HISTORY OF CONFLICT:RELIGION AND SCIENCE

If you order your cheap custom essays from our custom writing service you will receive a perfectly written assignment on HISTORY OF CONFLICT:RELIGION AND SCIENCE. What we need from you is to provide us with your detailed paper instructions for our experienced writers to follow all of your specific writing requirements. Specify your order details, state the exact number of pages required and our custom writing professionals will deliver the best quality HISTORY OF CONFLICT:RELIGION AND SCIENCE paper right on time.

Out staff of freelance writers includes over 120 experts proficient in HISTORY OF CONFLICT:RELIGION AND SCIENCE, therefore you can rest assured that your assignment will be handled by only top rated specialists. Order your HISTORY OF CONFLICT:RELIGION AND SCIENCE paper at affordable prices with cheap essay writing service! HISTORY OF CONFLICT

RELIGION AND SCIENCE

WHOEVER has had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the

mental condition of the intelligent classes in Europe and

Cheap College Papers on HISTORY OF CONFLICT:RELIGION AND SCIENCE

America, must have perceived that there is a great and

rapidly-increasing departure from the public religious faith, and

that, while among the more frank this divergence is not

concealed, there is a far more extensive and far more dangerous

secession, private and unacknowledged.

So wide-spread and so powerful is this secession, that it can

neither be treated with contempt nor with punishment. It cannot

be extinguished by derision, by vituperation, or by force. The

time is rapidly approaching when it will give rise to serious

political results.

Ecclesiastical spirit no longer inspires the policy of the world.

Military fervor in behalf of faith has disappeared. Its only

souvenirs are the marble effigies of crusading knights, reposing

in the silent crypts of churches on their tombs.

That a crisis is impending is shown by the attitude of the great

powers toward the papacy. The papacy represents the ideas and

aspirations of two-thirds of the population of Europe. It insists

on a political supremacy in accordance with its claims to a

divine origin and mission, and a restoration of the mediaeval

order of things, loudly declaring that it will accept no

reconciliation with modern civilization.

The antagonism we thus witness between Religion and Science is

the continuation of a struggle that commenced when Christianity

began to attain political power. A divine revelation must

necessarily be intolerant of contradiction; it must repudiate all

improvement in itself, and view with disdain that arising from

the progressive intellectual development of man. But our opinions

on every subject are continually liable to modification, from the

irresistible advance of human knowledge.

Can we exaggerate the importance of a contention in which every

thoughtful person must take part whether he will or not? In a

matter so solemn as that of religion, all men, whose temporal

interests are not involved in existing institutions, earnestly

desire to find the truth. They seek information as to the

subjects in dispute, and as to the conduct of the disputants.

The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated

discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of two contending

powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side,

and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human

interests on the other.

No one has hitherto treated the subject from this point of view.

Yet from this point it presents itself to us as a living

issue--in fact, as the most important of all living issues.

A few years ago, it was the politic and therefore the proper

course to abstain from all allusion to this controversy, and to

keep it as far as possible in the background. The tranquillity of

society depends so much on the stability of its religious

convictions, that no one can be justified in wantonly disturbing

them. But faith is in its nature unchangeable, stationary;

Science is in its nature progressive; and eventually a divergence

between them, impossible to conceal, must take place. It then

becomes the duty of those whose lives have made them familiar

with both modes of thought, to present modestly, but firmly,

their views; to compare the antagonistic pretensions calmly,

impartially, philosophically. History shows that, if this be not

done, social misfortunes, disastrous and enduring, will ensue.

When the old mythological religion of Europe broke down under the

weight of its own inconsistencies, neither the Roman emperors nor

the philosophers of those times did any thing adequate for the

guidance of public opinion. They left religious affairs to take

their chance, and accordingly those affairs fell into the hands

of ignorant and infuriated ecclesiastics, parasites, eunuchs, and

slaves.

The intellectual night which settled on Europe, in consequence of

that great neglect of duty, is passing away; we live in the

daybreak of better things. Society is anxiously expecting light,

to see in what direction it is drifting. It plainly discerns that

the track along which the voyage of civilization has thus far

been made, has been left; and that a new departure, on all

unknown sea, has been taken.

Though deeply impressed with such thoughts, I should not have

presumed to write this book, or to intrude on the public the

ideas it presents, had I not made the facts with which it deals a

subject of long and earnest meditation. And I have gathered a

strong incentive to undertake this duty from the circumstance

that a History of the Intellectual Development of Europe,

published by me several years ago, which has passed through many

editions in America, and has been reprinted in numerous European

languages, English, French, German, Russian, Polish, Servian,

etc., is everywhere received with favor.

In collecting and arranging the materials for the volumes I

published under the title of A History of the American Civil

War, a work of very great labor, I had become accustomed to the

comparison of conflicting statements, the adjustment of

conflicting claims. The approval with which that book has been

received by the American public, a critical judge of the events

considered, has inspired me with additional confidence. I had

also devoted much attention to the experimental investigation of

natural phenomena, and had published many well-known memoirs on

such subjects. And perhaps no one can give himself to these

pursuits, and spend a large part of his life in the public

teaching of science, without partaking of that love of

impartiality and truth which Philosophy incites. She inspires us

with a desire to dedicate our days to the good of our race, so

that in the fading light of lifes evening we may not, on looking

back, be forced to acknowledge how unsubstantial and useless are

the objects that we have pursued.

Though I have spared no pains in the composition of this book, I

am very sensible how unequal it is to the subject, to do justice

to which a knowledge of science, history, theology, politics, is

required; every page should be alive with intelligence and

glistening with facts. But then I have remembered that this is

only as it were the preface, or forerunner, of a body of

literature, which the events and wants of our times will call

forth. We have come to the brink of a great intellectual change.

Much of the frivolous reading of the present will be supplanted

by a thoughtful and austere literature, vivified by endangered

interests, and made fervid by ecclesiastical passion.

What I have sought to do is, to present a clear and impartial

statement of the views and acts of the two contending parties. In

one sense I have tried to identify myself with each, so as to

comprehend thoroughly their motives; but in another and higher

sense I have endeavored to stand aloof, and relate with

impartiality their actions.

I therefore trust that those, who may be disposed to criticise

this book, will bear in mind that its object is not to advocate

the views and pretensions of either party, but to explain

clearly, and without shrinking those of both. In the management

of each chapter I have usually set forth the orthodox view first,

and then followed it with that of its opponents.

In thus treating the subject it has not been necessary to pay

much regard to more moderate or intermediate opinions, for,

though they may be intrinsically of great value, in conflicts of

this kind it is not with the moderates but with the extremists

that the impartial reader is mainly concerned. Their movements

determine the issue.

