A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



areas and distance, questions of geographical locations 

 as to latitude and zones, and the like. But however 

 important these details may have been from a con- 

 temporary stand-point, they, of course, can have noth- 

 ing more than historical interest to posterity. The 

 value of the work from our present stand -point is chiefly 

 due to the criticisms which Strabo passes upon his fore- 

 runners, and to the incidental historical and scien- 

 tific references with which his work abounds. Being 

 written in this closing period of ancient progress, and 

 summarizing, as it does, in full detail the geographical 

 knowledge of the time, it serves as an important 

 guide-mark for the student of the progress of scientific 

 thought. We cannot do better than briefly to follow 

 Strabo in his estimates and criticisms of the work of 

 his predecessors, taking note thus of the point of view 

 from which he himself looked out upon the world. 

 We shall thus gain a clear idea as to the state of scien- 

 tific geography towards the close of the classical epoch. 

 " If the scientific investigation of any subject be the 

 proper avocation of the philosopher," says Strabo, 

 "geography, the science of which we propose to treat, 

 is certainly entitled to a high place; and this is evident 

 from many considerations. They who first under- 

 took to handle the matter were distinguished men. 

 Homer, Anaximander the Milesian, and Hecataeus (his 

 fellow-citizen according to Eratosthenes), Democritus, 

 Eudoxus, Dicaearchus, and Ephorus, with many 

 others, and after these, Eratosthenes, Polybius, and 

 Posidonius, all of them philosophers. Nor is the 

 great learning through which alone this subject can be 

 approached possessed by any but a person acquainted 



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