widest scope; the Pharisees of a religious Stoicism. At a later time the cycle of doctrine was
completed, when by a natural reaction the Essenes established as mystic Asceticism. II. THE
DEVELOPMENT OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.—The various attempts which have been made to
derive western philosophy from eastern sources have signally failed. It is true that in some degree
the character of Greek speculation may have been influenced, at least in its earliest-stages, by
religious ideas which were originally introduced from the East; but this indirect influence does hot
affect the real originality of the Greek teachers. The very value of Greek teaching lies in the fact
that it was, as far as is possible, a result of simple reason, or, if faith asserts ifs prerogative, the
distinction is sharply marked. Of the various classifications of the Greek schools which have been
proposed, the simplest and truest seems to be that which divides the history of philosophy into three
great periods, the first reaching to the era of the Sophists, the next to the death of Aristotle, the third
to the Christian era. In the first period the world objectively is the great centre of inquiry; in the
second, the “ideas” of things, truth, and being; in the third, the chief interest of philosophy falls
back upon the practical conduct of life. After the Christian era philosophy ceased to have any true
vitality in Greece, but it made fresh efforts to meet the conditions of life at Alexandria and Rome.
•The pre-Socratic schools .—The first Greek philosophy was little more than an attempt to follow
out in thought the mythic cosmogonies of earlier poets. What is the one permanent element which
underlies the changing forms of things?—this was the primary inquiry, to which the Ionic school
endeavored to find an answer. Thales (cir. B.C. 639-543) pointed to moisture (water) as the one
source and supporter of life. Anaximenes (cir. B.C. 520-480) substituted air for wafer. At a much
later date (cir. B.C. 460) Diogenes of Apollonia represented this elementary “air” as endowed
with intelligence.
•The Socratic schools .—In the second period of Greek philosophy the scene and subject were both
changed. A philosophy of ideas, using the term in its widest sense, succeeded a philosophy of
nature, in three generations Greek speculation reached its greatest glory in the teaching of Socrates,
Plato and Aristotle. The famous sentence in which Aristotle characterizes the teachings of Socrates
(B.C.465-399) places his scientific position in the clearest light. There are two things, he says,
which we may rightly attribute to Socrates—inductive reasoning and general definition. By the
first he endeavored to discover the permanent element which underlies the changing forms of
appearances and the varieties of opinion; by the second he fixed the truth which he had thus gained.
But, besides this, Socrates rendered another service to truth. Ethics occupied in his investigations
the primary place which had hitherto been held by Physics. The great aim of his induction was to
establish the sovereignty of Virtue. He affirmed the existence of a universal law of right and wrong.
He connected philosophy with action, both in detail and in general. On the one side he upheld the
supremacy of Conscience, on the other the working of Providence.
•The post-Socratic schools .—after Aristotle, philosophy took a new direction. Speculation became
mainly personal. Epicurus (B.C. 352-270) defined the object of philosophy to be the attainment
of a happy life. The pursuit of truth for its own sake he recognized as superfluous. He rejected
dialectics as a useless study, and accepted the senses, in the widest acceptation of the term, as the
criterion of truth. But he differed widely from the Cyrenaics in his view of happiness. The happiness
at which the wise man aims is to be found, he said, not in momentary gratification, but in life-long
pleasure. All things were supposed to come into being by chance, and so pass away. The individual
was left master of own life. While Epicurus asserted in this manner the claims of one part of man’s
nature in the conduct of life, Zeno of Citium (cir. B.C. 280), with equal partiality advocated a
frankie
(Frankie)
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