Chapter 2.5: Passion in Wonder

At the close of the seventh century B.C., hailing from a city called Miletus in the land of Ionia, a young man arrived in the land of Babylon fresh from his journeys in Egypt. He was bright, curious and conversant with the knowledge of Babylon.

He strode through the magnificent city and came upon the construction of a series of great and beautiful gardens, which had been commissioned by King Nebuchadnezzar II in an effort to appease his wife who pined for the sights and scents of the forests in her far off homeland of Persia. The gardens had the makings of the most elaborate and extraordinary of its’ kind, and the trees and exotic plants, brought from far away lands and put forth, hung from the many marbled terraces and sculptures as if a man made mountain had sprung from earth.

As the young man observed the construction activities amongst a small group of onlookers a sudden and violent trembling rose up from the belly of the earth. The entire world seemed to rear up and roll like the deck of a sea bound ship. Tools fell and men staggered, but then, as sudden as it had begun, the earth was stable again and the ground grew solid.

People laughed nervously and collected themselves and talk began to arise of how the great God had stamped his foot upon the ground. Two older gentlemen began the discourse on how the world was once entirely covered in water until the great God, Marduk, had placed a mat on the face of the waters and covered the mat with the soil of the earth, creating the dry land. The rolling of the land must surely arise from Marduk rocking the mat, perhaps in a demonstration of power.

The young man from Miletus stepped forth to listen to this conversation, but he did not agree with the conclusions of the older men.

“Yes”, he said with alacrity, “indeed the earth was once mostly covered in water, with almost no dry land upon the seas. However it was not Marduk, nor any other God who created the dry land. The creation of the lands are a natural phenomena resulting from the interaction of the waters on the soil. I’ve just come from Egypt, where I have noticed that the earth silts up in the delta of the river Nile. I have spent time sampling the waters and measuring the amount of soil carried by them. My observations yielded to me the idea that the soil is carried from the source of the river by the waters and is deposited farther down, creating the build up of land. Over time, this silting up process must create more land over the seas. As this silting process continues over time the lands grow and expand over the top of the waters of the seas. When great waves of the sea churn beneath the earth, the land rocks like the deck of a sea faring ship. The entire process is a natural one. No Gods are involved.”

The older men stopped for a moment to solemnly regard the wonder and joy in the eyes of this energetic young man. He was almost trembling with excitement as he recounted this fantastic tale of “natural phenomenon”. They then broke into a fit of laughter, slapping themselves and the young man on the back.

“What is your name young one”, the taller of the two gentlemen asked with a smile.

“Thales”, the young man replied eagerly.

“Listen, young Thales, you’d do well to forget your own useless conjectures and put your faith in the Gods for understanding the world and its dangers. The answers to all the mysteries of the world have already been uncovered for all men to appreciate.”

“If that is so then the Gods have surely cursed me”, Thales exclaimed. “For I find no greater pleasure in life then to seek for truth in all I see. The world is a majestic puzzle, filled with riddles and illusions which hide the truth from us. I believe men can solve these riddles and lift the veils of illusion to forever uncover the gems of truth that lie beneath. I hunger and thirst for knowledge no less than I would for food or drink. I am not sated by the interventions of the great Marduk, or the mighty Zeus to explain all that is.”

“Then take our pity young Thales”, the shorter of the two gentlemen said gently and with pity in his eyes, “for surely yours is a life of torment and chaos.”

Thales simply grinned and bid farewell, continuing on his exploration of the city.

While the conclusions of Thales in regards to the creation of dry lands and the phenomena of earthquakes were not correct, his approach was revolutionary and remarkable.

Thales was the first human in recorded history to postulate that the world was not made by the Gods. Instead the world must be the result of material forces interacting in nature. These forces could be observed by man and a process could be put in place to measure the natural world and uncover it’s secrets. Through the virtues of passion, curiosity and wonder, humans could solve any enigma the cosmos has to offer.

When Thales returned to his Grecian city of Miletus, he brought with him the foundation of what we know today as the scientific method. In Ionia, he delicately sowed the seeds of astronomy and geometry; new sciences, bereft of any divine interventions, which would forever change the way human beings regard their world. He would also use his ideas of observation to embellish the art of philosophy, influencing the great minds of classical civilization. Over the ensuing few hundred years Ionia would explode in a cultivation of this new way of thinking. This explosion would have profound influence on the great minds of Athens hundreds of years later, and the great geniuses of the European Renaissance two thousand years later.

No secret of the cosmos can be kept from those who find passion in wonder.