism, an argument consisting of three
propositions, such that the concluding one follows of necessity from the
two premises, and of which, indeed, the whole theory of demonstration is
only an example. Regarding logic as the instrument of thought, he
introduces into it, as a fundamental feature, the ten categories. These
predicaments are the genera to which everything may be reduced, and
denote the most general of the attributes which may be assigned to a
thing.
[Sidenote: and metaphysics.]
His metaphysics overrides all the branches of the physical sciences. It
undertakes an examination of the postulates on which each one of them is
founded, determining their truth or fallacy. Considering that all
science must find a support for its fundamental conditions in an
extensive induction from facts, he puts at the foundation of his system
the consideration of the individual; in relation to the world of sense,
he regards four causes as necessary for the production of a fact--the
material cause, the substantial cause, the efficient cause, the final
cause.
[Sidenote: Temporary failure of his system.]
[Sidenote: The Peripatetic philosophy.]
[Sidenote: Substance, Motion, Space, Time.]
[Sidenote: The world.]
[Sidenote: Organic beings.]
[Sidenote: Physiological conclusions.]
But as soon as we come to the Physics of Aristotle we see at once his
weakness. The knowledge of his age does not furnish him facts enough
whereon to build, and the consequence is that he is forced into
speculation. It will be sufficient for our purpose to allude to a few of
his statements, either in this or in his metaphysical branch, to show
how great is his uncertainty and confusion. Thus he asserts that matter
contains a triple form--simple substance, higher substance, which is
eternal, and absolute substance, or God himself; that the universe is
immutable and eternal, and, though in relation with the vicissitudes of
the world, it is unaffected thereby; that the primitive force which
gives rise to all the motions and changes we see is Nature; it also
gives rise to Rest; that the world is a living being, having a soul;
that, since every thing is for some particular end, the soul of man is
the end of his body; that Motion is the condition of all nature; that
the world has a definite boundary and a limited magnitude; that Space
is the immovable vessel in which whatever is may be moved; that Space,
as a whole, is without motion, though its parts may move; that it is not
to be conceived of as without contents; that it is impossible for a
vacuum to exist, and hence there is not beyond and surrounding the world
a void which contains the world; that there could be no such thing as
Time unless there is a soul, for time being the number of motion, number
is impossible except there be one who numbers; that, perpetual motion in
a finite right line being impossible, but in a curvilinear path
possible, the world, which is limited and ever in motion, must be of a
spherical form; that the earth is its central part, the heavens the
circumferential: hence the heaven is nearest to the prime cause of
motion; that the orderly, continuous, and unceasing movement of the
celestial bodies implies an unmoved mover, for the unchangeable alone
can give birth to uniform motion; that unmoved existence is God; that
the stars are passionless beings, having attained the end of existence,
and worthy above other things of human adoration; that the fixed stars
are in the outermost heaven, and the sun, moon, and planets beneath: the
former receive their motion from the prime moving cause, but the planets
are disturbed by the stars; that there are five elements--earth, air,
fire, water, and ether; that the earth is in the centre of the world,
since earthy matter settles uniformly round a central point; that fire
seeks the circumferential region, and intermediately water floats upon
the earth, and air upon water; that the elements are transmutable into
one another, and hence many intervening substances arise; that each
sphere is in interconnection with the others; the earth is agitated and
disturbed by the sea, the sea by the winds, which are movements of the
air, the air by the sun, moon, and planets. Each inferior sphere is
controlled by its outlying or superior one, and hence it follows that
the earth, which is thus disturbed by the conspiring or conflicting
action of all above it, is liable to the most irregularities; that,
since animals are nourished by the earth, it needs must enter into their
composition, but that water is required to hold the earthy matters
together; that every element must be looked upon as living, since it is
pervaded by the soul of the world; that there is an unbroken chain from
the simple element through the plant and animal up to man, the different
groups merging by insensible shades into one another: thus zoophytes
partake partly of the vegetable and partly of the animal, and serve as
an intermedium between them; that plants are inferior to animals in
this, that they do not possess a single principle of life or soul, but
many subordinate ones, as is shown by the circumstance that, when they
are cut to pieces, each piece is capable of perfect or independent
growth or life. Their inferiority is likewise betrayed by their
belonging especially to the earth to which they are rooted, each root
being a true mouth; and this again displays their lowly position, for
the place of the mouth is ever an indication of the grade of a creature:
thus in man, who is at the head of the scale, it is in the upper part of
the body; that in proportion to the heat of an animal is its grade
higher; thus those that are aquatic are cold, and therefore of very
little intelligence, and the same maybe said of plants; but of man,
whose warmth is very great, the soul is much more excellent; that the
possession of locomotion by an organism always implies the possession of
sensation; that the senses of taste and touch indicate the qualities of
things in contact with the organs of the animal, but that those of
smell, hearing, and sight extend the sphere of its existence, and
indicate to it what is at a distance: that the place of reception of the
various sensations is the soul, from which issue forth the motions; that
the blood, as the general element of nutrition, is essential to the
support of the body, though insensible itself: it is also essential to
the activity of the soul; that the brain is not the recipient of
sensations: that function belongs to the heart; all the animal
activities are united in the last; it contains the principle of life,
being the principle of motion: it is the first part to be formed and the
last to die; that the brain is a mere appendix to the heart, since it is
formed after the heart, is the coldest of the organs and is devoid of
blood; that the soul is the reunion of all the functions of the body: it
is an energy or active essence; being neither body nor magnitude, it
cannot have extension, for thought has no parts, nor can it be said to
move in space; it is as a sailor, who is motionless in a ship which is
moving; that, in the origin of the organism, the male furnishes the soul
and the female the body; that the body being liable to decay, and of a
transitory nature, it is necessary for its well-being that its
disintegration and nutrition should balance one another; that sensation
may be compared to the impression of a seal on wax, the wax receiving
form only, but no substance or matter; that imagination arises from
impressions thus made, which endure for a length of time, and that this
is the origin of memory; that man alone possesses recollection, but
animals share with him memory--memory being unintentional or
spontaneous, but recollection implying voluntary exertion or a search;
that recollection is necessary for acting with design. It is doubtful
whether Aristotle believed in the immortality of the soul, no decisive
passage to that effect occurring in such of his works as are extant.
[Sidenote: Causes of Aristotle's success and failure.]
