The Work of Aristotle
It was not hard for the instructor of the king of kings to find pupils even in so hostile a city as Athens.?
When, in the fifty-third year of his age, Aristotle established his school, the Lyceum, so many students flocked to him that it became necessary to make complicated regulations for the maintenance of order.?
The students themselves determined the rules, and elected, every ten days, one of their number to supervise the School.?
But we must not think of it as a place of rigid discipline;?
rather the picture which comes down to us is of scholars eating their meals in common with the master, and learning from him as he and they strolled up and down the Walk along the athletic field from which the Lyceum took its name.
The new School was no mere replica of that which Plato had left behind him.?
The Academy was devoted above all to mathematics and to speculative and political philosophy;?
the Lyceum had rather a tendency to biology and the natural sciences.?
If we may believe Pliny, Alexander instructed his hunters, gamekeepers, gardeners and fishermen to furnish Aristotle with all the zoological and botanical material he might desire;?
other ancient writers tell us that at one time he had at his disposal a thousand men scattered throughout Greece and Asia, collecting for him specimens of the fauna and flora of every land.?
With this wealth of material he was enabled to establish the first great zoological garden that the world had seen.?
We can hardly exaggerate the influence of this collection upon his science and his philosophy.
Where did Aristotle derive the funds to finance these undertakings??
He was himself, by this time, a man of spacious income;?
and he had married into the fortune of one of the most powerful public men in Greece.?
Athen?us (no doubt with some exaggeration) relates that Alexander gave Aristotle, for physical and biological equipment and research, the sum of 800 talents (in modern purchasing power, some $4,000,000).?
It was at Aristotle's suggestion, some think, that Alexander sent a costly expedition to explore the sources of the Nile and discover the causes of its periodical overflow.?
Such works as the digest of 158 political constitutions, drawn up for Aristotle, indicate a considerable corps of aides and secretaries.?
In short we have here the first example in European history of the large-scale financing of science by public wealth.?
What knowledge would we not win if modern states were to support research on a proportionately lavish scale!
Yet we should do Aristotle injustice if we were to ignore the almost fatal limitations of equipment which accompanied these unprecedented resources and facilities.?
He was compelled "to fix time without a watch, to compare degrees of heat without a thermometer, to observe the heavens without a telescope, and the weather without a barometer ...?
Of all our mathematical, optical and physical instruments he possessed only the rule and compass, together with the most imperfect substitutes of some few others.?
Chemical analysis, correct measurements and weights, and a thorough application of mathematics to physics, were unknown.?
The attractive force of matter, the law of gravitation, electrical phenomena, the conditions of chemical combination, pressure of air and its effects, the nature of light, heat, combustion, etc., in short, all the facts on which the physical theories of modern science are based were wholly, or almost wholly, undiscovered."
▍語言點
king of kings: 某個行業(yè)或領(lǐng)域的佼佼者
flock: vi. 聚集；成群而行
supervise: vt. 監(jiān)督缸濒，管理
rigid: adj. 嚴格的友雳；僵硬的
Peripatetikoi: n. 漫步學派或逍遙學派氮块，由于他習慣于同學生邊散步邊討論問題猴抹，人們又把他創(chuàng)立的學派叫做漫步學派。
gamekeeper: n. 獵場看守人
zoological: adj. 動物學的互艾；關(guān)于動物的
at one's disposal: 由其支配社露；由某人做主
scattered: adj. 分散的；散亂的
fauna and flora: n. 動植物
spacious: adj. 大量的
expedition: n. 遠征店读；探險隊
overflow: n. 泛濫
digest: n. 消化
barometer: n. 氣壓計
optical: adj. 光學的
the most imperfect: 最不精良的
substitute: n. 替代品
生詞好句
king of kings?某個行業(yè)或領(lǐng)域的佼佼者
flocked?flock: vi. 聚集嗦枢；成群而行
supervise?vt. 監(jiān)督，管理
rigid?adj. 嚴格的屯断；僵硬的
gamekeepers?gamekeeper: n. 獵場看守人
zoological?adj. 動物學的文虏；關(guān)于動物的
at his disposal?at one's disposal: 由其支配；由某人做主
scattered?vi. 分散殖演；散亂
fauna and flora?n. 動植物
spacious?adj. 大量的
expedition?n. 遠征氧秘；探險隊
overflow?n. 泛濫
digest?n. 消化
barometer?n. 氣壓計
optical?adj. 光學的
the most imperfect?the most imperfect: 最不精良的
substitutes?substitute: n. 替代品
