B.C. that is, from about the year 400 to 300 The principal school of this period was that of Plato, which, from being held in the grove of Academus in Athens, was called the Academy. Its old age begins about the time of Epicurus, and lasts till that of Cicero; that is, from about the year 300 to 60 B.C. The schools of this period were numerous, but the chief one was called the New Academy, to distinguish it from that of Plato. As we intend to confine our present remarks to the speculations of the three primary schools, this general outline will serve our purpose. We call this period the dawn of philosophy, not only to mark its place in the history of science, but to describe the condition of philosophy at this time. In the early dawn, when darkness still covers the landscape, we are unable to distinguish between field and flood, hill and dale, sea and land; all are for the time blended in confusion, and it is only after the day breaks, and the darkness rolls past, that we can distinguish the one from the other. Even so in the dawn of philosophy, men were unable to discriminate between one science and another. Astronomy and geography, physics and metaphysics, arithmetic and theology, were all mingled together; and it was only after knowledge had increased, that order and arrangement began to appear. Hence, if our remarks should seem to want arrangement, we may plead, as an apology, that it would be easy to assume more order than what is warranted by the materials we have here to deal with, or by the state of the period we are attempting to describe. As Thales of Miletus was the first who made natural science a subject of study, he has the honour of being called 'the first philosopher.' He is chiefly distinguished for his knowledge of astronomy, by which he discovered the rotundity of the globe, the nature and time of eclipses, invented a system of geography, and improved navigation, by teaching the Greeks to direct their course by the polar star. He was the first who sought to trace out a first cause. He assumed that moisture, or water, was the origin of all things; but whether he borrowed this idea from the Egyptians, or had it suggested to him by his residence near the Ionian Sea, is a point disputed by the learned, and we need not attempt to settle it. This opinion of him "Who wandered about the beach, nourishing a youth sublime, With the fairy tales of science, and the long results of time,' is not only interesting as an example of what men then thought, but as an evidence that they were begun to think. It marks the era when the human mind first stepped out of the nursery of tradition into the school of observation, it is reason's first guess about a God, and the memorial of the first traveller who set out to explore the source of being. Speculation being thus started, Thales was soon followed by other kindred spirits. Anaximenes thought that there was in nature a more general and powerful element than water; and that the air which surrounded him, and filled all things, was his own soul, and the life of all other beings-was therefore the first cause. More followed in the same course, and arrived at different conclusions. Some asserted that the first cause was fire, some that it was the earth, and others that it was all the four elements combined. They were all agreed that the world was developed from one or all of the primary elements; and as al! their speculations were founded on the supposition that the world sustains the same relation to its Creator as a plant does to its seed, all their reasoning ended in a material cause. At this period men were in the habit of reasoning by analogy; that is to say, they supposed that something which was not well known to them, was like some other thing with which they were better acquainted, and having fixed on a similitude, they endeavoured to prove their supposition by following out the resemblance between the object they wished to describe and that which they had chosen to represent it. It will thus be seen that the accuracy of their reasoning would depend very much on their choice and use of a similitude; for if the emblem was not like the object, or if they carried their analogy too far, they were sure to land in error. Hence, as a soul suggests a better analogy than a seed, Anaximenes made the best supposition. His disciple, Diogenes of Apollonia, followed it out thus:-A soul is a living and intelligent principle, so also is the first cause; what the soul is to the body, so is the first cause to nature. But as he sought to complete the analogy by furnishing nature with bodily organs, he carried out the idea to an absurdity. Anaxagoras took it up and refined it thus:-A soul is not matter, but mind; the first cause is neither part of nor connected with the visible world, it is an intelligence—a spirit. There is thus a considerable difference between the opinion of Thales and that of Anaxagoras; but as the one was the first and the other was the last of the Ionian school, there was more than a 150 years between them; and the fact that it took a century and a half to develop this thought, is a sad proof of the intellectual weakness of man. At least, one would have supposed that the discovery when made would have commended itself to the common sense of mankind; but society