INFLUENCE OF THE PTOLEMAIC EPOCH. 541 



menageries of wild and rare animals in the " king's houses of 

 Brucliium," as means of incitement towards the study of natural 

 history,* and as amply sufficient to furnish empirical science 

 with the materials requisite for its further development ; but 

 the peculiar character of the Ptolemaic period, as well as of 

 the whole Alexandrian school which retained the same indi- 

 viduality of type until the third and fourth centuries, mani- 

 fested itself in a different direction, inclining less to an imme- 

 diate observation of particulars than to a laborious accumulation 

 of the results of that which had already been noted by others, 

 and to a careful classification, comparison, and mental elabo- 

 ration of these results. During a period of many centuries, 

 and until the powerful mind of Aristotle was revealed, the 

 phenomena of nature, not regarded as objects of acute 

 observation, were subjected to the sole control of ideal inter- 

 pretation, and to the arbitrary sway of vague presentiments- 

 and vacillating hypotheses, but from the time of the Stagirite 

 a higher appreciation for empirical science was manifested. 

 The facts already known were now first critically examined. 

 As natural philosophy, by pursuing the certain path of 

 induction, gradually approached nearer to the scrutinising cha- 

 racter of empirism, it became less bold in its speculations, 

 and less fanciful in its images. A laborious tendency to accu- 

 mulate materials enforced the necessity for a certain amount of 

 polymathic learning ; and although the works of different dis- 

 tinguished thinkers occasionally exhibited precious fruits, these 

 were unfortunately too often accompanied, in the decline of 

 creative conception amongst the Greeks, by a mere barren 

 erudition devoid of animation. The absence of a careful 

 attention to the form as well as to animation and grace of 

 diction, has likewise contributed to expose Alexandrinian learn- 

 ing to the severe animadversions of posterity. 



The present section would be incomplete if it were to omit 

 a notice of the accession yielded to general knowledge by the 



Indian elephants, drove the African ones to flight. The latter were 

 probably never employed as war elephants in such large numbers as 

 in Asiatic expeditions, where Kandragupta had assembled 9000, the 

 powerful King of the Prasii 6000, and Akbar an equally large num- 

 ber. (Lassen, Ind. Altertliumskunde, bd. i. s. 305-307.) 



* Athen., xiv. p. 654; compare Parthey, Das alexandriniscJie Mu- 

 seum, eine Preisschrift, s. 55 und 171. 



