transient delusions and unrealities there is a world of eternal
truth.

That world is not to be discovered through the vain traditions
that have brought down to us the opinions of men who lived in the
morning of civilization, nor in the dreams of mystics who thought
that they were inspired. It is to be discovered by the
investigations of geometry, and by the practical interrogation of
Nature. These confer on humanity solid, and innumerable, and
inestimable blessings.

The day will never come when any one of the propositions of
Euclid will be denied; no one henceforth will call in question
the globular shape of the earth, as recognized by Eratosthenes;
the world will not permit the great physical inventions and
discoveries made in Alexandria and Syracuse to be forgotten. The
names of Hipparchus, of Apollonius, of Ptolemy, of Archimedes,
will be mentioned with reverence by men of every religious
profession, as long as there are men to speak.

THE MUSEUM AND MODERN SCIENCE. The Museum of Alexandria was thus
the birthplace of modern science. It is true that, long before
its establishment, astronomical observations had been made in
China and Mesopotamia; the mathematics also had been cultivated
with a certain degree of success in India. But in none of these
countries had investigation assumed a connected and consistent
form; in none was physical experimentation resorted to. The
characteristic feature of Alexandrian, as of modern science, is,
that it did not restrict itself to observation, but relied on a
practical interrogation of Nature.