For this reason I have had little to say respecting the two great

Christian confessions, the Protestant and Greek Churches. As to

the latter, it has never, since the restoration of science,

arrayed itself in opposition to the advancement of knowledge. On

the contrary, it has always met it with welcome. It has observed

a reverential attitude to truth, from whatever quarter it might

come. Recognizing the apparent discrepancies between its

interpretations of revealed truth and the discoveries of science,

it has always expected that satisfactory explanations and

reconciliations would ensue, and in this it has not been

disappointed. It would have been well for modern civilization if

the Roman Church had done the same.

In speaking of Christianity, reference is generally made to the

Roman Church, partly because its adherents compose the majority

of Christendom, partly because its demands are the most

pretentious, and partly because it has commonly sought to enforce

those demands by the civil power. None of the Protestant Churches

has ever occupied a position so imperious--none has ever had such

wide-spread political influence. For the most part they have been

averse to constraint, and except in very few instances their

opposition has not passed beyond the exciting of theological

odium.

As to Science, she has never sought to ally herself to civil

power. She has never attempted to throw odium or inflict social

ruin on any human being. She has never subjected any one to

mental torment, physical torture, least of all to death, for the

purpose of upholding or promoting her ideas. She presents herself

unstained by cruelties and crimes. But in the Vatican-- we have

only to recall the Inquisition--the hands that are now raised in

appeals to the Most Merciful are crimsoned. They have been

steeped in blood!

There are two modes of historical composition, the artistic and

the scientific. The former implies that men give origin to

events; it therefore selects some prominent individual, pictures

him under a fanciful form, and makes him the hero of a romance.

The latter, insisting that human affairs present an unbroken

chain, in which each fact is the offspring of some preceding

fact, and the parent of some subsequent fact, declares that men

do not control events, but that events control men. The former

gives origin to compositions, which, however much they may

interest or delight us, are but a grade above novels; the latter

is austere, perhaps even repulsive, for it sternly impresses us

with a conviction of the irresistible dominion of law, and the

insignificance of human exertions. In a subject so solemn as that

to which this book is devoted, the romantic and the popular are

altogether out of place. He who presumes to treat of it must fix

his eyes steadfastly on that chain of destiny which universal

history displays; he must turn with disdain from the phantom

impostures of pontiffs and statesmen and kings.

If any thing were needed to show us the untrustworthiness of

artistic historical compositions, our personal experience would

furnish it. How often do our most intimate friends fail to

perceive the real motives of our every-day actions; how

frequently they misinterpret our intentions! If this be the case

in what is passing before our eyes, may we not be satisfied that

it is impossible to comprehend justly the doings of persons who

lived many years ago, and whom we have never seen.

In selecting and arranging the topics now to be presented, I have

been guided in part by the Confession of the late Vatican

Council, and in part by the order of events in history. Not

without interest will the reader remark that the subjects offer

themselves to us now as they did to the old philosophers of

Greece. We still deal with the same questions about which they

disputed. What is God? What is the soul? What is the world? How

is it governed? Have we any standard or criterion of truth? And

the thoughtful reader will earnestly ask, Are our solutions of

these problems any better than theirs?

The general argument of this book, then, is as follows

I first direct attention to the origin of modern science as

distinguished from ancient, by depending on observation,

experiment, and mathematical discussion, instead of mere

speculation, and shall show that it was a consequence of the

Macedonian campaigns, which brought Asia and Europe into contact.

A brief sketch of those campaigns, and of the Museum of

Alexandria, illustrates its character.

Then with brevity I recall the well-known origin of Christianity,

and show its advance to the attainment of imperial power, the

transformation it underwent by its incorporation with paganism,

the existing religion of the Roman Empire. A clear conception of

its incompatibility with science caused it to suppress forcibly

the Schools of Alexandria. It was constrained to this by the

political necessities of its position.

The parties to the conflict thus placed, I next relate the story

of their first open struggle; it is the first or Southern

Reformation. The point in dispute had respect to the nature of

God. It involved the rise of Mohammedanism. Its result was, that

much of Asia and Africa, with the historic cities Jerusalem,

Alexandria, and Carthage, were wrenched from Christendom, and the

doctrine of the Unity of God established in the larger portion of

what had been the Roman Empire.

This political event was followed by the restoration of science,

the establishment of colleges, schools, libraries, throughout the

dominions of the Arabians. Those conquerors, pressing forward

rapidly in their intellectual development, rejected the

anthropomorphic ideas of the nature of God remaining in their

popular belief, and accepted other more philosophical ones, akin

to those that had long previously been attained to in India. The

result of this was a second conflict, that respecting the nature

of the soul. Under the designation of Averroism, there came into

prominence the theories of Emanation and Absorption. At the close

of the middle ages the Inquisition succeeded in excluding those

doctrines from Europe, and now the Vatican Council has formally

and solemnly anathematized them.

Meantime, through the cultivation of astronomy, geography, and

other sciences, correct views had been gained as to the position

and relations of the earth, and as to the structure of the world;

and since Religion, resting itself on what was assumed to be the

proper interpretation of the Scriptures, insisted that the earth

is the central and most important part of the universe, a third

conflict broke out. In this Galileo led the way on the part of

Science. Its issue was the overthrow of the Church on the

question in dispute. Subsequently a subordinate controversy arose

respecting the age of the world, the Church insisting that it is

only about six thousand years old. In this she was again

overthrown The light of history and of science had been gradually

spreading over Europe. In the sixteenth century the prestige of

Roman Christianity was greatly diminished by the intellectual

reverses it had experienced, and also by its political and moral

condition. It was clearly seen by many pious men that Religion

was not accountable for the false position in which she was

found, but that the misfortune was directly traceable to the

alliance she had of old contracted with Roman paganism. The

obvious remedy, therefore, was a return to primitive purity. Thus

arose the fourth conflict, known to us as the Reformation--the

second or Northern Reformation. The special form it assumed was a

contest respecting the standard or criterion of truth, whether it

is to be found in the Church or in the Bible. The determination

of this involved a settlement of the rights of reason, or

intellectual freedom. Luther, who is the conspicuous man of the

epoch, carried into effect his intention with no inconsiderable

success; and at the close of the struggle it was found that

Northern Europe was lost to Roman Christianity.

We are now in the midst of a controversy respecting the mode of

government of the world, whether it be by incessant divine

intervention, or by the operation of primordial and unchangeable

law. The intellectual movement of Christendom has reached that

point which Arabism had attained to in the tenth and eleventh

centuries; and doctrines which were then discussed are presenting

themselves again for review; such are those of Evolution,

Creation, Development.

Offered under these general titles, I think it will be found that

all the essential points of this great controversy are included.

By grouping under these comprehensive heads the facts to be

considered, and dealing with each group separately, we shall

doubtless acquire clear views of their inter-connection and their

historical succession.

