COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

SUMMAIIY. xv
Hellenic power. Western Asia the great thoroughfare of nations
emigrating from the East; the uEgean island -world the connecting
link between Greece and the far East. Beyond the 48th degree of
latitude, Europe and Asia are fused together as it were by flat steppes.
Pherecydes of Syros, and Herodotus considered the whole of North
Scythian Asia as appertaining to Sarmatian Europe. Maritime power,
and Doric and Ionic habits of life transmitted to the colonial cities.
Advance towards the east, to the Euxine and Colchis; first acquaintance
with the western shore of the Caspian sea, confounded according to
Hecataeus with the encircling eastern ocean. Inland trade and barter
carried on by the chain of Scytho-scolotic races with the Argippgeans,
Issedones, and the Arismaspes, rich in gold. Meteorological myth of
the Hyperboreans. Opening of the port of Gadeira towards the west,
which had long been closed to the Greeks. Navigation of Coleeus of
Samos. A glance into the boundless an ; unceasing striving for the far
of the
distant ; accurate knowledge of the great natural phenomenon
periodic swelling of the sea p. 517.
II. Campaigns of the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, and
the long-enduring influence of the Bactrian empire. With the exception
of the one great event of the discovery and opening of tropical America
eighteen and a-half centuries later, there was no other period in which
a richer field of natural views, and a more abundant mass of mai erials
for the foundations of cosmical knowledge, and of comparative ethnological
study were presented at once to one single portion of the human
race. The use of these materials, and the intellectual elaboration of
matter, are facilitated and rendered of more importance by the direction
imparted by the Stagirite to empirical investigation, philosophical
speculation, and to the strict definitions of a language of science. The
Macedonian expedition was, in the strictest sense of the word, a scientific
expedition. Callisthenes of Olynthus, the pupil of Aristotle, and
friend of Theophrastes. The knowledge of the heavens, and of the earth
and its products, was considerably increased by intercourse with Babylon,
and by the observations that had been made by the dissolved Chaldean
order of priests p. 535.
III. Increase of the contemplation of the universe under the Ptolemies.
Grecian Egypt enjoyed the advantage of political unity, whilst its
geographical position, and the entrance to the Arabian Gulf, brought
the profitable traffic of the Indian Ocean within a few miles of the southeastern
shores of the Mediterranean. The kingdom of the Seleucidae
did not enjoy the advantages of a maritime trade, and was frequently
shaken by the conflicting nationality of the different Satrapies. Active
traffic on rivers and caravan tracks with the elevated plateaux of the
Seres, north of the TJttara-Kuru and the valley of the Oxus. Knowledge
of monsoons. Re-opening of the canal connecting the Red Sea with the
Nile above Bubastus. History of this water route. Scientific institutions
under the protection of the Lagides; the Alexandrian Museum,
and two collections of books in Bruchium and at Rhakotis. Peculiar
direction of these studies. A happy generalisation of views manifests
'tself, associated with an industrious accumulation of materials. Era-