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44-566: This work consists of an introduction and 52 brief sections on various Greek myths. The first 45 have a common format: a brief statement of a wonder tale from Greek mythology, usually followed by a claim of disbelief ("This is absurd" or "This is not likely" or "The true version is..."), and then a sequence of every-day occurrences which gave rise to the wonder-story through misunderstanding. The last seven are equally brief retellings of myth, without any rationalizing explanation. Palaephatus's date and name are uncertain; many scholars have concluded that

88-532: A principle of uniformity , that "anything which existed in the past now exists and will exist hereafter"; this he derives from the philosophers Melissus and Lamiscus of Samos . So there must be some probable series of events behind all myth; but the "poets and early historians" made them into wonderful tales to amaze their audience. Palaephatus then claims to base what follows on personal research, going to many places and asking older people what happened. A typical, if short, example of Palaephatus's method and tone

132-541: A Latin translation, later editors included one; many reprinted Cornelius Tollius 's Latin version, included with his Greek text ( Amsterdam, 1649 ). The first German-language edition was published in the 17th century. More recent editions include: Principle of uniformity Uniformitarianism , also known as the Doctrine of Uniformity or the Uniformitarian Principle , is the assumption that

176-521: A boat trip along the Berwickshire coast with John Playfair and the geologist Sir James Hall , and found a dramatic unconformity showing the same sequence at Siccar Point . Playfair later recalled that "the mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far into the abyss of time", and Hutton concluded a 1788 paper he presented at the Royal Society of Edinburgh , later rewritten as a book, with

220-527: A single idea: None of these connotations requires another, and they are not all equally inferred by uniformitarians. Gould explained Lyell's propositions in Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle (1987), stating that Lyell conflated two different types of propositions: a pair of methodological assumptions with a pair of substantive hypotheses . The four together make up Lyell's uniformitarianism. The two methodological assumptions below are accepted to be true by

264-603: A student of Aristotle about 340 BCE, who came from the area around the Hellespont to Athens, and is called the Egyptian, sometimes, because he wrote on Egypt. The only internal evidence in the surviving book are citations of the two philosophers in the introduction and two literary references; if Melissus is Melissus of Samos , he lived in the previous century, and one possible Lamiscus is a Pythagorean contemporary of Plato. The literary references are one citation of Hesiod and

308-450: A third statement of Hermes . The time at which he lived is uncertain, but he appears to have been usually placed after Phemonoe , though some writers assigned him even an earlier date. He is represented by Christodorus ( Anth. Graec. , i. p. 27, ed. Tauchnitz ) as an old bard crowned with laurel. The Suda has preserved the titles of the following poems of Palaephatus: Palaephatus of Paros , or Priene , attested to have lived in

352-476: Is a selection from all five books of the original. Palaephatus's book was first printed by Aldus Manutius in his 1505 edition of Aesop . It became popular as a school text because of its relatively simple Attic Greek, and because the Renaissance approved its approach to classical mythology; it was edited by six more editors before the nineteenth century, due to its popularity. Although Aldus did not include

396-493: Is considered to have been a slow, gradual process, punctuated by occasional natural catastrophic events. Abraham Gottlob Werner (1749–1817) proposed Neptunism , where strata represented deposits from shrinking seas precipitated onto primordial rocks such as granite . In 1785 James Hutton proposed an opposing, self-maintaining infinite cycle based on natural history and not on the Biblical account. The solid parts of

440-467: Is his handling of Callisto : As is usual in Palaephatus, the miracle is told baldly and without context, and the action of the gods is not mentioned; in the traditional story, Artemis transforms Callisto because of Callisto's unfaithfulness as a priestess. Palaephatus rarely mentions the gods, and when he discusses Actaeon , his statement of disbelief is: "Artemis can do whatever she wants, yet it

484-421: Is in contrast with the previous two philosophical assumptions that come before one can do science and so cannot be tested or falsified by science. Stephen Jay Gould 's first scientific paper, "Is uniformitarianism necessary?" (1965), reduced these four assumptions to two. He dismissed the first principle, which asserted spatial and temporal invariance of natural laws, as no longer an issue of debate. He rejected

