LORD'S LECTURES BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY, VOLUME I THE OLD PAGAN CIVILIZATIONS. BY JOHN LORD, LL. D. , AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD, " "MODERN EUROPE, "ETC. , ETC. To the Memory of MARY PORTER LORD, WHOSE FRIENDSHIP AND APPRECIATION AS A DEVOTED WIFE ENCOURAGED ME TO A LONG LIFE OF HISTORICAL LABORS, This Work IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. PUBLISHERS' NOTE. In preparing a new edition of Dr. Lord's great work, the "Beacon Lightsof History, " it has been necessary to make some rearrangement oflectures and volumes. Dr. Lord began with his volume on classic"Antiquity, " and not until he had completed five volumes did he returnto the remoter times of "Old Pagan Civilizations" (reaching back toAssyria and Egypt) and the "Jewish Heroes and Prophets. " These issued, he took up again the line of great men and movements, and brought itdown to modern days. The "Old Pagan Civilizations, " of course, stretch thousands of yearsbefore the Hebrews, and the volume so entitled would naturally be thefirst. Then follows the volume on "Jewish Heroes and Prophets, " endingwith St. Paul and the Christian Era. After this volume, which in anyposition, dealing with the unique race of the Jews, must stand byitself, we return to the brilliant picture of the Pagan centuries, in"Ancient Achievements" and "Imperial Antiquity, " the latter coming downto the Fall of Rome in the fourth century A. D. , which ends the era of"Antiquity" and begins the "Middle Ages. " NEW YORK, September 15, 1902. AUTHOR'S PREFACE. It has been my object in these Lectures to give the substance ofaccepted knowledge pertaining to the leading events and characters ofhistory; and in treating such a variety of subjects, extending over aperiod of more than six thousand years, each of which might fill avolume, I have sought to present what is true rather than what is new. Although most of these Lectures have been delivered, in some form, during the last forty years, in most of the cities and in many of theliterary institutions of this country, I have carefully revised themwithin the last few years, in order to avail myself of the latest lightshed on the topics and times of which they treat. The revived and wide-spread attention given to the study of the Bible, under the stimulus of recent Oriental travels and investigations, notonly as a volume of religious guidance, but as an authentic record ofmost interesting and important events, has encouraged me to include aseries of Lectures on some of the remarkable men identified withJewish history. Of course I have not aimed at an exhaustive criticism in these Biblicalstudies, since the topics cannot be exhausted even by the most learnedscholars; but I have sought to interest intelligent Christians by acontinuous narrative, interweaving with it the latest accessibleknowledge bearing on the main subjects. If I have persisted in adheringto the truths that have been generally accepted for nearly two thousandyears, I have not disregarded the light which has been recently shed onimportant points by the great critics of the progressive schools. I have not aimed to be exhaustive, or to give minute criticism oncomparatively unimportant points; but the passions and interests whichhave agitated nations, the ideas which great men have declared, and theinstitutions which have grown out of them, have not, I trust, beenuncandidly described, nor deductions from them illogically made. Inasmuch as the interest in the development of those great ideas andmovements which we call Civilization centres in no slight degree in themen who were identified with them, I have endeavored to give a faithfulpicture of their lives in connection with the eras and institutionswhich they represent, whether they were philosophers, ecclesiastics, ormen of action. And that we may not lose sight of the precious boons which illustriousbenefactors have been instrumental in bestowing upon mankind, it hasbeen my chief object to present their services, whatever may have beentheir defects; since it is for _services_ that most great men areultimately judged, especially kings and rulers. These services, certainly, constitute the gist of history, and it is these which I haveaspired to show. JOHN LORD. VOL. I. THE OLD PAGAN CIVILIZATIONS. CONTENTS. ANCIENT RELIGIONS: EGYPTIAN, ASSYRIAN, BABYLONIAN, AND PERSIAN. Ancient religionsChristianity not progressiveJewish monotheismReligion of EgyptIts great antiquityIts essential featuresComplexity of Egyptian polytheismEgyptian deitiesThe worship of the sunThe priestly caste of EgyptPower of the priestsFuture rewards and punishmentsMorals of the EgyptiansFunctions of the priestsEgyptian ritual of worshipTransmigration of soulsAnimal worshipEffect of Egyptian polytheism on the JewsAssyrian deitiesPhoenician deitiesWorship of the sunOblations and sacrificesIdolatry the sequence of polytheismReligion of the PersiansCharacter of the early IraniansComparative purity of the Persian religionZoroasterMagismZend-AvestaDualismAuthorities RELIGIONS OF INDIA. BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM. Religions of IndiaAntiquity of BrahmanismSanskrit literatureThe Aryan racesOriginal religion of the AryansAryan migrationsThe VedasAncient deities of IndiaLaws of MenuHindu pantheismCorruption of BrahmanismThe Brahmanical casteCharacter of the BrahmansRise of BuddhismGautamaExperiences of GautamaTravels of BuddhaHis religious systemSpread of his doctrineBuddhism a reaction against BrahmanismNirvanaGloominess of BuddhismBuddhism as a reform of moralsSayings of SiddârthaHis rulesFailure of Buddhism in IndiaAuthorities RELIGION OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. CLASSIC MYTHOLOGY. Religion of the Greeks and RomansGreek mythsGreek priestsGreek divinitiesGreek polytheismGreek mythologyAdoption of Oriental fablesGreek deities the creation of poetsPeculiarities of the Greek godsThe Olympian deitiesThe minor deitiesThe Greeks indifferent to a future stateAugustine view of heathen deitiesArtists vie with poets in conceptions of divineTemple of Zeus in OlympiaGreek festivalsNo sacred books among the GreeksA religion without deitiesRoman divinitiesPeculiarities of Roman worshipRitualism and hypocrisyCharacter of the RomanAuthorities CONFUCIUS. SAGE AND MORALIST. Early condition of ChinaYouth of ConfuciusHis public lifeHis reformsHis fameHis wanderingsHis old ageHis writingsHis philosophyHis definition of a superior manHis ethicsHis views of governmentHis veneration for antiquityHis beautiful characterHis encouragement of learningHis character as statesmanHis exaltation of filial pietyHis exaltation of friendshipThe supremacy of the StateNecessity of good men in officePeaceful policy of ConfuciusVeneration for his writingsHis posthumous influenceLao-tseAuthorities ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. SEEKING AFTER TRUTH. Intellectual superiority of the GreeksEarly progress of philosophyThe Greek philosophyThe Ionian SophoiThales and his principlesAnaximenesDiogenes of ApolloniaHeraclitus of EphesusAnaxagorasAnaximanderPythagoras and his schoolXenophanesZeno of EleaEmpedocles and the EleaticsLoftiness of the Greek philosopherProgress of scepticismThe SophistsSocratesHis exposure of errorSocrates as moralistThe method of SocratesHis services to philosophyHis disciplesPlatoIdeas of PlatoArcher Butler on PlatoAristotleHis servicesThe syllogismThe EpicureansSir James Mackintosh on EpicurusThe StoicsZenoPrinciples of the Stoical philosophyPhilosophy among the RomansCiceroEpictetusAuthorities SOCRATES. GREEK PHILOSOPHY. Mission of SocratesEra of his birth; view of his timesHis personal appearance and peculiaritiesHis lofty moral characterHis sarcasm and ridicule of opponentsThe SophistsNeglect of his familyHis friendship with distinguished peopleHis philosophic methodHis questions and definitionsHis contempt of theoriesImperfection of contemporaneous physical scienceThe Ionian philosophersSocrates bases truth on consciousnessUncertainty of physical inquiries in his daySuperiority of moral truthHappiness, Virtue, Knowledge, --the Socratic trinityThe "daemon" of SocratesHis idea of God and ImmortalitySocrates a witness and agent of GodSocrates compared with Buddha and Marcus AureliusHis resemblance to Christ in life and teachingsUnjust charges of his enemiesHis unpopularityHis trial and defenceHis audacityHis condemnationThe dignity of his last hoursHis easy deathTardy repentance of the Athenians; statue by LysippusPosthumous influenceAuthorities PHIDIAS. GREEK ART. General popular interest in ArtPrinciples on which it is basedPhidias taken merely as a textNot much known of his personal historyHis most famous statues; Minerva and Olympian JoveHis peculiar excellences as a sculptorDefinitions of the word "Art"Its representation of ideas of beauty and graceThe glory and dignity of artThe connection of plastic with literary artArchitecture, the first expression of artPeculiarities of Egyptian and Assyrian architectureAncient temples, tombs, pyramids, and palacesGeneral features of Grecian architectureThe Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian ordersSimplicity and beauty of their proportions. .. The horizontal lines of Greek and the vertical lines of Gothic architectureAssyrian, Egyptian, and Indian sculptureSuperiority of Greek sculptureOrnamentation of temples with statues of gods, heroes, and distinguished menThe great sculptors of antiquityTheir ideal excellenceAntiquity of painting in Babylon and EgyptIts gradual development in GreeceFamous Grecian paintersDecline of art among the RomansArt as seen in literatureLiterature not permanent without artArtists as a classArt a refining influence rather than a moral powerAuthorities LITERARY GENIUS. THE GREEK AND ROMAN CLASSICS. Richness of Greek classic poetryHomerGreek lyrical poetryPindarDramatic poetryAeschylus, Sophocles, and EuripidesGreek comedy: AristophanesRoman poetryNaevius, Plautus, TerenceRoman epic poetry: VirgilLyrical poetry: Horace, CatullusDidactic poetry: LucretiusElegiac poetry: Ovid, TibullusSatire: Horace, Martial, JuvenalPerfection of Greek prose writersHistory: HerodotusThucydides, XenophonRoman historiansJulius CaesarLivyTacitusOratorsPericlesDemosthenesAeschinesCiceroLearned men: VarroSenecaQuintilianLucianAuthorities LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOLUME I. Agapè, or Love Feast among the Early Christians _Frontispiece__After the painting by J. A. Mazerolle_. Procession of the Sacred Bull Apis-Osiris_After the painting by E. F. Bridgman_. Driving Sacrificial Victims into the Fiery Mouth of Baal_After the painting by Henri Motte_. Apollo Belvedere_From a photograph of the statue in the Vatican, Rome. _ Confucian Temple, Forbidden City, Pekin_From a photograph_. The School of Plato_After the painting by O. Knille_. Socrates Instructing Alcibiades_After the painting by H. F. Schopin_. Socrates_From the bust in the National Museum, Naples_. Pericles and Aspasia in the Studio of Phidias_After the painting by Hector Le Roux_. Zeuxis Choosing Models from among the Beauties of Kroton for his Picture of Helen_After the painting by E. Pagliano_. Homer_From the bust in the National Museum, Naples_. Demosthenes_From the statue in the Vatican, Rome_. ANCIENT RELIGIONS: EGYPTIAN, ASSYRIAN, BABYLONIAN, AND PERSIAN. BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY. ANCIENT RELIGIONS: EGYPTIAN, ASSYRIAN, BABYLONIAN, AND PERSIAN. It is my object in this book on the old Pagan civilizations to presentthe salient points only, since an exhaustive work is impossible withinthe limits of these volumes. The practical end which I have in view isto collate a sufficient number of acknowledged facts from which to drawsound inferences in reference to the progress of the human race, and thecomparative welfare of nations in ancient and modern times. The first inquiry we naturally make is in regard to the variousreligious systems which were accepted by the ancient nations, sincereligion, in some form or other, is the most universal of institutions, and has had the earliest and the greatest influence on the condition andlife of peoples--that is to say, on their civilizations--in everyperiod of the world. And, necessarily, considering what is the object inreligion, when we undertake to examine any particular form of it whichhas obtained among any people or at any period of time, we must ask, Howfar did its priests and sages teach exalted ideas of Deity, of the soul, and of immortality? How far did they arrive at lofty and immutableprinciples of morality? How far did religion, such as was taught, practically affect the lives of those who professed it, and lead them tojust and reasonable treatment of one another, or to holy contemplation, or noble deeds, or sublime repose in anticipation of a higher andendless life? And how did the various religions compare with what webelieve to be the true religion--Christianity--in its pure and ennoblingtruths, its inspiring promises, and its quiet influence in changing anddeveloping character? I assume that there is no such thing as a progressive Christianity, except in so far as mankind grow in the realization of its loftyprinciples; that there has not been and will not be any improvement onthe ethics and spiritual truths revealed by Jesus the Christ, but thatthey will remain forever the standard of faith and practice. I assumealso that Christianity has elements which are not to be found in anyother religion, --such as original teachings, divine revelations, andsublime truths. I know it is the fashion with many thinkers to maintainthat improvements on the Christian system are both possible andprobable, and that there is scarcely a truth which Christ and hisapostles declared which cannot be found in some other ancient religion, when divested of the errors there incorporated with it. This notion Irepudiate. I believe that systems of religion are perfect or imperfect, true or false, just so far as they agree or disagree with Christianity;and that to the end of time all systems are to be measured by theChristian standard, and not Christianity by any other system. The oldest religion of which we have clear and authentic account isprobably the pure monotheism held by the Jews. Some nations have claimeda higher antiquity for their religion--like the Egyptians andChinese--than that which the sacred writings of the Hebrews show to havebeen communicated to Abraham, and to earlier men of God treated of inthose Scriptures; but their claims are not entitled to our fullcredence. We are in doubt about them. The origin of religions isenshrouded in mystical darkness, and is a mere speculation. Authentichistory does not go back far enough to settle this point. The primitivereligion of mankind I believe to have been revealed to inspired men, who, like Shem, walked with God. Adam, in paradise, knew who God was, for he heard His voice; and so did Enoch and Noah, and, more clearlythan all, Abraham. They believed in a personal God, maker of heaven andearth, infinite in power, supreme in goodness, without beginning andwithout end, who exercises a providential oversight of the worldwhich he made. It is certainly not unreasonable to claim the greatest purity andloftiness in the monotheistic faith of the Hebrew patriarchs, as handeddown to his children by Abraham, over that of all other founders ofancient religious systems, not only since that faith was, as we believe, supernaturally communicated, but since the fruit of that stock, especially in its Christian development, is superior to all others. Thissublime monotheism was ever maintained by the Hebrew race, in all theirwanderings, misfortunes, and triumphs, except on occasions when theypartially adopted the gods of those nations with whom they came incontact, and by whom they were corrupted or enslaved. But it is not my purpose to discuss the religion of the Jews in thisconnection, since it is treated in other volumes of this series, andsince everybody has access to the Bible, the earlier portions of whichgive the true account not only of the Hebrews and their specialprogenitor Abraham, but of the origin of the earth and of mankind; andmost intelligent persons are familiar with its details. I begin my description of ancient religions with those systems withwhich the Jews were more or less familiar, and by which they were moreor less influenced. And whether these religions were, as I think, themselves corrupted forms of the primitive revelation to primitive man, or, as is held by some philosophers of to-day, natural developments outof an original worship of the powers of Nature, of ghosts of ancestralheroes, of tutelar deities of household, family, tribe, nation, and soforth, it will not affect their relation to my plan of considering thisbackground of history in its effects upon modern times, through Judaismand Christianity. * * * * * The first which naturally claims our attention is the religion ofancient Egypt. But I can show only the main features and characteristicsof this form of paganism, avoiding the complications of their system andtheir perplexing names as much as possible. I wish to present what isascertained and intelligible rather than what is ingenious and obscure. The religion of Egypt is very old, --how old we cannot tell withcertainty. We know that it existed before Abraham, and with but fewchanges, for at least two thousand years. Mariette places the era of thefirst Egyptian dynasty under Menes at 5004 B. C. It is supposed that theearliest form of the Egyptian religion was monotheistic, such as wasknown later, however, only to a few of the higher priesthood. What theesoteric wisdom really was we can only conjecture, since there are nosacred books or writings that have come down to us, like the IndianVedas and the Persian Zend-Avesta. Herodotus affirms that he knew themysteries, but he did not reveal them. But monotheism was lost sight of in Egypt at an earlier period than thebeginning of authentic history. It is the fate of all institutions tobecome corrupt, and this is particularly true of religious systems. Thereason of this is not difficult to explain. The Bible and humanexperience fully exhibit the course of this degradation. Hence, beforeAbraham's visit to Egypt the religion of that land had degenerated intoa gross and complicated polytheism, which it was apparently for theinterest of the priesthood to perpetuate. The Egyptian religion was the worship of the powers of Nature, --the sun, the moon, the planets, the air, the storm, light, fire, the clouds, therivers, the lightning, all of which were supposed to exercise amysterious influence over human destiny. There was doubtless anindefinite sense of awe in view of the wonders of the material universe, extending to a vague fear of some almighty supremacy over all that couldbe seen or known. To these powers of Nature the Egyptians gave names, and made them divinities. The Egyptian polytheism was complex and even contradictory. What itlost in logical sequence it gained in variety. Wilkinson enumeratesseventy-three principal divinities, and Birch sixty-three; but therewere some hundreds of lesser gods, discharging peculiar functions andpresiding over different localities. Every town had its guardian deity, to whom prayers or sacrifices were offered by the priests. The morecomplicated the religious rites the more firmly cemented was the powerof the priestly caste, and the more indispensable were priestly servicesfor the offerings and propitiations. Of these Egyptian deities there were eight of the first rank; but thelist of them differs according to different writers, since in the greatcities different deities were worshipped. These were Ammon--theconcealed god, --the sovereign over all (corresponding to the Jupiter ofthe Romans), whose sacred city was Thebes. At a later date this god wasidentified with Ammon Ra, the physical sun. Ra was the sun-god, especially worshipped at Heliopolis, --the symbol of light and heat. Kneph was the spirit of God moving over the face of the waters, whoseprincipal seat of worship was in Upper Egypt. Phtha was a sort ofartisan god, who made the sun, moon, and the earth, "the father ofbeginnings;" his sign was the scarabaeus, or beetle, and his patron citywas Memphis. Khem was the generative principle presiding over thevegetable world, --the giver of fertility and lord of the harvest. Thesedeities are supposed to have represented spirit passing into matter andform, --a process of divine incarnation. But the most popular deity was Osiris. His image is found standing onthe oldest monument, a form of Ra, the light of the lower world, andking and judge of Hades. His worship was universal throughout Egypt, buthis chief temples were at Abydos and Philae. He was regarded as mild, beneficent, and good. In opposition to him were Set, malignant and evil, and Bes, the god of death. Isis, the wife and sister of Osiris, was asort of sun goddess, representing the productive power of Nature. Khonswas the moon god. Maut, the consort of Ammon, represented Nature. Sati, the wife of Kneph, bore a resemblance to Juno. Nut was the goddess ofthe firmament; Ma was the goddess of truth; Horus was the mediatorbetween creation and destruction. But in spite of the multiplicity of deities, the Egyptian worshipcentred in some form upon heat or fire, generally the sun, the mostpowerful and brilliant of the forces of Nature. Among all the ancientpagan nations the sun, the moon, and the planets, under different names, whether impersonated or not, were the principal objects of worship forthe people. To these temples were erected, statues raised, andsacrifices made. No ancient nation was more devout, or more constant to the service ofits gods, than were the Egyptians; and hence, being superstitious, theywere pre-eminently under the control of priests, as the people were inIndia. We see, chiefly in India and Egypt, the power ofcaste, --tyrannical, exclusive, and pretentious, --and powerful inproportion to the belief in a future state. Take away the belief infuture existence and future rewards and punishments, and there is notmuch religion left. There may be philosophy and morality, but notreligion, which is based on the fear and love of God, and the destiny ofthe soul after death. Saint Augustine, in his "City of God, " hisgreatest work, ridicules all gods who are not able to save the soul, andall religions where future existence is not recognized as the mostimportant thing which can occupy the mind of man. We cannot then utterly despise the religion of Egypt, in spite of theabsurdities mingled with it, --the multiplicity of gods and the doctrineof metempsychosis, --since it included a distinct recognition of a futurestate of rewards and punishments "according to the deeds done in thebody. " On this belief rested the power of the priests, who were supposedto intercede with the deities, and who alone were appointed to offer tothem sacrifices, in order to gain their favor or deprecate their wrath. The idea of death and judgment was ever present to the thoughts of theEgyptians, from the highest to the lowest, and must have modified theirconduct, stimulating them to virtue, and restraining them from vice; forvirtue and vice are not revelations, --they are instincts implanted inthe soul. No ancient teacher enjoined the duties based on an immutablemorality with more force than Confucius, Buddha, and Epictetus. Who inany land or age has ignored the duties of filial obedience, respect torulers, kindness to the miserable, protection to the weak, honesty, benevolence, sincerity, and truthfulness? With the discharge of theseduties, written on the heart, have been associated the favor of thegods, and happiness in the future world, whatever errors may have creptinto theological dogmas and speculations. Believing then in a future state, where sin would be punished and virtuerewarded, and believing in it firmly and piously, the ancient Egyptianswere a peaceful and comparatively moral people. All writers admit theirindustry, their simplicity of life, their respect for law, their loyaltyto priests and rulers. Hence there was permanence to their institutions, for rapine, violence, and revolution were rare. They were not warlike, although often engaged in war by the command of ambitious kings. Generally the policy of their government was conservative and pacific. Military ambition and thirst for foreign conquest were not the peculiarsins of Egyptian kings; they sought rather to develop nationalindustries and resources. The occupation of the people was inagriculture and the useful arts, which last they carried to considerableperfection, especially in the working of metals, textile fabrics, andornamental jewelry. Their grand monuments were not triumphal arches, buttemples and mausoleums. Even the pyramids may have been built topreserve the bodies of kings until the soul should be acquitted orcondemned, and therefore more religious in their uses than as mereemblems of pride and power; and when monuments were erected toperpetuate the fame of princes, their supreme design was to receive theengraven memorials of the virtuous deeds of kings as fathers ofthe people. The priests, whose business it was to perform religious rites andceremonies to the various gods of the Egyptians, were extremelynumerous. They held the highest social rank, and were exempt from taxes. They were clothed in white linen, which was kept scrupulously clean. They washed their whole bodies twice a day; they shaved the head, andwore no beard. They practised circumcision, which rite was of extremeantiquity, existing in Egypt two thousand four hundred years beforeChrist, and at least four hundred years before Abraham, and has beenfound among primitive peoples all over the world. They did not make ashow of sanctity, nor were they ascetic like the Brahmans. They weremarried, and were allowed to drink wine and to eat meat, but not fishnor beans, which disturbed digestion. The son of a priest was generallya priest also. There were grades of rank among the priesthood; but notmore so than in the Roman Catholic Church. The high-priest was a greatdignitary, and generally belonged to the royal family. The king himselfwas a priest. The Egyptian ritual of worship was the most complicated of all rituals, and their literature and philosophy were only branches of theology. "Religious observances, " says Freeman Clarke, "were so numerous and soimperative that the most common labors of daily life could not beperformed without a perpetual reference to some priestly regulation. "There were more religious festivals than among any other ancient nation. The land was covered with temples; and every temple consecrated to asingle divinity, to whom some animal was sacred, supported a large bodyof priests. The authorities on Egyptian history, especially Wilkinson, speak highly, on the whole, of the morals of the priesthood, and oftheir arduous and gloomy life of superintending ceremonies, sacrifices, processions, and funerals. Their life was so full of minute duties andrestrictions that they rarely appeared in public, and their aspect aswell as influence was austere and sacerdotal. One of the most distinctive features of the Egyptian religion was theidea of the transmigration of souls, --that when men die; their soulsreappear on earth in various animals, in expiation of their sins. Osiriswas the god before whose tribunal all departed spirits appeared to bejudged. If evil preponderated in their lives, their souls passed into along series of animals until their sins were expiated, when the purifiedsouls, after thousands of years perhaps, passed into their old bodies. Hence it was the great object of the Egyptians to preserve their mortalbodies after death, and thus arose the custom of embalming them. It isdifficult to compute the number of mummies that have been found inEgypt. If a man was wealthy, it cost his family as much as one thousanddollars to embalm his body suitably to his rank. The embalmed bodies ofkings were preserved in marble sarcophagi, and hidden in giganticmonuments. The most repulsive thing in the Egyptian religion was animal-worship. Toeach deity some animal was sacred. Thus Apis, the sacred bull ofMemphis, was the representative of Osiris; the cow was sacred to Isis, and to Athor her mother. Sheep were sacred to Kneph, as well as theasp. Hawks were sacred to Ra; lions were emblems of Horus, wolves ofAnubis, hippopotami of Set. Each town was jealous of the honor of itsspecial favorites among the gods. "The worst form of this animal worship, " says Rawlinson, "was the beliefthat a deity absolutely became incarnate in an individual animal, and soremained until the animal's death. Such were the Apis bulls, of which asuccession was maintained at Memphis in the temple of Phtha, or, according to others, of Osiris. These beasts, maintained at the cost ofthe priestly communities in the great temples of their respectivecities, were perpetually adored and prayed to by thousands during theirlives, and at their deaths were entombed with the utmost care in hugesarcophagi, while all Egypt went into mourning on their decease. " Such was the religion of Egypt as known to the Jews, --a complicatedpolytheism, embracing the worship of animals as well as the powers ofNature; the belief in the transmigration of souls, and a sacerdotalismwhich carried ritualistic ceremonies to the greatest extent known toantiquity, combined with the exaltation of the priesthood to such adegree as to make priests the real rulers of the land, reminding us ofthe spiritual despotism of the Middle Ages. The priests of Egypt ruledby appealing to the fears of men, thus favoring a degradingsuperstition. How far they taught that the various objects of worshipwere symbols merely of a supreme power, which they themselves perhapsaccepted in their esoteric schools, we do not know. But the priestsbelieved in a future state of rewards and punishments, and thusrecognized the soul to be of more importance than the material body, andmade its welfare paramount over all other interests. This recognitiondoubtless contributed to elevate the morals of the people, and to makethem religious, despite their false and degraded views of God, and theirdisgusting superstitions. The Jews could not have lived in Egypt four hundred years without beinginfluenced by the popular belief. Hence in the wilderness, and in thedays of kingly rule, the tendency to animal worship in the shape of thegolden calves, their love of ritualistic observances, and their easysubmission to the rule of priests. In one very important thing, however, the Jews escaped a degrading superstition, --that of the transmigrationof souls; and it was perhaps the abhorrence by Moses of this belief thatmade him so remarkably silent as to a future state. It is seeminglyignored in the Old Testament, and hence many have been led to supposethat the Jews did not believe in it. Certainly the most cultivated andaristocratic sect--the Sadducees--repudiated it altogether; while thePharisees held to it. They, however, were products of a later age, andhad learned many things--good and bad--from surrounding nations or intheir captivities, which Moses did not attempt to teach the simple soulsthat escaped from Egypt. * * * * * Of the other religions with which the Jews came in contact, and whichmore or less were in conflict with their own monotheistic belief, verylittle is definitely known, since their sacred books, if they had any, have not come down to us. Our knowledge is mostly confined to monuments, on which the names of their deities are inscribed, the animals whichthey worshipped, symbolic of the powers of Nature, and the kings andpriests who officiated in religious ceremonies. From these we learn orinfer that among the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Phoenicians religionwas polytheistic, but without so complicated or highly organized asystem as prevailed in Egypt. Only about twenty deities are alluded toin the monumental records of either nation, and they are supposed tohave represented the sun, the moon, the stars, and various other powers, to which were delegated by the unseen and occult supreme deity theoversight of this world. They presided over cities and the elements ofNature, like the rain, the thunder, the winds, the air, the water. Someabode in heaven, some on the earth, and some in the waters under theearth. Of all these graven images existed, carved by men's hands, --somein the form of animals, like the winged bulls of Nineveh. In the veryearliest times, before history was written, it is supposed that thereligion of all these nations was monotheistic, and that polytheism wasa development as men became wicked and sensual. The knowledge of the oneGod was gradually lost, although an indefinite belief remained thatthere was a supreme power over all the other gods, at least a deity ofhigher rank than the gods of the people, who reigned over them asLord of lords. This deity in Assyria was Asshur. He is recognized by most authoritiesas Asshur, a son of Shem and grandson of Noah, who was probably the heroand leader of one of the early migrations, and, as founder of theAssyrian Empire, gave it its name, --his own being magnified and deifiedby his warlike descendants. Assyria was the oldest of the great empires, occupying Mesopotamia, --the vast plain watered by the Tigris andEuphrates rivers, --with adjacent countries to the north, west, and east. Its seat was in the northern portion of this region, while that ofBabylonia or Chaldaea, its rival, was in the southern part; and althoughafter many wars freed from the subjection of Assyria, the institutionsof Babylonia, and especially its religion, were very much the same asthose of the elder empire. In Babylonia the chief god was called El, orIl. In Babylon, although Bab-el, their tutelary god, was at the head ofthe pantheon, his form was not represented, nor had he any specialtemple for his worship. The Assyrian Asshur placed kings upon theirthrones, protected their armies, and directed their expeditions. Inspeaking of him it was "Asshur, my Lord. " He was also called "King ofkings, " reigning supreme over the gods; and sometimes he was called the"Father of the gods. " His position in the celestial hierarchycorresponds with the Zeus of the Greeks, and with the Jupiter of theRomans. He was represented as a man with a horned cap, carrying a bowand issuing from a winged circle, which circle was the emblem ofubiquity and eternity. This emblem was also the accompaniment ofAssyrian royalty. These Assyrian and Babylonian deities had a direct influence on the Jewsin later centuries, because traders on the Tigris pushed theiradventurous expeditions from the head of the Persian Gulf, either aroundthe great peninsula of Arabia, or by land across the deserts, andsettled in Canaan, calling themselves Phoenicians; and it was from thedescendants of these enterprising but morally debased people that thechildren of Israel, returning from Egypt, received the most pertinaciousinfluences of idolatrous corruption. In Phoenicia the chief deity wasalso called Bel, or Baal, meaning "Lord, " the epithet of the one divinebeing who rules the world, or the Lord of heaven. The deity of theEgyptian pantheon, with whom Baal most nearly corresponds, was Ammon, addressed as the supreme God. Ranking after El in Babylon, Asshur in Assyria, and Baal inPhoenicia, --all shadows of the same supreme God, --we notice among theseMesopotamians a triad of the great gods, called Anu, Bel, and Hea. Anu, the primordial chaos; Hea, life and intelligence animating matter; andBel, the organizing and creative spirit, --or, as Rawlinson thinks, "theoriginal gods of the earth, the heavens, and the waters, correspondingin the main with the classical Pluto, Jupiter, and Neptune, who dividedbetween them the dominion over the visible creation. " The god Bel, inthe pantheon of the Babylonians and Assyrians, is the God of gods, andFather of gods, who made the earth and heaven. His titleexpresses dominion. In succession to the gods of this first trio, --Anu, Bel, and Hea, --wasanother trio, named Siu, Shamas, and Vul, representing the moon, thesun, and the atmosphere. "In Assyria and Babylon the moon-god tookprecedence of the sun-god, since night was more agreeable to theinhabitants of those hot countries than the day. " Hence, Siu was themore popular deity; but Shamas, the sun, as having most directreference to physical nature, "the lord of fire, " "the ruler of theday, " was the god of battles, going forth with the armies of the kingtriumphant over enemies. The worship of this deity was universal, andthe kings regarded him as affording them especial help in war. Vul, thethird of this trinity, was the god of the atmosphere, the god oftempests, --the god who caused the flood which the Assyrian legendsrecognize. He corresponds with the Jupiter Tonans of the Romans, --"theprince of the power of the air, " destroyer of crops, the scatterer ofthe harvest, represented with a flaming sword; but as god of theatmosphere, the giver of rain, of abundance, "the lord of fecundity, " hewas beneficent as well as destructive. All these gods had wives resembling the goddesses in the Greekmythology, --some beneficent, some cruel; rendering aid to men, orpursuing them with their anger. And here one cannot resist theimpression that the earliest forms of the Greek mythology were derivedfrom the Babylonians and Phoenicians, and that the Greek poets, availingthemselves of the legends respecting them, created the popular religionof Greece. It is a mooted question whether the Greek civilization ischiefly derived from Egypt, or from Assyria and Phoenicia, --probablymore from these old monarchies combined than from the original seat ofthe Aryan race east of the Caspian Sea. All these ancient monarchieshad run out and were old when the Greeks began their settlements andconquests. There was still another and inferior class of deities among theAssyrians and Babylonians who were objects of worship, and were supposedto have great influence on human affairs. These deities were the planetsunder different names. The early study of astronomy among the dwellerson the plains of Babylon and in Mesopotamia gave an astral feature totheir religion which was not prominent in Egypt. These astral deitieswere Nin, or Bar (the Saturn of the Romans); and Merodach (Jupiter), theaugust god, "the eldest son of Heaven, " the Lord of battles. This wasthe favorite god of Nebuchadnezzar, and epithets of the highest honorwere conferred upon him, as "King of heaven and earth, " the "Lord of allbeings, " etc. Nergal (Mars) was a war god, his name signifying "thegreat Hero, " "the King of battles. " He goes before kings in theirmilitary expeditions, and lends them assistance in the chase. His emblemis the human-headed winged lion seen at the entrance of royal palaces. Ista (Venus) was the goddess of beauty, presiding over the loves of bothmen and animals, and was worshipped with unchaste rites. Nebo (Mercury)had the charge over learning and culture, --the god of wisdom, who"teaches and instructs. " There were other deities in the Assyrian and Babylonian pantheon whom Ineed not name, since they played a comparatively unimportant part inhuman affairs, like the inferior deities of the Romans, presiding overdreams, over feasts, over marriage, and the like. The Phoenicians, like the Assyrians, had their goddesses. Astoreth, orAstarte, represented the great female productive principle, as Baal didthe male. It was originally a name for the energy of God, on a par withBaal. In one of her aspects she represented the moon; but more commonlyshe was the representative of the female principle in Nature, and wasconnected more or less with voluptuous rites, --the equivalent ofAphrodite, or Venus. Tanith also was a noted female deity, and wasworshipped at Carthage and Cyprus by the Phoenician settlers. The nameis associated, according to Gesenius, with the Egyptian goddess Nut, andwith the Grecian Artemis the huntress. An important thing to be observed of these various deities is that theydo not uniformly represent the same power. Thus Baal, the Phoeniciansun-god, was made by the Greeks and Romans equivalent to Zeus, orJupiter, the god of thunder and storms. Apollo, the sun-god of theGreeks, was not so powerful as Zeus, the god of the atmosphere; while inAssyria and Phoenicia the sun-god was the greater deity. In Babylonia, Shamas was a sun-god as well as Bel; and Bel again was the god of theheavens, like Zeus. While Zeus was the supreme deity in the Greek mythology, rather thanApollo the sun, it seems that on the whole the sun was the prominent andthe most commonly worshipped deity of all the Oriental nations, as beingthe most powerful force in Nature. Behind the sun, however, there wassupposed to be an indefinite creative power, whose form was notrepresented, worshipped in no particular temple by the esoteric few whowere his votaries, and called the "Father of all the gods, " "the Ancientof days, " reigning supreme over them all. This indefinite conception ofthe Jehovah of the Hebrews seems to me the last flickering light of theprimitive revelation, shining in the souls of the most enlightened ofthe Pagan worshippers, including perhaps the greatest of the monarchs, who were priests as well as kings. The most distinguishing feature in the worship of all the gods ofantiquity, whether among Egyptians, or Assyrians, or Babylonians, orPhoenicians, or Greeks, or Romans, is that of oblations and sacrifices. It was even a peculiarity of the old Jewish religion, as well as that ofChina and India. These oblations and sacrifices were sometimes offeredto the deity, whatever his form or name, as an expiation for sin, ofwhich the soul is conscious in all ages and countries; sometimes toobtain divine favor, as in military expeditions, or to secure any objectdearest to the heart, such as health, prosperity, or peace; sometimes topropitiate the deity in order to avert the calamities following hissupposed wrath or vengeance. The oblations were usually in the form ofwine, honey, or the fruits of the earth, which were supposed to benecessary for the nourishment of the gods, especially in Greece. Thesacrifices were generally of oxen, sheep, and goats, the most valued andprecious of human property in primitive times, for those old heathennever offered to their deities that which cost them nothing, but ratherthat which was dearest to them. Sometimes, especially in Phoenicia, human beings were offered in sacrifice, the most repulsive peculiarityof polytheism. But the instincts of humanity generally kept men fromrites so revolting. Christianity, as one of its distinguishing features, abolished all forms of outward sacrifice, as superstitious and useless. The sacrifices pleasing to God are a broken spirit, as revealed to Davidand Isaiah amid all the ceremonies and ritualism of Jewish worship, andstill more to Paul and Peter when the new dispensation was fullydeclared. The only sacrifice which Christ enjoined was self-sacrifice, supreme devotion to a spiritual and unseen and supreme God, and to hischildren: as the Christ took upon himself the form of a man, sufferingevil all his days, and finally even an ignominious death, in obedienceto his Father's will, that the world might be saved by his ownself-sacrifice. With sacrifices as an essential feature of all the ancient religions, ifwe except that of Persia in the time of Zoroaster, there was need of anofficiating priesthood. The priests in all countries sought to gainpower and influence, and made themselves an exclusive caste, more orless powerful as circumstances favored their usurpations. The priestlycaste became a terrible power in Egypt and India, where the people, itwould seem, were most susceptible to religious impressions, were mostdocile and most ignorant, and had in constant view the future welfare oftheir souls. In China, where there was scarcely any religion at all, this priestly power was unknown; and it was especially weak among theGreeks, who had no fear of the future, and who worshipped beauty andgrace rather than a spiritual god. Sacerdotalism entered intoChristianity when it became corrupted by the lust of dominion and power, and with great force ruled the Christian world in times of ignorance andsuperstition. It is sad to think that the decline of sacerdotalism isassociated with the growth of infidelity and religious indifference, showing how few worship God in spirit and in truth even in Christiancountries. Yet even that reaction is humanly natural; and as it sosurely follows upon epochs of priestcraft, it may be a part of thedivine process of arousing men to the evils of superstition. Among all nations where polytheism prevailed, idolatry became a naturalsequence, --that is, the worship of animals and of graven images, atfirst as symbols of the deities that were worshipped, generally the sun, moon, and stars, and the elements of Nature, like fire, water, and air. But the symbols of divine power, as degeneracy increased and ignoranceset in, were in succession worshipped as deities, as in India and Africaat the present day. This is the lowest form of religion, and the mostrepulsive and degraded which has prevailed in the world, --showing theenormous difference between the primitive faiths and the worship whichsucceeded, growing more and more hideous with the progress of ages, until the fulness of time arrived when God sent reformers among thedebased people, more or less supernaturally inspired, to declare newtruth, and even to revive the knowledge of the old in danger of beingutterly lost. It is a pleasant thing to remember that the religions thus far treated, as known to the Jews, and by which they were more or less contaminated, have all passed away with the fall of empires and the spread of divinetruth; and they never again can be revived in the countries where theynourished. Mohammedanism, a monotheistic religion, has taken theirplace, and driven the ancient idols to the moles and the bats; and whereMohammedanism has failed to extirpate ancient idolatries, Christianityin some form has come in and dethroned them forever. * * * * * There was one form of religion with which the Jews came in contact whichwas comparatively pure; and this was the religion of Persia, theloftiest form of all Pagan beliefs. The Persians were an important branch of the Iranian family. "TheIranians were the dominant race throughout the entire tract lyingbetween the Suliman mountains and the Pamir steppe on the one hand, andthe great Mesopotamian valley on the other. " It was a region of greatextremes of temperature, --the summers being hot, and the winterspiercingly cold. A great part of this region is an arid and frightfuldesert; but the more favored portions are extremely fertile. In thiscountry the Iranians settled at a very early period, probably 2500 B. C. , about the time the Hindus emigrated from Central Asia to the banks ofthe Indus. Both Iranians and Hindus belonged to the great Aryan orIndo-European race, whose original settlements were on the hightable-lands northeast of Samarkand, in the modern Bokhara, watered bythe Oxus, or Amon River. From these rugged regions east of the CaspianSea, where the means of subsistence are difficult to be obtained, theAryans emigrated to India on the southeast, to Iran on the southwest, toEurope on the west, --all speaking substantially the same language. Of those who settled in Iran, the Persians were the most prominent, --abrave, hardy, and adventurous people, warlike in their habits, and moralin their conduct. They were a pastoral rather than a nomadic people, andgloried in their horses and cattle. They had great skill as archers andhorsemen, and furnished the best cavalry among the ancients. They livedin fixed habitations, and their houses had windows and fireplaces; butthey were doomed to a perpetual struggle with a severe and uncertainclimate, and a soil which required ceaseless diligence. "The wholeplateau of Iran, " says Johnson, "was suggestive of the war ofelements, --a country of great contrasts of fertility anddesolation, --snowy ranges of mountains, salt deserts, and fields ofbeauty lying in close proximity. " The early Persians are represented as having oval faces, raisedfeatures, well-arched eyebrows, and large dark eyes, now soft as thegazelle's, now flashing with quick insight. Such a people were extremelyreceptive of modes and fashions, --the aptest learners as well as theboldest adventurers; not patient in study nor skilful to invent, butswift to seize and appropriate, terrible breakers-up of old religiousspells. They dissolved the old material civilization of Cushite andTuranian origin. What passion for vast conquests! "These rugged tribes, devoted to their chiefs, led by Cyrus from their herds andhunting-grounds to startle the pampered Lydians with their spare dietand clothing of skins; living on what they could get, strangers to wineand wassail, schooled in manly exercises, cleanly even to superstition, loyal to age and filial duties; with a manly pride of personalindependence that held a debt the next worst thing to a lie; theirfondness for social graces, their feudal dignities, their chiefs givingcounsel to the king even while submissive to his person, esteemingprowess before praying; their strong ambition, scorning those whoscorned toil. " Artaxerxes wore upon his person the worth of twelvethousand talents, yet shared the hardships of his army in the march, carrying quiver and shield, leading the way to the steepest places, andstimulating the hearts of his soldiers by walking twenty-five milesa day. There was much that is interesting about the ancient Persians. All theold authorities, especially Herodotus, testify to the comparative purityof their lives, to their love of truth, to their heroism in war, to thesimplicity of their habits, to their industry and thrift in battlingsterility of soil and the elements of Nature, to their love ofagricultural pursuits, to kindness towards women and slaves, and aboveall other things to a strong personality of character which implied apowerful will. The early Persians chose the bravest and most capable oftheir nobles for kings, and these kings were mild and merciful. Xenophonmakes Cyrus the ideal of a king, --the incarnation of sweetness andlight, conducting war with a magnanimity unknown to the ancient nations, dismissing prisoners, forgiving foes, freeing slaves, and winning allhearts by a true nobility of nature. He was a reformer of barbarousmethods of war, and as pure in morals as he was powerful in war. Inshort, he had all those qualities which we admire in the chivalricheroes of the Middle Ages. There was developed among this primitive and virtuous people a religionessentially different from that of Assyria and Egypt, with which isassociated the name of Zoroaster, or Zarathushtra. Who thisextraordinary personage was, and when he lived, it is not easy todetermine. Some suppose that he did not live at all. It is most probablethat he lived in Bactria from 1000 to 1500 B. C. ; but all about him isinvolved in hopeless obscurity. The Zend-Avesta, or the sacred books of the Persians, are mostly hymns, prayers, and invocations addressed to various deities, among whom Ormazdwas regarded as supreme. These poems were first made known to Europeanscholars by Anquetil du Perron, an enthusiastic traveller, a little morethan one hundred years ago, and before the laws of Menu were translatedby Sir William Jones. What we know about the religion of Persia ischiefly derived from the Zend-Avesta. _Zend_ is the interpretation ofthe Avesta. The oldest part of these poems is called the Gâthâs, supposed to have been composed by Zoroaster about the time of Moses. As all information about Zoroaster personally is unsatisfactory, Iproceed to speak of the religion which he is supposed to have given tothe Iranians, according to Dr. Martin Haug, the great authority onthis subject. Its peculiar feature was dualism, --two original uncreated principles;one good, the other evil. Both principles were real persons, possessedof will, intelligence, power, consciousness, engaged from all eternityin perpetual contest. The good power was called Ahura-Mazda, and theevil power was called Angro-Mainyus. Ahura-Mazda means the "Much-knowingspirit, " or the All-wise, the All-bountiful, who stood at the head ofall that is beneficent in the universe, --"the creator of life, " who madethe celestial bodies and the earth, and from whom came all good to manand everlasting happiness. Angro-Mainyus means the black or darkintelligence, the creator of all that is evil, both moral and physical. He had power to blast the earth with barrenness, to produce earthquakesand storms, to inflict disease and death, destroy flocks and the fruitsof the earth, excite wars and tumults; in short, to send every form ofevil on mankind. Ahura-Mazda had no control over this Power of evil; allhe could do was to baffle him. These two deities who divided the universe between them had eachsubordinate spirits or genii, who did their will, and assisted in thegovernment of the universe, --corresponding to our idea of angelsand demons. Neither of these supreme deities was represented by the early Iraniansunder material forms; but in process of time corruption set in, andMagism, or the worship of the elements of Nature, became general. Theelements which were worshipped were fire, air, earth, and water. Personal gods, temples, shrines, and images were rejected. But the mostcommon form of worship was that of fire, in Mithra, the genius of light, early identified with the sun. Hence, practically, the supreme god ofthe Persians was the same that was worshipped in Assyria and Egypt andIndia, --the sun, under various names; with this difference, that inPersia there were no temples erected to him, nor were there gravenimages of him. With the sun was associated a supreme power that presidedover the universe, benignant and eternal. Fire itself in its pureuniversality was more to the Iranians than any form. "From the sun, "says the Avesta, "are all things sought that can be desired. " To fire, the Persian kings addressed their prayers. Fire, or the sun, was in theearly times a symbol of the supreme Power, rather than the Power itself, since the sun was created by Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd). It was to him thatZoroaster addressed his prayers, as recorded in the Gâthâs. "I worship, "said he, "the Creator of all things, Ahura-Mazda, full of light. .. . Teach thou me, Ahura-Mazda, out of thyself, from heaven by thy mouth, whereby the world first arose. " Again, from the Khorda-Avesta we read:"In the name of God, the giver, forgiver, rich in love, praise be to thename of Ormazd, who always was, always is, and always will be; from whomalone is derived rule. " From these and other passages we infer that thereligion of the Iranians was monotheistic. And yet the sun also wasworshipped under the name of Mithra. Says Zoroaster: "I invoke Mithra, the lofty, the immortal, the pure, the sun, the ruler, the eye ofOrmazd. " It would seem from this that the sun was identified with theSupreme Being. There was no other power than the sun which wasworshipped. There was no multitude of gods, nothing like polytheism, such as existed in Egypt. The Iranians believed in one supreme, eternalGod, who created all things, beneficent and all-wise; yet this supremepower was worshipped under the symbol of the sun, although the sun wascreated by him. This confounding the sun with a supreme and intelligentbeing makes the Iranian religion indefinite, and hard to becomprehended; but compared with the polytheism of Egypt and Babylon, itis much higher and purer. We see in it no degrading rites, no offensivesacerdotalism, no caste, no worship of animals or images; all isspiritual and elevated, but little inferior to the religion of theHebrews. In the Zend-Avesta we find no doctrines; but we do find prayersand praises and supplication to a Supreme Being. In the Vedas--the Hindubooks--the powers of Nature are gods; in the Avesta they are spirits, orservants of the Supreme. "The main difference between the Vedic and Avestan religions is that inthe latter the Vedic worship of natural powers and phenomena issuperseded by a more ethical and personal interest. Ahura-Mazda(Ormazd), the living wisdom, replaces Indra, the lightning-god. In Iranthere grew up, what India never saw, a consciousness of world-purpose, ethical and spiritual; a reference of the ideal to the future ratherthan the present; a promise of progress; and the idea that the law ofthe universe means the final deliverance of good from evil, and itseternal triumph. " [1] [Footnote 1: Samuel Johnson's Religion of Persia. ] The loftiness which modern scholars like Haug, Lenormant, and Spiegelsee in the Zend-Avesta pertains more directly to the earlier portions ofthese sacred writings, attributable to Zoroaster, called the Gâthâs. Butin the course of time the Avesta was subjected to many additions andinterpretations, called the Zend, which show degeneracy. A world of mythand legend is crowded into liturgical fragments. The old Bactrian tonguein which the Avesta was composed became practically a dead language. There entered into the Avesta old Chaldaean traditions. It would