The Old Roman World : the Grandeur and Failure of Its Civilization Part 22

Diogenes of Apollonia, in Crete, one of his disciples, born B.C. 460, also believed that air was the principle of the universe, but he imputed to it an intellectual energy, yet without recognizing any distinction between mind and matter. [Footnote: Diog. Laert., ii. 3; Bayle, _Dict.

Hist. et Crit._] He made air and the soul identical. "For," says he, "man and all other animals breathe and live by means of the air, and therein consists their soul." [Footnote: Ritter, b. iii. c. 3.] And as it is the primary being from which all is derived, it is necessarily an eternal and imperishable body; but, as _soul_, it is also endued with consciousness. Diogenes thus refers the origin of the world to an intelligent being--to a soul which knows and vivifies. Anaximenes regarded air as having Life. Diogenes saw in it also Intelligence. Thus philosophy advanced step by step, though still groping in the dark; for the origin of all things, according to Diogenes, must exist in _Intelligence_.

[Sidenote: Herac.l.i.tus--Fire the principle of life.]

Herac.l.i.tus of Ephesus, cla.s.sed by Ritter among the Ionian philosophers, was born B.C. 503. Like others of his school, he sought a physical ground for all phenomena. The elemental principle he regarded as _fire_, since all things are convertible into it. In one of its modifications, this fire, or fluid, self-kindled, permeating every thing as the soul or principle of life, is endowed with intelligence and powers of ceaseless activity. "If Anaximenes discovered that he had within him a power and principle which ruled over all the acts and functions of his bodily frame, Herac.l.i.tus found that there was life within him which he could not call his own, and yet it was, in the very highest sense, _himself_, so that without it he would have been a poor, helpless, isolated creature; a universal life which connected him with his fellow-men,--with the absolute source and original fountain of life." [Footnote: Maurice, _Moral and Metaph. Phil._] "He proclaimed the absolute vitality of nature, the endless change of matter, the mutability and perishability of all individual things in contrast with the eternal Being--the supreme harmony which rules over all." [Footnote: Lewes, _Biog. Hist. of Phil._] To trace the divine energy of life in all things was the general problem of his philosophy, and this spirit was akin to the pantheism of the East. But he was one of the greatest speculative intellects that preceded Plato, and of all the physical theorists arrived nearest to spiritual truth. He taught the germs of what was afterwards more completely developed. "From his theory of perpetual fluxion Plato derived the necessity of seeking a stable basis for the universal system in his world of ideas." [Footnote: Archer Butler, series i. lect. v.; Hegel, _Gesch. D. Phil._, i. p. 334.]

Anaxagoras, the most famous of the Ionian philosophers, was born B.C.

500, and belonged to a rich and n.o.ble family. Regarding philosophy as the n.o.blest pursuit of earth, he abandoned his inheritance for the study of nature. He went to Athens in the most brilliant period of her history, and had Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates for pupils. He taught that the great moving force of nature was intellect [Greek: nous]. Intelligence was the cause of the world and of order, and mind was the principle of motion; yet this intelligence was not a moral intelligence, but simply the _primum mobile_--the all-knowing motive force by which the order of nature is effected. He thus laid the foundation of a new system which, under the Attic philosophers, sought to explain nature, not by regarding matter in its different forms, as the cause of all things, but rather mind, thought, intelligence, which both knows and acts--a grand conception unrivaled in ancient speculation. This explanation of material phenomena by intellectual causes was his peculiar merit, and places him in a very high rank among the thinkers of the world.

Moreover, he recognized the reason as the only faculty by which we become cognizant of truth, the senses being too weak to discover the real component particles of things. Like all the great inquirers, he was impressed with the limited degree of positive knowledge, compared with what there is to be learned. "Nothing," says he, "can be known; nothing is certain; sense is limited, intellect is weak, life is short"

[Footnote: Cicero, _Qu. Ac._, i. 12.]--the complaint, not of a skeptic, but of a man overwhelmed with the sense of his incapacity to solve the problems which arose before his active mind. [Footnote: Lucret., lib. i. 834-875.] Anaxagoras thought that this spirit [Greek: Nous] gave to all those material atoms, which, in the beginning of the world, lay in disorder, the impulse by which they took the forms of individual things, and that this impulse was given in a circular direction.