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528-489: Is not true that a man became a deer or a deer a man" (§6, tr. Stern); his principle of uniformity applies to human beings. Jacob Stern distinguishes this from the more wide-ranging rationalism of Euhemerus : Palaephatus retains Callisto and Actaeon as historic human beings; rationalism extended to the gods can make them deified human beings or personifications of natural forces or of the passions, but does not leave them gods. Palaephatus uses four principal devices for explaining

572-408: Is quoted by him as the work of Abydenus ; but Abydenus is that author's name, not the adjective meaning "from Abydos".) Palaephatus, an Egyptian or Athenian, and a grammarian, as he is described by Suidas, who assigns to him the following works: Of these, the first Palaephatus is, like Phemonoe, entirely legendary; modern scholars regard the other three as different literary traditions relating to

616-474: Is to say, of interpreting the past by means of the processes that are seen going on at the present day, so long as we remember that the periodic catastrophe is one of those processes. Those periodic catastrophes make more showing in the stratigraphical record than we have hitherto assumed." Modern geologists do not apply uniformitarianism in the same way as Lyell. They question if rates of processes were uniform through time and only those values measured during

660-413: Is uncertain, but if he wrote, as it appears, New Comedy , he should be 3rd or 2nd century BCE.) Aelius Theon , the rhetorician, spends a chapter discussing Palaephatus' rationalism, using several of the examples in our text of Palaephatus; other, later, authors cite Palaephatus for instances not in our text: Pseudo-Nonnus , the author of some commentaries on Gregory Nazianzen , attributes to Palaephatus

704-448: The Suda quotes the authority of Philo, Peri paradoxou historias , and of Theodorus of Ilium , Troica , Book 2. Suidas gives the titles of the following works of Palaephatus: Cypriaca , Deliaca , Attica , Arabica . (Smith explains that some writers believe that this Palaephatus of Abydos wrote the fragment on Assyrian history, which is preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea , and which

748-500: The first book of Palaephatus, implying that there were more. Jacob Stern, the modern editor, concludes from this, and the missing references, that Palaephatus was originally in five books, and was condensed down to one sometime before the publication of the Suda , although a fuller copy survived so Eustathius could see it in the twelfth century. There are a dozen manuscripts of the present text, differing in length and in order, dating from

792-459: The history of geology are to be accepted. The present may not be a long enough key to penetrating the deep lock of the past. Geologic processes may have been active at different rates in the past that humans have not observed. "By force of popularity, uniformity of rate has persisted to our present day. For more than a century, Lyell's rhetoric conflating axiom with hypotheses has descended in unmodified form. Many geologists have been stifled by

836-415: The affected areas. In Britain, geologists adapted this idea into " diluvial theory " which proposed repeated worldwide annihilation and creation of new fixed species adapted to a changed environment, initially identifying the most recent catastrophe as the biblical flood . From 1830 to 1833 Charles Lyell 's multi-volume Principles of Geology was published. The work's subtitle was "An attempt to explain

880-582: The author of On Incredible Things . The Troica did once exist, and was cited in antiquity for geographical information on the people of the Trojan War, the Troad itself, and the surrounding area of Asia Minor; ancient authors cited the work's seventh and ninth books, so it must have been fairly long. If the Artaxerxes mentioned by the Suda is Artaxerxes III Ochus , these data are all compatible with

924-445: The belief that proper methodology includes an a priori commitment to gradual change, and by a preference for explaining large-scale phenomena as the concatenation of innumerable tiny changes." The current consensus is that Earth's history is a slow, gradual process punctuated by occasional natural catastrophic events that have affected Earth and its inhabitants. In practice it is reduced from Lyell's conflation, or blending, to simply

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968-461: The explanation that Cyclopes were so called because they lived in a round island; Eustathius of Thessalonica ascribes to him the explanation that Laomedon secured the help of Poseidon and Apollo in building the walls of Troy because he seized their temple treasuries to pay his workmen. Some of the references in the Suda say that Palaephatus' work on myths was in five books, some that it was one book; Eusebius , Jerome , and Orosius all write of

