It has been already pointed out that the conditions of life in Athens were unfavourable to the growth of any “natural” science. Her practical men were absorbed in politics, her philosophers in metaphysical speculation. Neither of these classes objected to deductive science, for deduction is the chief instrument of rhetoric and is also the most interesting part of logic: but the patient and unrewarded industry, which leads to inductive science, was not to the Athenian taste. The practical men thought it profane, the philosophers vulgar. The schools of inductive science remained therefore far away from the turmoil of Athens: the observatories of the astronomers were at Cyzicus on the Hellespont or at Cnidus on the south coast of Asia Minor: the school of medicine was maintained by one illustrious family in the island of Cos. If it be objected that Aristotle lived in Athens, the answer is that Aristotle was the son of a physician, was not born or bred in Athens, never became an Athenian citizen, disliked Athens and left it, and was not able to command in Athens an audience for anything but metaphysics. The Peripatetic school was as unscientific as the Platonic. There was not yet a “university, ” to which all the world might come and learn all the knowledge that was in existence. Alexandria was the first city to deserve that name. Athens might have won it, but when Athenian politics were no more and the field was free for other pursuits, Alexandria had forestalled her.