was not ready to receive such a truth-it was too refined for men. Anaxagoras was the first who taught philosophy at Athens, and this idea of the first cause was a startling novelty to the Greeks. They had the sense to see that if this opinion was true, their own theology was false; and fearing lest, through his teaching, their own religion would be despised, they expelled him from the city. But as they could neither banish nor uproot the thoughts he had planted in the minds of his scholars, the discussion about the autocrat of being soon spread the idea of a supreme supernatural intelligence through their schools, and left their national divinities but a very subordinate place in the government of the world. During the same period, while the teachers of the Ionian school were endeavouring to discover a first cause by an examination of nature, Anaximander and Pythagoras sought to find out this by a different method. Pythagoras was the founder of the Italian school, and the most popular philosopher of the West; and as tradition has surrounded his memory with so much supernatural grandeur, there must have been some foundation for a fame so wide, though we may now be unable to discover it in the ruins of the past. He is said to have been the first who taught the knowledge of arithmetic; and as he sought to demonstrate the great problem of existence by the science of numbers, his school is called the Mathematical School. As he did not commit his thoughts to writing, we can only learn his sentiments from the conflicting statements of his disciples; and as they assumed so much mystery, it is now difficult to comprehend or explain his philosophy. We believe it would be no slander to say that his scholars did not understand his system themselves, and that in many instances they have misrepresented his meaning. There is a fragment in the works of Aristotle, which contains a condensed account of the system of Pythagoras; but as it is too long for insertion, and too complex to be easily understood, we prefer giving a specimen of the Chinese philosophy, which is not only more intelligible, but is also so like the Italian, that the one may serve to illustrate the other. Confucius and his followers taught, that as we can discover in all classes of animals and vegetables a male and a female, we may assume that the same arrangement exists in other objects which do not come under our observation, and that the arrangement for propagating existence is also the origin of being; hence, according to this theory, the sun is male, the earth is female, and they are the progenitors of all things. This sexual distinction they affirm is not only evident in all that is material, but also certain in all that is mental: and they assume that a unit, and every odd number, is male; and that two, and every even number, is female: and hence there is a mysterious virtue in certain combinations of figures. However worthless this system may appear, yet it is certain that the ancients believed that there was some mysterious power in diagrams and numbers, and all their systems of divination were formed in accordance with this supposition; and it seems probable that Pythagoras, the prince of mystics, believed and taught that this mysterious influence was the most powerful of all things, and the first cause of all being. Let it not be forgotten that this notion belongs to the dawn of philosophy, and was the dream of a discoverer over a new-born and favourite science, before its nature was clearly known. Neither ought we to overlook the fact, that there is in some minds such a love for the mysterious and the marvellous, and such a confidence in their own intellectual power, that they prefer groping in the dark to walking in the light. Instances of this are numerous in the pages of history, but the most notorious cases of great minds who have thus gone astray, are those of Pythagoras amongst the ancients, and Swedenbourg amongst the moderns. Both were sensible that they had wandered beyond the boundaries of reason, and would require a higher power than persuasion to compel men to follow them; so the one assumed the dignity of a God, and the other claimed the authority of a revelation. How true is it of such that 'they became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened.' While Pythagoras taught this dogma to the initiated, his disciples taught another doctrine to the multitude. They affirmed that every thing in nature may be reduced to one, and that this'the one'' the unity'-'the all'-' the infinite '- -was God; and then explained that he was spread over all nature, as the centre and source of all other beings. They also taught the doctrine of a transmigration of souls, or that the souls of men, after their death, pass into the bodies of such beasts as they most resembled in life, and endure a variety of transformations, until they are purified for a better state of being. But he was chiefly distinguished for his attempt to form an order-like the priests of Egypt, the Levites of Palestine, or the Jesuits of Europe-a sort of literary aristocracy, by which he sought to reform and govern society. However, the democracy of the Italian states, conceiving that this order was dangerous to popular liberty, revolted against it, and its sections being violently