I have treated of these conflicts as nearly as I conveniently

could in their proper chronological order, and, for the sake of

completeness, have added chapters on--

An examination of what Latin Christianity has done for modern

civilization.

A corresponding examination of what Science has done.

The attitude of Roman Christianity in the impending conflict, as

defined by the Vatican Council.

The attention of many truth-seeking persons has been so

exclusively given to the details of sectarian dissensions, that

the long strife, to the history of which these pages are devoted,

is popularly but little known. Having tried to keep steadfastly

in view the determination to write this work in an impartial

spirit, to speak with respect of the contending parties, but

never to conceal the truth, I commit it to the considerate

judgment of the thoughtful reader.

JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER

UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK,

December, 1878.

HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN RELIGION AND SCIENCE.

CHAPTER I.

THE ORIGIN OF SCIENCE.

Religious condition of the Greeks in the fourth century before

Christ.-- Their invasion of the Persian Empire brings them in

contact with new aspects of Nature, and familiarizes them with

new religious systems.-- The military, engineering, and

scientific activity, stimulated by the Macedonian campaigns,

leads to the establishment in Alexandria of an institute, the

Museum, for the cultivation of knowledge by experiment,

observation, and mathematical discussion.--It is the origin of

Science.

GREEK MYTHOLOGY. No spectacle can be presented to the thoughtful

mind more solemn, more mournful, than that of the dying of an

ancient religion, which in its day has given consolation to many

generations of men.

Four centuries before the birth of Christ, Greece was fast

outgrowing her ancient faith. Her philosophers, in their studies

of the world, had been profoundly impressed with the contrast

between the majesty of the operations of Nature and the

worthlessness of the divinities of Olympus. Her historians,

considering the orderly course of political affairs, the manifest

uniformity in the acts of men, and that there was no event

occurring before their eyes for which they could not find an

obvious cause in some preceding event, began to suspect that the

miracles and celestial interventions, with which the old annals

were filled, were only fictions. They demanded, when the age of

the supernatural had ceased, why oracles had become mute, and why

there were now no more prodigies in the world.

Traditions, descending from immemorial antiquity, and formerly

accepted by pious men as unquestionable truths, had filled the

islands of the Mediterranean and the conterminous countries with

supernatural wonders-- enchantresses, sorcerers, giants, ogres,

harpies, gorgons, centaurs, cyclops. The azure vault was the

floor of heaven; there Zeus, surrounded by the gods with their

wives and mistresses, held his court, engaged in pursuits like

those of men, and not refraining from acts of human passion and

crime.

A sea-coast broken by numerous indentations, an archipelago with

some of the most lovely islands in the world, inspired the Greeks

with a taste for maritime life, for geographical discovery, and

colonization. Their ships wandered all over the Black and

Mediterranean Seas. The time-honored wonders that had been

glorified in the Odyssey, and sacred in public faith, were

found to have no existence. As a better knowledge of Nature was

obtained, the sky was shown to be an illusion; it was discovered

that there is no Olympus, nothing above but space and stars. With

the vanishing of their habitation, the gods disappeared, both

those of the Ionian type of Homer and those of the Doric of

Hesiod.

EFFECTS OF DISCOVERY AND CRITICISM. But this did not take place

without resistance. At first, the public, and particularly its

religious portion, denounced the rising doubts as atheism. They

despoiled some of the offenders of their goods, exiled others;

some they put to death. They asserted that what had been believed

by pious men in the old times, and had stood the test of ages,

must necessarily be true. Then, as the opposing evidence became

irresistible, they were content to admit that these marvels were

allegories under which the wisdom of the ancients had concealed

many sacred and mysterious things. They tried to reconcile, what

now in their misgivings they feared might be myths, with their

advancing intellectual state. But their efforts were in vain, for

there are predestined phases through which on such an occasion

public opinion must pass. What it has received with veneration it

begins to doubt, then it offers new interpretations, then

subsides into dissent, and ends with a rejection of the whole as

a mere fable.

In their secession the philosophers and historians were followed

by the poets. Euripides incurred the odium of heresy. Aeschylus

narrowly escaped being stoned to death for blasphemy. But the

frantic efforts of those who are interested in supporting

delusions must always end in defeat. The demoralization

resistlessly extended through every branch of literature, until

at length it reached the common people.

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. Greek philosophical criticism had lent its

aid to Greek philosophical discovery in this destruction of the

national faith. It sustained by many arguments the wide-spreading

unbelief. It compared the doctrines of the different schools with

each other, and showed from their contradictions that man has no

criterion of truth; that, since his ideas of what is good and

what is evil differ according to the country in which he lives,

they can have no foundation in Nature, but must be altogether the

result of education; that right and wrong are nothing more than

fictions created by society for its own purposes. In Athens, some

of the more advanced classes had reached such a pass that they

not only denied the unseen, the supernatural, they even affirmed

that the world is only a day-dream, a phantasm, and that nothing

at all exists.

The topographical configuration of Greece gave an impress to her

political condition. It divided her people into distinct

communities having conflicting interests, and made them incapable

of centralization. Incessant domestic wars between the rival

states checked her advancement. She was poor, her leading men had

become corrupt. They were ever ready to barter patriotic

considerations for foreign gold, to sell themselves for Persian

bribes. Possessing a perception of the beautiful as manifested in

sculpture and architecture to a degree never attained elsewhere

either before or since, Greece had lost a practical appreciation

of the Good and the True.

While European Greece, full of ideas of liberty and independence,

rejected the sovereignty of Persia, Asiatic Greece acknowledged

it without reluctance. At that time the Persian Empire in

territorial extent was equal to half of modern Europe. It touched

the waters of the Mediterranean, the Aegean, the Black, the

Caspian, the Indian, the Persian, the Red Seas. Through its

territories there flowed six of the grandest rivers in the

world--the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Indus, the Jaxartes, the

Oxus, the Nile, each more than a thousand miles in length. Its

surface reached from thirteen hundred feet below the sea-level to

twenty thousand feet above. It yielded, therefore, every

agricultural product. Its mineral wealth was boundless. It

inherited the prestige of the Median, the Babylonian, the

Assyrian, the Chaldean Empires, whose annals reached back through

more than twenty centuries.

THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. Persia had always looked upon European Greece

as politically insignificant, for it had scarcely half the

territorial extent of one of her satrapies. Her expeditions for

compelling its obedience had, however, taught her the military

qualities of its people. In her forces were incorporated Greek

mercenaries, esteemed the very best of her troops. She did not

hesitate sometimes to give the command of her armies to Greek

generals, of her fleets to Greek captains. In the political

convulsions through which she had passed, Greek soldiers had

often been used by her contending chiefs. These military

operations were attended by a momentous result. They revealed,

to the quick eye of these warlike mercenaries, the political

weakness of the empire and the possibility of reaching its

centre. After the death of Cyrus on the battle-field of Cunaxa,

it was demonstrated, by the immortal retreat of the ten thousand

under Xenophon, that a Greek army could force its way to and from

the heart of Persia.

