POST-SOCRATIC SCIENCE AT ATHENS 



physical sciences. He apparently had no sharply de- 

 nned opinions as to the mechanism of the universe ; no 

 clear conception as to the origin or development of 

 organic beings; no tangible ideas as to the problems 

 of physics; no favorite dreams as to the nature of 

 matter. Virtually his back was turned on this entire 

 field of thought. He was under the sway of those innate 

 ideas which, as we have urged, were among the earliest 

 inductions of science. But he never for a moment 

 suspected such an origin for these ideas. He supposed 

 his conceptions of being, his standards of ethics, to lie 

 back of all experience; for him they were the most 

 fundamental and most dependable of facts. He criti- 

 cised Anaxagoras for having tended to deduce general 

 laws from observation. As we moderns see it, such 

 criticism is the highest possible praise. It is a criticism 

 that marks the distinction between the scientist who 

 is also a philosopher and the philosopher who has but 

 a vague notion of physical science. Plato seemed, 

 indeed, to realize the value of scientific investigation; 

 he referred to the astronomical studies of the Egyp- 

 tians and Chaldeans, and spoke hopefully of the results 

 that might accrue were such studies to be taken up 

 by that Greek mind which, as he justly conceived, had 

 the power to vitalize and enrich all that it touched. 

 But he told here of what he would have others do, 

 not of what he himself thought of doing. His voice 

 was prophetic, but it stimulated no worker of his own 

 time. 



Plato himself had travelled widely. It is a familiar 

 legend that he lived for years in Egypt, endeavoring 

 there to penetrate the mysteries of Egyptian science. 



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