Aristotle, with a correct and scientific method, tried to build up a
vast system when he was not in possession of the necessary data. Though
a very learned man, he had not sufficient knowledge; indeed, there was
not sufficient knowledge at that time in the world. For many of the
assertions I have quoted in the preceding paragraph there was no kind of
proof; many of them also, such as the settling of the heavy and the rise
of the light, imply very poor cosmic ideas. It is not until he deals
with those branches, such as comparative anatomy and natural history, of
which he had a personal and practical knowledge, that he begins to write
well. Of his physiological conclusions, some are singularly felicitous;
his views of the connected chain of organic forms, from the lowest to
the highest, are very grand. His metaphysical and physical
speculations--for in reality they are nothing but speculations--are of
no kind of value. His successful achievements, and also his failures,
conspicuously prove the excellence of his system. He expounded the true
principles of science, but failed to apply them merely for want of
materials. His ambition could not brook restraint. He would rather
attempt to construct the universe without the necessary means than not
construct it at all.
Aristotle failed when he abandoned his own principles, and the magnitude
of his failure proves how just his principles were; he succeeded when he
adhered to them. If anything were wanting to vindicate their correctness
and illustrate them, it is supplied by the glorious achievements of the
Alexandrian school, which acted in physical science as Aristotle had
acted in natural history, laying a basis solidly in observation and
experiment, and accomplishing a like durable and brilliant result.
[Sidenote: Biography of Zeno.]
From Aristotle it is necessary to turn to Zeno, for the Peripatetics and
Stoics stand in parallel lines. The social conditions existing in Greece
at the time of Epicurus may in some degree palliate his sentiments, but
virtue and honour will make themselves felt at last. Stoicism soon
appeared as the antagonist of Epicureanism, and Epicurus found in Zeno
of Citium a rival. The passage from Epicurus to Zeno is the passage from
sensual gratification to self-control.
The biography of Zeno may be dismissed in a few words. Born about B.C.
300, he spent the early part of his life in the vocation of his father,
who was a merchant, but, by a fortunate shipwreck, happily losing his
goods during a voyage he was making to Athens, he turned to philosophy
for consolation. Though he had heretofore been somewhat acquainted with
the doctrines of Socrates, he became a disciple of the Cynics,
subsequently studying in the Megaric school, and then making himself
acquainted with Platonism. After twenty years of preparation, he opened
a school in the stoa or porch in Athens, from which his doctrine and
disciples have received their name. He presided over his school for
fifty-eight years, numbering many eminent men among his disciples. When
nearly a hundred years old he chanced to fall and break his finger, and,
receiving this as an admonition that his time was accomplished, he
forthwith strangled himself. The Athenians erected to his memory a
statue of brass. His doctrines long survived him, and, in times when
there was no other consolation for man, offered a support in their hour
of trial, and an unwavering guide in the vicissitudes of life, not only
to many illustrious Greeks, but also to some of the great philosophers,
statesmen, generals, and emperors of Rome.
[Sidenote: Intention of Stoicism.]
It was the intention of Zeno to substitute for the visionary
speculations of Platonism a system directed to the daily practices of
life, and hence dealing chiefly with morals. To make men virtuous was
his aim. But this is essentially connected with knowledge, for Zeno was
persuaded that if we only know what is good we shall be certain to
practise it. He therefore rejected Plato's fancies of Ideas and
Reminiscences, leaning to the common-sense doctrines of Aristotle, to
whom he approached in many details. With him Sense furnishes the data of
knowledge, and Reason combines them: the soul being modified by external
things, and modifying them in return, he believed that the mind is at
first, as it were, a blank tablet, on which sensation writes marks, and
that the distinctness of sensuous impressions is the criterion of their
truth. The changes thus produced in the soul constitute ideas; but, with
a prophetic inspiration, he complained that man will never know the true
essence of things.
[Sidenote: The Physics of Zeno.]
In his Physics Zeno adopted the doctrine of Strato, that the world is a
living being. He believed that nothing incorporeal can produce an
effect, and hence that the soul is corporeal. Matter and its properties
he considered to be absolutely inseparable, a property being actually a
body. In the world there are two things, matter and God, who is the
Reason of the world. Essentially, however, God and matter are the same
thing, which assumes the aspect of matter from the passive point of
view, and God from the active; he is, moreover, the prime moving force,
Destiny, Necessity, a life-giving Soul, evolving things as the vital
force evolves a plant out of a seed; the visible world is thus to be
regarded as the material manifestation of God. The transitory objects
which it on all sides presents will be reabsorbed after a season of
time, and reunited in him. The Stoics pretended to indicate, even in a
more definite manner, the process by which the world has arisen, and
also its future destiny; for, regarding the Supreme as a vital heat,
they supposed that a portion of that fire, declining in energy, became
transmuted into matter, and hence the origin of the world; but that that
fire, hereafter resuming its activity, would cause a universal
conflagration, the end of things. During the present state everything
is in a condition of uncertain mutation, decays being followed by
reproductions, and reproductions by decays; and, as a cataract shows
from year to year an invariable form, though the water composing it is
perpetually changing, so the objects around us are nothing more than a
flux of matter offering a permanent form. Thus the visible world is only
a moment in the life of God, and after it has vanished away like a
scroll that is burned, a new period shall be ushered in, and a new
heaven and a new earth, exactly like the ancient ones, shall arise.
Since nothing can exist without its contrary, no injustice unless there
was justice, no cowardice unless there was courage, no lie unless there
was truth, no shadow unless there was light, so the existence of good
necessitates that of evil. The Stoics believed that the development of
the world is under the dominion of paramount law, supreme law, Destiny,
to which God himself is subject, and that hence he can only develop the
world in a predestined way, as the vital warmth evolves a seed into the
predestined form of a plant.
[Sidenote: Exoteric philosophy of the Stoics.]
The Stoics held it indecorous to offend needlessly the religious ideas
of the times, and, indeed, they admitted that there might be created
gods like those of Plato; but they disapproved of the adoration of
images and the use of temples, making amends for their offences in these
particulars by offering a semi-philosophical interpretation of the
legends, and demonstrating that the existence, and even phenomenal
display of the gods was in accordance with their principles. Perhaps to
this exoteric philosophy we must ascribe the manner in which they
expressed themselves as to final causes--expressions sometimes of
amusing quaintness--thus, that the peacock was formed for the sake of
his tail, and that a soul was given to the hog instead of salt, to
prevent his body from rotting; that the final cause of plants is to be
food for brutes, of brutes to be food for men, though they discreetly
checked their irony in its ascending career, and abstained from saying
that men are food for the gods, and the gods for all.
[Sidenote: Their opinions of the nature of the soul.]
The Stoics concluded that the soul is mere warm breath, and that it and
the body mutually interpervade one another. They thought that it might
subsist after death until the general conflagration, particularly if its
energy were great, as in the strong spirits of the virtuous and wise.