bestrange if the pure faith of Zoroaster should not be corrupted afterPersia had conquered Babylon, and even after its alliance with Media, where the Magi had great reputation for knowledge. And yet even with thecorrupting influence of the superstitions of Babylon, to say nothing ofMedia, the Persian conquerors did not wholly forget the God of theirfathers in their old Bactrian home. And it is probable that one reasonwhy Cyrus and Darius treated the Jews with so much kindness andgenerosity was the sympathy they felt for the monotheism of the Jewishreligion in contrast with the polytheism and idolatry of the conqueredBabylonians. It is not unreasonable to suppose that both the Persiansand Jews worshipped substantially the one God who made the heaven andthe earth, notwithstanding the dualism which entered into the Persianreligion, and the symbolic worship of fire which is the most powerfulagent in Nature; and it is considered by many that from the Persians theJews received, during their Captivity, their ideas concerning a personalDevil, or Power of Evil, of which no hint appears in the Law or theearlier Prophets. It would certainly seem to be due to that monotheismwhich modern scholars see behind the dualism of Persia, as an elementalprinciple of the old religion of Iran, that the Persians were thenoblest people of Pagan antiquity, and practised the highest moralityknown in the ancient world. Virtue and heroism went hand in hand; andboth virtue and heroism were the result of their religion. But when thePersians became intoxicated with the wealth and power they acquired onthe fall of Babylon, then their degeneracy was rapid, and their faithbecame obscured. Had it been the will of Providence that the Greeksshould have contended with the Persians under the leadership ofCyrus, --the greatest Oriental conqueror known in history, --rather thanunder Xerxes, then even an Alexander might have been baffled. The greatmistake of the Persian monarchs in their degeneracy was in trusting tothe magnitude of their armies rather than in their ancient disciplineand national heroism. The consequence was a panic, which would not havetaken place under Cyrus, whenever they met the Greeks in battle. It wasa panic which dispersed the Persian hosts in the fatal battle of Arbela, and made Alexander the master of western Asia. But degenerate as thePersians became, they rallied under succeeding dynasties, and inArtaxerxes II. And Chosroes the Romans found, in their decliningglories, their most formidable enemies. Though the brightness of the old religion of Zoroaster ceased to shineafter the Persian conquests, and religious rites fell into the hands ofthe Magi, yet it is the only Oriental religion which entered intoChristianity after its magnificent triumph, unless we trace earlymonasticism to the priests of India. Christianity had a hard battle withGnosticism and Manichaeism, --both of Persian origin, --and did not comeout unscathed. No Grecian system of philosophy, except Platonism, entered into the Christian system so influentially as the disastrousManichaean heresy, which Augustine combated. The splendid mythology ofthe Greeks, as well as the degrading polytheism of Egypt, Assyria, andPhoenicia, passed away before the power of the cross; but Persianspeculations remained. Even Origen, the greatest scholar of Christianantiquity, was tainted with them. And the mighty myths of the origin ofevil, which perplexed Zoroaster, still remain unsolved; but the beliefof the final triumph of good over evil is common to both Christians andthe disciples of the Bactrian sage. * * * * * AUTHORITIES. Rawlinson's Egypt and Babylon; History of Babylonia, by A. H. Sayce;Smith's Dictionary of the Bible; Rawlinson's Herodotus; George Smith'sHistory of Babylonia; Lenormant's Manuel d'Histoire Ancienne; Layard'sNineveh and Babylon; Journal of Royal Asiatic Society; Heeren's AsiaticNations; Dr. Pusey's Lectures on Daniel; Birch's Egypt from the EarliestTimes; Brugsch's History of Egypt; Records of the Past; Rawlinson'sHistory of Ancient Egypt; Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians; Sayce's AncientEmpires of the East; Rawlinson's Religions of the Ancient World; JamesFreeman Clarke's Ten Great Religions; Religion of Ancient Egypt, by P. Le Page Renouf; Moffat's Comparative History of Religions; Bunsen'sEgypt's Place in History; Persia, from the Earliest Period, by W. S. W. Vaux; Johnson's Oriental Religions; Haug's Essays; Spiegel's Avesta. The above are the more prominent authorities; but the number of books onancient religions is very large. RELIGIONS OF INDIA. BRAHMANISM AND BUDDHISM. That form of ancient religion which has of late excited the mostinterest is Buddhism. An inquiry into its characteristics is especiallyinteresting, since so large a part of the human race--nearly fivehundred millions out of the thirteen hundred millions--still profess toembrace the doctrines which were taught by Buddha, although his religionhas become so corrupted that his original teachings are nearly lostsight of. The same may be said of the doctrines of Confucius. Thereligions of ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Greece have utterly passedaway, and what we have had to say of these is chiefly a matter ofhistoric interest, as revealing the forms assumed by the human searchfor a supernatural Ruler when moulded by human ambitions, powers, andindulgence in the "lust of the eye and the pride of life, " rather thanby aspirations toward the pure and the spiritual. Buddha was the great reformer of the religious system of the Hindus, although he lived nearly fifteen hundred or two thousand years after theearliest Brahmanical ascendency. But before we can appreciate his workand mission, we must examine the system he attempted to reform, even asit is impossible to present the Protestant Reformation without firstconsidering mediaeval Catholicism before the time of Luther. It was theobject of Buddha to break the yoke of the Brahmans, and to release hiscountrymen from the austerities, the sacrifices, and the rigidsacerdotalism which these ancient priests imposed, without essentiallysubverting ancient religious ideas. He was a moralist and reformer, rather than the founder of a religion. Brahmanism is one of the oldest religions of the world. It wasflourishing in India at a period before history was written. It wascoeval with the religion of Egypt in the time of Abraham, and perhaps ata still earlier date. But of its earliest form and extent we knownothing, except from the sacred poems of the Hindus called the Vedas, written in Sanskrit probably fifteen hundred years before Christ, --foreven the date of the earliest of the Vedas is unknown. Fifty years agowe could not have understood the ancient religions of India. But SirWilliam Jones in the latter part of the last century, a man of immenseerudition and genius for the acquisition of languages, at that time anEnglish judge in India, prepared the way for the study of Sanskrit, theliterary language of ancient India, by the translation and publicationof the laws of Menu. He was followed in his labors by the Schlegels ofGermany, and by numerous scholars and missionaries. Within fifty yearsthis ancient and beautiful language has been so perseveringly studiedthat we know something of the people by whom it was once spoken, --evenas Egyptologists have revealed something of ancient Egypt byinterpreting the hieroglyphics; and Chaldaean investigators have foundstores of knowledge in the Babylonian bricks. The Sanskrit, as now interpreted, reveals to us the meaning of thosepoems called Vedas, by which we are enabled to understand the early lawsand religion of the Hindus. It is poetry, not history, which makes thisrevelation, for the Hindus have no history farther back than five or sixhundred years before Christ. It is from Homer and Hesiod that we get anidea of the gods of Greece, not from Herodotus or Xenophon. From comparative philology, a new science, of which Prof. Max Müller isone of the greatest expounders, we learn that the roots of variousEuropean languages, as well as of the Latin and Greek, aresubstantially the same as those of the Sanskrit spoken by the Hindusthirty-five hundred years ago, from which it is inferred that the Hinduswere a people of like remote origin with the Greeks, the Italic races(Romans, Italians, French), the Slavic races (Russian, Polish, Bohemian), the Teutonic races of England and the Continent, and theKeltic races. These are hence alike called the Indo-European races; andas the same linguistic roots are found in their languages and in theZend-Avesta, we infer that the ancient Persians, or inhabitants of Iran, belonged to the same great Aryan race. The original seat of this race, it is supposed, was in the hightable-lands of Central Asia, in or near Bactria, east of the CaspianSea, and north and west of the Himalaya Mountains. This country was socold and sterile and unpropitious that winter predominated, and it wasdifficult to support life. But the people, inured to hardship andprivation, were bold, hardy, adventurous, and enterprising. It is a most interesting process, as described by the philologists, which has enabled them, by tracing the history of words through theirvarious modifications in different living languages, to see how thelines of growth converge as they are followed back to the simple Aryanroots. And there, getting at the meanings of the things or thoughts thewords originally expressed, we see revealed, in the reconstruction of alanguage that no longer exists, the material objects and habits ofthought and life of a people who passed away before history began, --soimperishable are the unconscious embodiments of mind, even in the airyand unsubstantial forms of unwritten speech! By this process, then, welearn that the Aryans were a nomadic people, and had made some advancein civilization. They lived in houses which were roofed, which hadwindows and doors. Their common cereal was barley, the grain of coldclimates. Their wealth was in cattle, and they had domesticated the cow, the sheep, the goat, the horse, and the dog. They used yokes, axes, andploughs. They wrought in various metals; they spun and wove, navigatedrivers in sailboats, and fought with bows, lances, and swords. They hadclear perceptions of the rights of property, which were based on land. Their morals were simple and pure, and they had strong naturalaffections. Polygamy was unknown among them. They had no establishedsacerdotal priesthood. They worshipped the powers of Nature, especiallyfire, the source of light and heat, which they so much needed in theirdreary land. Authorities differ as to their primeval religion, somesupposing that it was monotheistic, and others polytheistic, and othersagain pantheistic. Most of the ancient nations were controlled more or less by priests, who, as their power increased, instituted a caste to perpetuate theirinfluence. Whether or not we hold the primitive religion of mankind tohave been a pure theism, directly revealed by God, --which is my ownconviction, --it is equally clear that the form of religion recorded inthe earliest written records of poetry or legend was a worship of thesun and moon and planets. I believe this to have been a corruption oforiginal theism; many think it to have been a stage of upward growth inthe religious sense of primitive man. In all the ancient nations thesun-god was a prominent deity, as the giver of heat and light, and henceof fertility to the earth. The emblem of the sun was fire, and hencefire was deified, especially among the Hindus, under the name ofAgni, --the Latin _ignis_. Fire, caloric, or heat in some form was, among the ancient nations, supposed to be the _animus mundi_. In Egypt, as we have seen, Osiris, the principal deity, was a form of Ra, the sun-god. In Assyria, Asshur, the substitute for Ra, was the supreme deity. In India we find Mitra, and in Persia Mithra, the sun-god, among the prominent deities, asHelios was among the Greeks, and Phoebus Apollo among the Romans. Thesun was not always the supreme divinity, but invariably held one of thehighest places in the Pagan pantheon. It is probable that the religion of the common progenitors of theHindus, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Kelts, Teutons, and Slavs, in theirhard and sterile home in Central Asia, was a worship of the powers ofNature verging toward pantheism, although the earliest of the Vedasrepresenting the ancient faith seem to recognize a supreme power andintelligence--God--as the common father of the race, to whom prayers andsacrifices were devoutly offered. Freeman Clarke quotes from Müller's"Ancient Sanskrit Literature" one of the hymns in which the unity of Godis most distinctly recognized:-- "In the beginning there arose the Source of golden light. He was theonly Lord of all that is. He established the earth and sky. Who is theGod to whom we shall offer our sacrifices? It is he who giveth life, whogiveth strength, who governeth all men; through whom heaven wasestablished, and the earth created. " But if the Supreme God whom we adore was recognized by this ancientpeople, he was soon lost sight of in the multiplied manifestations ofhis power, so that Rawlinson thinks[2] that when the Aryan raceseparated in their various migrations, which resulted in what we callthe Indo-European group of races, there was no conception of a singlesupreme power, from whom man and nature have alike their origin, butNature-worship, ending in an extensive polytheism, --as among theAssyrians and Egyptians. [Footnote 2: Religions of the Ancient World, p. 105. ] As to these Aryan migrations, we do not know when a large body crossedthe Himalaya Mountains, and settled on the banks of the Indus, butprobably it was at least two thousand years before Christ. NorthernIndia had great attractions to those hardy nomadic people, who found itso difficult to get a living during the long winters of their primevalhome. India was a country of fruits and flowers, with an inexhaustiblesoil, favorable to all kinds of production, where but little manuallabor was required, --a country abounding in every kind of animals, andevery kind of birds; a land of precious stones and minerals, of hillsand valleys, of majestic rivers and mountains, with a beautiful climateand a sunny sky. These Aryan conquerors drove before them the aboriginalinhabitants, who were chiefly Mongolians, or reduced them to a degradingvassalage. The conquering race was white, the conquered was dark, thoughnot black; and this difference of color was one of the original causesof Indian caste. It was some time after the settlement of the Aryans on the banks of theIndus and the Ganges before the Vedas were composed by the poets, who asusual gave form to religious belief, as they did in Persia and Greece. These poems, or hymns, are pantheistic. "There is no recognition, " saysMonier Williams, "of a Supreme God disconnected with the worship ofNature. " There was a vague and indefinite worship of the Infinite undervarious names, such as the sun, the sky, the air, the dawn, the winds, the storms, the waters, the rivers, which alike charmed and terrified, and seemed to be instinct with life and power. God was in all things, and all things in God; but there was no idea of providential agency orof personality. In the Vedic hymns the number of gods is not numerous, onlythirty-three. The chief of these were Varuna, the sky; Mitra, the sun;and Indra, the storm: after these, Agni, fire; and Soma, the moon. Theworship of these divinities was originally simple, consisting of prayer, praise, and offerings. There were no temples and no imposingsacerdotalism, although the priests were numerous. "The prayers andpraises describe the wisdom, power, and goodness of the deityaddressed, " [3] and when the customary offerings had been made, theworshipper prayed for food, life, health, posterity, wealth, protection, happiness, whatever the object was, --generally for outward prosperityrather than for improvement in character, or for forgiveness of sin, peace of mind, or power to resist temptation. The offerings to the godswere propitiatory, in the form of victims, or libations of some juice. Nor did these early Hindus take much thought of a future life. There isnothing in the Rig-Veda of a belief in the transmigration of souls[4], although the Vedic bards seem to have had some hope of immortality. "Hewho gives alms, " says one poet, "goes to the highest place in heaven: hegoes to the gods[5]. .. . Where there is eternal light, in the world wherethe sun is placed, --in that immortal, imperishable world, place me, OSoma! . .. Where there is happiness and delight, where joy and pleasuresreside, where the desires of our heart are attained, there make meimmortal. " [Footnote 3: Rawlinson, p. 121. ][Footnote 4: Wilson: Rig-Veda, vol. Iii. P. 170. ][Footnote 5: Müller: Chips from a German Workshop, vol. I. P. 46. ] In the oldest Vedic poems there were great simplicity and joyousness, without allusion to those rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices which formedso prominent a part of the religion of India at a later period. Four hundred years after the Rig-Veda was composed we come to theBrahmanic age, when the laws of Menu were written, when the Aryans wereliving in the valley of the Ganges, and the caste system had becomenational. The supreme deity is no longer one of the powers of Nature, like Mitra or Indra, but according to Menu he is Brahm, or Brahma, --"aneternal, unchangeable, absolute being, the soul of all beings, who, having willed to produce various beings from his own divine substance, created the waters and placed in them a productive seed. The seed becamean egg, and in that egg he was born, but sat inactive for a year, whenhe caused the egg to divide itself; and from its two divisions he framedthe heaven above, and the earth beneath. From the supreme soul Brahmadrew forth mind, existing substantially, though unperceived by thesenses; and before mind, the reasoning power, he produced consciousness, the internal monitor; and before them both he produced the greatprinciple of the soul. .. . The soul is, in its substance, from Brahmahimself, and is destined finally to be resolved into him. The soul, then, is simply an emanation from Brahma; but it will not return untohim at death necessarily, but must migrate from body to body, until itis purified by profound abstraction and emancipated from all desires. " This is the substance of the Hindu pantheism as taught by the laws ofMenu. It accepts God, but without personality or interference with theworld's affairs, --not a God to be loved, scarcely to be feared, but amere abstraction of the mind. The theology which is thus taught in the Brahmanical Vedas, it wouldseem, is the result of lofty questionings and profound meditation on thepart of the Indian sages or priests, rather than the creation of poets. In the laws of Menu, intended to exalt the Brahmanical caste, we read, as translated by Sir William Jones:-- "To a man contaminated by sensuality, neither the Vedas, nor liberality, nor sacrifices, nor strict observances, nor pious austerities, everprocure felicity. .. . Let not a man be proud of his rigorous devotion;let him not, having sacrificed, utter a falsehood; having made adonation, let him never proclaim it. .. . By falsehood the sacrificebecomes vain; by pride the merit of devotion is lost. .. . Single is eachman born, single he dies, single he receives the reward of the good, andsingle the punishment of his evil, deeds. .. . By forgiveness of injuriesthe learned are purified; by liberality, those who have neglected theirduty; by pious meditation, those who have secret thoughts; by devoutausterity, those who best know the Vedas. .. . Bodies are cleansed bywater; the mind is purified by truth; the vital spirit, by theology anddevotion; the understanding, by clear knowledge. .. . A faithful wife whowishes to attain in heaven the mansion of her husband, must do nothingunkind to him, be he living or dead; let her not, when her lord isdeceased, even pronounce the name of another man; let her continue tilldeath, forgiving all injuries, performing harsh duties, avoiding everysensual pleasure, and cheerfully practising the incomparable rules ofvirtue. .. . The soul itself is its own witness, the soul itself is itsown refuge; offend not thy conscious soul, the supreme internal witnessof man, . .. O friend to virtue, the Supreme Spirit, which is the sameas thyself, resides in thy bosom perpetually, and is an all-knowinginspector of thy goodness or wickedness. " Such were the truths uttered on the banks of the Ganges one thousandyears before Christ. But with these views there is an exaltation of theBrahmanical or sacerdotal life, hard to be distinguished from therecognition of divine qualities. "From his high birth, " says Menu, "aBrahman is an object of veneration, even to deities. " Hence, greatthings are expected of him; his food must be roots and fruit, hisclothing of bark fibres; he must spend his time in reading the Vedas; heis to practise austerities by exposing himself to heat and cold; he isto beg food but once a day; he must be careful not to destroy the lifeof the smallest insect; he must not taste intoxicating liquors. ABrahman who has thus mortified his body by these modes is exalted intothe divine essence. This was the early creed of the Brahman beforecorruption set in. And in these things we see a striking resemblance tothe doctrines of Buddha. Had there been no corruption of Brahmanism, there would have been no Buddhism; for the principles of Buddhism, werethose of early Brahmanism. But Brahmanism became corrupted. Like the Mosaic Law, under the sedulouscare of the sacerdotal orders it ripened into a most burdensomeritualism. The Brahmanical caste became tyrannical, exacting, andoppressive. With the supposed sacredness of his person, and with thelaws made in his favor, the Brahman became intolerable to the people, who were ground down by sacrifices, expiatory offerings, and wearisomeand minute ceremonies of worship. Caste destroyed all ideas of humanbrotherhood; it robbed the soul of its affections and its aspirations. Like the Pharisees in the time of Jesus, the Brahmans became oppressorsof the people. As in Pagan Egypt and in Christian mediaeval Europe, thepriests held the keys of heaven and hell; their power was more thanDruidical. But the Brahman, when true to the laws of Menu, led in one sense a loftylife. Nor can we despise a religion which recognized the value andimmortality of the soul, a state of future rewards and punishments, though its worship was encumbered by rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices. It was spiritual in its essential peculiarities, having reference toanother world rather than to this, which is more than we can say of thereligion of the Greeks; it was not worldly in its ends, seeking to savethe soul rather than to pamper the body; it had aspirations after ahigher life; it was profoundly reverential, recognizing a supremeintelligence and power, indefinitely indeed, but sincerely, --not anincarnated deity like the Zeus of the Greeks, but an infinite Spirit, pervading the universe. The pantheism of the Brahmans was better thanthe godless materialism of the Chinese. It aspired to rise to aknowledge of God as the supremest wisdom and grandest attainment ofmortal man. It made too much of sacrifices; but sacrifices were commonto all the ancient religions except the Persian. "He who through knowledge or religious acts Henceforth attains to immortality, Shall first present his body, Death, to thee. " Whether human sacrifices were offered in India when the Vedas werecomposed we do not know, but it is believed to be probable. The oldestform of sacrifice was the offering of food to the deity. Dr. H. C. Trumbull, in his work on "The Blood Covenant, " thinks that the origin ofanimal sacrifices was like that of circumcision, --a pouring out of blood(the universal, ancient symbol of _life_) as a sign of devotion to thedeity; and the substitution of animals was a natural and necessary modeof making this act of consecration a frequent and continuing one. Thispresents a nobler view of the whole sacrificial system than the commonone. Yet doubtless the latter soon prevailed; for following upon thedevoted life-offerings to the Divine Friend, came propitiatory rites toappease divine anger or gain divine favor. Then came in the naturalhuman self-seeking of the sacerdotal class, for the multiplication ofsacrifices tended to exalt the priesthood, and thus to perpetuate caste. Again, the Brahmans, if practising austerities to weaken sensualdesires, like the monks of Syria and Upper Egypt, were meditative andintellectual; they evolved out of their brains whatever was lofty intheir system of religion and philosophy. Constant and profoundmeditation on the soul, on God, and on immortality was not without itsnatural results. They explored the world of metaphysical speculation. There is scarcely an hypothesis advanced by philosophers in ancient ormodern times, which may not be found in the Brahmanical writings. "Wefind in the writings of these Hindus materialism, atomism, pantheism, Pyrrhonism, idealism. They anticipated Plato, Kant, and Hegel. Theycould boast of their Spinozas and their Humes long before Alexanderdreamed of crossing the Indus. From them the Pythagoreans borrowed agreat part of their mystical philosophy, of their doctrine oftransmigration of souls, and the unlawfulness of eating animal food. From them Aristotle learned the syllogism. .. . In India the human mindexhausted itself in attempting to detect the laws which regulate itsoperation, before the philosophers of Greece were beginning to enter theprecincts of metaphysical inquiry. " This intellectual subtlety, acumen, and logical power the Brahmans never lost. To-day the Christianmissionary finds them his superiors in the sports of logicaltournaments, whenever the Brahman condescends to put forth his powers ofreasoning. Brahmanism carried idealism to the extent of denying any reality tosense or matter, declaring that sense is a delusion. It sought to leavethe soul emancipated from desire, from a material body, in a state whichaccording to Indian metaphysics is _being_, but not _existence_. Desire, anger, ignorance, evil thoughts are consumed by the fire of knowledge. But I will not attempt to explain the ideal pantheism which Brahmanicalphilosophers substituted for the Nature-worship taught in the earlierVedas. This proved too abstract for the people; and the Brahmans, in thetrue spirit of modern Jesuitism, wishing to accommodate their religionto the people, --who were in bondage to their tyranny, and who have everbeen inclined to sensuous worship, --multiplied their sacrifices andsacerdotal rites, and even permitted a complicated polytheism. Graduallypiety was divorced from morality. Siva and Vishnu became worshipped, aswell as Brahma and a host of other gods unknown to the earlier Vedas. In the sixth century before Christ, the corruption of society had becomeso flagrant under the teachings and government of the Brahmans, that areform was imperatively needed. "The pride of race had put animpassable barrier between the Aryan-Hindus and the conqueredaborigines, while the pride of both had built up an equally impassablebarrier between the different classes among the Aryan peoplethemselves. " The old childlike joy in life, so manifest in the Vedas, had died away. A funereal gloom hung over the land; and the gloomiestpeople of all were the Brahmans themselves, devoted to a complicatedritual of ceremonial observances, to needless and cruel sacrifices, anda repulsive theology. The worship of Nature had degenerated into theworship of impure divinities. The priests were inflated with a puerilebut sincere belief in their own divinity, and inculcated a sense of dutywhich was nothing else than a degrading slavery to their own caste. Under these circumstances Buddhism arose as a protest againstBrahmanism. But it was rather an ethical than a religious movement; itwas an attempt to remove misery from the world, and to elevate ordinarylife by a reform of morals. It was effected by a prince who goes by thename of Buddha, --the "Enlightened, "--who was supposed by his laterfollowers to be an incarnation of Deity, miraculously conceived, andsent into the world to save men. He was nearly contemporary withConfucius, although the Buddhistic doctrines were not introduced intoChina until about two hundred years before the Christian era. He issupposed to have belonged to a warlike tribe called Sâkyas, of greatreputed virtue, engaged in agricultural pursuits, who had enterednorthern India and made a permanent settlement several hundred yearsbefore. The name by which the reformer is generally known is Gautama, borrowed by the Sâkyas after their settlement in India from one of theancient Vedic bard-families. The foundation of our knowledge of SâkyaBuddha is from a Life of him by Asvaghosha, in the first century of ourera; and this life is again founded on a legendary history, not framedafter any Indian model, but worked out among the nations in the northof India. The Life of Buddha by Asvaghosha is a poetical romance of nearly tenthousand lines. It relates the miraculous conception of the Indian sage, by the descent of a spirit on his mother, Maya, --a woman of great purityof mind. The child was called Siddârtha, or "the perfection of allthings. " His father ruled a considerable territory, and was careful toconceal from the boy, as he grew up, all knowledge of the wickedness andmisery of the world. He was therefore carefully educated within thewalls of the palace, and surrounded with every luxury, but not allowedeven to walk or drive in the royal gardens for fear he might see miseryand sorrow. A beautiful girl was given to him in marriage, full ofdignity and grace, with whom he lived in supreme happiness. At length, as his mind developed and his curiosity increased to see andknow things and people beyond the narrow circle to which he wasconfined, he obtained permission to see the gardens which surrounded thepalace. His father took care to remove everything in his way which couldsuggest misery and sorrow; but a _deva_, or angel, assumed the form ofan aged man, and stood beside his path, apparently struggling for life, weak and oppressed. This was a new sight to the prince, who inquired ofhis charioteer what kind of a man it was. Forced to reply, thecharioteer told him that this infirm old man had once been young, sportive, beautiful, and full of every enjoyment. On hearing this, the prince sank into profound meditation, and returnedto the palace sad and reflective; for he had learned that the common lotof man is sad, --that no matter how beautiful, strong, and sportive a boyis, the time will come, in the course of Nature, when this boy will bewrinkled, infirm, and helpless. He became so miserable and dejected onthis discovery that his father, to divert his mind, arranged otherexcursions for him; but on each occasion a _deva_ contrived to appearbefore him in the form of some disease or misery. At last he saw a deadman carried to his grave, which still more deeply agitated him, for hehad not known that this calamity was the common lot of all men. The samepainful impression was made on him by the death of animals, and by thehard labors and privations of poor people. The more he saw of life as itwas, the more he was overcome by the sight of sorrow and hardship onevery side. He became aware that youth, vigor, and strength of life inthe end fulfilled the law of ultimate destruction. While meditating onthis sad reality beneath a flowering Jambu tree, where he was seated inthe profoundest contemplation, a _deva_, transformed into a religiousascetic, came to him and said, "I am a Shaman. Depressed and sad at thethought of age, disease, and death, I have left my home to seek some wayof rescue; yet everywhere I find these evils, --all things hasten todecay. Therefore I seek that happiness which is only to be found in thatwhich never perishes, that never knew a beginning, that looks with equalmind on enemy and friend, that heeds not wealth nor beauty, --thehappiness to be found in solitude, in some dell free from molestation, all thought about the world destroyed. " This embodies the soul of Buddhism, its elemental principle, --to escapefrom a world of misery and death; to hide oneself in contemplation insome lonely spot, where indifference to passing events is graduallyacquired, where life becomes one grand negation, and where the thoughtsare fixed on what is eternal and imperishable, instead of on the mortaland transient. The prince, who was now about thirty years of age, after this interviewwith the supposed ascetic, firmly resolved himself to become a hermit, and thus attain to a higher life, and rise above the misery which he sawaround him on every hand. So he clandestinely and secretly escapes fromhis guarded palace; lays aside his princely habits and ornaments;dismisses all attendants, and even his horse; seeks the companionship ofBrahmans, and learns all their penances and tortures. Finding a patienttrial of this of no avail for his purpose, he leaves the Brahmans, andrepairs to a quiet spot by the banks of a river, and for six yearspractises the most severe fasting and profound meditation. This was theform which piety had assumed in India from time immemorial, under theguidance of the Brahmans; for Siddârtha as yet is not the"enlightened, "--he is only an inquirer after that saving knowledge whichwill open the door of a divine felicity, and raise him above a world ofdisease and death. Siddârtha's rigorous austerities, however, do not open this door ofsaving truth. His body is wasted, and his strength fails; he is nearunto death. The conviction fastens on his lofty and inquiring mind thatto arrive at the end he seeks he must enter by some other door thanthat of painful and useless austerities, and hence that the teachings ofthe Brahmans are fundamentally wrong. He discovers that no amount ofausterities will extinguish desire, or produce ecstatic contemplation. In consequence of these reflections a great change comes over him, whichis the turning-point of his history. He resolves to quit hisself-inflicted torments as of no avail. He meets a shepherd's daughter, who offers him food out of compassion for his emaciated and miserablecondition. The rich rice milk, sweet and perfumed, restores hisstrength. He renounces asceticism, and wanders to a spot more congenialto his changed views and condition. Siddârtha's full enlightenment, however, has not yet come. Under theshade of the Bôdhi tree he devotes himself again to religiouscontemplation, and falls into rapt ecstasies. He remains a while inpeaceful quiet; the morning sunbeams, the dispersing mists, and lovelyflowers seem to pay tribute to him. He passes through successive stagesof ecstasy, and suddenly upon his opened mind bursts the knowledge ofhis previous births in different forms; of the causes ofre-birth, --ignorance (the root of evil) and unsatisfied desires; and ofthe way to extinguish desires by right thinking, speaking, and living, not by outward observance of forms and ceremonies. He is emancipatedfrom the thraldom of those austerities which have formed the basis ofreligious life for generations unknown, and he resolves to teach. Buddha travels slowly to the sacred city of Benares, converting by theway even Brahmans themselves. He claims to have reached perfect wisdom. He is followed by disciples, for there was something attractive andextraordinary about him; his person was beautiful and commanding. Whilehe shows that painful austerities will not produce wisdom, he alsoteaches that wisdom is not reached by self-indulgence; that there is amiddle path between penance and pleasures, even _temperance_, ---the use, but not abuse, of the good things of earth. In his first sermon hedeclares that sorrow is in self; therefore to get rid of sorrow is toget rid of self. The means to this end is to forget self in deeds ofmercy and kindness to others; to crucify demoralizing desires; to livein the realm of devout contemplation. The active life of Buddha now begins, and for fifty years he travelsfrom place to place as a teacher, gathers around him disciples, framesrules for his society, and brings within his community both the rich andpoor. He even allows women to enter it. He thus matures his system, which is destined to be embraced by so large a part of the human race, and finally dies at the age of eighty, surrounded by reverentialfollowers, who see in him an incarnation of the Deity. Thus Buddha devoted his life to the welfare of men, moved by anexceeding tenderness and pity for the objects of misery which he beheldon every side. He attempted to point out a higher life, by which sorrowwould be forgotten. He could not prevent sorrow culminating in old age, disease, and death; but he hoped to make men ignore their miseries, andthus rise above them to a beatific state of devout contemplation and thepractice of virtues, for which he laid down certain rules andregulations. It is astonishing how the new doctrines spread, --from India to China, from China to Japan and Ceylon, until Eastern Asia was filled withpagodas, temples, and monasteries to attest his influence; someeighty-five thousand existed in China alone. Buddha probably had as manyconverts in China as Confucius himself. The Buddhists from time to timewere subjected to great persecution from the emperors of China, in whichtheir sacred books were destroyed; and in India the Brahmans at lastregained their power, and expelled Buddhism from the country. In theyear 845 A. D. Two hundred and sixty thousand monks and nuns were made toreturn to secular life in China, being regarded as mere drones, --lazyand useless members of the community. But the policy of persecution wasreversed by succeeding emperors. In the thirteenth century there were inChina nearly fifty thousand Buddhist temples and two hundred andthirteen thousand monks; and these represented but a fraction of theprofessed adherents of the religion. Under the present dynasty theBuddhists are proscribed, but still they flourish. Now, what has given to the religion of Buddha such an extraordinaryattraction for the people of Eastern Asia? Buddhism has a twofold aspect, --_practical_ and _speculative_. In itsmost definite form it was a moral and philanthropic movement, --thereaction against Brahmanism, which had no humanity, and which was asrepulsive and oppressive as Roman Catholicism was when loaded down withritualism and sacerdotal rites, when Europe was governed by priests, when churches were damp, gloomy crypts, before the tall cathedrals arosein their artistic beauty. From a religious and philosophical point of view, Buddhism at first didnot materially differ from Brahmanism. The same dreamy pietism, the samebelief in the transmigration of souls, the same pantheistic ideas of Godand Nature, the same desire for rest and final absorption in the divineessence characterized both. In both there was a certain principle offaith, which was a feeling of reverence rather than the recognition ofthe unity and personality and providence of God. The prayer of theBuddhist was a yearning for deliverance from sorrow, a hope of finalrest; but this was not to be attained until desires and passions wereutterly suppressed in the soul, which could be effected only by prayer, devout meditations, and a rigorous self-discipline. In order to bepurified and fitted for Nirvana the soul, it was supposed, must passthrough successive stages of existence in mortal forms, withoutconscious recollection, --innumerable births and deaths, with sorrow anddisease. And the final state of supreme blessedness, the ending of thelong and weary transmigration, would be attained only with theextinction of all desires, even the instinctive desire for existence. Buddha had no definite ideas of the deity, and the worship of a personalGod is nowhere to be found in his teachings, which exposed him to thecharge of atheism. He even supposed that gods were subject to death, andmust return to other forms of life before they obtained final rest inNirvana. Nirvana means that state which admits of neither birth nordeath, where there is no sorrow or disease, --an impassive state ofexistence, absorption in the Spirit of the Universe. In the Buddhistcatechism Nirvana is defined as the "total cessation of changes; aperfect rest; the absence of desire, illusion, and sorrow; the totalobliteration of everything that goes to make up the physical man. " Thistheory of re-births, or transmigration of souls, is very strange andunnatural to our less imaginative and subtile Occidental minds; but tothe speculative Orientals it is an attractive and reasonable belief. They make the "spirit" the immortal part of man, the "soul" being itsemotional embodiment, its "spiritual body, " whose unsatisfied desirescause its birth and re-birth into the fleshly form of the physical"body, "--a very brief and temporary incarnation. When by the progressiveenlightenment of the spirit its longings and desires have been graduallyconquered, it no longer needs or has embodiment either of soul or ofbody; so that, to quote Elliott Coues in Olcott's "Buddhist Catechism, ""a spirit in a state of conscious formlessness, subject to no furthermodification by embodiment, yet in full knowledge of its experiences[during its various incarnations], is Nirvanic. " Buddhism, however, viewed in any aspect, must be regarded as a gloomyreligion. It is hard enough to crucify all natural desires and lead alife of self-abnegation; but for the spirit, in order to be purified, tobe obliged to enter into body after body, each subject to disease, misery, and death, and then after a long series of migrations to bevirtually annihilated as the highest consummation of happiness, givesone but a poor conception of the efforts of the proudest unaidedintellect to arrive at a knowledge of God and immortal bliss. It wouldthus seem that the true idea of God, or even that of immortality, is notan innate conception revealed by consciousness; for why should good andintellectual men, trained to study and reflection all their lives, gainno clearer or more inspiring notions of the Being of infinite love andpower, or of the happiness which He is able and willing to impart? Whata feeble conception of God is a being without the oversight of theworlds that he created, without volition or purpose or benevolence, oranything corresponding to our notion of personality! What a poorconception of supernal bliss, without love or action or thought or holycompanionship, --only rest, unthinking repose, and absence from disease, misery, and death, a state of endless impassiveness! What is Nirvana butan escape from death and deliverance from mortal desires, where thereare neither ideas nor the absence of ideas; no changes or hopes orfears, it is true, but also no joy, no aspiration, no growth, nolife, --a state of nonentity, where even consciousness is practicallyextinguished, and individuality merged into absolute stillness and adreamless rest? What a poor reward for ages of struggle and the finalachievement of exalted virtue! But if Buddhism failed to arrive at what we believe to be a trueknowledge of God and the destiny of the soul, --the forgiveness andremission, or doing-away, of sin, and a joyful and active immortality, all which I take to be revelations rather than intuitions, --yet therewere some great certitudes in its teachings which did appeal toconsciousness, --certitudes recognized by the noblest teachers of allages and nations. These were such realities as truthfulness, sincerity, purity, justice, mercy, benevolence, unselfishness, love. The human mindarrives at ethical truths, even when all speculation about God andimmortality has failed. The idea of God may be lost, but not that ofmoral obligation, --the mutual social duties of mankind. There is a senseof duty even among savages; in the lowest civilization there is trueadmiration of virtue. No sage that I ever read of enjoined immorality. No ignorance can prevent the sense of shame, of honor, or of duty. Everybody detests a liar and despises a thief. Thou shalt not bear falsewitness; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not kill, --these arelaws written in human consciousness as well as in the code of Moses. Obedience and respect to parents are instincts as well as obligations. Hence the prince Siddârtha, as soon as he had found the wisdom of inwardmotive and the folly of outward rite, shook off the yoke of the priests, and denounced caste and austerities and penances and sacrifices as ofno avail in securing the welfare and peace of the soul or the favor ofdeity. In all this he showed an enlightened mind, governed by wisdom andtruth, and even a bold and original genius, --like Abraham when hedisowned the gods of his fathers. Having thus himself gained thesecurity of the heights, Buddha longed to help others up, and turned hisattention to the moral instruction of the people of India. He wasemphatically a missionary of ethics, an apostle of righteousness, areformer of abuses, as well as a tender and compassionate man, moved totears in view of human sorrows and sufferings. He gave up metaphysicalspeculations for practical philanthropy. He wandered from city to cityand village to village to relieve misery and teach duties rather thantheological philosophies. He did not know that God is love, but he didknow that peace and rest are the result of virtuous thoughts and acts. "Let us then, " said he, "live happily, not hating those who hate us;free from greed among the greedy. .. . Proclaim mercy freely to all men;it is as large as the spaces of heaven. .. . Whoever loves will feel thelonging to save not himself alone, but all others. " He compares himselfto a father who rescues his children from a burning house, to aphysician who cures the blind. He teaches the equality of the sexes aswell as the injustice of castes. He enjoins kindness to servants andemancipation of slaves. "As a mother, as long as she lives, watches overher child, so among all beings, " said Gautama, "let boundless good-willprevail. .. . Overcome evil with good, the avaricious with generosity, thefalse with truth. .. . Never forget thy own duty for the sake ofanother's. .. . If a man speaks or acts with evil thoughts pain follows, as the wheel the foot of him who draws the carriage. .. . He who livesseeking pleasure, and uncontrolled, the tempter will overcome. .. . Thetrue sage dwells on earth, as the bee gathers sweetness with his mouthand wings. .. . One may conquer a thousand men in battle, but he whoconquers himself alone is the greatest victor. .. . Let no man thinklightly of sin, saying in his heart, 'It cannot overtake me. '. .. Let aman make himself what he preaches to others. .. . He who holds back risinganger as one might a rolling chariot, him, indeed, I call a driver;others may hold the reins. .. . A man who foolishly does me wrong, I willreturn to him the protection of my ungrudging love; the more evil comesfrom him, the more good shall go from me. " These are some of the sayings of the Indian reformer, which I quote fromextracts of his writings as translated by Sanskrit scholars. Some ofthese sayings rise to a height of moral beauty surpassed only by theprecepts of the great Teacher, whom many are too fond of likening toBuddha himself. The religion of Buddha is founded on a correct andvirtuous life, as the only way to avoid sorrow and reach Nirvana. Itsessence, theologically, is "Quietism, " without firm belief in anythingreached by metaphysic speculation; yet morally and practically itinculcates ennobling, active duties. Among the rules that Buddha laid down for his disciples were--to keepthe body pure; not to enter upon affairs of trade; to have no lands andcattle, or houses, or money; to abhor all hypocrisy and dissimulation;to be kind to everything that lives; never to take the life of anyliving being; to control the passions; to eat food only to satisfyhunger; not to feel resentment from injuries; to be patient andforgiving; to avoid covetousness, and never to tire of self-reflection. His fundamental principles are purity of mind, chastity of life, truthfulness, temperance, abstention from the wanton destruction ofanimal life, from vain pleasures, from envy, hatred, and malice. He doesnot enjoin sacrifices, for he knows no god to whom they can be offered;but "he proclaimed the brotherhood of man, if he did not reveal thefatherhood of God. " He insisted on the natural equality of allmen, --thus giving to caste a mortal wound, which offended the Brahmans, and finally led to the expulsion of his followers from India. Heprotested against all absolute authority, even that of the Vedas. Nordid he claim, any more than Confucius, originality of doctrines, onlythe revival of forgotten or neglected truths. He taught that Nirvana wasnot attained by Brahmanical rites, but by individual virtues; and thatpunishment is the inevitable result of evil deeds by the inexorable lawof cause and effect. Buddhism is essentially rationalistic and ethical, while Brahmanism is apantheistic tendency to polytheism, and ritualistic even to the mostoffensive sacerdotalism. The Brahman reminds me of a Dunstan, --theBuddhist of a Benedict; the former of the gloomy, spiritual despotism ofthe Middle Ages, --the latter of self-denying monasticism in its bestages. The Brahman is like Thomas Aquinas with his dogmas andmetaphysics; the Buddhist is more like a mediaeval freethinker, stigmatized as an atheist. The Brahman was so absorbed with histheological speculation that he took no account of the sufferings ofhumanity; the Buddhist was so absorbed with the miseries of man that thegreatest blessing seemed to be entire and endless rest, the cessation ofexistence itself, --since existence brought desire, desire sin, and sinmisery. As a religion Buddhism is an absurdity; in fact, it is noreligion at all, only a system of moral philosophy. Its weak points, practically, are the abuse of philanthropy, its system of organizedidleness and mendicancy, the indifference to thrift and industry, themultiplication of lazy fraternities and useless retreats, reminding usof monastic institutions in the days of Chaucer and Luther. The Buddhistpriest is a mendicant and a pauper, clothed in rags, begging his livingfrom door to door, in which he sees no disgrace and no impropriety. Buddhism failed to ennoble the daily occupations of life, and produceddrones and idlers and religious vagabonds. In its corruption it lentitself to idolatry, for the Buddhist temples are filled with hideousimages of all sorts of repulsive deities, although Buddha himself didnot hold to idol worship any more than to the belief in a personal God. "Buddhism, " says the author of its accepted catechism, "teaches goodnesswithout a God, existence without a soul, immortality without life, happiness without a heaven, salvation without a saviour, redemptionwithout a redeemer, and worship without rites. " The failure of Buddhism, both as a philosophy and a religion, is a confirmation of the greathistorical fact, that in the ancient Pagan world no efforts of reasonenabled man unaided to arrive at a true--that is, a helpful andpractically elevating--knowledge of deity. Even Buddha, one of the mostgifted and excellent of all the sages who have enlightened the world, despaired of solving the great mysteries of existence, and turned hisattention to those practical duties of life which seemed to promise away of escaping its miseries. He appealed to human consciousness; butlacking the inspiration and aid which come from a sense of personaldivine influence, Buddhism has failed, on the large scale, to raise itsvotaries to higher planes of ethical accomplishment. And hence thenecessity of that new revelation which Jesus declared amid the moralruins of a crumbling world, by which alone can the debasingsuperstitions of India and the godless materialism of China be replacedwith a vital spirituality, --even as the elaborate mythology of Greeceand Rome gave way before the fervent earnestness of Christian apostlesand martyrs. It does not belong to my subject to present the condition of Buddhism asit exists to-day in Thibet, in Siam, in China, in Japan, in Burmah, inCeylon, and in various other Eastern countries. It spread by reason ofits sympathy with the poor and miserable, by virtue of its being a greatsystem of philanthropy and morals which appealed to the consciousness ofthe lower classes. Though a proselyting religion it was never apersecuting one, and is still distinguished, in all its corruption, forits toleration. AUTHORITIES. The chief authorities that I would recommend for this chapter are MaxMüller's History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature; Rev. S. Seal's Buddhismin China; Buddhism, by T. W. Rhys-Davids; Monier Williams's Sákoontalá;I. Muir's Sanskrit Texts; Burnouf's Essai sur la Vêda; Sir WilliamJones's Works; Colebrook's Miscellaneous Essays; Joseph Muller'sReligious Aspects of Hindu Philosophy; Manual of Buddhism, by R. SpenceHardy; Dr. H. Clay Trumbull's The Blood Covenant; Orthodox BuddhistCatechism, by H. S. Olcott, edited by Prof. Elliott C. Coues. I havederived some instruction from Samuel Johnson's bulky and diffuse books, but more from James Freeman Clarke's Ten Great Religions^ andRawlinson's Religions of the Ancient World. RELIGION OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. CLASSIC MYTHOLOGY. Religion among the lively and imaginative Greeks took a different formfrom that of the Aryan race in India or Persia. However the ideas oftheir divinities originated in their relations to the thought and lifeof the people, their gods were neither abstractions nor symbols. Theywere simply men and women, immortal, yet having a beginning, withpassions and appetites like ordinary mortals. They love, they hate, theyeat, they drink, they have adventures and misfortunes like men, --onlydiffering from men in the superiority of their gifts, in theirmiraculous endowments, in their stupendous feats, in their more thangigantic size, in their supernal beauty, in their intensified pleasures. It was not their aim "to raise mortals to the skies, " but to enjoythemselves in feasting and love-making; not even to govern the world, but to protect their particular worshippers, --taking part and interestin human quarrels, without reference to justice or right, and withoutcommunicating any great truths for the guidance of mankind. The religion of Greece consisted of a series of myths, --creations forthe most part of the poets, --and therefore properly called a mythology. Yet in some respects the gods of Greece resembled those of Phoenicia andEgypt, being the powers of Nature, and named after the sun, moon, andplanets. Their priests did not form a sacerdotal caste, as in India andEgypt; they were more like officers of the state, to perform certainfunctions or duties pertaining to rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices. They taught no moral or spiritual truths to the people, nor were theyheld in extraordinary reverence. They were not ascetics or enthusiasts;among them were no great reformers or prophets, as among the sacerdotalclass of the Jews or the Hindus. They had even no sacred books, andclaimed no esoteric knowledge. Nor was their office hereditary. Theywere appointed by the rulers of the state, or elected by the peoplethemselves; they imposed no restraints on the conscience, and apparentlycared little for morals, leaving the people to an unbounded freedom toact and think for themselves, so far as they did not interfere withprescribed usages and laws. The real objects of Greek worship werebeauty, grace, and heroic strength. The people worshipped no supremecreator, no providential governor, no ultimate judge of human actions. They had no aspirations for heaven and no fear of hell. They did notfeel accountable for their deeds or thoughts or words to an irresistiblePower working for righteousness or truth. They had no religious sense, apart from wonder or admiration of the glories of Nature, or the good orevil which might result from the favor or hatred of the divinitiesthey accepted. These divinities, moreover, were not manifestations of supreme power andintelligence, but were creations of the fancy, as they came from popularlegends, or the brains of poets, or the hands of artists, or thespeculations of philosophers. And as everything in Greece was beautifuland radiant, --the sea, the sky, the mountains, and the valleys, --so wasreligion cheerful, seen in all the festivals which took the place of theSabbaths and holy-days of more spiritually minded peoples. Theworshippers of the gods danced and played and sported to the sounds ofmusical instruments, and revelled in joyous libations, in feasts andimposing processions, --in whatever would amuse the mind or intoxicatethe senses. The gods were rather unseen companions in pleasures, insports, in athletic contests and warlike enterprises, than beings to beadored for moral excellence or supernal knowledge. "Heaven was so nearat hand that their own heroes climbed to it and became demigods. " Everygrove, every fountain, every river, every