56 The South Australian Naturalist. 



tion of ascertained fact and experiment by which to check the 

 errors of speculation. It is true also that these great thinkers 

 were too ready to generalise on insufficient data. For all that, 

 one cannot but marvel at the remarkably shrewd guesses by which 

 they anticipated the most notable discoveries of quite recent days. 

 They were given to speculation rather than to that meticulous 

 observation which marks the rank and file of modern students. 



I should be the last to belittle the great importance of exten- 

 sive and accurate observation and classification, but unless some 

 attempt is made at generalisation the mind is apt to be over- 

 whelmed by a mass of unconnected and unrelated details, lie- 

 flection and deduction should be the natural sequences of obser- 

 vation and experiment. If the ancients erred in neglecting to 

 verify their premises sufficiently, we must recollect that some 

 of our most distinguished modern investigators have occasionally 

 blundered egregiously from the same cause, as witness the 

 famous controversies about "bathybins" and the belief in spon- 

 taneous generation. Apart from all errors, however, the main 

 purpose of this paper is to show that the old philosophers were 

 deeply interested in natural phenomena, and, considering their 

 obvious drawbacks, made no inconsiderable progress in scientific 

 discovery. 



The ancient Chaldean shepherds identified and named most 

 of the constellations, and roughly foretold eclipses. A study of 

 the natural history of the Bible reveals the fact that very many 

 trees, flowers, beasts, birds, and insects were intimately knoAvn 

 to the writers, and that their habits had been carefully studied. 

 The apt allusions in the sacred books show that the ways of many 

 living creatures were subjects of common knowledge. Even in 

 the latest number of our Magazine the acute writer on the "Har- 

 vester Ant" thought fit to go back to Solomon for his illustration. 

 And in the Book of Wisdom a knowledge of most living things is 

 attributed to the AVise King as a mark of the extent of his 

 mental endowment. 



The orientation of the pyramids and of other monuments of 

 the Egyptians shows the progress astronomy had made amoiig 

 that ancient people. The reason why the ' ' scarab ' ' was held in 

 such veneration, as our entomologists are aware, was due to the 

 close observation of its habit of kneading little pellets of soil into 

 spheres the shape of our globe. Passing over to Greece, we find 

 many instances of close approximation to modern views. Anaxi- 

 menes taught that outstanding doctrine, the rediscovery of yes- 

 terday, the uniformity of Nature; he also encouraged his dis- 

 ciples to seek for the true causes of phenomena. 



