ALEXANDRIAN OR HELLENISTIC PERIOD 



They no longer troubled themselves about problems 

 of ' c being" and "becoming" ; they gave but little heed 

 to metaphysical subtleties; they demanded that their 

 thoughts should be gauged by objective realities. 

 Hence there arose a succession of great geometers, and 

 their conceptions were applied to the construction of 

 new mechanical contrivances on the one hand, and 

 to the elaboration of theories of sidereal mechanics 

 on the other. 



The wonderful company of men who performed the 

 feats that are about to be recorded did not all find 

 their home in Alexandria, to be sure ; but they all came 

 more or less under the Alexandrian influence. We 

 shall see that there are two other important centres; 

 one out in Sicily, almost at the confines of the Greek 

 territory in the west ; the other in Asia Minor, notably 

 on the island of Samos the island which, it will be 

 recalled, was at an earlier day the birthplace of Pythag- 

 oras. But whereas in the previous century colonists 

 from the confines of the civilized world came to Athens, 

 now all eyes turned towards Alexandria, and so im- 

 proved were the facilities for communication that no 

 doubt the discoveries of one coterie of workers were 

 known to all the others much more quickly than had 

 ever been possible before. We learn, for example, 

 that the studies of Aristarchus of Samos were definitely 

 known to Archimedes of Syracuse, out in Sicily. In- 

 deed, as we shall see, it is through a chance reference 

 preserved in one of the writings of Archimedes that 

 one of the most important speculations of Aristarchus 

 is made known to us. This illustrates sufficiently the 

 intercommunication through which the thought of the 



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