THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS. 199 
Greek Age of Reason. In both conditions accurate thought was 
out of the question, Though we admire greatly Socrates and 
Plato, we cannot say that we gained substantial Scdentific good 
from them. It is not until we arrive at the age of Aristotle that 
lasting benefit to Science accrues. 
Military order now filled the arena. The march of Alexander, 
the armies of Xerxes and Darius, swept the world, but no access 
of knowledge directly came. It was the individual who thought, 
worked, and jotted down his thoughts, who was the precursor of 
the men that must eventually rule the world. For ages now our 
History of Science is so meagre as almost to be a blank, The 
History, I say; for the facts known must have been stored up 
in men’s minds. What was the condition of thought of the 
Period % 
The earth was flat: old Oceanus rolled round it; the azure 
vault of heaven was a dome to cover it; the Sun was the god of 
all, the Moon his spouse, the stars his sons and daughters. The 
gods dwelt in Olympus above, and had the same passions and 
thoughts as men. Men died and passed to Hades below, and 
around the vault to the Olympian fields or to Lethe. Everything 
was Anthropomorphic. This vulgar condition of Theism has 
been what the unlearned, for their convenience, have struggled 
to perpetuate. This vulgar condition has been what it has been 
the perpetual struggle of the Scientist to overthrow. After 
sojourns in various lands, the old country, Egypt, again becomes 
the centre of Scientific thought, and the foundation of the 
Library of Alexandria becomes one of the principal landmarks. 
The names of such men as Ptolemy Soter, his son Philadelphus, 
Demetrius Phalareus, Eratosthenes, Apollonius Rhodius, Hip- 
parchus, and Archimedes will show at once the character of its 
foundation. Farin advance of even the Middle Ages, it contained 
the demonstration of the globular form of the earth by Eratos- 
thenes, the fire-engine of Ctesibius, the steam-engine of Hero. 
The works of Euclid were on its shelves, containing problems 
which as long as the world lasts, and afterwards, will be held as 
absolutely incontrovertible. 
The Serapion, a sort of annex, contained water-clocks and exact 
instruments, which were the heralds of the downfall of Superstition 
and Bigotry. 
Eee 
