"[The great Ionian sage] Thales was born about 640, probably at Miletus, reputedly of Phoenician parentage, and derived much of his education from Egypt and the Near East; here, as if personified, we see the transit of culture from East to West... To him tradition unanimously ascribed the introduction of mathematical and astronomical science into Greece... As some Greek myths made Oceanus the father of all creation, so Thales made water the first principle of all things, their original form and their final destiny... The significance of his thought lay not in reducing all things to water, but in reducing all things to one; here was the first monism in recorded history. Aristotle describes Thales’ view as materialistic; but Thales adds that every particle of the world is alive, that matter and life are inseparable and one, that there is an immortal “soul” in plants and metals as well as in animals and men; the vital power changes form, but never dies.""
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Ch. VI The Great Migration, Sec IV The Ionian Dodecapolis, 1. Miletus and the Birth of Greek Philosophy P.189-190
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