the want of none. Not so the Greeks; they had their reasons to render, though they were not such as satisfied Herodotus. "Some of the Greeks," he says, "who wish to be considered great philosophers, (Ελλήνων τινες επισήμοι βουλόμενοι γενέσθαι σοφίην) have propounded three ways of accounting for these floods. Two of them," he adds, "I do not think worthy of record, except just so far as to mention them." But as these are some of the earliest Greek essays in physical philosophy, it will be worth while, even at this day, to preserve the brief notice he has given of them, and his own reasonings upon the same subject. "One of these opinions holds that the Etesian winds [which blew from the north] are the cause of these floods, by preventing the Nile from flowing into the sea." Against this the historian reasons very simply and sensibly. "Very often when the Etesian winds do not blow, the Nile is flooded nevertheless. And moreover, if the Etesian winds were the cause, all other rivers, which have their course opposite to these winds, ought to undergo the same changes as the Nile; which the rivers of Syria and Libya so circumstanced do not." "The next opinion is still more unscientific, (ÅVETTIOTNμOVEσTéρŋ) and is, in truth, marvellous for its folly. This holds that the ocean flows all round the earth, and that the Nile comes out of the ocean, and by that means produces its effects." Now," says the historian, "the man who talks about this 66 ocean-river, goes into the region of fable, where it is not easy to demonstrate that he is wrong. I know of no such river. But I suppose that Homer or some of the earlier poets invented this fiction and introduced it into their poetry." He then proceeds to a third account, which to a modern reasoner would appear not at all unphilosophical in itself, but which he, nevertheless, rejects in a manner no less decided than the others. "The third opinion, though much the most plausible, is still more wrong than the others; for it asserts an impossibility, namely, that the Nile proceeds from the melting of the snow. Now the Nile flows out of Libya, and through Ethiopia, which are very hot countries, and thus comes into Egypt, which is a colder region. How then can it proceed from snow?" He then offers several other reasons "to show," as he says, "to any one capable of reasoning on such subjects (ἀνδρί γε λογίζεσθαι τοιούτων πέρι ole TE OVTI), that the assertion cannot be true. The winds which blow from the southern regions are hot; the inhabitants are black; the swallows and kites (iKrivo) stay in the country the whole year; the cranes fly the colds of Scythia, and seek their warm winter-quarters there; which would not be if it snowed ever so little." He adds another reason, founded apparently upon some limited empirical maxim of weather-wisdom taken from the climate of Greece. Libya," he says, "has neither rain nor ice, and therefore no snow; for, in five days after a 66 fall of snow there must be a fall of rain; so that if it snowed in those regions it must rain too." I need not observe that Herodotus was not aware of the difference between the climate of high mountains and plains in a torrid region; but it is impossible not to be struck both with the activity and the coherency of thought displayed by the Greek mind in this primitive physical inquiry. But I must not omit the hypothesis which Herodotus himself proposes, after rejecting those which have been already given. It does not appear to me easy to catch his exact meaning, but the statement will still be curious. "If," he says, "one who has condemned opinions previously promulgated may put forwards his own opinion concerning so obscure a matter, I will state why it seems to me that the Nile is flooded in summer." This opinion he propounds at first with an oracular brevity, which it is difficult to suppose that he did not intend to be impressive. "In winter the sun is carried by the seasons away from his former course, and goes to the upper parts of Libya. And there, in short, is the whole account; for that region to which this divinity (the sun) is nearest, must naturally be most scant of water, and the river-sources of that country must be dried up.” But the lively and garrulous Ionian immediately relaxes from this apparent reserve. "To explain the matter more at length," he proceeds, "it is thus. The sun, when he traverses the upper parts of Libya, does what he commonly does in summer;-he draws the water to him (ἕλκει ἐπ ̓ ἑωυτὸν το ὕδωρ) and having thus drawn it, he pushes it to the upper regions (of the air probably,) and then the winds take it and disperse it till they melt in moisture. And thus the winds which blow from those countries, Libs and Notus, are the most moist of all winds. Now when the winter relaxes and the sun returns to the north, he still draws water from all the rivers, but they are increased by showers and rain-torrents, so that they are in flood till the summer comes; and then, the rain failing and the sun still drawing them, they become small. But the Nile, not being fed by rains, but being drawn by the sun, is, alone of all rivers, much more scanty in the winter than in the summer. For in summer it is drawn like all other rivers, but in winter it alone has its supplies shut up. And in this way, I have been led to think the sun is the cause of the occurrence in question." We may remark that the historian here appears to ascribe the inequality of the Nile at different seasons to the influence of the sun upon its springs alone, the other cause of change, the rains, being here excluded: and that, on this supposition, the same relative effects would be produced whether the sun increase the sources in winter by melting the snows, or diminish them in summer by what he calls drawing them upwards. This specimen of the early efforts of the Greeks in physical speculations, appears to me to speak strongly for the opinion that their philosophy on such subjects was the native growth of the Greek mind, and owed nothing to the supposed lore of Egypt and the East; an opinion which has been adopted with regard to the Greek philosophy in general by the most competent judges on a full survey of the evidence. Indeed, we have no evidence whatever that, at any period, the African or Asiatic nations, (with the exception perhaps of the Indians,) ever felt this importunate curiosity with regard to the definite application of the idea of cause and effect to visible phenomena; or drew so strong a line between a fabulous legend and a reason rendered; or attempted to ascend to a natural cause by classing together phenomena of the same kind. We may be well excused, therefore, for believing that they could not impart to the Greeks what they themselves did not possess; and so far as our survey goes, physical philosophy has its origin, apparently spontaneous and independent, in the active and acute intellect of Greece. Sect. 2.-Primitive Mistake in Greek Physical We now proceed to examine with what success the Greeks followed the track into which they had thus struck. And here we are obliged to confess that 5 Thirlwall, Hist. Gr., ii. 130; and, as there quoted, Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie, ì. 159–173. |