Hence that the sun, moon, and stars, and even the air, are constantly moving in a circle. [Footnote: Muller, _Hist. Lit. of Greece_, chap. xvii.]

[Sidenote: Anaximander thought that the Infinite is the origin of things.]

In the mean time another sect of philosophers arose, who like the Ionians, sought to explain nature, but by a different method.

Anaximander, born B.C. 610, was one of the original mathematicians of Greece, yet, like Pythagoras and Thales, speculated on the beginning of things. His principle was that the _Infinite_ is the origin of all things.

He used the word [Greek: archae] to denote the material out of which all things were formed, as the everlasting and divine. [Footnote: Arist., _Phy_., iii. 4.] The idea of elevating an abstraction into a great first cause is certainly puerile, nor is it easy to understand his meaning, other than that the abstract has a higher significance than the concrete. The speculations of Thales tended toward discovering the material const.i.tution of the universe, upon an _induction_ from observed facts, and thus made water to be the origin of all things.

Anaximander, accustomed to view things in the abstract, could not accept so concrete a thing as water; his speculations tended toward mathematics, to the science of pure _deduction_. The primary being is a unity, one in all, comprising within itself the multiplicity of elements from which all mundane things are composed. It is only in infinity that the perpetual changes of things can take place. [Footnote: Diog. Laert., i. 119; Cicero, _Tus. Qu._, i. 16; Tennemann, p. 1, ch. i. Sec. 86.] This original but obscure thinker prepared the way for Pythagoras.

[Sidenote: Pythagoras--Number the essence of things.]

[Sidenote: Order and harmony in nature.]

This philosopher and mathematician, born about the year B.C. 570, is one of the great names of antiquity; but his life is shrouded in dim magnificence. The old historians paint him as "clothed in robes of white, his head covered with gold, his aspect grave and majestic, wrapt in the contemplation of the mysteries of existence, listening to the music of Homer and Hesiod, or to the harmony of the spheres." [Footnote: Lewes, _Biog. Hist. Phil._] To him is ascribed the use of the word _philosopher_ rather than _sophos_, a lover of wisdom, not wise man. He taught his doctrines to a select few, the members of which society lived in common, and venerated him as an oracle. His great doctrine is, that _number_ is the essence of things, by which is understood the _form_ and not the _matter_ of the sensible.

The elements of numbers are the _odd_ and _even_, the former being regarded as limited, the latter unlimited. Diogenes Laertius thus sums up his doctrines, which were that "the _monad_ is--the beginning of every thing. From the monad proceeds an indefinite _duad_. From the monad and the duad proceed _numbers_, and from numbers _signs_, and from these _lines_, of which plain figures consist. And from plain figures are derived solid bodies, and from these sensible bodies, of which there are four elements, fire, water, earth, and air. The world results from a combination of these elements." [Footnote: Diog. Laert., _Lives of Phil._] All this is unintelligible or indefinite. We cannot comprehend how the number theory will account for the production of corporeal magnitude any easier than we can identify monads with mathematical points. But underlying this mysticism is the thought that there prevails in the phenomena of nature a rational _order, harmony_, and conformity to _law_, and that these laws can be represented by numbers. Number or harmony is the principle of the universe, and order holds together the world. Like Anaximander, he pa.s.ses from the region of physics to metaphysics, and thus opens a new world of speculation. His method was purely deductive, and his science mathematical. "The _Infinite_ of Anaximander became the _One_ of Pythagoras." a.s.suming that number is the essence of the world, he deduced that the world is regulated by numerical proportions, in other words, by a system of laws, and these laws, regular and harmonious in their operation, _may_ have suggested to the great mind of Pythagoras, so religious and lofty, the necessity for an intelligent creator of the universe. It was in moral truth that he delighted as well as metaphysical, and his life and the lives of his disciples were disciplined to a severe virtue, as if he recognized in numbers or order the necessity of a conformity to all law, and saw in obedience to it both harmony and beauty. But we have no _direct_ and positive evidence of the kind or amount of knowledge which this great intellect acquired. All that can be affirmed is, that he was a man of extensive attainments; that he was a great mathematician, that he was very religious, that he devoted himself to doing good, that he placed happiness in the virtues of the soul or the perfect science of numbers, and made a likeness to the Deity the object of all endeavors. He believed that the soul was incorporeal, [Footnote: Ritter, b. iv. chap i.] and is put into the body by the means of number and harmonical relation, and thus subject to a divine regulation. Every thing was regarded by him in a moral light. The order of the universe is only a harmonical development of the first principle of all things to virtue and wisdom. [Footnote: Our knowledge of Pythagoras is chiefly derived from Aristotle. Both Ritter and Brandis have presented his views elaborately, but with more clearness than was to be expected.] He attached great value to music, as a subject of precise mathematical calculation, and an art which has a great effect on the affections.