Its unity of action implies that it has a principle of identity, the I,
of which the physiological seat is the heart. Every appetite, lust, or
desire is an imperfect knowledge. Our nature and properties are forced
upon us by Fate, but it is our duty to despise all our propensities and
passions, and to live so that we may be free, intelligent, and virtuous.
[Sidenote: Their ethical rules of wisdom.]
This sentiment leads us to the great maxim of Stoical Ethics, "Live
according to Reason;" or, since the world is composed of matter and God,
who is the Reason of the world, "Live in harmony with Nature." As Reason
is supreme in Nature, it ought to be so in man. Our existence should be
intellectual, and all bodily pains and pleasures should be despised. A
harmony between the human will and universal Reason constitutes virtue.
The free-will of the sage should guide his actions in the same
irresistible manner in which universal Reason controls nature. Hence the
necessity of a cultivation of physics, without which we cannot
distinguish good from evil. The sage is directed to remember that
Nature, in her operations, aims at the universal, and never spares
individuals, but uses them as means for accomplishing her ends. It is
for him, therefore, to submit to his destiny, endeavouring continually
to establish the supremacy of Reason, and cultivating, as the things
necessary to virtue, knowledge, temperance, fortitude, justice. He is at
liberty to put patriotism at the value it is worth when he remembers
that he is a citizen of the world; he must train himself to receive in
tranquillity the shocks of Destiny, and to be above all passion and all
pain. He must never relent and never forgive. He must remember that
there are only two classes of men, the wise and the fools, as "sticks
can only either be straight or crooked, and very few sticks in this
world are absolutely straight."
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Rise of Greek science.]
[Sidenote: Political position of the Ptolemies.]
[Sidenote: They co-ordinate Egyptian idolatry and Greek scepticism.]
From the account I have given of Aristotle's philosophy, it may be seen
that he occupied a middle ground between the speculation of the old
philosophy and the strict science of the Alexandrian school. He is the
true connecting link, in the history of European intellectual progress,
between philosophy and science. Under his teaching, and the material
tendencies of the Macedonian campaigns, there arose a class of men in
Egypt who gave to the practical a development it had never before
attained; for that country, upon the breaking up of Alexander's
dominion, B.C. 323, falling into the possession of Ptolemy, that general
found himself at once the depositary of spiritual and temporal power. Of
the former, it is to be remembered that, though the conquest by Cambyses
had given it a severe shock, it still not only survived, but displayed
no inconsiderable tokens of strength. Indeed, it is well known that the
surrender of Egypt to Alexander was greatly accelerated by hatred to the
Persians, the Egyptians welcoming the Macedonians as their deliverers.
In this movement we perceive at once the authority of the old
priesthood. It is hard to tear up by the roots an ancient religion, the
ramifications of which have solidly insinuated themselves among a
populace. That of Egypt had already been the growth of more than three
thousand years. The question for the intrusive Greek sovereigns to solve
was how to co-ordinate this hoary system with the philosophical
scepticism that had issued as the result of Greek thought. With singular
sagacity, they saw that this might be accomplished by availing
themselves of Orientalism, the common point of contact of the two
systems; and that, by its formal introduction and development, it would
be possible not only to enable the philosophical king, to whom all the
pagan gods were alike equally fictitious and equally useful, to manifest
respect even to the ultra-heathenish practices of the Egyptian populace,
but, what was of far more moment, to establish an apparent concord
between the old sacerdotal Egyptian party--strong in its unparalleled
antiquity; strong in its reminiscences; strong in its recent
persecutions; strong in its Pharaonic relics, regarded by all men with a
superstitious or reverent awe--and the free-thinking and versatile
Greeks. The occasion was like some others in history, some even in our
own times; a small but energetic body of invaders was holding in
subjection an ancient and populous country.
[Sidenote: The Museum of Alexandria.]
[Sidenote: Establishment of the worship of Serapis.]
To give practical force to this project, a grand state institution was
founded at Alexandria. It became celebrated as the Museum. To it, as to
a centre, philosophers from all parts of the world converged. It is said
that at one time not less than fourteen thousand students were assembled
there. Alexandria, in confirmation of the prophetic foresight of the
great soldier who founded it, quickly became an immense metropolis,
abounding in mercantile and manufacturing activity. As is ever the case
with such cities, its higher classes were prodigal and dissipated, its
lower only to be held in restraint by armed force. Its public amusements
were such as might be expected--theatrical shows, music, horse-racing.
In the solitude of such a crowd, or in the noise of such dissipation,
anyone could find a retreat--atheists who had been banished from Athens,
devotees from the Ganges, monotheistic Jews, blasphemers from Asia
Minor. Indeed, it has been said that in this heterogeneous community
blasphemy was hardly looked upon as a crime; at the worst, it was no
more than an unfortunate, and, it might be, an innocent mistake. But,
since uneducated men need some solid support on which their thoughts may
rest, mere abstract doctrines not meeting their wants, it became
necessary to provide a corporeal representation for this eclectic
philosophical Pantheism, and hence the Ptolemies were obliged to
restore, or, as some say, to import the worship of the god Serapis.
Those who affirm that he was imported say that he was brought from
Sinope; modern Egyptian scholars, however, give a different account. As
setting forth the Pantheistic doctrine of which he was the emblem, his
image, subsequently to attain world-wide fame, was made of all kinds of
metals and stones. "All is God." But still the people, with that
instinct which other nations and ages have displayed, hankered after a
female divinity, and this led to the partial restoration of the worship
of Isis. It is interesting to remark how the humble classes never shake
off the reminiscences of early life, leaning rather to the maternal than
to the paternal attachment. Perhaps it is for that reason that they
expect a more favourable attention to their supplications from a female
divinity than a god. Accordingly, the devotees of Isis soon out-numbered
those of Serapis, though a magnificent temple had been built for him at
Rhacotis, in the quarter adjoining the Museum, and his worship was
celebrated with more than imperial splendour. In subsequent ages the
worship of Serapis diffused itself throughout the Roman empire, though
the authorities--consuls, senate, emperors--knowing well the idea it
foreshadowed, and the doctrine it was meant to imply, used their utmost
power to put it down.
[Sidenote: The Alexandrian libraries.]
[Sidenote: Botanical gardens; menageries; dissecting-houses;
observatories.]
[Sidenote: Life in the Museum.]
The Alexandrian Museum soon assumed the character of a University. In it
those great libraries were collected, the pride and boast of antiquity.
Demetrius Phalareus was instructed to collect all the writings in the
world. So powerfully were the exertions of himself and his successors
enforced by the government that two immense libraries were procured.
They contained 700,000 volumes. In this literary and scientific retreat,
supported in ease and even in luxury--luxury, for allusions to the
sumptuous dinners have descended to our times--the philosophers spent
their time in mental culture by study, or mutual improvement by debates.
