COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

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COSMOS.
tosthenes of Gyrene. The first attempt of the Greeks, based on imperfect
data of the Bematists, to measure a degree between Syene and
Alexandria. Simultaneous advance of science in pure mathematics,
mechanics and astronomy. Aristyllus and Timochares. Views enter-
tained regarding the structure of the universe by Aristarchus of Samos,
and Seleucus of Babylon or of Erythrsea. Hipparchus, the founder of
scientific astronomy, and the greatest independent astronomical observer
of. antiquity. Euclid. Apollonius of Perga, and Archimedes p. 546.
IV. Influence of the universal dominion of the Romans and of their
empire on the extension of cosmical views. Considering the diversity
in the configuration of the soil, the variety of the organic products,
the distant expeditions to the Amber lands, and under Julius Gallus to
Arabia, and the peace Avhich the Romans long enjoyed, under the monarchy
of the Caesars they might, indeed, duringfour centuries, have afforded more
animated support to the pursuit of natural science; but with the Roman
national spirit perished social mobility, publicity, and the maintenance
of individuality the main supports of free institutions for the furtherance
of intellectual development. In this long period, the only observers
of nature that present themselves to our notice are Dioscorides, the
Cilician, and Galen of Pergamus. Claudius Ptolemy made the first
advance in an important branch of mathematical physics, and in the
study of optics, based on experiments. Material advantages of the
extension of inland trade to the interior of Asia, and the navigation of
Myos Hormos to India. Under Vespasian and Domitian, in the time
of the dynasty of Han, a Chinese army penetrates as far as the eastern
shores of the Caspian Sea. The direction of the stream of migration in
Asia is from east to west, whilst in the new continent it inclines from
north to south. Asiatic migrations begin, a century and a-half before
our era, with the inroads of the Hiungnu, a Turkish race, on the fair-
haired, blue-eyed, probably Indo-germanic race of the Yueti and Usun,
near the Chinese wall. Roman ambassadors are sent under Marcus
Aurelius to the Chinese Court by way of Tonkin. The Emperor Claudius
received an embassy of the Rashias of Ceylon. The great Indian
Mathematicians Warahamihira, Brahmagupta, and probably also Aryabhatta,
lived at more recent periods than those we are considering; but
the elements of knowledge, which had been earlier discovered in India
in wholly independent and separate paths, may, before the time of
Diophantus, have been in part conveyed to the west by means of the
extensive universal commerce carried on under the Lagides and the
Csesars. The influence of these widely diffused commercial relations is
manifested in the colossal geographical works of Strabo and Ptolemy.
The geographical nomenclature of the latter writer has recently, by a
careful study of the Indian languages and of the history of the west
Iranian Zend, been recognised as a historical memorial of these remote
commercial relations. Stupendous attempt made by Pliny to give a
description of the universe ; the characteristics of his encyclopaedia of
nature and art. Whilst the long-enduring influence of the Roman
dominion manifested itself in the history of the contemplation of the
universe as an element of union and fusion, it was reserved for the dif-