Thales was greatly in advance of his time, for it will be
recalled that fully two hundred years later the Greeks under
Nicias before Syracuse were so disconcerted by the appearance of
an eclipse, which was interpreted as a direct omen and warning,
that Nicias threw away the last opportunity to rescue his army.
Thucydides, it is true, in recording this fact speaks
disparagingly of the superstitious bent of the mind of Nicias,
but Thucydides also was a man far in advance of his time.

All that we know of the psychology of Thales is summed up in the
famous maxim, "Know thyself," a maxim which, taken in connection
with the proven receptivity of the philosopher's mind, suggests
to us a marvellously rounded personality.

The disciples or successors of Thales, Anaximander and
Anaximenes, were credited with advancing knowledge through the
invention or introduction of the sundial. We may be sure,
however, that the gnomon, which is the rudimentary sundial, had
been known and used from remote periods in the Orient, and the
most that is probable is that Anaximander may have elaborated
some special design, possibly the bowl- shaped sundial, through
which the shadow of the gnomon would indicate the time. The same
philosopher is said to have made the first sketch of a
geographical map, but this again is a statement which modern
researches have shown to be fallacious, since a Babylonian
attempt at depicting the geography of the world is still
preserved to us on a clay tablet. Anaximander may, however, have
been the first Greek to make an attempt of this kind. Here again
the influence of Babylonian science upon the germinating Western
thought is suggested.

It is said that Anaximander departed from Thales's conception of
the earth, and, it may be added, from the Babylonian conception
also, in that he conceived it as a cylinder, or rather as a
truncated cone, the upper end of which is the habitable portion.
This conception is perhaps the first of these guesses through
which the Greek mind attempted to explain the apparent fixity of
the earth. To ask what supports the earth in space is most
natural, but the answer given by Anaximander, like that more
familiar Greek solution which transformed the cone, or cylinder,
into the giant Atlas, is but another illustration of that
substitution of unwarranted inference for scientific induction
which we have already so often pointed out as characteristic of
the primitive stages of thought.

Anaximander held at least one theory which, as vouched for by
various copyists and commentators, entitles him to be considered
perhaps the first teacher of the idea of organic evolution.
According to this idea, man developed from a fishlike ancestor,
"growing up as sharks do until able to help himself and then
coming forth on dry land."[1] The thought here expressed finds
its germ, perhaps, in the Babylonian conception that everything
came forth from a chaos of waters. Yet the fact that the thought
of Anaximander has come down to posterity through such various
channels suggests that the Greek thinker had got far enough away
from the Oriental conception to make his view seem to his
contemporaries a novel and individual one. Indeed, nothing we
know of the Oriental line of thought conveys any suggestion of
the idea of transformation of species, whereas that idea is
distinctly formulated in the traditional views of Anaximander.



VI. THE EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS IN ITALY

Diogenes Laertius tells a story about a youth who, clad in a
purple toga, entered the arena at the Olympian games and asked to
compete with the other youths in boxing. He was derisively denied
admission, presumably because he was beyond the legitimate age
for juvenile contestants. Nothing daunted, the youth entered the
lists of men, and turned the laugh on his critics by coming off
victor. The youth who performed this feat was named Pythagoras.
He was the same man, if we may credit the story, who afterwards
migrated to Italy and became the founder of the famous Crotonian
School of Philosophy; the man who developed the religion of the
Orphic mysteries; who conceived the idea of the music of the
spheres; who promulgated the doctrine of metempsychosis; who
first, perhaps, of all men clearly conceived the notion that this
world on which we live is a ball which moves in space and which
may be habitable on every side.

A strange development that for a stripling pugilist. But we must
not forget that in the Greek world athletics held a peculiar
place. The chief winner of Olympian games gave his name to an
epoch (the ensuing Olympiad of four years), and was honored
almost before all others in the land. A sound mind in a sound
body was the motto of the day. To excel in feats of strength and
dexterity was an accomplishment that even a philosopher need not
scorn. It will be recalled that aeschylus distinguished himself
at the battle of Marathon; that Thucydides, the greatest of Greek
historians, was a general in the Peloponnesian War; that
Xenophon, the pupil and biographer of Socrates, was chiefly famed
for having led the Ten Thousand in the memorable campaign of
Cyrus the Younger; that Plato himself was credited with having
shown great aptitude in early life as a wrestler. If, then,
Pythagoras the philosopher was really the Pythagoras who won the
boxing contest, we may suppose that in looking back upon this
athletic feat from the heights of his priesthood--for he came to
be almost deified--he regarded it not as an indiscretion of his
youth, but as one of the greatest achievements of his life. Not


<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | 86 | 87 | 88 | 89 |