The king himself conferred appointments to these positions; in later
times, the Roman emperors succeeded to the patronage, the government
thereby binding in golden chains intellect that might otherwise have
proved troublesome. At first, in honour of the ancient religion, the
presidency of the establishment was committed to an Egyptian priest; but
in the course of time that policy was abandoned. It must not, however,
be imagined that the duties of the inmates were limited to reading and
rhetorical display; a far more practical character was imparted to them.
A botanical garden, in connection with the Museum, offered an
opportunity to those who were interested in the study of the nature of
plants; a zoological menagerie afforded like facilities to those
interested in animals. Even these costly establishments were made to
minister to the luxury of the times: in the zoological garden pheasants
were raised for the royal table. Besides these elegant and fashionable
appointments, another, of a more forbidding and perhaps repulsive kind,
was added; an establishment which, in the light of our times, is
sufficient to confer immortal glory on those illustrious and high-minded
kings, and to put to shame the ignorance and superstition of many modern
nations: it was an anatomical school, suitably provided with means for
the dissection of the human body, this anatomical school being the basis
of a medical college for the education of physicians. For the
astronomers Ptolemy Euergetes placed in the Square Porch an equinoctial
and a solstitial armil, the graduated limbs of these instruments being
divided into degrees and sixths. There were in the observatory stone
quadrants, the precursors of our mural quadrants. On the floor a
meridian line was drawn for the adjustment of the instruments. There
were also astrolabes and dioptras. Thus, side by side, almost in the
king's palace, were noble provisions for the cultivation of exact
science and for the pursuit of light literature. Under the same roof
were gathered together geometers, astronomers, chemists, mechanicians,
engineers. There were also poets, who ministered to the literary wants
of the dissipated city--authors who could write verse, not only in
correct metre, but in all kinds of fantastic forms--trees, hearts, and
eggs. Here met together the literary dandy and the grim theologian. At
their repasts occasionally the king himself would preside, enlivening
the moment with the condescensions of royal relaxation. Thus, of
Philadelphus it is stated that he caused to be presented to the Stoic
Sphærus a dish of fruit made of wax, so beautifully coloured as to be
undistinguishable from the natural, and on the mortified philosopher
detecting too late the fraud that had been practised upon him, inquired
what he now thought of the maxim of his sect that "the sage is never
deceived by appearances." Of the same sovereign it is related that he
received the translators of the Septuagint Bible with the highest
honours, entertaining them at his table. Under the atmosphere of the
place their usual religious ceremonial was laid aside, save that the
king courteously requested one of the aged priests to offer an extempore
prayer. It is naively related that the Alexandrians present, ever quick
to discern rhetorical merit, testified their estimation of the
performance with loud applause. But not alone did literature and the
exact sciences thus find protection. As if no subjects with which the
human mind has occupied itself can be unworthy of investigation, in the
Museum were cultivated the more doubtful arts, magic and astrology.
Philadelphus, who, toward the close of his life, was haunted with an
intolerable dread of death, devoted himself with intense assiduity to
the discovery of the elixir of life and to alchemy. Such a comprehensive
organization for the development of human knowledge never existed in the
world before, and, considering the circumstances, never has since. To be
connected with it was the passport to the highest Alexandrian society
and to court favour.
[Sidenote: The Septuagint translators.]
To the Museum, and, it has been asserted, particularly to Ptolemy
Philadelphus, the Christian world is thus under obligation for the
ancient version of the Hebrew Scriptures--the Septuagint. Many idle
stories have been related respecting the circumstances under which that
version was made, as that the seventy-two translators by whom it was
executed were confined each in a separate cell, and, when their work was
finished, the seventy-two copies were found identically the same, word
for word, from this it was supposed that the inspiration of this
translation was established. If any proof of that kind were needed, it
would be much better found in the fact that whenever occasion arises in
the New Testament of quoting from the Old, it is usually done in the
words of the Septuagint. The story of the cells underwent successive
improvements among the early fathers, but is now rejected as a fiction;
and, indeed, it seems probable that the translation was not made under
the splendid circumstances commonly related, but merely by the
Alexandrian Jews for their own convenience. As the Septuagint grew into
credit among the Christians, it lost favour among the Jews, who made
repeated attempts in after years to supplant it by new versions, such as
those of Aquila, of Theodotion, of Symmachus, and others. From the first
the Syrian Jews had looked on it with disapproval; they even held the
time of its translation as a day of mourning, and with malicious grief
pointed out its errors, as, for instance, they affirmed that it made
Methusaleh live until after the Deluge. Ptolemy treated all those who
were concerned in providing books for the library with consideration,
remunerating his translators and transcribers in a princely manner.
[Sidenote: Lasting influence of the Museum, theological and scientific.]
But the modern world is not indebted to these Egyptian kings only in the
particular here referred to. The Museum made an impression upon the
intellectual career of Europe so powerful and enduring that we still
enjoy its results. That impression was twofold, theological and
physical. The dialectical spirit and literary culture diffused among the
Alexandrians prepared that people, beyond all others, for the reception
of Christianity. For thirty centuries the Egyptians had been familiar
with the conception of a triune God. There was hardly a city of any note
without its particular triad. Here it was Amun, Maut, and Khonso; there
Osiris, Isis, and Horus. The apostolic missionaries, when they reached
Alexandria, found a people ready to appreciate the profoundest
mysteries. But with these advantages came great evils. The Trinitarian
disputes, which subsequently deluged the world with blood, had their
starting-point and focus in Alexandria. In that city Arius and
Athanasius dwelt. There originated that desperate conflict which
compelled Constantine the Great to summon the Council of Nicea, to
settle, by a formulary or creed, the essentials of our faith.
But it was not alone as regards theology that Alexandria exerted a power
on subsequent ages; her influence was as strongly marked in the
impression it gave to science. Astronomical observatories, chemical
laboratories, libraries, dissecting-houses, were not in vain. There went
forth from them a spirit powerful enough to tincture all future times.
Nothing like the Alexandrian Museum was ever called into existence in
Greece or Rome, even in their palmiest days. It is the unique and noble
memorial of the dynasty of the Ptolemies, who have thereby laid the
whole human race under obligations, and vindicated their title to be
regarded as a most illustrious line of kings. The Museum was, in truth,
an attempt at the organization of human knowledge, both for its
development and its diffusion. It was conceived and executed in a
practical manner worthy of Alexander. And though, in the night through
which Europe has been passing--a night full of dreams and delusions--men
have not entertained a right estimate of the spirit in which that great
institution was founded, and the work it accomplished, its glories being
eclipsed by darker and more unworthy things, the time is approaching
when its action on the course of human events will be better understood,
and its influences on European civilization more clearly discerned.