beautiful spot, had itspresiding deity; while every wonder of Nature, --the sun, the moon, thestars, the tempest, the thunder, the lightning, --was impersonated as anawful power for good or evil. To them temples were erected, within whichwere their shrines and images in human shape, glistening with gold andgems, and wrought in every form of grace or strength or beauty, and byartists of marvellous excellence. This polytheism of Greece was exceedingly complicated, but was not sodegrading as that of Egypt, since the gods were not represented by theforms of hideous animals, and the worship of them was not attended byrevolting ceremonies; and yet it was divested of all spiritualaspirations, and had but little effect on personal struggles for truthor holiness. It was human and worldly, not lofty nor even reverential, except among the few who had deep religious wants. One of itscharacteristic features was the acknowledged impotence of the gods tosecure future happiness. In fact, the future was generally ignored, andeven immortality was but a dream of philosophers. Men lived not in viewof future rewards and punishments, or future existence at all, but forthe enjoyment of the present; and the gods themselves set the example ofan immoral life. Even Zeus, "the Father of gods and men, " to whomabsolute supremacy was ascribed, the work of creation, and all majestyand serenity, took but little interest in human affairs, and lived onOlympian heights like a sovereign surrounded with the instruments of hiswill, freely indulging in those pleasures which all lofty moral codeshave forbidden, and taking part in the quarrels, jealousies, andenmities of his divine associates. Greek mythology had its source in the legends of a remoteantiquity, --probably among the Pelasgians, the early inhabitants ofGreece, which they brought with them in their migration from theiroriginal settlement, or perhaps from Egypt and Phoenicia. Herodotus--andhe is not often wrong--ascribes a great part of the mythology which theGreek poets elaborated to a Phoenician or Egyptian source. The legendshave also some similarity to the poetic creations of the ancientPersians, who delighted in fairies and genii and extravagant exploits, like the labors of Hercules The faults and foibles of deified mortalswere transmitted to posterity and incorporated with the attributes ofthe supreme divinity, and hence the mixture of the mighty and the meanwhich marks the characters of the Iliad and Odyssey. The Greeks adoptedOriental fables, and accommodated them to those heroes who figured intheir own country in the earliest times. "The labors of Herculesoriginated in Egypt, and relate to the annual progress of the sun inthe zodiac. The rape of Proserpine, the wanderings of Ceres, theEleusinian mysteries, and the orgies of Bacchus were all imported fromEgypt or Phoenicia, while the wars between the gods and the giants werecelebrated in the romantic annals of Persia. The oracle of Dodona wascopied from that of Ammon in Thebes, and the oracle of Apollo at Delphoshas a similar source. " Behind the Oriental legends which form the basis of Grecian mythologythere was, in all probability, in those ancient times before thePelasgians were known as Ionians and the Hellenes as Dorians, a mysticaland indefinite idea of supreme power, --as among the Persians, theHindus, and the esoteric priests of Egypt. In all the ancient religionsthe farther back we go the purer and loftier do we find the popularreligion. Belief in supreme deity underlies all the Eastern theogonies, which belief, however, was soon perverted or lost sight of. There isgreat difference of opinion among philosophers as to the origin ofmyths, --whether they began in fable and came to be regarded as history, or began as human history and were poetized into fable. My belief isthat in the earliest ages of the world there were no mythologies. Fableswere the creations of those who sought to amuse or control the people, who have ever delighted in the marvellous. As the magnificent, thevast, the sublime, which was seen in Nature, impressed itself on theimagination of the Orientals and ended in legends, so did allegory inprocess of time multiply fictions and fables to an indefinite extent;and what were symbols among Eastern nations became impersonations in thepoetry of Greece. Grecian mythology was a vast system of impersonatedforces, beginning with the legends of heroes and ending with thepersonification of the faculties of the mind and the manifestations ofNature, in deities who presided over festivals, cities, groves, andmountains, with all the infirmities of human nature, and without callingout exalted sentiments of love or reverence. They are all creations ofthe imagination, invested with human traits and adapted to the genius ofthe people, who were far from being religious in the sense that theHindus and Egyptians were. It was the natural and not the supernaturalthat filled their souls. It was art they worshipped, and not the God whocreated the heavens and the earth, and who exacts of his creaturesobedience and faith. In regard to the gods and goddesses of the Grecian Pantheon, we observethat most of them were immoral; at least they had the usual infirmitiesof men. They are thus represented by the poets, probably to please thepeople, who like all other peoples had to make their own conceptions ofGod; for even a miraculous revelation of deity must be interpreted bythose who receive it, according to their own understanding of thequalities revealed. The ancient Romans, themselves stern, earnest, practical, had an almost Oriental reverence for their gods, so thattheir Jupiter (Father of Heaven) was a majestic, powerful, all-seeing, severely just national deity, regarded by them much as the Jehovah ofthe Hebrews was by that nation. When in later times the conquest ofEastern countries and of Macedon and Greece brought in luxury, works ofart, foreign literature, and all the delightful but enervatinginfluences of aestheticism, the Romans became corrupted, and graduallybegan to identify their own more noble deities with the beautiful butunprincipled, self-indulgent, and tricky set of gods and goddesses ofthe Greek mythology. The Greek Zeus, with whom were associated majesty and dominion, and whoreigned supreme in the celestial hierarchy, --who as the chief god of theskies, the god of storms, ruler of the atmosphere, was the favoritedeity of the Aryan race, the Indra of the Hindus, the Jupiter of theRomans, --was in his Grecian presentment a rebellious son, a faithlesshusband, and sometimes an unkind father. His character was a combinationof weakness and strength, --anything but a pattern to be imitated, oreven to be reverenced. He was the impersonation of power and dignity, represented by the poets as having such immense strength that if he hadhold of one end of a chain, and all the gods held the other, with theearth fastened to it, he would be able to move them all. Poseidon (Roman Neptune), the brother of Zeus, was represented as thegod of the ocean, and was worshipped chiefly in maritime States. Hismorality was no higher than that of Zeus; moreover, he was rough, boisterous, and vindictive. He was hostile to Troy, and yetpersecuted Ulysses. Apollo, the next great personage of the Olympian divinities, was morerespectable morally than his father. He was the sun-god of the Greeks, and was the embodiment of divine prescience, of healing skill, ofmusical and poetical productiveness, and hence the favorite of thepoets. He had a form of ideal beauty, grace, and vigor, inspired byunerring wisdom and insight into futurity. He was obedient to the willof Zeus, to whom he was not much inferior in power. Temples were erectedto this favorite deity in every part of Greece, and he was supposed todeliver oracular responses in several cities, especially at Delphos. Hephaestus (Roman Vulcan), the god of fire, was a sort of jester at theOlympian court, and provoked perpetual laughter from his awkwardness andlameness. He forged the thunderbolts for Zeus, and was the armorer ofheaven. It accorded with the grim humor of the poets to make this clumsyblacksmith the husband of Aphrodite, the queen of beauty and of love. Ares (Roman Mars), the god of war, was represented as cruel, lawless, and greedy of blood, and as occupying a subordinate position, receivingorders from Apollo and Athene. Hermes (Roman Mercury) was the impersonation of commercial dealings, andof course was full of tricks and thievery, --the Olympian man ofbusiness, industrious, inventive, untruthful, and dishonest. He was alsothe god of eloquence. Besides these six great male divinities there were six goddesses, themost important of whom was Hera (Roman Juno), wife of Zeus, and hencethe Queen of Heaven. She exercised her husband's prerogatives, andthundered and shook Olympus; but she was proud, vindictive, jealous, unscrupulous, and cruel, --a poor model for women to imitate. The Greekpoets, however, had a poor opinion of the female sex, and hencerepresent this deity without those elements of character which we mostadmire in woman, --gentleness, softness, tenderness, and patience. Shescolded her august husband so perpetually that he gave way to complaintsbefore the assembled deities, and that too with a bitterness hardly tobe reconciled with our notions of dignity. The Roman Juno, before theidentification of the two goddesses, was a nobler character, being thequeen of heaven, the protectress of virgins and of matrons, and was alsothe celestial housewife of the nation, watching over its revenues andits expenses. She was the especial goddess of chastity, and loose womenwere forbidden to touch her altars. Athene (Roman Minerva) however, the goddess of wisdom, had a characterwithout a flaw, and ranked with Apollo in wisdom. She even expostulatedwith Zeus himself when he was wrong. But on the other hand she had fewattractive feminine qualities, and no amiable weaknesses. Artemis (Roman Diana) was "a shadowy divinity, a pale reflection of herbrother Apollo. " She presided over the pleasures of the chase, in whichthe Greeks delighted, --a masculine female who took but little interestin anything intellectual. Aphrodite (Roman Venus) was the impersonation of all that was weak anderring in the nature of woman, --the goddess of sensual desire, of merephysical beauty, silly, childish, and vain, utterly odious in a moralpoint of view, and mentally contemptible. This goddess was representedas exerting a great influence even when despised, fascinating yetrevolting, admired and yet corrupting. She was not of much importanceamong the Romans, --who were far from being sentimental orpassionate, --until the growth of the legend of their Trojan origin. Then, as mother of Aeneas, their progenitor, she took a high rank, andthe Greek poets furnished her character. Hestia (Roman Vesta) presided over the private hearths and homesteads ofthe Greeks, and imparted to them a sacred character. Her personality wasvague, but she represented the purity which among both Greeks and Romansis attached to home and domestic life. Demeter (Roman Ceres) represented Mother Earth, and thus was closelyassociated with agriculture and all operations of tillage andbread-making. As agriculture is the primitive and most important of allhuman vocations, this deity presided over civilization and law-giving, and occupied an important position in the Eleusinian mysteries. These were the twelve Olympian divinities, or greater gods; but theyrepresent only a small part of the Grecian Pantheon. There was Dionysus(Roman Bacchus), the god of drunkenness. This deity presided overvineyards, and his worship was attended with disgraceful orgies, --withwild dances, noisy revels, exciting music, and frenzied demonstrations. Leto (Roman Latona), another wife of Zeus, and mother of Apollo andDiana, was a very different personage from Hera, being the impersonationof all those womanly qualities which are valued in woman, --silent, unobtrusive, condescending, chaste, kindly, ready to help and tend, andsubordinating herself to her children. Persephone (Roman Proserpina) was the queen of the dead, ruling theinfernal realm even more distinctly than her husband Pluto, severelypure as she was awful and terrible; but there were no temples erected toher, as the Greeks did not trouble themselves much about thefuture state. The minor deities of the Greeks were innumerable, and were identifiedwith every separate thing which occupied their thoughts, --withmountains, rivers, capes, towns, fountains, rocks; with domesticanimals, with monsters of the deep, with demons and departed heroes, with water-nymphs and wood-nymphs, with the qualities of mind andattributes of the body; with sleep and death, old age and pain, strifeand victory; with hunger, grief, ridicule, wisdom, deceit, grace; withnight and day, the hours, the thunder the rainbow, ---in short, all thewonders of Nature, all the affections of the soul, and all the qualitiesof the mind; everything they saw, everything they talked about, everything they felt. All these wonders and sentiments theyimpersonated; and these impersonations were supposed to preside over thethings they represented, and to a certain extent were worshipped. If aman wished the winds to be propitious, he prayed to Zeus; if he wishedto be prospered in his bargains, he invoked Hermes; if he wished to besuccessful in war, he prayed to Ares. He never prayed to a supreme and eternal deity, but to some specialmanifestation of deity, fancied or real; and hence his religion wasessentially pantheistic, though outwardly polytheistic. The divinitieswhom he invoked he celebrated with rites corresponding with those traitswhich they represented. Thus, Aphrodite was celebrated with lasciviousdances, and Dionysus with drunken revels. Each deity represented theGrecian ideal, --of majesty or grace or beauty or strength or virtue orwisdom or madness or folly. The character of Hera was what the poetssupposed should be the attributes of the Queen of heaven; that of Leto, what should distinguish a disinterested housewife; that of Hestia, whatshould mark the guardian of the fireside; that of Demeter, what shouldshow supreme benevolence and thrift; that of Athene, what wouldnaturally be associated with wisdom, and that of Aphrodite, what wouldbe expected from a sensual beauty. In the main, Zeus was serene, majestic, and benignant, as became the king of the gods, although he wasoccasionally faithless to his wife; Poseidon was boisterous, as becamethe monarch of the seas; Apollo was a devoted son and a brightcompanion, which one would expect in a gifted poet and wise prophet, beautiful and graceful as a sun-god should be; Hephaestus, the god offire and smiths, showed naturally the awkwardness to which manual laborleads; Ares was cruel and bloodthirsty, as the god of war should be;Hermes, as the god of trade and business, would of course be sharp andtricky; and Dionysus, the father of the vine, would naturally becomenoisy and rollicking in his intoxication. Thus, whatever defects are associated with the principal deities, theseare all natural and consistent with the characters they represent, orthe duties and business in which they engage. Drunkenness is notassociated with Zeus, or unchastity with Hera or Athene. The poets makeeach deity consistent with himself, and in harmony with the interests herepresents. Hence the mythology of the poets is elaborate andinteresting. Who has not devoured the classical dictionary before he haslearned to scan the lines of Homer or of Virgil? As varied and romanticas the "Arabian Nights, " it shines in the beauty of nature. In theGrecian creations of gods and goddesses there is no insult to theunderstanding, because these creations are in harmony with Nature, areconsistent with humanity. There is no hatred and no love, no jealousyand no fear, which has not a natural cause. The poets proved themselvesto be great artists in the very characters they gave to theirdivinities. They did not aim to excite reverence or stimulate to duty orpoint out the higher life, but to amuse a worldly, pleasure-seeking, good-natured, joyous, art-loving, poetic people, who lived in thepresent and for themselves alone. As a future state of rewards and punishments seldom entered into theminds of the Greeks, so the gods are never represented as conferringfuture salvation. The welfare of the soul was rarely thought of wherethere was no settled belief in immortality. The gods themselves were fedon nectar and ambrosia, that they might not die like ordinary mortals. They might prolong their own existence indefinitely, but they wereimpotent to confer eternal life upon their worshippers; and as eternallife is essential to perfect happiness, they could not confer evenhappiness in its highest sense. On this fact Saint Augustine erected the grand fabric of his theologicalsystem. In his most celebrated work, "The City of God, " he holds up toderision the gods of antiquity, and with blended logic and irony makesthem contemptible as objects of worship, since they were impotent tosave the soul. In his view the grand and distinguishing feature ofChristianity, in contrast with Paganism, is the gift of eternal life andhappiness. It is not the morality which Christ and his Apostles taught, which gave to Christianity its immeasurable superiority over all otherreligions, but the promise of a future felicity in heaven. And it wasthis promise which gave such comfort to the miserable people of the oldPagan world, ground down by oppression, injustice, cruelty, and poverty. It was this promise which filled the converts to Christianity with joy, enthusiasm, and hope, --yea, more than this, even boundless love thatsalvation was the gift of God through the self-sacrifice of Christ. Immortality was brought to light by the gospel alone, and to miserablepeople the idea of eternal bliss after the trials of mortal life werepassed was the source of immeasurable joy. No sooner was this sublimeexpectation of happiness planted firmly in the minds of pagans, thanthey threw their idols to the moles and the bats. But even in regard to morality, Augustine showed that the gods were noexamples to follow. He ridicules their morals and their offices asseverely as he points out their impotency to bestow happiness. He showsthe absurdity and inconsistency of tolerating players in theirdelineation of the vices and follies of deities for the amusement of thepeople in the theatre, while the priests performed the same obscenitiesas religious rites in the temples which were upheld by the State; sothat philosophers like Varro could pour contempt on players withimpunity, while he dared not ridicule priests for doing in the templesthe same things. No wonder that the popular religion at last was held incontempt by philosophers, since it was not only impotent to save, butdid not stimulate to ordinary morality, to virtue, or to loftysentiments. A religion which was held sacred in one place and ridiculedin another, before the eyes of the same people, could not in the end butyield to what was better. If we ascribe to the poets the creation of the elaborate mythology ofthe Greeks, --that is, a system of gods made by men, rather than men madeby gods, --whether as symbols or objects of worship, whether the religionwas pantheistic or idolatrous, we find that artists even surpassed thepoets in their conceptions of divine power, goodness, and beauty, andthus riveted the chains which the poets forged. The temple of Zeus at Olympia in Elis, where the intellect and theculture of Greece assembled every four years to witness the gamesinstituted in honor of the Father of the gods, was itself calculated toimpose on the senses of the worshippers by its grandeur and beauty. Theimage of the god himself, sixty feet high, made of ivory, gold, and gemsby the greatest of all the sculptors of antiquity, must have impressedspectators with ideas of strength and majesty even more than anypoetical descriptions could do. If it was art which the Greeksworshipped rather than an unseen deity who controlled their destinies, and to whom supreme homage was due, how nobly did the image before themrepresent the highest conceptions of the attributes to be ascribed tothe King of Heaven! Seated on his throne, with the emblems ofsovereignty in his hands and attendant deities around him, his head, neck, breast, and arms in massive proportions, and his face expressiveof majesty and sweetness, power in repose, benevolence blended withstrength, --the image of the Olympian deity conveyed to the minds of hisworshippers everything that could inspire awe, wonder, and goodness, aswell as power. No fear was blended with admiration, since his favorcould be won by the magnificent rites and ceremonies which wereinstituted in his honor. Clarke alludes to the sculptured Apollo Belvedere as giving a still moreelevated idea of the sun-god than the poets themselves, --a figureexpressive of the highest thoughts of the Hellenic mind, --and quotesMilman in support of his admiration:-- "All, all divine! no struggling muscle glows, Through heaving vein no mantling life-blood flows; But, animate with deity alone, In deathless glory lives the breathing stone. " If a Christian poet can see divinity in the chiselled stone, why shouldwe wonder at the worship of art by the pagan Greeks? The same could besaid of the statues of Artemis, of Pallas-Athene, of Aphrodite, andother "divine" productions of Grecian artists, since they representedthe highest ideal the world has seen of beauty, grace, loveliness, andmajesty, which the Greeks adored. Hence, though the statues of the godsare in human shape, it was not men that the Greeks worshipped, but thosequalities of mind and those forms of beauty to which the cultivatedintellect instinctively gave the highest praise. No one can object tothis boundless admiration which the Greeks had for art in its highestforms, in so far as that admiration became worship. It was the divorceof art from morals which called out the indignation and censure of theChristian fathers, and even undermined the religion of philosophers sofar as it had been directed to the worship of the popular deities, whichwere simply creations of poets and artists. It is difficult to conceive how the worship of the gods could have beenkept up for so long a time, had it not been for the festivals. This wiseprovision for providing interest and recreation for the people was alsoavailed of by the Mosaic ritual among the Hebrews, and has been a partof most well-organized religious systems. The festivals were celebratedin honor not merely of deities, but of useful inventions, of the seasonsof the year, of great national victories, --all which were religious inthe pagan sense, and constituted the highest pleasures of Grecian life. They were observed with great pomp and splendor in the open air in frontof temples, in sacred groves, wherever the people could convenientlyassemble to join in jocund dances, in athletic sports, and whatevercould animate the soul with festivity and joy. Hence the religiousworship of the Greeks was cheerful, and adapted itself to the tastes andpleasures of the people; it was, however, essentially worldly, andsometimes degrading. It was similar in its effects to the rural sportsof the yeomanry of the Middle Ages, and to the theatricalrepresentations sometimes held in mediaeval churches, --certainly to theprocessions and pomps which the Catholic clergy instituted for theamusement of the people. Hence the sneering but acute remark of Gibbon, that all religions were equally true to the people, equally false tophilosophers, and equally useful to rulers. The State encouraged andpaid for sacrifices, rites, processions, and scenic dances on the sameprinciple that they gave corn to the people to make them contented intheir miseries, and severely punished those who ridiculed the popularreligion when it was performed in temples, even though it winked at theridicule of the same performances in the theatres. Among the Greeks there were no sacred books like the Hindu Vedas orHebrew Scriptures, in which the people could learn duties and religioustruths. The priests taught nothing; they merely officiated at rites andceremonies. It is difficult to find out what were the means and forms ofreligious instruction, so far as pertained to the heart and conscience. Duties were certainly not learned from the ministers of religion. Fromwhat source did the people learn the necessity of obedience to parents, of conjugal fidelity, of truthfulness, of chastity, of honesty? It isdifficult to tell. The poets and artists taught ideas of beauty, ofgrace, of strength; and Nature in her grandeur and loveliness taught thesame things. Hence a severe taste was cultivated, which excludedvulgarity and grossness in the intercourse of life. It was the rule tobe courteous, affable, gentlemanly, for all this was in harmony with theseverity of art. The comic poets ridiculed pretension, arrogance, quackery, and lies. Patriotism, which was learned from the dangers ofthe State, amid warlike and unscrupulous neighbors, called out manymanly virtues, like courage, fortitude, heroism, and self-sacrifice. Ahard and rocky soil necessitated industry, thrift, and severe punishmenton those who stole the fruits of labor, even as miners in the RockyMountains sacredly abstain from appropriating the gold of theirfellow-laborers. Self-interest and self-preservation dictated many lawswhich secured the welfare of society. The natural sacredness of homeguarded the virtue of wives and children; the natural sense of justiceraised indignation against cheating and tricks in trade. Men and womencannot live together in peace and safety without observing certainconditions, which may be ranked with virtues even among savages andbarbarians, --much more so in cultivated and refined communities. The graces and amenities of life can exist without reference to futurerewards and punishments. The ultimate law of self-preservation willprotect men in ordinary times against murder and violence, and will leadto public and social enactments which bad men fear to violate. Atraveller ordinarily feels as safe in a highly-civilized pagan communityas in a Christian city. The "heathen Chinee" fears the officers of thelaw as much as does a citizen of London. The great difference between a Pagan and a Christian people is in thepower of conscience, in the sense of a moral accountability to aspiritual Deity, in the hopes or fears of a future state, --motives whichhave a powerful influence on the elevation of individual character andthe development of higher types of social organization. But whateverlaws are necessary for the maintenance of order, the repression ofviolence, of crimes against person and the State and the generalmaterial welfare of society, are found in Pagan as well as in ChristianStates; and the natural affections, --of paternal and filial love, friendship, patriotism, generosity, etc. , --while strengthened byChristianity, are also an inalienable part of the God-given heritage ofall mankind. We see many heroic traits, many manly virtues, manydomestic amenities, and many exalted sentiments in pagan Greece, even ifthese were not taught by priests or sages. Every man instinctivelyclings to life, to property, to home, to parents, to wife and children;and hence these are guarded in every community, and the violation ofthese rights is ever punished with greater or less severity for the sakeof general security and public welfare, even if there be no belief inGod. Religion, loftily considered, has but little to do with thetemporal interests of men. Governments and laws take these under theirprotection, and it is men who make governments and laws. They are madefrom the instinct of self-preservation, from patriotic aspirations, fromthe necessities of civilization. Religion, from the Christianstandpoint, is unworldly, having reference to the life which is to come, to the enlightenment of the conscience, to restraint from sins notpunishable by the laws, and to the inspiration of virtues which have noworldly reward. This kind of religion was not taught by Grecian priests or poets orartists, and did not exist in Greece, with all its refinements andglories, until partially communicated by those philosophers whomeditated on the secrets of Nature, the mighty mysteries of life, andthe duties which reason and reflection reveal. And it may be noticedthat the philosophers themselves, who began with speculations on theorigin of the universe, the nature of the gods, the operations of themind, and the laws of matter, ended at last with ethical inquiries andinjunctions. We see this illustrated in Socrates and Zeno. They seemedto despair of finding out God, of explaining the wonders of hisuniverse, and came down to practical life in its sad realities, --likeSolomon himself when he said, "Fear God and keep his commandments, forthis is the whole duty of man. " In ethical teachings and inquiries someof these philosophers reached a height almost equal to that whichChristian sages aspired to climb; and had the world practised thevirtues which they taught, there would scarcely have been need of a newrevelation, so far as the observance of rules to promote happiness onearth is concerned. But these Pagan sages did not hold out hopes beyondthe grave. They even doubted whether the soul was mortal or immortal. They did teach many ennobling and lofty truths for the enlightenment ofthinkers; but they held out no divine help, nor any hope of completingin a future life the failures of this one; and hence they failed insaving society from a persistent degradation, and in elevating ordinarymen to those glorious heights reached by the Christian converts. That was the point to which Augustine directed his vast genius and hisunrivalled logic. He admitted that arts might civilize, and that theelaborate mythology which he ridiculed was interesting to the people, and was, as a creation of the poets, ingenious and beautiful; but heshowed that it did not reveal a future state, that it did not promiseeternal happiness, that it did not restrain men from those sins whichhuman laws could not punish, and that it did not exalt the soul to loftycommunion with the Deity, or kindle a truly spiritual life, andtherefore was worthless as a religion, imbecile to save, and only to beclassed with those myths which delight an ignorant or sensuous people, and with those rites which are shrouded in mystery and gloom. Nor didhe, in his matchless argument against the gods of Greece and Rome, takefor his attack those deities whose rites were most degrading andsenseless, and which the thinking world despised, but the most loftyforms of pagan religion, such as were accepted by moralists andphilosophers like Seneca and Plato. And thus he reached the intelligenceof the age, and gave a final blow to all the gods of antiquity. It would be instructive to show that the religion of Greece, as embracedby the people, did not prevent or even condemn those social evils thatare the greatest blot on enlightened civilization. It did notdiscourage slavery, the direst evil which ever afflicted humanity; itdid not elevate woman to her true position at home or in public; itridiculed those passive virtues that are declared and commended in theSermon on the Mount; it did not pronounce against the wickedness of war, or the vanity of military glory; it did not dignify home, or the virtuesof the family circle; it did not declare the folly of riches, or showthat the love of money is a root of all evil. It made sensual pleasureand outward prosperity the great aims of successful ambition, and hidwith an impenetrable screen from the eyes of men the fatal results of aworldly life, so that suicide itself came to be viewed as a justifiableway to avoid evils that are hard to be borne; in short, it was areligion which, though joyous, was without hope, and with innumerabledeities was without God in the world, --which was no religion at all, buta fable, a delusion, and a superstition, as Paul argued before theassembled intellect of the most fastidious and cultivated city ofthe world. And yet we see among those who worshipped the gods of Greece a sense ofdependence on supernatural power; and this dependence stands out, bothin the Iliad and the Odyssey, among the boldest heroes. They seem to bereverential to the powers above them, however indefinite their views. Inthe best ages of Greece the worship of the various deities was sincereand universal, and was attended with sacrifices to propitiate favor oravert their displeasure. It does not appear that these sacrifices were always offered by priests. Warriors, kings, and heroes themselves sacrificed oxen, sheep, andgoats, and poured out libations to the gods. Homer's heroes were verystrenuous in the exercise of these duties; and they generally tracedtheir calamities and misfortunes to the neglect of sacrifices, which wasa great offence to the deities, from Zeus down to inferior gods. Weread, too, that the gods were supplicated in fervent prayer. There wasuniversally felt, in earlier times, a need of divine protection. If thegods did not confer eternal life, they conferred, it was supposed, temporal and worldly good. People prayed for the same blessings that theancient Jews sought from Jehovah. In this sense the early Greeks werereligious. Irreverence toward the gods was extremely rare. The people, however, did not pray for divine guidance in the discharge of duty, butfor the blessings which would give them health and prosperity. We seldomsee a proud self-reliance even among the heroes of the Iliad, but greatsolicitude to secure aid from the deities they worshipped. * * * * * The religion of the Romans differed in some respects from that of theGreeks, inasmuch as it was emphatically a state religion. It was more ofa ritual and a ceremony. It included most of the deities of the GreekPantheon, but was more comprehensive. It accepted the gods of all thenations that composed the empire, and placed them in the Pantheon, --evenMithra, the Persian sun-god, and the Isis and Osiris of the Egyptians, to whom sacrifices were made by those who worshipped them at home. Itwas also a purer mythology, and rejected many of the blasphemous mythsconcerning the loves and quarrels of the Grecian deities. It was morepractical and less poetical. Every Roman god had something to do, someuseful office to perform. Several divinities presided over the birth andnursing of an infant, and they were worshipped for some fancied good, for the benefits which they were supposed to bestow. There was anelaborate "division of labor" among them. A divinity presided overbakers, another over ovens, --every vocation and every householdtransaction had its presiding deities. There were more superstitious rites practised by the Romans than by theGreeks, --such as examining the entrails of beasts and birds for good orbad omens. Great attention was given to dreams and rites of divination. The Roman household gods were of great account, since there was a moredefined and general worship of ancestors than among the Greeks. Thesewere the _Penates_, or familiar household gods, the guardians of thehome, whose fire on the sacred hearth was perpetually burning, and towhom every meal was esteemed a sacrifice. These included a _Lar_, orancestral family divinity, in each house. There were Vestal virgins toguard the most sacred places. There was a college of pontiffs toregulate worship and perform the higher ceremonies, which werecomplicated and minute. The pontiffs were presided over by one calledPontifex Maximus, --a title shrewdly assumed by Caesar to gain control ofthe popular worship, and still surviving in the title of the Pope ofRome with his college of cardinals. There were augurs and haruspices todiscover the will of the gods, according to entrails and the flightof birds. The festivals were more numerous in Rome than in Greece, and perhapswere more piously observed. About one day in four was set apart for theworship of particular gods, celebrated by feasts and games andsacrifices. The principal feast days were in honor of Janus, the greatgod of the Sabines, the god of beginnings, celebrated on the first ofJanuary, to which month he gave his name; also the feasts in honor ofthe Penates, of Mars, of Vesta, of Minerva, of Venus, of Ceres, of Juno, of Jupiter, and of Saturn. The Saturnalia, December 19, in honor ofSaturn, the annual Thanksgiving, lasted seven days, when the rich keptopen house and slaves had their liberty, --the most joyous of thefestivals. The feast of Minerva lasted five days, when offerings weremade by all mechanics, artists, and scholars. The feast of Cybele, analogous to that of Ceres in Greece and Isis in Egypt, lasted six days. These various feasts imposed great contributions on the people, and weremanaged by the pontiffs with the most minute observances and legalities. The principal Roman divinities were the Olympic gods under Latin names, like Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Minerva, Neptune, Vesta, Apollo, Venus, Ceres, and Diana; but the secondary deities were almost innumerable. Some ofthe deities were of Etruscan, some of Sabine, and some of Latin origin;but most of them were imported from Greece or corresponded with those ofthe Greek mythology. Many were manufactured by the pontiffs forutilitarian purposes, and were mere abstractions, like Hope, Fear, Concord, Justice, Clemency, etc. , to which temples were erected. Thepowers of Nature were also worshipped, like the sun, the moon, andstars. The best side of Roman life was represented in the worship ofVesta, who presided over the household fire and home, and was associatedwith the Lares and Penates. Of these household gods the head of thefamily was the officiating minister who offered prayers and sacrifices. The Vestal virgins received especial honor, and were appointed by thePontifex Maximus. Thus the Romans accounted themselves very religious, and doubtless areto be so accounted, certainly in the same sense as were the Athenians bythe Apostle Paul, since altars, statues, and temples in honor of godswere everywhere present to the eye, and rites and ceremonies were mostsystematically and mechanically observed according to strict rules laiddown by the pontiffs. They were grave and decorous in their devotions, and seemed anxious to learn from their augurs and haruspices the will ofthe gods; and their funeral ceremonies were held with great pomp andceremony. As faith in the gods declined, ceremonies and pomps weremultiplied, and the ice of ritualism accumulated on the banks of piety. Superstition and unbelief went hand in hand. Worship in the temples wasmost imposing when the amours and follies of the gods were mostridiculed in the theatres; and as the State was rigorous in itsreligious observances, hypocrisy became the vice of the most prominentand influential citizens. What sincerity was there in Julius Caesar whenhe discharged the duties of high-priest of the Republic? It wasimpossible for an educated Roman who read Plato and Zeno to believe inJanus and Juno. It was all very well for the people so to believe, hesaid, who must be kept in order; but scepticism increased in the higherclasses until the prevailing atheism culminated in the poetry ofLucretius, who had the boldness to declare that faith in the gods hadbeen the curse of the human race. If the Romans were more devoted to mere external and ritualisticservices than the Greeks, --more outwardly religious, --they were alsomore hypocritical. If they were not professed freethinkers, --for theState did not tolerate opposition or ridicule of those things which itinstituted or patronized, --religion had but little practical effect ontheir lives. The Romans were more immoral yet more observant ofreligious ceremonies than the Greeks, who acted and thought as theypleased. Intellectual independence was not one of the characteristics ofthe Roman citizen. He professed to think as the State prescribed, forthe masters of the world were the slaves of the State in religion as inwar. The Romans were more gross in their vices as they were morepharisaical in their profession than the Greeks, whom they conquered andimitated. Neither the sincere worship of ancestors, nor the ceremoniesand rites which they observed in honor of their innumerable divinities, softened the severity of their character, or weakened their passion forwar and bloody sports. Their hard and rigid wills were rarely moved bythe cries of agony or the shrieks of despair. Their slavery was morecruel than among any nation of antiquity. Butchery and legalized murderwere the delight of Romans in their conquering days, as were inhumansports in the days of their political decline. Where was the spirit ofreligion, as it was even in India and Egypt, when women were debased;when every man and woman held a human being in cruel bondage; when homewas abandoned for the circus and the amphitheatre; when the cry of themourner was unheard in shouts of victory; when women sold themselves aswives to those who would pay the highest price, and men abstained frommarriage unless they could fatten on rich dowries; when utility was thespring of every action, and demoralizing pleasure was the universalpursuit; when feastings and banquets were riotous and expensive, andviolence and rapine were restrained only by the strong arm of lawdictated by instincts of self-preservation? Where was the ennoblinginfluence of the gods, when nobody of any position finally believed inthem? How powerless the gods, when the general depravity was so glaringas to call out the terrible invective of Paul, the cosmopolitantraveller, the shrewd observer, the pure-hearted Christian missionary, indicting not a few, but a whole people: "Who exchanged the truth of Godfor a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than theCreator, . .. Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affections, unmerciful. " An awful picture, but sustained by the evidence of theRoman writers of that day as certainly no worse than thehideous reality. If this was the outcome of the most exquisitely poetical andart-inspiring mythology the world has ever known, what wonder that thepure spirituality of Jesus the Christ, shining into that blackness ofdarkness, should have been hailed by perishing millions as the "light ofthe world"! * * * * * AUTHORITIES. Rawlinson's Religions of the Ancient World; Grote's History of Greece;Thirlwall's History of Greece; Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; Max Müller'sChips from a German Workshop; Curtius's History of Greece; Mr. Gladstone's Homer and the Homeric Age; Rawlinson's Herodotus;Döllinger's Jew and Gentile; Fenton's Lectures on Ancient and ModernGreece; Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Mythology; Clarke's TenGreat Religions; Dwight's Mythology; Saint Augustine's City of God. CONFUCIUS. SAGE AND MORALIST. 550-478 B. C. About one hundred years after the great religious movement in Indiaunder Buddha, a man was born in China who inaugurated a somewhat similarmovement there, and who impressed his character and principles on threehundred millions of people. It cannot be said that he was the founder ofa new religion, since he aimed only to revive what was ancient. To quotehis own words, he was "a transmitter, and not a maker. " But he was, nevertheless, a very extraordinary character; and if greatness is to bemeasured by results, I know of no heathen teacher whose work has been sopermanent. In genius, in creative power, he was inferior to many; but ininfluence he has had no equal among the sages of the world. "Confucius" is a Latin name given him by Jesuit missionaries in China;his real name was K'ung-foo-tseu. He was born about 550 B. C. , in theprovince of Loo, and was the contemporary of Belshazzar, of Cyrus, ofCroesus, and of Pisistratus. It is claimed that Confucius was adescendant of one of the early emperors of China, of the Chow dynasty, 1121 B. C. ; but he was simply of an upper-class family of the State ofLoo, one of the provinces of the empire, --his father and grandfatherhaving been prime ministers to the reigning princes or dukes of Loo, which State resembled a feudal province of France in the Middle Ages, acknowledging only a nominal fealty to the Emperor. We know but little of the early condition of China. The earliest recordof events which can be called history takes us back to about 2350 B. C. , when Yaou was emperor, --an intelligent and benignant prince, unitingunder his sway the different States of China, which had even thenreached a considerable civilization, for the legendary or mythicalhistory of the country dates back about five thousand years. Yaou's sonShun was an equally remarkable man, wise and accomplished, who livedonly to advance the happiness of his subjects. At that period thereligion of China was probably monotheistic. The supreme being wascalled Shang-te, to whom sacrifices were made, a deity who exercised asuperintending care of the universe; but corruptions rapidly crept in, and a worship of the powers of Nature and of the spirits of departedancestors, who were supposed to guard the welfare of their descendants, became the prevailing religion. During the reigns of these good emperorsthe standard of morality was high throughout the empire. But morals declined, --the old story in all the States of the ancientworld. In addition to the decline in morals, there were politicaldiscords and endless wars between the petty princes of the empire. To remedy the political and moral evils of his time was the great desireand endeavor of Confucius. The most marked feature in the religion ofthe Chinese, before his time, was the worship of ancestors, and thisworship he did not seek to change. "Confucius taught three thousanddisciples, of whom the more eminent became influential authors. LikePlato and Xenophon, they recorded the sayings of their master, and hismaxims and arguments preserved in their works were afterward added tothe national collection of the sacred books called the 'Nim Classes. '" Confucius was a mere boy when his father died, and we know next tonothing of his early years. At fifteen years of age, however, we aretold that he devoted himself to learning, pursuing his studies underconsiderable difficulties, his family being poor. He married when he wasnineteen years of age; and in the following year was born his son Le, his only child, of whose descendants eleven thousand males were livingone hundred and fifty years ago, constituting the only hereditarynobility of China, --a class who for seventy generations were therecipients of the highest honors and privileges. On the birth of Le, theduke Ch'aou of Loo sent Confucius a present of a carp, which seems toindicate that he was already distinguished for his attainments. At twenty years of age Confucius entered upon political duties, beingthe superintendent of cattle, from which, for his fidelity and ability, he was promoted to the higher office of distributer of grain, havingattracted the attention of his sovereign. At twenty-two he began hislabors as a public teacher, and his house became the resort ofenthusiastic youth who wished to learn the doctrines of antiquity. Thesewere all that the sage undertook to teach, --not new and originaldoctrines of morality or political economy, but only such as wereestablished from a remote antiquity, going back two thousand yearsbefore he was born. There is no improbability in this alleged antiquityof the Chinese Empire, for Egypt at this time was a flourishing State. At twenty-nine years of age Confucius gave his attention to music, whichhe studied under a famous master; and to this art he devoted no smallpart of his life, writing books and treatises upon it. Six yearsafterward, at thirty-five, he had a great desire to travel; and thereigning duke, in whose service he was as a high officer of state, putat his disposal a carriage and two horses, to visit the court of theEmperor, whose sovereignty, however, was only nominal. It does notappear that Confucius was received with much distinction, nor did hehave much intercourse with the court or the ministers. He was a mereseeker of knowledge, an inquirer about the ceremonies and maxims of thefounder of the dynasty of Chow, an observer of customs, like Herodotus. He wandered for eight years among the various provinces of China, teaching as he went, but without making a great impression. Moreover, hewas regarded with jealousy by the different ministers of princes; one ofthem, however, struck with his wisdom and knowledge, wished to retainhim in his service. On the return of Confucius to Loo, he remained fifteen years withoutofficial employment, his native province being in a state of anarchy. But he was better employed than in serving princes, prosecuting hisresearches into poetry, history, ceremonies, and music, --a born scholar, with insatiable desire of knowledge. His great gifts and learning, however, did not allow him to remain without public employment. He wasmade governor of an important city. As chief magistrate of this city, hemade a marvellous change in the manners of the people. The duke, surprised at what he saw, asked if his rules could be employed togovern a whole State; and Confucius told him that they could be appliedto the government of the Empire. On this the duke appointed himassistant superintendent of Public Works, --a great office, held only bymembers of the ducal family. So many improvements did Confucius make inagriculture that he was made minister of Justice; and so wonderful washis management, that soon there was no necessity to put the penal lawsin execution, since no offenders could be found. Confucius held his highoffice as minister of Justice for two years longer, and some suppose hewas made prime minister. His authority certainly continued to increase. He exalted the sovereign, depressed the ministers, and weakened privatefamilies, --just as Richelieu did in France, strengthening the throne atthe expense of the nobility. It would thus seem that his politicalreforms were in the direction of absolute monarchy, a needed force intimes of anarchy and demoralization. So great was his fame as astatesman that strangers came from other States to see him. These reforms in the state of Loo gave annoyance to the neighboringprinces; and to undermine the influence of Confucius with the duke, these princes sent the duke a present of eighty beautiful girls, possessing musical and dancing accomplishments, and also one hundred andtwenty splendid horses. As the duke soon came to think more of hisgirls and horses than of his reforms, Confucius became disgusted, resigned his office, and retired to private life. Then followed thirteenyears of homeless wandering. He was now fifty-six years of age, depressed and melancholy in view of his failure with princes. He wasaccompanied in his travels by some of his favorite disciples, to whom hecommunicated his wisdom. But his fame preceded him wherever he journeyed, and such was therespect for his character and teachings that he was loaded with presentsby the people, and was left unmolested to do as he pleased. Thedissoluteness of courts filled him with indignation and disgust; and hewas heard to exclaim on one occasion, "I have not seen one who lovesvirtue as he loves beauty, "--meaning the beauty of women. The love ofthe beautiful, in an artistic sense, is a Greek and not anOriental idea. In the meantime Confucius continued his wanderings from city to city andState to State, with a chosen band of disciples, all of whom becamefamous. He travelled for the pursuit of knowledge, and to impress thepeople with his doctrines. A certain one of his followers was questionedby a prince as to the merits and peculiarities of his master, but wasafraid to give a true answer. The sage hearing of it, said, "You shouldhave told him, He is simply a man who in his eager pursuit of knowledgeforgets his food, who in the joy of his attainments forgets his sorrows, and who does not perceive that old age is coming on. " How seldom is itthat any man reaches such a height! In a single sentence the philosopherdescribes himself truly and impressively. At last, in the year 491 B. C. , a new sovereign reigned in Loo, and withcostly presents invited Confucius to return to his native State. Thephilosopher was now sixty-nine years of age, and notwithstanding therespect in which he was held, the world cannot be said to have dealtkindly with him. It is the fate of prophets and sages to be rejected. The world will not bear rebukes. Even a friend, if discreet, will rarelyventure to tell another friend his faults. Confucius told the truth whenpressed, but he does not seem to have courted martyrdom; and his mannersand speech were too bland, too proper, too unobtrusive to give muchoffence. Luther was aided in his reforms by his very roughness andboldness, but he was surrounded by a different class of people fromthose whom Confucius sought to influence. Conventional, polite, considerate, and a great respecter of persons in authority was theChinese sage. A rude, abrupt, and fierce reformer would have had noweight with the most courteous and polite people of whom history speaks;whose manners twenty-five hundred years ago were substantially the sameas they are at the present day, --a people governed by the laws ofpropriety alone. The few remaining years of Confucius' life were spent in revising hiswritings; but his latter days were made melancholy by dwelling on theevils of the world that he could not remove. Disappointment also hadmade him cynical and bitter, like Solomon of old, although fromdifferent causes. He survived his son and his most beloved disciples. Ashe approached the dark valley he uttered no prayer, and betrayed noapprehension. Death to him was a rest. He died at the age ofseventy-three. In the tenth book of his Analects we get a glimpse of the habits of thephilosopher. He was a man of rule and ceremony. -He was particular abouthis dress and appearance. He was no ascetic, but moderate and temperate. He lived chiefly on rice, like the rest of his countrymen, but requiredto have his rice cooked nicely, and his meat cut properly. He drank winefreely, but was never known to have obscured his faculties by thisindulgence. I do not read that tea was then in use. He was charitableand hospitable, but not ostentatious. He generally travelled in acarriage with two horses, driven by one of his disciples; but a carriagein those days was like one of our carts. In his village, it is said, helooked simple and sincere, as if he were one not able to speak; whenwaiting at court, or speaking with officers of an inferior grade, hespoke freely, but in a straightforward manner; with officers of ahigher, grade he spoke blandly, but precisely; with the prince he wasgrave, but self-possessed. When eating he did not converse; when in bedhe did not speak. If his mat were not straight he did not sit on it. When a friend sent him a present he did not bow; the only present forwhich he bowed was that of the flesh of sacrifice. He was capable ofexcessive grief, with all his placidity. When his favorite pupil died, he exclaimed, "Heaven is destroying me!" His disciples on this said, "Sir, your grief is excessive. " "It is excessive, " he replied. "If I amnot to mourn bitterly for this man, for whom should I mourn?" The reigning prince of Loo caused a temple to be erected over theremains of Confucius, and the number of his disciples continuallyincreased. The emperors of the falling dynasty of Chow had neither theintelligence nor the will to do honor to the departed philosopher, butthe emperors of the succeeding dynasties did all they could toperpetuate his memory. During his life Confucius found ready acceptancefor his doctrines, and was everywhere revered among the people, thoughnot uniformly appreciated by the rulers, nor able permanently toestablish the reforms he inaugurated. After his death, however, no honorwas too great to be rendered him. The most splendid temple in China wasbuilt over his grave, and he received a homage little removed fromworship. His writings became a sacred rule of faith and practice;schools were based upon them, and scholars devoted themselves to theirinterpretation. For two thousand years Confucius has reignedsupreme, --the undisputed teacher of a population of three or fourhundred millions. Confucius must be regarded as a man of great humility, conscious ofinfirmities and faults, but striving after virtue and perfection. Hesaid of himself, "I have striven to become a man of perfect virtue, andto teach others without weariness; but the character of the superiorman, carrying out in his conduct what he professes, is what I have notattained to. I am not one born in the possession of knowledge, but I amone who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there. I am atransmitter, and not a maker. " If he did not lay claim to divineillumination, he felt that he was born into the world for a specialpurpose; not to declare new truths, not to initiate any new ceremony, but to confirm what he felt was in danger of being lost, --the mostconservative of all known reformers. Confucius left behind voluminous writings, of which his Analects, hisbook of Poetry, his book of History, and his Rules of Propriety are themost important. It is these which are now