That reverence for the military abilities of Asiatic generals, so

profoundly impressed on the Greeks by such engineering exploits

as the bridging of the Hellespont, and the cutting of the isthmus

at Mount Athos by Xerxes, had been obliterated at Salamis,

Platea, Mycale. To plunder rich Persian provinces had become an

irresistible temptation. Such was the expedition of Agesilaus,

the Spartan king, whose brilliant successes were, however,

checked by the Persian government resorting to its time-proved

policy of bribing the neighbors of Sparta to attack her. I have

been conquered by thirty thousand Persian archers, bitterly

exclaimed Agesilaus, as he re-embarked, alluding to the Persian

coin, the Daric, which was stamped with the image of an archer.

THE INVASION OF PERSIA BY GREECE. At length Philip, the King of

Macedon, projected a renewal of these attempts, under a far more

formidable organization, and with a grander object. He managed to

have himself appointed captain-general of all Greece not for the

purpose of a mere foray into the Asiatic satrapies, but for the

overthrow of the Persian dynasty in the very centre of its power.

Assassinated while his preparations were incomplete, he was

succeeded by his son Alexander, then a youth. A general assembly

of Greeks at Corinth had unanimously elected him in his fathers

stead. There were some disturbances in Illyria; Alexander had to

march his army as far north as the Danube to quell them. During

his absence the Thebans with some others conspired against him.

On his return he took Thebes by assault. He massacred six

thousand of its inhabitants, sold thirty thousand for slaves, and

utterly demolished the city. The military wisdom of this severity

was apparent in his Asiatic campaign. He was not troubled by any

revolt in his rear.

THE MACEDONIAN CAMPAIGN. In the spring B.C. 4 Alexander crossed

the Hellespont into Asia. His army consisted of thirty-four

thousand foot and four thousand horse. He had with him only

seventy talents in money. He marched directly on the Persian

army, which, vastly exceeding him in strength, was holding the

line of the Granicus. He forced the passage of the river, routed

the enemy, and the possession of all Asia Minor, with its

treasures, was the fruit of the victory. The remainder of that

year he spent in the military organization of the conquered

provinces. Meantime Darius, the Persian king, had advanced an

army of six hundred thousand men to prevent the passage of the

Macedonians into Syria. In a battle that ensued among the

mountain-defiles at Issus, the Persians were again overthrown. So

great was the slaughter that Alexander, and Ptolemy, one of his

generals, crossed over a ravine choked with dead bodies. It was

estimated that the Persian loss was not less than ninety thousand

foot and ten thousand horse. The royal pavilion fell into the

conquerors hands, and with it the wife and several of the

children of Darius. Syria was thus added to the Greek conquests.

In Damascus were found many of the concubines of Darius and his

chief officers, together with a vast treasure.

Before venturing into the plains of Mesopotamia for the final

struggle, Alexander, to secure his rear and preserve his

communications with the sea, marched southward down the

Mediterranean coast, reducing the cities in his way. In his

speech before the council of war after Issus, he told his

generals that they must not pursue Darius with Tyre unsubdued,

and Persia in possession of Egypt and Cyprus, for, if Persia

should regain her seaports, she would transfer the war into

Greece, and that it was absolutely necessary for him to be

sovereign at sea. With Cyprus and Egypt in his possession he felt

no solicitude about Greece. The siege of Tyre cost him more than

half a year. In revenge for this delay, he crucified, it is said,

two thousand of his prisoners. Jerusalem voluntarily surrendered,

and therefore was treated leniently but the passage of the

Macedonian army into Egypt being obstructed at Gaza, the Persian

governor of which, Betis, made a most obstinate defense, that

place, after a siege of two months, was carried by assault, ten

thousand of its men were massacred, and the rest, with their

wives and children, sold into slavery. Betis himself was dragged

alive round the city at the chariot-wheels of the conqueror.

There was now no further obstacle. The Egyptians, who detested

the Persian rule, received their invader with open arms. He

organized the country in his own interest, intrusting all its

military commands to Macedonian officers, and leaving the civil

government in the hands of native Egyptians.

CONQUEST OF EGYPT. While preparations for the final campaign were

being made, he undertook a journey to the temple of Jupiter

Ammon, which was situated in an oasis of the Libyan Desert, at a

distance of two hundred miles. The oracle declared him to be a

son of that god who, under the form of a serpent, had beguiled

Olympias, his mother. Immaculate conceptions and celestial

descents were so currently received in those days, that whoever

had greatly distinguished himself in the affairs of men was

thought to be of supernatural lineage. Even in Rome, centuries

later, no one could with safety have denied that the city owed

its founder, Romulus, to an accidental meeting of the god Mars

with the virgin Rhea Sylvia, as she went with her pitcher for

water to the spring. The Egyptian disciples of Plato would have

looked with anger on those who rejected the legend that

Perictione, the mother of that great philosopher, a pure virgin,

had suffered an immaculate conception through the influences of

Apollo, and that the god had declared to Ariston, to whom she was

betrothed, the parentage of the child. When Alexander issued his

letters, orders, and decrees, styling himself King Alexander,

the son of Jupiter Ammon, they came to the inhabitants of Egypt

and Syria with an authority that now can hardly be realized. The

free- thinking Greeks, however, put on such a supernatural

pedigree its proper value. Olympias, who, of course, better than

all others knew the facts of the case, used jestingly to say,

that she wished Alexander would cease from incessantly

embroiling her with Jupiters wife. Arrian, the historian of the

Macedonian expedition, observes, I cannot condemn him for

endeavoring to draw his subjects into the belief of his divine

origin, nor can I be induced to think it any great crime, for it

is very reasonable to imagine that he intended no more by it than

merely to procure the greater authority among his soldiers.

GREEK CONQUEST OF PERSIA. All things being thus secured in his

rear, Alexander, having returned into Syria, directed the march

of his army, now consisting of fifty thousand veterans, eastward.

After crossing the Euphrates, he kept close to the Masian hills,

to avoid the intense heat of the more southerly Mesopotamian

plains; more abundant forage could also thus be procured for the

cavalry. On the left bank of the Tigris, near Arbela, he

encountered the great army of eleven hundred thousand men brought

up by Darius from Babylon. The death of the Persian monarch,

which soon followed the defeat he suffered, left the Macedonian

general master of all the countries from the Danube to the Indus.

Eventually he extended his conquest to the Ganges. The treasures

he seized are almost beyond belief. At Susa alone he found--so

Arrian says--fifty thousand talents in money.