[Sidenote: The Museum was the issue of the Macedonian campaigns.]
Thus, then, about the beginning of the third century before Christ, in
consequence of the Macedonian campaign, which had brought the Greeks
into contact with the ancient civilization of Asia, a great degree of
intellectual activity was manifested in Egypt. On the site of the
village of Rhacotis, once held as an Egyptian post to prevent the
ingress of strangers, the Macedonians erected that city which was to be
the entrepôt of the commerce of the East and West, and to transmit an
illustrious name to the latest generations. Her long career of
commercial prosperity, her commanding position as respects the material
interests of the world, justified the statesmanship of her founder, and
the intellectual glory which has gathered round her has given an
enduring lustre to his name.
There can be no doubt that the philosophical activity here alluded to
was the direct issue of the political and military event to which we
have referred it. The tastes and genius of Alexander were manifested by
his relations to Aristotle, whose studies in natural history he promoted
by the collection of a menagerie; and in astronomy, by transmitting to
him, through Callisthenes, the records of Babylonian observations
extending over 1903 years. His biography, as we have seen, shows a
personal interest in the cultivation of such studies. In this particular
other great soldiers have resembled him; and perhaps it may be inferred
that the practical habit of thought and accommodation of theory to the
actual purposes of life pre-eminently required by their profession,
leads them spontaneously to decline speculative uncertainties, and to be
satisfied only with things that are real and exact.
[Sidenote: The great men it produced.]
Under the inspiration of the system of Alexander, and guided by the
suggestions of certain great men who had caught the spirit of the times,
the Egyptian kings thus created, under their own immediate auspices, the
Museum. State policy, operating in the manner I have previously
described, furnished them with an additional theological reason for
founding this establishment. In the Macedonian campaign a vast amount of
engineering and mathematical talent had been necessarily stimulated into
existence, for great armies cannot be handled, great marches cannot be
made, nor great battles fought without that result. When the period of
energetic action was over, and to the military operations succeeded
comparative repose and temporary moments of peace, the talent thus
called forth found occupation in the way most congenial to it by
cultivating mathematical and physical studies. In Alexandria, itself a
monument of engineering and architectural skill, soon were to be found
men whose names were destined for futurity--Apollonius, Eratosthenes,
Manetho. Of these, one may be selected for the remark that, while
speculative philosophers were occupying themselves with discussions
respecting the criterion of truth, and, upon the whole, coming to the
conclusion that no such thing existed, and that, if the truth was
actually in the possession of man, he had no means of knowing it, Euclid
of Alexandria was writing an immortal work, destined to challenge
contradiction from the whole human race, and to make good its title as
the representative of absolute and undeniable truth--truth not to be
gainsaid in any nation or at any time. We still use the geometry of
Euclid in our schools.
[Sidenote: The writings of Euclid.]
It is said that Euclid opened a geometrical school in Alexandria about
B.C. 300. He occupied himself not only with mathematical, but also with
physical investigation. Besides many works of the former class supposed
to have been written by him, as on Fallacies, Conic Sections, Divisions,
Porisms, Data, there are imputed to him treatises on Harmonics, Optics,
and Catoptrics, the two latter subjects being discussed, agreeably to
the views of those times, on the hypothesis of rays issuing from the eye
to the object, instead of passing, as we consider them to do, from the
object to the eye. It is, however, on the excellencies of his Elements
of Geometry that the durable reputation of Euclid depends; and though
the hypercriticism of modern mathematicians has perhaps successfully
maintained such objections against them as that they might have been
more precise in their axioms, that they sometimes assume what might be
proved, that they are occasionally redundant, and their arrangement
sometimes imperfect, yet they still maintain their ground as a model of
extreme accuracy, of perspicuity, and as a standard of exact
demonstration. They were employed universally by the Greeks, and, in
subsequent ages, were translated and preserved by the Arabs.
[Sidenote: The writings and works of Archimedes.]
Great as is the fame of Euclid, it is eclipsed by that of Archimedes the
Syracusan, born B.C. 287, whose connection with Egyptian science is not
alone testified by tradition, but also by such facts as his acknowledged
friendship with Conon of Alexandria, and his invention of the screw
still bearing his name, intended for raising the waters of the Nile.
Among his mathematical works, the most interesting, perhaps, in his own
estimation, as we may judge from the incident that he directed the
diagram thereof to be engraved on his tombstone, was his demonstration
that the solid content of a sphere is two-thirds that of its
circumscribing cylinder. It was by this mark that Cicero, when Quæstor
of Sicily, discovered the tomb of Archimedes grown over with weeds. This
theorem was, however, only one of a large number of a like kind, which
he treated of in his two books on the sphere and cylinder in an equally
masterly manner, and with equal success. His position as a geometer is
perhaps better understood from the assertion made respecting him by a
modern mathematician, that he came as near to the discovery of the
Differential Calculus as can be done without the aid of algebraic
transformations. Among the special problems he treated of may be
mentioned the quadrature of the circle, his determination of the ratio
of the circumference to the diameter being between: 3·1428 and 3·1408,
the true value, as is now known, being 3·1416 nearly. He also wrote on
Conoids and Spheroids, and upon that spiral still passing under his
name, the genesis of which had been suggested to him by Conon. In his
work entitled "Psammites" he alludes to the astronomical system
subsequently established by Copernicus, whose name has been given to it.
He also mentions the attempts which had been made to measure the size of
the earth; the chief object of the work being, however, to prove not
only that the sands upon the sea-shore can be numbered, but even those
required to fill the entire space within the sphere of the fixed stars;
the result being, according to our system of arithmetic, a less number
than is expressed by unity followed by 63 ciphers. Such a book is the
sport of a geometrical giant wantonly amusing himself with his strength.
Among his mathematical investigations must not be omitted the quadrature
of the parabola. His fame depends, however, not so much on his
mathematical triumphs as upon his brilliant discoveries in physics and
his mechanical inventions. How he laid the foundation of Hydrostatics is
familiar to everyone, through the story of Hiero's crown. A certain
artisan having adulterated the gold given him by King Hiero to form a
crown, Archimedes discovered while he was accidentally stepping into a
bath, that the falsification might be detected, and thereby invented the
method for the determination of specific gravity. From these
investigations he was naturally led to the consideration of the
equilibrium of floating bodies; but his grand achievement in the
mechanical direction was his discovery of the true theory of the lever:
his surprising merit in these respects is demonstrated by the fact that
no advance was made in theoretical mechanics during the eighteen
centuries intervening between him and Leonardo da Vinci. Of minor
matters not fewer than forty mechanical inventions have been attributed
to him. Among these are the endless screw, the screw pump, a hydraulic
organ, and burning mirrors. His genius is well indicated by the saying
popularly attributed to him, "Give me whereon to stand, and I will move
the earth," and by the anecdotes told of his exertions against Marcellus
during the siege of Syracuse; his invention of catapults and other
engines for throwing projectiles, as darts and heavy stones, claws
which, reaching over the walls, lifted up into the air ships and their
crews, and then suddenly dropped them into the sea; burning mirrors, by
which, at a great distance, the Roman fleet was set on fire. It is
related that Marcellus, honouring his intellect, gave the strictest
orders that no harm should be done to him at the taking of the town, and
that he was killed, unfortunately, by an ignorant soldier--unfortunately,
for Europe was not able to produce his equal for nearly two thousand years.
