Thales of Miletus

“ In general, from now on, we shall be able to trace each great idea, if not to its originator, at least to some one man of genius who was prominent in bringing it before the world. The first of these vitalizers of thought, who stands out at the beginnings of Greek history, is this same Thales, of Miletus. His is not a very sharply defined personality as we look back upon it, and we can by no means be certain that all the discoveries which are ascribed to him are specifically his. Of his individuality as a man we know very little. ”

“ Thales.—At the head of the Ionic natural philosophers, and therefore at the head of philosophy, the ancients are generally agreed in placing Thales of Miletus, a cotemporary of Crœsus and Solon; although this beginning lies more in the region of tradition than of history. The philosophical principle to which he owes his place in the history of philosophy is, that, “the principle (the primal, the original ground) of all things is water; from water every thing arises and into water every thing returns.” ”

“ Then he said to the bystanders, "How blind is man to the future. The Athenians would eat this place up with their teeth if they knew what misfortunes it will bring upon them?" A prophetic saying of the same kind is attributed to Thales. He bade his friends bury him in a low and neglected quarter of Miletus, telling them that one day it would be the market-place of the city. ”

“ Thales, too, as Leander and Herodotus relate, was a Phœnician; as some suppose, a Milesian. He alone seems to have met the prophets of the Egyptians. But no one is described as his teacher, nor is any one mentioned as the teacher of Pherecydes of Syros, who had Pythagoras as his pupil. But the Italic philosophy, that of Pythagoras, grew old in Metapontum in Italy. Anaximander of Miletus, the son of Praxiades, succeeded Thales; and was himself succeeded by Anaximenes of Miletus, the son of Eurustratus; after whom came Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ, the son of Hegesibulus. ”

“ The high estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries is shown by the place he occupied as chief of the seven “wise men” of Greece; and in later times amongst the ancients his fame was quite remarkable. It is well known that this name (σοφός) was given on account of practical ability; and in accordance with this we find that Thales had been occupied with civil affairs, and indeed several instances of his political sagacity have been handed down. ”

“ This philosopher is said to have been younger by [11] one generation than Thales, but to have been intimate with him. He, like Thales, was a native of Miletus, and while we do not hear of him as a person, like Thales, of political eminence and activity, he was certainly the equal, if not the superior, of Thales in {8} mathematical and scientific ability. He is said to have either invented or at least made known to Greece the construction of the sun-dial. ”

“ As intimated before, Thales of Miletus, was the father of mathematical science, as of Grecian philosophy in general. The discoveries of that early period were of the most elementary kind, but of sufficient importance to give impulse to more dignified researches. His pupil, Pythagoras, made great advancement, and introduced music into his explanations of scientific phenomena. Democritus and Anaxagoras, the friend of Pericles, improved upon the attainments of their predecessors. ”

“ Writings which bore his name were extant in antiquity; but as Aristotle, when he speaks of Thales’s doctrine, always depends upon tradition, there can be little doubt that they were forgeries.
From Aristotle we learn (1) that Thales found in water the origin of things; (2) that he conceived the earth to float upon a sea of the elemental fluid; (3) that he supposed all things to be full of gods ”

“ After this, seeing that Alyattes would not give up the Scythians to Cyaxares at his demand, there was war between the Lydians and the Medes for five years; each won many victories over the other, and once they fought a battle by night. They were still warring with equal success, when it chanced, at an encounter which happened in the sixth year, that during the battle the day was suddenly turned to night. Thales of Miletus had foretold this loss of daylight to the Ionians, fixing it within the year in which the change did indeed happen. ”

“ Aristotle examines one by one the answers that have been given to this question. Thus Xenophanes gave to the earth infinitely extended roots, against which Empedocles uses such arguments as we should use now. Thales of Miletus makes the earth rest upon water, without finding anything on which the water itself can rest, or answering the question how it is that the heavier earth can be supported on the lighter water. ”

“ The wonderful fame of Thales amongst the ancients must have been in great part due to this achievement, which seems, moreover, to have been one of the chief causes that excited amongst the Hellenes the love of science which ever afterwards characterized them. ”

“ The third physical philosopher produced by Miletus, seemingly before the time of her terrible disasters suffered from the Persians after the Ionic revolt between 500-494 B.C., was Anaximenes, who struck out a third hypothesis. He assumed, as the primordial substance, and as the source of all generation or transmutation, Air, eternal in duration, infinite in extent. He thus returned to the principle of the Thaletian theory, selecting for his beginning a known substance, though not the same substance as Thales. ”

“ The Ionian Philosophy Turned the Mind Toward Nature.—Greek philosophy began in the seventh century before Christ. The first philosopher of note was Thales, born at Miletus, in Asia Minor, about 640 B.C. Thales sought to establish the idea that water is the first principle and cause of the universe. He held that water is filled with life and soul, the essential element in the foundation of all nature. Thales had great learning for his time, being well versed in geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy. He travelled in Egypt and the Orient, and became acquainted with ancient lore. ”

“ Other discoveries in astronomy are attributed to Thales, but on authorities which are not trustworthy. He did not know, for example, that “the earth is spherical,” as is erroneously stated by Plutarch (Placita, iii. 10) ; on the contrary, he conceived it to be a flat disk, and in this supposition he was followed by most of his successors in the Ionian schools, including Anaxagoras. ”

“ By these considerations some have been led to assert that the earth below us is infinite, saying, with Xenophanes of Colophon, that it has 'pushed its roots to infinity',-in order to save the trouble of seeking for the cause. Hence the sharp rebuke of Empedocles, in the words 'if the deeps of the earth are endless and endless the ample ether-such is the vain tale told by many a tongue, poured from the mouths of those who have seen but little of the whole. Others say the earth rests upon water. This, indeed, is the oldest theory that has been preserved, and is attributed to Thales of Miletus. ”