EVENTS OF THE CAMPAIGNS. The modern military student cannot look

upon these wonderful campaigns without admiration. The passage of

the Hellespont; the forcing of the Granicus; the winter spent in

a political organization of conquered Asia Minor; the march of

the right wing and centre of the army along the Syrian

Mediterranean coast; the engineering difficulties overcome at the

siege of Tyre; the storming of Gaza; the isolation of Persia from

Greece; the absolute exclusion of her navy from the

Mediterranean; the check on all her attempts at intriguing with

or bribing Athenians or Spartans, heretofore so often resorted to

with success; the submission of Egypt; another winter spent in

the political organization of that venerable country; the

convergence of the whole army from the Black and Red Seas toward

the nitre- covered plains of Mesopotamia in the ensuing spring;

the passage of the Euphrates fringed with its weeping- willows at

the broken bridge of Thapsacus; the crossing of the Tigris; the

nocturnal reconnaissance before the great and memorable battle of

Arbela; the oblique movement on the field; the piercing of the

enemys centre--a manoeuvre destined to be repeated many

centuries subsequently at Austerlitz; the energetic pursuit of

the Persian monarch; these are exploits not surpassed by any

soldier of later times.

A prodigious stimulus was thus given to Greek intellectual

activity. There were men who had marched with the Macedonian army

from the Danube to the Nile, from the Nile to the Ganges. They

had felt the hyperborean blasts of the countries beyond the Black

Sea, the simooms and sand-tempests of the Egyptian deserts. They

had seen the Pyramids which had already stood for twenty

centuries, the hieroglyph-covered obelisks of Luxor, avenues of

silent and mysterious sphinxes, colossi of monarchs who reigned

in the morning of the world. In the halls of Esar-haddon they had

stood before the thrones of grim old Assyrian kings, guarded by

winged bulls. In Babylon there still remained its walls, once

more than sixty miles in compass, and, after the ravages of three

centuries and three conquerors, still more than eighty feet in

height; there were still the ruins of the temple of cloud

encompassed Bel, on its top was planted the observatory wherein

the weird Chaldean astronomers had held nocturnal communion with

the stars; still there were vestiges of the two palaces with

their hanging gardens in which were great trees growing in

mid-air, and the wreck of the hydraulic machinery that had

supplied them with water from the river. Into the artificial lake

with its vast apparatus of aqueducts and sluices the melted snows

of the Armenian mountains found their way, and were confined in

their course through the city by the embankments of the

Euphrates. Most wonderful of all, perhaps, was the tunnel under

the river-bed.

EFFECT ON THE GREEK ARMY. If Chaldea, Assyria, Babylon, presented

stupendous and venerable antiquities reaching far back into the

night of time, Persia was not without her wonders of a later

date. The pillared halls of Persepolis were filled with miracles

of art--carvings, sculptures, enamels, alabaster libraries,

obelisks, sphinxes, colossal bulls. Ecbatana, the cool summer

retreat of the Persian kings, was defended by seven encircling

walls of hewn and polished blocks, the interior ones in

succession of increasing height, and of different colors, in

astrological accordance with the seven planets. The palace was

roofed with silver tiles, its beams were plated with gold. At

midnight, in its halls the sunlight was rivaled by many a row of

naphtha cressets. A paradise--that luxury of the monarchs of the

East--was planted in the midst of the city. The Persian Empire,

from the Hellespont to the Indus, was truly the garden of the

world.

EFFECTS ON THE GREEK ARMY. I have devoted a few pages to the

story of these marvelous campaigns, for the military talent they

fostered led to the establishment of the mathematical and

practical schools of Alexandria, the true origin of science. We

trace back all our exact knowledge to the Macedonian campaigns.

Humboldt has well observed that an introduction to new and grand

objects of Nature enlarges the human mind. The soldiers of

Alexander and the hosts of his camp-followers encountered at

every march unexpected and picturesque scenery. Of all men, the

Greeks were the most observant, the most readily and profoundly

impressed. Here there were interminable sandy plains, there

mountains whose peaks were lost above the clouds. In the deserts

were mirages, on the hill-sides shadows of fleeting clouds

sweeping over the forests. They were in a land of amber-colored

date-palms and cypresses, of tamarisks, green myrtles, and

oleanders. At Arbela they had fought against Indian elephants; in

the thickets of the Caspian they had roused from his lair the

lurking royal tiger. They had seen animals which, compared with

those of Europe, were not only strange, but colossal--the

rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the camel, the crocodiles of the

Nile and the Ganges. They had encountered men of many complexions

and many costumes the swarthy Syrian, the olive-colored Persian.

the black African. Even of Alexander himself it is related that

on his death-bed he caused his admiral, Nearchus, to sit by his

side, and found consolation in listening to the adventures of

that sailor--the story of his voyage from the Indus up the

Persian Gulf. The conqueror had seen with astonishment the ebbing

and flowing of the tides. He had built ships for the exploration

of the Caspian, supposing that it and the Black Sea might be

gulfs of a great ocean, such as Nearchus had discovered the

Persian and Red Seas to be. He had formed a resolution that his

fleet should attempt the circumnavigation of Africa, and come

into the Mediterranean through the Pillars of Hercules--a feat

which, it was affirmed, had once been accomplished by the

Pharaohs.

INTELLECTUAL CONDITION OF PERSIA. Not only her greatest soldiers,

but also her greatest philosophers, found in the conquered empire

much that might excite the admiration of Greece. Callisthenes

obtained in Babylon a series of Chaldean astronomical

observations ranging back through 1,0 years; these he sent to

Aristotle. Perhaps, since they were on burnt bricks, duplicates

of them may be recovered by modern research in the clay libraries

of the Assyrian kings. Ptolemy, the Egyptian astronomer,

possessed a Babylonian record of eclipses, going back 747 years

before our era. Long-continued and close observations were

necessary, before some of these astronomical results that have

reached our times could have been ascertained. Thus the

Babylonians had fixed the length of a tropical year within

twenty-five seconds of the truth; their estimate of the sidereal

year was barely two minutes in excess. They had detected the

precession of the equinoxes. They knew the causes of eclipses,

and, by the aid of their cycle called Saros, could predict them.

Their estimate of the value of that cycle, which is more than

6,585 days, was within nineteen and a half minutes of the truth.

INTELLECTUAL CONDITION OF PERSIA. Such facts furnish

incontrovertible proof of the patience and skill with which

astronomy had been cultivated in Mesopotamia, and that, with very

inadequate instrumental means, it had reached no inconsiderable

perfection. These old observers had made a catalogue of the

stars, had divided the zodiac into twelve signs; they had parted

the day into twelve hours, the night into twelve. They had, as

Alistotle says, for a long time devoted themselves to

observations of star-occultations by the moon. They had correct

views of the structure of the solar system, and knew the order of

the emplacement of the planets. They constructed sundials,

clepsydras, astrolabes, gnomons.

