Damasius at Athens about 582 BC and that Thales was the first sage. The same story, however, asserts that Thales emigrated to Miletus. There is also a report that he did not become a student of nature until after his political career. Much as we would like to have a date on the seven sages, we must reject these stories and the tempting date if we are to believe that Thales was a native of Miletus, predicted the eclipse, and was with Croesus in the campaign against Cyrus. Thales was said to have had close contacts with priests of Thebes and instructed them in geometry. In Diogenes Laërtius' Lives of Eminent Philosophers Chapter 1.39, Laërtius relates several stories of an expensive object that is to go to the most wise. In one version (that Laërtius credits to Callimachus in his Iambics) Bathycles of Arcadia states in his will that an expensive bowl "'should be given to him who had done most good by his wisdom.' So it was given to Thales, went the round of all the sages, and came back to Thales again. And he sent it to Apollo at Didyma, with this dedication...'Thales the Milesian, son of Examyas [dedicates this] to Delphinian Apollo after twice winning the prize from all the Greeks.'" Theories Early Greeks, and other civilizations before them, often invoked idiosyncratic explanations of natural phenomena with reference to the will of anthropomorphic gods and heroes. Instead, Thales aimed to explain natural phenomena via rational hypotheses that referenced natural processes themselves. For example, rather than assuming that earthquakes were the result of supernatural whims, Thales explained them by hypothesizing that the Earth floats on water and that earthquakes occur when the Earth is rocked by waves. Thales was a hylozoist (one who thinks that matter is alive, i.e. containing soul(s)). Aristotle wrote (De Anima 411 a7-8) of Thales: ...Thales thought all things are full of gods. According to Aristotle, Thales of Miletus understood the soul as something capable of movement when he said that “the magnet has a soul because it moves iron” Aristotle (De Anima 405 20-22). Thales, according to Aristotle, asked what was the nature (Greek arche) of the object so that it would behave in its characteristic way. Physis () comes from phyein (), "to grow", related to our word "be". (G)natura is the way a thing is "born", again with the stamp of