[Sidenote: The writings and works of Eratosthenes.]
Eratosthenes was contemporary with Archimedes. He was born at Cyrene,
B.C. 276. The care of the library appears to have been committed to him
by Euergetes; but his attention was more specially directed to
mathematical, astronomical, geographical, and historical pursuits. The
work entitled "Catasterisms," doubtfully imputed to him, is a catalogue
of 475 of the principal stars; but it was probably intended for nothing
more than a manual. He also is said to have written a poem upon
terrestrial zones. Among his important geographical labours may be
mentioned his determination of the interval between the tropics. He
found it to be eleven eighty-thirds of the circumference. He also
attempted the measurement of the size of the earth by ascertaining the
distance between Alexandria and Syene, the difference of latitude
between which he had found to be one-fiftieth of the earth's
circumference. It was his object to free geography from the legends with
which the superstition of ages had adorned and oppressed it. In
effecting this he well deserves the tribute paid to him by Humboldt, the
modern who of all others could best appreciate his labours. He
considered the articulation and expansion of continents; the position of
mountain chains; the action of clouds; the geological submersion of
lands; the elevation of ancient sea-beds; the opening of the Dardanelles
and of the Straits of Gibraltar; the relations of the Euxine Sea; the
problem of the equal level of the circumfluous ocean; and the necessary
existence of a mountain chain running through Asia in the diaphragm of
Dicæarchus. What an advance is all this beyond the meditations of
Thales! Herein we see the practical tendencies of the Macedonian wars.
In his astronomical observations he had the advantage of using the
armils and other instruments in the Observatory. He ascertained that
the direction of terrestrial gravity is not constant, but that the
verticals converge. He composed a complete systematic description of the
earth in three books--physical, mathematical, historical--accompanied by
a map of all the parts then known. Of his skill as a geometer, his
solution of the problem of two mean proportionals, still extant, offers
ample evidence; and it is only of late years that the fragments
remaining of his Chronicles of the Theban Kings have been properly
appreciated. He hoped to free history as well as geography from the
myths that deform it, a task which the prejudices and interests of man
will never permit to be accomplished. Some amusing anecdotes of his
opinions in these respects have descended to us. He ventured to doubt
the historical truth of the Homeric legends. "I will believe in it when
I have been shown the currier who made the wind-bags which Ulysses on
his homeward voyage received from Æolus." It is said that, having
attained the age of eighty years, he became weary of life, and put an
end to himself by voluntary starvation.
[Sidenote: Chronology of Eratosthenes.]
I shall here pause to make a few remarks suggested by the chronological
and astronomical works of Eratosthenes. Our current chronology was the
offspring of erroneous theological considerations, the nature of which
required not only a short historical term for the various nations of
antiquity, but even for the existence of man upon the globe. This
necessity appears to have been chiefly experienced in the attempt to
exalt certain facts in the history of the Hebrews from their subordinate
position in human affairs, and, indeed, to give the whole of that
history an exaggerated value. This was done in a double way: by
elevating Hebrew history from its true grade, and depreciating or
falsifying that of other nations. Among those who have been guilty of
this literary offence, the name of the celebrated Eusebius, the Bishop
of Cæsarea in the time of Constantine, should be designated, since in
his chronography and synchronal tables he purposely "perverted
chronology for the sake of making synchronisms" (Bunsen). It is true, as
Niebuhr asserts, "He is a very dishonest writer." To a great extent,
the superseding of the Egyptian annals was brought about by his
influence. It was forgotten, however, that of all things chronology is
the least suited to be an object of inspiration; and that, though men
may be wholly indifferent to truth for its own sake, and consider it not
improper to wrest it unscrupulously to what they may suppose to be a
just purpose, yet that it will vindicate itself at last. It is
impossible to succeed completely in perverting the history of a nation
which has left numerous enduring records. Egypt offers us testimonials
reaching over five thousand years. As Bunsen remarks, from the known
portion of the curve of history we may determine the whole. The
Egyptians, old as they are, belong to the middle ages of mankind, for
there is a period antecedent to monumental history, or indeed, to
history of any kind, during which language and mythology are formed, for
these must exist prior to all political institutions, all art, all
science. Even at the first moment that we gain a glimpse of the state of
Egypt she had attained a high intellectual condition, as is proved by
the fact that her system of hieroglyphics was perfected before the
fourth dynasty. It continued unchanged until the time of Psammetichus. A
stationary condition of language and writing for thousands of years
necessarily implies a long and very remote period of active improvement
and advance. It was doubtless such a general consideration, rather than
a positive knowledge of the fact, which led the Greeks to assert that
the introduction of geometry into Egypt must be attributed to kings
before the times of Menes. Not alone do her artificial monuments attest
for that country an extreme antiquity; she is herself her own witness;
for, though the Nile raises its bed only four feet in a thousand years,
all the alluvial portion of Egypt has been deposited from the waters of
that river. A natural register thus re-enforces the written records, and
both together compose a body of evidence not to be gainsaid. Thus the
depth of muddy silt accumulated round the pedestals of monuments is an
irreproachable index of their age. In the eminent position he occupied,
Eusebius might succeed in perverting the received book-chronology; but
he had no power to make the endless trade-wind that sweeps over the
tropical Pacific blow a day more or a day less; none to change the
weight of water precipitated from it by the African mountains; none to
arrest the annual mass of mud brought down by the river. It is by
collating such different orders of evidence together--the natural and
the monumental, the latter gaining strength every year from the
cultivation of hieroglyphic studies--that we begin to discern the true
Egyptian chronology, and to put confidence in the fragments that remain
of Eratosthenes and Manetho.
[Sidenote: Astronomy of Eratosthenes.]
[Sidenote: Attempts of Aristarchus to find the distance of the sun.]
