the high esteem which the Roman people entertained for this excellent writer, in erecting a statue to his honour*.

*The epigram is thus translated by Dryden :-
"Boeotian Plutarch, to thy deathless praise

Does martial Rome this graceful statue raise;
Because both Greece and she thy fame have shared,
Their heroes written, and their lives compared.
But thou thyself could never write thy own;
Their lives have parallels, but thine has none."

154

CHAPTER IX.

GREEK PHILOSOPHY-Ionic Sect-Thales- AnaximanderAnaximenes-Anaxagoras-Italic Sect-Pythagoras-Empedocles, &c.—Eleatic Sect-Zeno-Leucippus-Democritus Heraclitus. Socrates- Cyrenaic Sect- Aristippus. Cynics Diogenes - Megaric Sect - Plato - Peripatetics— Aristotle Sceptics-Pyrrho-Stoics-Epicureans-Reflections.

I HAVE already remarked that one considerable effect of the public games and festivals of the Greeks was the propagation and advancement of the literary spirit. The Olympic and other solemn games of the Greeks were not only the field of martial and athletic exercises, but of the contests for the palm of literature. Those immense assemblies were the stated resort of the poets, the historians, the rhapsodists, and even the philosophers.

After the days of Homer and Hesiod, the increasing relish for poetical composition gave rise to a set of men termed rhapsodists, whose original employment was to travel from one city to another, frequenting public entertainments and solemn festivals, and reciting the works of the poets which they had committed to memory. As the early poets were the first teachers of the sciences, those rhapsodists became commentators on their works, and expositors of their doctrines. The youth, who resorted to them for instruction, dignified their masters with the title of Sophists or professors of

wisdom, and these sophists soon became the founders of different sects or schools of philosophy.

The history of the ancient philosophy, if we consider how small a portion it embraced of useful knowledge, and yet how ardent the zeal of its teachers, and how keen the controversies of the different sects, affords on the whole a mortifying picture of the caprice and weakness of the human mind: but on these very accounts, no subject of contemplation is more fitted to subdue in man those arrogant ideas of his own abilities, and of the all-sufficiency of his intellectual powers to subject the whole phenomena both of the natural

and moral world to his limited reason and understanding.

The most ancient school of philosophy was that founded by Thales of Miletus, about 640 years before the Christian era, and termed the Ionic sect, from the country of its founder. Thales is said to have learned great part of his knowledge in Egypt, as the ancients were fond of attributing the rudiments of all wisdom to that happy quarter. He became celebrated for his knowledge in geometry and astronomy; but the former of these sciences must be supposed to have been at that time in mere infancy, when one of Thales's discoveries is said to have been, that all right lines passing through the centre of a circle divide it into two equal parts. Yet Thales made some bold and fortunate conjectures in the science of astronomy. He conjectured this earth to be a sphere, and that it revolved round the sun. He believed the fixed stars to be so many suns encircled with other planets like our earth; he believed the moon's

light to be a reflection of the sun's from a solid surface and if we may trust the testimony of ancient authors, he was able to calculate eclipses, and actually predicted that famous eclipse of the sun 601 years before the birth of Christ, which separated the armies of the Medes and Lydians at the moment of an engagement. The metaphysical opinions of Thales are but imperfectly known. He supposed the world to be framed by the Deity out of the original element of water, and animated by his essence as the body is by the soul; that the Deity therefore resided in every portion of space; and that this world was only a great temple, where the sight of everything around him reminded man of that Great Being which inhabited and pervaded it*. As a specimen of the moral doctrines of Thales we have the following excellent opinions and precepts: "Neither the crimes of bad men, nor even their thoughts, are concealed from the Gods. Health of body, a moderate fortune, and a cultivated mind, are the chief ingredients of happiness. Parents may expect from their children that obedience which they themselves paid to their parents. Stop the mouth of slander by prudence. Take care not to commit the same fault yourself which you censure in others."

The disciples of the ancient philosophers frequently made bold innovations on the doctrines of their masters. Anaximander, the disciple and suc

*Thales-homines existimare oportere, omnia quæ cernerent Deorum esse plena; fore enim omnes castiores, velutique in fanis essent, maximè religiosi.-Cic. de Nat. Deor. 1. 2.

Diog. Laert. in Vita Thal.

cessor of Thales, who first committed the tenets of the Ionic school to writing, taught that all things are in a state of continual change; that there is a constant succession of worlds; and that while some are daily tending to dissolution, others are forming. Anaximander is said to have been the first constructor of the sphere, to have delineated the limits of the earth and sea, and to have invented the gnomon for pointing the hours by the shadow on the sun-dial. His contemporary Anaximenes, of the same school, believed the Divinity to reside in the air, which he likewise made to be the original and constituent principle of all the other elements.

The most intelligible and rational opinions of any philosopher of this school were those of Anaxagoras; and, as deviating most from the vulgar errors and superstition, he was accused of impiety. He taught that the first efficient principle of all things was an immaterial and intelligent Being, existing from all eternity; that the substratum, or subject of his operations, was matter, which likewise existed from all eternity in a chaotic state, comprehending the confused rudiments of all different substances, which the intelligent mind of the Creator first separated, and then combined for the formation of the universe, and of all bodies, animate and inanimate. It is true that Thales propagated the doctrine of an eternal mind, the Creator and Ruler of the universe; but he, like most of the ancient philosophers, seemed to consider this mind as united to matter, which was animated by it, as the body is by the soul. Anaxagoras regarded the mind of the Creator to be