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 INTRODUCTION.

I Nnature
order to the acquisition of any such exact and real knowledge of
as that which we properly call Physical Science, it is
requisite, as has already been said, that men should possess Ideas
both distinct and appropriate, and should apply them to ascertained
Facts. They are thus led to propositions of a general character,
which are obtained by Induction, as will elsewhere be more fully
explained. We proceed now to trace the formation of Sciences
among the Greeks by such processes. The provinces of knowledge
which thus demand our attention are, Astronomy, Mechanics and
Hydrostatics, Optics and Harmonics; of which I must relate, first, the
earliest stages, and next, the subsequent progress.

Of these portions of human knowledge, Astronomy is, beyond

doubt or comparison, much the most ancient and the most
remarkable; and probably existed, in somewhat of a scientific form,
in Chaldea and Egypt, and other countries, before the period of the
intellectual activity of the Greeks. But I will give a brief account of
some of the other Sciences before I proceed to Astronomy, for two
reasons; first, because the origin of Astronomy is lost in the obscurity
of a remote antiquity; and therefore we cannot exemplify the
conditions of the first rise of science so well in that subject as we can
in others which assumed their scientific form at known periods; and
next, in order that I may not have to interrupt, after I have once
begun it, the history of the only progressive Science which the
ancient world produced.

It has been objected to the arrangement here employed that it is

not symmetrical; and that Astronomy, as being one of the Physical
Sciences, ought to have occupied a chapter in this Second Book,
instead of having a whole Book to itself (Book iii). I do not pretend
that the arrangement is symmetrical, and have employed it only on
the ground of convenience. The importance and extent of the history
of Astronomy are such that this science could not, with a view to our
purposes, be made co-ordinate with Mechanics or Optics. 96
 CHAPTER I.

Earliest Stages of Mechanics and Hydrostatics.

Sect. 1.—Mechanics.

A STRONOMY is a science so ancient that we can hardly ascend

to a period when it did not exist; Mechanics, on the other hand,
is a science which did not begin to be till after the time of Aristotle;
for Archimedes must be looked upon as the author of the first sound
knowledge on this subject. What is still more curious, and shows
remarkably how little the continued progress of science follows
inevitably from the nature of man, this department of knowledge,
after the right road had been fairly entered upon, remained
absolutely stationary for nearly two thousand years; no single step
was made, in addition to the propositions established by
Archimedes, till the time of Galileo and Stevinus. This extraordinary
halt will be a subject of attention hereafter; at present we must
consider the original advance.

The great step made by Archimedes in Mechanics was the

establishing, upon true grounds, the general proposition concerning
a straight lever, loaded with two heavy bodies, and resting upon a
fulcrum. The proposition is, that two bodies so circumstanced will
balance each other, when the distance of the smaller body from the
fulcrum is greater than the distance of the other, in exactly the same
proportion in which the weight of the body is less.
 This proposition is proved by Archimedes in a work which is still
extant, and the proof holds its place in our treatises to this day, as
the simplest which can be given. The demonstration is made to rest
on assumptions which amount in effect to such Definitions and
Axioms as these: That those bodies are of equal weight which
balance each other at equal arms of a straight lever; and that in
every heavy body there is a definite point called a Centre of Gravity,
in which point we may suppose the weight of the body collected.

The principle, which is really the foundation of the validity of the

demonstration thus given, and which is the condition of all
experimental knowledge on the subject, is this: that when two equal
weights are supported on a lever, they act on the fulcrum of the lever
with the 97 same effect as if they were both together supported
immediately at that point. Or more generally, we may state the
principle to be this: that the pressure by which a heavy body is
supported continues the same, however we alter the form or position
of the body, so long as the magnitude and material continue the
same.

The experimental truth of this principle is a matter of obvious and

universal experience. The weight of a basket of stones is not altered
by shaking the stones into new positions. We cannot make the direct
burden of a stone less by altering its position in our hands; and if we
try the effect on a balance or a machine of any kind, we shall see still
more clearly and exactly that the altered position of one weight, or
the altered arrangement of several, produces no change in their
effect, so long as their point of support remains unchanged.

