ABSTRACT
Thales’ theory about the periodic flooding of the Nile perforce lacked empirical confirmation, while his ruminations about water, seeds, earthquakes, and related phenomena were supported by a vast amount of observation data. The relevant point is, again, that the phenomenon of attraction or repulsion of ‘magnetic’ objects had for centuries struck the imagination and aroused curiosity, but Thales is said to have been the first who tried to understand it. Thales has made a first attempt at a general approach to surprising phenomena which avoids recourse to divine magic, but instead questions the reliability of our own intuitive distinctions, in this case between animate and inert objects. Thales simply tried to understand something about three typically terrestrial phenomena, necessarily remaining cautious about the success of his own conjectures.
