OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 107 



attached by Thales to his opinion, that water was 

 the origin of all things ; but modern geologists will 

 not be at a loss to conceive how an observant tra- 

 veller might become impressed with this notion, 

 without having recourse to the mystic records of 

 Egypt or Chaldea. His ideas of eclipses and of the 

 nature of the moon were sound ; and his prediction 

 of an eclipse of the sun, in particular, was attended 

 with circumstances so remarkable as to have made 

 it a matter of important investigation to modern as- 

 tronomers. Anaxagoras, among a number of crude 

 and imperfectly explained notions, speculated ra- 

 tionally enough on the cause of the winds and of 

 the rainbow, and less absurdly on earthquakes than 

 many modern geologists have done, and appears ge- 

 nerally to have had his attention alive to nature, and 

 his mind open to just reasoning on its phenomena ; 

 while Pythagoras, whether he reasoned it out for him- 

 self, or borrowed the notion from Egypt or India, had 

 attained a just conception of the general disposition 

 of the parts of the solar system, and the place held 

 by the earth in it ; nay, according to some accounts, 

 had even raised his views so far as to speculate on 

 the attraction of the sun as the bond of its union. 



(99.) But the successors of these bond fide en- 

 quirers into nature debased the standard of truth ; 

 and, taking advantage of the credit justly attached to 

 their discoveries, renounced the modest character of 

 learners, and erected themselves into teachers, and, to 

 maintain their pretensions to this character, adopted 

 the tone of men who had nothing further to learn. 

 Unfortunately for true science, the national charac- 

 ter gave every encouragement to pretensions of this 



