RISE AND DECLINE OF PHYSICAL SPECULATION.
IONIAN PHILOSOPHY, commencing from Egyptian Ideas, identifies in
Water, or Air, or Fire, the First Principle.-Emerging from the Stage
of Sorcery, it founds Psychology, Biology, Cosmogony, Astronomy, and
ends in doubting whether there is any Criterion of Truth.
THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN.-Disastrous in its political Effects to
Greece, but ushering in the Age of Reason.
ARISTOTLE founds the Inductive Philosophy.—His Method the Inverse of
that of Plato. Its great power.-In his own hands it fails for want
of Knowledge, but is carried out by the Alexandrians.
ZENO.-His Philosophical Aim is the Cultivation of Virtue and Know-
ledge. He is in the Ethical Branch the Counterpart of Aristotle in
the Physical.
FOUNDATION OF THE MUSEUM OF ALEXANDRIA.-The great Libraries,
Observatories, Botanical Gardens, Menageries, Dissecting Houses.-Its
Effect on the rapid Development of exact Knowledge.-Influence of
Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Ptolemy, Hipparchus,
on Geometry, Natural Philosophy, Astronomy, Chronology, Geography.
Decline of the Greek Age of Reason .
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