THE BEGINNINGS OF GREEK SCIENCE 



very little. It is not even quite certain as to where 

 he was born; Miletus is usually accepted as his birth- 

 place, but one tradition makes him by birth a Pheni- 

 cian. It is not at all in question, however, that by 

 blood he was at least in part an Ionian Greek. It will 

 be recalled that in the seventh century B.C., when 

 Thales was born and for a long time thereafter the 

 eastern shores of the ^gean Sea were quite as promi- 

 nently the centre of Greek influence as was the penin- 

 sula of Greece itself. Not merely Thales, but his fol- 

 lowers and disciples, Anaximander and Anaximenes, 

 were born there. So also was Herodotus, the Father of 

 History, not to extend the list. There is nothing anom- 

 alous, then, in the fact that Thales, the father of Greek 

 thought, was born and passed his life on soil that was 

 not geographically a part of Greece ; but the fact has an 

 important significance of another kind. Thanks to 

 his environment, Thales was necessarily brought more 

 or less in contact with Oriental ideas. There was close 

 commercial contact between the land of his nativity 

 and the great Babylonian capital off to the east, as 

 also with Egypt. Doubtless this association was of 

 influence in shaping the development of Thales's mind. 

 Indeed, it was an accepted tradition throughout clas- 

 sical times that the Milesian philosopher had travelled 

 in Egypt, and had there gained at least the rudiments 

 of his knowledge of geometry. In the fullest sense, 

 then, Thales may be regarded as representing a link 

 in the chain of thought connecting the learning of the 

 old Orient with the nascent scholarship of the new Oc- 

 cident. Occupying this position, it is fitting that the 

 personality of Thales should partake somewhat of 



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