1907.] AND CONTRACTION OF THE EARTH. 235 



it is generally recognized that they had very inadequate scientific and 

 philosophic intuition ; their philosophers therefore adopted the theor- 

 ies of the Greeks, whose genius they admired. They copied and 

 preserved, but added little to, the treasures of their intellectual 

 masters. Thus Aristotle's explanations are incorporated into the 

 writings of Seneca and Pliny. Aristotle himself gives the history 

 of thought up to his time ; and as Strabo was the most important of 

 the later Greek writers on the theory of the world, while Pliny takes 

 the foremost place among corresponding Roman authors, we have 

 in the writings of these three great naturalists a comprehensive digest 

 of the views of antiquity. 



Although in his youth Aristotle was trained under Plato, in his 

 later period he composed all his work in a condensed and direct style, 

 without any of the allegorical symbolism so much used by the 

 founder of the Academy. As his death was somewhat premature, 

 at the age of about 63, it is thought by scholars that most all his 

 works were left unfinished. Strabo gives the following account of 

 the vicissitudes of Aristotle's manuscripts : 



" The Socratic philosophers, Erastus, Coriscus and Neleus, the son of 

 Coriscus, a disciple of Aristotle, and Theophrastus, were natives of Scepsis. 

 Neleus succeeded to the possession of the library of Theophrastus, which in- 

 cluded that of Aristotle; for Aristotle gave his library, and left his school, 

 to Theophrastus. Aristotle was the first person with whom we are ac- 

 quainted who made a collection of books, and suggested to the kings of 

 Egypt the formation of a library. Theophrastus left his library to Neleus, 

 who carried it to Scepsis, and bequeathed it to some ignorant persons who 

 kept the books locked up, lying in disorder. When the Scepsians understood 

 that the Attalic kings, on whom the city was dependent, were in eager search 

 for books, with which they intended to furnish the library at Pergamus, 

 they hid theirs in an excavation under ground; at length, but not before 

 they had been injured by damp and worms, the descendants of Neleus sold 

 the books of Aristotle and Theophrastus for a large sum of money to Apellicon 

 of Teos. Appellicon was rather a lover of books than a philosopher; when 

 therefore he attempted to restore the parts which had been eaten and cor- 

 roded by worms, he made alterations in the original text and introduced 

 them into new copies; he moreover supplied the defective parts unskillfully, 

 and published the books full of errors. It was the misfortune of the ancient 

 Peripatetics, those after Theophrastus, that being wholly unprovided with 

 the books of Aristotle, with the exception of a few only, and those chiefly 

 of the exoteric (popular) kind, they were unable to philosophize according 

 to the principles of the system, and merely occupied themselves in elaborate 

 discussions on commonplaces. Their successors, however, from the time 



