270 HEIDEL. 



Milesian who walks its streets feels himself likewise at a definite point 

 of time, and he sets about reaching backward to fixed points in the 

 past in order to reconstruct a chronology. His immediate data are 

 furnished by family traditions, and an approximate, limited scale is 

 constructed by using the generation as a unit. The absolute scale was 

 not to be found in Greece: Hecataeus discovered it in the immemorial 

 civilization of Egypt with it records running back thousands of years. 

 The connection between the Greek and Egyptian scales, and there- 

 fore the control and placing of Greek dates in relation to the absolute 

 scale, were brought about by certain identifications, no matter how 

 arbitrary they may have been. These are the methods of a thoroughly 

 rational and conscious science: they have been refined in the course of 

 time, and the admissibility and validity of certain data have been 

 more sharply scrutinized; but historical science in all its essentials 

 was achieved in Miletus before the close of the sixth century.''^ This, 

 as historians recognize, is the dawn of the historical period in Greece; 

 and here we first find really historical dates. Dates for a generation 

 or two farther back are approximately correct, as one might expect; 

 beyond that we have, so far as Greek sources are concerned, nothing 

 intrinsically different from the data with which the Milesians them- 

 selves had to deal. 



This was the crowning achievement of the IMilesians, and we are 

 justified in regarding it as the expression of the dominant interest of 

 the Milesian 'school.' To this result the several members of that 

 epoch-making circle made their contributions. Anaximander, as we 

 have seen, concerned himself with geography and history as well as 

 with cosmology. We should like very much to know more about his 

 book; but everything beyond what we have already said must be 

 learned by inference. 



There are two classes of facts from which permissible inferences may 

 be drawn regarding the character of Anaximander's book. One con- 

 sists of the testimony of the ancients regarding it and the opinions of 

 its author. Of a part of these data we have already taken cognizance; 

 others we have still to consider. When we shall have completed the 

 review of the contents of the book, and drawn such inferences from 

 them as appear to be justified, we shall be in position to institute a 

 new inquiry : to wit, whether other works of like character existed, or 

 still exist, from which one may draw further inferences. 



Anaximander is generally regarded as a philosopher: hence we will 

 begin with such opinions as seem to justify that title. He dealt, we 



75 This I expect to show more fully on another occasion. 



