CHAPTER III
SCIENCE.
Ifwe trace the march of scientific knowledge through the dense strata of departed ages to its root, it will doubtless be found in the remote East, while all prolific growth is toward the West. As often as the storms of conquest have passed over the plains of India, the arts of production continue to be practiced in the very places of their first endeavors. Hindoos of the present day, with no other auxiliaries than their hatchets and hands, can smelt iron, which they will convert into steel, equal to the best prepared in Europe. It is believed that the tools with which the Egyptians covered their obelisks and temples of porphyry and syenite with hieroglyphics, were made of Indian steel. Bailly refers the origin of the arts and sciences, astronomy, the old lunar zodiac, and the discovery of the planets, to northern Asia. Doubtless that was the source of the progressive race, of which science was the chief instrument, and Greek culture the first adequate expression.
As criticism comes naturally after poetry, so science succeeds a great exhibition of art. A close and profound analogy exists between them, and in this order. Genius spontaneously executes great, curious, and beautiful works, before scientific reason pauses to sit in judgment upon the principles according to which the artistic processes were conducted. Expert workers in brass and iron existed long before the chemistry of metals was known, as wine sparkled in crystal and golden goblets before vinous fermentation formed a chapter of science. Pyramids and cromlechs were raised into the air in cyclopian massiveness, before a theory of mechanical powers had been defined. Dyeing was early in use with the Hindoos, from whom the Egyptians learned the art, as they did that of calico printing. That was one of the many varieties ofpractical science which certainly came from the remote East. Paper making was first known in India, where, for a long time, it was formed of cotton and other substitutes for hemp and flax. In the Himalayas, it is still manufactured of the inner bark of trees, and in sheets of immense size. The invention of a loom, and the common mode of weaving, is alluded to in the Rig Veda,B.C.1200 years. The Institutes of Manu, say: "Let a weaver who has received ten palas of cotton thread, give them back, increased to eleven by rice-water and the like used in weaving."
But the nurses of infant science on the banks of the Ganges, the Euphrates, and the Nile, enslaved it to their own superstitions, and forever arrested its growth at the immutable boundary of their own contracted technicalities. So little real skill did the Egyptians possess, that it was necessary for Thales to show them how to find the height of the pyramids by the length of their shadows. Osiris was a king of that mummified land, and the historical course of science was foretokened by the fabulous account respecting him. Diodorus states that he passed through Ethiopia, Arabia, India, and Asia; crossed the Hellespont into Europe, and went from Thrace to western Greece, and the nations beyond, teaching them agriculture, and the cultivation of the vine. This was unquestionably invented after the Egyptian priesthood had received much information from the Greeks, and had become ashamed of their own gods, who had always confined their beneficent acts entirely to the borders of the Nile. Nevertheless, the statement is interesting, as it indicates the natural course of improvement.
True scientific progress primarily appeared in those mathematical ideas which first escaped from theological jurisdiction, and have ever since increasingly dispersed the gloom of superstition. The East was all eyes and no sight, when reason was most requisite for practical use; like Argus, whose hundred eyes were found napping when work was to be done. The West was much more effective, because its executive skill was fully equal to its speculative; like Cyclops, whose rugged two hands, co-operative with his vigilant one eye, forged for Neptune the trident which insured him the empire of the sea. The study of natural forces increased in proportion to the necessity for their use as correlatives to manual toil. They were thus made greatly to increase the power of man, at the same time theymaterially economized his time. It was impossible even to the enduring energies of Hercules, unassisted to cleanse the Augean stables; but by the co-operation of a natural force, in the waters of the Alpheus, the needful end was speedily and effectually obtained. A legend describes how Arachne, proud of her proficiency in needle-work, presumed to challenge Minerva to a trial of skill. But the contest was most unequal, because the latter added science to natural handicraft, and this combination was too powerful for any one to withstand. The discomfited Arachne was degraded from her high position among mortals, and, transformed into a spider, was thenceforth compelled to spin the same web in the same way, alike in summer zephyrs and wintry blasts.
