CHAPTER II 



THE EARLIEST GREEK NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 



The Greeks: creators of natural science 



IF THE Babylonians and Egyptians thus succeeded in collecting quite a con- 

 siderable mass of individual facts of science, it was nevertheless left to the 

 Greek nation to deduce from these facts a consistently realized conception 

 of nature — not free from mystical and magical influences, it is true, but still 

 striving more and more after a natural explanation of the laws of existence. 

 There has been much speculation as to why it should be amongst just this 

 people, who were not only few in number, but were also politically divided, 

 that such a splendid development of human thought should have taken 

 place. The deepest cause is surely to be sought in the much discussed, yet 

 fundamentally so inexplicable national character, in the spiritual and cul- 

 tural disposition of the people. It may, at any rate, be worth while briefly 

 considering its manifestations in the social sphere, in order to gain some 

 idea of the external conditions of development under which free thought 

 was here able to expand. 



The people of Greece, as is well known, never achieved political unity; 

 it remained divided into a number of small communities independent of 

 one another, consisting usually of a city with its surrounding country dis- 

 trict. Trade and shipping rather than agriculture were the people's main 

 source of income. Over-population gave rise to splendid colonizing activity 

 along the coasts of the Mediterranean; the colonies, which from the very 

 beginning were made independent of the mother city, adopted the latter's 

 institutions. A strong national feeling prevailed everywhere and was main- 

 tained by law and custom. Outside the boundaries of his own town the Greek 

 was a foreigner without rights, without the possibility of acquiring civic 

 privileges elsewhere, and with no prospect of winning the consolations of 

 religion. Religion was in fact as localized as the communities themselves; 

 every town had its own gods, which could be worshipped only by its citi- 

 zens and within its boundaries. Such a local form of religion was naturally 

 primitive and remained so even at the time when Greek culture was at its 

 zenith. It was just on account of this lack of a more highly developed re- 

 ligion, however, that free thought was able to develop as it did. Here there 

 was no priesthood, as there was in Babylon, Egypt, and India, to reserve to 

 itself alone the right to the higher learning and to ensure that its results 



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