This general fact is obvious, when we possess in our minds the

ideas which are requisite to apprehend it clearly. But when we are so
prepared, the truth appears to be manifest, even independent of
experience, and is seen to be a rule to which experience must
conform. What, then, is the leading idea which thus enables us to
reason effectively upon mechanical subjects? By attention to the
course of such reasonings, we perceive that it is the idea of
Pressure; Pressure being conceived as a measurable effect of heavy
bodies at rest, distinguishable from all other effects, such as motion,
change of figure, and the like. It is not here necessary to attempt to
trace the history of this idea in our minds; but it is certain that such
an idea may be distinctly formed, and that upon it the whole science
of statics may be built. Pressure, load, weight, are names by which
this idea is denoted when the effect tends directly downwards; but
we may have pressure without motion, or dead pull, in other cases,
as at the critical instant when two nicely-matched wrestlers are
balanced by the exertion of the utmost strength of each.

Pressure in any direction may thus exist without any motion

whatever. But the causes which produce such pressure are capable
of producing motion, and are generally seen producing motion, as in
the above instance of the wrestlers, or in a pair of scales employed
in weighing; and thus men come to consider pressure as the
exception, and motion as the rule: or perhaps they image to
themselves the motion which might or would take place; for instance,
the motion which the arms of a lever would have if they did move.
They turn away from the case really before them, which is that of
bodies at rest, and balancing each other, and pass to another case,
which is arbitrarily 98 assumed to represent the first. Now this
arbitrary and capricious evasion of the question we consider as
opposed to the introduction of the distinct and proper idea of
Pressure, by means of which the true principles of this subject can
be apprehended.
 We have already seen that Aristotle was in the number of those
who thus evaded the difficulties of the problem of the lever, and
consequently lost the reward of success. He failed, as has before
been stated, in consequence of his seeking his principles in notions,
either vague and loose, as the distinction of natural and unnatural
motions, or else inappropriate, as the circle which the weight would
describe, the velocity which it would have if it moved; circumstances
which are not part of the fact under consideration. The influence of
such modes of speculation was the main hindrance to the
prosecution of the true Archimedean form of the science of
Mechanics.

The mechanical doctrine of Equilibrium, is Statics. It is to be

distinguished from the mechanical doctrine of Motion, which is
termed Dynamics, and which was not successfully treated till the
time of Galileo.

Sect. 2.—Hydrostatics.

Archimedes not only laid the foundations of the Statics of solid

bodies, but also solved the principal problem of Hydrostatics, or the
Statics of Fluids; namely, the conditions of the floating of bodies.
This is the more remarkable, since not only did the principles which
Archimedes established on this subject remain unpursued till the
revival of science in modern times, but, when they were again put
forward, the main proposition was so far from obvious that it was
termed, and is to this day called, the hydrostatic paradox. The true
doctrine of Hydrostatics, however, assuming the Idea of Pressure,
which it involves, in common with the Mechanics of solid bodies,
requires also a distinct Idea of a Fluid, as a body of which the parts
are perfectly movable among each other by the slightest partial
pressure, and in which all pressure exerted on one part is transferred
to all other parts. From this idea of Fluidity, necessarily follows that
multiplication of pressure which constitutes the hydrostatic paradox;
and the notion being seen to be verified in nature, the consequences
were also realized as facts. This notion of Fluidity is expressed in the
postulate which stands at the head of Archimedes’ “Treatise on
Floating Bodies.” And from this principle are deduced the solutions,
not only of the simple problems of the science, but of some problems
of considerable complexity. 99

