Page 368 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

science—overview 1669

theoretical generality, as philosophers tried to construct many different shores of the Mediterranean and the
general laws to describe the real world.As the writings of Black Sea. Faced with a mass of new information, Greek
the historian Herodotus suggest, the Greeks were philosophers set about the task of eliminating the par-
exposed to and interested in a colossal variety of differ- ticular and local and isolating those ideas that remained
ent ideas and influences, from North Africa, Egypt, Per- true in general. Thales of Miletus (c. 625–547 BCE),
sia, India, and the pastoralist societies of the steppes.The often regarded as the first of the Greek natural philoso-
volume and variety of ideas to which Greek societies were phers, offered explanations of phenomena such as earth-
exposed reflected their geographical position and the role quakes and floods that are universal in their claims and
of Greek traders, explorers, and emigrants forced, partly entirely free of the notion that reality is controlled by con-
by overpopulation, to explore and settle around the scious entities.

This Dutch cartoon from 1794 ridicules science. It shows men struggling to inflate a
balloon, as laborers haul supplies and dogs struggle with a wagon. Armed soldiers hold
back an unruly crowd.