XV111 



RISE AND PROGRESS 



makes upon events, we often detect a metaphys- 

 ical subtlety, diving too deep for the truth. 

 The example, thus set, has been eminently un- 

 fortunate : it has operated more or less upon all 

 subsequent historians, opening n wide door for 

 partiality and prejudice, and changing, in many 

 cases, the art of animated and impressive narra- 

 tive into that of mere speculation. 



In purity of style, and in lightness and clear. 

 ness of description, Thucydides is surpassed by 

 XKNOPHON.* One is tempted, therefore, to ask 

 why, in general estimation, Xenophon should 

 be ranked below Thucydides, as well as below 

 the historian of Halicarnassus ? It seems that 

 for this inferiority his subjects must be chiefly 

 accountable. They are deficient either in unity 

 and grandeur, or in compass and importance. 

 The conclusion and results of the Peloponnesian 

 war, detailed in his Hellenic Annals, present not 

 so fine a field as the causes and course of that 

 great moral and political revolution which 

 Thucydides traced out in its operation upon all 

 parts of Greece : and the brilliant adventures, 

 portrayed in the Anabasis, though they blend 

 the dignity of truth with the interest of fiction, 

 and may even be connected, by some visible 

 relations, with subsequent events of the highest 

 moment, have of themselves the air of a mere 

 episode in history. But, in addition to this, it 

 cannot be disguised that the masculine energy 

 and weight of Thucydides, as a political reason- 

 er, by no means revive in the parallel passages 

 of Xenophon. Notwithstanding his grace, his 

 perspicuity, and his tenderness, the intellectual 

 achievements of the Litter furnish a proof that 

 he who passes, in too ambitious a career, from 

 province to province of literature, must not 

 hope to erect in any the trophies of supreme do- 

 minion. 



For it is in many different capacities that 

 Xenophon must be viewed, in order to compre- 

 hend his whole character ; and in all he has 

 associated his name with the art of composition. 

 Not to mention his writings as a statist, an 

 economist, and a sportsman, the works next in 

 value to his historical productions, are those, in 

 which he skims the surface of the Socratic 

 philosophy, and draws a picture of its founder. 

 Thus he forms, in his own person, a link be- 

 tween the literature of Greek history, and the 

 literature of Greek philosophy; a subject far 

 better treated by him where he makes Socrates 

 directly his hero, than where, in the province of 

 historical romance, to which the Cyropaedia 

 belongs, he mixes up Grecian tenets as well as 



B. C. 443303 



Grecian manners with element* of a lietwoge- 

 neous description. 



With the peculiar systems of the various 

 schools, into which the philosophers of Greece 

 were divided, we have here no concern. This 

 sketch can embrace only the prominent charac- 

 teristics of the few great men, whose genius h:is 

 given to the speculations of science a place in 

 the most beautiful of all bodies of literature. It 

 has been previously remarked that the first 

 regular seeds of Grecian philosophy lie scattered 

 amid the poetry of Hesiod : and that the poeti- 

 cal medium long continued to be that tlinni1i 

 which its maxims were conveyed. But many of 

 the most celebrated among the elder sages de- 

 clined the honours of authorship; a fact, per- 

 haps, not much to be regretted, at least if we are 

 to suppose that their style would not have ex- 

 celled their doctrines. Look to whatever side 

 we please, if we except a few gleams of truth, 

 and a few gnomic precepts of moral or political 

 sagacity, there is little in what we know of the 

 ancient schools, Ionian, Pythagorean, or Eleatic, 

 to impress us with a high degree of veneration. 

 Everywhere we see them lost in physical theo- 

 ries, that run into materialism, or in visionary 

 metaphysics, that cannot be said "to call for aid 

 on sense." To the instability of their principles 

 the uncertainty of their deductions, and a sort 

 of mental refinement, perfectly compatible with 

 gross corruption of manners, which grew out of 

 their speculative exercises, and gradually cast its 

 sickly hues over the manly lineaments of the 

 old Greek character, must be traced the rise of 

 the Sophists, that dangerous tribe who flocked 

 from many quarters to Athens, about the period 

 of the Peloponnesian war, and whose history 

 powerfully demonstrates, that errors of opinion 

 must end at last in practical mischief. A show 

 of universal knowledge, a dexterous perversion 

 of the dialectical art, and a jingle of antitheses, 

 that sounded like oratory to undiscriminating 

 ears, were the chief weapons of this pestilential 

 race, who were unhappily allowed to poison the 

 sacred sources of education, and whose influence 

 on the acute but fickle minds of the Athenian 

 youth threatened the utter subversion of truth. 

 But the excess of the evil wrought its own cure. 

 The activity, the success, and the ostentation 

 of the Sophists, stung into vigorous antagonism 

 an intellect as subtle as their own, capable of 

 wielding the same arms, but with a more potent 

 energy, and a better aim. SOCRATKS * entered 

 the controversial arena, whereon he jvas destined 

 to sustain so conspicuous a part, and to work so 



* B. C. 4C8-3S9. 