Not without interest do we still look on specimens of their

method of printing. Upon a revolving roller they engraved, in

cuneiform letters, their records, and, running this over plastic

clay formed into blocks, produced ineffaceable proofs. From their

tile-libraries we are still to reap a literary and historical

harvest. They were not without some knowledge of optics. The

convex lens found at Nimroud shows that they were not

unacquainted with magnifying instruments. In arithmetic they had

detected the value of position in the digits, though they missed

the grand Indian invention of the cipher.

What a spectacle for the conquering Greeks, who, up to this time,

had neither experimented nor observed! They had contented

themselves with mere meditation and useless speculation.

ITS RELIGIOUS CONDITION. But Greek intellectual development, due

thus in part to a more extended view of Nature, was powerfully

aided by the knowledge then acquired of the religion of the

conquered country. The idolatry of Greece had always been a

horror to Persia, who, in her invasions, had never failed to

destroy the temples and insult the fanes of the bestial gods. The

impunity with which these sacrileges had been perpetrated had

made a profound impression, and did no little to undermine

Hellenic faith. But now the worshiper of the vile Olympian

divinities, whose obscene lives must have been shocking to every

pious man, was brought in contact with a grand, a solemn, a

consistent religious system having its foundation on a

philosophical basis. Persia, as is the case with all empires of

long duration, had passed through many changes of religion. She

had followed the Monotheism of Zoroaster; had then accepted

Dualism, and exchanged that for Magianism. At the time of the

Macedonian expedition, she recognized one universal Intelligence,

the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, the most holy

essence of truth, the giver of all good. He was not to be

represented by any image, or any graven form. And, since, in

every thing here below, we see the resultant of two opposing

forces, under him were two coequal and coeternal principles,

represented by the imagery of Light and Darkness. These

principles are in never-ending conflict. The world is their

battle-ground, man is their prize.

In the old legends of Dualism, the Evil Spirit was said to have

sent a serpent to ruin the paradise which the Good Spirit had

made. These legends became known to the Jews during their

Babylonian captivity.

The existence of a principle of evil is the necessary incident of

the existence of a principle of good, as a shadow is the

necessary incident of the presence of light. In this manner could

be explained the occurrence of evil in a world, the maker and

ruler of which is supremely good. Each of the personified

principles of light and darkness, Ormuzd and Ahriman, had his

subordinate angels, his counselors, his armies. It is the duty of

a good man to cultivate truth, purity, and industry. He may look

forward, when this life is over, to a life in another world, and

trust to a resurrection of the body, the immortality of the soul,

and a conscious future existence.

In the later years of the empire, the principles of Magianism had

gradually prevailed more and more over those of Zoroaster.

Magianism was essentially a worship of the elements. Of these,

fire was considered as the most worthy representative of the

Supreme Being. On altars erected, not in temples, but under the

blue canopy of the sky, perpetual fires were kept burning, and

the rising sun was regarded as the noblest object of human

adoration. In the society of Asia, nothing is visible but the

monarch; in the expanse of heaven, all objects vanish in presence

of the sun.

DEATH OF ALEXANDER. Prematurely cut off in the midst of many

great projects Alexander died at Babylon before he had completed

his thirty-third year (B.C. ). There was a suspicion that he

had been poisoned. His temper had become so unbridled, his

passion so ferocious, that his generals and even his intimate

friends lived in continual dread. Clitus, one of the latter, he

in a moment of fury had stabbed to the heart. Callisthenes, the

intermedium between himself and Aristotle, he had caused to be

hanged, or, as was positively asserted by some who knew the

facts, had had him put upon the rack and then crucified. It may

have been in self-defense that the conspirators resolved on his

assassination. But surely it was a calumny to associate the name

of Aristotle with this transaction. He would have rather borne

the worst that Alexander could inflict, than have joined in the

perpetration of so great a crime.

A scene of confusion and bloodshed lasting many years ensued, nor

did it cease even after the Macedonian generals had divided the

empire. Among its vicissitudes one incident mainly claims our

attention. Ptolemy, who was a son of King Philip by Arsinoe, a

beautiful concubine, and who in his boyhood had been driven into

exile with Alexander, when they incurred their fathers

displeasure, who had been Alexanders comrade in many of his

battles and all his campaigns, became governor and eventually

king of Egypt.

FOUNDATION OF ALEXANDER. At the siege of Rhodes, Ptolemy had been

of such signal service to its citizens that in gratitude they

paid divine honors to him, and saluted him with the title of

Soter (the Savior). By that designation--Ptolemy Soter--he is

distinguished from succeeding kings of the Macedonian dynasty in

Egypt.

He established his seat of government not in any of the old

capitals of the country, but in Alexandria. At the time of the

expedition to the temple of Jupiter Ammon, the Macedonian

conqueror had caused the foundations of that city to be laid,

foreseeing that it might be made the commercial entrepot between

Asia and Europe. It is to be particularly remarked that not only

did Alexander himself deport many Jews from Palestine to people

the city, and not only did Ptolemy Soter bring one hundred

thousand more after his siege of Jerusalem, but Philadelphus, his

successor, redeemed from slavery one hundred and ninety-eight

thousand of that people, paying their Egyptian owners a just

money equivalent for each. To all these Jews the same privileges

were accorded as to the Macedonians. In consequence of this

considerate treatment, vast numbers of their compatriots and many

Syrians voluntarily came into Egypt. To them the designation of

Hellenistical Jews was given. In like manner, tempted by the

benign government of Soter, multitudes of Greeks sought refuge in

the country, and the invasions of Perdiccas and Antigonus showed

that Greek soldiers would desert from other Macedonian generals

to join is armies.

The population of Alexandria was therefore of three distinct

nationalities 1. Native Egyptians . Greeks; . Jews--a fact

that has left an impress on the religious faith of modern Europe.

Greek architects and Greek engineers had made Alexandria the most

beautiful city of the ancient world. They had filled it with

magnificent palaces, temples, theatres. In its centre, at the

intersection of its two grand avenues, which crossed each other

at right angles, and in the midst of gardens, fountains,

obelisks, stood the mausoleum, in which, embalmed after the

manner of the Egyptians, rested the body of Alexander. In a

funereal journey of two years it had been brought with great pomp

from Babylon. At first the coffin was of pure gold, but this

having led to a violation of the tomb, it was replaced by one of

alabaster. But not these, not even the great light-house, Pharos,

built of blocks of white marble and so high that the fire

continually burning on its top could be seen many miles off at

sea--the Pharos counted as one of the seven wonders of the

world--it is not these magnificent achievements of architecture

that arrest our attention; the true, the most glorious monument

of the Macedonian kings of Egypt is the Museum. Its influences

will last when even the Pyramids have passed away.

