THALES. 33 



how the most it could do was to react upon itself end- 

 lessly in endless circles of myths and shadows, he, for the 

 first time in the history of the human mind, insisted upon 

 finding, not in figments of the imagination, but in the 

 things themselves, a theory intended to account for the 

 phenomena observed. There was a great difference between 

 doing this, however imperfectly or illogically, and referring 

 the same happenings to the interference of the immortal 

 gods. Thus, speculation disengaged itself from theolog- 

 ical guidance, the effects of nature became no longer the 

 sport of unseen beings, and the causes of all change were 

 sought in the conditions of things themselves. 1 



Now the particular natural effect upon which Thales 

 pondered, and for which he endeavored to account by a 

 theory, physical through its connection with the thing 

 itself and not based upon supernatural influences was 

 the attractive power of the lodestone. And thus it came 

 about that the mystery of the magnet gave the first impetus 

 to philosophic thought. 



Aristotle reports the sayings of Thales only by hearsay, 

 and then with extreme caution: the first being that every- 

 thing is full of gods, and the second 2 (and it is this which 

 is of especial importance in our present research) that 

 "Thales too, as is related, seems to regard the soul as 

 somehow producing motion, for he said that the stone has 

 a soul since it moves iron." 



Thus we find the magnet at the very foundation of the 

 world's philosophy. Refusing to account for the attrac- 

 tion of the lodestone by supernatural interposition, as the 

 priests and worshipers at Samothrace had undoubtedly 

 done centuries before, Thales assumed a soul or a virtue 

 inherent and existing in the magnet itself, whereby it was 

 enabled to move the iron. Herein he perceived the mani- 

 festation of a first principle, common to all nature, which 



1 Lewes: Histy. of Phily., London, 1871, vol. I, 5. 

 2 De Anima, i. 2; i. 5. 

 3 



