General History for Colleges and High Schools Part 21

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOCRATES.]

Socrates was unfortunate in his domestic relations. Xanthippe, his wife, seems to have been of a practical turn of mind, and unable to sympathize with the abstracted ways of her husband.

This great philosopher believed that the proper study of mankind is man, his favorite maxim being "Know Thyself"; hence he is said to have brought philosophy from the heavens and introduced it to the homes of men.

Socrates held the Sophists in aversion, and in opposition to their selfish expediency taught the purest system of morals that the world had yet known, and which has been surpa.s.sed only by the precepts of the Great Teacher. He thought himself to be restrained from entering upon what was inexpedient or wrong by a tutelary spirit. He believed in the immortality of the soul and in a Supreme Ruler of the universe, but sometimes spoke slightingly of the temples and the popular deities. This led to his prosecution on the double charge of blasphemy and of corrupting the Athenian youth. The fact that Alcibiades had been his pupil was used to prove the demoralizing tendency of his teachings. He was condemned to drink the fatal hemlock. The night before his death he spent with his disciples, discoursing on the immortality of the soul.

PLATO.--Plato (429-348 B.C.), "the broad-browed," was a philosopher of n.o.ble birth, before whom in youth a brilliant career in the world of Greek affairs opened; but, coming under the influence of Socrates, he resolved to give up all his prospects in politics and devote himself to philosophy.

Upon the condemnation and death of his master he went into voluntary exile. In many lands he gathered knowledge and met with varied experiences. He visited Sicily, where he was so unfortunate as to call upon himself the resentment of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, through having worsted him in an argument, and also by an uncourtly plainness of speech. The king caused him to be sold into slavery as a prisoner of war.

Being ransomed by a friend, he found his way to his native Athens, and established a school of philosophy in the Academy, a public garden close to Athens. Here amid the disciples that thronged to his lectures, he pa.s.sed the greater part of his long life,--he died 348 B.C., at the age of eighty-one years,--laboring incessantly upon the great works that bear his name.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATO.]

Plato imitated in his writings the method of Socrates in conversation. The discourse is carried on by questions and answers, hence the term _Dialogues_ that attaches to his works. He attributes to his master, Socrates, much of the philosophy that he teaches: yet his _Dialogues_ are all deeply tinged with his own genius and thought. In the _Republic_ Plato portrays his conception of an ideal state. He was opposed to the republic of Athens, and his system, in some of its main features, was singularly like the Feudal System of Mediaeval Europe.

The _Phaedo_ is a record of the last conversation of Socrates with his disciples--an immortal argument for the immortality of the soul.

Plato believed not only in a future life (post-existence), but also in pre-existence; teaching that the ideas of reason, or our intuitions, are reminiscences of a past experience. [Footnote: In the following lines from Wordsworth we catch a glimpse of Plato's doctrine of pre-existence:-- "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The soul that rises with us, our life's star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, Nor yet in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory, do we come From G.o.d, who is our home."--_Ode on Immortality_.] Plato's doctrines have exerted a profound influence upon all schools of thought and philosophies since his day. In some of his precepts he made a close approach to the teachings of Christianity. "We ought to become like G.o.d,"

he said, "as far as this is possible; and to become like Him is to become holy and just and wise."

ARISTOTLE.--As Socrates was surpa.s.sed by his pupil Plato, so in turn was Plato excelled in certain respects by his disciple Aristotle, "the master of those who know." In him the philosophical genius of the h.e.l.lenic intellect reached its culmination. He was born in the Macedonian city of Stagira (384 B.C.), and hence is frequently called the "Stagirite." As in the case of Socrates, his personal appearance gave no promise of the philosopher. His teacher, Plato, however, recognized the genius of his pupil, and called him the "Mind of the school."

After studying for twenty years in the school of Plato, Aristotle became the preceptor of Alexander the Great. When Philip invited him to become the tutor of his son, he gracefully complimented the philosopher by saying in his letter that he was grateful to the G.o.ds that the prince was born in the same age with him. Alexander became the liberal patron of his tutor, and aided him in his scientific studies by sending him large collections of plants and animals, gathered on his distant expeditions.

At Athens the great philosopher delivered his lectures while walking about beneath the trees and porticoes of the Lyceum; hence the term _peripatetic_ (from the Greek _peripatein_, "to walk about") applied to his philosophy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARISTOTLE.]

Among the productions of his fertile intellect are works on rhetoric, logic, poetry, morals and politics, physics and metaphysics. For centuries his works were studied and copied and commented upon by both European and Asiatic scholars, in the schools of Athens and Rome, of Alexandria and Constantinople. Until the time of Bacon in England, for nearly two thousand years, Aristotle ruled over the realm of mind with a despotic sway. All teachers and philosophers acknowledged him as their guide and master.