At the time of which we are speaking--the time of Eratosthenes--general
ideas had been attained to respecting the doctrine of the sphere, its
poles, axis, the equator, arctic and antarctic circles, equinoctial
points, solstices, colures, horizon, etc. No one competent to form an
opinion any longer entertained a doubt respecting the globular form of
the earth, the arguments adduced in support of that fact being such as
are still popularly resorted to--the different positions of the horizon
at different places, the changes in elevation of the pole, the phenomena
of eclipses, and the gradual disappearance of ships as they sail from
us. As to eclipses, once looked upon with superstitious awe, their true
causes had not only been assigned, but their periodicities so well
ascertained that predictions of their occurrence could be made. The
Babylonians had thus long known that after a cycle of 223 lunations the
eclipses of the moon return. The mechanism of the phases of that
satellite was clearly understood. Indeed, Aristarchus of Samos attempted
to ascertain the distance of the sun from the earth on the principle of
observing the moon when she is dichotomized, a method quite significant
of the knowledge of the time, though in practice untrustworthy;
Aristarchus thus finding that the sun's distance is eighteen times that
of the moon, whereas it is in reality 400. In like manner, in a general
way, pretty clear notions were entertained of the climatic distribution
of heat upon the earth, exaggerated, however, in this respect, that the
torrid zone was believed to be too hot for human life, and the frigid
too cold. Observations, as good as could be made by simple instruments,
had not only demonstrated in a general manner the progressions,
retrogradations and stations of the planets, but attempts had been made
to account for, or rather to represent them, by the aid of epicycles.
[Sidenote: Biography of the Ptolemies.]
It was thus in Alexandria, under the Ptolemies, that modern astronomy
arose. Ptolemy Soter, the founder of this line of kings, was not only a
patron of science, but likewise an author. He composed a history of the
campaigns of Alexander. Under him the collection of the library was
commenced, probably soon after the defeat of Antigonus at the battle of
Ipsus, B.C. 301. The museum is due to his son Ptolemy Philadelphus, who
not only patronized learning in his own dominions, but likewise
endeavoured to extend the boundaries of human knowledge in other
quarters. Thus he sent an expedition under his admiral Timosthenes as
far as Madagascar. Of the succeeding Ptolemies, Euergetes and Philopator
were both very able men, though the later was a bad one; he murdered his
father, and perpetrated many horrors in Alexandria. Epiphanes,
succeeding his father when only five years old, was placed by his
guardians under the protection of Rome, thus furnishing to the ambitious
republic a pretence for interfering in the affairs of Egypt. The same
policy was continued during the reign of his son Philometor, who, upon
the whole, was an able and good king. Even Physcon, who succeeded in
B.C. 146, and who is described as sensual, corpulent, and cruel--cruel,
for he cut off the head, hands, and feet of his son, and sent them to
Cleopatra his wife--could not resist the inspirations to which the
policy of his ancestors, continued for nearly two centuries, had given
birth, but was an effective promoter of literature and the arts, and
himself the author of an historical work. A like inclination was
displayed by his successors, Lathyrus and Auletes, the name of the
latter indicating his proficiency in music. The surnames under which all
these Ptolemies pass were nicknames, or titles of derision imposed upon
them by their giddy and satirical Alexandrian subjects. The political
state of Alexandria was significantly said to be a tyranny tempered by
ridicule. The dynasty ended in the person of the celebrated Cleopatra,
who, after the battle of Actium, caused herself, as is related in the
legends, to be bitten by an asp. She took poison that she might not fall
captive to Octavianus, and be led in his triumph through the streets of
Rome.
If we possessed a complete and unbiased history of these Greek kings, it
would doubtless uphold their title to be regarded as the most
illustrious of all ancient sovereigns. Even after their political power
had passed into the hands of the Romans--a nation who had no regard to
truth and to right--and philosophy, in its old age, had become
extinguished or eclipsed by the faith of the later Cæsars, enforced by
an unscrupulous use of their power, so strong was the vitality of the
intellectual germ they had fostered, that, though compelled to lie
dormant for centuries, it shot up vigorously on the first occasion that
favouring circumstances allowed.
[Sidenote: They patronize literature as well as science.]
This Egyptian dynasty extended its protection and patronage to
literature as well as to science. Thus Philadelphus did not consider it
beneath him to count among his personal friends the poet Callimachus,
who had written a treatise on birds, and honourably maintained himself
by keeping a school in Alexandria. The court of that sovereign was,
moreover, adorned by a constellation of seven poets, to which the gay
Alexandrians gave the nickname of the Pleiades. They are said to have
been Lycophron, Theocritus, Callimachus, Aratus, Apollonius Rhodius,
Nicander, and Homer the son of Macro. Among them may be distinguished
Lycophron, whose work, entitled Cassandra, still remains; and
Theocritus, whose exquisite bucolics prove how sweet a poet he was.
[Sidenote: The writings of Apollonius.]
To return to the scientific movement. The school of Euclid was worthily
represented in the time of Euergetes by Apollonius Pergæus, forty years
later than Archimedes. He excelled both in the mathematical and physical
department. His chief work was a treatise on Conic Sections. It is said
that he was the first to introduce the words ellipse and hyperbola. So
late as the eleventh century his complete works were extant in Arabic.
Modern geometers describe him as handling his subjects with less power
than his great predecessor Archimedes, but nevertheless displaying
extreme precision and beauty in his methods. His fifth book, on Maxima
and Minima, is to be regarded as one of the highest efforts of Greek
geometry. As an example of his physical inquiries may be mentioned his
invention of a clock.
[Sidenote: The writings of Hipparchus.]
[Sidenote: The theory of epicycles and eccentrics.]
Fifty years after Apollonius, B.C. 160-125, we meet with the great
astronomer Hipparchus. He does not appear to have made observations
himself in Alexandria, but he uses those of Aristyllus and Timochares of
that place. Indeed, his great discovery of the precession of the
equinoxes was essentially founded on the discussion of the Alexandrian
observations on Spica Virginis made by Timochares. In pure mathematics
he gave methods for solving all triangles plane and spherical: he also
constructed a table of chords. In astronomy, besides his capital
discovery of the precession of the equinoxes just mentioned, he also
determined the first inequality of the moon, the equation of the centre,
and all but anticipated Ptolemy in the discovery of the evection. To him
also must be attributed the establishment of the theory of epicycles and
eccentrics, a geometrical conception for the purpose of resolving the
apparent motions of the heavenly bodies, on the principle of circular
movement. In the case of the sun and moon, Hipparchus succeeded in the
application of that theory, and indicated that it might be adapted to
the planets. Though never intended as a representation of the actual
motions of the heavenly bodies, it maintained its ground until the era
of Kepler and Newton, when the heliocentric doctrine, and that of
elliptic motions, were incontestably established. Even Newton himself,
in the 37th proposition of the third book of the "Principia," availed
himself of its aid. Hipparchus also undertook to make a register of the
stars by the method of alineations--that is, by indicating those which
were in the same apparent straight line. The number of stars catalogued
by him was 1,080. If he thus depicted the aspect of the sky for his
times, he also endeavoured to do the same for the surface of the earth
by marking the position of towns and other places by lines of latitude
and longitude.
