Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 78.djvu/327

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in his public teaching, so that much that he taught was under the seal of secrecy. He also sought greater freedom by removing from Samos to Italy.

It might be expected that with so much to build upon the genius of Aristotle (384-322) would have accomplished great things in astronomical science. But not so! For some reason he rejected the theories of Pythagoras and, although he is said to have come into possession of great stores of Chaldean observations, on the capture of Babylon by Alexander the Great, he made no use of them. Perhaps the task of