VIII 



POST-SOCRATIC SCIENCE AT ATHENS PLATO, 

 ARISTOTLE, AND THEOPHRASTUS 



pvOUBTLESS it has been noticed that our earlier 

 LJ scientists were as far removed as possible from 

 the limitations of specialism. In point of fact, in this 

 early day, knowledge had not been classified as it came 

 to be later on. The philosopher was, as his name 

 implied, a lover of knowledge, and he did not find it 

 beyond the reach of his capacity to apply himself to all 

 departments of the field of human investigation. It 

 is nothing strange to discover that Anaximander and 

 the Pythagoreans and Anaxagoras have propounded 

 theories regarding the structure of the cosmos, the 

 origin and development of animals and man, and the 

 nature of matter itself. Nowadays, so enormously in- 

 volved has become the mass of mere facts regarding 

 each of these departments of knowledge that no one 

 man has the temerity to attempt to master them all. 

 But it was different in those days of beginnings. Then 

 the methods of observation were still crude, and it was 

 quite the custom for a thinker of forceful personality 

 to find an eager following among disciples who never 

 thought of putting his theories to the test of experi- 

 ment. The great lesson that true science in the last 

 resort depends upon observation and measurement, 

 upon compass and balance, had not yet been learned, 



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