Amidst all the turbulence of the Grecian states, and the almost perpetual hostilities in which they were engaged, there were many circumstances favourable to the cultiva tion of literature and science. Few individuals possessed large properties, but many of them lived in great leisure, following no occupation themselves, and principally main tained by the labour of slaves. Assembled generally in towns, and having free intercourse with one another, polite manners were formed, and various opportunities were pre sented for the display of taste and genius. A lively ima gination, and love of novelty, were general characteristics of the Greeks, and disposed them to welcome every ray of knowledge which beamed upon their limited society. Many, possessed of active and intelligent minds, yet less daring in their dispositions, or more scrupulous in their integrity, shunning the stormy paths of political ambition, sought employment and distinction by attainments in lite rature or science. Even those who aimed at the offices of statesmen, found a degree of general knowledge, especial ly in the pursuits of taste, and the arts of eloquence, high ly advantageous to enable them to command attention in the public assemblies, and to assist them in swaying the minds of their fellow citizens. As knowledge increased among the members of a community, these qualifications became not merely useful, but essential to every political leader ; and many, who were unable, or unwilling, to min gle in the struggle for public situations, found a less splen did, but often more gainful occupation, in communicating to others those literary acquisitions which had become so subservient to the success of public men. At length eve ry city in Greece, but especially Athens, abounded with those persons, who, under the name of Sophists, undertook to teach every branch of science ; and, at a time when books were few and expensive, the oral communication of knowledge was obviously a matter of the utmost import ance.* These professors of wisdom studied the accom plishments of eloquence, to render their instructions more attractive ; and frequenting all the places of public resort, strove to recommend themselves to notice by an ostenta tious display of their anilines, especially by public dispu tations with one another, or with any who chose to converse with them amidst a circle of hearers. Grecian philosophy is generally admitted to have originated with Thales of Aliletus, the contemporary or Solon, and the founder of the Ionian school. Soon after him arose Pytha goras, a native of Samos, who was compelled, by political troubles, to take refuge in Italy, and thus became the lead er of what has been called the Vahan school. Both these sages are understood to have acquire'd their learning in Egypt and Persia ; but so much was it the practice of the Greeks to claim as their own, what they had merely pur loined from the literary treasures of other nations, that it is impossible to ascertain what portion of their science was indigenous, and what of foreign growth. Both Thales and Pythagoras inculcated many. valuable moral precepts, but they were not teachers of ethics as a system ; and their countrymen of the Asiatic Greeks were more de lighted with those metaphysical enquiries, respecting the nature or matter and spirit, the formation of the world, and laws of the heavenly bodies, which gratified their imagi nation, without proposing any restraint to their passions. It was during the administration of Periander at Corinth, and Pisistratus in Athens, that the love of these sciences was first kindled in Greece ; but the growth of every libe ral art was entirely checked by the violent political con tests and revolutions which ensued, and particularly by the general alarm of the Persian invasion, which left no lei sure for speculative pursuits. But when the commanding talents of Pericles had quieted the tumults of faction in Attica, the pursuits of science revived at Athens with new Vigour ; and, together with the fine arts, continued to re ceive improvement during all the turbulence which attend ed the progress and effects of the Peloponnesian war. During this period it was, that Anaxagoras of Clazomene introduced the best principles of the Ionian school, that Socrates dispensed his more practical instructions, that Plato wrote and taught his more refined speculations, that Lysias and Isocrates pleaded in the forum, and that Aristo tle and Demosthenes studied in the schools of Athens. Anaxagoras first taught in Athens the existence of one eternal and supreme Being, or, as he is said to have ex pressed himself, «a perfect mind, independent of body," as the cause or creator of all things; and, by enabling his pupils to calculate eclipses of the sun and moon, proved these hitherto reputed divinities to be mere material substances. But his doctrine was so directly repugnant' to the whole religious notions of the Grecian people, that he was accused of impiety, and obliged to withdraw from the Athenian territories. Socrates, early impressed by the sublime principles of theology taught by the exiled philo sopher, yet, perceiving the inutility, or at least the unpo pularity of such discussions respecting the nature of the Deity, applied himself rather to investigate the duty which man ought to render to such a Being, as Anaxagoras had described the great Creator. He seems to have settled it as a first principle, that, if the providence of God interfer ed in the government of the world, the duty of man to man must form a distinguished branch of the divine will. He therefore applied himself to examine and inculcate the so cial duties; and, possessing a most discriminating and ready eloquence, he rendered his conversation (the only mode of teaching which he employed) at once amusing and instructive. He was always to be found wherever there was the greatest resort of company, and was ready either to receive or to communicate information ; but he would neither undertake the office of private instruction, nor ac cept a reward for his public labours. While he maintain ed the perfect wisdom and perfect goodness of the Supreme Being, and the constant superintendance of his providence over the affairs of men, he continued to observe and to recom mend the various religious worship which were prac tised in his native country. But all his caution and worth were unable to secure his protection against the jealous tyranny of Athenian democracy ; and, either from an im pression that he disapproved of their popular constitution, or from a dislike of his purer system of morals, he was rendered so obnoxious to his fellow citizens, that a decree was easily procured for his death. After the time of So crates, the Greek philosophers were divided into two op posite sects, the Theists and Atheists. The latter, among
whom were Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, &c. sup ported the opinion of Anaximander, that, without the aid of a supreme intelligence, all things were produced by a necessary action of matter, assuming all kinds of forms ; and the former, among whom were Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, &c. adhered to the doctrine of Anaxagoras, respecting the existence of a Deity, while they held different notions as to his nature and attributes. Even those, however, who possessed the more correct ideas of the Supreme Being, almost without exception conceived the world to be go verned by a number of inferior divinities, to whom different departments of the universe had been committed; and, as they readily conformed to the existing religious usages of their respective countries, their philosophical system and private example rather countenanced than counteracted the popular polytheism of antiquity. The origin and pro gress of the Grecian mythology, it is now impossible to trace with any probable degree of certainty. Whether it arose from the Chaldean hypothesis of the planets and ele ments being inferior divinities, and established mediators between man and the one supreme God ; or from the al legorical mode employed by the Egyptians of describing the attributes of the Deity ; or from a poetical personifica• tion of the operations of nature; or from a fabulous em bellishment of real events, in the first periods of Grecian history ; or from mutilated traditions of the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs ; or rather, which seems the most likely, from a mixture of all these, and perhaps other un known sources ;—one thing seems evident, that if it ever possessed the symmetry of a philosophical system, its uni ty was destroyed before it was described by any writer of antiquity whose works are now extant.
