A STEP FORWARD IN GREECE 



went the whole length of their reactionary logic, 

 and names like those of Xenophon and Alkibiades 

 were execrated by the Athenian democracy, be- 

 cause their bearers allied themselves with feudal 

 Sparta against the onward march of democratic 

 industrialism. 



Aristotle, in his works on natural history, was 

 led back to nature. This contact with natural 

 things compelled him to recognize, in his phi- 

 losophy, the interaction of mind and matter. 

 Therefore he sought to reconstruct the dualism 

 of Plato, who had placed mind entirely outside 

 of matter, by making mind the superior and es- 

 sential principle of matter. In thus combining 

 natural science and speculative philosophy Aris- 

 totle became the beau ideal of all subsequent 

 apostles of reaction, who are compelled, by the 

 onward march of empirical science, to adjust 

 their metaphysical beliefs to the facts of experi- 

 ence. The Platonic-Aristotlean philosophy, by 

 its pseudo-scientific character, became the pet of 

 the Constantinian reaction against proletarian 

 Christianity and the legitimate boon companion 

 of the scholastic thinkers of medieval feudalism. 



With Epicurus, materialist monism made one 

 last great effort to rehabilitate itself in the Gre- 

 cian world. But at his period, this world was 



27 