broken up, all that remained of this once powerful institution was but a few secret ceremonies, similar to the mummeries of an impotent freemasonry. This result was very different from that of the system of his contemporary Confucius. He was also a politician and philosopher, and devised a scheme of policy, in which the patriarchial system was extended. The power of the father was said to be supreme in the family; and as society was but one great family, of which the ruler was father, every man was under the same obligations to obey him, as children are to honour their parents. This doctrine was so acceptable to the despots of China, that they immediately sanctioned it, and fostered by their patronage, the polity and philosophy of Confucius have continued for more that twenty-four centuries. It was these peculiarities in the system of Pythagoras-its studied mystery, the concealing of its doctrines from the many, and the revealing of them only to the few, and the enlisting of the great and the wise only in his service that are so often alluded to by the writers of the New Testament, and contrasted with the scheme of the gospel. Its great truths are called mysteries, but God is said to have hid them from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to babes and children. It was not the wise, the mighty, and the noble that were called, but the foolish, the weak, and the mean; and it is not to the few, but the many, that the gospel is preached; for it pleased God to save men and regenerate society by the apparently foolish means of publicly proclaiming the truth to the multitude. The success which has attended the faithful preaching of the gospel in every land, furnishes an abundant proof, that in this, as in every other instance, the supposed foolishness of God's plans are always superior to the seeming wisdom of man's. The next distinguished name in the history of philosophy was Xenophanes of Elea, the founder of the Eleatic school. He believed in the great truth taught by the other schools, that there was a God, but he made no attempt to prove it. The Ionian school had chosen the elements as representatives of the Creator, and their philosophy was but a materialism, in which God and nature were confounded. The Italian school, preferring the mental to the material, reasoned about the unity, and the all till the Creator and the creature became mingled in the relation of a whole and its parts. But Xenophanes was satisfied with the conception of the unity, and that unity he called God, without either clothing him with a material element, or confounding him with his works. His adopted symbol of the divinity was a sphere or circle, which being complete in itself was the type of perfection; and having neither beginning nor end, was the emblem of eternity. His simple creed, There is but one God, neither resembling us in form nor ideas,' was only a strong protest against polytheism; and as he neither sought to prove this truth, nor to follow it out, but only applied it to existing error, and endeavoured to reduce the superstition of the times to this standard, we are more disposed to look on him as a reformer than as a philosopher. He kept no school, but wandered for more than fifty years over the countries of the west, preaching his one great truth, until the intolerance of his countrymen banished him from the society he sought to improve. There is not in the history of philosophy a more melancholy spectacle than the close of his life. Socrates is represented as making his departure amid the company of his friends, cheered by their sympathy, and sustained by the hope of entering on a better state of being; but Xenophanes is represented as a solitary exile, afflicted with poverty and suffering from infirmity, as repining at his fruitless efforts to learn truth and expose error, till these clouded his mind, and his wandering spirit sunk in a hopeless death. In these circumstances a brother poet describes him as thus bewailing his lot-'O that mine were the deep mind, patient and looking to both sides. Long have I wandered on the road of error beguiled, and am now hoary of years, yet exposed to doubt of all kinds; for wherever I turn I am lost in the one and all.' He was an interesting specimen of a class of men who were probably more numerous than we now believe them to have been, men who earnestly 'desired to see and did not see the things which we have seen and heard.' Of all the ancient philosophers, he was the most opposed to polytheism, but his theology was too abstracted, its mysterious one was to him but an ideal being without any attribute that could stimulate his faith or hope; so that if his hostility to polytheism never relaxed from the hatred of a confirmed passion, his conviction of one God scarcely reached the conviction of a settled principle. It is this peculiarity in his character which gives him the singular position in history of being sometimes placed as the first of the monotheists, and at others as the head of the atheists. His follower Parmenides, perceiving that the Ionian or physical school, by following their senses only were generally led into error, and that the Italian or mathematical school, by following their reason only, had also failed to ing Athens, that the Ionian philosophy was established