Travels of Anacharsis the Younger in Greece, Tr. [By W. Beaumont] (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER LXIV. Continuation of the Library.?Physics.?Natural History.? Genii. On my return from Corinth, I again visited Euclid. A part of his lihrary still remained, which-1 wished to examine; and I found him in it, in company with Meton and Anaxarchus. The former was of Agri- gentum in Sicily, and of the same family as the celebrated Empedocles; the latter was of Abdera in Thrace, and of the school of Democritus; each had a book in his hand, and appeared absorbed in profound meditation. Euclid showed me several treatises on animals, plants, and fossils. I am not very rich, said he, in these kinds of works; for a taste for natural history, and physics, properly so called, has only been introduced among us within these few years. Not but several men of genius have formerly employed themselves in researches into nature. I have some time ago shown you their works; and you recollect, no doubt, that discourse in which the high-priest of Ceres gave you a succinct idea of their systems. You then learned that they ought to obtain a knowledge of causes rather than effects, of the matter of beings rather than their forms.1 See Chap. XXX. Vol. III. Socrates directed philosophy towards public utility: and his disciples, after his example, dedicated their inquiries to the study of man."1 That of the rest of the universe, suspended during near a century, and resumed in our time, is continued with more propriety and discernment. Those general questions which were the subject of dispute among the ancient philosophers are indeed discussed; but endeavours are made at the same time to ascend from effects to causes, and from the known to the unknown." With this view our philosophers descend more to particulars, and begin to collect and compare facts. An essential defect former...