The world: historical and actual . -stratum of things. Some of his disciples substitutedfire for water; others air. The greatest of theseearly searchers after the First Cause was it was, probably, who enriched Greek thought withEgyptian science, especially mathematics. It washoped by using the wisdom of the Egyptians asa ladder, to climb into heaven and discover thesupreme mystery of earth. Pythagoras taught thetransmigration of the soul, the eternal procession ofexistence, in ever-varying forms. With all the help,however, of Egypt, the Greeks made very little prog-ress before th
The world: historical and actual . -stratum of things. Some of his disciples substitutedfire for water; others air. The greatest of theseearly searchers after the First Cause was it was, probably, who enriched Greek thought withEgyptian science, especially mathematics. It washoped by using the wisdom of the Egyptians asa ladder, to climb into heaven and discover thesupreme mystery of earth. Pythagoras taught thetransmigration of the soul, the eternal procession ofexistence, in ever-varying forms. With all the help,however, of Egypt, the Greeks made very little prog-ress before the days of Socrates. The enthusiastic,persistent, and profound study of abstractions, was awonderful discipline. For that long period theGreek mind was being trained in a gymnasium ofthought. Aside from the mental discipline derived,no benefits resulted. The direct fruit of all thatlong labor was sophistry, the use of reason and logicas an exhibition of intellectual skill. Had the entire (»4) <a ^ ^u GREEK PHILOSOPHY AND ART. 5. fruitage stopped there, the Greek philosophy wouldhave been an unmitigated failure. But it did training of the mind for so long a timeculminated in producingSocrates, who was bornin Athens B. C. 470. Hefound philosophy a jum-ble of negations andpretentious learned looked downwith lofty contempt uponthe common people, whosaw in occurrences the in-terposition of a personaldeity. As regards the socrate*. popular theories of cause and effect, the philosopherswere infidels. Socrates agreed with them in theirdenials, but was not content to rest in mere nega-tion. In the Clouds, Aristophanes ridicules thesubstitution of ethereal rotation for deity, muchas an orthodox clergyman of to-day denounces thesubstitution of evolution for creation ; but that sub-stitution was not the distinctive peculiarity of Soc-rates, by any means. He taught, rather, that thestudy of Nature was a waste of time. Man, knowthyself, was his motto. He was the fa
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