The Day the Universe Changed - James Burke [5]
One of Thales’ pupils, Anaximander, observed that nature was composed of opposites: hot and cold, wet and dry, light and heavy, life and death, and so on. He also stated that everything was made up of differing amounts and combinations of four elements: earth, water, air and fire. Anaximenes, another student, observed the behaviour of air, as it condensed to make water which froze as ice and then evaporated as air.
These simple analyses of phenomena and the observation of the presence of opposites combined with the political and economic structure of the Ionian society to produce the dominant intellectual structure in Western civilisation. In their small frontier cities all decisions were taken publicly and after debate. Their first experiences in trading may have given them a tendency to argue their way to compromise. Their circumstances led them to adapt particular techniques for more general use.
The Ionians took the geometry developed by the Egyptians for building their pyramids and made it a tool with many applications. Thales himself is said to have proved that a circle is bisected by its diameter, that the base angles of an isosceles triangle are equal and that opposing angles of intersecting lines are equal. Be that as it may, the Ionians were soon able to use geometry to work out, for instance, the distance from the coast of a ship at sea. Geometry became the basic instrument for measuring all things. All natural phenomena including light and sound, as well as those of astronomy, existed and could be measured in exclusively geometrical space.
Geometry rendered the cosmos accessible to examination according to a common, standard, quantitative scale. Together with the concept of pairs of opposites, geometry was to become the foundation for a rational system of philosophy that would underpin Western culture for thousands of years. The systems of Plato and Aristotle, the apotheosis of Greek thought at the end of the fourth century BC, were based on the use of opposites in argument and the self-evident nature of geometric forms.
Rational discussion followed a new logical technique, the syllogism, developed by Aristotle, which provided an intellectual structure for the reconciliation of opposing views. The self-evident axioms of geometry, such as the basic properties of a straight line or the intersection of two such lines, could lead via deduction to the development of more complex theorems. When this technique was applied to rational thought it enhanced the scope of intellectual speculation.
In this way Aristotle produced a system of thought that would guide men from the limited observations of personal experience to more general truths about nature. Plato examined the difference between the untrustworthy and changing world of the senses and that of the permanent truths which were only to be found through rational thought. The unchanging elements of geometry were the measures of this ideal, permanent thought-world with which the transitory world of everyday existence could be identified, and against which it might be assessed. This union of logic with geometry laid the foundations of the Western way of life.
The Parthenon. The perfect physical manifestation of the union of logic and geometry is to be found in Greek architecture. It represents the desire for balance and symmetry basic to Western rational thought.
This book examines what happened at particular points in history when man applied such a rational approach to nature. It looks at the ways in which a questioning system of thought brought us to today’s world, in which change is the only constant. Above all, it seeks to show how the attitudes of Western culture, and the institutions which accompany these attitudes, are generated at times when major changes occur in the way society