BOOK I. 



HISTORY OF THE GREEK SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY, 

 WITH REFERENCE TO PHYSICAL SCIENCE. 



CHAPTER I. 

 PRELUDE TO THE GREEK. SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY. 



Sect. 1. First Attempts of the Speculative Faculty 

 in Physical Inquiries. 



AT an early period of history there appeared in 

 men a propensity to pursue speculative inqui- 

 ries concerning the various parts and properties of 

 the material world. What they saw excited them to 

 meditate, to conjecture, and to reason : they endea- 

 voured to account for natural events, to trace their 

 causes, to reduce them to their principles. This habit 

 of mind, or, at least that modification of it which we 

 have here to consider, seems to have been first un- 

 folded among the Greeks. And during that obscure 

 introductory interval which elapsed while the specu- 

 lative tendencies of men were as yet hardly disentan- 

 gled from the practical, those who were most eminent 

 in such inquiries were distinguished by the same 

 term of praise which is applied to sagacity in matters 

 of action, and were called wise men vo<pol. But 



