one to the forthcoming civilization of Europe. As
will be seen in the following pages, that great destiny did not await
her. From her eccentric position at Alexandria she could not civilize
Europe. In her old age, the power of Europe, concentrated in the Roman
empire, overthrew her. There are very few histories of the past of more
interest to modern times, and none, unfortunately, more misunderstood,
than this Greek age of Reason manifested at Alexandria. It illustrates,
in the most signal manner, that affairs control men more than men
control affairs. The scientific associations of the Macedonian conqueror
directly arose from the contemporaneous state of Greek philosophy in the
act of reaching the close of its age of faith, and these influences
ripened under the Macedonian captain who became King of Egypt. As it
was, the learning of Alexandria, though diverted from its most
appropriate and desirable direction by the operation of the Byzantine
system, in the course of a few centuries acting forcibly upon it, was
not without an influence on the future thought of Europe. Even at this
day Europe will not bear to be fully told how great that influence has
been.

[Sidenote: The writings of Aristotle are its prelude.]

The age of Reason, to which Aristotle is about to introduce us, stands
in striking contrast to the preceding ages. It cannot escape the reader
that what was done by the men of science in Alexandria resembles what is
doing in our own times; their day was the foreshadowing of ours. And yet
a long and dreary period of almost twenty centuries parts us from them.
Politically, Aristotle, through his friendship with Alexander and the
perpetuation of the Macedonian influence in Ptolemy, was the connecting
link between the Greek age of Faith and that of Reason, as he was also
philosophically by the nature of his doctrines. He offers us an easy
passage from the speculative methods of Plato to the scientific methods
of Archimedes and Euclid. The copiousness of his doctrines, and the
obscurity of many of them, might, perhaps, discourage a superficial
student, unless he steadily bears in mind the singular authority they
maintained for so many ages, and the brilliant results in all the exact
parts of human knowledge to which they so quickly led. The history of
Aristotle and his philosophy is therefore our necessary introduction to
the grand, the immortal achievements of the Alexandrian school.

[Sidenote: Biography of Aris