are considered more fully in my work on that subject. The Antithesis of Facts and Ideas is treated of in Book I., chapter 2, 3, 4 of that work: Successive Generalizations in chap. 7 Technical Terms in chap. 8: Inductive Charts, such as are here referred to in p. 13, are given with reference to the History of Astronomy and of Optics, in Book xi., chap. 6, of the Philosophy. Scientific Ideas, such as are here spoken of in p. 16, are discussed in the Philosophy, from Book II. to Book x.; and the principal controversies are there noticed by which this discussion has been historically carried on. Τίς γὰρ ἀρχὰ δέξατο ναυτιλίας; τος δῆσεν ἄλοις ; Ἐπεὶ δ ̓ ἐμβόλου Κρεμασαν ἀγκύρας ύπερθεν Χρυσέαν χείρεσσι λαβὼν φιάλαν Φιλίαν νόστοιο μοῖραν. PINDAR. Pyth. iv. 124, 349. Whence came their voyage? them what peril held With adamantine rivets firmly bound? But soon as on the vessel's bow The anchor was hung up, Then took the Leader on the prow In hands a golden cup, And on great Father Jove did call, And loved return at last. BOOK I. HISTORY OF THE GREEK SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY, WITH REFERENCE TO PHYSICAL SCIENCE. CHAPTER I. PRELUDE TO THE GREEK SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY. Sect. 1.-First Attempts of the Speculative Faculty in Physical Inquiries. A T an early period of history there appeared in men a propensity to pursue speculative inquiries concerning the various parts and properties of the material world. What they saw excited them to meditate, to conjecture, and to reason: they endeavoured to account for natural events, to trace their causes, to reduce them to their principles. This habit of mind, or, at least that modification of it which we have here to consider, seems to have been first unfolded among the Greeks. And during that obscure introductory interval which elapsed while the speculative tendencies of men were as yet hardly disentangled from the practical, those who were most eminent in such inquiries were distinguished by the same term of praise which is applied to sagacity in matters of action, and were called wise men-oopoi. But when it came to be clearly felt by such persons that their endeavours were suggested by the love of knowledge, a motive different from those which lead to the wisdom of active life, a name was adopted of a more appropriate, as well as of a more modest signification, and they were termed philosophers, or lovers of wisdom. This appellation is said1 to have been first assumed by Pythagoras. Yet he, in Herodotus, instead of having this title, is called a powerful sophist—Ἑλλήνων οὐ τῷ ἀσθενεστάτῳ σου Pioτn Пvaɣópn2; the historian using this word, as it would seem, without intending to imply that misuse of reason which the term afterwards came to denote. The historians of literature place Pythagoras at the origin of the Italic School, one of the two main lines of succession of the early Greek philosophers: but the other, the Ionic School, which more peculiarly demands our attention, in consequence of its character and subsequent progress, is deduced from Thales, who preceded the age of Philosophy, and was one of the sophi, or "wise men of Greece." The Ionic School was succeeded in Greece by several others; and the subjects which occupied the attention of these schools became very extensive. In fact, the first attempts were, to form systems which should explain the laws and causes of the material universe; and to these were soon added all the great questions which our moral condition and 1. Cic. Tusc. v. 3. 2 Herod. iv. 95. |