Science exists in the mind; it is nature seen by the reason, and not merely by the senses. The sciences are necessarily progressive in the outward world, because of their internal connection. When a particular fundamental principle is in the process of discovery, it is objective, that is the object contemplated; but when once eliminated it becomes subjective, a new light to act as guide and evolver of kindred principles which lie beyond it, and are of more comprehensive use. The development of man as a race is the unfolding of this inherent dependence of one science upon another, the continuous revelation of that great patrimony of knowledge which is predestined to insure progress, emancipate reason, and entail the highest improvement consistent with a mortal state. When the Greek passed from the outer world of nature in search of wisdom, and descended to the depths of human consciousness, he was no longer traditional; his thought was science, and we can see both its birth and progressiveness. Then only might the world expect that, as Plato says his master once desired, that "Nature should have interpretation according to reason." With Socrates, and the scientific thinkers of his school, philosophy advanced from the realm of nature into the realm of man, and became a moral science. But its early cultivators were copious in abstract principles rather than in practical applications. As Canning said, they were the horses of the chariot of industry, and, going in advance of systemizers, they searched for truth for its own dear sake. Science was indeed beautiful in that serene height of abstract theory it was her first aim to secure, resources so copious and elevated that they mightirrigate all lands in their descending flow; as the dove that brought the olive-branch to the ark of man's hopes needed to take a higher and longer flight than the one measured by the tree whence she came.
Strange elements of civilization were gathered by the Greeks on every side, all of which were rapidly assimilated to a lofty type, and subordinated to the noblest use. Providence, with the wisest intent, did not permit them to advance far in the right track of scientific discovery. The time had not yet arrived for that, and their fine endowments were made subordinate to human happiness in more auspicious modes than through the accumulation of physical knowledge. They were fitted rather to self-scrutiny, guided by the mind alone, than to explore the grosser world of sense. To regulate and define common conceptions under the law of observation was not their forte; but they were prompt and facile to analyze and expand them through generalized reflection. The refined children of Hellas were subjective rather than objective in all their habits of thought; and the Good, the Beautiful, and the Perfect, were their favorite speculative themes. Nevertheless, the earliest waking of science was in their schools; with them the speculative faculty in physical inquiries was first unfolded. During the protracted prelude during which practical knowledge was becoming separated from metaphysical, the more sagacious of their leaders were called sophoi, or wise men. Afterward this term was changed, as we shall have occasion to note in the succeeding chapter. The physical sciences, as treated by the early Italic and Ionic schools, embraced numerous great questions, and comprehended the widest field of universal erudition that was ever attempted. But proceeding according to a method radically wrong, they were unsuccessful. Greek scholarship in science, as in every other department, at the outset aimed at universality. Untamed by toil, and undismayed by reverses, they went bravely to their task, and strove to read the entire volume of nature at one glance. To discover the origin and principle of the universe, expressed in a single word, was their vain endeavor. Thales declared water to be the original of all; and Anaximenes, air; while Heraclitus pronounced fire to be the essential principle of the universe. The poetical theogonies and cosmogonies of preceding ages gave tone to speculation in the dawnof science, and a physical cosmogony was the primary result. Preceding nations, as the Egyptians, had no cosmal theories, and felt the need of none; not so the Greeks, they were born with a craving to discover the reasons of things, and to explain somehow the mysteries which duller races had little capacity, and less desire to comprehend.
Astrology bore a high antiquity in the East, and contained within itself some rays of light, but never rose above a degraded astronomy. It prepared the way for science, by leading to the habit of grouping phenomena under the pictorial and mythological relations which were supposed to exist among the stars. Actual truths are gradually approximated, but when once really attained, they forever remain the fundamental treasure of man, and may be traced in all the superadditions of brighter days. Thus, in the dim light of speculative suggestion, the Copernican system was anticipated by Aristarchus, the resolution of the heavenly appearances into circular motions was intimated by Plato, and the numerical relations of musical intervals is to be ascribed to Pythagoras. But so completely at fault as to method were even the latest natural philosophers, that no physical doctrine as now received, can be traced so far back as Aristotle.
Astronomy is undoubtedly the most ancient and remarkable science. Chaldea and Egypt probably gave to it somewhat of a scientific form, before the age of intellectuality represented by the Greeks. The Egyptians advanced one step in the right direction, when they determined the path of the sun; and Thales, who, like Moses, was learned in all the science of that Pharaonic people, introduced what he had gleaned into his own land, and became the father of astronomy. The great advance which he made is indicated by the fact that he was the first to predict an eclipse. This science, moreover, profited by the authority with which Plato taught the supremacy of mathematical order; and the truths of harmonics which gave rise to the Pythagorean passion for numbers, were cultivated with great care in that school. But after these first impulses, in the opinion of Dr. Whewell, the sciences owed nothing to the philosophical sects; and the vast and complex accumulations and apparatus of the Stagirite, do not appear to have led to any theoretical physical truths.
