18 SCIENCE IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY 



in the eighth century B.C. flourished in the coastal 

 regions of Asia Minor ? It is difficult to say, for lack 

 of historical data. But it seems probable that the 

 characteristic rationalism of Greek science is proper 

 to this science ; x in regard to the empirical and 

 fragmentary knowledge of the East, it constitutes a 

 veritable miracle. For the first time, the human mind 

 conceived the possibility of establishing a limited 

 number of principles and of deducing from them a 

 number of truths which are their strict consequence. 

 This achievement, without analogy in the history of 

 humanity, is all the more astonishing because Greek 

 science, in its first beginnings, had a precarious exist- 

 ence. Not having any influence upon economic life, 

 it could only exist within the schools of philosophy, 

 whose lot and vicissitudes it shared. It developed 

 spasmodically in a discontinuous fashion, in different 

 countries, according to the civilizations which sporadi- 

 cally arose on the borders of the Mediterranean. Its 

 first cradle was Ionia, of necessity the intermediary 

 between Greece and Oriental civilization, but in con- 

 sequence of the political troubles which disturbed this 

 country, Greek science was transported into Greater 

 Greece, in the South of Italy. It was there that 

 Pythagoras and his school established the lasting 

 foundations of the geometrical and astronomical 

 sciences, which the Greeks afterwards employed. We 

 know how, even during the lifetime of Pythagoras, a 

 revolution put an end to the school he had founded, 

 without however compromising the existence of his doc- 

 trines. These survived partly in Greater Greece, where 

 they inspired the subtle dialectic of Zeno of Elea ; and 

 partly in Greece and the countries which came under 

 Greek influence. They also helped to establish new 

 centres of scientific life : amongst others, at Athens, 



1 22 Milhaud, Nouvelles Etudes, p. 99. — 25 Tannery, 

 Science hellene, p. 62. — 17 Loria, Scienze esatte, p. 5. 



