lO THE HISTORY OF BIOLOGY 



tablets and animal hides, both of which were expensive to get and incon- 

 venient to preserve. The learned therefore had to express their opinions in 

 short and weighty compositions, preferably in the form of verse, so that they 

 could be easily learnt by heart. Thus learning became the asset of a privi- 

 leged few; they had to be wealthy in order to be able to undertake the 

 journeys that were essential for the acquiring of knowledge, and of high 

 standing in order to be able, both at home and abroad, to gain access to 

 the masters who were primed with the wisdom of the period. But in point 

 of fact the scholars of those days were highly respected: the various states 

 summoned them to be lawgivers and rulers, paid the expenses of their 

 costly journeys, and gave them financial assistance when they ruined them- 

 selves over their research work. On the other hand, they were often per- 

 secuted by hostile political factions and were sometimes condemned to end 

 their days in exile. 



The earliest scientists of Greece: the Ionian philosophers 

 The earliest of these Greek natural philosophers, the so-called Ionic philos- 

 ophers, all lived in, or at any rate originated from, the colonies which 

 the Ionic tribes of Greece founded on the coast of Asia Minor. Through 

 trading with the Orient these cities rapidly grew wealthy, and through 

 contact with the more highly cultivated peoples of the East there arose a 

 keen desire for knowledge, and means for satisfying it were obtainable. 

 Chaldean and Egyptian travellers were able to tell of the great learning of 

 their priests and physicians; journeys to the East gave the ambitious lonians 

 opportunities of acquiring at least something of that secret knowledge. 

 And on this foundation they themselves built further. — Nature presented a 

 great number of phenomena in constant variation, and herein it was proved 

 that certain phenomena always stood in a certain regular relation to one 

 another. A common primary cause of the variations of existence had to be dis- 

 covered — a common element out of which everything originated. What was 

 this primary element and how have things originated from it? These two 

 questions occupied the minds of the Ionian thinkers. Nature, the Greek 

 (pixTLs, became the one great problem, and these ancient philosophers who 

 studied the problem of nature were therefore called physicists, a name which 

 later on was reserved for those who carried out research in a limited sphere 

 of natural science. The investigations carried out by these ancient physicists, 

 however, led them just as often into the realms of metaphysics, and it is 

 just that lack of insight into the insuperable bounds of natural science that 

 gave to their speculations that vague and fantastic character which is so 

 conspicuous in them. 



As one of the earliest of the natural philosophers in Greece is mentioned 

 Thales of Miletus. Even in ancient times very little was known of his life 

 and activities The very epoch in which he and his immediate successors 