THE ALEXANDRIAN MUSEUM. The Alexandrian Museum was commenced by

Ptolemy Soter, and was completed by his son Ptolemy Philadelphus.

It was situated in the Bruchion, the aristocratic quarter of the

city, adjoining the kings palace. Built of marble, it was

surrounded with a piazza, in which the residents might walk and

converse together. Its sculptured apartments contained the

Philadelphian library, and were crowded with the choicest statues

and pictures. This library eventually comprised four hundred

thousand volumes. In the course of time, probably on account of

inadequate accommodation for so many books, an additional library

was established in the adjacent quarter Rhacotis, and placed in

the Serapion or temple of Serapis. The number of volumes in this

library, which was called the Daughter of that in the Museum, was

eventually three hundred thousand. There were, therefore, seven

hundred thousand volumes in these royal collections.

Alexandria was not merely the capital of Egypt, it was the

intellectual metropolis of the world. Here it was truly said the

Genius of the East met the Genius of the West, and this Paris of

antiquity became a focus of fashionable dissipation and universal

skepticism. In the allurements of its bewitching society even the

Jews forgot their patriotism. They abandoned the language of

their forefathers, and adopted Greek.

In the establishment of the Museum, Ptolemy Soter and his son

Philadelphus had three objects in view 1. The perpetuation of

such knowledge as was then in the world; . Its increase; . Its

diffusion.

1. For the perpetuation of knowledge. Orders were given to the

chief librarian to buy at the kings expense whatever books he

could. A body of transcribers was maintained in the Museum, whose

duty it was to make correct copies of such works as their owners

were not disposed to sell. Any books brought by foreigners into

Egypt were taken at once to the Museum, and, when correct copies

had been made, the transcript was given to the owner, and the

original placed in the library. Often a very large pecuniary

indemnity was paid. Thus it is said of Ptolemy Euergetes that,

having obtained from Athens the works of Euripides, Sophocles,

and Aeschylus, he sent to their owners transcripts, together with

about fifteen thousand dollars, as an indemnity. On his return

from the Syrian expedition he carried back in triumph all the

Egyptian monuments from Ecbatana and Susa, which Cambyses and

other invaders had removed from Egypt. These he replaced in their

original seats, or added as adornments to his museums. When works

were translated as well as transcribed, sums which we should

consider as almost incredible were paid, as was the case with the

Septuagint translation of the Bible, ordered by Ptolemy

Philadelphus.

. For the increase of knowledge. One of the chief objects of the

Museum was that of serving as the home of a body of men who

devoted themselves to study, and were lodged and maintained at

the kings expense. Occasionally he himself sat at their table.

Anecdotes connected with those festive occasions have descended

to our times. In the original organization of the Museum the

residents were divided into four faculties--literature;

mathematics, astronomy, medicine. Minor branches were

appropriately classified under one of these general heads; thus

natural history was considered to be a branch of medicine. An

officer of very great distinction presided over the

establishment, and had general charge of its interests. Demetrius

Phalareus, perhaps the most learned man of his age, who had been

governor of Athens for many years, was the first so appointed.

Under him was the librarian, an office sometimes held by men

whose names have descended to our times, as Eratosthenes, and

Apollonius Rhodius.

ORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM. In connection with the Museum were a

botanical and a zoological garden. These gardens, as their names

import, were for the purpose of facilitating the study of plants

and animals. There was also an astronomical observatory

containing armillary spheres, globes, solstitial and equatorial

armils, astrolabes, parallactic rules, and other apparatus then

in use, the graduation on the divided instruments being into

degrees and sixths. On the floor of this observatory a meridian

line was drawn. The want of correct means of measuring time and

temperature was severely felt; the clepsydra of Ctesibius

answered very imperfectly for the former, the hydrometer floating

in a cup of water for the latter; it measured variations of

temperature by variations of density. Philadelphus, who toward

the close of his life was haunted with an intolerable dread of

death, devoted much of his time to the discovery of an elixir.

For such pursuits the Museum was provided with a chemical

laboratory. In spite of the prejudices of the age, and especially

in spite of Egyptian prejudices, there was in connection with the

medical department an anatomical room for the dissection, not

only of the dead, but actually of the living, who for crimes had

been condemned.

. For the diffusion of knowledge. In the Museum was given, by

lectures, conversation, or other appropriate methods instruction

in all the various departments of human knowledge. There flocked

to this great intellectual centre, students from all countries.

It is said that at one time not fewer than fourteen thousand were

in attendance. Subsequently even the Christian church received

from it some of the most eminent of its Fathers, as Clemens

Alexandrinus, Origen, Athanasius.

The library in the Museum was burnt during the siege of

Alexandria by Julius Caesar. To make amends for this great loss,

that collected by Eumenes, King of Pergamus, was presented by

Mark Antony to Queen Cleopatra. Originally it was founded as a

rival to that of the Ptolemies. It was added to the collection in

the Serapion.

SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL OF THE MUSEUM. It remains now to describe

briefly the philosophical basis of the Museum, and some of its

contributions to the stock of human knowledge.

In memory of the illustrious founder of this most noble

institution--an institution which antiquity delighted to call

The divine school of Alexandria--we must mention in the first

rank his History of the Campaigns of Alexander. Great as a

soldier and as a sovereign, Ptolemy Soter added to his glory by

being an author. Time, which has not been able to destroy the

memory of our obligations to him, has dealt unjustly by his work.

It is not now extant.

As might be expected from the friendship that existed between

Alexander, Ptolemy, and Aristotle, the Aristotelian philosophy

was the intellectual corner-stone on which the Museum rested.

King Philip had committed the education of Alexander to

Aristotle, and during the Persian campaigns the conqueror

contributed materially, not only in money, but otherwise, toward

the Natural History then in preparation.

The essential principle of the Aristotelian philosophy was, to

rise from the study of particulars to a knowledge of general

principles or universals, advancing to them by induction. The

induction is the more certain as the facts on which it is based

are more numerous; its correctness is established if it should

enable us to predict other facts until then unknown. This system

implies endless toil in the collection of facts, both by

experiment and observation; it implies also a close meditation on

them. It is, therefore, essentially a method of labor and of

reason, not a method of imagination. The failures that Aristotle

himself so often exhibits are no proof of its unreliability, but

rather of its trustworthiness. They are failures arising from

want of a sufficiency of facts.

ETHICAL SCHOOL OF THE MUSEUM. Some of the general results at

which Aristotle arrived are very grand. Thus, he concluded that

every thing is ready to burst into life, and that the various

organic forms presented to us by Nature are those which existing

conditions permit. Should the conditions change, the forms will

also change. Hence there is an unbroken chain from the simple

element through plants and animals up to man, the different

groups merging by insensible shades into each other.