As intimated before, Thales of Miletus, was the father of mathematical science, as of Grecian philosophy in general. The discoveries of that early period were of the most elementary kind, but of sufficient importance to give impulse to more dignified researches. His pupil, Pythagoras, made great advancement, and introduced music into his explanations of scientific phenomena. Democritus and Anaxagoras, the friend of Pericles, improved upon the attainments of their predecessors. The latter employed himself in his prison on the quadrature of the circle. Hippocrates, originally a merchant of Chio, became a geometer at Athens, and was the first to solve the problem of a double cube. Archylas, the teacher of Plato, and Eudoxus, one of that great man's scholars, measured cylindrical surfaces, and attained important results by means of conic sections. Thales is reputed to have introduced the sun-dial into Greece, to have observed the obliquity of the ecliptic, and taught that the earth was spherical, and in the centre of the universe. The cycle of nineteen years, called the golden number, invented for the purpose of making the solar and lunar year coincide, was the most important practical result which the astronomy of the Periclean age attained. Meton and Euctemon proposed it for the adoption of the Athenians, by whom it was adoptedB.C.433 years, and is still in use to determine movable feasts.
Pythagoras, the cotemporary of Anaxagoras, greatly improved every branch of science. He is said to have been taken prisoner by Cambyses, and thus to have become acquainted with all the mysteries of the Persian Magi. He settled at Crotona, in Italy, and founded the Italian sect. The physical sciences, particularly natural history, and the science of medicine, were created by the Greeks. The writings of Hippocrates and Galen instructed the age of Pericles in the science of anatomy, which, with geometry and numbers, enabled the greatest of the artists to determine his drawing, proportions, and motion. It was genius guided by science that enabled the master to endow his work with life, action, and sentiment.
Science in Greece, like life itself, was thoroughly republican and expansive, so long as vital growth was permitted. Their navigation extended even to the Baltic, as the voyage of Pytheas is a proof; they rather surpassed than yielded to the Phœnicians in the activity of their trade, and the wealth as well as extent of their colonies.It was in their superiority of scientific attainments that the Grecian colonists mainly excelled. Carthage, for instance, was at the same time powerful in conquest and commerce, but despite all her intellectual culture, she was inferior to smaller cities planted on the opposite coasts.
In the time of Homer, all Italy was "an unknown country." Phocean navigators discovered the Tyrrhenian sea, west of Sicily, and yet more daring adventurers from Tartessus sailed to the Pillars of Hercules. In due time, Colæus of Samos, clearing for Egypt, was driven by easterly winds (Herodotus adds significantly, "not without divine intervention,") through the straits into the ocean. Thus was the remotest border of the known world unwillingly passed, and a nearer approach made to the divinely attested Hesperides of the West.
In contemplating the sublime and immortal rank which Greece held in the designs of Providence, the relation of her commerce to science should not be overlooked. The fable respecting the flight of Dædalus from Crete, is supposed to signify that he escaped by means of a vessel with sails, the first use of which, in that primitive age, might well be regarded as a description of wings. Inland and maritime navigation, were made to contribute much to that prolific race. Ivory, ebony, indigo, the purple dye mentioned by Ctesias, and gum-resins were imported from Arabia and Africa, together with pearls and cotton from the Persian Gulf. Caravans of camels richly ladened crossed Arabia to Egypt, and the great rivers Euphrates and Tigris conveyed vast stores of raw material to western Asia and Greece. Not only were the shrines of many a deity enriched with vessels and decorations wrought out of "barbaric gold," but every department of productive art and science was kept active through the demands of a wide and untrammeled commerce. The great intelligences of the age struggled with laudable intent, to embody the conceptions, and diffuse the effulgence they possessed. As in that national game so significant of the master-passion and glorious mission of the Greeks, they threw onward the blazing torch from one to the other, until light kindled in every eye, and the flying symbol exhilarated every breast. No man then professed to teach, and was paid for teaching, who yet had nothing to communicate.
For ten centuries the Greeks marched at the head of humanity, while Athens remained the centre to which the winds and the waves bore germs of civilization from the East, and whence, by the same instrumentalities, the seeds of yet richer harvests were scattered toward a more distant West. Hesiod, in his Works and Days, gave many practical lessons on agriculture, and more prosaic, but not less useful proficients arose on every hand to impart the most valuable instruction to each aspirant. The last effort of Grecian science was to mingle and combine in one system, all that the nations of the earth up to that era had produced. Diversified ideas of every shape and degree of worth were gathered around the torch of intense national enthusiasm, were made to comprehend and modify one another, and, in their sublimated union, gave birth to the first cultivated world. Plato was nearly cotemporary with Phidias, and, considering the great influence of his philosophic theory concerning the power of the soul to mold the outward person into its own pattern of virtue or vice, we can little doubt that the artist in his studio was greatly influenced by the sage of the Academy, both as to the choice of subjects and mode of treating them. But when the age of consummate art had passed, the Greeks perfected another great legacy to their successors, by making the last generation of her national industry the successful devotees of science.
