pears to have been equally wayward and confused. The grandeur, majesty, and immensity of nature, which he so unveiled and explored, bewildered and confounded him and he was now led by one opinion, now by another: at times proclaiming himself an atheist, and then uttering the sublime adjuration-Being of Beings, have mercy upon me!'

The mind of antiquity, then, attained its culminating point in Socrates; for a moment it escaped from night, and caught a glimpse of morning-an emanation of divine intelliBut the force of habit was stronger than nature. The half-converted faculties relapsed; reason forged itself new chains; and, abjuring freedom, was bound to the rock of its own superstitions.

gence.

The new systems of philosophy rose on the ruins of that of Socrates. They were many in number, but, in theory, professed the same objects, the moral elevation and happiness of man. The principal sects were the Platonic or Academic, originated by Plato; the Peripatetic, by Aristotle; the Cynic, founded by Antisthenes, and of which the most noted example was Diogenes; and, lastly, the Stoic, established by Zeno, who, it is said, pilfered his doctrines from Heraclitus.

The Peripatetici are said to have received this name from their practice of constantly walking, while they received the instructions of their founder, Aristotle. Their doctrines blended the ethics of Socrates with the logic of Aristotle; but they contended that, though self-control was both a pleasure and a duty, the passions were, in certain cases, to be allowed a moderate action, as a constituent part of our nature. They considered the moral and intellectual faculties to be the source of happiness, and believed that men were enabled, by the exercise of their reason, to raise themselves over the power of circumstances, and secure their own felicity.

The Peripatetic sect spread into Italy, where, however, it had to compete with that of Epicurus, a potent and insidious rival. Epicurus adopted the atomic theory of Leucippus and his disciple Democritus, of which, as well as the Leucippian doctrine of a plenum, we shall have to speak hereafter. Democritus denied the immortality of the soul, declaring that the soul died with the body. It was thought that he could be brought to recant his doctrine, by what might appear a supernatural visitation; and, with this view, some young men assumed a ghostly

garb, and entered his cave in the dead of night, surrounded by every accessory of terror. But the philosopher was perfectly unmoved, and, after they had exhausted their devices, remonstrated with them on the folly of their conduct. Yet he seems not to have intended the absolute annihilation of the soul; for when Darius was inconsolable at the death of his Queen, Democritus, who was then at his court, offered to restore her to life, provided the King would find three persons who had never known adversity, and whose names he could inscribe on her tomb. After a diligent inquiry, Darius was obliged to abandon the search, acknowledging that sorrow was a common heritage, from which no one could escape.

But, in a religious point of view, no system took such root as that of Plato, which based the pure theism of Socrates on the ancient traditions of Egypt. It thus linked truth with current delusions, with mystery, and with primitive faith, elements which, in all ages, have commanded the sympathy, veneration, and spiritual allegiance of mankind, and which were irresistible when, as in this case, they united the present with the past, and shadowed forth the future. Antique

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myths enchained the pagans; mysticism and speculation attracted the sceptics; and the prophetic outlines of Egyptian theology allured the Christians. It was by this dim light, almost extinct at Karnac and Luxor, that Plato, unravelling the web, imperfectly discerned the attributes of the Unknown God of Socrates; and under Egyptian tuition, under guidance of immemorial tradition, he faintly indicates the Creative Deity, the universal Father of Life, and the Logos, or Son, ascribing to the Divinity three types in one Being. Only a divine teacher could give this great truth a full enunciation, and this mission was reserved for the Messiah; but some of the early Fathers of the Church, not sharing the general abhorrence of heathen learning, saw in the Platonic doctrines the vestiges of a previous revelation, perhaps coeval with the creation of

man.

Though revelling in divinity, the manifold systems of the Greek philosophers, so conflicting in principle, all depended on the same theory of logic, which, being brought to its highest perfection by the Stagyrite, received the name of Aristotelian. The great subject of their speculations was Nature-its origin, character, and destiny; and they assumed

that it comprehended an endless variety of elements, always in a state of transition, and, consequently, beyond the grasp of analysis. Thus science was arrested at its root, as it was denied the light of experience and the free atmosphere of inquiry. Experimental knowledge, the touchstone of truth, was not only never sought, but was rigorously excluded; and, in its place, there rose a theory of syllogistic reasoning, abrogating the true purpose of logic. By this system, every object in nature, animate and inanimate, every moral quality, and every specific idea, whether referring to the past, the present, or the future, were ranged in nine distinct classes, called by the Greeks categories, and by the Romans predicaments. These were again reduced, in connection with some affinity of character, quality, or relation, to five predicables, marking the abstract predicate of the various subjects in special reference to their class. Thus Mathematics were comprehended under Quantity; Geography was ascribed to Where; Chronology to When; and so, according to some arbitrary distinction of character or material, the classification was extended through the whole universe. These fallacies were so many fetters to thought, and esta