taught, and have been taughtfor two thousand years, in the schools and colleges of China. TheChinese think that no man so great and perfect as he has ever lived. Hiswritings are held in the same veneration that Christians attach to theirown sacred literature. There is this one fundamental difference betweenthe authors of the Bible and the Chinese sage, --that he did not like totalk of spiritual things; indeed, of them he was ignorant, professing nointerest in relation to the working out of abstruse questions, either ofphilosophy or theology. He had no taste or capacity for such inquiries. Hence, he did not aspire to throw any new light on the great problems ofhuman condition and destiny; nor did he speculate, like the Ionianphilosophers, on the creation or end of things. He was not troubledabout the origin or destiny of man. He meddled neither with physics normetaphysics, but he earnestly and consistently strove to bring to lightand to enforce those principles which had made remote generations wiseand virtuous. He confined his attention to outward phenomena, --to theworld of sense and matter; to forms, precedents, ceremonies, proprieties, rules of conduct, filial duties, and duties to the State;enjoining temperance, honesty, and sincerity as the cardinal andfundamental laws of private and national prosperity. He was no prophetof wrath, though living in a corrupt age. He utters no anathemas onprinces, and no woes on peoples. Nor does he glow with exalted hopes ofa millennium of bliss, or of the beatitudes of a future state. He wasnot stern and indignant like Elijah, but more like the courtier andcounsellor Elisha. He was a man of the world, and all his teachings havereference to respectability in the world's regard. He doubted more thanhe believed. And yet in many of his sayings Confucius rises to an exalted height, considering his age and circumstances. Some of them remind us of some ofthe best Proverbs of Solomon. In general, we should say that to his mindfilial piety and fraternal submission were the foundation of allvirtuous practices, and absolute obedience to rulers the primalprinciple of government. He was eminently a peace man, discouraging warsand violence. He was liberal and tolerant in his views. He said that the"superior man is catholic and no partisan. " Duke Gae asked, "What shouldbe done to secure the submission of the people?" The sage replied, "Advance the upright, and set aside the crooked; then the people willsubmit. But advance the crooked, and set aside the upright, and thepeople will not submit. " Again he said, "It is virtuous manners whichconstitute the excellence of a neighborhood; therefore fix yourresidence where virtuous manners prevail. " The following sayings remindme of Epictetus: "A scholar whose mind is set on truth, and who isashamed of bad clothes and bad food, is not fit to be discoursed with. Aman should say, 'I am not concerned that I have no place, --I amconcerned how I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned that I am notknown; I seek to be worthy to be known. '" Here Confucius looks to theessence of things, not to popular desires. In the following, on theother hand, he shows his prudence and policy: "In serving a prince, frequent remonstrances lead to disgrace; between friends, frequentreproofs make the friendship distant. " Thus he talks like Solomon. "Tsae-yu, one of his disciples, being asleep in the day-time, the mastersaid, 'Rotten wood cannot be carved. This Yu--what is the use of myreproving him?'" Of a virtuous prince, he said: "In his conduct ofhimself, he was humble; in serving his superiors, he was respectful; innourishing the people, he was kind; in ordering the people, hewas just. " It was discussed among his followers what it is to be distinguished. Onesaid: "It is to be heard of through the family and State. " The masterreplied: "That is notoriety, not distinction. " Again he said: "Though aman may be able to recite three hundred odes, yet if when intrusted withoffice he does not know how to act, of what practical use is hispoetical knowledge?" Again, "If a minister cannot rectify himself, whathas he to do with rectifying others?" There is great force in thissaying: "The superior man is easy to serve and difficult to please, since you cannot please him in any way which is not accordant withright; but the mean man is difficult to serve and easy to please. Thesuperior man has a dignified ease without pride; the mean man has pridewithout a dignified ease. " A disciple asked him what qualities a manmust possess to entitle him to be called a scholar. The master said: "Hemust be earnest, urgent, and bland, --among his friends earnest andurgent, among his brethren bland. " And, "The scholar who cherishes alove of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar. " "If a man, " he said, "take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near athand. " And again, "He who requires much from himself and little fromothers, he will keep himself from being an object of resentment. " Theseproverbs remind us of Bacon: "Specious words confound virtue. " "Want offorbearance in small matters confound great plans. " "Virtue, " the mastersaid, "is more to man than either fire or water. I have seen men diefrom treading on water or fire, but I have never seen a man die fromtreading the course of virtue. " This is a lofty sentiment, but I thinkit is not in accordance with the records of martyrdom. "There are threethings, " he continued, "which the superior man guards against: In youthhe guards against his passions, in manhood against quarrelsomeness, andin old age against covetousness. " I do not find anything in the sayings of Confucius that can be calledcynical, such as we find in some of the Proverbs of Solomon, even inreference to women, where women were, as in most Oriental countries, despised. The most that approaches cynicism is in such a remark as this:"I have not yet seen one who could perceive his faults and inwardlyaccuse himself. " His definition of perfect virtue is above that ofPaley: "The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his firstbusiness, and success only a secondary consideration. " Throughout hiswritings there is no praise of success without virtue, and nodisparagement of want of success with virtue. Nor have I found in hissayings a sentiment which may be called demoralizing. He always takesthe higher ground, and with all his ceremony ever exalts inward purityabove all external appearances. There is a quaint common-sense in someof his writings which reminds one of the sayings of Abraham Lincoln. Forinstance: One of his disciples asked, "If you had the conduct ofarmies, whom would you have to act with you?" The master replied: "Iwould not have him to act with me who will unarmed attack a tiger, orcross a river without a boat. " Here something like wit and irony breakout: "A man of the village said, 'Great is K'ung the philosopher; hislearning is extensive, and yet he does not render his name famous by anyparticular thing. ' The master heard this observation, and said to hisdisciples: 'What shall I practise, charioteering or archery? I willpractise charioteering. '" When the Duke of Loo asked about government, the master said: "Goodgovernment exists when those who are near are made happy, and when thosewho are far off are attracted. " When the Duke questioned him again onthe same subject, he replied: "Go before the people with your example, and be laborious in their affairs. .. . Pardon small faults, and raise tooffice men of virtue and talents. " "But how shall I know the men ofvirtue?" asked the duke. "Raise to office those whom you do know, " Thekey to his political philosophy seems to be this: "A man who knows howto govern himself, knows how to govern others; and he who knows how togovern other men, knows how to govern an empire. " "The art ofgovernment, " he said, "is to keep its affairs before the mind withoutweariness, and to practise them with undeviating constancy. .. . Togovern means to rectify. If you lead on the people with correctness, who will not dare to be correct?" This is one of his favoriteprinciples; namely, the force of a good example, --as when the reigningprince asked him how to do away with thieves, he replied: "If you, Sir, were not covetous, although you should reward them to do it, they wouldnot steal. " This was not intended as a rebuke to the prince, but anillustration of the force of a great example. Confucius rarely openlyrebuked any one, especially a prince, whom it was his duty to veneratefor his office. He contented himself with enforcing principles. Here hismoderation and great courtesy are seen. Confucius sometimes soared to the highest morality known to the Paganworld. Chung-kung asked about perfect virtue. The master said: "It iswhen you go abroad, to behave to every one as if you were receiving agreat guest, to have no murmuring against you in the country and family, and not to do to others as you would not wish done to yourself. .. . Thesuperior man has neither anxiety nor fear. Let him never failreverentially to order his own conduct, and let him be respectful toothers and observant of propriety; then all within the four seas will bebrothers. .. . Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles, and bemoving continually to what is right. " Fan-Chi asked about benevolence;the master said: "It is to love all men. " Another asked aboutfriendship. Confucius replied: "Faithfully admonish your friend, andkindly try to lead him. If you find him impracticable, stop. Do notdisgrace yourself. " This saying reminds us of that of our great Master:"Cast not your pearls before swine. " There is no greater folly than inmaking oneself disagreeable without any probability of reformation. Someone asked: "What do you say about the treatment of injuries?" The masteranswered: "Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness withkindness. " Here again he was not far from the greater Teacher on theMount "When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain and his virtue isnot sufficient to hold, whatever he may have gained he will lose again. "One of the favorite doctrines of Confucius was the superiority of theancients to the men of his day. Said he: "The high-mindedness ofantiquity showed itself in a disregard of small things; that of thepresent day shows itself in license. The stern dignity of antiquityshowed itself in grave reserve; that of the present shows itself inquarrelsome perverseness. The policy of antiquity showed itself instraightforwardness; that of the present in deceit. " The following is asaying worthy of Montaigne: "Of all people, girls and servants are themost difficult to behave to. If you are familiar with them, they losetheir humility; if you maintain reserve to them, they are discontented. " Such are some of the sayings of Confucius, on account of which he wasregarded as the wisest of his countrymen; and as his conduct was inharmony with his principles, he was justly revered as a pattern ofmorality. The greatest virtues which he enjoined were sincerity, truthfulness, and obedience to duty whatever may be the sacrifice; to doright because it is right and not because it is expedient; filial pietyextending to absolute reverence; and an equal reverence for rulers. Hehad no theology; he confounded God with heaven and earth. He saysnothing about divine providence; he believed in nothing supernatural. Hethought little and said less about a future state of rewards andpunishments. His morality was elevated, but not supernal. We infer fromhis writings that his age was degenerate and corrupt, but, as we havealready said, his reproofs were gentle. Blandness of speech and mannerswas his distinguishing outward peculiarity; and this seems tocharacterize his nation, --whether learned from him, or whether an inbornnational peculiarity, I do not know. He went through great trials mostcreditably, but he was no martyr. He constantly complained that histeachings fell on listless ears, which made him sad and discouraged; buthe never flagged in his labors to improve his generation. He had noegotism, but great self-respect, reminding us of Michael Angelo. He washumble but full of dignity, serene though distressed, cheerful but nothilarious. Were he to live among us now, we should call him a perfectgentleman, with aristocratic sympathies, but more autocratic in hisviews of government and society than aristocratic. He seems to haveloved the people, and was kind, even respectful, to everybody. When hevisited a school, it is said that he arose in quiet deference to speakto the children, since some of the boys, he thought, would probably bedistinguished and powerful at no distant day. He was also remarkablycharitable, and put a greater value on virtues and abilities than uponriches and honors. Though courted by princes he would not serve them inviolation of his self-respect, asked no favors, and returned theirpresents. If he did not live above the world, he adorned the world. Wecannot compare his teachings with those of Christ; they are immeasurablyinferior in loftiness and spirituality; but they are worldly wise anddecorous, and are on an equality with those of Solomon in moral wisdom. They are wonderfully adapted to a people who are conservative of theirinstitutions, and who have more respect for tradition than for progress. The worship of ancestors is closely connected with veneration forparental authority; and with absolute obedience to parents is alliedabsolute obedience to the Emperor as head of the State. Hence, thewritings of Confucius have tended to cement the Chinese imperialpower, --in which fact we may perhaps find the secret of hisextraordinary posthumous influence. No wonder that emperors and rulershave revered and honored his memory, and used the power of the State toestablish his doctrines. Moreover, his exaltation of learning as anecessity for rulers has tended to put all the offices of the realm intothe hands of scholars. There never was a country where scholars havebeen and still are so generally employed by Government. And as men oflearning are conservative in their sympathies, so they generally arefond of peace and detest war. Hence, under the influence of scholars thepolicy of the Chinese Government has always been mild and pacific. It iseven paternal. It has more similarity to the governments of a remoteantiquity than that of any existing nation. Thus is the influence ofConfucius seen in the stability of government and of conservativeinstitutions, as well as in decency in the affairs of life, andgentleness and courtesy of manners. Above all is his influence seen inthe employment of men of learning and character in the affairs of stateand in all the offices of government, as the truest guardians ofwhatever tends to exalt a State and make it respectable and stable, ifnot powerful for war or daring in deeds of violence. Confucius was essentially a statesman as well as a moralist; but hispolitical career was an apparent failure, since few princes listened tohis instructions. Yet if he was lost to his contemporaries, he has beenpreserved by posterity. Perhaps there never lived a man so worshipped byposterity who had so slight a following by the men of his owntime, --unless we liken him to that greatest of all Prophets, who, beingdespised and rejected, is, and is to be, the "headstone of the corner"in the rebuilding of humanity. Confucius says so little about thesubjects that interested the people of China that some suppose he had noreligion at all. Nor did he mention but once in his writings Shang-te, the supreme deity of his remote ancestors; and he deduced nothing fromthe worship of him. And yet there are expressions in his sayings whichseem to show that he believed in a supreme power. He often spoke ofHeaven, and loved to walk in the heavenly way. Heaven to him wasDestiny, by the power of which the world was created. By Heaven thevirtuous are rewarded, and the guilty are punished. Out of love for thepeople, Heaven appoints rulers to protect and instruct them. Prayer isunnecessary, because Heaven does not actively interfere with the soulof man. Confucius was philosophical and consistent in the all-pervadingprinciple by which he insisted upon the common source of power ingovernment, --of the State, of the family, and of one's self. Self-knowledge and self-control he maintained to be the fountain of allpersonal virtue and attainment in performance of the moral duties owedto others, whether above or below in social standing. He supposed thatall men are born equally good, but that the temptations of the world atlength destroy the original rectitude. The "superior man, " who next tothe "sage" holds the highest place in the Confucian humanity, conquersthe evil in the world, though subject to infirmities; his acts areguided by the laws of propriety, and are marked by strict sincerity. Confucius admitted that he himself had failed to reach the level of thesuperior man. This admission may have been the result of hisextraordinary humility and modesty. In "The Great Learning" Confucius lays down the rules to enable one tobecome a superior man. The foundation of his rules is in theinvestigation of things, or _knowledge_, with which virtue isindissolubly connected, --as in the ethics of Socrates. He maintainedthat no attainment can be made, and no virtue can remain untainted, without learning. "Without this, benevolence becomes folly, sincerityrecklessness, straightforwardness rudeness, and firmness foolishness. "But mere accumulation of facts was not knowledge, for "learning withoutthought is labor lost; and thought without learning is perilous. "Complete wisdom was to be found only among the ancient sages; by nomental endeavor could any man hope to equal the supreme wisdom of Yaouand of Shun. The object of learning, he said, should be truth; and thecombination of learning with a firm will, will surely lead a man tovirtue. Virtue must be free from all hypocrisy and guile. The next step towards perfection is the _cultivation of theperson_, --which must begin with introspection, and ends in harmoniousoutward expression. Every man must guard his thoughts, words, andactions; and conduct must agree with words. By words the superior mandirects others; but in order to do this his words must be sincere. It byno means follows, however, that virtue is the invariable concomitant ofplausible speech. The height of virtue is _filial piety_; for this is connectedindissolubly with loyalty to the sovereign, who is the father of hispeople and the preserver of the State. Loyalty to the sovereign issynonymous with duty, and is outwardly shown by obedience. Next toparents, all superiors should be the object of reverence. Thisreverence, it is true, should be reciprocal; a sovereign forfeits allright to reverence and obedience when he ceases to be a minister ofgood. But then, only the man who has developed virtues in himself isconsidered competent to rule a family or a State; for the same virtueswhich enable a man to rule the one, will enable him to rule the other. No man can teach others who cannot teach his own family. The greateststress, as we have seen, is laid by Confucius on filial piety, whichconsists in obedience to authority, --in serving parents according topropriety, that is, with the deepest affection, and the father of theState with loyalty. But while it is incumbent on a son to obey thewishes of his parents, it is also a part of his duty to remonstrate withthem should they act contrary to the rules of propriety. Allremonstrances, however, must be made humbly. Should these remonstrancesfail, the son must mourn in silence the obduracy of the parents. Hecarried the obligations of filial piety so far as to teach that a sonshould conceal the immorality of a father, forgetting the distinction ofright and wrong. Brotherly love is the sequel of filial piety. "Happy, "says he, "is the union with wife and children; it is like the music oflutes and harps. The love which binds brother to brother is second onlyto that which is due from children to parents. It consists in mutualfriendship, joyful harmony, and dutiful obedience on the part of theyounger to the elder brothers. " While obedience is exacted to an elder brother and to parents, Confuciussaid but little respecting the ties which should bind husband and wife. He had but little respect for woman, and was divorced from his wifeafter living with her for a year. He looked on women as every wayinferior to men, and only to be endured as necessary evils. It was notuntil a woman became a mother, that she was treated with respect inChina. Hence, according to Confucius, the great object of marriage is toincrease the family, especially to give birth to sons. Women could belawfully and properly divorced who had no children, --which put womencompletely in the power of men, and reduced them to the condition ofslaves. The failure to recognize the sanctity of marriage is the greatblot on the system of Confucius as a scheme of morals. But the sage exalts friendship. Everybody, from the Emperor downward, must have friends; and the best friends are those allied by ties ofblood. "Friends, " said he, "are wealth to the poor, strength to theweak, and medicine to the sick. " One of the strongest bonds tofriendship is literature and literary exertion. Men are enjoined byConfucius to make friends among the most virtuous of scholars, even asthey are enjoined to take service under the most worthy of greatofficers. In the intercourse of friends, the most unbounded sincerityand frankness is imperatively enjoined. "He who is not trusted by hisfriends will not gain the confidence of the sovereign, and he who is notobedient to parents will not be trusted by friends. " Everything is subordinated to the State; but, on the other hand, thefamily, friends, culture, virtue, --the good of the people, --is the mainobject of good government. "No virtue, " said Emperor Kuh, 2435 B. C. , "is higher than love to all men, and there is no loftier aim ingovernment than to profit all men. " When he was asked what should bedone for the people, he replied, "Enrich them;" and when asked what moreshould be done, he replied, "Teach them. " On these two principles thewhole philosophy of the sage rested, --the temporal welfare of thepeople, and their education. He laid great stress on knowledge, asleading to virtue; and on virtue, as leading to prosperity. He made theprofession of a teacher the most honorable calling to which a citizencould aspire. He himself was a teacher. All sages are teachers, thoughall teachers are not sages. Confucius enlarged upon the necessity of having good men in office. Theofficials of his day excited his contempt, and reciprocally scorned histeachings. It was in contrast to these officials that he painted theideal times of Kings Wan and Woo. The two motive-powers of government, according to Confucius, are righteousness and the observance ofceremonies. Righteousness is the law of the world, as ceremonies form arule to the heart. What he meant by ceremonies was rules of propriety, intended to keep all unruly passions in check, and produce areverential manner among all classes. Doubtless he over-estimated theforce of example, since there are men in every country and community whowill be lawless and reckless, in spite of the best models of characterand conduct. The ruling desire of Confucius was to make the whole empire peaceful andhappy. The welfare of the people, the right government of the State, andthe prosperity of the empire were the main objects of his solicitude. Asconducive to these, he touched on many other things incidentally, --suchas the encouragement of music, of which he was very fond. He himselfsummed up the outcome of his rules for conduct in this prohibitive form:"Do not unto others that which you would not have them do to you. " Herewe have the negative side of the positive "golden rule. " Reciprocity, and that alone, was his law of life. He does not inculcate forgivenessof injuries, but exacts a tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye. As to his own personal character, it was nearly faultless. His humilityand patience were alike remarkable, and his sincerity and candor were asmarked as his humility. He was the most learned man in the empire, yetlamented the deficiency of his knowledge. He even disclaimed thequalities of the superior man, much more those of the sage. "I am, "said he, "not virtuous enough to be free from cares, nor wise enough tobe free from anxieties, nor bold enough to be free from fear. " He wasalways ready to serve his sovereign or the State; but he neither graspedoffice, nor put forward his own merits, nor sought to advance his owninterests. He was grave, generous, tolerant, and sincere. He carriedinto practice all the rules he taught. Poverty was his lot in life, buthe never repined at the absence of wealth, or lost the severe dignitywhich is ever to be associated with wisdom and the force of personalcharacter. Indeed, his greatness was in his character rather than in hisgenius; and yet I think his genius has been underrated. His greatness isseen in the profound devotion of his followers to him, however loftytheir merits or exalted their rank. No one ever disputed his influenceand fame; and his moral excellence shines all the brighter in view ofthe troublous times in which he lived, when warriors occupied the stage, and men of letters were driven behind the scenes. The literary labors of Confucius were very great, since he made thewhole classical literature of China accessible to his countrymen. Thefame of all preceding writers is merged in his own renown. His workshave had the highest authority for more than two thousand years. Theyhave been regarded as the exponents of supreme wisdom, and adopted astext-books by all scholars and in all schools in that vast empire, which includes one-fourth of the human race. To all educated men the"Book of Changes" (Yin-King), the "Book of Poetry" (She-King), the "Bookof History" (Shoo-King), the "Book of Rites" (Le-King), the "GreatLearning" (Ta-heo), showing the parental essence of all government, the"Doctrine of the Mean" (Chung-yung), teaching the "golden mean" ofconduct, and the "Confucian Analects" (Lun-yu), recording hisconversations, are supreme authorities; to which must be added the Worksof Mencius, the greatest of his disciples. There is no record of anybooks that have exacted such supreme reverence in any nation as theWorks of Confucius, except the Koran of the Mohammedans, the Book of theLaw among the Hebrews, and the Bible among the Christians. What aninfluence for one man to have exerted on subsequent ages, who laid noclaim to divinity or even originality, --recognized as a man, worshipped as a god! No sooner had the sun of Confucius set under a cloud (since sovereignsand princes had neglected if they had not scorned his precepts), thanhis memory and principles were duly honored. But it was not until theaccession of the Han dynasty, 206 B. C. , that the reigning emperorcollected the scattered writings of the sage, and exerted his vast powerto secure the study of them throughout the schools of China. It must beborne in mind that a hostile emperor of the preceding dynasty hadordered the books of Confucius to be burned; but they were secreted byhis faithful admirers in the walls of houses and beneath the ground. Succeeding emperors heaped additional honors on the memory of the sage, and in the early part of the sixteenth century an emperor of the Mingdynasty gave him the title which he at present bears in China, --"Theperfect sage, the ancient teacher, Confucius. " No higher title could beconferred upon him in a land where to be "ancient" is to be revered. Formore than twelve hundred years temples have been erected to his honor, and his worship has been universal throughout the empire. His maxims ofmorality have appealed to human consciousness in every succeedinggeneration, and carry as much weight to-day as they did when the Handynasty made them the standard of human wisdom. They were especiallyadapted to the Chinese intellect, which although shrewd and ingenious isphlegmatic, unspeculative, matter-of-fact, and unspiritual. Moreover, aswe have said, it was to the interest of rulers to support his doctrines, from the constant exhortations to loyalty which Confucius enjoined. Andyet there is in his precepts a democratic influence also, since herecognized no other titles or ranks but such as are won by personalmerit, --thus opening every office in the State to the learned, whatevertheir original social rank. The great political truth that the welfareof the people is the first duty and highest aim of rulers, has endearedthe memory of the sage to the unnumbered millions who toil upon thescantiest means of subsistence that have been known in anynation's history. This essay on the religion of the Chinese would be incomplete withoutsome allusion to one of the contemporaries of Confucius, who spirituallyand intellectually was probably his superior, and to whom even Confuciuspaid extraordinary deference. This man was called Lao-tse, a recluse andphilosopher, who was already an old man when Confucius began histravels. He was the founder of Tao-tze, a kind of rationalism, which atpresent has millions of adherents in China. This old philosopher did notreceive Confucius very graciously, since the younger man declarednothing new, only wishing to revive the teachings of ancient sages, while he himself was a great awakener of thought. He was, likeConfucius, a politico-ethical teacher, but unlike him sought to leadpeople back to a state of primitive society before forms and regulationsexisted. He held that man's nature was good, and that primitivepleasures and virtues were better than worldly wisdom. He maintainedthat spiritual weapons cannot be formed by laws and regulations, andthat prohibiting enactments tended to increase the evils they weremeant to avert. While this great and profound man was in some respectssuperior to Confucius, his influence has been most seen on the inferiorpeople of China. Taoism rivals Buddhism as the religion of the lowerclasses, and Taoism combined with Buddhism has more adherents thanConfucianism. But the wise, the mighty, and the noble still cling toConfucius as the greatest man whom China has produced. Of spiritual religion, indeed, the lower millions of Chinese have nowbut little conception; their nearest approach to any supernaturalism isthe worship of deceased ancestors, and their religious observances arethe grossest formalism. But as a practical system of morals in the daysof its early establishment, the religion of Confucius ranks very highamong the best developments of Paganism. Certainly no man ever had adeeper knowledge of his countrymen than he, or adapted his doctrines tothe peculiar needs of their social organism with such amazing tact. It is a remarkable thing that all the religions of antiquity havepractically passed away, with their cities and empires, except among theHindus and Chinese; and it is doubtful if these religions can withstandthe changes which foreign conquest and Christian missionary enterpriseand civilization are producing. In the East the old religions gave placeto Mohamedanism, as in the West they disappeared before the power ofChristianity. And these conquering religions retain and extend theirhold upon the human mind and human affections by reason of theirfundamental principles, --the fatherhood of a personal God, and thebrotherhood of universal man. With the ideas prevalent among all sectsthat God is not only supreme in power, but benevolent in his providence, and that every man has claims and rights which cannot be set aside bykings or rulers or priests, --nations must indefinitely advance in virtueand happiness, as they receive and live by the inspiration of thiselevating faith. * * * * * AUTHORITIES. Religion in China, by Joseph Edkins, D. D. ; Rawlinson's Religions of theAncient World; Freeman Clarke's Ten Great Religions; Johnson's OrientalReligions; Davis's Chinese; Nevins's China and the Chinese; Giles'sChinese Sketches; Lenormant's Ancient History of the East; Hue'sChristianity in China; Legge's Prolegomena to the Shoo-King; Lecomte'sChina; Dr. S. Wells Williams's Middle Kingdom; China, by ProfessorDouglas; The Religions of China, by James Legge. ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY. SEEKING AFTER TRUTH. Whatever may be said of the inferiority of the ancients to the modernsin natural and mechanical science, which no one is disposed to question, or even in the realm of literature, which may be questioned, there wasone department of knowledge to which we have added nothing ofconsequence. In the realm of art they were our equals, and probably oursuperiors; in philosophy, they carried logical deduction to its utmostlimit. They advanced from a few crude speculations on material phenomenato an analysis of all the powers of the mind, and finally to theestablishment of ethical principles which even Christianity did notsupersede. The progress of philosophy from Thales to Plato is the most stupendoustriumph of the human intellect. The reason of man soared to the loftiestflights that it has ever attained. It cast its searching eye into themost abstruse inquiries which ever tasked the famous minds of theworld. It exhausted all the subjects which dialectical subtlety everraised. It originated and carried out the boldest speculationsrespecting the nature of the soul and its future existence. Itestablished important psychological truths and created a method for thesolution of abstruse questions. It went on from point to point, untilall the faculties of the mind were severely analyzed, and all itsoperations were subjected to a rigid method. The Romans never added asingle principle to the philosophy which the Greeks elaborated; theingenious scholastics of the Middle Ages merely reproduced Greek ideas;and even the profound and patient Germans have gone round in the samecircles that Plato and Aristotle marked out more than two thousand yearsago. Only the Brahmans of India have equalled them in intellectualsubtilty and acumen. It was Greek philosophy in which noble Roman youthswere educated; and hence, as it was expounded by a Cicero, a MarcusAurelius, and an Epictetus, it was as much the inheritance of the Romansas it was of the Greeks themselves, after Grecian liberties were sweptaway and Greek cities became a part of the Roman empire. The Romanslearned what the Greeks created and taught; and philosophy, as well asart, became identified with the civilization which extended from theRhine and the Po to the Nile and the Tigris. Greek philosophy was one of the distinctive features of ancientcivilization long after the Greeks had ceased to speculate on the lawsof mind or the nature of the soul, on the existence of God or futurerewards and punishments. Although it was purely Grecian in its originand development, it became one of the grand ornaments of the Romanschools. The Romans did not originate medicine, but Galen was one of itsgreatest lights; they did not invent the hexameter verse, but Virgilsang to its measure; they did not create Ionic capitals, but theircities were ornamented with marble temples on the same principles asthose which called out the admiration of Pericles. So, if they did notoriginate philosophy, and generally had but little taste for it, stillits truths were systematized and explained by Cicero, and formed nosmall accession to the treasures with which cultivated intellects soughteverywhere to be enriched. It formed an essential part of theintellectual wealth of the civilized world, when civilization could notprevent the world from falling into decay and ruin. And as it was thenoblest triumph which the human mind, under Pagan influences, everachieved, so it was followed by the most degrading imbecility into whichman, in civilized countries, was ever allowed to fall. Philosophy, likeart, like literature, like science, arose, shone, grew dim, and passedaway, leaving the world in night. Why was so bright a glory followed byso dismal a shame? What a comment is this on the greatness andlittleness of man! In all probability the development of Greek philosophy originated withthe Ionian Sophoi, though many suppose it was derived from the East. Itis questionable whether the Oriental nations had any philosophy distinctfrom religion. The Germans are fond of tracing resemblances in the earlyspeculations of the Greeks to the systems which prevailed in Asia from avery remote antiquity. Gladish sees in the Pythagorean system anadoption of Chinese doctrines; in the Heraclitic system, the influenceof Persia; in the Empedoclean, Egyptian speculations; and in theAnaxagorean, the Jewish creeds. But the Orientals had theogonies, notphilosophies. The Indian speculations aim at an exposition of ancientrevelation. They profess to liberate the soul from the evils of mortallife, --to arrive at eternal beatitudes. But the state of perfectibilitycould be reached only by religious ceremonial observances and devoutcontemplation. The Indian systems do not disdain logical discussions, ora search after the principles of which the universe is composed; andhence we find great refinements in sophistry, and a wonderful subtiltyof logical discussion, though these are directed to unattainableends, --to the connection of good with evil, and the union of the Supremewith Nature. Nothing seemed to come out of these speculations but anoccasional elevation of mind among the learned, and a profoundconviction of the misery of man and the obstacles to his perfection. TheGreeks, starting from physical phenomena, went on in successive seriesof inquiries, elevating themselves above matter, above experience, evento the loftiest abstractions, until they classified the laws of thought. It is curious how speculation led to demonstration, and how inquiriesinto the world of matter prepared the way for the solution ofintellectual phenomena. Philosophy kept pace with geometry, and thosewho observed Nature also gloried in abstruse calculations. Philosophyand mathematics seem to have been allied with the worship of art amongthe same men, and it is difficult to say which more distinguishedthem, --aesthetic culture or power of abstruse reasoning. We do not read of any remarkable philosophical inquirer until Thalesarose, the first of the Ionian school. He was born at Miletus, a Greekcolony in Asia Minor, about the year 636 B. C. , when Ancus Martius wasking of Rome, and Josiah reigned at Jerusalem. He has left no writingsbehind him, but was numbered as one of the seven wise men of Greece onaccount of his political sagacity and wisdom in public affairs. I do nothere speak of his astronomical and geometrical labors, which were great, and which have left their mark even upon our own daily life, --as, forinstance, in the fact that he was the first to have divided the yearinto three hundred and sixty-five days. "And he, 'tis said, did first compute the stars Which beam in Charles's wain, and guide the bark Of the Phoenecian sailor o'er the sea. " He is celebrated also for practical wisdom. "Know thyself, " is one ofhis remarkable sayings. The chief claim of Thales to a lofty rank amongsages, however, is that he was the first who attempted a logicalsolution of material phenomena, without resorting to mythicalrepresentations. Thales felt that there was a grand question to beanswered relative to the _beginning of things. _ "Philosophy, " it hasbeen well said, "maybe a history of _errors_^ but not of _follies_". Itwas not a folly, in a rude age, to speculate on the first or fundamentalprinciple of things. Thales looked around him upon Nature, upon the seaand earth and sky, and concluded that water or moisture was the vitalprinciple. He felt it in the air, he saw it in the clouds above and inthe ground beneath his feet. He saw that plants were sustained by rainand by the dew, that neither animal nor man could live without water, and that to fishes it was the native element. What more important orvital than water? It was the _prima materia_, the [Greek: archae] thebeginning of all things, --the origin of the world. How so crude aspeculation could have been maintained by so wise a man it is difficultto conjecture. It is not, however, the cause which he assigns for thebeginning of things which is noteworthy, so much as the fact that hismind was directed to any solution of questions pertaining to the originof the universe. It was these questions, and the solution of them, whichmarked the Ionian philosophers, and which showed the inquiring nature oftheir minds. What is the great first cause of all things? Thales saw itin one of the four elements of Nature as the ancients divided them; andthis is the earliest recorded theory among the Greeks of the origin ofthe world. It is an induction from one of the phenomena of animatedNature, --the nutrition and production of a seed. He regarded the entireworld in the light of a living being gradually maturing and formingitself from an imperfect seed-state, which was of a moist nature. Thismoisture endues the universe with vitality. The world, he thought, wasfull of gods, but they had their origin in water. He had no conceptionof God as _intelligence_, or as a _creative_ power. He had a great andinquiring mind, but it gave him no knowledge of a spiritual, controlling, and personal deity. Anaximenes, the disciple of Thales, pursued his master's inquiries andadopted his method. He also was born in Miletus, but at what time isunknown, --probably 500 B. C. Like Thales, he held to the eternity ofmatter. Like him, he disbelieved in the existence of anythingimmaterial, for even a human soul is formed out of matter. He, too, speculated on the origin of the universe, but thought that _air_, notwater, was the primal cause. This element seems to be universal. Webreathe it; all things are sustained by it. It is Life, --that is, pregnant with vital energy, and capable of infinite transmutations. Allthings are produced by it; all is again resolved into it; it supportsall things; it surrounds the world; it has infinitude; it has eternalmotion. Thus did this philosopher reason, comparing the world with ourown living existence, --which he took to be air, --an imperishableprinciple of life. He thus advanced a step beyond Thales, since heregarded the world not after the analogy of an imperfect seed-state, butafter that of the highest condition of life, --the human soul. And heattempted to refer to one general law all the transformations of thefirst simple substance into its successive states, in that the cause ofchange is the eternal motion of the air. Diogenes of Apollonia, in Crete, one of the disciples of Anaximenes, born 500 B. C. , also believed that air was the principle of theuniverse, but he imputed to it an intellectual energy, yet withoutrecognizing any distinction between mind and matter. He made air andthe soul identical. "For, " says he, "man and all other animals breatheand live by means of the air, and therein consists their soul. " And asit is the primary being from which all is derived, it is necessarily aneternal and imperishable body; but as _soul_ it is also endued withconsciousness. Diogenes thus refers the origin of the world to anintelligent being, --to a soul which knows and vivifies. Anaximenesregarded air as having life; Diogenes saw in it also intelligence. Thusphilosophy advanced step by step, though still groping in the dark; forthe origin of all things, according to Diogenes, must exist in_intelligence_. According to Diogenes Laertius, he said: "It appears tome that he who begins any treatise ought to lay down principles aboutwhich there can be no dispute. " Heraclitus of Ephesus, classed by Ritter among the Ionian philosophers, was born 503 B. C. Like others of his school, he sought a physical groundfor all phenomena. The elemental principle he regarded as _fire_, sinceall things are convertible into it. In one of its modifications thisfire, or fluid, self-kindled, permeating everything as the soul orprinciple of life, is endowed with intelligence and powers of ceaselessactivity. "If Anaximenes, " says Maurice, not very clearly, "discoveredthat he had within him a power and principle which ruled over all theacts and functions of his bodily frame, Heraclitus found that there waslife within him which he could not call his own, and yet it was, in thevery highest sense, _himself_, so that without it he would have been apoor, helpless, isolated creature, --a universal life which connected himwith his fellow-men, with the absolute source and original fountain oflife. .. . He proclaimed the absolute vitality of Nature, the endlesschange of matter, the mutability and perishability of all individualthings in contrast with the eternal Being, --the supreme harmony whichrules over all. " To trace the divine energy of life in all things wasthe general problem of the philosophy of Heraclitus, and this spirit wasakin to the pantheism of the East. But he was one of the greatestspeculative intellects that preceded Plato, and of all the physicaltheorists arrived nearest to spiritual truth. He taught the germs ofwhat was afterward more completely developed. "From his theory ofperpetual fluxion, " says Archer Butler, "Plato derived the necessity ofseeking a stable basis for the universal system in his world of ideas. "Heraclitus was, however, an obscure writer, and moreover cynicaland arrogant. Anaxagoras, the most famous of the Ionian philosophers, was born 500B. C. , and belonged to a rich and noble family. Regarding philosophy asthe noblest pursuit of earth, he abandoned his inheritance for the studyof Nature. He went to Athens in the most brilliant period of her history, and had Pericles, Euripides, and Socrates for pupils. He taught that thegreat moving force of Nature was intellect ([Greek: nous]). Intelligencewas the cause of the world and of order, and mind was the principle ofmotion; yet this intelligence was not a moral intelligence, but simplythe _primum mobile_, --the all-knowing motive force by which the order ofNature is effected. He thus laid the foundation of a new system, underwhich the Attic philosophers sought to explain Nature, by regarding asthe cause of all things, not _matter_ in its different elements, butrather _mind_, thought, intelligence, which both knows and acts, --agrand conception, unrivalled in ancient speculation. This explanation ofmaterial phenomena by intellectual causes was the peculiar merit ofAnaxagoras, and places him in a very high rank among the thinkers of theworld. Moreover, he recognized the reason as the only faculty by whichwe become cognizant of truth, the senses being too weak to discover thereal component particles of things. Like all the great inquirers, he wasimpressed with the limited degree of positive knowledge compared withwhat there is to be learned. "Nothing, " says he, "can be known; nothingis certain; sense is limited, intellect is weak, life is short, "--thecomplaint, not of a sceptic, but of a man overwhelmed with the sense ofhis incapacity to solve the problems which arose before his active mind. Anaxagoras thought that this spirit ([Greek: nous]) gave to all thosematerial atoms which in the beginning of the world lay in disorder theimpulse by which they took the forms of individual things, and that thisimpulse was given in a circular direction. Hence that the sun, moon, andstars, and even the air, are constantly moving in a circle. In the mean time another sect of philosophers had arisen, who, like theIonians, sought to explain Nature, but by a different method. Anaximander, born 610 B. C. , was one of the original mathematicians ofGreece, yet, like Pythagoras and Thales, speculated on the beginning ofthings. His principle was that _The Infinite_ is the origin of allthings. He used the word _[Greek: archae] (beginning)_ to denote thematerial out of which all things were formed, as the Everlasting, theDivine. The idea of elevating an abstraction into a great first causewas certainly a long stride in philosophic generalization to be taken atthat age of the world, following as it did so immediately upon suchpartial and childish ideas as that any single one of the familiar"elements" could be the primal cause of all things. It seems almost likethe speculations of our own time, when philosophers seek to find thefirst cause in impersonal Force, or infinite Energy. Yet it is notreally easy to understand Anaximander's meaning, other than that theabstract has a higher significance than the concrete. The speculationsof Thales had tended toward discovering the material constitution of theuniverse upon an _induction_ from observed facts, and thus made water tobe the origin of all things. Anaximander, accustomed to view things inthe abstract, could not accept so concrete a thing as water; hisspeculations tended toward mathematics, to the science of pure_deduction_. The primary Being is a unity, one in all, comprising withinitself the multiplicity of elements from which all mundane things arecomposed. It is only in infinity that the perpetual changes of thingscan take place. Thus Anaximander, an original but vague thinker, prepared the way for Pythagoras. This later philosopher and mathematician, born about the year 600 B. C. , stands as one of the great names of antiquity; but his life is shroudedin dim magnificence. The old historians paint him as "clothed in robesof white, his head covered with gold, his aspect grave and majestic, rapt in the contemplation of the mysteries of existence, listening tothe music of Homer and Hesiod, or to the harmony of the spheres. " Pythagoras was supposed to be a native of Samos. When quite young, beingdevoted to learning, he quitted his country and went to Egypt, where helearned its language and all the secret mysteries of the priests. Hethen returned to Samos, but finding the island under the dominion of atyrant he fled to Crotona, in Italy, where he gained great reputationfor wisdom, and made laws for the Italians. His pupils were about threehundred in number. He wrote three books, which were extant in the timeof Diogenes Laertius, --one on Education, one on Politics, and one onNatural Philosophy. He also wrote an epic poem on the universe, to whichhe gave the name of _Kosmos_. Among the ethical principles which Pythagoras taught was that men oughtnot to pray for anything in particular, since they do not know what isgood for them; that drunkenness was identical with ruin; that no oneshould exceed the proper quantity of meat and drink; that the propertyof friends is common; that men should never say or do anything in anger. He forbade his disciples to offer victims to the gods, ordering them toworship only at those altars which were unstained with blood. Pythagoras was the first person who introduced measures and weightsamong the Greeks. But it is his philosophy which chiefly claims ourattention. His main principle was that _number_ is the essence ofthings, --probably meaning by number order and harmony and conformity tolaw. The order of the universe, he taught, is only a harmonicaldevelopment of the first principle of all things to virtue and wisdom. He attached much value to music, as an art which has great influence onthe affections; hence his doctrine of the music of the spheres. Assumingthat number is the essence of the world, he deduced the idea that theworld is regulated by numerical proportions, or by a system of lawswhich are regular and harmonious in their operations. Hence thenecessity for an intelligent creator of the universe. The Infinite ofAnaximander became the One of Pythagoras. He believed that the soul isincorporeal, and is put into the body subject to numerical andharmonical relation, and thus to divine regulation. Hence the tendencyof his speculations was to raise the soul to the contemplation of lawand order, --of a supreme Intelligence reigning in justice and truth. Justice and truth became thus paramount virtues, to be practised andsought as the end of life. "It is impossible not to see in these loftyspeculations the effect of the Greek mind, according to its own genius, seeking after God, if haply it might find Him. " We now approach the second stage of Greek philosophy. The Ionicphilosophers had sought to find the first principle of all things in theelements, and the Pythagoreans in number, or harmony and law, implyingan intelligent creator. The Eleatics, who now arose, went beyond therealm of physics to pure metaphysical inquiries, to an idealisticpantheism, which disregarded the sensible, maintaining that the sourceof truth is independent of the senses. Here they were forestalled by theHindu sages. The founder of this school was Xenophanes, born in Colophon, an Ioniancity of Asia Minor, from which being expelled he wandered over Sicily asa rhapsodist, or minstrel, reciting his elegiac poetry on the loftiesttruths, and at last, about the year 536 B. C. , came to Elea, where hesettled. The principal subject of his inquiries was deity itself, --thegreat First Cause, the supreme Intelligence of the universe. From theprinciple _ex nihilo nihil fit_ he concluded that nothing could passfrom non-existence to existence. All things that exist are created bysupreme Intelligence, who is eternal and immutable. From this truth thatGod must be from all eternity, he advances to deny all multiplicity. Aplurality of gods is impossible. With these sublime views, --the unityand eternity and omnipotence of God, --Xenophanes boldly attacked thepopular errors of his day. He denounced the transference to the deity ofthe human form; he inveighed against Homer and Hesiod; he ridiculed thedoctrine of migration of souls. Thus he sings, -- "Such things of the gods are related by Homer and Hesiod As would be shame and abiding disgrace to mankind, -- Promises broken, and thefts, and the one deceiving the other. " And again, respecting anthropomorphic representations of the deity, -- "But men foolishly think that gods are born like as men are, And have too a dress like their own, and their voice and their figure; But there's but one God alone, the greatest of gods and of mortals, Neither in body to mankind resembling, neither in ideas. " Such were the sublime meditations of Xenophanes. He believed in the_One_, which is God; but this all-pervading, unmoved, undivided beingwas not a personal God, nor a moral governor, but deity pervading allspace. He could not separate God from the world, nor could he admit theexistence of world which is not God. He was a monotheist, but hismonotheism was pantheism. He saw God in all the manifestations ofNature. This did not satisfy him nor resolve his doubts, and hetherefore confessed that reason could not compass the exalted aims ofphilosophy. But there was no cynicism in his doubt. It was thesoul-sickening consciousness that reason was incapable of solving themighty questions that he burned to know. There was no way to arrive atthe truth, "for, " said he, "error is spread over all things. " It was notdisdain of knowledge, it was the combat of contradictory opinions thatoppressed him. He could not solve the questions pertaining to God. Whatuninstructed reason can? "Canst thou by searching find out God? canstthou know the Almighty unto perfection?" What was impossible to Job wasnot possible to Xenophanes. But he had attained a recognition of theunity and perfections of God; and this conviction he would spreadabroad, and tear down the superstitions which hid the face of truth. Ihave great admiration for this philosopher, so sad, so earnest, soenthusiastic, wandering from city to city, indifferent to money, comfort, friends, fame, that he might kindle the knowledge of God. Thiswas a lofty aim indeed for philosophy in that age. It was a highermission than that of Homer, great as his was, though not so successful. Parmenides of Elea, born about the year 530 B. C. , followed out thesystem of Xenophanes, the central idea of which was the existence ofGod. With Parmenides the main thought was the notion of _being_. Beingis uncreated and unchangeable; the fulness of all being is _thought_;the _All_ is thought and intelligence. He maintained the uncertainty ofknowledge, meaning the knowledge derived through the senses. He did notdeny the certainty of reason. He was the first who drew a distinctionbetween knowledge obtained by the senses and that obtained through thereason; and thus he anticipated the doctrine of innate ideas. From theuncertainty of knowledge derived through the senses, he deduced thetwofold system of true and apparent knowledge. Zeno of Elea, the friend and pupil of Parmenides, born 500 B. C. , brought nothing new to the system, but invented _Dialectics_, the art ofdisputation, --that department of logic which afterward became sopowerful in the hands of Plato and Aristotle, and so generally admiredamong the schoolmen. It seeks to establish truth by refuting errorthrough the _reductio ad absurdum_. While Parmenides sought to establishthe doctrine of the _One_, Zeno proved the non-existence of the _Many_. He did not deny existences, but denied that appearances were realexistences. It was the mission of Zeno to establish the doctrines of hismaster. But in order to convince his listeners, he was obliged to use anew method of argument. So he carried on his argumentation by questionand answer, and was therefore the first who used dialogue, which hecalled dialectics, as a medium of philosophical communication. Empedocles, born 444 B. C. , like others of the Eleatics, complained ofthe imperfection of the senses, and looked for truth only in reason. Heregarded truth as a perfect unity, ruled by love, --the only true force, the one moving cause of all things, --the first creative power by whichor whom the world was formed. Thus "God is love" is a sublime doctrinewhich philosophy revealed to the Greeks, and the emphatic and continuousand assured declaration of which was the central theme of the revelationmade by Jesus, the Christ, who resolved all the Law and the Gospel intothe element of Love, --fatherly on the part of God, filial and fraternalon the part of men. Thus did the Eleatic philosophers speculate almost contemporaneouslywith the Ionians on the beginning of things and the origin of knowledge, taking different grounds, and attempting to correct the representationsof sense by the notions of reason. But both schools, although they didnot establish many truths, raised an inquisitive spirit, and awakenedfreedom of thought and inquiry. They raised up workmen for moreenlightened times, even as scholastic inquirers in the Middle Agesprepared the way for the revival of philosophy on sounder principles. They were all men of remarkable elevation of character as well asgenius. They hated superstitions, and attacked the anthropomorphism oftheir day. They handled gods and goddesses with allegorizing boldness, and hence were often persecuted by the people. They did not establishmoral truths by scientific processes, but they set examples of loftydisdain of wealth and factitious advantages, and devoted themselves withholy enthusiasm to the solution of the great questions which pertain toGod and Nature. Thales won the respect of his countrymen by devotion tostudies. Pythagoras spent twenty-two years in Egypt to learn itsscience. Xenophanes wandered over Sicily as a rhapsodist of truth. Parmenides, born to wealth and splendor, forsook the feverish pursuit ofsensual enjoyments that he might "behold the bright countenance of truthin the quiet and still air of delightful studies. " Zeno declined allworldly honors in order that he might diffuse the doctrines of hismaster. Heraclitus refused the chief magistracy of Ephesus that he mighthave leisure to explore the depths of his own nature. Anaxagoras allowedhis patrimony to run to waste in order to solve problems. "Tophilosophy, " said he, "I owe my worldly ruin, and my soul's prosperity. "All these men were, without exception, the greatest and best men oftheir times. They laid the foundation of the beautiful temple which wasconstructed after they were dead, in which both physics and psychologyreached the dignity of science. They too were prophets, althoughunconscious of their divine mission, --prophets of that day when thescience which explores and illustrates the works of God shall enlarge, enrich, and beautify man's conceptions of the great creative Father. Nevertheless, these great men, lofty as were their inquiries andblameless their lives, had not established any system, nor any theorieswhich were incontrovertible. They had simply speculated, and the worldridiculed their speculations. Their ideas were one-sided, and whenpushed out to their extreme logical sequence were antagonistic to oneanother; which had a tendency to produce doubt and scepticism. Mendenied the existence of the gods, and the grounds of certainty fell awayfrom the human mind. This spirit of scepticism was favored by the tide of worldliness andprosperity which followed the Persian War. Athens became a great centreof art, of taste, of elegance, and of wealth. Politics absorbed theminds of the people. Glory and splendor were followed by corruption ofmorals and the pursuit of material pleasures. Philosophy went out offashion, since it brought no outward and tangible good. More scientificstudies were pursued, --those which could be applied to purposes ofutility and material gains; even as in our day geology, chemistry, mechanics, engineering, having reference to the practical wants of men, command talent, and lead to certain reward. In Athens, rhetoric, mathematics, and natural history supplanted rhapsodies and speculationson God and Providence. Renown and wealth could be secured only byreadiness and felicity of speech, and that was most valued which broughtimmediate recompense, like eloquence. Men began to practise eloquence asan art, and to employ it in furthering their interests. They madespecial pleadings, since it was their object to gain their point at anyexpense of law and justice. Hence they taught that nothing was immutablyright, but only so by convention. They undermined all confidence intruth and religion by teaching its uncertainty. They denied to men eventhe capability of arriving at truth. They practically affirmed the coldand cynical doctrine that there is nothing better for a man than that heshould eat and drink. _Cui bono?