PRE-ALEXANDRIAN ANATOMY-IOOO TO 300 B.C. 41 



A little later (280 B.C.), the school of Empirics was ill-dis- 

 posed toward human dissection, as well as toward reason. They 

 held that the search for ultimate causes in disease was in vain, al- 

 though they were active in endeavoring to discover the immedi- 

 ate etiology. Anatomy, they believed, could be learned by chance. 

 They paid particidar attention to the totality of symptoms. The 

 Dogmatists, another medical sect, of the time, cared more for 

 rigid doctrine than for investigation. Although a few had enough 

 desire to progress, it was not sufficient to overcome their innate 

 repulsion against violation of the dead. 



An additional consideration is that the Greeks believed in 

 the supremacy of the soul over the body. The dead were shrouded 

 in mystery and a ghost would avenge any amputation or mutila- 

 tion of its body. Death was not regarded as the end. Like the in- 

 habitants of Egypt and other parts of the ancient world, the pre- 

 Alexandrian Greeks were interested in the possible location of 

 the soul. 



During the golden age of Greece, numerous renowned phi- 

 losophers advanced their personal opinions on a possible life after 

 death. Pythagoras (582-507 B.C.) believed in salvation and trans- 

 migration. To him, matter was the basis of all evil; since the body 

 was so constructed, it was corrupt. The soul was also material 

 but it emanated from god. 



The concept of a single, all-powerful god, began to be ex- 

 pressed at this time, more particularly by Xenophanes (c. 536 

 B.C.). His deity was not like human mortals in form or thinking, 

 but was the universe itself, endowed with purpose and the faculty 

 of thought. Parmenides (c. end of 6th Century B.C.) conceived 

 the world as a unity, unchangeable and immovable. He regarded 

 sense perception as an illusion based on the false opinions of 

 man, which revealed a world of plurality and change. 



Plato (427-347 B.C.) promised salvation believing that the 

 soul was immaterial, immortal and divine; freed of sin, it ceased 

 transmigrating and was reabsorbed into god. Sinners, in life, 

 were destined to go to an eternal hell, an idea which was trans- 

 ferred to Christian thought. Both Aristotle and Epicurus (342- 

 E^.C.) were against the concept of immortality. The Stoics 

 ling about 308 B.C.) held that the body was the prison of the 