When every other department of literature and art in Athens were at their greatest splendor, the mathematics also flourished most; the former soon began to decline, but the sciences continued in power long after beauty in art had been eclipsed. Aristotle wrote nine books on animals. He may be fixed upon as representing the highest stage of knowledge and system the Greeks ever attained. Athenæus states, that Alexander gave him large sums of money, and several thousands of men, to hunt, fish, and otherwise aid in furnishing a vast collection in natural history, under the supervision of the philosopher. He was not only the first, but the only one of the ancients, who treated of separate species in the animal kingdom. But, although his system of physics accumulated numerous facts, Aristotle deduced not one general law to explain them. He knew the property of the lever as well, and many other correlative truths, but there was no correct theory of mechanicalpowers in the world, before Archimedes struck upon a generic principle of science. Before him, no one had arranged the facts of space, body, and motion, under the idea of mechanical cause, which is force.
The civilization of Greece is borne to us, not upon the shields of her warriors, though they were such as Epaminondas, Miltiades, or Theseus. But in her inventive skill and artistic taste, in her ships and argosies, in her industrial prowess and the freedom consequent thereupon, were the power and wealth which made her the Panopticon of the nations. Freedom of production, and freedom of barter, were the guiding commercial principles under which science and fame grew together and matured the greatest strength. Athens was indebted to the enterprise of her citizens, and not to martial conquest, for her glory. The ships that crowded the gulf of Salamis, were built of wood, purchased from Thrace and Macedonia, and choice material for the furniture of their halls and palaces, from Byzantium. Phrygia supplied them with wool, and imports from Miletus were woven in their looms. The choicest products of Pontus, Cyprus, and the Peloponnesus, did the Athenians obtain; while, for them, from Britain, overland through Gaul, the Carthagenians exported tin, and exchanged with them diversified commodities. Spain yielded them its iron, and the quarries of Hymettus and Pentelicus furnished marble for the adornment of their own lands, and for copious export. As is shown in McCullagh's "Industrial History of Free Nations," they never had an idea that population could outstrip production, or production over supply the population. "If a man were in debt, they did not confine him between stone-walls, useless to himself and his creditors: they provided that he should labor until he had paid back the amount of the debt. It was upon the seas of commercial treaty they learned their lessons of freedom; and thence, too, did those gems of art, which have since been the wonder and the worship of the world, increase and delight. The beauty of their heavens shed an influence over their soul; the tenderness of their scenes, we know, enwove themselves into even the tables, chairs, couches, and drinking vessels. The Grecian moved amid a perpetual retinue of beauties; the painting, the statue, the vase, the temple, all assumed novel forms of elegance. In all this it is not the splendor of Athenswhich attracts us most, it is that indefatigable genius of enterprise and industry which, from the caves of the Morea, plucked the laurel, and made the wild waves of the Ægean tributary to her wants and her valor." So prevalent was this spirit of free trade and personal enterprise, that ordinary mechanics often gained great power in the republic; as in the person of Cleon, the tanner, who became a worthy successor of Pericles. The port of the great artistic, manufacturing, and commercial emporium, was so thronged with ships from every clime, as to justify the saying of Xenophon, that the dominion of the sea secured to the Athenians the sweets of the world. Nor were their own craft insignificant in size, or any way unworthy of the great people they served. Demosthenes refers to one ship which carried three hundred men, a full cargo, numerous slaves, and the ordinary crew.
It is granted that art was the parent of science; the genial and comely mother of a daughter possessing a yet loftier and serener beauty than herself. It is equally true that Doric columns, and decorated entablatures, were perfected like the integral parts of the Attic drama, before professional critics vouchsafed to apply rules for the three unities, or canons of monumental forms. What creative spirit in their age actually did, scientific judges afterward patronized with frigid nomenclatures, and learnedly demonstrated that it might by certain rules be done.
Under the Ptolemies, neither poets nor artists were produced; but the mathematical school of Alexandria exhibited an extraordinary succession of remarkable men. Within the secluded halls and ample libraries of that central college, the exact sciences were assiduously cultivated, and for more than a thousand years immense resources of learning were stored, in due time to be dispersed over the prepared West. The works of Euclid, Apollonius, and Archimedes, contain a valuable treasure of the mathematical knowledge of antiquity; but at the early period when they lived, science was so immature, and the amount of observations so limited, they could only lay the foundation of that excellence to which posterity has since arrived. At the conclusion of the Aristotelian treatises the exploration of this realm subsided, and the human mind remained, in appearance, stationary for nearly two thousand years.