_ this, the cry of most men in periodsof great outward prosperity, was the popular inquiry. Who will show usany good?--how can we become rich, strong, honorable?--this was thespirit of that class of public teachers who arose in Athens when art andeloquence and wealth and splendor were at their height in the fifthcentury before Christ, and when the elegant Pericles was the leader offashion and of political power. These men were the Sophists, --rhetorical men, who taught the children ofthe rich; worldly men, who sought honor and power; frivolous men, trifling with philosophical ideas; sceptical men, denying all certaintyin truth; men who as teachers added nothing to the realm of science, butwho yet established certain dialectical rules useful to laterphilosophers. They were a wealthy, powerful, honored class, not muchesteemed by men of thought, but sought out as very successful teachersof rhetoric, and also generally selected as ambassadors on difficultmissions. They were full of logical tricks, and contrived to throwridicule upon profound inquiries. They taught also mathematics, astronomy, philology, and natural history with success. They werepolished men of society; not profound nor religious, but very brilliantas talkers, and very ready in wit and sophistry. And some of them weremen of great learning and talent, like Democritus, Leucippus, andGorgias. They were not pretenders and quacks; they were sceptics whodenied subjective truths, and labored for outward advantage. They taughtthe art of disputation, and sought systematic methods of proof. Theythus prepared the way for a more perfect philosophy than that taught bythe Ionians, the Pythagoreans, or the Eleatics, since they showed thevagueness of such inquiries, conjectural rather than scientific. Theyhad no doctrines in common. They were the barristers of their age, _paid_ to make the "worse appear the better reason;" yet not teachers ofimmorality any more than the lawyers of our day, --men of talents, theintellectual leaders of society. If they did not advance positivetruths, they were useful in the method they created. They had nohostility to truth, as such; they only doubted whether it could bereached in the realm of psychological inquiries, and sought to applyknowledge to their own purposes, or rather to distort it in order togain a case. They are not a class of men whom I admire, as I do the oldsages they ridiculed, but they were not without their use in thedevelopment of philosophy. The Sophists also rendered a service toliterature by giving definiteness to language, and creating style inprose writing. Protagoras investigated the principles of accuratecomposition; Prodicus busied himself with inquiries into thesignificance of words; Gorgias, like Voltaire, gloried in a captivatingstyle, and gave symmetry to the structure of sentences. The ridicule and scepticism of the Sophists brought out the great powersof Socrates, to whom philosophy is probably more indebted than to anyman who ever lived, not so much for a perfect system as for the impulsehe gave to philosophical inquiries, and for his successful exposure oferror. He inaugurated a new era. Born in Athens in the year 470 B. C. , the son of a poor sculptor, he devoted his life to the search aftertruth for its own sake, and sought to base it on immutable foundations. He was the mortal enemy of the Sophists, whom he encountered, as Pascaldid the Jesuits, with wit, irony, puzzling questions, and remorselesslogic. It is true that Socrates and his great successors Plato andAristotle were called "Sophists, " but only as all philosophers or wisemen were so called. The Sophists as a class had incurred the odium ofbeing the first teachers who received pay for the instruction theyimparted. The philosophers generally taught for the love of truth. TheSophists were a natural and necessary and very useful development oftheir time, but they were distinctly on a lower level than thePhilosophers, or _lovers_ of wisdom. Like the earlier philosophers, Socrates disdained wealth, ease, andcomfort, --but with greater devotion than they, since he lived in a morecorrupt age, when poverty was a disgrace and misfortune a crime, whensuccess was the standard of merit, and every man was supposed to be thearbiter of his own fortune, ignoring that Providence who so oftenrefuses the race to the swift, and the battle to the strong. He was whatin our time would be called eccentric. He walked barefooted, meanlyclad, and withal not over cleanly, seeking public places, disputing witheverybody willing to talk with him, making everybody ridiculous, especially if one assumed airs of wisdom or knowledge, --an exasperatingopponent, since he wove a web around a man from which he could not beextricated, and then exposed him to ridicule in the wittiest city of theworld. He attacked everybody, and yet was generally respected, since itwas _errors_ rather than persons, _opinions_ rather than vices, that heattacked; and this he did with bewitching eloquence and irresistiblefascination, so that though he was poor and barefooted, a Silenus inappearance, with thick lips, upturned nose, projecting eyes, unwieldybelly, he was sought by Alcibiades and admired by Aspasia. EvenXanthippe, a beautiful young woman, very much younger than he, a womanfond of the comforts and pleasures of life, was willing to marry him, although it is said that she turned out a "scolding wife" after the _resangusta domi_ had disenchanted her from the music of his voice and thedivinity of his nature. "I have heard Pericles, " said the mostdissipated and voluptuous man in Athens, "and other excellent orators, but was not moved by them; while this Marsyas--this Satyr--so affects methat the life I lead is hardly worth living, and I stop my ears as fromthe Sirens, and flee as fast as possible, that I may not sit down andgrow old in listening to his talk. " Socrates learned his philosophy from no one, and struck out an entirelynew path. He declared his own ignorance, and sought to convince otherpeople of theirs. He did not seek to reveal truth so much as to exposeerror. And yet it was his object to attain correct ideas as to moralobligations. He proclaimed the sovereignty of virtue and theimmutability of justice. He sought to delineate and enforce thepractical duties of life. His great object was the elucidation ofmorals; and he was the first to teach ethics systematically from theimmutable principles of moral obligation. Moral certitude was the loftyplatform from which he surveyed the world, and upon which, as a rock, he rested in the storms of life. Thus he was a reformer and a moralist. It was his ethical doctrines which were most antagonistic to the age andthe least appreciated. He was a profoundly religious man, recognizedProvidence, and believed in the immortality of the soul. He did notpresume to inquire into the Divine essence, yet he believed that thegods were omniscient and omnipresent, that they ruled by the law ofgoodness, and that in spite of their multiplicity there was unity, --asupreme Intelligence that governed the world. Hence he was hated by theSophists, who denied the certainty of arriving at any knowledge of God. From the comparative worthlessness of the body he deduced theimmortality of the soul. With him the end of life was reason andintelligence. He deduced the existence of God from the order and harmonyof Nature, belief in which was irresistible. He endeavored to connectthe moral with the religious consciousness, and thus to promote thepractical welfare of society. In this light Socrates stands out thegrandest personage of Pagan antiquity, --as a moralist, as a teacher ofethics, as a man who recognized the Divine. So far as he was concerned in the development of Greek philosophyproper, he was inferior to some of his disciples, Yet he gave aturning-point to a new period when he awakened the _idea_ of knowledge, and was the founder of the method of scientific inquiry, since hepointed out the legitimate bounds of inquiry, and was thus the precursorof Bacon and Pascal. He did not attempt to make physics explainmetaphysics, nor metaphysics the phenomena of the natural world; and hereasoned only from what was generally assumed to be true and invariable. He was a great pioneer of philosophy, since he resorted to inductivemethods of proof, and gave general definiteness to ideas. Although heemployed induction, it was his aim to withdraw the mind from thecontemplation of Nature, and to fix it on its own phenomena, --to lookinward rather than outward; a method carried out admirably by his pupilPlato. The previous philosophers had given their attention to externalnature; Socrates gave up speculations about material phenomena, anddirected his inquiries solely to the nature of knowledge. And as heconsidered knowledge to be identical with virtue, he speculated onethical questions mainly, and the method which he taught was that bywhich alone man could become better and wiser. To know one's self, --inother words, that "the proper study of mankind is man, "--he proclaimedwith Thales. Cicero said of him, "Socrates brought down philosophy fromthe heavens to the earth. " He did not disdain the subjects which chieflyinterested the Sophists, --astronomy, rhetoric, physics, --but he chieflydiscussed moral questions, such as, What is piety? What is the just andthe unjust? What is temperance? What is courage? What is the characterfit for a citizen?--and other ethical points, involving practical humanrelationships. These questions were discussed by Socrates in a striking manner, and bya method peculiarly his own. "Professing ignorance, he put perhaps thisquestion: What is law? It was familiar, and was answered offhand. Socrates, having got the answer, then put fresh questions applicable tospecific cases, to which the respondent was compelled to give an answerinconsistent with the first, thus showing that the definition was toonarrow or too wide, or defective in some essential condition. Therespondent then amended his answer; but this was a prelude to otherquestions, which could only be answered in ways inconsistent with theamendment; and the respondent, after many attempts to disentanglehimself, was obliged to plead guilty to his inconsistencies, with anadmission that he could make no satisfactory answer to the originalinquiry which had at first appeared so easy. " Thus, by this system ofcross-examination, he showed the intimate connection between thedialectic method and the logical distribution of particulars intospecies and genera. The discussion first turns upon the meaning of somegeneric term; the queries bring the answers into collision with variousparticulars which it ought not to comprehend, or which it ought tocomprehend, but does not. Socrates broke up the one into many by hisanalytical string of questions, which was a mode of argument by which heseparated _real_ knowledge from the _conceit_ of knowledge, and led toprecision in the use of definitions. It was thus that he exposed thefalse, without aiming even to teach the true; for he generally professedignorance on his part, and put himself in the attitude of a learner, while by his cross-examinations he made the man from whom he apparentlysought knowledge to appear as ignorant as himself, or, still worse, absolutely ridiculous. Thus Socrates pulled away all the foundations on which a false sciencehad been erected, and indicated the mode by which alone the true couldbe established. Here he was not unlike Bacon, who pointed out the waywhereby science could be advanced, without founding any school oradvocating any system; but the Athenian was unlike Bacon in the objectof his inquiries. Bacon was disgusted with ineffective _logical_speculations, and Socrates with ineffective _physical_ researches. Henever suffered a general term to remain undetermined, but applied it atonce to particulars, and by questions the purport of which was notcomprehended. It was not by positive teaching, but by excitingscientific impulse in the minds of others, or stirring up the analyticalfaculties, that Socrates manifested originality. It was his aim to forcethe seekers after truth into the path of inductive generalization, whereby alone trustworthy conclusions could be formed. He thus struckout from his own and other minds that fire which sets light to originalthought and stimulates analytical inquiry. He was a religious andintellectual missionary, preparing the way for the Platos and Aristotlesof the succeeding age by his severe dialectics. This was his mission, and he declared it by talking. He did not lecture; he conversed. Formore than thirty years he discoursed on the principles of morality, until he arrayed against himself enemies who caused him to be put todeath, for his teachings had undermined the popular system which theSophists accepted and practised. He probably might have been acquittedif he had chosen to be, but he did not wish to live after his powers ofusefulness had passed away. The services which Socrates rendered to philosophy, as enumerated byTennemann, "are twofold, --negative and positive. _Negative_, inasmuch ashe avoided all vain discussions; combated mere speculative reasoning onsubstantial grounds; and had the wisdom to acknowledge ignorance whennecessary, but without attempting to determine accurately what iscapable and what is not of being accurately known. _Positive_, inasmuchas he examined with great ability the ground directly submitted to ourunderstanding, and of which man is the centre. " Socrates cannot be said to have founded a school, like Xenophanes. Hedid not bequeath a system of doctrines. He had however his disciples, who followed in the path which he suggested. Among these wereAristippus, Antisthenes, Euclid of Megara, Phaedo of Elis, and Plato, all of whom were pupils of Socrates and founders of schools. Some onlypartially adopted his method, and each differed from the other. Nor canit be said that all of them advanced science. Aristippus, the founder ofthe Cyreniac school, was a sort of philosophic voluptuary, teaching thatpleasure is the end of life. Antisthenes, the founder of the Cynics, wasboth virtuous and arrogant, placing the supreme good in virtue, butdespising speculative science, and maintaining that no man can refutethe opinions of another. He made it a virtue to be ragged, hungry, andcold, like the ancient monks; an austere, stern, bitter, reproachfulman, who affected to despise all pleasures, --like his own discipleDiogenes, who lived in a tub, and carried on a war between the mind andbody, brutal, scornful, proud. To men who maintained that science wasimpossible, philosophy is not much indebted, although they weredisciples of Socrates. Euclid--not the mathematician, who was about acentury later--merely gave a new edition of the Eleatic doctrines, andPhaedo speculated on the oneness of "the good. " It was not till Plato arose that a more complete system of philosophywas founded. He was born of noble Athenian parents, 429 B. C. , the yearthat Pericles died, and the second year of the Peloponnesian War, --themost active period of Grecian thought. He had a severe education, studying mathematics, poetry, music, rhetoric, and blending these withphilosophy. He was only twenty when he found out Socrates, with whom heremained ten years, and from whom he was separated only by death. Hethen went on his travels, visiting everything worth seeing in his day, especially in Egypt. When he returned he began to teach the doctrines ofhis master, which he did, like him, gratuitously, in a garden nearAthens, planted with lofty plane-trees and adorned with temples andstatues. This was called the Academy, and gave a name to his system ofphilosophy. It is this only with which we have to do. It is not thecalm, serious, meditative, isolated man that I would present, but _hiscontribution_ to the developments of philosophy on the principles of hismaster. Surely no man ever made a richer contribution to this departmentof human inquiry than Plato. He may not have had the originality orkeenness of Socrates, but he was more profound. He was pre-eminently agreat thinker, a great logician, skilled in dialectics; and his"Dialogues" are such perfect exercises of dialectical method that theancients were divided as to whether he was a sceptic or a dogmatist. Headopted the Socratic method and enlarged it. Says Lewes:-- "Analysis, as insisted on by Plato, is the decomposition of the wholeinto its separate parts, --is seeing the one in many. .. . The individualthing was transitory; the abstract idea was eternal. Only concerning thelatter could philosophy occupy itself. Socrates, insisting on properdefinitions, had no conception of the classification of thosedefinitions which must constitute philosophy. Plato, by the introductionof this process, shifted philosophy from the ground of inquiries intoman and society, which exclusively occupied Socrates, to that ofdialectics. " Plato was also distinguished for skill in composition. Dionysius ofHalicarnassus classes him with Herodotus and Demosthenes in theperfection of his style, which is characterized by great harmony andrhythm, as well as by a rich variety of elegant metaphors. Plato made philosophy to consist in the discussion of general terms, orabstract ideas. General terms were synonymous with real existences, andthese were the only objects of philosophy. These were called _Ideas_;and ideas are the basis of his system, or rather the subject-matter ofdialectics. He maintained that every general term, or abstract idea, hasa real and independent existence; nay, that the mental power ofconceiving and combining ideas, as contrasted with the mere impressionsreceived from matter and external phenomena, is the only real andpermanent existence. Hence his writings became the great fountain-headof the Ideal philosophy. In his assertion of the real existence of soabstract and supersensuous a thing as an idea, he probably was indebtedto Pythagoras, for Plato was a master of the whole realm ofphilosophical speculation; but his conception of _ideas_ as the essenceof being is a great advance on that philosopher's conception of_numbers_. He was taught by Socrates that beyond this world of sensethere is the world of eternal truth, and that there are certainprinciples concerning which there can be no dispute. The soul apprehendsthe idea of goodness, greatness, etc. It is in the celestial world thatwe are to find the realm of ideas. Now, God is the supreme idea. To knowGod, then, should be the great aim of life. We know him through thedesire which like feels for like. The divinity within feels its affinitywith the divinity revealed in beauty, or any other abstract idea. Thelonging of the soul for beauty is _love_. Love, then, is the bond whichunites the human with the divine. Beauty is not revealed by harmoniousoutlines that appeal to the senses, but is _truth_; it is divinity. Beauty, truth, love, these are God, whom it is the supreme desire of thesoul to comprehend, and by the contemplation of whom the mortal soulsustains itself. Knowledge of God is the great end of life; and thisknowledge is effected by dialectics, for only out of dialectics cancorrect knowledge come. But man, immersed in the flux of sensualities, can never fully attain this knowledge of God, the object of all rationalinquiry. Hence the imperfection of all human knowledge. The supreme goodis attainable; it is not attained. God is the immutable good, andjustice the rule of the universe. "The vital principle of Plato'sphilosophy, " says Ritter, "is to show that true science is the knowledgeof the good, is the eternal contemplation of truth, or ideas; and thoughman may not be able to apprehend it in its unity, because he is subjectto the restraints of the body, he is nevertheless permitted to recognizeit imperfectly by calling to mind the eternal measure of existence bywhich he is in his origin connected. " To quote from Ritter again:-- "When we review the doctrines of Plato, it is impossible to deny thatthey are pervaded with a grand view of life and the universe. This isthe noble thought which inspired him to say that God is the constant andimmutable good; the world is good in a state of becoming, and the humansoul that in and through which the good in the world is to beconsummated. In his sublimer conception he shows himself the worthydisciple of Socrates. .. . While he adopted many of the opinions of hispredecessors, and gave due consideration to the results of the earlierphilosophy, he did not allow himself to be disturbed by the mass ofconflicting theories, but breathed into them the life-giving breath ofunity. He may have erred in his attempts to determine the nature ofgood; still he pointed out to all who aspire to a knowledge of thedivine nature an excellent road by which they may arrive at it. " That Plato was one of the greatest lights of the ancient world there canbe no reasonable doubt. Nor is it probable that as a dialectician he hasever been surpassed, while his purity of life and his lofty inquiriesand his belief in God and immortality make him, in an ethical point ofview, the most worthy of the disciples of Socrates. He was to the Greekswhat Kant was to the Germans; and these two great thinkers resemble eachother in the structure of their minds and their relations to society. The ablest part of the lectures of Archer Butler, of Dublin, is devotedto the Platonic philosophy. It is at once a criticism and a eulogium. Nomodern writer has written more enthusiastically of what he considers thecrowning excellence of the Greek philosophy. The dialectics of Plato, his ideal theory, his physics, his psychology, and his ethics are mostably discussed, and in the spirit of a loving and eloquent disciple. Butler represents the philosophy which he so much admires as acontemplation of, and a tendency to, the absolute and eternal good. Asthe admirers of Ralph Waldo Emerson claim that he, more than any otherman of our times, entered into the spirit of the Platonic philosophy, Iintroduce some of his most striking paragraphs of subdued but earnestadmiration of the greatest intellect of the ancient Pagan world, hopingthat they may be clearer to others than they are to me:-- These sentences [of Plato] contain the culture of nations; these arethe corner-stone of schools; these are the fountain-head of literatures. A discipline it is in logic, arithmetic, taste, symmetry, poetry, language, rhetoric, ontology, morals, or practical wisdom. There neverwas such a range of speculation. Out of Plato come all things that arestill written and debated among men of thought. Great havoc makes heamong our originalities. We have reached the mountain from which allthese drift-bowlders were detached. .. . Plato, in Egypt and in Easternpilgrimages, imbibed the idea of one Deity, in which all things areabsorbed. The unity of Asia and the detail of Europe, the infinitude ofthe Asiatic soul and the defining, result-loving, machine-making, surface-seeking, opera-going Europe Plato came to join, and by contactto enhance the energy of each. The excellence of Europe and Asia is inhis brain. Metaphysics and natural philosophy expressed the genius ofEurope; he substricts the religion of Asia as the base. In short, abalanced soul was born, perceptive of the two elements. .. . The physicalphilosophers had sketched each his theory of the world; the theory ofatoms, of fire, of flux, of spirit, --theories mechanical and chemical intheir genius. Plato, a master of mathematics, studious of all naturallaws and causes, feels these, as second causes, to be no theories of theworld, but bare inventories and lists. To the study of Nature hetherefore prefixes the dogma, --'Let us declare the cause which led theSupreme Ordainer to produce and compose the universe. He was good; . .. He wished that all things should be as much as possible likehimself. '. .. Plato . .. Represents the privilege of the intellect, --the power, namely, of carrying up every fact to successive platforms, and sodisclosing in every fact a germ of expansion. .. . These expansions, orextensions, consist in continuing the spiritual sight where the horizonfalls on our natural vision, and by this second sight discovering thelong lines of law which shoot in every direction. .. . His definition ofideas as what is simple, permanent, uniform, and self-existent, foreverdiscriminating them from the notions of the understanding, marks an erain the world. The great disciple of Plato was Aristotle, and he carried on thephilosophical movement which Socrates had started to the highest limitthat it ever reached in the ancient world. He was born at Stagira, 384B. C. , and early evinced an insatiable thirst for knowledge. When Platoreturned from Sicily Aristotle joined his disciples at Athens, and washis pupil for seventeen years. On the death of Plato, he went on histravels and became the tutor of Alexander the Great, and in 335 B. C. Returned to Athens after an absence of twelve years, and set up a schoolin the Lyceum. He taught while walking up and down the shady paths whichsurrounded it, from which habit he obtained the name of the Peripatetic, which has clung to his name and philosophy. His school had a greatcelebrity, and from it proceeded illustrious philosophers, statesmen, historians, and orators. Aristotle taught for thirteen years, duringwhich time he composed most of his greater works. He not only wrote ondialectics and logic, but also on physics in its various departments. His work on "The History of Animals" was deemed so important that hisroyal pupil Alexander presented him with eight hundred talents--anenormous sum--for the collection of materials. He also wrote on ethicsand politics, history and rhetoric, --pouring out letters, poems, andspeeches, three-fourths of which are lost. He was one of the mostvoluminous writers of antiquity, and probably is the most learned manwhose writings have come down to us. Nor has any one of the ancientsexercised upon the thinking of succeeding ages so wide an influence. Hewas an oracle until the revival of learning. Hegel says:-- "Aristotle penetrated into the whole mass, into every department of theuniverse of things, and subjected to the comprehension its scatteredwealth; and the greater number of the philosophical sciences owe to himtheir separation and commencement. " He is also the father of the history of philosophy, since he gives anhistorical review of the way in which the subject has been hithertotreated by the earlier philosophers. Says Adolph Stahr:-- "Plato made the external world the region of the incomplete and bad, ofthe contradictory and the false, and recognized absolute truth only inthe eternal immutable ideas. Aristotle laid down the proposition thatthe idea, which cannot of itself fashion itself into reality, ispowerless, and has only a potential existence; and that it becomes aliving reality only by realizing itself in a creative manner by means ofits own energy. " There can be no doubt as to Aristotle's marvellous power ofsystematizing. Collecting together all the results of ancientspeculation, he so combined them into a co-ordinate system that for athousand years he reigned supreme in the schools. From a literary pointof view, Plato was doubtless his superior; but Plato was a poet, makingphilosophy divine and musical, while Aristotle's investigations spreadover a far wider range. He differed from Plato chiefly in relation tothe doctrine of ideas, without however resolving the difficulty whichdivided them. As he made matter to be the eternal ground of phenomena, he reduced the notion of it to a precision it never before enjoyed, andestablished thereby a necessary element in human science. But beingbound to matter, he did not soar, as Plato did, into the higher regionsof speculation; nor did he entertain as lofty views of God or ofimmortality. Neither did he have as high an ideal of human life; hisdefinition of the highest good was a perfect practical activity in aperfect life. With Aristotle closed the great Socratic movement in the history ofspeculation. When Socrates appeared there was a general prevalence ofscepticism, arising from the unsatisfactory speculations respectingNature. He removed this scepticism by inventing a new method ofinvestigation, and by withdrawing the mind from the contemplation ofNature to the study of man himself. He bade men to look inward. Platoaccepted his method, but applied it more universally. Like Socrates, however, ethics were the great subject of his inquiries, to whichphysics were only subordinate. The problem he sought to solve was theway to live like the Deity; he would contemplate truth as the great aimof life. With Aristotle, ethics formed only one branch of attention; hismain inquiries were in reference to physics and metaphysics. He thus, bybringing these into the region of inquiry, paved the way for a new epochof scepticism. Both Plato and Aristotle taught that reason alone can form science; but, as we have said, Aristotle differed from his master respecting thetheory of ideas. He did not deny to ideas a _subjective_ existence, buthe did deny that they have an objective existence. He maintained thatindividual things alone _exist_; and if individuals alone exist, theycan be known only by _sensation_. Sensation thus becomes the basis ofknowledge. Plato made _reason_ the basis of knowledge, but Aristotlemade _experience_ that basis. Plato directed man to the contemplation ofIdeas; Aristotle, to the observation of Nature. Instead of proceedingsynthetically and dialectically like Plato, he pursues an analyticcourse. His method is hence inductive, --the derivation of certainprinciples from a sum of given facts and phenomena. It would seem thatpositive science began with Aristotle, since he maintained thatexperience furnishes the principles of every science; but while hisconception was just, there was not at that time a sufficient amount ofexperience from which to generalize with effect. It is only a mostextensive and exhaustive examination of the accuracy of a propositionwhich will warrant secure reasoning upon it. Aristotle reasoned withoutsufficient certainty of the major premise of his syllogisms. Aristotle was the father of logic, and Hegel and Kant think there hasbeen no improvement upon it since his day. This became to him the realorganon of science. "He supposed it was not merely the instrument ofthought, but the instrument of investigation. " Hence it was futile forpurposes of discovery, although important to aid processes of thought. Induction and syllogism are the two great features of his system oflogic. The one sets out from particulars already known to arrive at aconclusion; the other sets out from some general principle to arrive atparticulars. The latter more particularly characterized his logic, whichhe presented in sixteen forms, the whole evincing much ingenuity andskill in construction, and presenting at the same time a usefuldialectical exercise. This syllogistic process of reasoning would beincontrovertible, if the _general_ were better known than the_particular_; but it is only by induction, which proceeds from the worldof experience, that we reach the higher world of cognition. ThusAristotle made speculation subordinate to logical distinctions, and hissystem, when carried out by the mediaeval Schoolmen, led to a spirit ofuseless quibbling. Instead of interrogating Nature they interrogatedtheir own minds, and no great discoveries were made. From want of properknowledge of the conditions of scientific inquiry, the method ofAristotle became fruitless for him; but it was the key by which futureinvestigators were enabled to classify and utilize their vastly greatercollection of facts and materials. Though Aristotle wrote in a methodical manner, his writings exhibitgreat parsimony of language. There is no fascination in his style. It iswithout ornament, and very condensed. His merit consisted in greatlogical precision and scrupulous exactness in the employment of terms. Philosophy, as a great system of dialectics, as an analysis of the powerand faculties of the mind, as a method to pursue inquiries, culminatedin Aristotle. He completed the great fabric of which Thales laid thefoundation. The subsequent schools of philosophy directed attention toethical and practical questions, rather than to intellectual phenomena. The Sceptics, like Pyrrho, had only negative doctrines, and held indisdain those inquiries which sought to penetrate the mysteries ofexistence. They did not believe that absolute truth was attainable byman; and they attacked the prevailing systems with great plausibility. They pointed out the uncertainty of things, and the folly of striving tocomprehend them. The Epicureans despised the investigations of philosophy, since in theirview these did not contribute to happiness. The subject of theirinquiries was happiness, not truth. What will promote this? was thesubject of their speculation. Epicurus, born 342 B. C. , contended thatpleasure was happiness; that pleasure should be sought not for its ownsake, but with a view to the happiness of life obtained by it. He taughtthat happiness was inseparable from virtue, and that its enjoymentsshould be limited. He was averse to costly pleasures, and regardedcontentedness with a little to be a great good. He placed wealth not ingreat possessions, but in few wants. He sought to widen the domain ofpleasure and narrow that of pain, and regarded a passionless state oflife as the highest. Nor did he dread death, which was deliverance frommisery, as the Buddhists think. Epicurus has been much misunderstood, and his doctrines were subsequently perverted, especially when the artsof life were brought into the service of luxury, and a gross materialismwas the great feature of society. Epicurus had much of the spirit of apractical philosopher, although very little of the earnest cravings of areligious man. He himself led a virtuous life, because he thought itwas wiser and better and more productive of happiness to be virtuous, not because it was his duty. His writings were very voluminous, and inhis tranquil garden he led a peaceful life of study and enjoyment. Hisfollowers, and they were numerous, were led into luxury andeffeminacy, --as was to be expected from a sceptical and irreligiousphilosophy, the great principle of which was that whatever is pleasantshould be the object of existence. Sir James Mackintosh says:-- "To Epicurus we owe the general concurrence of reflecting men insucceeding times in the important truth that men cannot be happy withouta virtuous frame of mind and course of life, --a truth of inestimablevalue, not peculiar to the Epicureans, but placed by their exaggerationsin a stronger light; a truth, it must be added, of less importance as amotive to right conduct than to the completeness of moral theory, which, however, it is very far from solely constituting. With that truth theEpicureans blended another position, --that because virtue promoteshappiness, every act of virtue must be done in order to promote thehappiness of the agent. Although, therefore, he has the merit of havingmore strongly inculcated the connection of virtue with happiness, yethis doctrine is justly charged with indisposing the mind to thoseexalted and generous sentiments without which no pure, elevated, bold, or tender virtues can exist. " The Stoics were a large and celebrated sect of philosophers; but theyadded nothing to the domain of thought, --they created no system, theyinvented no new method, they were led into no new psychologicalinquiries. Their inquiries were chiefly ethical; and since ethics are agreat part of the system of Greek philosophy, the Stoics are well worthyof attention. Some of the greatest men of antiquity are numbered amongthem, --like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. The philosophy theytaught was morality, and this was eminently practical and also elevated. The founder of this sect, Zeno, was born, it is supposed, on the islandof Cyprus, about the year 350 B. C. He was the son of wealthy parents, but was reduced to poverty by misfortune. He was so good a man, and soprofoundly revered by the Athenians, that they intrusted to him the keysof their citadel. He lived in a degenerate age, when scepticism andsensuality were eating out the life and vigor of Grecian society, whenGreek civilization was rapidly passing away, when ancient creeds hadlost their majesty, and general levity and folly overspread the land. Deeply impressed with the prevailing laxity of morals and the absence ofreligion, he lifted up his voice more as a reformer than as an inquirerafter truth, and taught for more than fifty years in a place called the_Stoa_, "the Porch, " which had once been the resort of the poets. Hencethe name of his school. He was chiefly absorbed with ethical questions, although he studied profoundly the systems of the old philosophers. "TheSceptics had attacked both perception and reason. They had shown thatperception is after all based upon appearance, and appearance is not acertainty; and they showed that reason is unable to distinguish betweenappearance and certainty, since it had nothing but phenomena to buildupon, and since there is no criterion to apply to reason itself. " Thenthey proclaimed philosophy a failure, and without foundation. But Zeno, taking a stand on common-sense, fought for morality, as did Buddhabefore him, and long after him Reid and Beattie, when they combated thescepticism of Hume. Philosophy, according to Zeno and other Stoics, was intimately connectedwith the duties of practical life. The contemplation, meditation, andthought recommended by Plato and Aristotle seemed only a covertrecommendation of selfish enjoyment. The wisdom which it should be theaim of life to attain is virtue; and virtue is to live harmoniously withNature. To live harmoniously with Nature is to exclude all personalends; hence pleasure is to be disregarded, and pain is to be despised. And as all moral action must be in harmony with Nature the law ofdestiny is supreme, and all things move according to immutable fate. With the predominant tendency to the universal which characterized theirsystem, the Stoics taught that the sage ought to regard himself as acitizen of the world rather than of any particular city or state. Theymade four things to be indispensable to virtue, --a knowledge of _good_and _evil_, which is the province of the reason; _temperance_, aknowledge of the due regulation of the sensual passions; _fortitude_, aconviction that it is good to suffer what is necessary; and _justice_, or acquaintance with what ought to be to every individual. They made_perfection_ necessary to virtue; hence the severity of their system. The perfect sage, according to them, is raised above all influence ofexternal events; he submits to the law of destiny; he is exempt fromdesire and fear, joy or sorrow; he is not governed even by what he isexposed to necessarily, like sorrow and pain; he is free from therestraints of passion; he is like a god in his mental placidity. Normust the sage live only for himself, but for others also; he is a memberof the whole body of mankind. He ought to marry, and to take part inpublic affairs; but he is to attack error and vice with uncompromisingsternness, and will never weakly give way to compassion or forgiveness. Yet with this ideal the Stoics were forced to admit that virtue, liketrue knowledge, although theoretically attainable is practically beyondthe reach of man. They were discontented with themselves and with allaround them, and looked upon all institutions as corrupt. They had aprofound contempt for their age, and for what modern society calls"success in life;" but it cannot be denied that they practised a loftyand stern virtue in their degenerate times. Their God was made subjectto Fate; and he was a material god, synonymous with Nature. Thus theirsystem was pantheistic. But they maintained the dignity of reason, andsought to attain to virtues which it is not in the power of man fullyto reach. Zeno lived to the extreme old age of ninety-eight, although hisconstitution was not strong. He retained his powers by greatabstemiousness, living chiefly on figs, honey, and bread. He was amodest and retiring man, seldom mingling with a crowd, or admitting thesociety of more than two or three friends at a time. He was as plain inhis dress as he was frugal in his habits, --a man of great decorum andpropriety of manners, resembling noticeably in his life and doctrinesthe Chinese sage Confucius. And yet this good man, a pattern to theloftiest characters of his age, strangled himself. Suicide was notdeemed a crime by his followers, among whom were some of the mostfaultless men of antiquity, especially among the Romans. The doctrinesof Zeno were never popular, and were confined to a small thoughinfluential party. With the Stoics ended among the Greeks all inquiry of a philosophicalnature worthy of especial mention, until centuries later, whenphilosophy was revived in the Christian schools of Alexandria, where theHebrew element of faith was united with the Greek ideal of reason. Thestruggles of so many great thinkers, from Thales to Aristotle, all endedin doubt and in despair. It was discovered that all of them were wrong, or rather partial; and their error was without a remedy, until "thefulness of time" should reveal more clearly the plan of the great templeof Truth, in which they were laying foundation stones. The bright and glorious period of Greek philosophy was from Socrates toAristotle. Philosophical inquiries began about the origin of things, andended with an elaborate systematization of the forms of thought, whichwas the most magnificent triumph that the unaided intellect of man everachieved. Socrates does not found a school, nor elaborate a system. Hereveals most precious truths, and stimulates the youth who listen to hisinstructions by the doctrine that it is the duty of man to pursue aknowledge of himself, which is to be sought in that divine reason whichdwells within him, and which also rules the world. He believes inscience; he loves truth for its own sake; he loves virtue, whichconsists in the knowledge of the good. Plato seizes the weapons of his great master, and is imbued with hisspirit. He is full of hope for science and humanity. With soaringboldness he directs his inquiries to futurity, dissatisfied with thepresent, and cherishing a fond hope of a better existence. He speculateson God and the soul. He is not much interested in physical phenomena; hedoes not, like Thales, strive to find out the beginning of all things, but the highest good, by which his immortal soul may be refreshed andprepared for the future life, in which he firmly believes. The sensibleis an impenetrable empire; but ideas are certitudes, and upon these hedwells with rapt and mystical enthusiasm, --a great poetical rhapsodist, severe dialectician as he is, believing in truth and beautyand goodness. Then Aristotle, following out the method of his teachers, attempts toexhaust experience, and directs his inquiries into the outward world ofsense and observation, but all with the view of discovering fromphenomena the unconditional truth, in which he too believes. Buteverything in this world is fleeting and transitory, and therefore it isnot easy to arrive at truth. A cold doubt creeps into the experimentalmind of Aristotle, with all his learning and his logic. The Epicureans arise. Misreading or corrupting the purer teaching oftheir founder, they place their hopes in sensual enjoyment. Theydespair of truth. But the world will not be abandoned to despair. The Stoics rebuke theimpiety which is blended with sensualism, and place their hopes onvirtue. Yet it is unattainable virtue, while their God is not a moralgovernor, but subject to necessity. Thus did those old giants grope about, for they did not know the God whowas revealed unto the more spiritual sense of Abraham, Moses, David, andIsaiah. And yet with all their errors they were the greatest benefactorsof the ancient world. They gave dignity to intellectual inquiries, whileby their lives they set examples of a pure morality. * * * * * The Romans added absolutely nothing to the philosophy of the Greeks. Norwere they much interested in any speculative inquiries. It was only theethical views of the old sages which had attraction or force to them. They were too material to love pure subjective inquiries. They hadconquered the land; they disdained the empire of the air. There were doubtless students of the Greek philosophy among the Romans, perhaps as early as Cato the Censor. But there were only two persons ofnote in Rome who wrote philosophy, till the time of Cicero, --Aurafaniusand Rubinus, --and these were Epicureans. Cicero was the first to systematize the philosophy which contributed sogreatly to his intellectual culture, But even he added nothing; he wasonly a commentator and expositor. Nor did he seek to found a system or aschool, but merely to influence and instruct men of his own rank. Thosesubjects which had the greatest attraction for the Grecian schoolsCicero regarded as beyond the power of human cognition, and thereforelooked upon the practical as the proper domain of human inquiry. Yet heheld logic in great esteem, as furnishing rules for methodicalinvestigation. He adopted the doctrine of Socrates as to the pursuit ofmoral good, and regarded the duties which grow out of the relations ofhuman society as preferable to those of pursuing scientific researches. He had a great contempt for knowledge which could lead neither to theclear apprehension of certitude nor to practical applications. Hethought it impossible to arrive at a knowledge of God, or the nature ofthe soul, or the origin of the world; and thus he was led to look uponthe sensible and the present as of more importance than inconclusiveinductions, or deductions from a truth not satisfactorily established. Cicero was an eclectic, seizing on what was true and clear in theancient systems, and disregarding what was simply a matter ofspeculation. This is especially seen in his treatise "De Finibus Bonorumet Malorum, " in which the opinions of all the Grecian schoolsconcerning the supreme good are expounded and compared. Nor does hehesitate to declare that the highest happiness consists in the knowledgeof Nature and science, which is the true source of pleasure both to godsand men. Yet these are but hopes, in which it does not become us toindulge. It is the actual, the real, the practical, which pre-eminentlyclaims attention, --in other words, the knowledge which will furnish manwith a guide and rule of life. Even in the consideration of moralquestions Cicero is pursued by the conflict of opinions, although inthis department he is most at home. The points he is most anxious toestablish are the doctrines of God and the soul. These are most fullytreated in his essay "De Natura Deorum, " in which he submits thedoctrines of the Epicureans and the Stoics to the objections of theAcademy. He admits that man is unable to form true conceptions of God, but acknowledges the necessity of assuming one supreme God as thecreator and ruler of all things, moving all things, remote from allmortal mixture, and endued with eternal motion in himself. He seems tobelieve in a divine providence ordering good to man, in the soul'simmortality, in free-will, in the dignity of human nature, in thedominion of reason, in the restraint of the passions as necessary tovirtue, in a life of public utility, in an immutable morality, in theimitation of the divine. Thus there is little of original thought in the moral theories ofCicero, which are the result of observation rather than of anyphilosophical principle. We might enumerate his various opinions, andshow what an enlightened mind he possessed; but this would not be thedevelopment of philosophy. His views, interesting as they are, andgenerally wise and lofty, do not indicate any progress of the science. He merely repeats earlier doctrines. These were not without theirutility, since they had great influence on the Latin fathers of theChristian Church. He was esteemed for his general enlightenment. Hesoftened down the extreme views of the great thinkers before his day, and clearly unfolded what had become obscured. He was a critic ofphilosophy, an expositor whom we can scarcely spare. If anybody advanced philosophy among the Romans it was Epictetus, andeven he only in the realm of ethics. Quintius Sextius, in the time ofAugustus, had revived the Pythagorean doctrines. Seneca had recommendedthe severe morality of the Stoics, but added nothing that was notpreviously known. The greatest light among the Romans was the Phrygian slave Epictetus, who was born about fifty years after the birth of Jesus Christ, andtaught in the time of the Emperor Domitian. Though he did not leave anywritten treatises, his doctrines were preserved and handed down by hisdisciple Arrian, who had for him the reverence that Plato had forSocrates. The loftiness of his recorded views has made some to thinkthat he must have been indebted to Christianity, for no one before himrevealed precepts so much in accordance with its spirit. He was a Stoic, but he held in the highest estimation Socrates and Plato. It is not forthe solution of metaphysical questions that he was remarkable. He wasnot a dialectician, but a moralist, and as such takes the highest groundof all the old inquirers after truth. With him, as to Cicero and Seneca, philosophy is the wisdom of life. He sets no value on logic, nor much onphysics; but he reveals sentiments of great simplicity and grandeur. Hisgreat idea is the purification of the soul. He believes in the severestself-denial; he would guard against the siren spells of pleasure; hewould make men feel that in order to be good they must first feel thatthey are evil. He condemns suicide, although it had been defended by theStoics. He would complain of no one, not even as to injustice; he wouldnot injure his enemies; he would pardon all offences; he would feeluniversal compassion, since men sin from ignorance; he would not easilyblame, since we have none to condemn but ourselves. He would not striveafter honor or office, since we put ourselves in subjection to that weseek or prize; he would constantly bear in mind that all things aretransitory, and that they are not our own. He would bear evils withpatience, even as he would practise self-denial of pleasure. He would, in short, be calm, free, keep in subjection his passions, avoidself-indulgence, and practise a broad charity and benevolence. He feltthat he owed all to God, --that all was his gift, and that we should thuslive in accordance with his will; that we should be grateful not onlyfor our bodies, but for our souls and reason, by which we attain togreatness. And if God has given us such a priceless gift, we should becontented, and not even seek to alter our external relations, which aredoubtless for the best. We should wish, indeed, for only what God willsand sends, and we should avoid pride and haughtiness as well asdiscontent, and seek to fulfil our allotted part. Such were the moral precepts of Epictetus, in which we see the nearestapproach to Christianity that had been made in the ancient world, although there is no proof or probability that he knew anything ofChrist or the Christians. And these sublime truths had a greatinfluence, especially on the mind of the most lofty and pure of all theRoman emperors, Marcus Aurelius, who _lived_ the principles he hadlearned from the slave, and whose "Thoughts" are still held inadmiration. Thus did the philosophic speculations about the beginning of thingslead to elaborate systems of thought, and end in practical rules oflife, until in spirit they had, with Epictetus, harmonized with many ofthe revealed truths which Christ and his Apostles laid down for theregeneration of the world. Who cannot see in the inquiries of the oldPhilosopher, --whether into Nature, or the operations of mind, or theexistence of God, or the immortality of the soul, or the way tohappiness and virtue, --a magnificent triumph of human genius, such ashas been exhibited in no other department of human science? Nay, whodoes not rejoice to see in this slow but ever-advancing development ofman's comprehension of the truth the inspiration of that Divine Teacher, that Holy Spirit, which shall at last lead man into all truth? We regret that our limits preclude a more extended view of the varioussystems which the old sages propounded, --systems full of errors yet alsomarked by important gains, but, whether false or true, showing amarvellous reach of the human understanding. Modern researches havediscarded many opinions that were highly valued in their day, yetphilosophy in its methods of reasoning is scarcely advanced since thetime of Aristotle, while the subjects which agitated the Grecian schoolshave been from time to time revived and rediscussed, and are stillunsettled. If any intellectual pursuit has gone round in perpetualcircles, incapable apparently of progression or rest, it is thatglorious study of philosophy which has tasked more than any other themightiest intellects of this world, and which, progressive or not, willnever be relinquished without the loss of what is most valuable inhuman culture. * * * * * AUTHORITIES. For original authorities in reference to the matter of this chapter, read Diogenes Laertius's Lives of the Philosophers; the Writings ofPlato and Aristotle; Cicero, De Natura Deorum, De Oratore, De Officiis, De Divinatione, De Finibus, Tusculanae Disputationes; Xenophon, Memorabilia; Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae; Lucretius. The great modern authorities are the Germans, and these are verynumerous. Among the most famous writers on the history of philosophy areBrucker, Hegel, Brandis, I. G. Buhle, Tennemann, Hitter, Plessing, Schwegler, Hermann, Meiners, Stallbaum, and Spiegel. The History ofRitter is well translated, and is always learned and suggestive. Tennemann, translated by Morell, is a good manual, brief but clear. Inconnection with the writings of the Germans, the great work of theFrench Cousin should be consulted. The English historians of ancient philosophy are not so numerous as theGermans. The work of Enfield is based on Brucker, or is rather anabridgment. Archer Butler's Lectures are suggestive and able, butdiscursive and vague. Grote has written learnedly on Socrates and theother great lights. Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy has themerit of clearness, and is very interesting, but rather superficial. Seealso Thomas Stanley's History of Philosophy, and the articles in Smith'sDictionary on the leading ancient philosophers. J. W. Donaldson'scontinuation of K. O. Müller's History of the Literature of AncientGreece is learned, and should be consulted with Thompson's Notes onArcher Butler. Schleiermacher, on Socrates, translated by BishopThirlwall, is well worth attention. There are also fine articles in theEncyclopaedias Britannica and Metropolitana. SOCRATES. 470-399 B. C. GREEK PHILOSOPHY. To Socrates the world owes a new method in philosophy and a greatexample in morals; and it would be difficult to settle whether hisinfluence has been greater as a sage or as a moralist. In either lighthe is one of the august names of history. He has been venerated for morethan two thousand years as a teacher of wisdom, and as a martyr for thetruths he taught. He did not commit his precious thoughts to writing;that work was done by his disciples, even as his exalted worth has beenpublished by them, especially by Plato and Xenophon. And if the Greekphilosophy did not culminate in him, yet he laid down those principlesby which only it could be advanced. As a system-maker, both Plato andAristotle were greater than he; yet for original genius he was probablytheir superior, and in important respects he was their master. As a goodman, battling with infirmities and temptations and coming offtriumphantly, the ancient world has furnished no prouder example. He was born about 470 or 469 years B. C. , and therefore may be said tobelong to that brilliant age of Grecian literature and art when Prodicuswas teaching rhetoric, and Democritus was speculating about the doctrineof atoms, and Phidias was ornamenting temples, and Alcibiades was givingbanquets, and Aristophanes was writing comedies, and Euripides wascomposing tragedies, and Aspasia was setting fashions, and Cimon wasfighting battles, and Pericles was making Athens the centre of Greciancivilization. But he died thirty years after Pericles; so that what ismost interesting in his great career took place during and after thePeloponnesian war, --an age still interesting, but not so brilliant asthe one which immediately preceded it. It was the age of theSophists, --those popular but superficial teachers who claimed to be themost advanced of their generation; men who were doubtless accomplished, but were cynical, sceptical, and utilitarian, placing a high estimate onpopular favor and an outside life, but very little on pure subjectivetruth or the wants of the soul. They were paid teachers, and soughtpupils from the sons of the rich, --the more eminent of them beingProtagoras, Gorgias, Hippias, and Prodicus; men who travelled from cityto city, exciting great admiration for their rhetorical skill, andreally improving the public speaking of popular orators. They alsotaught science to a limited extent, and it was through them thatAthenian youth mainly acquired what little knowledge they had ofarithmetic and geometry. In loftiness of character they were not equalto those Ionian philosophers, who, prior to Socrates, in the fifthcentury B. C. , speculated on the great problems of the materialuniverse, --the origin of the world, the nature of matter, and the sourceof power, --and who, if they did not make discoveries, yet evinced greatintellectual force. It was in this sceptical and irreligious age, when all classes weredevoted to pleasure and money-making, but when there was greatcultivation, especially in arts, that Socrates arose, whose"appearance, " says Grote, "was a moral phenomenon. " He was the son of a poor sculptor, and his mother was a midwife. Hisfamily was unimportant, although it belonged to an ancient Attic _gens_. Socrates was rescued from his father's workshop by a wealthy citizen whoperceived his genius, and who educated him at his own expense. He wastwenty when he conversed with Parmenides and Zeno; he was twenty-eightwhen Phidias adorned the Parthenon; he was forty when he fought atPotidaea and rescued Alcibiades. At this period he was mostdistinguished for his physical strength and endurance, --a brave andpatriotic soldier, insensible to heat and cold, and, though temperate inhis habits, capable of drinking more wine, without becomingintoxicated, than anybody in Athens. His powerful physique and sensualnature inclined him to self-indulgence, but he early learned to restrainboth appetites and passions. His physiognomy was ugly and his personrepulsive; he was awkward, obese, and ungainly; his nose was flat, hislips were thick, and his neck large; he rolled his eyes, wentbarefooted, and wore a dirty old cloak. He spent his time chiefly in themarket-place, talking with everybody, old or young, rich orpoor, --soldiers, politicians, artisans, or students; visiting evenAspasia, the cultivated, wealthy courtesan, with whom he formed afriendship; so that, although he was very poor, --his whole propertybeing only five minae (about fifty dollars) a year, --it would seem helived in "good society. " The ancient Pagans were not so exclusive and aristocratic as theChristians of our day, who are ambitious of social position. Socratesnever seemed to think about his social position at all, and uniformlyacted as if he were well known and prominent. He was listened to becausehe was eloquent. His conversation is said to have been charming, andeven fascinating. He was an original and ingenious man, different fromeverybody else, and was therefore what we call "a character. " But there was nothing austere or gloomy about him. Though lofty in hisinquiries, and serious in his mind, he resembled neither a Jewishprophet nor a mediaeval sage in his appearance. He looked rather like aSilenus, --very witty, cheerful, good-natured, jocose, and disposed tomake people laugh. He enjoined no austerities or penances. He was veryattractive to the young, and tolerant of human infirmities, even when hegave the best advice. He was the most human of teachers. Alcibiades wascompletely fascinated by his talk, and made good resolutions. His great peculiarity in conversation was to ask questions, --sometimesto gain information, but oftener to puzzle and raise a laugh. He soughtto expose ignorance, when it was pretentious; he made all the quacks andshams appear ridiculous. His irony was tremendous; nobody could standbefore his searching and unexpected questions, and he made nearly everyone with whom he conversed appear either as a fool or an ignoramus. Heasked his questions with great apparent modesty, and thus drew a meshover his opponents from which they could not extricate themselves. Hisprocess was the _reductio ad absurdum_. Hence he drew upon himself thewrath of the Sophists. He had no intellectual arrogance, since heprofessed to know nothing himself, although he was conscious of his ownintellectual superiority. He was contented to show that others knew nomore than he. He had no passion for admiration, no political ambition, no desire for social distinction; and he associated with men not forwhat they could do for him, but for what he could do for them. Althoughpoor, he charged nothing for his teachings. He seemed to despise riches, since riches could only adorn or pamper the body. He did not live in acell or a cave or a tub, but among the people, as an apostle. He musthave accepted gifts, since his means of living were exceedingly small, even for Athens. He was very practical, even while he lived above the world, absorbed inlofty contemplations. He was always talking with such as theskin-dressers and leather-dealers, using homely language for hisillustrations, and uttering plain truths. Yet he was equally at homewith poets and philosophers and statesmen. He did not take much interestin that knowledge which was applied merely to rising in the world. Though plain, practical, and even homely in his conversation, he was notutilitarian. Science had no charm to him, since it was directed toutilitarian ends and was uncertain. His sayings had such a lofty, hiddenwisdom that very few people understood him: his utterances seemed eitherparadoxical, or unintelligible, or sophistical. "To the mentally proudand mentally feeble he was equally a bore. " Most people probably thoughthim a nuisance, since he was always about with his questions, puzzlingsome, confuting others, and reproving all, --careless of love or hatred, and contemptuous of all conventionalities. So severely dialectical washe that he seemed to be a hair-splitter. The very Sophists, whoseignorance and pretension he exposed, looked upon him as a quibbler;although there were some--so severely trained was the Grecian mind--whosaw the drift of his questions, and admired his skill. Probably thereare few educated people in these times who could have understood him anymore easily than a modern audience, even of scholars, could take in oneof the orations of Demosthenes, although they might laugh at the jokesof the sage, and be impressed with the invectives of the orator. And yet there were defects in Socrates. He was most provokinglysarcastic; he turned everything to ridicule; he remorselessly puncturedevery gas-bag he met; he heaped contempt on every snob; he threw stonesat every glass house, --and everybody lived in one. He was not quite justto the Sophists, for they did not pretend to teach the higher life, butchiefly rhetoric, which is useful in its way. And if they loved applauseand riches, and attached themselves to those whom they could utilize, they were not different from most fashionable teachers in any age. Andthen Socrates was not very delicate in his tastes. He was too muchcarried away by the fascinations of Aspasia, when he knew that she wasnot virtuous, --although it was doubtless her remarkable intellect whichmost attracted him, not her physical beauty; since in the "Menexenus"(by many ascribed to Plato) he is made to recite at length one of herlong orations, and in the "Symposium" he is made to appear absolutelyindelicate in his conduct with Alcibiades, and to make what would beabhorrent to us a matter of irony, although there was the severestcontrol of the passions. To me it has always seemed a strange thing that such an ugly, satirical, provoking man could have won and retained the love of Xanthippe, especially since he was so careless of his dress, and did so little toprovide for the wants of the household. I do not wonder that she scoldedhim, or became very violent in her temper; since, in her worst tirades, he only provokingly laughed at her. A modern Christian woman of societywould have left him. But perhaps in Pagan Athens she could not have gota divorce. It is only in these enlightened and progressive times thatwomen desert their husbands when they are tantalizing, or when they donot properly support the family, or spend their time at the clubs or insociety, --into which it would seem that Socrates was received, even thebest, barefooted and dirty as he was, and for his intellectual giftsalone. Think of such a man being the oracle of a modern salon, either inParis, London, or New York, with his repulsive appearance, andtantalizing and provoking irony. But in artistic Athens, at one time, hewas all the fashion. Everybody liked to hear him talk. Everybody wasboth amused and instructed. He provoked no envy, since he affectedmodesty and ignorance, apparently asking his questions for information, and was so meanly clad, and lived in such a poor way. Though he provokedanimosities, he had many friends. If his language was sarcastic, hisaffections were kind. He was always surrounded by the most gifted men ofhis time. The wealthy Crito constantly attended him; Plato and Xenophonwere enthusiastic pupils; even Alcibiades was charmed by hisconversation; Apollodorus and Antisthenes rarely quitted his side; Cebesand Simonides came from Thebes to hear him; Isocrates and Aristippusfollowed in his train; Euclid of Megara sought his society, at the riskof his life; the tyrant Critias, and even the Sophist Protagoras, acknowledged his marvellous power. But I cannot linger longer on the man, with his gifts and peculiarities. More important things demand our attention. I propose briefly to showhis contributions to philosophy and ethics. In regard to the first, I will not dwell on his method, which is bothsubtle and dialectical. We are not Greeks. Yet it was his method whichrevolutionized philosophy. That was original. He saw this, --that thetheories of his day were mere opinions; even the lofty speculations ofthe Ionian philosophers were dreams, and the teachings of the Sophistswere mere words. He despised both dreams and words. Speculations endedin the indefinite and insoluble; words ended in rhetoric. Neither dreamsnor words revealed the true, the beautiful, and the good, --which, to hismind, were the only realities, the only sure foundation for aphilosophical system. So he propounded certain questions, which, when answered, producedglaring contradictions, from which disputants shrank. Their conclusionsbroke down their assumptions. They stood convicted of ignorance, towhich all his artful and subtle questions tended, and which it was hisaim to prove. He showed that they did not know what they affirmed. Heproved that their definitions were wrong or incomplete, since theylogically led to contradictions; and he showed that for purposes ofdisputation the same meaning must always attach to the same word, sincein ordinary language terms have different meanings, partly true andpartly false, which produce confusion in argument. He would be preciseand definite, and use the utmost rigor of language, without whichinquirers and disputants would not understand each other. Everydefinition should include the whole thing, and nothing else; otherwise, people would not know what they were talking about, and would be forcedinto absurdities. Thus arose the celebrated "definitions, "--the first step in Greekphilosophy, --intending to show what _is_, and what _is not_. Afterdemonstrating what is not, Socrates advanced to the demonstration ofwhat is, and thus laid a foundation for certain knowledge: thus hearrived at clear conceptions of justice, friendship, patriotism, courage, and other certitudes, on which truth is based. He wanted onlypositive truth, --something to build upon, --like Bacon and all greatinquirers. Having reached the certain, he would apply it to all therelations of life, and to all kinds of knowledge. Unless knowledge iscertain, it is worthless, --there is no foundation to build upon. Uncertain or indefinite knowledge is no knowledge at all; it may be verypretty, or amusing, or ingenious, but no more valuable for philosophicalresearch than poetry or dreams or speculations. How far the "definitions" of Socrates led to the solution of the greatproblems of philosophy, in the hands of such dialecticians as Plato andAristotle, I will not attempt to enter upon here; but this I think I amwarranted in saying, that the main object and aim of Socrates, as ateacher of philosophy, were to establish certain elemental truths, concerning which there could be no dispute, and then to reason fromthem, --since they were not mere assumptions, but certitudes, andcertitudes also which appealed to human consciousness, and thereforecould not be overthrown. If I were teaching metaphysics, it would benecessary for me to make clear this method, --the questions anddefinitions by which Socrates is thought to have laid the foundation oftrue knowledge, and therefore of all healthful advance in philosophy. But for my present purpose I do not care so much what his _method_ wasas what his _aim_ was. The aim of Socrates, then, being to find out and teach what is definiteand certain, as a foundation of knowledge, --having cleared away therubbish of ignorance, --he attached very little importance to what iscalled physical science. And no wonder, since science in his day wasvery imperfect. There were not facts enough known on which to base soundinductions: better, deductions from established principles. What isdeemed most certain in this age was the most uncertain of all knowledgein his day. Scientific knowledge, truly speaking, there was none. It wasall speculation. Democritus might resolve the material universe--theearth, the sun, and the stars--into combinations produced by the motionof atoms. But whence the original atoms, and what force gave to themmotion? The proudest philosopher, speculating on the origin of theuniverse, is convicted of ignorance. Much, has been said in praise of the Ionian philosophers; and justly, so far as their genius and loftiness of character are considered. Butwhat did they discover? What truths did they arrive at to serve asfoundation-stones of science? They were among the greatest intellects ofantiquity. But their method was a wrong one. Their philosophy was basedon assumptions and speculations, and therefore was worthless, since theysettled nothing. Their science was based on inductions which were notreliable, because of a lack of facts. They drew conclusions as to theorigin of the universe from material phenomena. Thales, seeing thatplants are sustained by dew and rain, concluded that water was the firstbeginning of things. Anaximenes, seeing that animals die without air, thought that air was the great primal cause. Then Diogenes of Crete, making a fanciful speculation, imparted to air an intellectual energy. Heraclitus of Ephesus substituted fire for air. None of the illustriousIonians reached anything higher, than that the first cause of all thingsmust be intelligent. The speculations of succeeding philosophers, livingin a more material age, all pertained to the world of matter which theycould see with their eyes. And in close connection with speculationsabout matter, the cause of which they could not settle, was indifferenceto the spiritual nature of man, which they could not see, and all thewants of the soul, and the existence of the future state, where thesoul alone was of any account. So atheism, and the disbelief of theexistence of the soul after death, characterized that materialism. Without God and without a future, there was no stimulus to virtue and nofoundation for anything. They said, "Let us eat and drink, forto-morrow we die, "--the essence and spirit of all paganism. Socrates, seeing how unsatisfactory were all physical inquiries, andwhat evils materialism introduced into society, making the bodyeverything and the soul nothing, turned his attention to the worldwithin, and "for physics substituted morals. " He knew the uncertainty ofphysical speculation, but believed in the certainty of moral truths. Heknew that there was a reality in justice, in friendship, in courage. Like Job, he reposed on consciousness. He turned his attention to whatafterwards gave immortality to Descartes. To the scepticism of theSophists he opposed self-evident truths. He proclaimed the sovereigntyof virtue, the universality of moral obligation. "Moral certitude wasthe platform from which he would survey the universe. " It was the ladderby which he would ascend to the loftiest regions of knowledge and ofhappiness. "Though he was negative in his means, he was positive in hisends. " He was the first who had glimpses of the true mission ofphilosophy, --even to sit in judgment on all knowledge, whether itpertains to art, or politics, or science; eliminating the false andretaining the true. It was his mission to separate truth from error. Hetaught the world how to weigh evidence. He would discard any doctrinewhich, logically carried out, led to absurdity. Instead of turning hisattention to outward phenomena, he dwelt on the truths which either Godor consciousness reveals. Instead of the creation, he dwelt on theCreator. It was not the body he cared for so much as the soul. Notwealth, not power, not the appetites were the true source of pleasure, but the peace and harmony of the soul. The inquiry should be, not whatwe shall eat, but how shall we resist temptation; how shall we keep thesoul pure; how shall we arrive at virtue; how shall we best serve ourcountry; how shall we best educate our children; how shall we expelworldliness and deceit and lies; how shall we walk with God?--for thereis a God, and there is immortality and eternal justice: these are thegreat certitudes of human life, and it is only by these that the soulwill expand and be happy forever. Thus there was a close connection between his philosophy and his ethics. But it was as a moral teacher that he won his most enduring fame. Theteacher of wisdom became subordinate to the man who lived it. As aliving Christian is nobler than merely an acute theologian, so he whopractises virtue is greater than the one who preaches it. The dissectionof the passions is not so difficult as the regulation of the passions. The moral force of the soul is superior to the utmost grasp of theintellect. The "Thoughts" of Pascal are all the more read because thereligious life of Pascal is known to have been lofty. Augustine was theoracle of the Middle Ages, from the radiance of his character as much asfrom the brilliancy and originality of his intellect. Bernard swayedsociety more by his sanctity than by his learning. The useful life ofSocrates was devoted not merely to establish the grounds of moralobligation, in opposition to the false and worldly teaching of his day, but to the practice of temperance, disinterestedness, and patriotism. Hefound that the ideas of his contemporaries centred in the pleasure ofthe body: he would make his body subservient to the welfare of the soul. No writer of antiquity says so much of the soul as Plato, his chosendisciple, and no other one placed so much value on pure subjectiveknowledge. His longings after love were scarcely exceeded by Augustineor St. Theresa, --not for a divine Spouse, but for the harmony of thesoul. With longings after love were, united longings after immortality, when the mind would revel forever in the contemplation of eternal ideasand the solution of mysteries, --a sort of Dantean heaven. Virtue becamethe foundation of happiness, and almost a synonym for knowledge. Hediscoursed on knowledge in its connection with virtue, after thefashion of Solomon in his Proverbs. Happiness, virtue, knowledge: thiswas the Socratic trinity, the three indissolubly connected together, andforming the life of the soul, --the only precious thing a man has, sinceit is immortal, and therefore to be guarded beyond all bodily andmundane interests. But human nature is frail. The soul is fettered andbewildered; hence the need of some outside influence, some illumination, to guard, or to restrain, or guide. "This inspiration, he was persuaded, was imparted to him from time to time, as he had need, by the monitionsof an internal voice which he called [Greek: daimonion], or daemon, --nota personification, like an angel or devil, but a divine sign orsupernatural voice. " From youth he was accustomed to obey thisprohibitory voice, and to speak of it, --a voice "which forbade him toenter on public life, " or to take any thought for a prepared defence onhis trial. The Fathers of the Church regarded this daemon as a devil, probably from the name; but it is not far, in its real meaning, from the"divine grace" of St. Augustine and of all men famed for Christianexperience, --that restraining grace which keeps good men from follyor sin. Socrates, again, divorced happiness from pleasure, --identical things, with most pagans. Happiness is the peace and harmony of the soul;pleasure comes from animal sensations, or the gratification of worldlyand ambitious desires, and therefore is often demoralizing. Happinessis an elevated joy, --a beatitude, existing with pain and disease, whenthe soul is triumphant over the body; while pleasure is transient, andcomes from what is perishable. Hence but little account should be madeof pain and suffering, or even of death. The life is more than meat, andvirtue is its own reward. There is no reward of virtue in mere outwardand worldly prosperity; and, with virtue, there is no evil in adversity. One must do right because it is right, not because it is expedient: hemust do right, whatever advantages may appear by not doing it. A goodcitizen must obey the laws, because they are laws: he may not violatethem because temporal and immediate advantages are promised. A wise man, and therefore a good man, will be temperate. He must neither eat nordrink to excess. But temperance is not abstinence. Socrates not onlyenjoined temperance as a great virtue, but he practised it. He was amodel of sobriety, and yet he drank wine at feasts, --at those glorioussymposia where he discoursed with his friends on the highest themes. While he controlled both appetites and passions, in order to promotetrue happiness, --that is, the welfare of the soul, --he was notsolicitous, as others were, for outward prosperity, which could notextend beyond mortal life. He would show, by teaching and example, thathe valued future good beyond any transient joy. Hence he acceptedpoverty and physical discomfort as very trifling evils. He did notlacerate the body, like Brahmans and monks, to make the soul independentof it. He was a Greek, and a practical man, --anything butvisionary, --and regarded the body as a sacred temple of the soul, to bekept beautiful; for beauty is as much an eternal idea as friendship orlove. Hence he threw no contempt on art, since art is based on beauty. He approved of athletic exercises, which strengthened and beautified thebody; but he would not defile the body or weaken it, either by lusts orausterities. Passions were not to be exterminated but controlled; andcontrolled by reason, the light within us, --that which guides to trueknowledge, and hence to virtue, and hence to happiness. The law oftemperance, therefore, is self-control. Courage was another of his certitudes, --that which animated the soldieron the battlefield with patriotic glow and lofty self-sacrifice. Life issubordinate to patriotism. It was of but little consequence whether aman died or not, in the discharge of duty. To do right was the mainthing, because it was right. "Like George Fox, he would do right if theworld were blotted out. " The weak point, to my mind, in the Socratic philosophy, considered inits ethical bearings, was the confounding of virtue with knowledge, andmaking them identical. Socrates could probably have explained thisdifficulty away, for no one more than he appreciated the tyranny ofpassion and appetite, which thus fettered the will; according to St. Paul, "The evil that I would not, that I do. " Men often commit sin whenthe consequences of it and the nature of it press upon the mind. Theknowledge of good and evil does not always restrain a man from doingwhat he knows will end in grief and shame. The restraint comes, not fromknowledge, but from divine aid, which was probably what Socrates meantby his daemon, --a warning and a constraining power. "Est Deus in nobis, agitante calescimus illo. " But this is not exactly the knowledge which Socrates meant, or Solomon. Alcibiades was taught to see the loveliness of virtue and to admire it;but _he_ had not the divine and restraining power, which Socrates calledan "inspiration, " and others would call "grace. " Yet Socrates himself, with passions and appetites as great as Alcibiades, restrainedthem, --was assisted to do so by that divine Power which he recognized, and probably adored. How far he felt his personal responsibility to thisPower I do not know. The sense of personal responsibility to God is oneof the highest manifestations of Christian life, and implies arecognition of God as a personality, as a moral governor whose eye iseverywhere, and whose commands are absolute. Many have a vague idea ofProvidence as pervading and ruling the universe, without a sense ofpersonal responsibility to Him; in other words, without a "fear" of Him, such as Moses taught, and which is represented by David as "thebeginning of wisdom, "--the fear to do wrong, not only because it iswrong, but also because it is displeasing to Him who can both punish andreward. I do not believe that Socrates had this idea of God; but I dobelieve that he recognized His existence and providence. Most people inGreece and Rome had religious instincts, and believed in supernaturalforces, who exercised an influence over their destiny, --although theycalled them "gods, " or divinities, and not _the_ "God Almighty" whomMoses taught. The existence of temples, the offices of priests, and theconsultation of oracles and soothsayers, all point to this. And thepeople not only believed in the existence of these supernatural powers, to whom they erected temples and statues, but many of them believed in afuture state of rewards and punishments, --otherwise the names of Minosand Rhadamanthus and other judges of the dead are unintelligible. Paganism and mythology did not deny the existence and power ofgods, --yea, the immortal gods; they only multiplied their number, representing them as avenging deities with human passions and frailties, and offering to them gross and superstitious rites of worship. They hadimperfect and even degrading ideas of the gods, but acknowledged theirexistence and their power. Socrates emancipated himself from thesedegrading superstitions, and had a loftier idea of God than the people, or he would not have been accused of impiety, --that is, a dissent fromthe popular belief; although there is one thing which I cannotunderstand in his life, and cannot harmonize with his generalteachings, --that in his last hours his last act was to command thesacrifice of a cock to Aesculapius. But whatever may have been his precise and definite ideas of God andimmortality, it is clear that he soared beyond his contemporaries in hisconceptions of Providence and of duty. He was a reformer and amissionary, preaching a higher morality and revealing loftier truthsthan any other person that we know of in pagan antiquity; although therelived in India, about two hundred years before his day, a sage whom theycalled Buddha, whom some modern scholars think approached nearer toChrist than did Socrates or Marcus Aurelius. Very possibly. Have we anyreason to adduce that God has ever been without his witnesses on earth, or ever will be? Why could he not have imparted wisdom both to Buddhaand Socrates, as he did to Abraham, Moses, and Paul? I look uponSocrates as one of the witnesses and agents of Almighty power on thisearth to proclaim exalted truth and turn people from wickedness. Hehimself--not indistinctly--claimed this mission. Think what a man he was: truly was he a "moral phenomenon. " You see aman of strong animal propensities, but with a lofty soul, appearing in awicked and materialistic--and possibly atheistic--age, overturning allprevious systems of philosophy, and inculcating a new and higher law ofmorals. You see him spending his whole life, --and a long life, --indisinterested teachings and labors; teaching without pay, attachinghimself to youth, working in poverty and discomfort, indifferent towealth and honor, and even power, inculcating incessantly the worth anddignity of the soul, and its amazing and incalculable superiority to allthe pleasures of the body and all the rewards of a worldly life. Whogave to him this wisdom and this almost superhuman virtue? Who gave tohim this insight into the fundamental principles of morality? Who, inthis respect, made him a greater light and a clearer expounder than theChristian Paley? Who made him, in all spiritual discernment, a wiser manthan the gifted John Stuart Mill, who seems to have been a candidsearcher after truth? In the wisdom of Socrates you see some higherforce than intellectual hardihood or intellectual clearness. How muchthis pagan did to emancipate and elevate the soul! How much he did topresent the vanities and pursuits of worldly men in their true light!What a rebuke were his life and doctrines to the Epicureanism which waspervading all classes of society, and preparing the way for ruin! Whocannot see in him a forerunner of that greater Teacher who was thefriend of publicans and sinners; who rejected the leaven of thePharisees and the speculations of the Sadducees; who scorned the richesand glories of the world; who rebuked everything pretentious andarrogant; who enjoined humility and self-abnegation; who exposed theignorance and sophistries of ordinary teachers; and who propounded to_his_ disciples no such "miserable interrogatory" as "Who shall show usany good?" but a higher question for their solution and that of allpleasure-seeking and money-hunting people to the end of time, --"Whatshall a man give in exchange for his soul?" It very rarely happens that a great benefactor escapes persecution, especially if he is persistent in denouncing false opinions which arepopular, or prevailing follies and sins. As the Scribes and Pharisees, who had been so severely and openly exposed in all their hypocrisies byour Lord, took the lead in causing his crucifixion, so the Sophists andtyrants of Athens headed the fanatical persecution of Socrates becausehe exposed their shallowness and worldliness, and stung them to thequick by his sarcasms and ridicule. His elevated morality and loftyspiritual life do not alone account for the persecution. If he had letpersons alone, and had not ridiculed their opinions and pretensions, they would probably have let him alone. Galileo aroused the wrath ofthe Inquisition not for his scientific discoveries, but because heridiculed the Dominican and Jesuit guardians of the philosophy of theMiddle Ages, and because he seemed to undermine the authority of theScriptures and of the Church: his boldness, his sarcasms, and hismocking spirit were more offensive than his doctrines. The Church didnot persecute Kepler or Pascal. The Athenians may have condemnedXenophanes and Anaxagoras, yet not the other Ionian philosophers, northe lofty speculations of Plato; but they murdered Socrates because theyhated him. It was not pleasant to the gay leaders of Athenian society tohear the utter vanity of their worldly lives painted with such unsparingseverity, nor was it pleasant to the Sophists and rhetoricians to seetheir idols overthrown, and they themselves exposed as false teachersand shallow pretenders. No one likes to see himself held up to scorn andmockery; nobody is willing to be shown up as ignorant and conceited. Thepeople of Athens did not like to see their gods ridiculed, for thelogical sequence of the teachings of Socrates was to undermine thepopular religion. It was very offensive to rich and worldly people to betold that their riches and pleasures were transient and worthless. Itwas impossible that those rhetoricians who gloried in words, thoseSophists who covered up the truth, those pedants who prided themselveson their technicalities, those politicians who lived by corruption, those worldly fathers who thought only of pushing the fortunes of theirchildren, should not see in Socrates their uncompromising foe; and whenhe added mockery and ridicule to contempt, and piqued their vanity, andoffended their pride, they bitterly hated him and wished him out of theway. My wonder is that he should have been tolerated until he wasseventy years of age. Men less offensive than he have been burned alive, and stoned to death, and tortured on the rack, and devoured by lions inthe amphitheatre. It is the fate of prophets to be exiled, or slandered, or jeered at, or stigmatized, or banished from society, --to be subjectedto some sort of persecution; but when prophets denounce woes, and utterinvectives, and provoke by stinging sarcasms, they have generally beenkilled. No matter how enlightened society is, or tolerant the age, hewho utters offensive truths will be disliked, and in some way punished. So Socrates must meet the fate of all benefactors who make themselvesdisliked and hated. First the great comic poet Aristophanes, in hiscomedy called the "Clouds, " held him up to ridicule and reproach, andthus prepared the way for his arraignment and trial. He is made to uttera thousand impieties and impertinences. He is made to talk like a manof the greatest vanity and conceit, and to throw contempt and scorn oneverybody else. It is not probable that the poet entered into any formalconspiracy against him, but found him a good subject of raillery andmockery, since Socrates was then very unpopular, aside from his moralteachings, for being declared by the oracle of Delphi the wisest man inthe world, and for having been intimate with the two men whom theAthenians above all men justly execrated, --Critias, the chief of theThirty Tyrants whom Lysander had imposed, or at least consented to, after the Peloponnesian war; and Alcibiades, whose evil counsels had ledto an unfortunate expedition, and who in addition had proved himself atraitor to his country. Public opinion being now against him, on various grounds he is broughtto trial before the Dikastery, --a board of some five hundred judges, leading citizens of Athens. One of his chief accusers was Anytus, --arich tradesman, of very narrow mind, personally hostile to Socratesbecause of the influence the philosopher had exerted over his son, yetwho then had considerable influence from the active part he had taken inthe expulsion of the Thirty Tyrants. The more formidable accuser wasMeletus, --a poet and a rhetorician, who had been irritated by Socrates'terrible cross-examinations. The principal charges against him were, that he did not admit the gods acknowledged by the republic, and that hecorrupted the youth of Athens. In regard to the first charge, it could not be technically proved thathe had assailed the gods, for he was exact in his legal worship; butreally and virtually there was some foundation for the accusation, sinceSocrates was a religious innovator if ever there was one. His loftyrealism _was_ subversive of popular superstitions, when logicallycarried out. As to the second charge, of corrupting youth, this wasutterly groundless; for he had uniformly enjoined courage, andtemperance, and obedience to the laws, and patriotism, and the controlof the passions, and all the higher sentiments of the soul But thetendency of his teachings was to create in young men contempt for allinstitutions based on falsehood or superstition or tyranny, and heopenly disapproved some of the existing laws, --such as choosingmagistrates by lot, --and freely expressed his opinions. In a narrow andtechnical sense there was some reason for this charge; for if a youngman came to combat his father's business or habits of life or generalopinions, in consequence of his own superior enlightenment, it might bemade out that he had not sufficient respect for his father, and thus wasfailing in the virtues of reverence and filial obedience. Considering the genius and innocence of the accused, he did not make anable defence; he might have done better. It appeared as if he did notwish to be acquitted. He took no thought of what he should say; he madeno preparation for so great an occasion. He made no appeal to thepassions and feelings of his judges. He refused the assistance ofLysias, the greatest orator of the day. He brought neither his wife norchildren to incline the judges in his favor by their sighs and tears. His discourse was manly, bold, noble, dignified, but without passion andwithout art. His unpremeditated replies seemed to scorn an elaboratedefence. He even seemed to rebuke his judges, rather than to conciliatethem. On the culprit's bench he assumed the manners of a teacher. Hemight easily have saved himself, for there was but a small majority(only five or six at the first vote) for his condemnation. And then heirritated his judges unnecessarily. According to the laws he had theprivilege of proposing a substitution for his punishment, which wouldhave been accepted, --exile for instance; but, with a provoking and yetamusing irony, he asked to be supported at the public expense in thePrytaneum: that is, he asked for the highest honor of the republic. Fora condemned criminal to ask this was audacity and defiance. We cannot otherwise suppose than that he did not wish to be acquitted. He wished to die. The time had come; he had fulfilled his mission; hewas old and poor; his condemnation would bring his truths before theworld in a more impressive form. He knew the moral greatness of amartyr's death. He reposed in the calm consciousness of having renderedgreat services, of having made important revelations. He never had anignoble love of life; death had no terrors to him at any time. So he wasperfectly resigned to his fate. Most willingly he accepted the penaltyof plain speaking, and presented no serious remonstrances and noindignant denials. Had he pleaded eloquently for his life, he would nothave fulfilled his mission. He acted with amazing foresight; he took theonly course which would secure a lasting influence. He knew that hisdeath would evoke a new spirit of inquiry, which would spread over thecivilized world. It was a public disappointment that he did not defendhimself with more earnestness. But he was not seeking applause for hisgenius, --simply the final triumph of his cause, best secured bymartyrdom. So he received his sentence with evident satisfaction; and in theinterval between it and his execution he spent his time in cheerful butlofty conversations with his disciples. He unhesitatingly refused toescape from his prison when the means would have been provided. His lasthours were of immortal beauty. His friends were dissolved in tears, buthe was calm, composed, triumphant; and when he lay down to die heprayed that his migration to the unknown land might be propitious. Hedied without pain, as the hemlock produced only torpor. His death, as may well be supposed, created a profound impression. Itwas one of the most memorable events of the pagan world, whose greatestlight was extinguished, --no, not extinguished, since it has been shiningever since in the "Memorabilia" of Xenophon and the "Dialogues" ofPlato. Too late the Athenians repented of their injustice and cruelty. They erected to his memory a brazen statue, executed by Lysippus. Hischaracter and his ideas are alike immortal. The schools of Athensproperly date from his death, about the year 400 B. C. , and these schoolsredeemed the shame of her loss of political power. The Socraticphilosophy, as expounded by Plato, survived the wrecks of materialgreatness. It entered even into the Christian schools, especially atAlexandria; it has ever assisted and animated the earnest searchersafter the certitudes of life; it has permeated the intellectual world, and found admirers and expounders in all the universities of Europe andAmerica. "No man has ever been found, " says Grote, "strong enough tobend the bow of Socrates, the father of philosophy, the most originalthinker of antiquity. " His teachings gave an immense impulse tocivilization, but they could not reform or save the world; it was toodeeply sunk in the infamies and immoralities of an Epicurean life. Norwas his philosophy ever popular in any age of our world. It never willbe popular until the light which men hate shall expel the darkness whichthey love. But it has been the comfort and the joy of an esotericfew, --the witnesses of truth whom God chooses, to keep alive the virtuesand the ideas which shall ultimately triumph over all the forcesof evil. * * * * * AUTHORITIES. The direct sources are chiefly Plato (Jowett's translation) andXenophon. Indirect sources: chiefly Aristotle, Metaphysics; DiogenesLaertius's Lives of Philosophers; Grote's History of Greece; Brandis'sPlato, in Smith's Dictionary; Ralph Waldo Emerson's Representative Men;Cicero on Immortality; J. Martineau, Essay on Plato; Thirlwall's Historyof Greece. See also the late work of Curtius; Ritter's History ofPhilosophy; F. D. Maurice's History of Moral Philosophy; G. H. Lewes'Biographical History of Philosophy; Hampden's Fathers of GreekPhilosophy; J. S. Blackie's Wise Men of Greece; Starr King's Lecture onSocrates; Smith's Biographical Dictionary; Ueberweg's History ofPhilosophy; W. A. Butler's History of Ancient Philosophy; Grote'sAristotle. PHIDIAS 500-430 B. C. GREEK ART. I suppose there is no subject, at this time, which interests cultivatedpeople in favored circumstances more than Art. They travel in Europe, they visit galleries, they survey cathedrals, they buy pictures, theycollect old china, they learn to draw and paint, they go into ecstasiesover statues and bronzes, they fill their houses with bric-á-brac, theyassume a cynical criticism, or gossip pedantically, whether they knowwhat they are talking about or not. In short, the contemplation of Artis a fashion, concerning which it is not well to be ignorant, and aboutwhich there is an amazing amount of cant, pretension, and borrowedopinions. Artists themselves differ in their judgments, and many whopatronize them have no severity of discrimination. We see bad pictureson the walls of private palaces, as well as in public galleries, forwhich fabulous prices are paid because they are, or are supposed to be, the creation of great masters, or because they are rare like old booksin an antiquarian library, or because fashion has given them afictitious value, even when these pictures fail to create pleasure oremotion in those who view them. And yet there is great enjoyment, tosome people, in the contemplation of a beautiful building or statue orpainting, --as of a beautiful landscape or of a glorious sky. The ideasof beauty, of grace, of grandeur, which are eternal, are suggested tothe mind and soul; and these cultivate and refine in proportion as themind and soul are enlarged, especially among the rich, the learned, andthe favored classes. So, in high civilizations, especially material, Artis not only a fashion but a great enjoyment, a lofty study, and a themeof general criticism and constant conversation. It is my object, of course, to present the subject historically, ratherthan critically. My criticisms would be mere opinions, worth no morethan those of thousands of other people. As a public teacher to thosewho may derive some instruction from my labors and studies, I presume tooffer only reflections on Art as it existed among the Greeks, and toshow its developments in an historical point of view. The reader may be surprised that I should venture to present Phidias asone of the benefactors of the world, when so little is known about him, or can be known about him. So far as the man is concerned, I might aswell lecture on Melchizedek, or Pharaoh, or one of the dukes of Edom. There are no materials to construct a personal history which would beinteresting, such as abound in reference to Michael Angelo or Raphael. Thus he must be made the mere text of a great subject. The developmentof Art is an important part of the history of civilization. Theinfluence of Art on human culture and happiness is prodigious. AncientGrecian art marks one of the stepping-stones of the race. Any man wholargely contributed to its development was a world-benefactor. Now, history says this much of Phidias: that he lived in the time ofPericles, --in the culminating period of Grecian glory, --and ornamentedthe Parthenon with his unrivalled statues; which Parthenon was to Athenswhat Solomon's Temple was to Jerusalem, --a wonder, a pride, and a glory. His great contribution to that matchless edifice was the statue ofMinerva, made of gold and ivory, forty feet in height, the gold of whichalone was worth forty-four talents, --about fifty-thousand dollars, --animmense sum when gold was probably worth more than twenty times itspresent value. All antiquity was unanimous in its praise of this statue, and the exactness and finish of its details were as remarkable as thegrandeur and majesty of its proportions. Another of the famous works ofPhidias was the bronze statue of Minerva, which was the glory of theAcropolis, This was sixty feet in height. But even this yielded to thecolossal statue of Zeus or Jupiter in his great temple at Olympia, representing the figure in a sitting posture, forty feet high, on athrone made of gold, ebony, ivory, and precious stones. In this statuethe immortal artist sought to represent power in repose, as MichaelAngelo did in his statue of Moses. So famous was this majestic statue, that it was considered a calamity to die without seeing it; and itserved as a model for all subsequent representations of majesty andrepose among the ancients. This statue, removed to Constantinople byTheodosius the Great, remained undestroyed until the year 475 A. D. Phidias also executed various other works, --all famous in hisday, --which have, however, perished; but many executed under hissuperintendence still remain, and are universally admired for theirgrace and majesty of form. The great master himself was probably vastlysuperior to any of his disciples, and impressed his genius on the age, having, so far as we know, no rival among his contemporaries, as he hashad no successor among the moderns of equal originality and power, unless it be Michael Angelo. His distinguished excellence was simplicityand grandeur; and he was to sculpture what Aeschylus was to tragicpoetry, --sublime and grand, representing ideal excellence, Though hisworks have perished, the ideas he represented still live. His fame isimmortal, though we know so little about him. It is based on theadmiration of antiquity, on the universal praise which his creationsextorted even from the severest critics in an age of Art, when the bestenergies of an ingenious people were directed to it with the absorbingdevotion now given to mechanical inventions and those pursuits whichmake men rich and comfortable. It would be interesting to know theprivate life of this great artist, his ardent loves and fierceresentments, his social habits, his public honors and triumphs, --butthis is mere speculation. We may presume that he was rich, flattered, and admired, --the companion of great statesmen, rulers, and generals;not a persecuted man like Dante, but honored like Raphael; one of thefortunate of earth, since he was a master of what was most valued inhis day. But it is the work which he represents--and still more comprehensivelyArt itself in the ancient world--to which I would call your attention, especially the expression of Art in buildings, in statues, andin pictures. "Art" is itself a very great word, and means many things; it is appliedto style in writing, to musical compositions, and even to effectiveeloquence, as well as to architecture, sculpture, and painting. Wespeak of music as artistic, --and not foolishly; of an artistic poet, oran artistic writer like Voltaire or Macaulay; of an artisticpreacher, --by which we mean that each and all move the sensibilities andsouls and minds of men by adherence to certain harmonies which accordwith fixed ideas of grace, beauty, and dignity. Eternal ideas which themind conceives are the foundation of Art, as they are of Philosophy. Artclaims to be creative, and is in a certain sense inspired, like thegenius of a poet. However material the creation, the spirit which givesbeauty to it is of the mind and soul. Imagination is tasked to itsutmost stretch to portray sentiments and passions in the way that makesthe deepest impression. The marble bust becomes animated, and even thetemple consecrated to the deity becomes religious, in proportion asthese suggest the ideas and sentiments which kindle the soul toadmiration and awe. These feelings belong to every one by nature, andare most powerful when most felicitously called out by the magic of themaster, who requires time and labor to perfect his skill. Art istherefore popular, and appeals to every one, but to those most who livein the great ideas on which it is based. The peasant stands awe-struckbefore the majestic magnitude of a cathedral; the man of culture isroused to enthusiasm by the contemplation of its grand proportions, orgraceful outlines, or bewitching details, because he sees in them therealization of his ideas of beauty, grace, and majesty, which shineforever in unutterable glory, --indestructible ideas which survive allthrones and empires, and even civilizations. They are as imperishable asstars and suns and rainbows and landscapes, since these unfold newbeauties as the mind and soul rest upon them. Whenever, then, mancreates an image or a picture which reveals these eternal butindescribable beauties, and calls forth wonder or enthusiasm, andexcites refined pleasures, he is an artist. He impresses, to a greateror less degree, every order and class of men. He becomes a benefactor, since he stimulates exalted sentiments, which, after all, are the realglory and pride of life, and the cause of all happiness and virtue, --incottage or in palace, amid hard toils as well as in luxurious leisure. He is a self-sustained man, since he revels in ideas rather than inpraises and honors. Like the man of virtue, he finds in the adoration ofthe deity he worships his highest reward. Michael Angelo workedpreoccupied and rapt, without even the stimulus of praise, to advancedold age, even as Dante lived in the visions to which his imaginationgave form and reality. Art is therefore not only self-sustained, butlofty and unselfish. It is indeed the exalted soul going forthtriumphant over external difficulties, jubilant and melodious even inpoverty and neglect, rising above all the evils of life, revelling inthe glories which are impenetrable, and living--for the time--in therealm of deities and angels. The accidents-of earth are no more to thetrue artist striving to reach and impersonate his ideal of beauty andgrace, than furniture and tapestries are to a true woman seeking thebeatitudes of love. And it is only when there is this soul longing toreach the excellence conceived, for itself alone, that great works havebeen produced. When Art has been prostituted to pander to pervertedtastes, or has been stimulated by thirst for gain, then inferior worksonly have been created. Fra Angelico lived secluded in a convent when hepainted his exquisite Madonnas. It was the exhaustion of the nervousenergies consequent on superhuman toils, rather than the luxuries andpleasures which his position and means afforded, which killed Raphael atthirty-seven. The artists of Greece did not live for utilities any more than did theIonian philosophers, but in those glorious thoughts and creations whichwere their chosen joy. Whatever can be reached by the unaided powers ofman was attained by them. They represented all that the mind canconceive of the beauty of the human form, and the harmony ofarchitectural proportions, In the realm of beauty and grace moderncivilization has no prouder triumphs than those achieved by the artistsof Pagan antiquity. Grecian artists have been the teachers of allnations and all ages in architecture, sculpture, and painting. How farthey were themselves original we cannot tell. We do not know how muchthey were indebted to Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Assyrians, but in realexcellence they have never been surpassed. In some respects, their worksstill remain objects of hopeless imitation: in the realization of ideasof beauty and form, they reached absolute perfection. Hence we have aright to