SCIENCE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 51 



The best instance of a deductive science, in fact one 

 of the most striking results of Greek thought, is the 

 Euclid and Euclidean treatment of geometry. Euclid 

 Geometry. ( c> ^ oo B.C.) collected and systematized 

 and developed the work of preceding geometers. 

 From a few axioms which he regarded as properties 

 of space evident from our direct experience, he 

 deduced by logical self-evident principles a wonderful 

 series of propositions, in a manner which remained 

 till quite recent years the only accepted method. 

 As the science of the space known to our senses, 

 its results marked a permanent step in advance, 

 which, unlike some other products of Greek thought, 

 had never to be retraced. 



The foundations of the sciences of mechanics and 

 hydrostatics are to be sought in the work of 



Archimedes Archimedes of Syracuse (287-212 B.C.), 

 and the Origins whose work, more than that of any other 



of Mechanics. Greek ^ shows the tme modern spirit of 



experimental enquiry in which hypotheses are set 

 forth only to be tested by experiment. The idea of 

 the relative density of bodies, which, as we have seen, 

 was unknown to Aristotle, was first formulated by 

 Archimedes, who, moreover, showed that, when a body 

 floats in a liquid, its weight is equal to the weight 

 of liquid displaced. Archimedes also considered the 

 theory of the lever, the use of which is illustrated in 

 the sculptures of Assyria and Egypt, two thousand 

 years earlier, for the purpose of moving colossal 

 figures and huge blocks of stone. Nowadays we treat 

 the law of the lever as a matter for experimental 

 verification, and deduce other, more complicated, 