ZENO AND THE STOICS.--We are now approaching the period when the political life of h.e.l.las was failing, and was being fast overshadowed by the greatness of Rome. But the intellectual life of the Greek race was by no means eclipsed by the calamity that ended its political existence. For centuries after that event the poets, scholars, and philosophers of this intellectual people led a brilliant career in the schools and universities of the Roman world.

From among all the philosophers of this long period, we can select for brief mention only a few. And first we shall speak of Zeno and Epicurus, who are noted as founders of schools of philosophy that exerted a vast influence upon both the thought and the conduct of many centuries.

Zeno, founder of the celebrated school of the Stoics, lived in the third century before our era (about 362-264). He taught at Athens in a public porch (in Greek, _stoa_), from which circ.u.mstance comes the name applied to his disciples.

The Stoical philosophy was the outgrowth, in part at least, of that of the Cynics, a sect of most rigid and austere morals. The typical representative of this sect is found in Diogenes, who lived, so the story goes, in a tub, and went about Athens by daylight with a lantern, in search, as he said, of a _man_. The Cynics were simply a race of pagan hermits.

The Stoics inculcated virtue for the sake of itself. They believed--and it would be very difficult to frame a better creed--that "man's chief business here is to do his duty." They schooled themselves to bear with perfect composure any lot that destiny might appoint. Any sign of emotion on account of calamity was considered unmanly and unphilosophical. Thus, when told of the sudden death of his son, the Stoic replied, "Well, I never imagined that I had given life to an immortal."

Stoicism became a favorite system of thought with certain cla.s.ses of the Romans, and under its teachings and doctrines were nourished some of the purest and loftiest characters produced by the pagan world. It numbered among its representatives, in later times, the ill.u.s.trious Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, and the scarcely less renowned and equally virtuous slave Epictetus. In many of its teachings it antic.i.p.ated Christian doctrines, and was, in the philosophical world, a very important preparation for Christianity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EPICURUS.]

EPICURUS AND THE EPICUREANS.--Epicurus (342-270 B.C.), who was a contemporary of Zeno, taught, in opposition to the Stoics, that _pleasure_ is the highest good. He recommended virtue, indeed, but only as a means for the attainment of pleasure; whereas the Stoics made virtue an end in itself. In other words, Epicurus said, "Be virtuous, because virtue will bring you the greatest amount of happiness"; Zeno said, "Be virtuous, because you ought to be."

Epicurus had many followers in Greece, and his doctrines were eagerly embraced by many among the Romans during the corrupt period of the Roman empire. Many of these disciples carried the doctrines of their master to an excess that he himself would have been the first to condemn. Allowing full indulgence to every appet.i.te and pa.s.sion, their whole philosophy was expressed in the proverb, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." No pure or exalted life could be nourished in the unwholesome atmosphere of such a philosophy. Epicureanism never produced a single great character.

THE SKEPTICS; PYRRHO.--About the beginning of the third century B.C.

skepticism became widespread in Greece. It seemed as though men were losing faith in everything. Many circ.u.mstances had worked together in bringing about this state of universal unbelief. A wider knowledge of the world had caused many to lose their faith in the myths and legends of the old mythologies. The existence of so many opposing systems of philosophy caused men to doubt the truth of any of them. Many thoughtful minds were hopelessly asking, "What is truth?"

Pyrrho (about 360-270 B.C.) was the doubting Thomas of the Greeks. He questioned everything, and declared that the great problems of the universe could not be solved. He a.s.serted that it was the duty of man, and the part of wisdom, to entertain no positive judgment on any matter, and thus to ensure serenity and peace of mind.

The disciples of Pyrrho went to absurd lengths in their skepticism, some of them even saying that they a.s.serted nothing, not even that they a.s.serted nothing. They doubted whether they doubted.

THE NEO-PLATONISTS.--Neo-Platonism was a blending of Greek philosophy and Oriental mysticism. It has been well called the "despair of reason,"

because it abandoned all hope of man's ever being able to attain the _highest_ knowledge through reason alone, and looked for a Revelation. The centre of this last movement in Greek philosophical thought was Alexandria in Egypt, the meeting-place, in the closing centuries of the ancient world, of the East and the West.

Philo the Jew (b. about 30 B.C.), who labored to harmonize Hebrew doctrines with the teachings of Plato, was the forerunner of the Neo- Platonists. But the greatest of the school was Plotinus (A.D. 204-269), who spent the last years of his life at Rome, where he was a great favorite.