infer that Art can flourish under Pagan as well as Christianinfluences. It was a comparatively Pagan age in Italy when the greatartists arose who succeeded Da Vinci, especially under the patronage ofthe Medici and the Medicean popes. Christianity has only modified Art bypurifying it from sensual attractions. Christianity added very little toArt, until cathedrals arose in their grand proportions and infinitedetails, and until artists sought to portray in the faces of theirSaints and Madonnas the seraphic sentiments of Christian love andangelic purity. Art even declined in the Roman world from the secondcentury after Christ, in spite of all the efforts of Christian emperors. In fact neither Christianity nor Paganism creates it; it seems to beindependent of both, and arises from the peculiar genius andcircumstances of an age. Make Art a fashion, honor and reward it, crownits great masters with Olympic leaves, direct the energies of an age orrace upon it, and we probably shall have great creations, whether thepeople are Christian or Pagan. So that Art seems to be a human creation, rather than a divine inspiration. It is the result of genius, stimulatedby circumstances and directed to the contemplation of ideal excellence. Much has been written on those principles upon which Art is supposed tobe founded, but not very satisfactorily, although great learning andingenuity have been displayed. It is difficult to conceive of beauty orgrace by definitions, ---as difficult as it is to define love or anyother ultimate sentiment of the soul. "Metaphysics, mathematics, music, and philosophy, " says Cleghorn, "have been called in to analyze, define, demonstrate, or generalize, " Great critics, like Burke, Alison, andStewart, have written interesting treatises on beauty and taste. "Platorepresents beauty as the contemplation of the mind. Leibnitz maintainedthat it consists in perfection. Diderot referred beauty to the idea ofrelation. Blondel asserted that it was in harmonic proportions. Leighspeaks of it as the music of the age. " These definitions do not muchassist us. We fall back on our own conceptions or intuitions, asprobably did Phidias, although Art in Greece could hardly have attainedsuch perfection without the aid which poetry and history and philosophyalike afforded. Art can flourish only as the taste of the peoplebecomes cultivated, and by the assistance of many kinds of knowledge. The mere contemplation of Nature is not enough. Savages have no art atall, even when they live amid grand mountains and beside theever-changing sea. When Phidias was asked how he conceived his OlympianJove, he referred to Homer's poems. Michael Angelo was enabled to paintthe saints and sibyls of the Sistine Chapel from familiarity with thewritings of the Jewish prophets. Isaiah inspired him as truly as Homerinspired Phidias. The artists of the age of Phidias were encouraged andassisted by the great poets, historians, and philosophers who basked inthe sunshine of Pericles, even as the great men in the Court ofElizabeth derived no small share of their renown from her gloriousappreciation. Great artists appear in clusters, and amid the otherconstellations that illuminate the intellectual heavens. They allmutually assist each other. When Rome lost her great men, Art declined. When the egotism of Louis XIV. Extinguished genius, the great lights inall departments disappeared. So Art is indebted not merely to thecontemplation of ideal beauty, but to the influence of great ideaspermeating society, --such as when the age of Phidias was kindled withthe great thoughts of Socrates, Democritus, Thucydides, Euripides, Aristophanes, and others, whether contemporaries or not; a sort ofAugustan or Elizabethan age, never to appear but once among thesame people. Now, in reference to the history or development of ancient Art, until itculminated in the age of Pericles, we observe that its first expressionwas in architecture, and was probably the result of religioussentiments, when nations were governed by priests, and not distinguishedfor intellectual life. Then arose the temples of Egypt, of Assyria, ofIndia. They are grand, massive, imposing, but not graceful or beautiful. They arose from blended superstition and piety, and were probablyerected before the palaces of kings, and in Egypt by the dynasty thatbuilded the older pyramids. Even those ambitious and prodigiousmonuments, which have survived every thing contemporaneous, indicate thereign of sacerdotal monarchs and artists who had no idea of beauty, butonly of permanence. They do not indicate civilization, butdespotism, --unless it be that they were erected for astronomicalpurposes, as some maintain, rather than as sepulchres for kings. Butthis supposition involves great mathematical attainments. It isdifficult to conceive of such a waste of labor by enlightened princes, acquainted with astronomical and mathematical knowledge and mechanicalforces, for Herodotus tells us that one hundred thousand men toiled onthe Great Pyramid during forty years. What for? Surely it is hard tosuppose that such a pile was necessary for the observation of the polarstar; and still less probably was it built as a sepulchre for a king, since no covered sarcophagus has ever been found in it, nor have evenany hieroglyphics. The mystery seems impenetrable. But the temples are not mysteries. They were built also by sacerdotalmonarchs, in honor of the deity. They must have been enormous, perhapsthe most imposing ever built by man: witness the ruins of Karnac--atemple designated by the Greeks as that of Jupiter Ammon---with itslarge blocks of stone seventy feet in length, on a platform one thousandfeet long and three hundred wide, its alleys over a mile in length linedwith colossal sphinxes, and all adorned with obelisks and columns, andsurrounded with courts and colonnades, like Solomon's temple, toaccommodate the crowds of worshippers as well as priests. But theseenormous structures were not marked by beauty of proportion or fitnessof ornament; they show the power of kings, not the genius of a nation. They may have compelled awe; they did not kindle admiration. The emotionthey called out was such as is produced now by great engineeringexploits, involving labor and mechanical skill, not suggestive of graceor harmony, which require both taste and genius. The same is probablytrue of Solomon's temple, built at a much later period, when Art hadbeen advanced somewhat by the Phoenicians, to whose assistance it seemshe was much indebted. We cannot conceive how that famous structureshould have employed one hundred and fifty thousand men for elevenyears, and have cost what would now be equal to $200, 000, 000, from anydescription which has come down to us, or any ruins which remain, unlessit were surrounded by vast courts and colonnades, and ornamented by aprofuse expenditure of golden plates, --which also evince both power andmoney rather than architectural genius. After the erection of temples came the building of palaces for kings, equally distinguished for vast magnitude and mechanical skill, butdeficient in taste and beauty, showing the infancy of Art. Yet eventhese were in imitation of the temples. And as kings became proud andsecular, probably their palaces became grander and larger, --like thepalaces of Nebuchadnezzar and Rameses the Great and the Persian monarchsat Susa, combining labor, skill, expenditure, dazzling the eye by thenumber of columns and statues and vast apartments, yet still deficientin beauty and grace. It was not until the Greeks applied their wonderful genius toarchitecture that it became the expression of a higher civilization. And, as among Egyptians, Art in Greece is first seen in temples; for theearlier Greeks were religious, although they worshipped the deity undervarious names, and in the forms which their own hands did make. The Dorians, who descended from the mountains of northern Greece, eightyyears after the fall of Troy, were the first who added substantially tothe architectural art of Asiatic nations, by giving simplicity andharmony to their temples. We see great thickness of columns, a fittingproportion to the capitals, and a beautiful entablature. The horizontallines of the architrave and cornice predominate over the vertical linesof the columns. The temple arises in the severity of geometrical forms. The Doric column was not entirely a new creation, but was an improvementon the Egyptian model, --less massive, more elegant, fluted, increasinggradually towards the base, with a slight convexed swelling downward, about six diameters in height, superimposed by capitals. "So regular wasthe plan of the temple, that if the dimensions of a single column andthe proportion the entablature should bear to it were given to twoindividuals acquainted with this style, with directions to compose atemple, they would produce designs exactly similar in size, arrangement, and general proportions. " And yet while the style of all the Dorictemples is the same, there are hardly two temples alike, being varied bythe different proportions of the _column_, which is the peculiar mark ofGrecian architecture, even as the _arch_ is the feature of Gothicarchitecture. The later Doric was less massive than the earlier, butmore rich in sculptured ornaments. The pedestal was from two thirds to awhole diameter of a column in height, built in three courses, forming asit were steps to the platform on which the pillar rested. The pillar hadtwenty flutes, with a capital of half a diameter, supporting theentablature. This again, two diameters in height, was divided intoarchitrave, frieze, and cornice. But the great beauty of the temple wasthe portico in front, --a forest of columns, supporting the pedimentabove, which had at the base an angle of about fourteen degrees. Fromthe pediment the beautiful cornice projects with various mouldings, while at the base and at the apex are sculptured monuments representingboth men and animals. The graceful outline of the columns, and thevariety of light and shade arising from the arrangement of mouldings andcapitals, produced an effect exceedingly beautiful. All the glories ofthis order of architecture culminated in the Parthenon, --built ofPentelic marble, resting on a basement of limestone, surrounded withforty-eight fluted columns of six feet and two inches diameter at thebase and thirty-four feet in height, the frieze and pediment elaboratelyornamented with reliefs and statues, while within the cella or interiorwas the statue of Minerva, forty feet high, built of gold and ivory. Thewalls were decorated with the rarest paintings, and the cella itselfcontained countless treasures. This unrivalled temple was not so largeas some of the cathedrals of the Middle Ages, but it covered twelvetimes the ground of the temple of Solomon, and from the summit of theAcropolis it shone as a wonder and a glory. The marbles have crumbledand its ornaments have been removed, but it has formed the model of themost beautiful buildings of the world, from the Quirinus at Rome to theMadeleine at Paris, stimulating alike the genius of Michael Angelo andChristopher Wren, immortal in the ideas it has perpetuated, andimmeasurable in the influence it has exerted. Who has copied the Flavianamphitheatre except as a convenient form for exhibitors on the stage, orfor the rostrum of an orator? Who has not copied the Parthenon as theseverest in its proportions for public buildings for civic purposes? The Ionic architecture is only a modification of the Doric, --its columnsmore slender and with a greater number of flutes, and capitals moreelaborate, formed with volutes or spiral scrolls, while its pediment, the triangular facing of the portico, is formed with a less angle fromthe base, --the whole being more suggestive of grace than strength. Vitruvius, the greatest authority among the ancients, says that "theGreeks, in inventing these two kinds of columns, imitated in the one thenaked simplicity and aspects of a man, and in the other the delicacyand ornaments of a woman, whose ringlets appear in the volutes ofthe capital. " The Corinthian order, which was the most copied by the Romans, was stillmore ornamented, with foliated capitals, greater height, and a moredecorated entablature. But the principles of all these three orders are substantially thesame, --their beauty consisting in the column and horizontal lines, evenas vertical lines marked the Gothic. We see the lintel and not the arch;huge blocks of stone perfectly squared, and not small stones irregularlylaid; external rather than internal pillars, the cella receiving lightfrom the open roof above, rather than from windows; a simple outlineuninterrupted, --generally in the form of a parallelogram, --rather thanbroken by projections. There is no great variety; but the harmony, theseverity, and beauty of proportion will eternally be admired, and cannever be improved, --a temple of humanity, cheerful, useful, complete, not aspiring to reach what on earth can never be obtained, with nogloomy vaults speaking of maceration and grief, no lofty towers andspires soaring to the sky, no emblems typical of consecrated sentimentsand of immortality beyond the grave, but rich in ornaments drawn fromthe living world, --of plants and animals, of man in the perfection ofphysical strength, of woman in the unapproachable loveliness of graceof form. As the world becomes pagan, intellectual, thrifty, we see thearchitecture of the Greeks in palaces, banks, halls, theatres, stores, libraries; when it is emotional, poetic, religious, fervent, aspiring, we see the restoration of the Gothic in churches, cathedrals, schools, --for Philosophy and Art did all they could to civilize theworld before Christianity was sent to redeem it and prepare mankind forthe life above. Such was the temple of the Greeks, reappearing in allthe architectures of nations, from the Romans to our own times, --soperfect that no improvements have subsequently been made, no newprinciples discovered which were not known to Vitruvius. What acreation, to last in its simple beauty for more than two thousand years, and forever to remain a perfect model of its kind! Ah, that was atriumph of Art, the praises of which have been sung for more than sixtygenerations, and will be sung for hundreds yet to come. But how hiddenand forgotten the great artists who invented all this, showing thelittleness of man and the greatness of Art itself. How true that oldGreek saying, "Life is short, but Art is long. " But the genius displayed in sculpture was equally remarkable, and wascarried to the same perfection. The Greeks did not originate sculpture. We read of sculptured images from remotest antiquity. Assyria, Egypt, and India are full of relics. But these are rude, unformed, withoutgrace, without expression, though often colossal and grand. There arebut few traces of emotion, or passion, or intellectual force. Everythingwhich has come down from the ancient monarchies is calm, impassive, imperturbable. Nor is there a severe beauty of form. There is no grace, no loveliness, that we should desire them. Nature was not severelystudied. We see no aspiration after what is ideal. Sometimes thesculptures are grotesque, unnatural, and impure. They are emblematic ofstrange deities, or are rude monuments of heroes and kings. They arecurious, but they do not inspire us. We do not copy them; we turn awayfrom them. They do not live, and they are not reproduced. Art couldspare them all, except as illustrations of its progress. They are merelyhistorical monuments, to show despotism and superstition, and thedegradation of the people. But this cannot be said of the statues which the Greeks created, orimproved from ancient models. In the sculptures of the Greeks we see theutmost perfection of the human form, both of man and woman, learned bythe constant study of anatomy and of nude figures of the greatestbeauty. A famous statue represented the combined excellences of perhapsone hundred different persons. The study of the human figure became anoble object of ambition, and led to conceptions of ideal grace andloveliness such as no one human being perhaps ever possessed in allrespects. And not merely grace and beauty were thus represented inmarble or bronze, but dignity, repose, majesty. We see in those figureswhich have survived the ravages of time suggestions of motion, rest, grace, grandeur, --every attitude, every posture, every variety of form. We see also every passion which moves the human soul, --grief, rage, agony, shame, joy, peace. But it is the perfection of form which is mostwonderful and striking. Nor did the artists work to please the vulgarrich, but to realize their own highest conceptions, and to representsentiments in which the whole nation shared. They sought to instruct;they appealed to the highest intelligence. "Some sought to representtender beauty, others daring power, and others again heroic grandeur. "Grecian statuary began with ideal representations of deities; then itproduced the figures of gods and goddesses in mortal forms; then theportrait-statues of distinguished men. This art was later in itsdevelopment than architecture, since it was directed to ornamenting whathad already nearly reached perfection. Thus Phidias ornamented theParthenon in the time of Pericles, when sculpture was purest and mostideal In some points of view it declined after Phidias, but in otherrespects it continued to improve until it culminated in Lysippus, whowas contemporaneous with Alexander. He is said to have executed fifteenhundred statues, and to have displayed great energy of execution. Heidealized human beauty, and imitated Nature to the minutest details. Healone was selected to make the statue of Alexander, which is lost. Noneof his works, which were chiefly in bronze, are extant; but it issupposed that the famous _Hercules_ and the _Torso Belvedere_ are copiesfrom his works, since his favorite subject was Hercules. We only canjudge of his great merits from his transcendent reputation and thecriticism of classic writers, and also from the works that have comedown to us which are supposed to be imitations of his masterpieces. Itwas his scholars who sculptured the _Colossus of Rhodes_, the _Laocoön_, and the _Dying Gladiator_. After him plastic art rapidly degenerated, since it appealed to passion, especially under Praxiteles, who wasfamous for his undraped Venuses and the expression of sensual charms. The decline of Art was rapid as men became rich, and Epicurean life wassought as the highest good. Skill of execution did not decline, butideal beauty was lost sight of, until the art itself was prostituted--asamong the Romans--to please perverted tastes or to flattersenatorial pride. But our present theme is not the history of decline, but of theoriginal creations of genius, which have been copied in every succeedingage, and which probably will never be surpassed, except in some inferiorrespects, --in mere mechanical skill. The _Olympian Jove_ of Phidiaslives perhaps in the _Moses_ of Michael Angelo, great as was hisoriginal genius, even as the _Venus_ of Praxiteles may have beenreproduced in Powers's _Greek Slave_. The great masters had innumerableimitators, not merely in the representation of man but of animals. Whata study did these artists excite, especially in their own age, and howhonorable did they make their noble profession even in degenerate times!They were the school-masters of thousands and tens of thousands, perpetuating their ideas to remotest generations. Their instructionswere not lost, and never can be lost in a realm which constitutes one ofthe proudest features of our own civilization. It is true thatChristianity does not teach aesthetic culture, but it teaches the dutieswhich prevent the eclipse of Art. In this way it comes to the rescue ofArt when in danger of being perverted. Grecian Art was consecrated toPaganism, --but, revived, it may indirectly be made tributary toChristianity, like music and eloquence. It will not conserveChristianity, but may be purified by it, even if able to flourishwithout it. I can now only glance at the third development of Grecian Art, as seenin painting. It is not probable that such perfection was reached in this art as insculpture and architecture. We have no means of forming incontrovertibleopinions. Most of the ancient pictures have perished; and those thatremain, while they show correctness of drawing and brilliant coloring, do not give us as high conceptions of ideal beauties as do the picturesof the great masters of modern times. But we have the testimony of theancients themselves, who were as enthusiastic in their admiration ofpictures as they were of statues. And since their taste was severe, andtheir sensibility as to beauty unquestioned, we have a right to inferthat even painting was carried to considerable perfection among theGreeks. We read of celebrated schools, --like the modern schools ofFlorence, Rome, Bologna, Venice, and Naples. The schools of Sicyon, Corinth, Athens, and Rhodes were as famous in their day as the modernschools to which I have alluded. Painting, being strictly a decoration, did not reach a high degree ofart, like sculpture, until architecture was perfected. But painting isvery ancient. The walls of Babylon, it is asserted by the ancienthistorians, were covered with paintings. Many survive amid the ruins ofEgypt and on the chests of mummies; though these are comparatively rude, without regard to light and shade, like Chinese pictures. Nor do theyrepresent passions and emotions. They aimed to perpetuate historicalevents, not ideas. The first paintings of the Greeks simply marked outthe outline of figures. Next appeared the inner markings, as we see inancient vases, on a white ground. The effects of light and shade werethen introduced; and then the application of colors in accordance withNature. Cimon of Cleonae, in the eightieth Olympiad, invented the art of"fore-shortening, " and hence was the first painter of perspective. Polygnotus, a contemporary of Phidias, was nearly as famous for paintingas he was for sculpture. He was the first who painted woman withbrilliant drapery and variegated head-dresses. He gave to the cheek theblush and to his draperies gracefulness. He is said to have been a greatepic painter, as Phidias was an epic sculptor and Homer an epic poet. Heexpressed, like them, ideal beauty. But his pictures had no elaborategrouping, which is one of the excellences of modern art. His figureswere all in regular lines, like the bas-reliefs on a frieze. He took hissubjects from epic poetry. He is celebrated for his accurate drawing, and for the charm and grace of his female figures. He also gave greatgrandeur to his figures, like Michael Angelo. Contemporary with him wasDionysius, who was remarkable for expression, and Micon, who was skilledin painting horses. With Apollodorus of Athens, who flourished toward the close of the fifthcentury before Christ, there was a new development, --that of dramaticeffect. His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by theappearance of reality. He painted men and things as they appeared. Healso improved coloring, invented _chiaroscuro_ (or the art of relief bya proper distribution of the lights and shadows), and thus obtained whatis called "tone. " He prepared the way for Zeuxis, who surpassed him inthe power to give beauty to forms. The _Helen_ of Zeuxis was paintedfrom five of the most beautiful women of Croton. He aimed at completeillusion of the senses, as in the instance recorded of his grapepicture. His style was modified by the contemplation of the sculpturesof Phidias, and he taught the true method of grouping. His markedexcellence was in the contrast of light and shade. He did not paintideal excellence; he was not sufficiently elevated in his own moralsentiments to elevate the feelings of others: he painted sensuous beautyas it appeared in the models which he used. But he was greatly extolled, and accumulated a great fortune, like Rubens, and lived ostentatiously, as rich and fortunate men ever have lived who do not possess elevationof sentiment. His headquarters were not at Athens, but at Ephesus, --acity which also produced Parrhasins, to whom Zeuxis himself gave thepalm, since he deceived the painter by his curtain, while Zeuxis onlydeceived birds by his grapes. Parrhasius established the rule ofproportions, which was followed by succeeding artists. He was a veryluxurious and arrogant man, and fancied he had reached the perfectionof his art. But if that was ever reached among the ancients it was by Apelles, --theTitian of that day, --who united the rich coloring of the Ionian schoolwith the scientific severity of the school of Sicyonia. He alone waspermitted to paint the figure of Alexander, as Lysippus only was allowedto represent him in bronze. He invented ivory black, and was the firstto cover his pictures with a coating of varnish, to bring out the colorsand preserve them. His distinguishing excellency was grace, --"thatartless balance of motion and repose, " says Fuseli, "springing fromcharacter and founded on propriety. " Others may have equalled him inperspective, accuracy, and finish, but he added a refinement of tastewhich placed him on the throne which is now given to Raphael. No artistscould complete his unfinished pictures. He courted the severestcriticism, and, like Michael Angelo, had no jealousy of thefame of other artists; he reposed in the greatness of his ownself-consciousness. He must have made enormous sums of money, since oneof his pictures--a Venus rising out of the sea, painted for a temple inCos, and afterwards removed by Augustus to Rome--cost one hundredtalents (equal to about one hundred thousand dollars), --a greater sum, I apprehend, than was ever paid to a modern artist for a single picture, certainly in view of the relative value of gold. In this picture femalegrace was impersonated. After Apelles the art declined, although there were distinguishedartists for several centuries. They generally flocked to Rome, wherethere was the greatest luxury and extravagance, and they, pandered tovanity and a vitiated taste. The masterpieces of the old artists broughtenormous sums, as the works of the old masters do now; and they werebrought to Rome by the conquerors, as the masterpieces of Italy andSpain and Flanders were brought to Paris by Napoleon. So Rome graduallypossessed the best pictures of the world, without stimulating the art ormaking new creations; it could appreciate genius, but creative geniusexpired with Grecian liberties and glories. Rome multiplied and rewardedpainters, but none of them were famous. Pictures were as common asstatues. Even Varro, a learned writer, had a gallery of seven hundredportraits. Pictures were placed in all the baths, theatres, temples, andpalaces, as were statues. We are forced, therefore, to believe that the Greeks carried painting tothe same perfection that they did sculpture, not only from the praisesof critics like Cicero and Pliny, but from the universal enthusiasmwhich the painters created and the enormous prices they received. Whether Polygnotus was equal to Michael Angelo, Zeuxis to Titian, andApelles to Raphael, we cannot tell. Their works have perished. Whatremains to us, in the mural decorations of Pompeii and the designs onvases, seem to confirm the criticisms of the ancients. We cannotconceive how the Greek painters could have equalled the great Italianmasters, since they had fewer colors, and did not make use of oil, butof gums mixed with the white of eggs, and resin and wax, which mixturewe call "encaustic. " Yet it is not the perfection of colors or ofdesign, or mechanical aids, or exact imitations, or perspective skill, which constitute the highest excellence of the painter, but his power ofcreation, --the power of giving ideal beauty and grandeur and grace, inspired by the contemplation of eternal ideas, an excellence whichappears in all the masterworks of the Greeks, and such as has not beensurpassed by the moderns. But Art was not confined to architecture, sculpture, and painting alone. It equally appears in all the literature of Greece. The Greek poets wereartists, as also the orators and historians, in the highest sense. Theywere the creators of _style_ in writing, which we do not see in theliterature of the Jews or other Oriental nations, marvellous andprofound as were their thoughts. The Greeks had the power of puttingthings so as to make the greatest impression on the mind. Thisespecially appears among such poets as Sophocles and Euripides, suchorators as Pericles and Demosthenes, such historians as Xenophon andThucydides, such philosophers as Plato and Aristotle. We see in theirfinished productions no repetitions, no useless expressions, nosuperfluity or redundancy, no careless arrangement, no words even in badtaste, save in the abusive epithets in which the orators indulged. Allis as harmonious in their literary style as in plastic art; while weread, unexpected pleasures arise in the mind, based on beauty andharmony, somewhat similar to the enjoyment of artistic music, or as whenwe read Voltaire, Rousseau, or Macaulay. We perceive art in thearrangement of sentences, in the rhythm, in the symmetry ofconstruction. We see means adapted to an end. The Latin races are mostmarked for artistic writing, especially the French, who seem to becopyists of Greek and Roman models. We see very little of this artisticwriting among the Germans, who seem to disdain it as much as an Englishlawyer or statesman does rhetoric. It is in rhetoric and poetry that Artmost strikingly appears in the writings of the Greeks, and this wasperfected by the Athenian Sophists. But all the Greeks, and after themthe Romans, especially in the time of Cicero, sought the graces andfascinations of style. Style is an art, and all art is eternal. It is probable also that Art was manifested to a high degree in theconversation of the Greeks, as they were brilliant talkers, --likeBrougham, Mackintosh, Madame de Staël, and Macaulay, in our times. But I may not follow out, as I could wish, this department ofArt, --generally overlooked, certainly not dwelt upon like pictures andstatues. An interesting and captivating writer or speaker is as much anartist as a sculptor or musician; and unless authors possess art theirworks are apt to perish, like those of Varro, the most learned of theRomans. It is the exquisite art seen in all the writings of Cicero whichmakes them classic; it is the style rather than the ideas. The same maybe said of Horace: it is his elegance of style and language which makeshim immortal. It is this singular fascination of language and stylewhich keeps Hume on the list of standard and classic writers, likePascal, Goldsmith, Voltaire, and Fénelon. It is on account of theseexcellences that the classical writers of antiquity will never losetheir popularity, and for which they will be imitated, and by which theyhave exerted their vast influence. Art, therefore, in every department, was carried to high excellence bythe Greeks, and they thus became the teachers of all succeeding racesand ages. Artists are great exponents of civilization. They aregenerally learned men, appreciated by the cultivated classes, andusually associating with the rich and proud. The Popes rewarded artistswhile they crushed reformers. I never read of an artist who waspersecuted. Men do not turn with disdain or anger in disputing withthem, as they do from great moral teachers; artists provoke noopposition and stir up no hostile passions. It is the men who propoundagitating ideas and who revolutionize the character of nations, that arepersecuted. Artists create no revolutions, not even of thought. Savonarola kindled a greater fire in Florence than all the artists whomthe Medici ever patronized. But if the artists cannot wear the crown ofapostles and reformers and sages, --the men who save nations, men likeSocrates, Luther, Bacon, Descartes, Burke, --yet they have fewer evils tocontend with in their progress, and they still leave a mighty impressionbehind them, not like that of Moses and Paul, but still an influence;they kindle the enthusiasm of a class that cannot be kindled by ideas, and furnish inexhaustible themes of conversation to cultivated peopleand make life itself graceful and beautiful, enriching our houses andadorning our consecrated temples and elevating our better sentiments. The great artist is himself immortal, even if he contributes very littleto save the world. Art seeks only the perfection of outward form; it ismundane in its labors; it does not aspire to those beatitudes whichshine beyond the grave. And yet it is a great and invaluable assistanceto those who would communicate great truths, since it puts them inattractive forms and increases the impression of the truths themselves. To the orator, the historian, the philosopher, and the poet, a knowledgeof the principles of Art is as important as to the architect, thesculptor, and the painter; and these principles are learned only bystudy and labor, while they cannot be even conceived of by ordinary men. Thus it would appear that in all departments and in all the developmentsof Art the Greeks were the teachers of the modern European nations, aswell of the ancient Romans; and their teachings will be invaluable toall the nations which are yet to arise, since no great improvement hasbeen made on the models which have come down to us, and no newprinciples have been discovered which were not known to them. Ineverything which pertains to Art they were benefactors of the humanrace, and gave a great impulse to civilization. AUTHORITIES. Müller's De Phidias Vita, Vitruvius, Aristotle. Pliny, Ovid, Martial, Lucian, and Cicero have made criticisms on ancient Art. The modernwriters are very numerous, especially among the Germans and the French. From these may be selected Winckelmann's History of Ancient Art;Müller's Remains of Ancient Art; Donaldson's Antiquities of Athens; SirW. Gill's Pompeiana; Montfançon's Antiquité Expliquée en Figures;Ancient Marbles of the British Museum, by Taylor Combe; Mayer'sKunstgechicte; Cleghorn's Ancient and Modern Art; Wilkinson's Topographyof Thebes; Dodwell's Classical Tour; Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians;Flaxman's Lectures on Sculpture; Fuseli's Lectures; Sir JoshuaReynolds's Lectures; also see five articles on Painting, Sculpture, andArchitecture, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and in Smith'sDictionary. LITERARY GENIUS: THE GREEK AND ROMAN CLASSICS. We know but little of the literature of antiquity until the Greeksapplied to it the principles of art. The Sanskrit language has revealedthe ancient literature of the Hindus, which is chiefly confined tomystical religious poetry, and which has already been mentioned in thechapter on "Ancient Religions. " There was no history worthy the name inIndia. The Egyptians and Babylonians recorded the triumphs of warriorsand domestic events, but those were mere annals without literary value. It is true that the literary remains of Egypt show a reading and writingpeople as early as three thousand years before Christ, and in theirvarious styles of pen-language reveal a remarkable variety ofdepartments and topics treated, --books of religion, of theology, ofethics, of medicine, of astronomy, of magic, of mythic poetry, offiction, of personal correspondence, etc. The difficulties ofdeciphering them, however, and their many peculiarities and formalismsof style, render them rather of curious historical and archaeologicalthan of literary interest. The Chinese annals also extend back to aremote period, for Confucius wrote history as well as ethics; butChinese literature has comparatively little interest for us, as alsothat of all Oriental nations, except the Hindu Vedas and the PersianZend-Avesta, and a few other poems showing great fertility of theimagination, with a peculiar tenderness and pathos. Accordingly, as I wish to show chiefly the triumphs of ancient geniuswhen directed to literature generally, and especially such as has had adirect influence upon our modern literature, I confine myself to that ofGreece and Rome. Even our present civilization delights in themasterpieces of the classical poets, historians, orators, and essayists, and seeks to rival them. Long before Christianity became a power thegreat literary artists of Greece had reached perfection in style andlanguage, especially in Athens, to which city youths were sent to beeducated, as to a sort of university town where the highest culture wasknown. Educated Romans were as familiar with the Greek classics as theywere with those of their own country, and could talk Greek as the moderncultivated Germans talk French. Without the aid of Greece, Rome couldnever have reached the civilization to which she attained. How rich in poetry was classical antiquity, whether sung in the Greekor Latin language! In all those qualities which give immortalityclassical poetry has never been surpassed, whether in simplicity, inpassion, in fervor, in fidelity to nature, in wit, or in imagination. Itexisted from the early times of Greek civilization, and continued towithin a brief period of the fall of the Roman empire. With the richaccumulation of ages the Romans were familiar. They knew nothing indeedof the solitary grandeur of the Jewish muse, or the Nature-myths of theante-Homeric singers; but they possessed the Iliad and the Odyssey, withtheir wonderful truthfulness, their clear portraiture of character, their absence of all affectation, their serenity and cheerfulness, theirgood sense and healthful sentiments, withal so original that the germ ofalmost every character which has since figured in epic poetry can befound in them. We see in Homer a poet of the first class, holding the same place inliterature that Plato holds in philosophy or Newton in science, andexercising a mighty influence on all the ages which have succeeded him. He was born, probably, at Smyrna, an Ionian city; the dates attributedto him range from the seventh to the twelfth century before Christ. Herodotus puts him at 850 B. C. For nearly three thousand years hisimmortal creations have been the delight and the inspiration of men ofgenius; and they are as marvellous to us as they were to the Athenians, since they are exponents of the learning as well as of the consecratedsentiments of the heroic ages. We find in them no pomp of words, nofar-fetched thoughts, no theatrical turgidity, no ambitiousspeculations, no indefinite longings; but we see the manners and customsof the primitive nations, the sights and wonders of the external world, the marvellously interesting traits of human nature as it was and is;and with these we have lessons of moral wisdom, --all recorded withsingular simplicity yet astonishing artistic skill. We find in theHomeric narrative accuracy, delicacy, naturalness, with grandeur, sentiment, and beauty, such as Phidias represented in his statues ofZeus. No poems have ever been more popular, and none have extortedgreater admiration from critics. Like Shakspeare, Homer is a kind ofBible to both the learned and unlearned among all peoples and ages, --one of the prodigies of the world. His poems form the basis of Greekliterature, and are the best understood and the most widely popular ofall Grecian compositions. The unconscious simplicity of the Homericnarrative, its high moral tone, its vivid pictures, its graphic details, and its religious spirit create an enthusiasm such as few works ofgenius can claim. Moreover it presents a painting of society, with itssimplicity and ferocity, its good and evil passions, its tenderness andits fierceness, such as no other poem affords. Its influence on thepopular mythology of the Greeks has been already alluded to. If Homerdid not create the Grecian theogony, he gave form and fascination to it. Nor is it necessary to speak of any other Grecian epic, when the Iliadand the Odyssey attest the perfection which was attained one hundred andtwenty years before Hesiod was born. Grote thinks that the Iliad and theOdyssey were produced at some period between 850 B. C. And 776 B. C. In lyrical poetry the Greeks were no less remarkable; indeed theyattained to what may be called absolute perfection, owing to theintimate connection between poetry and music, and the wonderfulelasticity and adaptiveness of their language. Who has surpassed Pindarin artistic skill? His triumphal odes are paeans, in which piety breaksout in expressions of the deepest awe and the most elevated sentimentsof moral wisdom. They alone of all his writings have descended to us, but these, made up as they are of odic fragments, songs, dirges, andpanegyrics, show the great excellence to which he attained. He was socelebrated that he was employed by the different States and princes ofGreece to compose choral songs for special occasions, especially for thepublic games. Although a Theban, he was held in the highest estimationby the Athenians, and was courted by kings and princes. Born in Thebes522 B. C. , he died probably in his eightieth year, being contemporarywith Aeschylus and the battle of Marathon. We possess also fragments ofSappho, Simonides, Anacreon, and others, enough to show that could thelyrical poetry of Greece be recovered, we should probably possess therichest collection that the world has produced. Greek dramatic poetry was still more varied and remarkable. Even thegreat masterpieces of Sophocles and Euripides now extant were regardedby their contemporaries as inferior to many other Greek tragediesutterly unknown to us. The great creator of the Greek drama wasAeschylus, born at Eleusis 525 B. C. It was not till the age of forty-onethat he gained his first prize. Sixteen years afterward, defeated bySophocles, he quitted Athens in disgust and went to the court of Hiero, king of Syracuse. But he was always held, even at Athens, in the highesthonor, and his pieces were frequently reproduced upon the stage. It wasnot so much the object of Aeschylus to amuse an audience as to instructand elevate it. He combined religious feeling with lofty moralsentiment, and had unrivalled power over the realm of astonishment andterror. "At his summons, " says Sir Walter Scott, "the mysterious andtremendous volume of destiny, in which is inscribed the doom of godsand men, seemed to display its leaves of iron before the appalledspectators; the more than mortal voices of Deities, Titans, and departedheroes were heard in awful conference; heaven bowed, and its divinitiesdescended; earth yawned, and gave up the pale spectres of the dead andyet more undefined and ghastly forms of those infernal deities whostruck horror into the gods themselves. " His imagination dwells in theloftiest regions of the old mythology of Greece; his tone is always pureand moral, though stern and harsh; he appeals to the most violentpassions, and is full of the boldest metaphors. In sublimity Aeschylushas never been surpassed. He was in poetry what Phidias and MichaelAngelo were in art. The critics say that his sublimity of diction issometimes carried to an extreme, so that his language becomes inflated. His characters, like his sentiments, were sublime, --they were gods andheroes of colossal magnitude. His religious views were Homeric, and hesought to animate his countrymen to deeds of glory, as it became one ofthe generals who fought at Marathon to do. He was an unconscious genius, and worked like Homer without a knowledge of artistic laws. He was proudand impatient, and his poetry was religious rather than moral. He wroteseventy plays, of which only seven are extant; but these are immortal, among the greatest creations of human genius, like the dramas ofShakspeare. He died in Sicily, in the sixty-ninth year of his age. The fame of Sophocles is scarcely less than that of Aeschylus. He wastwenty-seven years of age when he publicly appeared as a poet. He wasborn in Colonus, in the suburbs of Athens, 495 B. C. , and was thecontemporary of Herodotus, of Pericles, of Pindar, of Phidias, ofSocrates, of Cimon, of Euripides, --the era of great men, the period ofthe Peloponnesian War, when everything that was elegant and intellectualculminated at Athens. Sophocles had every element of character andperson to fascinate the Greeks, --beauty of face, symmetry of form, skill in gymnastics, calmness and dignity of manner, a cheerful andamiable temper, a ready wit, a meditative piety, a spontaneity ofgenius, an affectionate admiration for talent, and patriotic devotion tohis country. His tragedies, by the universal consent of the bestcritics, are the perfection of the Greek drama; and they moreovermaintain that he has no rival, Aeschylus and Shakspeare alone excepted, in the whole realm of dramatic poetry. It was the peculiarity ofSophocles to excite emotions of sorrow and compassion. He loved to paintforlorn heroes. He was human in all his sympathies, perhaps not soreligious as Aeschylus, but as severely ethical; not so sublime, butmore perfect in art. His sufferers are not the victims of an inexorabledestiny, but of their own follies. Nor does he even excite emotion apartfrom a moral end. He lived to be ninety years old, and produced the mostbeautiful of his tragedies in his eightieth year, the "Oedipus atColonus. " Sophocles wrote the astonishing number of one hundred andthirty plays, and carried off the first prize twenty-four times. His"Antigone" was written when he was forty-five, and when Euripides hadalready gained a prize. Only seven of his tragedies have survived, butthese are priceless treasures. Euripides, the last of the great triumvirate of the Greek tragic poets, was born at Athens, 485 B. C. He had not the sublimity of Aeschylus, northe touching pathos of Sophocles, nor the stern simplicity of either, but in seductive beauty and successful appeal to passion was superior toboth. In his tragedies the passion of love predominates, but it does notbreathe the purity of sentiment which marked the tragedies of Aeschylusand Sophocles; it approaches rather to the tone of the modern drama. Hepaints the weakness and corruptions of society, and brings his subjectsto the level of common life. He was the pet of the Sophists, and waspantheistic in his views. He does not attempt to show ideal excellence, and his characters represent men not as they ought to be, but as theyare, especially in corrupt states of society. Euripides wroteninety-five plays, of which eighteen are extant. Whatever objection maybe urged to his dramas on the score of morality, nobody can questiontheir transcendent art or their great originality. With the exception of Shakspeare, all succeeding dramatists have copiedthe three great Greek tragic poets whom we have just named, --especiallyRacine, who took Sophocles for his model, --even as the great epic poetsof all ages have been indebted to Homer. The Greeks were no less distinguished for comedy than for tragedy. Bothtragedy and comedy sprang from feasts in honor of Bacchus; and as thejests and frolics were found misplaced when introduced into gravescenes, a separate province of the drama was formed, and comedy arose. At first it did not derogate from the religious purposes which were atthe foundation of the Greek drama; it turned upon parodies in which theadventures of the gods were introduced by way of sport, --as indescribing the appetite of Hercules or the cowardice of Bacchus. Thecomic authors entertained spectators by fantastic and gross displays, bythe exhibition of buffoonery and pantomime. But the taste of theAthenians was too severe to relish such entertainments, and comedypassed into ridicule of public men and measures and the fashions of theday. The people loved to see their great men brought down to their ownlevel. Comedy, however, did not flourish until the morals of societywere degenerated, and ridicule had become the most effective weaponwherewith to assail prevailing follies. In modern times, comedy reachedits culminating point when society was both the most corrupt and themost intellectual, --as in France, when Molière pointed his envenomedshafts against popular vices. In Greece it flourished in the age ofSocrates and the Sophists, when there was great bitterness in politicalparties and an irrepressible desire for novelties. Comedy first madeitself felt as a great power in Cratinus, who espoused the side of Cimonagainst Pericles with great bitterness and vehemence. Many were the comic writers of that age of wickedness and genius, butall yielded precedence to Aristophanes, of whose writings only his playshave reached us. Never were libels on persons of authority and influenceuttered with such terrible license. He attacked the gods, thepoliticians, the philosophers, and the poets of Athens; even privatecitizens did not escape from his shafts, and women were the subjects ofhis irony. Socrates was made the butt of his ridicule when most revered, Cleon in the height of his power, and Euripides when he had gained thehighest prizes. Aristophanes has furnished jests for Rabelais, hints toSwift, and humor for Molière. In satire, in derision, in invective, andbitter scorn he has never been surpassed. No modern capital wouldtolerate such unbounded license; yet no plays in their day were evermore popular, or more fully exposed follies which could not otherwise bereached. Aristophanes is called the Father of Comedy, and his comediesare of great historical importance, although his descriptions aredoubtless caricatures. He was patriotic in his intentions, even settingup as a reformer. His peculiar genius shines out in his "Clouds, " thegreatest of his pieces, in which he attacks the Sophists. He wrotefifty-four plays. He was born 444 B. C. , and died 380 B. C. Thus it would appear that in the three great departments of poetry, --theepic, the lyric, and the dramatic, --the old Greeks were great masters, and have been the teachers of all subsequent nations and ages. The Romans in these departments were not the equals of the Greeks, butthey were very successful copyists, and will bear comparison with modernnations. If the Romans did not produce a Homer, they can boast of aVirgil; if they had no Pindar, they furnished a Horace; and in satirethey transcended the Greeks. The Romans produced no poetry worthy of notice until the Greek languageand literature were introduced among them. It was not till the fall ofTarentum that we read of a Roman poet. Livius Andronicus, a Greekslave, 240 B. C. , rudely translated the Odyssey into Latin, and was theauthor of various plays, all of which have perished, and none of which, according to Cicero, were worth a second perusal. Still, Andronicus wasthe first to substitute the Greek drama for the old lyrical stagepoetry. One year after the first Punic War, he exhibited the first Romanplay. As the creator of the drama he deserves historical notice, thoughhe has no claim to originality, but, like a schoolmaster as he was, pedantically labored to imitate the culture of the Greeks. His playsformed the commencement of Roman translation-literature, and naturalizedthe Greek metres in Latium, even though they were curiosities ratherthan works of art. Naevius, 235 B. C. , produced a play at Rome, and wrote both epic anddramatic poetry, but so little has survived that no judgment can beformed of his merits. He was banished for his invectives against thearistocracy, who did not relish severity of comedy. Mommsen regardsNaevius as the first of the Romans who deserves to be ranked among thepoets. His language was free from stiffness and affectation, and hisverses had a graceful flow. In metres he closely adhered to Andronicus. Plautus was perhaps the first great dramatic poet whom the Romansproduced, and his comedies are still admired by critics as both originaland fresh. He was born in Umbria, 257 B. C. , and was contemporaneouswith Publius and Cneius Scipio. He died 184 B. C. The first developmentof Roman genius in the field of poetry seems to have been the dramatic, in which still the Greek authors were copied. Plautus might be mistakenfor a Greek, were it not for the painting of Roman manners, for his garbis essentially Greek. Plautus wrote one hundred and thirty plays, notalways for the stage, but for the reading public. He lived about thetime of the second Punic War, before the theatre was fairly establishedat Rome. His characters, although founded on Greek models, act, speak, and joke like Romans. He enjoyed great popularity down to the latesttimes of the empire, while the purity of his language, as well as thefelicity of his wit, was celebrated by the ancient critics. Ciceroplaces his wit on a par with the old Attic comedy; while Jerome spentmuch time in reading his comedies, even though they afterward cost himtears of bitter regret. Modern dramatists owe much to Plautus. Molièrehas imitated him in his "Avare, " and Shakspeare in his "Comedy ofErrors. " Lessing pronounces the "Captivi" to be the finest comedy everbrought upon the stage; he translated this play into German, and it hasalso been admirably translated into English. The great excellence ofPlautus was the masterly handling of language, and the adjusting theparts for dramatic effect. His humor, broad and fresh, producedirresistible comic effects. No one ever surpassed him in his vocabularyof nicknames and his happy jokes. Hence he maintained his popularity inspite of his vulgarity. Terence shares with Plautus the throne of Roman comedy. He was aCarthaginian slave, born 185 B. C. , but was educated by a wealthy Romaninto whose hands he fell, and ever after associated with the bestsociety and travelled extensively in Greece. He was greatly inferior toPlautus in originality, and has not exerted a like lasting influence;but he wrote comedies characterized by great purity of diction, whichhave been translated into all modern languages. Terence, whom Mommsenregards as the most polished, elegant, and chaste of all the poets ofthe newer comedy, closely copied the Greek Menander. Unlike Plautus, hedrew his characters from good society, and his comedies, if not moral, were decent. Plautus wrote for the multitude, Terence for the few;Plautus delighted in noisy dialogue and slang expressions; Terenceconfined himself to quiet conversation and elegant expressions, forwhich he was admired by Cicero and Quintilian and other great critics. He aspired to the approval of the cultivated, rather than the applauseof the vulgar; and it is a remarkable fact that his comedies supplantedthe more original productions of Plautus in the later years of therepublic, showing that the literature of the aristocracy was moreprized than that of the people, even in a degenerate age. The "Thyestes" of Varius was regarded in its day as equal to Greektragedies. Ennius composed tragedies in a vigorous style, and wasregarded by the Romans as the parent of their literature, although mostof his works have perished. Virgil borrowed many of his thoughts, andwas regarded as the prince of Roman song in the time of Cicero. TheLatin language is greatly indebted to him. Pacuvius imitated Aeschylusin the loftiness of his style. From the times before the Augustan age notragic production has reached us, although Quintilian speaks highly ofAccius, especially of the vigor of his style; but he merely imitated theGreeks. The only tragedy of the Romans which has reached us was writtenby Seneca the philosopher. In epic poetry the Romans accomplished more, though even here they arestill inferior to the Greeks. The Aeneid of Virgil has certainlysurvived the material glories of Rome. It may not have come up to theexalted ideal of its author; it may be defaced by political flatteries;it may not have the force and originality of the Iliad, --but it issuperior in art, and delineates the passion of love with more delicacythan can be found in any Greek author. In soundness of judgment, intenderness of feeling, in chastened fancy, in picturesque description, in delineation of character, in matchless beauty of diction, and insplendor of versification, it has never been surpassed by any poem inany language, and proudly takes its place among the imperishable worksof genius. Henry Thompson, in his "History of Roman Literature, " says:-- "Availing himself of the pride and superstition of the Roman people, thepoet traces the origin and establishment of the 'Eternal City' to thoseheroes and actions which had enough in them of what was human andordinary to excite the sympathies of his countrymen, intermingled withpersons and circumstances of an extraordinary and superhuman characterto awaken their admiration and awe. No subject could have been morehappily chosen. It has been admired also for its perfect unity ofaction; for while the episodes command the richest variety ofdescription, they are always subordinate to the main object of the poem, which is to impress the divine authority under which Aeneas firstsettled in Italy. The wrath of Juno, upon which the whole fate of Aeneasseems to turn, is at once that of a woman and a goddess; the passion ofDido and her general character bring us nearer to the presentworld, --but the poet is continually introducing higher and moreeffectual influences, until, by the intervention of gods and men, theTrojan name is to be continued in the Roman, and thus heaven and earthare appeased. " Probably no one work of man has had such a wide and profound influenceas this