Hence morals and mathematics were linked together in his mind. As the heavens were ordered in consonance with number, they must move in eternal order. "The spheres" revolved in harmonious order around the great centre of light and heat--the sun--"the throne of the elemental world." Hence the doctrine of "the music of the spheres." _Pythagoras ad harmoniam canere mundum existimat_. [Footnote: Cicero, _De Nat.

D_., iii. ii. 27.] The tendency of his speculations, obscure as they are to us, was to raise the soul to a contemplation of order and beauty and law, in the material universe, and hence to the contemplation of a supreme intelligence reigning in justice and truth. Justice and truth became therefore paramount virtues, to be practiced, to be sought as the great end of life, allied with the order of the universe, and with mathematical essences--the attributes of the deity, the sublime unity which he adored.

The Ionic philosophers, and the Pythagoreans, sought to find the nature or first principle of all things in the elements, or in numbers. But the Eleatics went beyond the realm of physics to pure metaphysical inquiries. This is the second stage in the history of philosophy--an idealistic pantheism, which disregarded the sensible and maintained that the source of all truth is independent of sense.

[Sidenote: Xenophanes.--G.o.d the first great cause.]

The founder of this school was Xenophanes, born in Colophon, an Ionian city of Asia Minor, from which, being expelled, he wandered over Sicily as a rhapsodist or minstrel, reciting his elegiac poetry on the loftiest truths; and at last came to Elea, about the year 536, where he settled.

The great subject of his inquiries was G.o.d himself--the first great cause--the supreme intelligence of the universe. "From the principle _ex nihilo nihil fit_, he concluded that nothing could pa.s.s from non-existence to existence. All things that exist are eternal and immutable. G.o.d, as the most perfect essence, is eternally One, unalterable, neither finite nor infinite, neither movable nor immovable, and not to be represented under any human semblance." [Footnote: Tennemann, _Hist. of Phil._, p. 1, Section 98.] What a great stride was this! Whence did he derive his opinions? He starts with the proposition that G.o.d is an all-powerful being, and denies all beginning of being, and hence infers that G.o.d must be from eternity. From this truth he advances to deny all multiplicity. A plurality of G.o.ds is impossible. With these sublime views--the unity and eternity and omnipotence of G.o.d--he boldly attacked the popular errors of his day. He denounced the transference to the deity of the human form; he inveighed against Homer and Hesiod; he ridiculed the doctrine of migration of souls. Thus he sings,--

"Such things of the G.o.ds are related by Homer and Hesiod, As would be shame and abiding disgrace to mankind,-- Promises broken, and thefts, and the one deceiving the other."

[Footnote: See Ritter, on Xenophanes. See note 20, in Archer Butler, series i. lect vi.]

And, again, respecting anthropomorphic representations of the Deity,--

"But men foolishly think that G.o.ds are born like as men are, And have, too, a dress like their own, and their voice and their figure But there's but one G.o.d alone, the greatest of G.o.ds and of mortals, Neither in body, to mankind resembling, neither in ideas."

G.o.d seen in all the manifestations of nature.

[Sidenote: G.o.d seen in all manifestations of nature.]

[Sidenote: He sought to create a knowledge of G.o.d.]

Such were his sublime meditations. He believed in the _One_, which is G.o.d; but this all-pervading, unmoved, undivided being was not a personal G.o.d, nor a moral governor, but the deity pervading all s.p.a.ce.