“ Not that the curve of development runs in smooth ascent from Thales to Plato; it exhibits the spiral windings inseparable from historic processes, since every new tendency calls forth the antagonistic principle to that which has spent its force, and thus brings about the necessity of reaction in a retrospective sense.
Thales, who enjoyed great repute in his native city of Miletus and throughout Asia Minor at the commencement of the sixth century, calls water the beginning of all things. ”

“ He says [39] that Thales is “reported to have predicted it to the Ionians. If he had predicted it to the Lydians, in whose country [111] the eclipse was to be total, his conduct would be intelligible, but it seems strange that he should have predicted it to the Ionians who had no direct interest in the event.” Bosanquet replies to this by pointing out that Miletus, in Ionia, was the birthplace of Thales, and also that a shadow, covering two degrees of latitude, passing through Ionia, would also necessarily cover Lydia. ”

“ The second part of the statement of Herodotus—the reality of the prediction by Thales—has been frequently called in question, chiefly on the ground that, in order to predict a solar eclipse with any chance of success, one should have the command of certain astronomical facts which were not known until the 3rd century B.C., and then merely approximately, and only employed with that object in the following century by Hipparchus. ”

“ No phase of Greek culture was more expressive of their national characteristics than their mathematical attainments. Heterogeneity, which formed the basal element of their national character, was here apparent in the diverse sources from which their mathematics was derived. Thales, the first great Greek mathematician and the founder of the Ionian School, was a native of Miletus, but spent much of his life in Egypt as a merchant, where he studied geometry and astronomy. ”

“ And the one school was called the Ionian, because Thales, being an Ionian (for he was a native of Miletus) , had been the tutor of Anaximander;—but the other was called the Italian from Pythagoras, because he spent the chief part of his life in Italy. ”

“ Philosophy.—Whilst in virtue of his political sagacity and intellectual eminence Thales held a place in the traditional list of the wise men, on the strength of the disinterested love of knowledge which appeared in his physical speculations he was accounted a “philosopher” (φιλόσοφος) . ”

“ Much earlier, however, Anaximander of Miletus, who flourished not long after Thales, and is generally considered as his immediate disciple, seems to have been struck by the difficulty of accounting for the changes which a simple substance must be supposed to undergo, in order to produce an infinite variety of beings. ”

“ The older thinker conceived the vital air as a kind of soul; the younger man conceived the soul as a kind of air—an invisible force, permeating and actuating everything. This attribution of intelligence to the primal power or matter was certainly a progress in speculation; but another line of thought was struck out by Anaximander of Miletus, who had been a friend of Thales. He was passionately addicted to mathematics, and a great many inventions are ascribed to him ”

“ A crowd of idle philosophers, discussing all things in Heaven and Earth through the long summer days and balmy nights of Attica, must sometimes have hit on a true opinion, if only by accident; but Thales, or whoever broached the heliocentric dogma, had no reason for his belief, and showed himself not more, but less reasonable than his companions. ”

“ It is said that once, when he was taken out of doors by an old woman in order that he might observe the stars, he fell into a ditch, and his cry for help drew from the old woman the retort, "How can you expect to know all about the heavens, Thales, when you cannot even see what is just before your feet?" ”

“ He is asserted to have measured the pyramids by their shadows. He cultivated astronomy and astrology; and Laertius declares him to have been the first Greek that foretold eclipses. The yet higher distinction has been claimed for Thales of having introduced among his countrymen the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. But this sublime truth, though connected with no theory of future rewards and punishments, was received in Greece long before his time. Perhaps, however, as the expressions of Cicero indicate, Thales might be the first who attempted to give reasons for what was believed. ”

“ It is necessary for me, however, in attempting to show who they are that produce the effects ascribed to the idols, and that they are not gods, to have recourse to some witnesses from among the philosophers. First Thales, as those who have accurately examined his opinions report, divides [superior beings] into God, demons, and heroes. God he recognises as the Intelligence (νοῦς) of the world; by demons he understands beings possessed of soul (ψυχικαί) ; and by heroes the separated souls of men, the good being the good souls, and the bad the worthless. ”

“ On his return to Greece he founded the Ionian school, and taught the sphericity of the Earth, the obliquity of the ecliptic, and the true causes of eclipses of the Sun and Moon. He also directed the attention of mariners to the superiority of the Lesser Bear, as a guide for the navigation of vessels, as compared with the Great Bear, by which constellation they usually steered. Thales believed the Earth to be the centre of the universe, and that the stars were composed of fire ”

“ He discovered the solstices and equinoxes, he divided the heavens into five zones, and recommended the division of the year into 365 days, which was universally adopted by the Egyptian philosophy. Like Homer, he looked upon water as the principle of everything. He was the founder of the Ionic sect, which distinguished itself for its deep and abstruse speculations under the successors and pupils of the Milesian philosopher, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, and Archelaus the master of Socrates. Thales was never married ”

“ They handled gods and goddesses with allegorizing boldness, and hence were often persecuted by the people. They did not establish moral truths by scientific processes, but they set examples of lofty disdain of wealth and factitious advantages, and devoted themselves with holy enthusiasm to the solution of the great questions which pertain to God and nature. Thales won the respect of his countrymen by devotion to studies. Pythagoras spent twenty-two years in Egypt to learn its science. Xenophanes wandered over Sicily as a rhapsodist of truth. ”