598 



NA TURE 



[August 23, i8g4 



thesised in the simple manner suggested by Dr. Pavy, 

 namely, by the direct combination of a glucose molecule 

 or molecules with a peptone or some similar molecule, 

 requires far more rigid proof than is here attempted. 



We should have liked to have seen a greater amount 

 of criticism of some of the many important researches 

 which have been lately published by so many workers ; 

 but throughout the whole work, Dr. Pavy bestows but 

 little space in criticising conflicting evidence, much of 

 which remains completely unnoticed. 



Though it is thus easy to criticise and point out where 

 errors may have crept in, we can but thoroughly admire 

 the energy and careful thought which are in evidence 

 throughout the work. There is much in it that is sug- 

 gestive, much that is most valuable. The experimental 

 work which is here set forth so plentifully, forms a field 

 which must be studied and consulted by ail future 

 workers in this direction. 



PTOLEMY AS A PHILOSOPHER AND 

 ASTROLOGER. 



Studien iiber Claudius PioUmdus ; ein Beitrag zur 

 Geschichle dir gricchischen Philosophie und Astrologie. 

 Von Franz Boll. Dr.Phil. (Leipzig: Druck und 

 Verlag von B. G. Teubner, 1S94.) 



IT is somewhat strange that in the article on Ptolemy 

 in the " Penny Cyclopaedia," he is spoken of only as 

 a geographer. His fame is undoubtedly built upon his 

 two great works on astronomy and geography. But the 

 present publication treats of him rather as a philosopher, 

 and discusses also the genuineness or otherwise of the 

 less-known works of the great Alexandrian. A few lines 

 are devoted to his life, of which scarcely anything is 

 known. Dr. Boll sees no reason for calling in question 

 the statement of Theodorus Meliteniota, that he was 

 bom at Ptolemais Hermii, in Upper Egypt. He lived to 

 his seventy-eighth year, and died in the reign of Marcus 

 Aurelius, who became emperor in A.n. 161 ; but it is 

 somewhat doubtful whether the last observation referred 

 to in the " Almagest" was made in 141, or ten years later. 

 At any rate, it is clear that that work preceded the 

 description of the earth's surface (written, .Sir K. IJunbury 

 remarks, much more in the spirit of an astronomer than 

 of a geographer), which remained during more than 

 twelve centuries the paramount authority in geographical 

 questions where physical matters were not concerned. 



However, as we have said, the present treatise is not 

 occupied with any consideration of these great works. 

 Astronomical and geographical questions do not form its 

 subject-matter, which is rather concerned with the com- 

 paratively untrodden ground of Ptolemy as a philosopher, 

 besides a discussion of the genuineness of his writings 

 on astrology in the present acceptation of the term. 

 His work, Mtpi. Kpirripiov Kill riytunviKoi, has been generally 

 overlooked, the first apparently to refer to it being 

 Hcinze, in his edition of Uebcrweg's " Grundriss der 

 Geschichtc der Philosophie von Thales bis auf die Gegen- 

 wart." But besides this professed treatise, Ptolemy touches 

 upon philosophical questions in several places in his 

 other writings. 

 Dr. Boll's "Studien" is distributed into three prin- 

 NO. 1295, VOL. 50] 



cipal sections. The first gives, in three chapters, a , 

 discussion of his author's views on questions of this | 

 nature, as they may be derived from passages in his 

 undoubtedly genuine works. The second is devoted 

 to a critical examination of the genuineness of the 

 TfT,)i.'ii,iX(.« 2i'iTn|if, which is astrological, and generally 

 considered as unworthy of the writer. .\n inquiry into 

 the source of the so-called astrological geography in the 

 second book of that treatise forms the third section ol 

 the present "Studien" of Dr. Boll. 



Our space in this brief notice enables us only to 

 indicate the general conclusions arrived at under these 

 three heads. A detailed discussion of the views pro- 

 pounded by Ptolemy on psychological and other philo- 

 sophical questions shows that he must be classed as an 

 eclectic, but with distinctly peripatetic principles. This 

 appears in the " Harmonics " as well as in the work tirst 

 mentioned. But in his teaching a number of stoical 

 propositions is also to be found, and it is not in these only 

 that .Aristotelian ideas are rejected or set aside, for a 

 tendency is manifested to accept some Platonic doctrines 

 on psychology, whilst Pythagorean speculations on 

 numbers form the foundation of the third book of the 

 " ll.^rmonics." 



A very careful and elaborate comparison of expres- 

 sions used in the TfrpuJi/iXoi-, and in the smaller work 

 KapTTos (which is in fact n jjollertion of aphorisms), with 

 Ptolemy's great astronomical and geographical works, 

 proves that the former is genuine, but the latter is not, 

 being evidently the production of some astrologer of 

 later date. 



Dr. Boll's conclusion with regard to the Tfr^jddidXot 

 agrees with that of previous writers ; thus the author oi 

 the article "Astrology" in the "Penny Cyclopedia'' says : 

 " Though its genuineness has been doubted by some 

 merely because it is astrological, there appears no suffi- 

 cient reason to reject it." We would gladly do so if we 

 could ; but the present examination seems to confirm 

 the Ptolemean authorship but too fully. The admiring 

 Knglish translator in the last century (John Whalley, 

 Professor of Physic and Astrology) affirms that " there 

 is nothing in Astrology but what is there comprehended, 

 nothing there comprehended, but the t2"<f>'cssence and 

 Divinity of Astrology." 



The second book of this treatise gives a system 

 of what Dr. Boll calls astrological ethnography, ;'.(•. the 

 stellar influence on diflferent parts of the world and their 

 inhabitants according to the signs of the zodiac which 

 are especially supposed to rule over each. The sources 

 of this, by a comparison with earlier writers, are dis- 

 cussed by Dr. Boll (led so to do by a small treatise 

 published at Berlin by Paul Wendland in 1S92) in the third 

 section of his work, which shows great industry and 

 research, it being difficult to disentangle the sub- 

 ject from that of the effects of climate on the human 

 race, so that matters of this kind require very careful 

 handling. We may take an instance of this from our own 

 .Shakespeare. When Prospero says his zenith doth 

 depend upon a most auspicious star, the allusion to 

 astrology is patent. But when the melancholy Jaques, 

 in As You Like Jl, is made to describe human life as 

 divided into seven stages, it is somewhat straining a 

 point (Dr. Boll refers to Steevens as having anticipated 



