1907.] 



AND CONTRACTION OF THE EARTH. 267 



Rome came very near the true theory of earthquakes as we con- 

 ceive it to-day? 



V. On the Ancient and Modern Theory of Earthquakes, 

 ON the Sinking of Helike, and on the Movements 

 Taking Place in the ^gean and Asia Minor. 

 § 22. Common Views of Plato, Aristotle, Straho and Pliny. 



From the accounts quoted in the foregoing extracts, we have 

 seen that Plato held that air and water, entering through hollows 

 and crevices, obtained access to the bowels of the earth, and that 

 there are everywhere beneath the earth rivers and lakes of fire 

 (Pyriphlegethon), some of which he had seen emitted from Mt. 

 ^tna. Owing to his pictorial style of exposition Plato's accounts 

 are more or less allegorical, but these general results seem suffi- 

 ciently clear to be beyond doubt. Aristotle was trained under 

 Plato, but he afterwards departed from the style of composition 

 employed in the Academy, and adopted in all his mature writings 

 the modern scientific method of simple direct statement of facts. 



Accordingly in the writings of Aristotle we see the theory 

 of earthquakes as taught by the master mind during the culmin- 

 ation of the physical philosophy of the Greeks. Aristotle w^as 

 not only the greatest natural philosopher of Greece, but of antiq- 

 uity, and one of the most luminous intellects of all time. No 

 other mind of any age or country has exerted so great an influence 

 on scientific thought or on its terminology. Thus Eusebius desig- 

 nates him as " Nature's private Secretary," while Dante calls him 

 the " master of those who know," in reference no doubt especially 

 to his development of the methods of logic. But Aristotle's genius 

 extended to every branch of human knowledge, and ornamented 

 everything it touched. 



In spite of some errors, incident to the early age in which he 

 lived, his observations of nature show the highest order of sagacity 

 and mental penetration, and will always give him the foremost 

 place among the philosophers of antiquity. In his mental activity 

 he felt the necessity for physical laws, and thus became accustomed 

 to seek the causes of things ; so that in Strabo we find complaint of 

 his depth of thought. His mind was therefore preeminently 

 scientific in the highest sense of the word, and no modern thinker 

 has surpassed him in subtileness and power of intuition. 



