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ancients were so completely led away from the true paths of 
knowledge. Whewell strikingly describes their failure, and 
its cause, in his admirable History of ' the Inductive Sciences. 
“Yet,” says he, “we are not to think slightingly of those 
early speculators. They were men of extraordinary acuteness, 
invention and range of thought; and, above all, they had the 
merit of first completely unfolding the speculative faculty ; of 
starting in that keen and vigorous chase of knowledge by 
which all the subsequent culture and improvement of man’s 
intellectual stores have been occasioned. The sages of early 
Greece form the heroic age of science. Like the first naviga- 
tors, in their own mythology, they boldly ventured their 
untried bark in a distant and arduous voyage, urged on by 
the hopes of a supernatural success ; and though they missed 
the imaginary golden prize which they sought, they unlocked 
the gates of distant regions and opened the seas to the keels 
of the thousands of adventurers who, in succeeding times, . 
sailed to and fro, to the indefinite increase of the treasures ot 
mankind.”* We can enter with all our hearts into this well- 
merited eulogium ; but it is more difficult to praise the specu- 
lative ambition of an age which has the failure of the Greeks 
so fully before its eyes, and yet follows in that very track in 
which they reached only failure, and misled the inquirers of 
succeeding centuries. 
When Herodotus proceeds to account for the overflow of 
the Nile, he furnishes us with a very good example of early 
speculation. He says : “ During the winter months, the sun, 
being driven by storms from his former course, retires to the 
upper parts of Libya; this in few words comprehends the 
whole matter, for it is natural that the country which this god 
is nearest to, and over which he is, should be most in want of 
water, and that the native river-streams should be dried up. 
But, to explain my meaning more at length, the case is this : 
the sun passing over the upper parts of Libya, produces the 
following effect : as the air in these regions is always serene, 
and the soil is always hot, since there are no cold winds passing 
over, he produces the same effect as he usually does in the 
summer when he passes through the middle of the firmament ; 
for he attracts the water to himself, and having attracted it, 
throws it back upon the higher regions; ”+ It is not necessary 
to quote the whole passage. That to which I direct attention 
is the purely conjectural character of the explanation of the 
historian, coupled with the show of science, which caused his 
w^ords to pass for the language of truth. 
* Whewell 5 , s Hist, vol. i. p. 48. f Herod., Hut, ii. 24, 25. 
