THALES THANET. 



575 



cording to some, of Phoenicia, the earliest philoso- 

 pher of Greece, and the founder of the Ionian school, 

 was born about 640 B. C., and at first turned his 

 attention to politics, but subsequently devoted 

 himself to philosophical studies. His political 

 career could not have been very distinguished, since 

 Plato classes him among those sages who had little 

 concern in public affairs. In his mature years, he 

 is said to have made several visits to Egypt, where 

 he calculated the heights of the pyramids, and re- 

 ceived instruction from the priests. From them 

 he probably acquired a knowledge of geometry, in 

 which, however, his researches seem to have carried 

 him beyond his teachers. After his return, his re- 

 putation for learning and wisdom became so great, 

 that he was reckoned among the seven wise men, 

 and his sayings were in the highest esteem among 

 the ancients. To the lonians he gave the wise 

 counsel to form a general confederacy, for the pur- 

 pose of resisting the Persian power, md to make 

 Teos the seat of the union. He also dissuaded the 

 Milesians from entering into an alliance with Croesus 

 against Cyrus. These are the only accounts con- 

 cerning the political life of Thales, which have been 

 preserved to us. According to the most commonly- 

 received opinion, he died about B. C. 548, while 

 present at the Olympic games, exhausted by heat 

 and the infirmities of age. His philosophical doc- 

 trines were taught orally, and preserved only by 

 oral tradition, until some of the later Greek philo- 

 sophers, particularly Aristotle, committed them to 

 writing several hundred years after his death. He 

 considered water, or rather fluidity, the element of 

 all things, and that every natural object had its pecu- 

 liar fluid principle, which contributed to its preser- 

 vation. He taught that all natural phenomena are 

 produced by the condensation and rarefaction of 

 water, and are resolvable into this element. Earth 

 is condensed water ; air is rarefied water ; and fire 

 rarefied air. If water is the origin of all things, it 

 must not be considered as dead matter, but as a 

 life-giving principle, which he also called the soul 

 of the world, or the divine principle. When he 

 taught that the universe was pervaded by demons, 

 or spirits, and assigned a soul to inanimate objects, 

 he meant that this creative, moving, forming power, 

 was necessarily diffused and at work throughout 

 the universe, as an essential property of the original 

 principle. This notion also served to connect his 

 philosophical system with the popular religion ; but 

 he did not confound these demons, or powers, with 

 the natural objects which they governed. The 

 philosophical doctrines of Thales are, however, but 

 imperfectly understood, on account of the want of 

 written memorials. Among his maxims, or pru- 

 dential sayings, is the celebrated iWi rtaurav (Know 

 thyself). The accounts of his physical and astro- 

 nomical knowledge are very contradictory. He is 

 said to have first divided the year into 365 days. 

 The story that he foretold an eclipse of the sun, 

 although he may only have indicated the year of its 

 occurrence, implies a more correct knowledge of 

 the solar system than he and his disciples appear, 

 from the statements of Plutarch and Diogenes 

 Laertius, to have possessed ; that is, supposing his 

 prediction to have been founded on his own obser- 

 vations and calculation. It is, however, probable 

 that he may have become acquainted with the ap- 

 proach of an eclipse during his residence in Egypt, 

 or through his connexions with the Phoanicians, 

 who were skilful astronomers, or may have learned 

 some mechanical method of calculating it. At any 



rate, it is worthy of note, that the Ionic school 

 first taught that the stars were merely material 

 bodies, and not, according to the popular notion, 

 divine beings. 



THALIA; one of the nine Muses. She was 

 venerated, by the country people, as the preservei 

 of growing plants, and the inventress of agriculture 

 and arboriculture. She was also the Muse of 

 comedy, which had its origin in rural usages, ano 

 is usually represented with the comic mask, and 

 the shepherd's crook (pedum~) in her hand (See 

 Muses.) One of the Gracete was also called Thalia. 

 (See Graces.*) The name signifies, in the original 

 Greek, flourishing, blooming. 



THAMAS KOULI KHAN. See Nadir Shah 



THAMES (anciently Tamesis) ; a river of Eng- 

 land, which takes its source in the Cotswold hills, 

 and forms a stream near Lechlade, navigable for 

 barges. The chief spring, or Thameshead, is about 

 three miles from Cheltenham, whence it proceeds 

 to Oxford, Dorchester, Henley, Windsor, Staines, 

 Kingston, Richmond, Brentford, Hammersmith, 

 Battersea, Westminster, London, Greenwich, 

 Woolwich, Gravesend, Tilbury Fort, and at the 

 Nore joins the Medway, and enters the sea. The 

 tide runs as far up as Richmond, about seventy 

 miles from the sea. Large ships of war can go up 

 to Deptford ; merchant ships of 700 or 800 tons, 

 as far as the port at London. The canal navigation 

 of the Thames, as well as the docks, and other 

 great works connected with it, are very complicated 

 and extensive. The length is 230 miles. For an 

 account of the docks, see Docks, and London, and 

 for the Thames tunnel, the article London. 



THAMYRIS, OK THAMYRAS ; a celebrated 

 Thracian poet, who flourished anterior to Homer. 

 He obtained the prize for singing at the Pythian 

 games, and he accompanied himself on the lyre. 

 Plato sets him by the side of Orpheus, Olympus 

 and Phemius, and asserts that no one ever equalled 

 him in singing or in playing on the flute and lyre, 

 and that, therefore, after his death, his soul took 

 up its residence in the body of the nightingale. 

 Strabo compares .him to Musaeus. There is a well- 

 known fable of his having challenged the Muses 

 to a contest in singing. The latter were victorious, 

 and punished his audacity by depriving him of his 

 sight, and of his musical talents, and breaking his 

 lyre. (Iliad, II., 595.) He is represented as the 

 inventor of the Dorian mode. None of his produc- 

 tions have come down to us. 



THANE ; the name of an ancient rank among 

 the English or Anglo-Saxons. Skene makes the 

 thane to have been equal in dignity to an earl's son. 

 Camden says, the thanes were only dignified by the 

 offices which they bore. Their origin is referred 

 to Canute. (See Sword.) A freeman, not noble, 

 was raised to the rank of a thane by acquiring a 

 certain portion of land, by making three voyages at 

 sea, or by receiving holy orders. See the article 

 Britain, division Civil State. 



THANET, ISLE OF; a district of England, 

 county of Kent, at the mouth of the Thames, sepa- 

 rated from the main land by the river Stour on the 

 south, and the Nethergong on the west. It extends 

 about nine miles from east to west, and five from 

 north to south. The soil is dry ; the air pure and 

 bracing ; and the prospect extensive, comprehend- 

 ing an expanse of rich arid highly cultivated fields, 

 and a delightful view of the ocean, varied with the 

 shipping continually passing and repassing. The 

 towns are Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs, all 



