over, tasks whose performance depended upon his own exertions, and not upon incalculable outer influences which cause uncertainty, and call forth the crepuscular feelings of fear, bearing the essence of despair and pessimism. Tear this feature of cheerfulness out of its environing elements, and you have such an effect as when you hold your hand over the forehead in our portrait; as there cheerfulness becomes exaggerated to levity, the smile becomes a grin, so here, contentment may become amusement,-nay, even dissipation.

Such was the effect of the imperfect Socratism of Aristippus of Cyrene. He was a man of the world, and his philosophy is worldly; his motto was 'to grasp circumstances, not to be grasped by them' (ếxw kai οὐκ ἔχομαι); and thus to acquire immediate pleasure (dový). Theodorus and Hegesias developed and modified his principles. The former substituted for immediate pleasure (or rather pleasures) as the aim of life, lasting pleasure as a lasting frame of mind; the latter was pessimistical, and maintained that our aim ought to be to rid ourselves of pain: not to seek pleasure, but to avoid pain, for pain prevails in life.

c. Megareans.

Finally, a striking feature in Socrates was his argumentative power; his power of showing people their mistakes and leading their propositions to absurd conclusions.

This feature was developed to a deformity by the Megareans. Their founder Euclides of Megara seems to have treated subjects far more earnestly than his

followers (such as Eubulides). They were also influenced by the Eleatics (Zeno) and the Sophists; and at last they occupied themselves chiefly in refuting all possible arguments, and indulging in catching fallacies after the manner of the inferior Sophists. Some of these dialectic puzzles have come down to us, and go by the name of 'the hidden,' 'the covered,'' the Electra,' etc. Their quibbling process was called 'Eristic.' It stands to reason that they should be driven into Scepticism, or the negation of human cognition.

The founders of these three schools were pupils of Socrates, unable to appreciate in its totality the greatness of their master.

They are the early forms of three later schools, with which they correspond, and are causally connected. The Cynics answer to the Stoics, the Cyrenaics to the Epicureans, the Megareans to the Sceptics.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CLIMAX OF GREEK THOUGHT.

SECTION I.PLATO.

His Character, and that of his Writings.

WE have remarked that the principles embodied in a great life, though they do not allow of repetition, may be carried on and further developed. This was done with respect to Socrates by Plato and by Aristotle. Socrates's life became systematically expounded, and his principles were carried forward to high and fertile developments. But this active pulsating philosophy, which was a life, a fact, must pass through intermediate stages of form before it becomes a thoroughly systematic representation, before it passes from a more or less subjective state into an objective cognition-a system of philosophy. And whatever be the depth and vastness of Plato's work, however great its own right of existence, and however beautiful and admirable and exalting its poetic form, still, viewed from this point, he is but a stage in the ascent of which Aristotle is the climax.

The philosophical doctrines of Plato are no longer a life, but a kind of representative life. They are dramatic in form. They are laid down in dialogues. And

though Plato himself has well remarked that thinking is but an inward conversation, an inward dialogue; yet an inward dialogue differs from a dramatic dialogue in that it can go the shortest way, leaving aside the disturbing peculiarities and individual differences of numerous persons and characters, and can be constructed, while the other is subject to accidental environing encroachments.

This fact makes it a very difficult task to give a systematic account of Plato's views; though at the same time it makes him the incomparable poet-philosopher, who stands as the grand type of Athenian Greece, clothing in robes of beauty all depth and grandeur of their life; whose Faith, whose Gods, whose Virtue (κaλoκȧyalía), and whose Truth could only enter the sacred domains of their soul after passing the propylaea of the Beautiful.

Then too there are so many remarks casually thrown into the dialogue, which appeal to our attention and approval even to-day, and which in a systematic treatment, should shine forth from their secure position in the whole train of thoughts; but which could not be given here even were there space for a complete delineation of Plato's philosophy. As one instance of anticipation let us take a short passage from the dialogue called the 'Theætetus.'

Socrates. Certainly not, Theætetus. . . . For heat and fire, which begets and directs everything, is itself begotten through circulation and friction. But these are motion. Or are these not the origin of fire?'

Theatetus.
Socrates.

They certainly are.'

And even the race of the living spring

from these,' etc.

Through Plato's extensive travels, and his acquaintance with the preceding systems of Philosophy, we find in him that width of Intellect, that thorough sympathy with all ways of thinking, which with a shallow nature may lead to superficiality, but with a deeper nature brings forth an intellectual contemplation of phenomena, free from passions and the bias of immediate interest— the chief element in a philosophic mind. And this gave him a large field and numerous instances out of which to form his generalisations. But still, in Plato's highly emotional nature, admiration and disapproval were strongly influencing elements, and we do not yet find in him that highest scientific contemplation of former thought and present phenomena which we shall meet with in Aristotle.

Principles of his Philosophy.

Three positive currents and one negative current drive him to his central doctrine, the doctrine of 'Ideas.'1

The negative current is in the Sophists (Protagoras), the positive currents are the Eleatics (Parmenides), Heraclitus, and Socrates.

Parmenides held the One and Unmoving to be the true existing, and the Manifold and Moving to be a deception of our senses.

Heraclitus maintained that Manifoldness and Motion were the truly existing, and the Enduring and One were deceptions of our senses.

1 The word 'Idea' (idéa), as used by Plato, must not be confounded with the same word so differently used, or rather misused, in modern languages.