THALES TO LINNAEUS It 



Anaxagoras, born about 500 B. C, was the 

 first Greek to suffer for science. He was 

 brought to trial for asserting the sun to be a 

 red hot stone, and it would have probably gone 

 hard with him had not the mighty Pericles 

 been his friend. If the sun was merely a fiery 

 ball, what became of the religion founded on 

 the worship of Apollo? 



Nearly a half a century earlier Xenophanes, 

 of Colophon, had ventilated ideas much 

 more obnoxious to the priests. He had 

 done for his age what Feuerbach did 

 to the Nineteenth century — he had explained 

 the origin of the gods by Anthropomorphism. 

 Said he: "If oxen or lions had hands, 

 and could paint with their hands and pro- 

 duce works of art as men do, horses would 

 paint the forms of the gods like horses and 

 oxen like oxen. Each would represent them 

 with bodies according to the form of each. So 

 the Ethiopians make their gods black and 

 snubnosed; the Thracians give theirs red hair 

 and blue eyes." Had Xenophanes lived at 

 Athens, where a religious revival had just 

 taken place, he would have shared the fate 

 which later overtook the impious Socrates. 

 Luckily for Xenophanes, in the colony where 

 he lived "the gods were left to take care of 

 themselves." Anaxagoras was the first to 