as the reigning doctrine, and that his own attempt to teach the Eleatic was universally ridiculed; but though stunned at first by the noisy opposition that everywhere met him, he soon recovered himself, and changing his ground, he ceased to expound and defend his own system, and commenced to attack that of his opponents; hence, as prose suited his purpose better than poetry, he was the first to introduce that method of treating scientific subjects. Also, as in his debates he made the attack, and endeavoured to expose error by exhibiting its absurdity, this led him to be careful in the arrangement and expression of his own thoughts, and taught his opponents to be more careful in theirs, and thus this gifted polemic made reasoning a science, and introduced a more accurate method of thinking and speaking. With Zeno dogmatic philosophy ended, and dialectics or the art of reasoning began; but as he was more distinguished as a debater than as a thinker, he rather taught men how they were to argue, than what they were to believe. Besides, as his vocation was rather that of the opponent of error than the advocate of truth, he only exploded the opinions of others, without establishing any of his own; so that on the whole the first result of his labours was more favourable to scepticism than science. discover the truth, set himself to examine both sides, and the result was another step in advance. He believed that as the circumstances of men were different, their opportunities of judging were as varied as their lot in life; and as each man would form his opinions of things according as these appeared to himself, their opinions would be as diverse as their circumstances. Besides, as in judging by the senses, men could only give a verdict upon such things as were manifest to the sense, therefore the infinitely great and the infinitely small being beyond their reach, the senses could never be a perfect or proper guide to men. On the other hand, as man's reason was the result of his superior organization, and as the organization of all men were alike, therefore reason in all was essentially the same, hence it was a better guide; and as the reason of every man led him to believe in a supreme being, that belief, being natural to man, must be true. This was a bold step, to assume at once that the idea of a divinity was natural to man, and that the existence of God was a necessary truth. The teachers of the other schools had tasked themselves to find such a. proof as would carry them across the gulf that lay between them and the certainty of God's being. The Ionians sought to fill it up with their material causes, and found none of sufficient magnitude; the Italians sought to calculate the distance, and found nothing that could measure it; Xenophanes fearlessly leaped the chasm, and hung trembling on the brink with no support save his yielding faith; but Parmenides discovered that man's reason had been given him, like seraph's wings, to mark his high order in the scale of being, and to waft him over every difficulty that lay between him and the assurance of a divinity. It was a valuable discovery that the assurance of a Supreme Being was but the natural element of man's reason, and that his reason pointed out this truth as clearly as the foot, the fin, and the wing point out the elements to which other creatures belong. Zeno of Elea, the disciple of Parmenides, endeavoured to propagate this truth, but unhappily his lot fell on evil times. He was the first who taught men Ancient philosophy was dogmatic, barto reason, and invented the first outlines ring all inquiry and silencing all disputes of logic. The Chinese say, 'That the hu- with the maxim, 'The master has said man feelings, when exited, become articu- so;' but with Zeno dialectics began, and late in words; when words fail to express men refused to be any longer led in the them, sighs or inarticulate tones succeed; leading-strings of a blind faith. and when these are inadequate, then re- masters gave forth other opinions, so that course is had to song.' This sentiment school was pitted against school, and the appears to have been very general amongst voice of truth was drowned in 'the baball the ancient nations, for their first lings and contentions of science falsely so thoughts are always breathed in poetry, called.' Democritus laughed at all existand all the early philosophy of Greece, ing opinions, and taught that the world down to the time of Zeno, was but a few was composed of atoms which had a selffragments of songs. He found, on visit-acting power, and that these, combining Men had now discovered that there was a First Cause, and that he was a spiritual intelligence; but the teachers of the three primary schools were unable to throw any more light on the mystery of God's being. The human intellect appears to have been unable to go any farther into the interior of truth; so what was yet unexplored was left in darkness, and that which had been discovered soon became clouded with doubt. At this point in the progress of knowledge human reason may well pause, to muse over its weakness, to bury its pride, and to bless the grace that has now given to man that which the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, neither hath it entered unto the heart of man to