Excerpt from The Open Court, Vol. 29: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea; December, 1915 But, whatever its origin, this conception of water as a first principle is noteworthy asit marks the beginning of that monistic tendency which seeks to unify our explanations of the phenomena of nature. It matters not whether the philosophers who came after Thales substituted the principles of fire or air for that of water, or whether they sought other explanations in the play of atoms or the law of numbers, it was Thales who first adopted the idea of one universal principle or law in the interpretation of nature and for this service he deserves the distinction of being called the foun der of philosophy. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.