this classical epoch, then, we may well recapitulate in brief its
triumphs. A few words will suffice to summarize a story the
details of which have made up our recent chapters.

In the field of cosmology, Greek genius has demonstrated that the
earth is spheroidal, that the moon is earthlike in structure and
much smaller than our globe, and that the sun is vastly larger
and many times more distant than the moon. The actual size of the
earth and the angle of its axis with the ecliptic have been
measured with approximate accuracy. It has been shown that the
sun and moon present inequalities of motion which may be
theoretically explained by supposing that the earth is not
situated precisely at the centre of their orbits. A system of
eccentrics and epicycles has been elaborated which serves to
explain the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies in a manner
that may be called scientific even though it is based, as we now
know, upon a false hypothesis. The true hypothesis, which places
the sun at the centre of the planetary system and postulates the
orbital and axial motions of our earth in explanation of the
motions of the heavenly bodies, has been put forward and ardently
championed, but, unfortunately, is not accepted by the dominant
thinkers at the close of our epoch. In this regard, therefore, a
vast revolutionary work remains for the thinkers of a later
period. Moreover, such observations as the precession of the
equinoxes and the moon's evection are as yet unexplained, and
measurements of the earth's size, and of the sun's size and
distance, are so crude and imperfect as to be in one case only an
approximation, and in the other an absurdly inadequate
suggestion. But with all these defects, the total achievement of
the Greek astronomers is stupendous. To have clearly grasped the
idea that the earth is round is in itself an achievement that
marks off the classical from the Oriental period as by a great
gulf.

In the physical sciences we have seen at least the beginnings of
great things. Dynamics and hydrostatics may now, for the first
time, claim a place among the sciences. Geometry has been
perfected and trigonometry has made a sure beginning. The
conception that there are four elementary substances, earth,
water, air, and fire, may not appear a secure foundation for
chemistry, yet it marks at least an attempt in the right
direction. Similarly, the conception that all matter is made up
of indivisible particles and that these have adjusted themselves
and are perhaps held in place by a whirling motion, while it is
scarcely more than a scientific dream, is, after all, a dream of
marvellous insight.

In the field of biological science progress has not been so
marked, yet the elaborate garnering of facts regarding anatomy,
physiology, and the zoological sciences is at least a valuable
preparation for the generalizations of a later time.

If with a map before us we glance at the portion of the globe
which was known to the workers of the period now in question,
bearing in mind at the same time what we have learned as to the
seat of labors of the various great scientific thinkers from
Thales to Galen, we cannot fail to be struck with a rather
startling fact, intimations of which have been given from time to
time--the fact, namely, that most of the great Greek thinkers did
not live in Greece itself. As our eye falls upon Asia Minor and
its outlying islands, we reflect that here were born such men as
Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Pythagoras,
Anaxagoras, Socrates, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, Eudoxus,
Philolaus, and Galen. From the northern shores of the aegean came
Lucippus, Democritus, and Aristotle. Italy, off to the west, is
the home of Pythagoras and Xenophanes in their later years, and
of Parmenides and Empedocles, Zeno, and Archimedes. Northern
Africa can claim, by birth or by adoption, such names as Euclid,
Apollonius of Perga, Herophilus, Erasistratus, Aristippus,
Eratosthenes, Ctesibius, Hero, Strabo, and Ptolemy. This is but
running over the list of great men whose discoveries have claimed
our attention. Were we to extend the list to include a host of
workers of the second rank, we should but emphasize the same
fact.

All along we are speaking of Greeks, or, as they call themselves,
Hellenes, and we mean by these words the people whose home was a
small jagged peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean at the
southeastern extremity of Europe. We think of this peninsula as
the home of Greek culture, yet of all the great thinkers we have
just named, not one was born on this peninsula, and perhaps not
one in five ever set foot upon it. In point of fact, one Greek
thinker of the very first rank, and one only, was born in Greece
proper; that one, however, was Plato, perhaps the greatest of
them all. With this one brilliant exception (and even he was born
of parents who came from the provinces), all the great thinkers
of Greece had their origin at the circumference rather than the
centre of the empire. And if we reflect that this circumference
of the Greek world was in the nature of the case the widely
circling region in which the Greek came in contact with other
nations, we shall see at once that there could be no more
striking illustration in all history than that furnished us here
of the value of racial mingling as a stimulus to intellectual
progress.

But there is one other feature of the matter that must not be
overlooked. Racial mingling gives vitality, but to produce the
best effect the mingling must be that of races all of which are
at a relatively high plane of civilization. In Asia Minor the
Greek mingled with the Semite, who had the heritage of centuries


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