1012-450: The following definition: If language was normally acquired in the past in the same way as it is today – usually by native acquisition in early childhood – and if it was used in the same ways – to transmit information, to express solidarity with family, friends, and neighbors, to mark one's social position, etc. – then it must have had the same general structure and organization in the past as it does today, and it must have changed in

1056-474: The former changes of the Earth's surface by reference to causes now in operation". He drew his explanations from field studies conducted directly before he went to work on the founding geology text, and developed Hutton's idea that the earth was shaped entirely by slow-moving forces still in operation today, acting over a very long period of time. The terms uniformitarianism for this idea, and catastrophism for

1100-403: The inorganic world, there are eight different systems of beliefs in the development of the terrestrial sphere. All geoscientists stand by the principle of uniformity of law. Most, but not all, are directed by the principle of simplicity. All make definite assertions about the quality of rate and state in the inorganic realm. Lyell's uniformitarianism is a family of four related propositions, not

1144-695: The late 19th and early 20th centuries, most geologists took this interpretation to mean that catastrophic events are not important in geologic time; one example of this is the debate of the formation of the Channeled Scablands due to the catastrophic Missoula glacial outburst floods. An important result of this debate and others was the re-clarification that, while the same principles operate in geologic time, catastrophic events that are infrequent on human time-scales can have important consequences in geologic history. Derek Ager has noted that "geologists do not deny uniformitarianism in its true sense, that

1188-606: The majority of scientists and geologists. Gould claims that these philosophical propositions must be assumed before you can proceed as a scientist doing science. "You cannot go to a rocky outcrop and observe either the constancy of nature's laws or the working of unknown processes. It works the other way around." You first assume these propositions and "then you go to the outcrop." The substantive hypotheses were controversial and, in some cases, accepted by few. These hypotheses are judged true or false on empirical grounds through scientific observation and repeated experimental data. This

1232-413: The name "Palaephatus" is a pseudonym. What little evidence is extant suggests that the author was likely active during the late fourth century BCE. Palaephatus's introduction sets his approach between those who believe everything that is said to them and those more subtle minds who believe that none of Greek mythology ever happened. He sets up two premises: that every story derives from some past event, and

1276-467: The opposing viewpoint, was coined by William Whewell in a review of Lyell's book. Principles of Geology was the most influential geological work in the middle of the 19th century. Geoscientists support diverse systems of Earth history, the nature of which rests on a certain mixture of views about the process, control, rate, and state which are preferred. Because geologists and geomorphologists tend to adopt opposite views over process, rate, and state in

1320-465: The phrase "we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end". Both Playfair and Hall wrote their own books on the theory, and for decades robust debate continued between Hutton's supporters and the Neptunists. Georges Cuvier 's paleontological work in the 1790s, which established the reality of extinction , explained this by local catastrophes, after which other fixed species repopulated

1364-414: The present land appear in general, to have been composed of the productions of the sea, and of other materials similar to those now found upon the shores. Hence we find a reason to conclude: Hence we are led to conclude, that the greater part of our land, if not the whole had been produced by operations natural to this globe; but that in order to make this land a permanent body, resisting the operations of

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1408-474: The presentation of Alcestis , which is quite similar to Euripides ' Alcestis . The comic poet Athenion has a scene in which an interlocutor praises a cook as a new Palaephatus, to which the cook replies by explaining the benefits bestowed on mankind by the first inventor of cooking, who replaced cannibalism by animal sacrifice and roast meat; this alludes to the "first inventor" theories still reflected in our text of Palaephatus. (Unfortunately, Athenion's date

1452-415: The presumed primordial rock had been molten after the strata had formed. He had read about angular unconformities as interpreted by Neptunists, and found an unconformity at Jedburgh where layers of greywacke in the lower layers of the cliff face have been tilted almost vertically before being eroded to form a level plane, under horizontal layers of Old Red Sandstone . In the spring of 1788 he took

