Chapter 27

CHAPTER XIV

THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF

POST-ARISTOTELIAN

PHILOSOPHY

The rest of the story of Greek philosophy is soon told, for
it is the story of decay. The post-Aristotelian is the least
instructive of the three periods of Greek thought, and I
shall delineate only its main outlines.

The general characteristics of the decay of thought which
set in after Aristotle are intimately connected with the po-
litical, social, and moral events of the time. Although the
huge empire of Alexander had broken up at the conqueror’s
death, this fact had in no way helped the Greek States to
throw off the yoke of their oppressors. With the single
exception of Sparta, which stubbornly held out, they had
become, for all intents and purposes, subject to the do-

minion of Macedonia. And the death of Alexander did not

alter this fact. It was not merely that rude might had over-

whelmed a beautiful and delicate civilization. That civi-

lization itself was decaying. The Greeks had ceased to be

a great and free people. Their vitality was ebbing. Had it

not been one conqueror it would have been another. They

were growing old. They had to give way before younger and

sturdier races. It was not so many years now before Greece,

passing from one alien yoke to another, was to become no

more than a Roman province.

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Philosophy is not something that subsists independently of

the growth and decay of the spirit of man. It goes hand in

hand with political, social, religious, and artistic develop-

ment. Political organization, art, religion, science, and phi-

losophy, are but different forms in which the life of a people

expresses itself. The innermost substance of the national