He could not separate G.o.d from the world, nor could he admit the existence of world which is not G.o.d. He was a monotheist, but his monotheism was pantheism. He saw G.o.d in all the manifestations of nature. This did not satisfy him, nor resolve his doubts, and he therefore confessed that reason could not compa.s.s the exalted aims of philosophy. But there was no cynicism in his doubt. It was the soul- sickening consciousness that Reason was incapable of solving the mighty questions that he burned to know. There was no way to arrive at the truth, "for," as he said, "error is spread over all things." It was not disdain of knowledge, it was the combat of contradictory opinions that oppressed him. He could not solve the questions pertaining to G.o.d. What uninstructed reason can? "Canst thou by searching find out G.o.d, canst thou know the Almighty unto perfection." What was impossible to Job, was not possible to him. But he had attained a recognition of the unity and perfections of G.o.d, and this conviction he would spread abroad, and tear down the superst.i.tions which hid the face of truth. I have great admiration of this philosopher, so sad, so earnest, so enthusiastic, wandering from city to city, indifferent to money, comfort, friends, fame, that he might kindle the knowledge of G.o.d. This was a lofty aim indeed for philosophy in that age. It was a higher mission than that of Homer, [Footnote: Lewes has some shallow remarks on this point, although spirited and readable. Ritter is more earnest.] great as his was, but not so successful.

Parmenides of Elea, born about the year B.C. 536, followed out the system of Xenophanes, the central idea of which was the existence of G.o.d. With him the central idea was the notion of _being_. Being is uncreated and unchangeable; the fullness of all being is _thought_; the _All_ is thought and intelligence. He maintained the uncertainty of knowledge; but meant the knowledge derived through the senses.

He did not deny the certainty of reason. He was the first who drew a distinction between knowledge obtained by the senses, and that obtained through the reason; and thus he antic.i.p.ated the doctrine of innate ideas. From the uncertainty of knowledge derived through the senses, he deduced the twofold system of true and apparent knowledge.

[Footnote: Prof. Brandis's article in Smith's _Dictionary_.]

[Sidenote: Zeno introduces a new method.]

Zeno of Elea, the friend and pupil of Parmenides, born B.C. 500, brought nothing new to the system, but invented _Dialectics_, that logic which afterwards became so powerful in the hands of Plato and Aristotle, and so generally admired among the schoolmen. It seeks to establish truth by refuting error by the _reductio ad absurdum_. While Parmenides sought to establish the doctrine of the _One_, Zeno proved the non-existence of the _Many_. He denied that appearances were real existences, but did not deny existences. It was the mission of Zeno to establish the doctrines of his master. But, in order to convince his listeners, he was obliged to use a new method of argument. So he carried on his argumentation by question and answer, and was, therefore, the first who used dialogue as a medium of philosophical communication.

[Footnote: Cousin, _Nouveaux Fragments Philosophiques_.]

[Sidenote: Empedocles.--Love the moving cause of all things.]

Empedocles, born B.C. 444, like others of the Eleatics, complained of the imperfection of the senses, and looked for truth only in reason. He regarded truth as a perfect unity, ruled by love,--the only true force, the one moving cause of all things,--the first creative power by whom the world was formed. Thus "G.o.d is love," a sublime doctrine which philosophy revealed to the Greeks.

[Sidenote: The loftiness of the Eleatic philosophers.]

Thus did the Eleatic philosophers speculate almost contemporaneously with the Ionians, on the beginning of things and the origin of knowledge, taking different grounds, and attempting to correct the representations of sense by the notions of reason. But both schools, although they did not establish many truths, raised an inquisitive spirit and awakened freedom of thought and inquiry. They raised up workmen for more enlightened times, even as scholastic inquirers in the Middle Ages prepared the way for the revival of philosophy on sounder principles. They were all men of remarkable elevation of character as well as genius. They hated superst.i.tions and attacked the Anthropomorphism of their day. They handled G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses with allegorizing boldness, and hence were often persecuted by the people.

They did not establish moral truths by scientific processes, but they set examples of lofty disdain of wealth and fact.i.tious advantages, and devoted themselves with holy enthusiasm to the solution of the great questions which pertain to G.o.d and nature. Thales won the respect of his countrymen by devotion to studies. Pythagoras spent twenty-two years in Egypt to learn its science. Xenophanes wandered over Sicily as a rhapsodist of truth. Parmenides, born to wealth and splendor, forsook the feverish pursuit of sensual enjoyments to contemplate "the quiet and still air of delightful studies." Zeno declined all worldly honors to diffuse the doctrines of his master. Herac.l.i.tus refused the chief magistracy of Ephesus that he might have leisure to explore the depths of his own nature. Anaxagoras allowed his patrimony to run to waste in order to solve problems. "To philosophy," said he, "I owe my worldly ruin and my soul's prosperity." They were, without exception, the greatest and best men of their times. They laid the foundation of the beautiful temple which was constructed after they were dead, in which both physics and psychology reached the dignity of science. [Footnote: Archer Butler in his lecture on the Eleatic school follows closely, and expounds clearly, the views of Ritter.]