The difficulty of holding fast this Idea of Fluidity so as to trace its

consequences with infallible strictness of demonstration, may be
judged of from the circumstance that, even at the present day, men
of great talents, not unfamiliar with the subject, sometimes admit into
their reasonings an oversight or fallacy with regard to this very point.
The importance of the Idea when clearly apprehended and securely
held, may be judged of from this, that the whole science of
Hydrostatics in its most modern form is only the development of the
Idea. And what kind of attempts at science would be made by
persons destitute of this Idea, we may see in the speculations of
Aristotle concerning light and heavy bodies, which we have already
quoted; where, by considering light and heavy as opposite qualities,
residing in things themselves, and by an inability to apprehend the
effect of surrounding fluids in supporting bodies, the subject was
made a mass of false or frivolous assertions, which the utmost
ingenuity could not reconcile with facts, and could still less deduce
from the asserted doctrines any new practical truths.

In the case of Statics and Hydrostatics, the most important

condition of their advance was undoubtedly the distinct
apprehension of these two appropriate Ideas—Statical Pressure,
and Hydrostatical Pressure as included in the idea of Fluidity. For the
Ideas being once clearly possessed, the experimental laws which
they served to express (that the whole pressure of a body
downwards was always the same; and that water, and the like, were
fluids according to the above idea of fluidity), were so obvious, that
there was no doubt nor difficulty about them. These two ideas lie at
the root of all mechanical science; and the firm possession of them
is, to this day, the first requisite for a student of the subject. After
being clearly awakened in the mind of Archimedes, these ideas slept
for many centuries, till they were again called up in Galileo, and
more remarkably in Stevinus. This time, they were not destined
again to slumber; and the results of their activity have been the
formation of two Sciences, which are as certain and severe in their
demonstrations as geometry itself and as copious and interesting in
their conclusions; but which, besides this recommendation, possess
one of a different order,—that they exhibit the exact impress of the
laws of the physical world, and unfold a portion of the rules
according to which the phenomena of nature take place, and must
take place, till nature herself shall alter. 100
 CHAPTER II.

Earliest Stages of Optics.

T HE progress made by the ancients in Optics was nearly

proportional to that which they made in Statics. As they
discovered the true grounds of the doctrine of Equilibrium, without
obtaining any sound principles concerning Motion, so they
discovered the law of the Reflection of light, but had none but the
most indistinct notions concerning Refraction.

The extent of the principles which they really possessed is easily

stated. They knew that vision is performed by rays which proceed in
straight lines, and that these rays are reflected by certain surfaces
(mirrors) in such manner that the angles which they make with the
surface on each side are equal. They drew various conclusions from
these premises by the aid of geometry; as, for instance, the
convergence of rays which fall on a concave speculum.

It may be observed that the Idea which is here introduced, is that

of visual rays, or lines along which vision is produced and light
carried. This idea once clearly apprehended, it was not difficult to
show that these lines are straight lines, both in the case of light and
of sight. In the beginning of Euclid’s “Treatise on Optics,” some of the
arguments are mentioned by which this was established. We are told
in the Proem, “In explaining what concerns the sight, he adduced
certain arguments from which he inferred that all light is carried in
straight lines. The greatest proof of this is shadows, and the bright
spots which are produced by light coming through windows and
cracks, and which could not be, except the rays of the sun were
carried in straight lines. So in fires, the shadows are greater than the
bodies if the fire be small, but less than the bodies if the fire be
greater.” A clear comprehension of the principle would lead to the
perception of innumerable proofs of its truth on every side.

The Law of Equality of Angles of Incidence and Reflection was not

quite so easy to verify; but the exact resemblance of the object and
its image in a plane mirror, (as the surface of still water, for instance),
which is a consequence of this law, would afford convincing
evidence of its truth in that case, and would be confirmed by the
examination of other cases. 101

With these true principles was mixed much error and

indistinctness, even in the best writers. Euclid, and the Platonists,
maintained that vision is exercised by rays proceeding from the eye,
not to it; so that when we see objects, we learn their form as a blind
man would do, by feeling it out with his staff. This mistake, however,
though Montucla speaks severely of it, was neither very discreditable
nor very injurious; for the mathematical conclusions on each
supposition are necessarily the same. Another curious and false
assumption is, that those visual rays are not close together, but
separated by intervals, like the fingers when the hand is spread. The
motive for this invention was the wish to account for the fact, that in
looking for a small object, as a needle, we often cannot see it when it
is under our nose; which it was conceived would be impossible if the
visual rays reached to all points of the surface before us.

