A Short History of the WorldWells, H. G. (Herbert George)
History
A Short History of the World
Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
World history
The criticism of methods of thinking and methods of government was
carried on after Plato’s death by Aristotle, who had been his pupil and
who taught in the Lyceum. Aristotle came from the city of Stagira in
Macedonia, and his father was court physician to the Macedonian king.
For a time Aristotle was tutor to Alexander, the king’s son, who was
destined to achieve very great things of which we shall soon be
telling. Aristotle’s work upon methods of thinking carried the science
of Logic to a level at which it remained for fifteen hundred years or
more, until the mediæval schoolmen took up the ancient questions again.
He made no Utopias. Before man could really control his destiny as
Plato taught, Aristotle perceived that he needed far more knowledge and
far more accurate knowledge than he possessed. And so Aristotle began
that systematic collection of knowledge which nowadays we call Science.
He sent out explorers to collect _facts_. He was the father of
natural history. He was the founder of political science. His students
at the Lyceum examined and compared the constitutions of 158 different
states ....
Here in the fourth century B.C. we find men who are practically “modern
thinkers.” The child-like, dream-like methods of primitive thought had
given way to a disciplined and critical attack upon the problems of
life. The weird and monstrous symbolism and imagery of the gods and
god monsters, and all the taboos and awes and restraints that have
hitherto encumbered thinking are here completely set aside. Free,
exact and systematic thinking has begun. The fresh and unencumbered
mind of these newcomers out of the northern forests has thrust itself
into the mysteries of the temple and let the daylight in.
XXVI
THE EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
From 431 to 404 B.C. the Peloponnesian War wasted Greece. Meanwhile to
the north of Greece, the kindred country of Macedonia was rising slowly
to power and civilization. The Macedonians spoke a language closely
akin to Greek, and on several occasions Macedonian competitors had
taken part in the Olympic games. In 359 B.C. a man of very great
abilities and ambition became king of this little country—Philip.
Philip had previously been a hostage in Greece; he had had a thoroughly
Greek education and he was probably aware of the ideas of
Herodotus—which had also been developed by the philosopher Isocrates—of
a possible conquest of Asia by a consolidated Greece.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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