Nevertheless, these great men, lofty as were their inquiries, and blameless their lives, had not established any system, nor any theories which were incontrovertible. They had simply speculated, and the world ridiculed their speculations. They were one-sided; and, when pushed out to their extreme logical sequence, were antagonistic to each other, which had a tendency to produce doubt and skepticism. Men denied the existence of the G.o.ds, and the grounds of certainty fell away from the human mind.

[Sidenote: Circ.u.mstances which favoured the Sophists.]

[Sidenote: Character of the Sophists.]

This spirit of skepticism was favored by the tide of worldliness and prosperity which followed the Persian War. Athens became a great centre of art, of taste, of elegance, and of wealth. Politics absorbed the minds of the people. Glory and splendor were followed by corruption of morals and the pursuit of material pleasures. Philosophy went out of fas.h.i.+on, since it brought no outward and tangible good. More scientific studies were pursued--those which could be applied to purposes of utility and material gains; even, as in our day, geology, chemistry, mechanics, engineering, having reference to the practical wants of men, command talent, and lead to certain reward. In Athens, rhetoric, mathematics, and natural history supplanted rhapsodies and speculations on G.o.d and Providence. Renown and wealth could only be secured by readiness and felicity of speech, and that was most valued which brought immediate reward, like eloquence. Men began to practice eloquence as an _art_, and to employ it in furthering their interests. They made special pleadings, since it was their object to gain their point, at any expense of law and justice. Hence they taught that nothing was immutably right, but only so by convention. They undermined all confidence in truth and religion by teaching its uncertainty. They denied to men even the capability of arriving at truth. They practically affirmed the cold and cynical doctrine that there is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink. _Qui bono_, the cry of the Epicureans, of the latter Romans, and of most men in a period of great outward prosperity, was the popular inquiry,--who shall show us any good?--how can we become rich, strong, honorable?--this was the spirit of that cla.s.s of public teachers who arose in Athens when art and eloquence and wealth and splendor were at their height in the fifth century before Christ, and when the elegant Pericles was the leader of fas.h.i.+on and of political power.

[Sidenote: Power and popularity of the Sophists.]

[Sidenote: Influence of the Sophists.]

These men were the Sophists--rhetorical men who taught the children of the rich; worldly men who sought honor and power; frivolous men, trifling with philosophical ideas; skeptical men, denying all certainty to truths; men who, as teachers, added nothing to the realm of science, but who yet established certain dialectical rules useful to later philosophers. They were a wealthy, powerful, honored cla.s.s, not much esteemed by men of thought, but sought out as very successful teachers of rhetoric. They were full of logical tricks, and contrived to throw ridicule upon profound inquiries. They taught also mathematics, astronomy, philology, and natural history with success. They were polished men of society, not profound nor religious, but very brilliant as talkers, and very ready in wit and sophistry. And some of them were men of great learning and talent, like Democritus, Leucippus, and Gorgias. They were not pretenders and quacks; they were skeptics who denied subjective truths, and labored for outward advantage. They were men of general information, skilled in subtleties, of powerful social and political connections, and were generally selected as amba.s.sadors on difficult missions. They taught the art of disputation, and sought systematic methods of proof. They thus prepared the way for a more perfect philosophy than that taught by the Ionians, the Pythagoreans, or the Elentae, since they showed the vagueness of their inquiries, conjectural rather than scientific. They had no doctrines in common.

They were the barristers of their age, _paid_ to make the "worse appear the better reason," yet not teachers of immorality any more than the lawyers of our day,--men of talents, the intellectual leaders of society. If they did not advance positive truths, they were useful in the method they created. They taught the art of disputation. They doubtless quibbled when they had a bad cause to present. They brought out the truth more forcibly when they defended a good cause. They had no hostility to truth; they only doubted whether it could be reached in the realm of psychological inquiries, and sought to apply it to their own purposes, or rather to distort it in order to gain a case. They are not a cla.s.s of men whom I admire, as I do the old sages they ridiculed, but they were not without their use in the development of philosophy.