These errors would not have prevented the progress of the

science. But the Aristotelian physics, as usual, contained
speculations more essentially faulty. Aristotle’s views led him to try to
describe the kind of causation by which vision is produced, instead
of the laws by which it is exercised; and the attempt consisted, as in
other subjects, of indistinct principles, and ill-combined facts.
According to him, vision must be produced by a Medium,—by
something between the object and the eye,—for if we press the
object on the eye, we do not see it; this Medium is Light, or “the
transparent in action;” darkness occurs when the transparency is
potential, not actual; color is not the “absolute visible,” but something
which is on the absolute visible; color has the power of setting the
transparent in action; it is not, however, all colors that are seen by
means of light, but only the proper color of each object; for some
things, as the heads, and scales, and eyes of fish, are seen in the
dark; but they are not seen with their proper color. 1
1 De Anim. ii. 7.

In all this there is no steady adherence either to one notion, or to

one class of facts. The distinction of Power and Act is introduced to
modify the Idea of Transparency, according to the formula of the
school; then Color is made to be something unknown in addition to
Visibility; and the distinction of “proper” and “improper” colors is
assumed, as sufficient to account for a phenomenon. Such
classifications have in them nothing of which the mind can take
steady hold; nor is it difficult to see that they do not come under
those 102 conditions of successful physical speculation, which we
have laid down.

It is proper to notice more distinctly the nature of the Geometrical

Propositions contained in Euclid’s work. The Optica contains
Propositions concerning Vision and Shadows, derived from the
principle that the rays of light are rectilinear: for instance, the
Proposition that the shadow is greater than the object, if the
illuminating body be less and vice versa. The Catoptrica contains
Propositions concerning the effects of Reflection, derived from the
principle that the Angles of Incidence and Reflection are equal: as,
that in a convex mirror the object appears convex, and smaller than
the object. We see here an example of the promptitude of the
Greeks in deduction. When they had once obtained a knowledge of
a principle, they followed it to its mathematical consequences with
great acuteness. The subject of concave mirrors is pursued further in
Ptolemy’s Optics.

The Greek writers also cultivated the subject of Perspective

speculatively, in mathematical treatises, as well as practically, in
pictures. The whole of this theory is a consequence of the principle
that vision takes place in straight lines drawn from the object to the
eye.

“The ancients were in some measure acquainted with the

Refraction as well as the Reflection of Light,” as I have shown in
Book ix. Chap. 2 [2d Ed.] of the Philosophy. The current knowledge
on this subject must have been very slight and confused; for it does
not appear to have enabled them to account for one of the simplest
results of Refraction, the magnifying effect of convex transparent
bodies. I have noticed in the passage just referred to, Seneca’s
crude notions on this subject; and in like manner Ptolemy in his
Optics asserts that an object placed in water must always appear
larger then when taken out. Aristotle uses the term ἀνακλάσις
(Meteorol. iii. 2), but apparently in a very vague manner. It is not
evident that he distinguished Refraction from Reflection. His
Commentators however do distinguish these as διακλάσις and
ἀνακλάσις. See Olympiodorus in Schneider’s Eclogæ Physicæ, vol.
i. p. 397. And Refraction had been the subject of special attention
among the Greek Mathematicians. Archimedes had noticed (as we
learn from the same writer) that in certain cases, a ring which cannot
be seen over the edge of the empty vessel in which it is placed,
becomes visible when the vessel is filled with water. The same fact is
stated in the Optics of Euclid. We do not find this fact explained in
that work as we now have it; but in Ptolemy’s Optics the fact is
explained by a flexure of the visual ray: it is 103 noticed that this
flexure is different at different angles from the perpendicular, and
there is an elaborate collection of measures of the flexure at different
angles, made by means of an instrument devised for the purpose.
There is also a collection of similar measures of the refraction when
the ray passes from air to glass, and when it passes from glass to
water. This part of Ptolemy’s work is, I think, the oldest extant
example of a collection of experimental measures in any other
subject than astronomy; and in astronomy our measures are the
result of observation rather than of experiment. As Delambre says
(Astron. Anc. vol. ii. p. 427), “On y voit des expériences de physique
bien faites, ce qui est sans exemple chez les anciens.”

