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37 views1 page

Untitled 4

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tiag0c0sta
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remarkable conception of the atom evolved during the last century is that produced

by the genius of Dr. Edwin D. Babbitt and which is reproduced herewith. The diagram
is self-explanatory. It must be borne in mind that this apparently massive structure is
actually s minute as to defy analysis. Not only did Dr. Babbitt create this form of the
atom but he also contrived a method whereby these particles could be grouped
together in an orderly manner and thus result in the formation of molecular bodies.
***
After Pythagoras of Samos, its founder, the Italic or Pythagorean school numbers among its
most distinguished representatives Empedocles, Epicharmus, Archytas, Alcmæon, Hippasus,
Philolaus, and Eudoxus. Pythagoras (580-500? B.C.) conceived mathematics to be the most
sacred and exact of all the sciences, and demanded of all who came to him for study a
familiarity with arithmetic, music, astronomy, and geometry. He laid special emphasis upon
the philosophic life as a prerequisite to wisdom. Pythagoras was one of the first teachers to
establish a community wherein all the members were of mutual assistance to one another in
the common attainment of the higher sciences. He also introduced the discipline of
retrospection as essential to the development of the spiritual mind. Pythagoreanism may be
summarized as a system of metaphysical speculation concerning the relationships between
numbers and the causal agencies of existence. This school also first expounded the theory of
celestial harmonics or "the music of the spheres." John Reuchlin said of Pythagoras that he
taught nothing to his disciples before the discipline of silence, silence being the first rudiment
of contemplation. In his Sophist, Aristotle credits Empedocles with the discovery of rhetoric.
Both Pythagoras and Empedocles accepted the theory of transmigration, the latter saying: "A
boy I was, then did a maid become; a plant, bird, fish, and in the vast sea swum." Archytas is
credited with invention of the screw and the crane. Pleasure he declared to be a pestilence
because it was opposed to the temperance of the mind; he considered a man without deceit to
be as rare as a fish without bones.
The Eleatic sect was founded by Xenophanes (570-480 B.C.), who was conspicuous for his
attacks upon the cosmologic and theogonic fables of Homer and Hesiod. Xenophanes declared
that God was "one and incorporeal, in substance and figure round, in no way resembling man;
that He is all sight and all hearing, but breathes not; that He is all things, the mind and wisdom,
not generate but eternal, impassible, immutable, and rational." Xenophanes believed that all
existing things were eternal, that the world was without beginning or end, and that everything
which was generated was subject to corruption. He lived to great age and is said to have
buried his sons with his own hands. Parmenides studied under Xenophanes, but never
entirely subscribed to his doctrines. Parmenides declared the senses to be uncertain and
reason the only criterion of truth. He first asserted the earth to be round and also divided its
surface into zones of hear and cold.
Melissus, who is included in the Eleatic school, held many opinions in common with
Parmenides. He declared the universe to be immovable because, occupying all space, there
was no place to which it could be moved. He further rejected the theory of a vacuum in space.
Zeno of Elea also maintained that a vacuum could not exist. Rejecting the theory of motion, he
asserted that there was but one God, who was an eternal, ungenerated Being. Like
Xenophanes, he conceived Deity to be spherical in shape.

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