8 INTERPRETATIONS OF NATURE. 
—the loftiest mind of the ancient world—reversed the 
idealistic methods of the past and, on the basis of ob- 
served facts, proclaimed the laws of deductive reason- 
ing. The known facts of nature were, however, too few 
to enable him to make a generalization which would, to 
any great extent, embrace the phenomena of the physi- 
cal world, and, although he believed the earth to havea 
globular form, his speculative thought yet made it the 
fixed center of the universe, around which the sun, 
moon and other planets revolved. 
To the master minds of the Alexandrian school, be- 
longs the honor of first organizing and applying the 
principles of inductive science to the interpretation of 
physical phenomena. 
Pure reason found its noblest expression in the 
science of mathematics, which the genius of Euclid had 
created ; while the foundations of mechanics and hy- 
draulics were firmly established by the discoveries of 
Archimedes. More extended knowledge enabled Hro- 
tosthenes to free geography from the mythical legends 
which encumbered it; and inspired him to attempt, 
even with imperfect data, to measure the circumference 
of the earth, while to the mental vision of Hipparchus 
the vault of heaven, hitherto so circumscribed, ex- 
panded into the amplitudes of space; wherein, as a 
mere atom, the earth was seen rotating on its own axis 
as it moved onward around the sun. 
Notwithstanding the achievements of the intellect, 
and the perceptions—faint though they were—of law 
and order in the material world, Greek philosophy had 
no revelation concerning man himself, which satisfied 
the human heart, and, although for a time sustained by 
the brilliancy of Arabian culture, it did not survive in 
the presence of the new faith, which, with exalted ideal- 
ism, taught the brotherhood of man, and enticed all by 
the promise of a happy life hereafter. 
