SO THE GREEK SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY 



CHAPTER III. 



FAILURE OF THE PHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEK SCHOOLS 



Sect. 1. Result of the Greek School Philosophy. 



THE methods and forms of philosophizing which we have described 

 as employed by the Greek Schools, failed altogether in their appli- 

 cation to physics. No discovery of general laws, no explanation of 

 special phenomena, rewarded the acuteness and boldness of these early 

 students of nature. Astronomy, which made considerable progress 

 during the existence of the sects of Greek philosophers, gained perhaps 

 something by the authority with which Plato taught the supremacy 

 and universality of mathematical rule and order ; and the truths of 

 Harmonics, which had probably given rise to the Pythagorean passion 

 for numbers, were cultivated, with much care by that school. But 

 after these first impulses, the sciences owed nothing to the philosophi- 

 cal sects ; and the vast and complex accumulations and apparatus of 

 the Stagirite do not appear to have led to any theoretical physical 

 truths. 



This assertion hardly requires proof, since in the existing body of 

 science there are no doctrines for which we are indebted to the Aris- 

 totelian School. Real truths, when once established, remain to the 

 end of time a part of the mental treasure of man, and may be discerned 

 through all the additions of later days. But we can point out no phys- 

 ical doctrine now received, of which we trace the anticipation in Aris- 

 totle, in the way in which we see the Copernican system anticipated 

 by Aristarchus, the resolution of the heavenly appearances into circu- 

 lar motions suggested by Plato, and the numerical relations of musical 

 intervals ascribed to Pythagoras. But it may be worth while to look 

 at this matter more closely. 



Among the works of Aristotle are thirty-eight chapters of "Prob- 

 lems," which may serve to exemplify the progress he had really made 

 in the reduction of phenomena to laws and causes. Of these Problems, 

 a large proportion are physiological, and these I here pass by, as not 

 illustrative of the state of physical knowledge. But those which are 

 properly physical are, for the most part, questions concerning such 