Ptolemy’s Optical work was known only by Roger Bacon’s

references to it (Opus Majus, p. 286, &c.) till 1816; but copies of
Latin translations of it were known to exist in the Royal Library at
Paris, and in the Bodleian at Oxford. Delambre has given an account
of the contents of the Paris copy in his Astron. Anc. ii. 414, and in the
Connoissance des Temps for 1816; and Prof. Rigaud’s account of
the Oxford copy is given in the article Optics, in the Encyclopædia
Britannica. Ptolemy shows great sagacity in applying the notion of
Refraction to the explanation of the displacement of astronomical
objects which is produced by the atmosphere,—Astronomical
Refraction, as it is commonly called. He represents the visual ray as
refracted in passing from the ether, which is above the air, into the
air; the air being bounded by a spherical surface which has for its
centre “the centre of all the elements, the centre of the earth;” and
the refraction being a flexure towards the line drawn perpendicular to
this surface. He thus constructs, says Delambre, the same figure on
which Cassini afterwards founded the whole of his theory; and gives
a theory more complete than that of any astronomer previous to him.
Tycho, for instance, believed that astronomical refraction was
caused only by the vapors of the atmosphere, and did not exist
above the altitude of 45°.

Cleomedes, about the time of Augustus, had guessed at

Refraction, as an explanation of an eclipse in which the sun and
moon are both seen at the same time. “Is it not possible,” he says,
“that the ray which proceeds from the eye and traverses moist and
cloudy air may bend downwards to the sun, even when he is below
the horizon?” And Sextus Empiricus, a century later, says, “The air
being dense, by the refraction of the visual ray, a constellation may
be seen above the horizon when it is yet below the horizon.” But
from what follows, it 104 appears doubtful whether he clearly
distinguished Refraction and Reflection.

In order that we may not attach too much value to the vague
expressions of Cleomedes and Sextus Empiricus, we may remark
that Cleomedes conceives such an eclipse as he describes not to be
possible, though he offers an explanation of it if it be: (the fact must
really occur whenever the moon is seen in the horizon in the middle
of an eclipse:) and that Sextus Empiricus gives his suggestion of the
effect of refraction as an argument why the Chaldean astrology
cannot be true, since the constellation which appears to be rising at
the moment of a birth is not the one which is truly rising. The
Chaldeans might have answered, says Delambre, that the star
begins to shed its influence, not when it is really in the horizon, but
when its light is seen. (Ast. Anc. vol. i. p. 231, and vol. ii. p. 548.)

It has been said that Vitellio, or Vitello, whom we shall hereafter

have to speak of in the history of Optics, took his Tables of
Refractions from Ptolemy. This is contrary to what Delambre states.
He says that Vitello may be accused of plagiarism from Alhazen, and
that Alhazen did not borrow his Tables from Ptolemy. Roger Bacon
had said (Opus Majus, p. 288), “Ptolemæus in libro de Opticis, id est,
de Aspectibus, seu in Perspectivâ suâ, qui prius quam Alhazen dedit
hanc sententiam, quam a Ptolemæo acceptam Alhazen exposuit.”
This refers only to the opinion that visual rays proceed from the eye.
But this also is erroneous; for Alhazen maintains the contrary: “Visio
fit radiis a visibili extrinsecus ad visum manantibus.” (Opt. Lib. i. cap.
5.) Vitello says of his Table of Refractions, “Acceptis instrumentaliter,
prout potuimus propinquius, angulis omnium refractionum . . .
invenimus quod semper iidem sunt anguli refractionum: . . .
secundum hoc fecimus has tabulas.” “Having measured, by means
of instruments, as exactly as we could, the whole range of the angles
of refraction, we found that the refraction is always the same for the
same angle; and hence we have constructed these Tables.”
~Additional material in the 3rd edition.~ 105
 CHAPTER III.

