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ce; or as Socrates; Plato; and Aristotle。  In these three last indeed; Greek thought reached not merely its greatest height; but the edge of a precipice; down which it rolled headlong after their decease。  The intellectual defects of the Greek mind; of which I have already spoken; were doubtless one great cause of this decay:  but; to my mind; moral causes had still more to do with it。  The more cultivated Greek states; to judge from the writings of Plato; had not been an over… righteous people during the generation in which he lived。  And in the generations which followed; they became an altogether wicked people; immoral; unbelieving; hating good; and delighting in all which was evil。 And it was in consequence of these very sins of theirs; as I think; that the old Hellenic race began to die out physically; and population throughout Greece to decrease with frightful rapidity; after the time of the Achaean league。  The facts are well known; and foul enough they are。 When the Romans destroyed Greece; God was just and merciful。  The eagles were gathered together only because the carrion needed to be removed from the face of God's earth。  And at the time of which I now speak; the signs of approaching death were fearfully apparent。  Hapless and hopeless enough were the clique of men out of whom the first two Ptolemies hoped to form a school of philosophy; men certainly clever enough; and amusing withal; who might give the kings of Egypt many a shrewd lesson in king…craft; and the ways of this world; and the art of profiting by the folly of fools; and the selfishness of the selfish; or who might amuse them; in default of fighting…cocks; by puns and repartees; and battles of logic; 〃how one thing cannot be predicated of another;〃 or 〃how the wise man is not only to overcome every misfortune; but not even to feel it;〃 and other such mighty questions; which in those days hid that deep unbelief in any truth whatsoever which was spreading fast over the minds of men。  Such word…splitters were Stilpo and Diodorus; the slayer and the slain。  They were of the Megaran school; and were named Dialectics; and also; with more truth; Eristics; or quarrellers。  Their clique had professed to follow Zeno and Socrates in declaring the instability of sensible presumptions and conclusions; in preaching an absolute and eternal Being。  But there was this deep gulf between them and Socrates; that while Socrates professed to be seeking for the Absolute and Eternal; for that which is; they were content with affirming that it exists。  With him; as with the older sages; philosophy was a search for truth。  With them it was a scheme of doctrines to be defended。  And the dialectic on which they prided themselves so much; differed from his accordingly。  He used it inductively; to seek out; under the notions and conceptions of the mind; certain absolute truths and laws of which they were only the embodiment。 Words and thought were to him a field for careful and reverent induction; as the phenomena of nature are to us the disciples of Bacon。 But with these hapless Megarans; who thought that they had found that for which Socrates professed only to seek dimly and afar off; and had got it safe in a dogma; preserved as it were in spirits; and put by in a museum; the great use of dialectic was to confute opponents。  Delight in their own subtlety grew on them; the worship not of objective truth; but of the forms of the intellect whereby it may be demonstrated; till they became the veriest word…splitters; rivals of the old sophists whom their master had attacked; and justified too often Aristophanes' calumny; which confounded Socrates with his opponents; as a man whose aim was to make the worse appear the better reason。

We have here; in both parties; all the marks of an age of exhaustion; of scepticism; of despair about finding any real truth。  No wonder that they were superseded by the Pyrrhonists; who doubted all things; and by the Academy; which prided itself on setting up each thing to knock it down again; and so by prudent and well…bred and tolerant qualifying of every assertion; neither affirming too much; nor denying too much; keep their minds in a wholesomeor unwholesomestate of equilibrium; as stagnant pools are kept; that everything may have free toleration to rot undisturbed。

These hapless caricaturists of the dialectic of Plato; and the logic of Aristotle; careless of any vital principles or real results; ready enough to use fallacies each for their own party; and openly proud of their success in doing so; were assisted by worthy compeers of an outwardly opposite tone of thought; the Cyrenaics; Theodorus and Hegesias。  With their clique; as with their master Aristippus; the senses were the only avenues to knowledge; man was the measure of all things; and 〃happiness our being's end and aim。〃  Theodorus was surnamed the Atheist; and; it seems; not without good reason; for he taught that there was no absolute or eternal difference between good and evil; nothing really disgraceful in crimes; no divine ground for laws; which according to him had been invented by men to prevent fools from making themselves disagreeable; on which theory; laws must be confessed to have been in all ages somewhat of a failure。  He seems to have been; like his master; an impudent light…hearted fellow; who took life easily enough; laughed at patriotism; and all other high…flown notions; boasted that the world was his country; and was no doubt excellent after…dinner company for the great king。  Hegesias; his fellow Cyrenaic; was a man of a darker and more melancholic temperament; and while Theodorus contented himself with preaching a comfortable selfishness; and obtaining pleasure; made it rather his study to avoid pain。  Doubtless both their theories were popular enough at Alexandria; as they were in France during the analogous period; the Siecle Louis Quinze。  The 〃Contrat Social;〃 and the rest of their doctrines; moral and metaphysical; will always have their admirers on earth; as long as that variety of the human species exists for whose especial behoof Theodorus held that laws were made; and the whole form of thought met with great approbation in after years at Rome; where Epicurus carried it to its highest perfection。  After that; under the pressure of a train of rather severe lessons; which Gibbon has detailed in his 〃Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire;〃 little or nothing was heard of it; save sotto voce; perhaps; at the Papal courts of the sixteenth century。  To revive it publicly; or at least as much of it as could be borne by a world now for seventeen centuries Christian; was the glory of the eighteenth century。  The moral scheme of Theodorus has now nearly vanished among us; at least as a confessed creed; and; in spite of the authority of Mr。 Locke's great and good name; his metaphysical scheme is showing signs of a like approaching disappearance。  Let us hope that it may be a speedy one; for if the senses be the only avenues to knowledge; if man be the measure of all things; and if law have not; as Hooker says; her fount and home in the very bosom of God himself; then was Homer's Zeus right in declaring man to be 〃the most wretched of all the beasts of the field。〃

And yet one cannot help looking with a sort of awe (I dare not call it respect) at that melancholic faithless Hegesias。  Doubtless he; like his compeers; and indeed all Alexandria for three hundred years; cultivated philosophy with no more real purpose than it was cultivated by the graceless beaux…esprits of Louis XV。's court; and with as little practical effect on morality; but of this Hegesias alone it stands written; that his teaching actually made men do something; and moreover; do the most solemn and important thing which any man can do; excepting always doing right。  I must confess; however; that the result of his teaching took so unexpected a form; that the reigning Ptolemy; apparently Philadelphus; had to interfere with the sacred right of every man to talk as much nonsense as he likes; and forbade Hegesias to teach at Alexandria。  For Hegesias; a Cyrenaic like Theodorus; but a rather more morose pedant than that saucy and happy scoffer; having discovered that the great end of man was to avoid pain; also discovered (his digestion being probably in a disordered state) that there was so much more pain than pleasure in the world; as to make it a thoroughly disagreeable place; of which man was well rid at any price。  Whereon he wrote a book called; 'Greek text:  apokarteroon'; in which a man who had determined to starve himself; preached the miseries of human life; and the blessings of death; with such overpowering force; that the book actually drove many persons to commit suicide; and escape from a world which was not fit to dwell in。  A fearful proof of how rotten the state of society was becoming; how desperate the minds of men; during those frightful centuries which immediately preceded the Christian era; and how fast was approaching that dark chaos of unbelief and unrighteousness; which Paul of Tarsus so analyses and describes in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romanswhen the old light was lost; the old faiths extinct; the old reverence for the laws of family and national life; destroyed; yea even the n

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