The inductive philosophy thus established by Aristotle is a

method of great power. To it all the modern advances in science

are due. In its most improved form it rises by inductions from

phenomena to their causes, and then, imitating the method of the

Academy, it descends by deductions from those causes to the

detail of phenomena.

While thus the Scientific School of Alexandria was founded on the

maxims of one great Athenian philosopher, the Ethical School was

founded on the maxims of another, for Zeno, though a Cypriote or

Phoenician, had for many years been established at Athens. His

disciples took the name of Stoics. His doctrines long survived

him, and, in times when there was no other consolation for man,

offered a support in the hour of trial, and an unwavering guide

in the vicissitudes of life, not only to illustrious Greeks, but

also to many of the great philosophers, statesmen, generals, and

emperors of Rome.

THE PRINCIPLES OF STOICISM. The aim of Zeno was, to furnish a

guide for the daily practice of life, to make men virtuous. He

insisted that education is the true foundation of virtue, for, if

we know what is good, we shall incline to do it. We must trust to

sense, to furnish the data of knowledge, and reason will suitably

combine them. In this the affinity of Zeno to Aristotle is

plainly seen. Every appetite, lust, desire, springs from

imperfect knowledge. Our nature is imposed upon us by Fate, but

we must learn to control our passions, and live free,

intelligent, virtuous, in all things in accordance with reason.

Our existence should be intellectual, we should survey with

equanimity all pleasures and all pains. We should never forget

that we are freemen, not the slaves of society. I possess, said

the Stoic, a treasure which not all the world can rob me of--no

one can deprive me of death. We should remember that Nature in

her operations aims at the universal, and never spares

individuals, but uses them as means for the accomplishment of her

ends. It is, therefore, for us to submit to Destiny, cultivating,

as the things necessary to virtue, knowledge, temperance,

fortitude, justice. We must remember that every thing around us

is in mutation; decay follows reproduction, and reproduction

decay, and that it is useless to repine at death in a world where

every thing is dying. As a cataract shows from year to year an

invariable shape, though the water composing it is perpetually

changing, so the aspect of Nature is nothing more than a flow of

matter presenting an impermanent form. The universe, considered

as a whole, is unchangeable. Nothing is eternal but space, atoms,

force. The forms of Nature that we see are essentially

transitory, they must all pass away.

STOICISM IN THE MUSEUM. We must bear in mind that the majority of

men are imperfectly educated, and hence we must not needlessly

offend the religious ideas of our age. It is enough for us

ourselves to know that, though there is a Supreme Power, there is

no Supreme Being. There is an invisible principle, but not a

personal God, to whom it would be not so much blasphemy as

absurdity to impute the form, the sentiments, the passions of

man. All revelation is, necessarily, a mere fiction. That which

men call chance is only the effect of an unknown cause. Even of

chances there is a law. There is no such thing as Providence, for

Nature proceeds under irresistible laws, and in this respect the

universe is only a vast automatic engine. The vital force which

pervades the world is what the illiterate call God. The

modifications through which all things are running take place in

an irresistible way, and hence it may be said that the progress

of the world is, under Destiny, like a seed, it can evolve only

in a predetermined mode.

The soul of man is a spark of the vital flame, the general vital

principle. Like heat, it passes from one to another, and is

finally reabsorbed or reunited in the universal principle from

which it came. Hence we must not expect annihilation, but

reunion; and, as the tired man looks forward to the insensibility

of sleep, so the philosopher, weary of the world, should look

forward to the tranquillity of extinction. Of these things,

however, we should think doubtingly, since the mind can produce

no certain knowledge from its internal resources alone. It is

unphilosophical to inquire into first causes; we must deal only

with phenomena. Above all, we must never forget that man cannot

ascertain absolute truth, and that the final result of human

inquiry into the matter is, that we are incapable of perfect

knowledge; that, even if the truth be in our possession, we

cannot be sure of it.

What, then, remains for us? Is it not this--the acquisition of

knowledge, the cultivation of virtue and of friendship, the

observance of faith and truth, an unrepining submission to

whatever befalls us, a life led in accordance with reason?

PLATONISM IN THE MUSEUM. But, though the Alexandrian Museum was

especially intended for the cultivation of the Aristotelian

philosophy, it must not be supposed that other systems were

excluded. Platonism was not only carried to its full development,

but in the end it supplanted Peripateticism, and through the New

Academy left a permanent impress on Christianity. The

philosophical method of Plato was the inverse of that of

Aristotle. Its starting- point was universals, the very existence

of which was a matter of faith, and from these it descended to

particulars, or details. Aristotle, on the contrary, rose from

particulars to universals, advancing to them by inductions.

Plato, therefore, trusted to the imagination, Aristotle to

reason. The former descended from the decomposition of a

primitive idea into particulars, the latter united particulars

into a general conception. Hence the method of Plato was capable

of quickly producing what seemed to be splendid, though in

reality unsubstantial results; that of Aristotle was more tardy

in its operation, but much more solid. It implied endless labor

in the collection of facts, a tedious resort to experiment and

observation, the application of demonstration. The philosophy of

Plato is a gorgeous castle in the air; that of Aristotle a solid

structure, laboriously, and with many failures, founded on the

solid rock.

An appeal to the imagination is much more alluring than the

employment of reason. In the intellectual decline of Alexandria,

indolent methods were preferred to laborious observation and

severe mental exercise. The schools of Neo-Platonism were crowded

with speculative mystics, such as Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus.

These took the place of the severe geometers of the old Museum.

PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MUSEUM. The Alexandrian school offers the

first example of that system which, in the hands of modern

physicists, has led to such wonderful results. It rejected

imagination, and made its theories the expression of facts

obtained by experiment and observation, aided by mathematical

discussion. It enforced the principle that the true method of

studying Nature is by experimental interrogation. The researches

of Archimedes in specific gravity, and the works of Ptolemy on

optics, resemble our present investigations in experimental

philosophy, and stand in striking contrast with the speculative

vagaries of the older writers. Laplace says that the only

observation which the history of astronomy offers us, made by the

Greeks before the school of Alexandria, is that of the summer

solstice of the year B.C. 4. by Meton and Euctemon. We have,

for the first time, in that school, a combined system of

observations made with instruments for the measurement of angles,

and calculated by trigonometrical methods. Astronomy then took a

form which subsequent ages cPlease note that this sample paper on HISTORY OF CONFLICT:RELIGION AND SCIENCE is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on HISTORY OF CONFLICT:RELIGION AND SCIENCE, we are here to assist you. Your cheap research papers on HISTORY OF CONFLICT:RELIGION AND SCIENCE will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.

Order your authentic assignment from cheap essay writing service and you will be amazed at how easy it is to complete a quality custom paper within the shortest time possible!