The thcogony of Hesiod may be considered as the ear liest and must entire account of the religious tenets of the Greeks ; but it is affirmed by Ilerodotus, that, along with the divinities of the first inhabitants of Greece, the poet has mingled the gods of Libya and Egypt. The sys tem, in short, admitted in some degree by the philoso phers, assumed and altered by legislators, as best suited their purposes, embellished and expanded by the poets, as their imaginations pleased, became at length an inex tricable mass of mysterious absurdities and ideal beings, of which we cannot attempt to furnish any consistent ac count. Neither can we afford space for enumerating the leading sects, and distinguishing tenets, and scientific at tainments, of the different philosophers of Greece ; but the most important and authentic information on these topics will be found under the articles devoted to their re spective names. (See particularly ACADEMICS, ATOMI CAL PHILOSOPHY, PERIPATETICS, STOICS, ANAXAGORAS, ARISTOTLE, EPICURUS, PLATO, PYTHAGORAS, SOCRATES, ZENO.) It may be observed, in general, that the great de fect of their physical science was, the want of experi ment; and thus, having no fixed principles upon which to proceed, they had recourse to mere hypothesis and con jecture, amusing themselves with framing fanciful sys tems, while they should have been employed in actual ob servations. Hence a taste for sophistry and subtilty pre vailed in every school of Grecian philosophy ; and it be came the boast of their teachers of wisdom to be able to support either side of a question, and to give plausibility to the most parodoxical opinions. This pernicious prac tice was soon transferred from the more abstruse specu lations, to the more practical, political, and moral obli gations. Its prevalence naturally gave rise to the sect of the Pyrrhonists or Sceptics, whose distinguishing princi ple was universal doubt, which they carried to such a de gree of extravagance, as to pronounce every external ob ject a mere illusion, and the life of man a perpetual dream. Neither the speculations of the philosophers, nor the fic tions of the poets, were much calculated to favour the obligations of moral duty ; and, even where their tendency was most unexceptionable, their influence was feeble.
At no period of Grecian history does their appear any thing deserving the name of evidence to prove the exits ence of that virtuous age, which more modern declaim ers have delighted to describe rather in the spirit of poet ical romance, than of historic accuracy. In the earlier ages, violence and rapine, except in as far as they were occasionally restrained by the solemn obligation of oaths, foun the prevailing feature of the people and their leaders. In the more enlightened periods, in the times even of Plato and his disciples, the clearest principles, we do not say of moral purity, but even of moral integrity, were not better understood, and still less better observed, than in the days of Homer. Philosophy relaxed the hold of su perstition upon the conscience, without substituting any efficacious restraint in its place; and " it is evident," to nse the words of Mitford, "from the writings of Xeno phon and Plato, that, in their age, the boundaries of right and wrong, justice and injustice, honesty and dishonesty, were little, determined by any generally received princi ple." The philosophy of Epicurus had completely gain ed the ascendency in the age preceding the Christian era ; and the greatest characters, and most learned scholars, wavered between the tenets of the theistical and atheistical systems. Corruption of manners, and the subtilties of scepticism, had reached a height of extravagance, which it seemed scarcely possible to exceed. Human reason had lost itself in the labyrinths of philosophical specula tion ; and human virtue had been abandoned to the way ward direction of the fancy or the passions. The history of the world had demonstrated (and it is the best lesson, which a review of its most interesting portions can teach) the necessity of some surer and more authoritative guide to man, than what the wisdom of the world had been able to afford him, either as a member of society, or a being formed for immortality. See Ancient Universal History; Millot's Elements of General History, vol. i.; Goldsmith's History of Greece ; Rutherford's View of Ancient History ; Gillies's History of Greece; Gillies's History of the World ; Potter's Antiquities of Greece ; Anacharsis's Travels in Greece ; Leland's History of Philip of Macedon ; Pausa nias' Description of Greece ; Religion of the Ancient Greeks illustrated, by M. Le Clem ; Newton's Chronology ; Bos suet's Universal History ; and particularly Mitford's His tory of Greece, a historical work, unequalled in modern times for extensive research, judicious conclusions, and well•• arranged narrative. (q)