conceive.' Other of themselves, formed all things as they are. His disciple Protagoras followed up this opinion, and believing in a self-made and self-governed world, he denied both a Creator and a Providence. Having gone thus far, he next published a treatise, in which he ventured to confess that he was unable to arrive at any knowledge whether there are any Gods or no,' and for this sentiment he was banished from Athens. He was the first of a class called Sophists, or 'the wise.' This class professed to teach all knowledge for a gratuity, and while pretending to know every thing, were suspected to believe nothing. But as the fate of their teachers made them cautious in their attacks on the national superstitions, they speedily acquired great popularity in the city. This was but the natural result of the circumstances we have described. Philosophy had tried to find out God, and failed, and men, dissatisfied and disappointed, protested against all truth as uncertain, and all faith as a delusion. Then a shallow sophistry set itself up as the monitor of society, and its hired teachers sold their superficial knowledge for wisdom. But while this prating scepticism was contending with a dogged superstition for the mastery, and when science and religion hung trembling in the balance, Socrates appeared, to bring down philosophy from the regions of cloudland, and to place it in the domains of common sense, and its day broke and its dawn passed away. from India, and as the national vanity of the Greeks would lead them to adopt this opinion, because it not only gave a more dignified origin to their philosophy, but deprived the neighbouring nations of the honour of contributing to it, we do not attach much weight to these traditions. But we cannot so easily dismiss the reports of a correspondence between the first philosophers, for though the reports of their travels were pruned of all that is fabulous or doubtful, yet enough would remain to prove that they did travel far into other lands to acquire knowledge; and though the resemblance between the speculations of the East and West is not of itself sufficient to prove a relationship, yet the proof does not rest on such a solitary evidence, but on the truth of a resemblance combined with other evidence. Besides, though we admit that much of the philosophy of both places may have been spontaneous, we have still to account for the fact that it sprung up in both places at the same time. To ascribe this simultaneous origin to a common want, is not a sufficient explanation of the causes that led society at this time to feel its want. Such a general want could only be the effect of an equally general cause, whether we can discover that cause or no. We admit that abuses bring reform, and that necessity prompts invention; and if we had no evidence that any other agency was at work, we might have ascribed the movement to a reaction in the public mind against superstition. But when civil history clearly indicates that there was at this time a great change in society, and when sacred history as plainly teaches that God was at this time using efficient means to destroy existing error, we are unwilling to ignore the agency of the Jews in producing this reaction, and look on the dispersion as one of the chief causes of the decline of idolatry, and of the dawn of better times. In our previous remarks in a former Number, on the history of the East, we endeavoured to show how the spirit of pro We may now pause to notice the inquiry as to the original source of the philosophy of the West. It is generally believed to have had its origin in the East, and this opinion is supported by the following reasons. It was in its eastern colonies that the Greek mind first developed itself, and it was to the East that all the traditions of the country pointed as the source of its knowledge. This opinion is also supported by the reports of a correspondence between the first philosophers of the East and West, and by the evidences of a resemblance between their speculations. However, it is main-pagandism in the monarchs of Assyria and tained by other writers-that these traditions are not of much weight-that the accounts of the travels of the first philosophers are extremely fabulous—that the evidence of a resemblance between the early speculations of the East and West is not of itself sufficient to prove a relationship—that it is most probable that the systems of both were the spontaneous productions of their own localities—and that their simultaneous origin may be easily accounted for from the prevalence of a common want. Now, as these traditions of an eastern origin do not seem to be any older than the return of Alexander Chaldea tended to prevent the superstition of the East from taking root, and to prepare society for any change; and how well adapted these wide-spread kingdoms were for spreading any truth that might be then discovered or revealed; and that as the tribes of the West were not subjected to this influence, they would be less prepared for any reform. We also endeavoured to illustrate how the dispersion of the Jews brought their creed and customs into contact with prevailing error, and spread the knowledge of the true God wide as the dominions of Babylon, and far as the dispersed of Israel. It may be |