Earliest Stages of Harmonics.

A MONG the ancients, the science of Music was an application of

Arithmetic, as Optics and Mechanics were of Geometry. The
story which is told concerning the origin of their arithmetical music, is
the following, as it stands in the Arithmetical Treatise of Nicomachus.

Pythagoras, walking one day, meditating on the means of

measuring musical notes, happened to pass near a blacksmith’s
shop, and had his attention arrested by hearing the hammers, as
they struck the anvil, produce the sounds which had a musical
relation to each other. On listening further, he found that the intervals
were a Fourth, a Fifth, and an Octave; and on weighing the
hammers, it appeared that the one which gave the Octave was one-
half the heaviest, the one which gave the Fifth was two-thirds, and
the one which gave the Fourth was three-quarters. He returned
home, reflected upon this phenomenon, made trials, and finally
discovered, that if he stretched musical strings of equal lengths, by
weights which have the proportion of one-half, two-thirds, and three-
fourths, they produced intervals which were an Octave, a Fifth, and a
Fourth. This observation gave an arithmetical measure of the
principal Musical Intervals, and made Music an arithmetical subject
of speculation.

This story, if not entirely a philosophical fable, is undoubtedly

inaccurate; for the musical intervals thus spoken of would not be
produced by striking with hammers of the weights there stated. But it
is true that the notes of strings have a definite relation to the forces
which stretch them; and this truth is still the groundwork of the theory
of musical concords and discords.

Nicomachus says that Pythagoras found the weights to be, as I

have mentioned, in the proportion of 12, 6, 8, 9; and the intervals, an
Octave, corresponding to the proportion 12 to 6, or 2 to 1; a Fifth,
corresponding to the proportion 12 to 8, or 3 to 2; and a Fourth,
corresponding to the proportion 12 to 9, or 4 to 3. There is no doubt
that this statement of the ancient writer is inexact as to the physical
fact, for the rate of vibration of a string, on which its note depends, is,
106 other things being equal, not as the weight, but as the square
root of the weight. But he is right as to the essential point, that those
ratios of 2 to 1, 3 to 2, and 4 to 3, are the characteristic ratios of the
Octave, Fifth, and Fourth. In order to produce these intervals, the
appended weights must be, not as 12, 9, 8, and 6, but as 12, 6¾,
5⅓, and 3.

The numerical relations of the other intervals of the musical scale,

as well as of the Octave, Fifth, and Fourth, were discovered by the
Greeks. Thus they found that the proportion in a Major Third was 5
to 4; in a Minor Third, 6 to 5; in a Major Tone, 9 to 8; in a Semitone or
Diesis, 16 to 15. They even went so far as to determine the Comma,
in which the interval of two notes is so small that they are in the
proportion of 81 to 80. This is the interval between two notes, each
of which may be called the Seventeenth above the key-note;—the
one note being obtained by ascending a Fifth four times over; the
other being obtained by ascending through two Octaves and a Major
Third. The want of exact coincidence between these two notes is an
inherent arithmetical imperfection in the musical scale, of which the
consequences are very extensive.
 The numerical properties of the musical scale were worked out to
a very great extent by the Greeks, and many of their Treatises on
this subject remain to us. The principal ones are the seven authors
published by Meibomius. 2 These arithmetical elements of Music are
to the present day important and fundamental portions of the
Science of Harmonics.
2 Antiquæ Musicæ Scriptores septem, 1652.

