ON THE GOVERNMENT OF NATURE BY LAW.
The subject of this Work proposed.--Its difficulty.
Gradual Acquisition of the Idea of Natural Government by Law.-
Eventually sustained by Astronomical, Meteorological, and Physio-
logical Discoveries.-Illustrations from Kepler's Laws, the Trade-
winds, Migrations of Birds, Balancing of Vegetable and Animal Life,
Variation of Species and their Permanence.
Individual Man is an Emblem of Communities, Nations, and Universal
Humanity.—They exhibit Epochs of Life like his, and, like him, are
under the Control of Physical Conditions, and therefore of Law.
Plan of this Work.-The Intellectual History of Greece.-Its Five
characteristic Ages.-European Intellectual History.
Grandeur of the Doctrine that the World is governed by Law. Page 1
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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