BEGINNINGS IN GREECE 43 



for them on account of the inundation of the Nile, which obliterated 

 every man's boundaries. It is however, nothing wonderful that the 

 invention of this as of the other sciences has grown out of necessity, 

 as everything in its beginnings proceeds from the incomplete to the 

 complete. A regular transition takes place from perception to thought- 

 ful consideration, from this to rational knowledge. Just as now with 

 the Phoenicians an exact knowledge of numbers took its rise in the 

 needs of trade and commerce, so geometry began with the Egyptians 

 for the reason mentioned. Thales, who went to Egypt, first brought 

 this science into Greece. Much he discovered himself, of much 

 however he transmitted the beginnings to his successors. Some 

 things he made more general, some more comprehensible. 



The significance packed into this terse quotation may well be 

 emphasized. The mathematics of the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, 

 the Phoenicians, was merely a tool, crudely shaped to meet vital 

 concrete needs; it had little possibility of development. The 

 Greek intellect, seizing upon the fragmentary knowledge of these 

 practical races, refined from it the germs of a new pure science, 

 making the knowledge "more general" and "more comprehen- 

 sible," and at the same time discovering much that was new. On 

 the other hand, inclining in its zeal for pure science to the op- 

 posite extreme of disregard for the concrete applications, Greek 

 science eventually reached its own limit of possible growth. In 

 the long run scientific progress must depend on due appreciation 

 of the complementary importance of both pure and applied science. 



Thales was of Phoenician descent, and was born about 624 B.C. 

 in Miletus, a city of Ionia, at that time a flourishing Greek colony 

 in what is now Asia Minor. As an engineer he was employed to 

 construct an embankment for the river Halys. As a merchant 

 he dealt in salt and oil, and, visiting Egypt, learned there 

 something of the wisdom of the Egyptian priesthood. He oc- 

 cupied himself with the study of the stars as well as of geometry, 

 and in particular, 



announced to the inhabitants of Miletus that night would enter 

 upon the day, the sun hide himself, the moon place herself in front, 

 so that his light and radiance would be intercepted. 