It may at first appear that the truth, or even the possibility of this
history, by referring the discovery to accident, disproves our doctrine,
that this, like all other fundamental discoveries, required a distinct
and well-pondered Idea as its condition. In this, however, as in all
cases of supposed accidental discoveries in science, it will be found,
that it was exactly the possession of such an Idea which made the
accident possible.

Pythagoras, assuming the truth of the tradition, must have had an

exact and ready apprehension of those relations of musical sounds,
which are called respectively an Octave, a Fifth, and a Fourth. If he
had not been able to conceive distinctly this relation, and to
apprehend it when heard, the sounds of the anvil would have struck
his ears to no more purpose than they did those of the smiths
themselves. He 107 must have had, too, a ready familiarity with
numerical ratios; and, moreover (that in which, probably, his
superiority most consisted), a disposition to connect one notion with
the other—the musical relation with the arithmetical, if it were found
possible. When the connection was once suggested, it was easy to
devise experiments by which it might be confirmed.

“The philosophers of the Pythagorean School, 3 and in particular,

Lasus of Hermione, and Hippasus of Metapontum, made many such
experiments upon strings; varying both their lengths and the weights
which stretched them; and also upon vessels filled with water, in a
greater or less degree.” And thus was established that connection of
the Idea with the Fact, which this Science, like all others, requires.
3 Montucla, iii. 10.

I shall quit the Physical Sciences of Ancient Greece, with the

above brief statement of the discovery of the fundamental principles
which they involved; not only because such initial steps must always
be the most important in the progress of science, but because, in
reality, the Greeks made no advances beyond these. There took
place among them no additional inductive processes, by which new
facts were brought under the dominion of principles, or by which
principles were presented in a more comprehensive shape than
before. Their advance terminated in a single stride. Archimedes had
stirred the intellectual world, but had not put it in progressive motion:
the science of Mechanics stopped where he left it. And though, in
some objects, as in Harmonics, much was written, the works thus
produced consisted of deductions from the fundamental principles,
by means of arithmetical calculations; occasionally modified, indeed,
by reference to the pleasures which music, as an art, affords, but not
enriched by any new scientific truths.

[3d Ed.] We should, however, quit the philosophy of the ancient

Greeks without a due sense of the obligations which Physical
Science in all succeeding ages owes to the acute and penetrating
spirit in which their inquiries in that region of human knowledge were
conducted, and to the large and lofty aspirations which were
displayed, even in their failure, if we did not bear in mind both the
multifarious and comprehensive character of their attempts, and
some of the causes which limited their progress in positive science.
They speculated and 108 theorized under a lively persuasion that a
Science of every part of nature was possible, and was a fit object for
the exercise of man’s best faculties; and they were speedily led to
the conviction that such a science must clothe its conclusions in the
language of mathematics. This conviction is eminently conspicuous
in the writings of Plato. In the Republic, in the Epinomis, and above
all in the Timæus, this conviction makes him return, again and again,
to a discussion of the laws which had been established or
conjectured in his time, respecting Harmonics and Optics, such as
we have seen, and still more, respecting Astronomy, such as we
shall see in the next Book. Probably no succeeding step in the
discovery of the Laws of Nature was of so much importance as the
full adoption of this pervading conviction, that there must be
Mathematical Laws of Nature, and that it is the business of
Philosophy to discover these Laws. This conviction continues,
through all the succeeding ages of the history of science, to be the
animating and supporting principle of scientific investigation and
discovery. And, especially in Astronomy, many of the erroneous
guesses which the Greeks made, contain, if not the germ, at least
the vivifying life-blood, of great truths, reserved for future ages.

Moreover, the Greeks not only sought such theories of special

parts of nature, but a general Theory of the Universe. An essay at
such a theory is the Timæus of Plato; too wide and too ambitious an
attempt to succeed at that time; or, indeed, on the scale on which he
unfolds it, even in our time; but a vigorous and instructive example of
the claim which man’s Intellect feels that it may make to understand
the universal frame of things, and to render a reason for all that is
presented to it by the outward senses.