j^oy.j AND CONTRACTION OF THE EARTH. 233 



have been able to make an adequate examination of the theory of 

 earthquakes held by the Greeks. 



The great multiplicity of subjects in our day, with the resulting 

 unfortunate departure of education from the classic standard, has 

 rendered the original languages of the best ancient authors well-nigh 

 unintelligible to many men of science, because good translations are 

 seldom accessible. One not infrequently meets with surprise even 

 on the part of men of eminence and originality that anything valuable 

 should be found in the writings of the Greeks and Romans. 



A masterly grasp of the ancient languages on the part of men of 

 science perhaps is not to be expected, but unfamiliarity with the 

 general spirit of Greek thought is a serious inconvenience, because 

 this defect often leaves the investigator without an adequate view 

 of his own subject. There may thus arise a lack of reverence for 

 the learning of the ancients, because their works are not understood. 

 The poems of Homer and Sophocles, the eloquence of Demosthenes 

 and Cicero, the sculptures of Phidias and Praxiteles, the paintings 

 of Polygnotus and Apelles, the medical knowledge of Hippocrates 

 and Galen, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the astronomical 

 researches of Hipparchus and Ptolemy, the mathematical discoveries 

 of Apollonius and Archimedes — these and many other wonders of 

 antiquity are not calculated to excite a contemptible opinion of the 

 achievements of the Greeks. The perfection of their intellectual 

 labors is attested by the great writers of all subsequent ages, and in 

 modern times by none more amply than by Humboldt and Lyell, who 

 did so much for the foundation of geology. 



But while there has been some interest in the theories of the 

 ancients, it has seemed of late years to have become more desultory, 

 which must be ascribed chiefly to the inaccessibility of their works. 

 The English reader possesses the well known translations of Bohn's 

 Classical Library, which often have decided merit ; but unfortunately 

 they do not include all the works of Aristotle, the foremost physical 

 philosopher among the Greeks, and the greatest thinker of the ancient 

 times. He included his discussion of earthquakes in the treatise 

 on meteorology, which has never been put into an acessible English 

 translation. Taylor's translation lacks in scholarship, and was limited 

 to fifty copies. 



