THE GOLDEN AGE OF GREECE 59 



In science, also, great names testify to memorable deeds. No 

 such perfection, to be sure, was attained in science as in literature 

 and in sculpture, but vast progress was made in mathematical 

 science beyond anything hitherto accomplished, and the founda- 

 tions were securely laid for a rational interpretation of man and 

 of nature. Literature, architecture, sculpture, and the drama re- 

 quire no special apparatus or reagents. Mathematical science also 

 is not dependent upon such externals, being in this respect like 

 literature and art, and we find geometry and arithmetic at the 

 outset moving forward far more rapidly than natural or physi- 

 cal science. 



PARMENIDES. The recognition of the spherical shape of the 

 earth and its- division into zones are attributed not only to the 

 Pythagoreans, but also to Parmenides of Elis, who lived in the 

 early part of the fifth century. He introduced a system of concen- 

 tric spheres analogous to that soon to be so highly developed 

 by Eudoxus. He identified the evening and the morning stars, 

 and attributed the moon's brightness to reflected light. He 

 regarded the sun as consisting of hot and subtle matter detached 

 from the Milky Way, the moon chiefly of the dark and cold. 



EMPEDOCLES. Passing over the guesses of Heraclitus and 

 Parmenides at the riddle of existence and of man and nature, we 

 may pause for a moment to examine the speculations of Empedocles 

 (about 455 B.C.). A native of Agrigentum in southern Sicily, 

 Empedocles was regarded as poet, philosopher, seer, and im- 

 mortal god. He appears to have been a close observer of nature, 

 understanding the true cause of solar eclipses and believing the 

 moon to be twice as far from the sun as from the earth. The 

 latter is held in place by the rapidly rotating heavens "as the 

 water remains in a goblet which is swung quickly round in a 

 circle." Aristotle attributes to Empedocles that analysis of the 

 universe into the four "elements/' earth, air, fire, and water, which 

 until comparatively recent times was universally accepted as 

 fundamental. It is, nevertheless, not only misleading but absurd 

 to hold with Gomperz ("Greek Thinkers," I, 230) that Em- 

 pedocles' theory of the four elements "takes us at a bound into 



