Early Science in Greece. 343 



received religious rites, that differed greatly from those of 

 the Egyptians. But, with respect to the result of all these 

 early communications, we are reduced to mere conjectures, and 

 can only hope for accoimts possessing any degree of accuracy, 

 from the period when Cadmus carried the Phenician alphabet 

 into Greece. From this epoch we have an unbroken chain, and 

 the history of the sciences is based upon a continuous series of 

 written documents. 



The sciences, once introduced among the Greeks, were there 

 free of the fetters which had retarded their progress among the 

 other three nations, whose history we have sketched : they had 

 no longer to suffer from the irruptions of barbarians, nor from 

 the interests of a privileged class. 



India, Assyria, and Egypt were, as we have said, countries 

 quite open, and which, from the very nature of their ground, 

 were incapable of being defended. This was not the case with 

 Greece, of which the whole central part being mountainous, of- 

 fered great facilities for resisting an invasion. There each tribe, 

 separated from the others by deep valleys and passes, found na- 

 tural ramparts in its rocks. An invader would have to con- 

 quer the land foot by foot, and the parts which he had sub- 

 jected would speedily withdraw themselves from his domination. 

 All the small islands connected with this country were, in like 

 manner, defended by their mere position, and were enabled to 

 preserve their independence. Accordingly, Greece could never 

 long remain united under the same laws ; and perhaps these 

 circumstances, which dejjend upon the natural configuration of 

 the country, will, even in our time, render the establishment of a 

 central government extremely difficult. 



The settlements which the Greeks made on the coast of Asia 

 Minor and Italy were not, it is true, so easily defended ; but 

 when they were overrun, the learned men who had sprung up 

 there betook themselves to central Greece, and carried to it the 

 tribute of their knowledge ; so that the conquest of the colonies, 

 far from retarding the civilization of the mother country, only 

 served to advance it. 



Mythological forms were, in the East, only the emblematic 

 expression of a system of general philosophy, and thus the 

 priests were at the same time the learned men of the nation 