[Sidenote: The writings of Ptolemy.]
[Sidenote: His great work: the mechanical construction of the heavens.]
Subsequently to Hipparchus, we find the astronomers Geminus and
Cleomedes; their fame, however, is totally eclipsed by that of Ptolemy,
A.D. 138, the author of the great work "Syntaxis," or the mathematical
construction of the heavens--a work fully deserving the epithet which
has been bestowed upon it, "a noble exposition of the mathematical
theory of epicycles and eccentrics." It was translated by the Arabians
after the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt; and, under the title of
Almagest, was received by them as the highest authority on the mechanism
and phenomena of the universe. It maintained its ground in Europe in the
same eminent position for nearly fifteen hundred years, justifying the
encomium of Synesius on the institution which gave it birth, "the divine
school of Alexandria." The Almagest commences with the doctrine that the
earth is globular and fixed in space; it describes the construction of a
table of chords and instruments for observing the solstices, and deduces
the obliquity of the ecliptic. It finds terrestrial latitudes by the
gnomon; describes climates; shows how ordinary may be converted into
sidereal time; gives reasons for preferring the tropical to the sidereal
year; furnishes the solar theory on the principle of the sun's orbit
being a simple eccentric; explains the equation of time; advances to the
discussion of the motions of the moon; treats of the first inequality,
of her eclipses, and the motion of the node. It then gives Ptolemy's own
great discovery--that which has made his name immortal--the discovery of
the moon's evection or second inequality, reducing it to the epicyclic
theory. It attempts the determination of the distances of the sun and
moon from the earth, with, however, only partial success, since it makes
the sun's distance but one-twentieth of the real amount. It considers
the precession of the equinoxes, the discovery of Hipparchus, the full
period for which is twenty-five thousand years. It gives a catalogue of
1,022 stars; treats of the nature of the Milky Way; and discusses, in
the most masterly manner, the motions of the planets. This point
constitutes Ptolemy's second claim to scientific fame. His determination
of the planetary orbits was accomplished by comparing his own
observations with those of former astronomers, especially with those of
Timochares on Venus.
[Sidenote: His geography.]
To Ptolemy we are also indebted for a work on Geography used in European
schools as late as the fifteenth century. The known world to him was
from the Canary Islands eastward to China, and from the equator
northward to Caledonia. His maps, however, are very erroneous; for, in
the attempt to make them correspond to the spherical figure of the
earth, the longitudes are too much to the east; the Mediterranean Sea is
twenty degrees too long. Ptolemy's determinations are, therefore,
inferior in accuracy to those of his illustrious predecessor
Eratosthenes, who made the distance from the sacred promontory in Spain
to the eastern mouth of the Ganges to be seventy thousand stadia.
Ptolemy also wrote on Optics, the Planisphere, and Astrology. It is not
often given to an author to endure for so many ages; perhaps, indeed,
few deserve it. The mechanism of the heavens, from his point of view,
has however, been greatly misunderstood. Neither he nor Hipparchus ever
intended that theory as anything more than a geometrical fiction. It is
not to be regarded as a representation of the actual celestial motions.
And, as might be expected, for such is the destiny of all unreal
abstractions, the theory kept advancing in complexity as facts
accumulated, and was on the point of becoming altogether unmanageable,
when it was supplanted by the theory of universal gravitation, which has
ever exhibited the inalienable attribute of a true theory--affording an
explanation of every new fact as soon as it was discovered, without
requiring to be burdened with new provisions, and prophetically
foretelling phenomena which had not as yet been observed.
[Sidenote: The later Alexandrian geometers.]
[Sidenote: Decline of the Greek age of Reason.]
From the time of the Ptolemies the scientific spirit of the Alexandrian
school declined; for though such mathematicians as Theodosius, whose
work on Spherical Geometry was greatly valued by the Arab geometers; and
Pappus, whose mathematical collections, in eight books, still for the
most part remain; and Theon, doubly celebrated for his geometrical
attainments, and as being the father of the unfortunate Hypatia, A.D.
415, lived in the next three centuries, they were not men like their
great predecessors. That mental strength which gives birth to original
discovery had passed away. The commentator had succeeded to the
philosopher. No new development illustrated the physical sciences; they
were destined long to remain stationary. Mechanics could boast of no
trophy like the proposition of Archimedes on the equilibrium of the
lever; no new and exact ideas like those of the same great man on
statical and hydrostatical pressure; no novel and clear views like those
developed in his treatise on floating bodies; no mechanical invention
like the first of all steam-engines--that of Hero. Natural Philosophy
had come to a stop. Its great, and hitherto successfully cultivated
department, Astronomy, exhibited no farther advance. Men were content
with what had been done, and continued to amuse themselves with
reconciling the celestial phenomena to a combination of equable circular
motions. To what are we to attribute this pause? Something had occurred
to enervate the spirit of science. A gloom had settled on the Museum.
[Sidenote: Causes of that decline.]
There is no difficulty in giving an explanation of this unfortunate
condition. Greek intellectual life had passed the period of its
maturity, and was entering on old age. Moreover, the talent which might
have been devoted to the service of science was in part allured to
another pursuit, and in part repressed. Alexandria had sapped Athens,
and in her turn Alexandria was sapped by Rome. From metropolitan
pre-eminence she had sunk to be a mere provincial town. The great prizes
of life were not so likely to be met with in such a declining city as in
Italy or, subsequently, in Constantinople. Whatever affected these chief
centres of Roman activity, necessarily influenced her; but, such is the
fate of the conquered, she must await their decisions. In the very
institutions by which she had once been glorified, success could only be
attained by a conformity to the manner of thinking fashionable in the
imperial metropolis, and the best that could be done was to seek
distinction in the path so marked out. Yet even with all this restraint
Alexandria asserted her intellectual power, leaving an indelible impress
on the new theology of her conquerors. During three centuries the
intellectual atmosphere of the Roman empire had been changing. Men were
unable to resist the steadily increasing pressure. Tranquillity could
only be secured by passiveness. Things had come to such a state that the
thinking of men was to be done for them by others, or, if they thought
at all, it must be in accordance with a prescribed formula or rule.
Greek intellect was passing into decrepitude, and the moral condition of
the European world was in antagonism to scientific progress.