H SCIENCE OF THE GREEKS. PT. I. 



eclipse or shut it out; and when our earth comes exactly 

 between the moon and the sun we cut off the sun's light 

 from the moon, and see our own shadow passing over the 

 moon's face, and thus we eclipse the moon. 



Anaxagoras knew that the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, 

 Mars, and Mercury move in the heavens, and that the stars 

 do not move. He believed that all the heavenly bodies 

 were fiery stones ; the sun he thought was a huge fiery stone 

 as big as the Peloponnesus. He was the first scientific man 

 who was persecuted for declaring boldly what he believed 

 to be the truth. The Greeks were very angry with him for 

 teaching that the sun was not a god; so he was tried at 

 Athens, when quite an old man, and condemned to death. 

 His friend Pericles pleaded for him, and the sentence was 

 changed to a fine and banishment, and he retired to Lamp- 

 sacus, where he went on teaching science and philosophy 

 till his death. 



Anaxagoras was the first Greek philosopher who taught 

 that there must be one Great Intelligence ruling over the 

 universe. So that the Greeks punished as an atheist the 

 man who first taught them of a Supreme God. This ex- 

 ample should teach us to be very careful how we condemn 

 the opinions of others, for fear that we, like the Greeks, 

 should think another wicked only because his thoughts are 

 nobler than we can understand. 



Hippocrates, 420, While Anaxagoras was studying the 

 heavens, another man, born about 420 B.C. in the little 

 island of Cos, was studying men, and how to make their 

 lives healthier and happier. Hippocrates, the Father of 

 Medicine, belonged to a family of doctors and priests. 

 The Greeks did not understand that illness comes to us 

 because we do not know how to take care of our bodies. 