CONFLICT BETWEEN NEO-PLATONISM AND CHRISTIANITY.--While the Neo-Platonists were laboring to restore, in modified form, the ancient Greek philosophy and wors.h.i.+p, the teachers of Christianity were fast winning the world over to a new faith. The two systems came into deadly antagonism. Christianity triumphed. The gifted and beautiful Hypatia, almost the last representative of the old system of speculation and belief, was torn to pieces in the streets of Alexandria by a mob of fanatic Christian monks (A.D. 415). Finally the Roman emperor Justinian forbade the pagan philosophers to teach their doctrines (A.D. 529). This imperial edict closed forever the Greek schools, in which for more than a thousand years the world had received instruction upon the loftiest themes that can engage the human mind. The Greek philosophers, as living, personal teachers, had finished their work; but their systems of thought will never cease to attract and influence the best minds of the race.

SCIENCE AMONG THE GREEKS.

The contributions of the Greek observers to the physical sciences have laid us under no small obligation to them. Some of those whom we have cla.s.sed as philosophers, were careful students of nature, and might be called scientists. The great philosopher Aristotle wrote some valuable works on anatomy and natural history. From his time onward the sciences were pursued with much zeal and success. Especially did the later Greeks do much good and lasting work in the mathematical sciences.

MATHEMATICS: EUCLID AND ARCHIMEDES.--Alexandria, in Egypt, became the seat of the most celebrated school of mathematics of antiquity. Here, under Ptolemy Lagus, flourished Euclid, the great geometer, whose work forms the basis of the science of geometry as taught in our schools at the present time. Ptolemy himself was his pupil. The royal student, however, seems to have disliked the severe application required to master the problems of Euclid, and asked his teacher if there was not some easier way. Euclid replied, "There is no royal road to geometry."

In the third century B.C., Syracuse, in Sicily, was the home of Archimedes, the greatest mathematician that the Grecian world produced.

ASTRONOMY.--Among ancient Greek astronomers, Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Claudius Ptolemy are distinguished.

Aristarchus of Samos, who lived in the third century B.C., held that the earth revolves about the sun as a fixed centre, and rotates on its own axis. He was the Greek Copernicus. But his theory was rejected by his contemporaries and successors.

Hipparchus, who flourished about the middle of the second century B.C., was, through his careful observations, the real founder of scientific astronomy. He calculated eclipses, catalogued the stars, and wrote several astronomical works of a really scientific character.

Claudius Ptolemy lived in Egypt about the middle of the second century after Christ. His great reputation is due not so much to his superior genius as to the fortunate circ.u.mstance that a vast work compiled by him, preserved and transmitted to later times almost all the knowledge of the ancients on astronomical and geographical subjects. In this way it has happened that his name has become attached to various doctrines and views respecting the universe, though these probably were not originated by him.

The phrase _Ptolemaic system_, however, links his name inseparably with that conception of the solar system set forth in his works, which continued to be the received theory from his time until Copernicus-- fourteen centuries later.

Ptolemy combated the theory of Aristarchus in regard to the rotation and revolution of the earth; yet he believed the earth to be a globe, and supported this view by exactly the same arguments that we to-day use to prove the doctrine.

CHAPTER XXI.

SOCIAL LIFE OF THE GREEKS.

EDUCATION.--Education at Sparta, where it was chiefly gymnastic, as we have seen (p. 115), was a state affair; but at Athens and throughout Greece generally, the youth were trained in private schools. These schools were of all grades, ranging from those kept by the most obscure teachers, who gathered their pupils in some recess of the street, to those established in the Athenian Academy and Lyceum by such philosophers as Plato and Aristotle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A GREEK SCHOOL. (After a vase-painting.)]

It was only the boys who received education. These Grecian boys, Professor Mahaffy imagines, were "the most attractive the world has ever seen." At all events, we may believe that they were trained more carefully and delicately than the youth among any other people before or since the days of h.e.l.lenic culture.

In the nursery, the boy was taught the beautiful myths and stories of the national mythology. At about seven he entered school, being led to and from the place of training by an old slave, who bore the name of _pedagogue_, which in Greek means a guide or leader of boys--not a teacher. His studies were grammar, music, and gymnastics, the aim of the course being to secure a symmetrical development of mind and body alike.

Grammar included reading, writing, and arithmetic; music, which embraced a wide range of mental accomplishments, trained the boy to appreciate the masterpieces of the great poets, to contribute his part to the musical diversions of private entertainments, and to join in the sacred choruses and in the paean of the battlefield. The exercises of the palestrae and the gymnasia trained him for the Olympic contests, or for those sterner hand- to-hand battle-struggles, in which so much depended upon personal strength and dexterity.