Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/760

742 How intimate was the connection between their science and their religion is proved by the fact that "in every temple there was . . . an astronomer who had to observe the heavens;" and how their science was an outgrowth of their religion is shown by the remark of Duncker, that their writings, at first containing traditional invocations of the gods and ceremonial rules, "grew into a liturgical canon and ecclesiastical codex of religious and moral law, and a comprehensive collection of all the wisdom known to the priests." But, as is remarked by Bunsen, "the Egyptians never arrived at a systematic dialectically-conducted philosophy"—a fact of much significance; for I may remark in passing that among oriental peoples at large, and other peoples long habituated to despotic control, thinking and teaching are entirely dogmatic: absolute authority characterizes at once external government and internal government. It is only on passing to partiallyfree societies that we meet with appeals to individual judgments—a giving of reasons for beliefs.

Apparently because Greece was a congeries of independent states often at variance with one another, and because these states had their respective religious worships akin but not identical, there never arose in Greece a priestly hierarchy; and apparently the lack of one impeded some of the professional developments. Partly, perhaps, for this reason, but chiefly for the reason that scientific progress in Egypt and Assyria preceded Greek civilization, science in as lightly developed state was imported. Sir G. C. Lewis repeats the testimonies of sundry ancient authors to the effect that the Egyptian priests—

"regarded their astronomical science as an esoteric and mysterious doctrine, and that they disclosed it to curious strangers with reluctance (Strab. xvii, 1. § 29). . . . Similar statements are made with respect to Assyrian astronomy (Plat. Epinom. § 7, p. 987). This derivation does not rest merely on general declarations, but it is fortified by detailed accounts of visits of Greek philosophers to Egypt, to Assyria, and to other oriental countries, made for the purpose of profiting by the lessons of the native priests and sages." Thus Thales, Pherecydes of Syros, Pythagoras, Democritus, Œnopides of Chios, Eudoxus, Solon, Anaxagoras, Plato are said to have visited Egypt, and to have received instruction from the priests.

And from his work may be added this further passage—: "Aristotle. . . says that mathematical science originated in Egypt, on account of the leisure which the priests enjoyed for contemplation." Respecting which statement may be interposed the remark that whether the name "geometry" was a translation of the Egyptian equivalent word or was independently originated, we equally see, in the first place, that this concrete half of mathematics germinated from the practical needs for measuring out the Earth's surface, and we see, in the second place, that since