[Footnote: Grote has a fine chapter on the Sophists (part ii. ch. 67).]

The Sophists also rendered a service to literature by giving definiteness to language, and creating style in prose writing.

Protagoras investigated the principles of accurate composition; Prodicus busied himself with inquiries into the significance of words; Gorgias proposed a captivating style. He gave symmetry to the structure of sentences.

[Sidenote: Socrates.]

[Sidenote: The method of Socrates.]

[Sidenote: Ethical inquiries of Socrates.]

The ridicule and skepticism of the Sophists brought out the great powers of Socrates, to whom philosophy is probably more indebted than to any man who ever lived, not so much for a perfect system, but for the impulse he gave to philosophical inquiries, and his successful exposure of error. He inaugurated a new era. Born in Athens in the year 470 B.C., the son of a poor sculptor, he devoted his life to the search for truth, for its own sake, and sought to base it on immutable foundations. He was the mortal enemy of the Sophists, whom he encountered, as Pascal did the Jesuits, with wit, irony, puzzling questions, and remorseless logic.

Like the earlier philosophers, he disdained wealth, ease, and comfort, but with greater devotion than they, since he lived in a more corrupt age, when poverty was a disgrace and misfortune a crime, when success was the standard of merit, and every man was supposed to be the arbiter of his own fortune, ignoring that Providence who so often refuses the race to the swift and the battle to the strong. He was what in our time would be called eccentric. He walked barefooted, meanly clad, and withal not over cleanly, seeking public places, disputing with every body willing to talk with him, making every body ridiculous, especially if one a.s.sumed airs of wisdom or knowledge,--an exasperating opponent, since he wove a web around a man from which he could not be extricated, and then exposed him to ridicule, in the wittiest city of the world. He attacked every body, and yet was generally respected, since it was _errors_ and not the person, _opinions_ rather than vices; and this he did with bewitching eloquence and irresistible fascination; so that, though he was poor and barefooted, a Silenus in appearance, with thick lips, upturned nose, projecting eyes, unwieldy belly, he was sought by Alcibiades and admired by Aspasia. Even Xantippe, a beautiful young woman, very much younger than he, a woman fond of the comforts and pleasures of life, was willing to be his wife, even if she did afterwards torment him, when the _res angusta domi_ disenchanted her from the music of his voice and the divinity of his nature. "I have heard Pericles," said the most dissipated and voluptuous man in Athens, "and other excellent orators, but was not moved by them; while this Marsyas--this Satyr--so affects me that the life I lead is hardly worth living, and I stop my ears, as from the Syrens, and flee as fast as possible, that I may not sit down and grow old in listening to his talk." He learned his philosophy from no one, and struck out an entirely new path. He declared his own ignorance, and sought to convince other people of theirs. He did not seek to reveal truth so much as to expose error. And yet it was his object to attain correct ideas as to moral obligations. He was the first who recognized natural right, and held that virtue and vice are inseparably united. He proclaimed the sovereignty of virtue, and the immutability of justice. He sought to delineate and enforce the practical duties of life. His great object was the elucidation of morals, and he was the first to teach ethics systematically, and from the immutable principles of moral obligation.

Moral cert.i.tude was the lofty platform from which he surveyed the world, and upon which, as a rock, he rested in the storms of life. Thus he was a reformer and a moralist. It was his ethical doctrines which were most antagonistic to the age, and the least appreciated. He was a profoundly religious man, recognized Providence, and believed in the immortality of the soul. From the abyss of doubt, which succeeded the speculations of the first philosophers, he would plant grounds of cert.i.tude--a ladder on which he would mount to the sublime regions of absolute truth. He did not presume to inquire into the Divine essence, yet he believed that the G.o.ds were omniscient and omnipresent, that they ruled by the law of goodness, and that, in spite of their multiplicity, there was unity--a supreme intelligence that governed the world. Hence he was hated by the Sophists, who denied the certainty of arriving at the knowledge of G.o.d.

From the comparative worthlessness of the body he deduced the immortality of the soul. With him, the end of life was reason and intelligence. He proved the existence of G.o.d by the order and harmony of nature, which belief was certain. He endeavored to connect the moral with the religious consciousness, and then he proclaimed his convictions for the practical welfare of society. In this light Socrates stands out the grandest personage of pagan antiquity,--as a moralist, as a teacher of ethics, as a man who recognized the Divine.