poem of Virgil, --a textbook in all schools since the revival oflearning, the model of the Carlovingian poets, the guide of Dante, theoracle of Tasso. Virgil was born seventy years before Christ, and wasseven years older than Augustus. His parentage was humble, but hisfacilities of education were great. He was a most fortunate man, enjoying the friendship of Augustus and Maecenas, fame in his ownlifetime, leisure to prosecute his studies, and ample rewards for hislabors. He died at Brundusium at the age of fifty. In lyrical poetry, the Romans can boast of one of the greatest mastersof any age or nation. The Odes of Horace have never been transcended, and will probably remain through all ages the delight of scholars. Theymay not have the deep religious sentiment and unity of imagination andpassion which belong to the Greek lyrical poets, but as works of art, ofexquisite felicity of expression, of agreeable images, they areunrivalled. Even in the time of Juvenal his poems were the commonschool-books of Roman youth. Horace, born 65 B. C. , like Virgil was alsoa favored man, enjoying the friendship of the great, and possessingease, fame, and fortune; but his longings for retirement and his disgustat the frivolities around him are a sad commentary on satisfied desires. His Odes composed but a small part of his writings. His Epistles are themost perfect of his productions, and rank with the "Georgics" of Virgiland the "Satires" of Juvenal as the most perfect form of Roman verse. His satires are also admirable, but without the fierce vehemence andlofty indignation that characterized those of Juvenal. It is the follyrather than the wickedness of vice which Horace describes with suchplayful skill and such keenness of observation. He was the first tomould the Latin tongue to the Greek lyric measures. Quintilian'scriticism is indorsed by all scholars, --_Lyricorum Horatius fere soluslegi dignus, in verbis felicissime audax_. No poetry was ever moreseverely elaborated than that of Horace, and the melody of the languageimparts to it a peculiar fascination. If inferior to Pindar in passionand loftiness, it glows with a more genial humanity and with purer wit. It cannot be enjoyed fully except by those versed in the experiences oflife, who perceive in it a calm wisdom, a penetrating sagacity, a soberenthusiasm, and a refined taste, which are unusual even among themasters of human thought. It is the fashion to depreciate the original merits of this poet, aswell as those of Virgil, Plautus, and Terence, because they derived somuch assistance from the Greeks. But the Greeks also borrowed from oneanother. Pure originality is impossible. It is the mission of art to addto its stores, without hoping to monopolize the whole realm. EvenShakspeare, the most original of modern poets, was vastly indebted tothose who went before him, and he has not escaped the hypercriticism ofminute observers. In this mention of lyrical poetry I have not spoken of Catullus, unrivalled in tender lyric, the greatest poet before the Augustan era. He was born 87 B. C. , and enjoyed the friendship of the most celebratedcharacters. One hundred and sixteen of his poems have come down to us, most of which are short, and many of them defiled by great coarsenessand sensuality. Critics say, however, that whatever he touched headorned; that his vigorous simplicity, pungent wit, startling invective, and felicity of expression make him one of the great poets of theLatin language. In didactic poetry Lucretius was pre-eminent, and is regarded bySchlegel as the first of Roman poets in native genius. He was born 95B. C. , and died at the age of forty-two by his own hand. His principalpoem "De Rerum Natura" is a delineation of the Epicurean philosophy, andtreats of all the great subjects of thought with which his age wasconversant. Somewhat resembling Pope's "Essay on Man" in style andsubject, it is immeasurably superior in poetical genius. It is alengthened disquisition, in seven thousand four hundred lines, upon thegreat phenomena of the outward world. As a painter and worshipper ofNature, Lucretius was superior to all the poets of antiquity. His skillin presenting abstruse speculations is marvellous, and his outbursts ofpoetic genius are matchless in power and beauty. Into all subjects hecasts a fearless eye, and writes with sustained enthusiasm. But he wasnot fully appreciated by his countrymen, although no other poet has sofully brought out the power of the Latin language. Professor Ramsay, while alluding to the melancholy tenderness of Tibullus, the exquisiteingenuity of Ovid, the inimitable felicity and taste of Horace, thegentleness and splendor of Virgil, and the vehement declamation ofJuvenal, thinks that had the verse of Lucretius perished we should neverhave known that the Latin could give utterance to the grandestconceptions, with all that self-sustained majesty and harmonious swellin which the Grecian muse rolls forth her loftiest outpourings. Theeulogium of Ovid is-- "Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucretî, Exitio terras quum dabit una dies. " Elegiac poetry has an honorable place in Roman literature. To thisschool belongs Ovid, born 43 B. C. , died 18 A. D. , whose "Tristia, " adoleful description of the evils of exile, were much admired by theRomans. His most famous work was his "Metamorphoses, " mythologic legendsinvolving transformations, --a most poetical and imaginative production. He, with that self-conscious genius common to poets, declares that hispoem would be proof against sword, fire, thunder, and time, --aprediction, says Bayle, which has not yet proved false. Niebuhr thinksthat Ovid next to Catullus was the most poetical of his countrymen. Milton thinks he might have surpassed Virgil, had he attempted epicpoetry. He was nearest to the romantic school of all the classicalauthors; and Chaucer, Ariosto, and Spenser owe to him great obligations. Like Pope, his verses flowed spontaneously. His "Tristia" were morehighly praised than his "Amores" or his "Metamorphoses, " a fact whichshows that contemporaries are not always the best judges of real merit. His poems, great as was their genius, are deficient in the severe tastewhich marked the Greeks, and are immoral in their tendency. He had greatadvantages, but was banished by Augustus for his description oflicentious love. Nor did he support exile with dignity; he languishedlike Cicero when doomed to a similar fate, and died of a broken heart. But few intellectual men have ever been able to live at a distance fromthe scene of their glories, and without the stimulus of high society. Chrysostom is one of the few exceptions. Ovid, as an immoral writer, wasjustly punished. Tibullus, also a famous elegiac poet, was born the same year as Ovid, and was the friend of the poet Horace. He lived in retirement, and wasboth gentle and amiable. At his beautiful country-seat he soothed hissoul with the charms of literature and the simple pleasures of thecountry. Niebuhr pronounces the elegies of Tibullus to be doleful, butMerivale thinks that "the tone of tender melancholy in which he sung hisunprosperous loves had a deeper and purer source than the caprices ofthree inconstant paramours. .. . His spirit is eminently religious, thoughit bids him fold his hands in resignation rather than open them in hope. He alone of all the great poets of his day remained undazzled by theglitter of the Caesarian usurpation, and pined away in unavailingdespondency while beholding the subjugation of his country. " Propertius, the contemporary of Tibullus, born 51 B. C. , was on thecontrary the most eager of all the flatterers of Augustus, --a man of witand pleasure, whose object of idolatry was Cynthia, a poetess and acourtesan. He was an imitator of the Greeks, but had a greatcontemporary fame. He showed much warmth of passion, but never soaredinto the sublime heights of poetry, like his rival. Such were among the great elegiac poets of Rome, who were generallydevoted to the delineation of the passion of love. The older Englishpoets resembled them in this respect, but none of them have risen tosuch lofty heights as the later ones, --for instance, Wordsworth andTennyson. It is in lyric poetry that the moderns have chiefly excelledthe ancients, in variety, in elevation of sentiment, and inimagination. The grandeur and originality of the ancients were displayedrather in epic and dramatic poetry. In satire the Romans transcended both the Greeks and the moderns. Satirearose with Lucilius, 148 B. C. , in the time of Marius, an age whenfreedom of speech was tolerated. Horace was the first to gainimmortality in this department. Next Persius comes, born 34 A. D. , thefriend of Lucian and Seneca in the time of Nero, who painted the vicesof his age as it was passing to that degradation which marked the reignof Domitian, when Juvenal appeared. The latter, disdaining fear, boldlyset forth the abominations of the times, and struck without distinctionall who departed from duty and conscience. There is nothing in anylanguage which equals the fire, the intensity, and the bitterness ofJuvenal, not even the invectives of Swift and Pope. But he flourishedduring the decline of literature, and had neither the taste nor theelegance of the Augustan writers. He was born 60 A. D. , the son of afreedman, and was the contemporary of Martial. He was banished byDomitian on account of a lampoon against a favorite dancer, but underthe reign of Nerva he returned to Rome, and the imperial tyranny was thesubject of his bitterest denunciation next to the degradation of publicmorals. His great rival in satire was Horace, who laughed at follies;but Juvenal, more austere, exaggerated and denounced them. His sarcasmson women have never been equalled in severity, and we cannot but hopethat they were unjust. From an historical point of view, as adelineation of the manners of his age, his satires are priceless, evenlike the epigrams of Martial. This uncompromising poet, not pliant andeasy like Horace, animadverted like an incorruptible censor on the viceswhich were undermining the moral health and preparing the way forviolence; on the hypocrisy of philosophers and the cruelty of tyrants;on the frivolity of women and the debauchery of men. He discoursed onthe vanity of human wishes with the moral wisdom of Dr. Johnson, andurged self-improvement like Socrates and Epictetus. I might speak of other celebrated poets, --of Lucan, of Martial, ofPetronius; but I only wish to show that the great poets of antiquity, both Greek and Roman, have never been surpassed in genius, in taste, andin art, and that few were ever more honored in their lifetime byappreciating admirers, --showing the advanced state of civilization whichwas reached in those classic countries in everything pertaining to therealm of thought and art. The genius of the ancients was displayed in prose composition as well asin poetry, although perfection was not so soon attained. The poets werethe great creators of the languages of antiquity. It was not until theyhad produced their immortal works that the languages were sufficientlysoftened and refined to admit of great beauty in prose. But proserequires art as well as poetry. There is an artistic rhythm in thewritings of the classical authors--like those of Cicero, Herodotus, andThucydides--as marked as in the beautiful measure of Homer and Virgil. Plato did not write poetry, but his prose is as "musical as Apollo'slyre. " Burke and Macaulay are as great artists in style as Tennysonhimself. And it is seldom that men, either in ancient or modern times, have been distinguished for both kinds of composition, althoughVoltaire, Schiller, Milton, Swift, and Scott are among the exceptions. Cicero, the greatest prose writer of antiquity, produced in poetry onlya single inferior work, which was laughed at by his contemporaries. Bacon, with all his affluence of thought, vigor of imagination, andcommand of language, could not write poetry any easier than Pope couldwrite prose, --although it is asserted by some modern writers, of nogreat reputation, that Bacon wrote Shakspeare's plays. All sorts of prose compositions were carried to perfection by bothGreeks and Romans, in history, in criticism, in philosophy, in oratory, in epistles. The earliest great prose writer among the Greeks was Herodotus, 484B. C. , from which we may infer that History was the first form of prosecomposition to attain development. But Herodotus was not born untilAeschylus had gained a prize for tragedy, nor for more than two hundredyears after Simonides the lyric poet nourished, and probably five or sixhundred years after Homer sang his immortal epics; yet though twothousand years and more have passed since he wrote, the style of thisgreat "Father of History" is admired by every critic, while his historyas a work of art is still a study and a marvel. It is difficult tounderstand why no work in prose anterior to Herodotus is worthy of note, since the Greeks had attained a high civilization two hundred yearsbefore he appeared, and the language had reached a high point ofdevelopment under Homer for more than five hundred years. The History ofHerodotus was probably written in the decline of life, when his mind wasenriched with great attainments in all the varied learning of his age, and when he had conversed with most of the celebrated men of the variouscountries he had visited. It pertains chiefly to the wars of the Greekswith the Persians; but in his frequent episodes, which do not impair theunity of the work, he is led to speak of the manners and customs of theOriental nations. It was once the fashion to speak of Herodotus as acredulous man, who embodied the most improbable though interestingstories. But now it is believed that no historian was ever moreprofound, conscientious, and careful; and all modern investigationsconfirm his sagacity and impartiality. He was one of the mostaccomplished men of antiquity, or of any age, --an enlightened andcurious traveller, a profound thinker; a man of universal knowledge, familiar with the whole range of literature, art, and science in hisday; acquainted with all the great men of Greece and at the courts ofAsiatic princes; the friend of Sophocles, of Pericles, of Thucydides, ofAspasia, of Socrates, of Damon, of Zeno, of Phidias, of Protagoras, ofEuripides, of Polygnotus, of Anaxagoras, of Xenophon, of Alcibiades, ofLysias, of Aristophanes, --the most brilliant constellation of men ofgenius who were ever found together within the walls of a Greciancity, --respected and admired by these great lights, all of whom wereinferior to him in knowledge. Thus was he fitted for his task by travel, by study, and by intercourse with the great, to say nothing of hisoriginal genius. The greatest prose work which had yet appeared inGreece was produced by Herodotus, --a prose epic, severe in taste, perfect in unity, rich in moral wisdom, charming in style, religious inspirit, grand in subject, without a coarse passage; simple, unaffected, and beautiful, like the narratives of the Bible, amusing yetinstructive, easy to understand, yet extending to the utmost boundariesof human research, --a model for all subsequent historians. So highly wasthis historic composition valued by the Athenians when their city was atthe height of its splendor that they decreed to its author ten talents(about twelve thousand dollars) for reciting it. He even went from cityto city, a sort of prose rhapsodist, or like a modern lecturer, recitinghis history, --an honored and extraordinary man, a sort of Humboldt, having mastered everything. And he wrote, not for fame, but tocommunicate the results of inquiries made to satisfy his craving forknowledge, which he obtained by personal investigation at Dodona, atDelphi, at Samos, at Athens, at Corinth, at Thebes, at Tyre; he eventravelled into Egypt, Scythia, Asia Minor, Palestine, Babylonia, Italy, and the islands of the sea. His episode on Egypt is worth more, from anhistorical point of view, than all things combined which have descendedto us from antiquity. Herodotus was the first to give dignity tohistory; nor in truthfulness, candor, and impartiality has he ever beensurpassed. His very simplicity of style is a proof of his transcendentart, even as it is the evidence of his severity of taste. Thetranslation of this great history by Rawlinson, with notes, isinvaluable. To Thucydides, as an historian, the modern world also assigns a proudpre-eminence. He was born 471 B. C. , and lived twenty years in exile onaccount of a military failure. He treated only of a short period, duringthe Peloponnesian War; but the various facts connected with that greatevent could be known only by the most minute and careful inquiries. Hedevoted twenty-seven years to the composition of his narrative, andweighed his evidence with the most scrupulous care. His style has notthe fascination of Herodotus, but it is more concise. In a single volumeThucydides relates what could scarcely be compressed into eight volumesof a modern history. As a work of art, of its kind it is unrivalled. Inhis description of the plague of Athens this writer is as minute as heis simple. He abounds with rich moral reflections, and has a keenperception of human character. His pictures are striking and tragic. Heis vigorous and intense, and every word he uses has a meaning, but someof his sentences are not always easily understood. One of the greatesttributes which can be paid to him is the estimate of an able critic, George Long, that we have a more exact history of a protracted andeventful period by Thucydides than we have of any period in modernhistory equally extended and eventful; and all this is compressed intoa volume. Xenophon is the last of the trio of the Greek historians whose writingsare classic and inimitable. He was born probably about 444 B. C. He ischaracterized by great simplicity and absence of affectation. His"Anabasis, " in which he describes the expedition of the younger Cyrusand the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, is his most famous book. Buthis "Cyropaedia, " in which the history of Cyrus is the subject, althoughstill used as a classic in colleges for the beauty of its style, has novalue as a history, since the author merely adopted the current storiesof his hero without sufficient investigation. Xenophon wrote a varietyof treatises and dialogues, but his "Memorabilia" of Socrates is themost valuable. All antiquity and all modern writers unite in ascribingto Xenophon great merit as a writer and great moral elevation as a man. If we pass from the Greek to the Latin historians, --to those who were asfamous as the Greek, and whose merit has scarcely been transcended inour modern times, if indeed it has been equalled, --the great names ofSallust, of Caesar, of Livy, of Tacitus rise up before us, together witha host of other names we have not room or disposition to present, sincewe only aim to show that the ancients were at least our equals in thisgreat department of prose composition. The first great masters of theGreek language in prose were the historians, so far as we can judge bythe writings that have descended to us, although it is probable thatthe orators may have shaped the language before them, and given itflexibility and refinement The first great prose writers of Rome werethe orators; nor was the Latin language fully developed and polisheduntil Cicero appeared. But we do not here write a history of thelanguage; we speak only of those who wrote immortal works in the variousdepartments of learning. As Herodotus did not arise until the Greek language had been alreadyformed by the poets, so no great prose writer appeared among the Romansfor a considerable time after Plautus, Terence, Ennius, and Lucretiusflourished. The first great historian was Sallust, the contemporary ofCicero, born 86 B. C. , the year that Marius died. Q. Fabius Pictor, M. Portius Cato, and L. Cal. Piso had already written works which arementioned with respect by Latin authors, but they were mere annalists orantiquarians, like the chroniclers of the Middle Ages, and had no claimas artists. Sallust made Thucydides his model, but fell below him ingenius and elevated sentiment. He was born a plebeian, and rose todistinction by his talents, but was ejected from the senate for hisprofligacy. Afterward he made a great fortune as praetor and governor ofNumidia, and lived in magnificence on the Quirinal, --one of the mostprofligate of the literary men of antiquity. We possess but a smallportion of his works, but the fragments which have come down to us showpeculiar merit. He sought to penetrate the human heart, and to revealthe secret motives which actuate the conduct of men. The style ofSallust is brilliant, but his art is always apparent; he is clear andlively, but rhetorical. Like Voltaire, who inaugurated modern history, Sallust thought more of style than of accuracy as to facts. He was aparty man, and never soared beyond his party. He aped the moralist, butexalted egoism and love of pleasure into proper springs of action, andhonored talent disconnected with virtue. Like Carlyle, Sallust exalted_strong_ men, and _because_ they were strong. He was not comprehensivelike Cicero, or philosophical like Thucydides, although he affectedphilosophy as he did morality. He was the first who deviated from thestrict narratives of events, and also introduced much rhetoricaldeclamation, which he puts into the mouths of his heroes. He wrotefor _éclat_. Julius Caesar, born 100 or 102 B. C. , as an historian ranks higher thanSallust, and no Roman ever wrote purer Latin. Yet his historical works, however great their merit, but feebly represent the transcendent geniusof the most august name of antiquity. He was mathematician, architect, poet, philologist, orator, jurist, general, statesman, and imperator. Ineloquence he was second only to Cicero. The great value of Caesar'shistory is in the sketches of the productions, the manners, thecustoms, and the political conditions of Gaul, Britain, and Germany. Hisobservations on military science, on the operation of sieges and theconstruction of bridges and military engines are valuable; but thedescription of his military career is only a studied apology for hiscrimes, --even as the bulletins of Napoleon were set forth to show hisvictories in the most favorable light. Caesar's fame rests on hisvictories and successes as a statesman rather than on his merits as anhistorian, --even as Louis Napoleon will live in history for his deedsrather than as the apologist of his great usurping prototype. Caesar's"Commentaries" resemble the history of Herodotus more than any otherLatin production, at least in style; they are simple and unaffected, precise and elegant, plain and without pretension. The Augustan age which followed, though it produced a constellation ofpoets who shed glory upon the throne before which they prostratedthemselves in abject homage, like the courtiers of Louis XIV. , still wasunfavorable to prose composition, --to history as well as eloquence. Ofthe historians of that age, Livy, born 59 B. C. , is the only one whosewritings are known to us, in the shape of some fragments of his history. He was a man of distinction at court, and had a great literaryreputation, --so great that a Spaniard travelled from Cadiz on purpose tosee him. Most of the great historians of the world have occupied placesof honor and rank, which were given to them not as prizes for literarysuccesses, but for the experience, knowledge, and culture which highsocial position and ample means secure. Herodotus lived in courts;Thucydides was a great general, as also was Xenophon; Caesar was thefirst man of his times; Sallust was praetor and governor; Livy was tutorto Claudius; Tacitus was praetor and consul; Eusebius was bishop andfavorite of Constantine; Ammianus was the friend of the Emperor Julian;Gregory of Tours was one of the leading prelates of the West; Froissartattended in person, as a man of rank, the military expeditions of hisday; Clarendon was Lord Chancellor; Burnet was a bishop and favorite ofWilliam III. ; Thiers and Guizot both were prime ministers; while Gibbon, Hume, Robertson, Macaulay, Grote, Milman, Froude, Neander, Niebuhr, Müller, Dahlman, Buckle, Prescott, Irving, Bancroft, Motley, have allbeen men of wealth or position. Nor do I remember a single illustrioushistorian who has been poor and neglected. The ancients regarded Livy as the greatest of historians, --an opinionnot indorsed by modern critics, on account of his inaccuracies. But hisnarrative is always interesting, and his language pure. He did not siftevidence like Grote, nor generalize like Gibbon; but like Voltaire andMacaulay, he was an artist in style, and possessed undoubted genius. HisAnnals are comprised in one hundred and forty-two books, extending fromthe foundation of the city to the death of Drusus, 9 B. C. , of which onlythirty-five have come down to us, --an impressive commentary on thevandalism of the Middle Ages and the ignorance of the monks who couldnot preserve so great a treasure. "His story flows in a calm, clear, sparkling current, with every charm which simplicity and ease can give. "He delineates character with great clearness and power; his speeches arenoble rhetorical compositions; his sentences are rhythmical cadences. Livy was not a critical historian like Herodotus, for he took hismaterials second-hand, and was ignorant of geography, nor did he writewith the exalted ideal of Thucydides; but as a painter of beautifulforms, which only a rich imagination could conjure, he is unrivalled inthe history of literature. Moreover, he was honest and sound in heart, and was just and impartial in reference to those facts with which he wasconversant. In the estimation of modern critics the highest rank as an historian isassigned to Tacitus, and it would indeed be difficult to find hissuperior in any age or country. He was born 57 A. D. , about forty-threeyears after the death of Augustus. He belonged to the equestrian rank, and was a man of consular dignity. He had every facility for literarylabors that leisure, wealth, friends, and social position could give, and lived under a reign when truth might be told. The extant works ofthis great writer are the "Life of Agricola, " his father-in-law; his"Annales, " which begin with the death of Augustus, 14 A. D. , and closewith the death of Nero, 68 A. D. ; the "Historiae, " which comprise theperiod from the second consulate of Galba, 68 A. D. , to the death ofDomitian; and a treatise on the Germans. His histories describe Rome inthe fulness of imperial glory, when the will of one man was the supremelaw of the empire. He also wrote of events that occurred when libertyhad fled, and the yoke of despotism was nearly insupportable. Hedescribes a period of great moral degradation, nor does he hesitate tolift the veil of hypocrisy in which his generation had wrapped itself. He fearlessly exposes the cruelties and iniquities of the earlyemperors, and writes with judicial impartiality respecting all the greatcharacters he describes. No ancient writer shows greater moral dignityand integrity of purpose than Tacitus. In point of artistic unity he issuperior to Livy and equal to Thucydides, whom he resembles inconciseness of style. His distinguishing excellence as an historian ishis sagacity and impartiality. Nothing escapes his penetrating eye; andhe inflicts merited chastisement on the tyrants who revelled in theprostrated liberties of his country, while he immortalizes those few whowere faithful to duty and conscience in a degenerate age. But thewritings of Tacitus were not so popular as those of Livy, since neitherprinces nor people relished his intellectual independence and moralelevation. He does not satisfy Dr. Arnold, who thinks he ought to havebeen better versed in the history of the Jews, and who dislikes hisspeeches because they were fictitious. Neither the Latin nor Greek historians are admired by those dry criticswho seek to give to rare antiquarian matter a disproportionateimportance, and to make this matter as fixed and certain as the truthsof natural science. History can never be other than an approximation tothe truth, even when it relates to the events and characters of its ownage. History does not give positive, indisputable knowledge. We knowthat Caesar was ambitious; but we do not know whether he was more orless so than Pompey, nor do we know how far he was justified in hisusurpation. A great history must have other merits besides accuracy, antiquarian research, and presentation of authorities and notes. It mustbe a work of art; and art has reference to style and language, togrouping of details and richness of illustration, to eloquence andpoetry and beauty. A dry history, however learned, will never be read;it will only be consulted, like a law-book, or Mosheim's "Commentaries. "We require _life_ in history, and it is for their vividness that thewritings of Livy and Tacitus will be perpetuated. Voltaire and Schillerhave no great merit as historians in a technical sense, but the "Life ofCharles XII. " and the "Thirty Years' War" are still classics. Neanderhas written one of the most searching and recondite histories of moderntimes; but it is too dry, too deficient in art, to be cherished, and maypass away like the voluminous writings of Varro, the most learned of theRomans. It is the _art_ which is immortal in a book, --not the knowledge, nor even the thoughts. What keeps alive the "Provincial Letters" ofPascal? It is the style, the irony, the elegance that characterize them. The exquisite delineation of character, the moral wisdom, the purity andforce of language, the artistic arrangement, and the lively andinteresting narrative appealing to all minds, like the "Arabian Nights"or Froissart's "Chronicles, " are the elements which give immortality tothe classic authors. We will not let them perish, because they amuse andinterest and inspire us. A remarkable example is that of Plutarch, who, although born a Greek andwriting in the Greek language, was a contemporary of Tacitus, lived longin Rome, and was one of the "immortals" of the imperial age. A teacherof philosophy during his early manhood, he spent his last years asarchon and priest of Apollo in his native town. His most famous work ishis "Parallel Lives" of forty-six historic Greeks and Romans, arrangedin pairs, depicted with marvellous art and all the fascination ofanecdote and social wit, while presenting such clear conceptions ofcharacters and careers, and the whole so restrained within the bounds ofgood taste and harmonious proportion, as to have been even to this dayregarded as forming a model for the ideal biography. But it is taking a narrow view of history to make all writers after thesame pattern, even as it would be bigoted to make all Christians belongto the same sect. Some will be remarkable for style, others forlearning, and others again for moral and philosophical wisdom; some willbe minute, and others generalizing; some will dig out a multiplicity offacts without apparent object, and others induce from those facts; somewill make essays, and others chronicles. We have need of all styles andall kinds of excellence. A great and original thinker may not have thetime or opportunity or taste for a minute and searching criticism oforiginal authorities; but he may be able to generalize previouslyestablished facts so as to draw most valuable moral instruction fromthem for the benefit of his readers. History is a boundless field ofinquiry; no man can master it in all its departments and periods. Itwill not do to lay great emphasis on minute details, and neglect the artof generalization. If an historian attempts to embody too much learning, he is likely to be deficient in originality; if he would say everything, he is apt to be dry; if he elaborates too much, he loses animation. Moreover, different classes of readers require different kinds andstyles of histories; there must be histories for students, histories forold men, histories for young men, histories to amuse, and histories toinstruct. If all men were to write history according to Dr. Arnold'sviews, we should have histories of interest only to classical scholars. The ancient historians never quoted their sources of knowledge, but werevalued for their richness of thoughts and artistic beauty of style. Theages in which they flourished attached no value to pedantic displays oflearning paraded in foot-notes. Thus the great historians whom I have mentioned, both Greek and Latin, have few equals and no superiors in our own times in those things thatare most to be admired. They were not pedants, but men of immense geniusand genuine learning, who blended the profoundest principles of moralwisdom with the most fascinating narrative, --men universally popularamong learned and unlearned, great artists in style, and masters of thelanguage in which they wrote. Rome can boast of no great historian after Tacitus, who should havebelonged to the Ciceronian epoch. Suetonius, born about the year 70A. D. , shortly after Nero's death, was rather a biographer than anhistorian; nor as a biographer does he take a high rank. His "Lives ofthe Caesars, " like Diogenes Laertius's "Lives of the Philosophers, " arerather anecdotical than historical. L. Anneus Florus, who flourishedduring the reign of Trajan, has left a series of sketches of thedifferent wars from the days of Romulus to those of Augustus. Frontinusepitomized the large histories of Pompeius. Ammianus Marcellinus wrote ahistory from Nerva to Valens, and is often quoted by Gibbon. But nonewrote who should be adduced as examples of the triumph of genius, exceptSallust, Caesar, Livy, Plutarch, and Tacitus. * * * * * There is another field of prose composition in which the Greeks andRomans gained great distinction, and proved themselves equal to anynation of modern times, --that of eloquence. It is true, we have not arich collection of ancient speeches; but we have every reason to believethat both Greeks and Romans were most severely trained in the art ofpublic speaking, and that forensic eloquence was highly prized andmunificently rewarded. It began with democratic institutions, andflourished as long as the People were a great power in the State; itdeclined whenever and wherever tyrants bore rule. Eloquence and libertyflourish together; nor can there be eloquence where there is not freedomof debate. In the fifth century before Christ--the first century ofdemocracy--great orators arose, for without the power and theopportunity of defending himself against accusation no man could hold anascendent position. Socrates insisted upon the gift of oratory for ageneral in the army as well as for a leader in political life. In Athensthe courts of justice were numerous, and those who could not defendthemselves were obliged to secure the services of those who were trainedin the use of public speaking. Thus arose the lawyers, among whomeloquence was more in demand and more richly paid than in any otherclass. Rhetoric became connected with dialectics, and in Greece, Sicily, and Italy both were extensively cultivated. Empedocles was distinguishedas much for rhetoric as for philosophy. It was not, however, in thecourts of law that eloquence displayed the greatest fire and passion, but in political assemblies. These could only coexist with liberty; fora democracy is more favorable than an aristocracy to large assemblies ofcitizens. In the Grecian republics eloquence as an art may be said tohave been born. It was nursed and fed by political agitation, by thestrife of parties. It arose from appeals to the people as a source ofpower: when the people were not cultivated, it addressed chieflypopular passions and prejudices; when they were enlightened, itaddressed interests. It was in Athens, where there existed the purest form of democraticinstitutions, that eloquence rose to the loftiest heights in the ancientworld, so far as eloquence appeals to popular passions. Pericles, thegreatest statesman of Greece, 495 B. C. , was celebrated for hiseloquence, although no specimens remain to us. It was conceded by theancient authors that his oratory was of the highest kind, and theepithet of "Olympian" was given him, as carrying the weapons of Zeusupon his tongue. His voice was sweet, and his utterance distinct andrapid. Peisistratus was also famous for his eloquence, although he was ausurper and a tyrant. Isocrates, 436 B. C. , was a professed rhetorician, and endeavored to base his art upon sound moral principles, and rescueit from the influence of the Sophists. He was the great teacher of themost eminent statesmen of his day. Twenty-one of his orations have comedown to us, and they are excessively polished and elaborated; but theywere written to be read, they were not extemporary. His language is thepurest and most refined Attic dialect. Lysias, 458 B. C. , was a fertilewriter of orations also, and he is reputed to have produced as many asfour hundred and twenty-five; of these only thirty-five are extant. They are characterized by peculiar gracefulness and elegance, which didnot interfere with strength. So able were these orations that only twowere unsuccessful. They were so pure that they were regarded as the bestcanon of the Attic idiom. But all the orators of Greece--and Greece was the land of orators--gaveway to Demosthenes, born 385 B. C. He received a good education, and issaid to have been instructed in philosophy by Plato and in eloquence byIsocrates; but it is more probable that he privately prepared himselffor his brilliant career. As soon as he attained his majority, hebrought suits against the men whom his father had appointed hisguardians, for their waste of property, and after two years wassuccessful, conducting the prosecution himself. It was not until the ageof thirty that he appeared as a speaker in the public assembly onpolitical matters, where he rapidly attained universal respect, andbecame one of the leading statesmen of Athens. Henceforth he took anactive part in every question that concerned the State. He especiallydistinguished himself in his speeches against Macedonianaggrandizements, and his Philippics are perhaps the most brilliant ofhis orations. But the cause which he advocated was unfortunate; thebattle of Cheronaea, 338 B. C. , put an end to the independence of Greece, and Philip of Macedon was all-powerful. For this catastropheDemosthenes was somewhat responsible, but as his motives were concededto be pure and his patriotism lofty, he retained the confidence of hiscountrymen. Accused by Aeschines, he delivered his famous Oration on theCrown. Afterward, during the supremacy of Alexander, Demosthenes wasagain accused, and suffered exile. Recalled from exile on the death ofAlexander, he roused himself for the deliverance of Greece, withoutsuccess; and hunted by his enemies he took poison in the sixty-thirdyear of his age, having vainly contended for the freedom of hiscountry, ---one of the noblest spirits of antiquity, and lofty in hisprivate life. As an orator Demosthenes has not probably been equalled by any man ofany country. By his contemporaries he was regarded as faultless in thisrespect; and when it is remembered that he struggled against physicaldifficulties which in the early part of his career would have utterlydiscouraged any ordinary man, we feel that he deserves the highestcommendation. He never spoke without preparation, and most of hisorations were severely elaborated. He never trusted to the impulse ofthe occasion; he did not believe in extemporary eloquence any more thanDaniel Webster, who said there is no such thing. All the orations ofDemosthenes exhibit him as a pure and noble patriot, and are full of theloftiest sentiments. He was a great artist, and his oratoricalsuccesses were greatly owing to the arrangement of his speeches and theapplication of the strongest arguments in their proper places. Added tothis moral and intellectual superiority was the "magic power of hislanguage, majestic and simple at the same time, rich yet not bombastic, strange and yet familiar, solemn and not too ornate, grave and yetpleasing, concise and yet fluent, sweet and yet impressive, whichaltogether carried away the minds of his hearers. " His orations weremost highly prized by the ancients, who wrote innumerable commentarieson them, most of which are lost. Sixty of the great productions of hisgenius have come down to us. Demosthenes, like other orators, first became known as the composer ofspeeches for litigants; but his fame was based on the orations hepronounced in great political emergencies. His rival was Aeschines, whowas vastly inferior to Demosthenes, although bold, vigorous, andbrilliant. Indeed, the opinions of mankind for two thousand years havebeen unanimous in ascribing to Demosthenes the highest position as anorator among all the men of ancient and modern times. David Hume says ofhim that "could his manner be copied, its success would be infallibleover a modern audience. " Says Lord Brougham, "It is rapid harmonyexactly adjusted to the sense. It is vehement reasoning, without anyappearance of art. It is disdain, anger, boldness, freedom involved in acontinual stream of argument; so that of all human productions hisorations present to us the models which approach the nearest toperfection. " It is probable that the Romans were behind the Athenians in all the artsof rhetoric; yet in the days of the republic celebrated orators aroseamong the lawyers and politicians. It was in forensic eloquence thatLatin prose first appeared as a cultivated language; for the forum wasto the Romans what libraries are to us. The art of public speaking inRome was early developed. Cato, Laelius, Carbo, and the Gracchi are saidto have been majestic and harmonious in speech, yet excelled byAntonius, Crassus, Cotta, Sulpitius, and Hortensius. The last had a verybrilliant career as an orator, though his orations were too florid to beread. Caesar was also distinguished for his eloquence, itscharacteristics being force and purity. "Coelius was noted for loftysentiment, Brutus for philosophical wisdom, Calidius for a delicate andharmonious style, and Calvus for sententious force. " But all the Roman orators yielded to Cicero, as the Greeks did toDemosthenes. These two men are always coupled together when allusion ismade to eloquence. They were pre-eminent in the ancient world, and havenever been equalled in the modern. Cicero, 106 B. C. , was probably not equal to his great Grecian rival invehemence, in force, in fiery argument which swept everything awaybefore him, nor generally in original genius; but he was his superior inlearning, in culture, and in breadth. Cicero distinguished himself veryearly as an advocate, but his first great public effort was made in theprosecution of Verres for corruption. Although Verres was defended byHortensius and backed by the whole influence of the Metelli and otherpowerful families, Cicero gained his cause, --more fortunate than Burkein his prosecution of Warren Hastings, who also was sustained bypowerful interests and families. The speech on the Manilian Law, whenCicero appeared as a political orator, greatly contributed to hispopularity. I need not describe his memorable career, --his successiveelections to all the highest offices of state, his detection ofCatiline's conspiracy, his opposition to turbulent and ambitiouspartisans, his alienations and friendships, his brilliant career as astatesman, his misfortunes and sorrows, his exile and recall, hissplendid services to the State, his greatness and his defects, hisvirtues and weaknesses, his triumphs and martyrdom. These are foreign tomy purpose. No man of heathen antiquity is better known to us, and noman by pure genius ever won more glorious laurels. His life and laborsare immortal. His virtues and services are embalmed in the heart of theworld. Few men ever performed greater literary labors, and in so many ofits departments. Next to Aristotle and Varro, Cicero was the mostlearned man of antiquity, but performed more varied labors than either, since he was not only great as a writer and speaker, but also as astatesman, being the most conspicuous man in Rome after Pompey andCaesar. He may not have had the moral greatness of Socrates, nor thephilosophical genius of Plato, nor the overpowering eloquence ofDemosthenes, but he was a master of all the wisdom of antiquity. Evencivil law, the great science of the Romans, became interesting in hishands, and was divested of its dryness and technicality. He popularizedhistory, and paid honor to all art, even to the stage; he made theRomans conversant with the philosophy of Greece, and systematized thevarious speculations. He may not have added to philosophy, but no Romanafter him understood so well the practical bearing of all its varioussystems. His glory is purely intellectual, and it was by sheer geniusthat he rose to his exalted position and influence. But it was in forensic eloquence that Cicero was pre-eminent, in whichhe had but one equal in ancient times. Roman eloquence culminated inhim. He composed about eighty orations, of which fifty-nine arepreserved. Some were delivered from the rostrum to the people, and somein the senate; some were mere philippics, as severe in denunciation asthose of Demosthenes; some were laudatory; some were judicial; but allwere severely logical, full of historical allusion, profound inphilosophical wisdom, and pervaded with the spirit of patriotism. Francis W. Newman, in his "Regal Rome, " thus describes Cicero'seloquence:-- "He goes round and round his object, surveys it in every light, examinesit in all its parts, retires and then advances, compares and contrastsit, illustrates, confirms, and enforces it, till the hearer feelsashamed of doubting a position which seems built on a foundation sostrictly argumentative. And having established his case, he opens uponhis opponent a discharge of raillery so delicate and good-natured thatit is impossible for the latter to maintain his ground against it; or, when the subject is too grave, he colors his exaggerations with all thebitterness of irony and vehemence of passion. " Critics have uniformly admired Cicero's style as peculiarly suited tothe Latin language, which, being scanty and unmusical, requires moreredundancy than the Greek. The simplicity of the Attic writers wouldmake Latin composition bald and tame. To be perspicuous, the Latin mustbe full. Thus Arnold thinks that what Tacitus gained in energy he lostin elegance and perspicuity. But Cicero, dealing with a barren andunphilosophical language, enriched it with circumlocutions andmetaphors, while he freed it of harsh and uncouth expressions, and thusbecame the greatest master of composition the world has seen. He was agreat artist, making use of his scanty materials to the best effect; hehad absolute control over the resources of his vernacular tongue, andnot only unrivalled skill in composition, but tact and judgment. Thus hewas generally successful, in spite of the venality and corruption of thetimes. The courts of justice were the scenes of his earliest triumphs;nor until he was praetor did he speak from the rostrum on mere politicalquestions, as in reference to the Manilian and Agrarian laws. It is inhis political discourses that Cicero rises to the highest ranks. In hisspeeches against Verres, Catiline, and Antony he kindles in hiscountrymen lofty feelings for the honor of his country, and abhorrenceof tyranny and corruption. Indeed, he hated bloodshed, injustice, andstrife, and beheld the downfall of liberty with indescribable sorrow. Thus in oratory as in history the ancients can boast of most illustriousexamples, never even equalled. Still, we cannot tell the comparativemerits of the great classical orators of antiquity with the moredistinguished of our times; indeed only Mirabeau, Pitt, Fox, Burke, Brougham, Webster, and Clay can even be compared with them. In power ofmoving the people, some of our modern reformers and agitators may bementioned favorably; but their harangues are comparatively tamewhen read. In philosophy the Greeks and Romans distinguished themselves more eventhan in poetry, or history, or eloquence. Their speculations pertainedto the loftiest subjects that ever tasked the intellect of man. But thisgreat department has already been presented. There were respectablewriters in various other departments of literature, but no very greatnames whose writings have descended to us. Contemporaries had an exaltedopinion of Varro, who was considered the most learned of the Romans, aswell as their most voluminous author. He was born ten years beforeCicero, and is highly commended by Augustine. He was entirely devoted toliterature, took no interest in passing events, and lived to a good oldage. Saint Augustine says of him that "he wrote so much that one wondershow he had time to read; and he read so much, we are astonished how hefound time to write. " He composed four hundred and ninety books. Ofthese only one has descended to us entire, --"De Re Rustica, " written atthe age of eighty; but it is the best treatise which has come down fromantiquity on ancient agriculture. We have parts of his other books, andwe know of still others that have entirely perished which for theirinformation would be invaluable, especially his "Divine Antiquities, " insixteen books, --his great work, from which Saint Augustine drewmaterials for his "City of God. " Varro wrote treatises on language, onthe poets, on philosophy, on geography, and on various other subjects;he also wrote satire and criticism. But although his writings werelearned, his style was so bad that the ages have failed to preserve him. The truly immortal books are most valued for their artistic excellences. No man, however great his genius, can afford to be dull. Style is towritten composition what delivery is to a public speaker. The multitudedo not go to hear the man of thoughts, but to hear the man of words, being repelled or attracted by _manner_. Seneca was another great writer among the Romans, but he belongs to thedomain of philosophy, although it is his ethical works which have givenhim immortality, --as may be truly said of Socrates and Epictetus, although they are usually classed among the philosophers. Seneca was aSpaniard, born but a few years before the Christian era; he was a lawyerand a rhetorician, also a teacher and minister of Nero. It was hismisfortune to know one of the most detestable princes that everscandalized humanity, and it is not to his credit to have accumulated infour years one of the largest fortunes in Rome while serving such amaster; but since he lived to experience Nero's ingratitude, Seneca ismore commonly regarded as a martyr. Had he lived in the republicanperiod, he would have been a great orator. He wrote voluminously, onmany subjects, and was devoted to a literary life. He rejected thesuperstitions of his country, and looked upon the ritualism of religionas a mere fashion. In his own belief he was a deist; but though he wrotefine ethical treatises, he dishonored his own virtues by a compliancewith the vices of others. He saw much of life, and died at fifty-three. What is remarkable in Seneca's writings, which are clear but labored, isthat under Pagan influences and imperial tyranny he should havepresented such lofty moral truth; and it is a mark of almosttranscendent talent that he should, unaided by Christianity, have soaredso high in the realm of ethical inquiry. Nor is it easy to find anymodern author who has treated great questions in so attractive a way. Quintilian is a Latin classic, and belongs to the class of rhetoricians. He should have been mentioned among the orators, yet, like Lysias theGreek, Quintilian was a teacher of eloquence rather than an orator. Hewas born 40 A. D. , and taught the younger Pliny, also two nephews ofDomitian, receiving a regular salary from the imperial treasury. Hisgreat work is a complete system of rhetoric. "Institutiones Oratoriae"is one of the clearest and fullest of all rhetorical manuals everwritten in any language, although, as a literary production, it isinferior to the "De Oratore" of Cicero. It is very practical andsensible, and a complete compendium of every topic likely to be usefulin the education of an aspirant for the honors of eloquence. Insystematic arrangement it falls short of a similar work by Aristotle;but it is celebrated for its sound judgment and keen discrimination, showing great reading and reflection. Quintilian should be viewed as acritic rather than as a rhetorician, since he entered into the meritsand defects of the great masters of Greek and Roman literature. In hispeculiar province he has had no superior. Like Cicero or Demosthenes orPlato or Thucydides or Tacitus, Quintilian would be a great man if helived in our times, and could proudly challenge the modern world toproduce a better teacher than he in the art of public speaking. There were other classical writers of immense fame, but they do notrepresent any particular class in the field of literature which can becompared with the modern. I can only draw attention to Lucian, --a wittyand voluminous Greek author, who lived in the reign of Commodus, and whowrote rhetorical, critical, and biographical works, and even romanceswhich have given hints to modern authors. His fame rests on his"Dialogues, " intended to ridicule the heathen philosophy and religion, and which show him to have been one of the great masters of ancientsatire and mockery. His style of dialogue--a combination of Plato andAristophanes--is not much used by modern writers, and his peculiar kindof ridicule is reserved now for the stage. Yet he cannot be called awriter of comedy, like Molière. He resembles Rabelais and Swift morethan any other modern writers, having their indignant wit, indecentjokes, and pungent sarcasms. Like Juvenal, Lucian paints the vices andfollies of his time, and exposes the hypocrisy that reigns in the highplaces of fashion and power. His dialogues have been imitated byFontanelle and Lord Lyttleton, but these authors do not possess hishumor or pungency. Lucian does not grapple with great truths, butcontents himself with ridiculing those who have proclaimed them, and inhis cold cynicism depreciates human knowledge and all the great moralteachers of mankind. He is even shallow and flippant upon Socrates; buthe was well read in human nature, and superficially acquainted with allthe learning of antiquity. In wit and sarcasm he may be compared withVoltaire, and his object was the same, --to demolish and pull downwithout substituting anything instead. His scepticism was universal, andextended to religion, to philosophy, and to everything venerated andancient. His purity of style was admired by Erasmus, and his works havebeen translated into most European languages. In strong contrast to the"Dialogues" of Lucian is the "City of God" by Saint Augustine, in whichhe demolishes with keener ridicule all the gods of antiquity, butsubstitutes instead the knowledge of the true God. Thus the Romans, as well as Greeks, produced works in all departments ofliterature that will bear comparison with the masterpieces of moderntimes. And where would have been the literature of the early Church, orof the age of the Reformation, or of modern nations, had not the greatoriginal writers of Athens and Rome been our school-masters? When wefurther remember that their glorious literature was created by nativegenius, without the aid of Christianity, we are filled with amazement, and may almost be excused if we deify the reason of man. Nor, indeed, have greater triumphs of intellect been witnessed in these our Christiantimes than are produced among that class which is the least influencedby Christian ideas. Some of the proudest trophies of genius have beenwon by infidels, or by men stigmatized as such. Witness Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Hegel, Fichte, Gibbon, Hume, Buckle. May there not bethe greatest practical infidelity with the most artistic beauty andnative reach of thought? Milton ascribes the most sublime intelligenceto Satan and his angels on the point of rebellion against the majestyof Heaven. A great genius may be kindled even by the fires ofdiscontent and ambition, which may quicken the intellectual facultieswhile consuming the soul, and spread their devastating influence on thehomes and hopes of man. Since, then, we are assured that literature as well as art may flourishunder Pagan influences, it seems certain that Christianity has a highermission than the culture of the mind. Religious scepticism cannot bedisarmed if we appeal to Christianity as the test of intellectualculture. The realm of reason has no fairer fields than those that areadorned by Pagan achievements. * * * * * AUTHORITIES. There are no better authorities than the classical authors themselves, and their works must be studied in order to comprehend the spirit ofancient literature. Modern historians of Roman literature are merelycritics, like Dalhmann, Schlegel, Niebuhr, Muller, Mommsen, Mure, Arnold, Dunlap, and Thompson. Nor do I know of an exhaustive history ofRoman literature in the English language; yet nearly every great writerhas occasional criticisms upon the subject which are entitled torespect. The Germans, in this department, have no equals.