fording an
explanation of every new fact as soon as it was discovered, without
requiring to be burdened with new provisions, and prophetically
foretelling phenomena which had not as yet been observed.

[Sidenote: The later Alexandrian geometers.]

[Sidenote: Decline of the Greek age of Reason.]

From the time of the Ptolemies the scientific spirit of the Alexandrian
school declined; for though such mathematicians as Theodosius, whose
work on Spherical Geometry was greatly valued by the Arab geometers; and
Pappus, whose mathematical collections, in eight books, still for the
most part remain; and Theon, doubly celebrated for his geometrical
attainments, and as being the father of the unfortunate Hypatia, A.D.
415, lived in the next three centuries, they were not men like their
great predecessors. That mental strength which gives birth to original
discovery had passed away. The commentator had succeeded to the
philosopher. No new development illustrated the physical sciences; they
were destined long to remain stationary. Mechanics could boast of no
trophy like the proposition of Archimedes on the equilibrium of the
lever; no new and exact ideas like those of the same great man on
statical and hydrostatical pressure; no novel and clear views like those
developed in his treatise on floating bodies; no mechanical invention
like the first of all steam-engines--that of Hero. Natural Philosophy
had come to a stop. Its great, and hitherto successfully cultivated
department, Astronomy, exhibited no farther advance. Men were content
with what had been done, and continued to amuse themselves with
reconciling the celestial phenomena to a combination of equable circular
motions. To what are we to attribute this pause? Something had occurred
to enervate the spirit of science. A gloom had settled on the Museum.

[Sidenote: Causes of that decline.]

There is no difficulty in giving an explanation of this unfortunate
condition. Greek intellectual life had passed the period of its
maturity, and was entering on old age. Moreover, the talent which might
have been devoted to the service of science was in part allured to
another pursuit, and in part repressed. Alexandria had sapped Athens,
and in her turn Alexandria was sapped by Rome. From metropolitan
pre-eminence she had sunk to be a mere provincial town. The great prizes
of life were not so likely to be met with in such a declining city as in
Italy or, subsequently, in Constantinople