1496-408: The previous century for no more. The only accounts of the life of any Palaephatus are four entries in the Suda (pi 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 ), a Byzantine biographical dictionary, compiled about 1000 AD: Palaephatus of Athens , an epic poet, to whom a mythical origin was assigned. According to some he was a son of Actaeus and Boeo , according to others of Iocles and Metaneira , and according to

1540-474: The same natural laws and processes that operate in our present-day scientific observations have always operated in the universe in the past and apply everywhere in the universe. It refers to invariance in the metaphysical principles underpinning science, such as the constancy of cause and effect throughout space-time, but has also been used to describe spatiotemporal invariance of physical laws . Though an unprovable postulate that cannot be verified using

1584-545: The same rate now as they have always done, though many modern geologists no longer hold to a strict gradualism. Coined by William Whewell , uniformitarianism was originally proposed in contrast to catastrophism by British naturalists in the late 18th century, starting with the work of the geologist James Hutton in his many books including Theory of the Earth . Hutton's work was later refined by scientist John Playfair and popularised by geologist Charles Lyell 's Principles of Geology in 1830. Today, Earth's history

1628-473: The same ways as it does today. The principle is known in linguistics, after William Labov and associates, as the Uniformitarian Principle or Unifomitarian Hypothesis. Palaephatus of Abydus Palaephatus of Abydus ( Ancient Greek : Παλαίφατος ο Αβυδηνός ) was a historiographer from the 4th century BC, hailing from Abydus in Egypt. In his youth, he was a lover of Aristotle . The Suda mentions

1672-405: The scientific method, some consider that uniformitarianism should be a required first principle in scientific research. Other scientists disagree and consider that nature is not absolutely uniform, even though it does exhibit certain regularities. In geology , uniformitarianism has included the gradualistic concept that "the present is the key to the past" and that geological events occur at

1716-442: The third (uniformity of rate) as an unjustified limitation on scientific inquiry, as it constrains past geologic rates and conditions to those of the present. So, Lyell's uniformitarianism was deemed unnecessary. Uniformitarianism was proposed in contrast to catastrophism , which states that the distant past "consisted of epochs of paroxysmal and catastrophic action interposed between periods of comparative tranquility" Especially in

1760-438: The thirteenth through sixteenth century. How much of it derives from Palaephatus himself is open to question, although there is general agreement that the seven chapters of straight unrationalized mythology at the end are not. Festa, who edited the text in 1902, believed that Palaephatian texts became a genre , and our present text is a congeries of texts in that genre, most not by Palaephatus himself; Jacob Stern believes that this

1804-477: The time of Artaxerxes , however it is unknown which specific ruler this was. Suidas attributes to him the five books of Incredible Things (also five books of On Troy ), but adds that many persons assigned this work to Palaephatus of Athens. Palaephatus of Abydos , an historian who lived in the time of Alexander the Great , and is stated to have been loved ( παιδικά ) by the philosopher Aristotle , for which

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1848-413: The two philosophical assumptions. This is also known as the principle of geological actualism, which states that all past geological action was like all present geological action. The principle of actualism is the cornerstone of paleoecology . Uniformitarianism has also been applied in historical linguistics , where it is considered a foundational principle of the field. Linguist Donald Ringe gives

1892-474: The waters, two things had been required; Hutton then sought evidence to support his idea that there must have been repeated cycles, each involving deposition on the seabed , uplift with tilting and erosion , and then moving undersea again for further layers to be deposited. At Glen Tilt in the Cairngorm mountains he found granite penetrating metamorphic schists , in a way which indicated to him that

1936-475: The wonders of myth, and a number of minor devices: Palaephatus is a very rare name, and many scholars have concluded that it is a pseudonym; as an adjective in epic poetry, it meant of ancient fame ; it could also mean speaker of old tales . If Palaephatus wrote (as is perhaps most likely) in Athens in the fourth century BC, rationalizing Greek mythology could be dangerous; Anaxagoras had been sent into exile in

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