THE GREEK SCHOOLS. 617 



them were architects, lawyers, physicians, painters, chemists, astrono- 

 mers. These men were, moreover, the great landowners ; not only were 

 the temples richly endowed as corporations, but the individual members 

 were persons of wealth. They enjoyed monopolies of all kinds ; for in- 

 stance, among other things they had extensive factories for cottons, and 

 laboratories for the preparation of chemical products. 



From these institutions the Greek philosophers brought natural sci- 

 ence. Pythagoras had resided at Thebes, Thales and Democ- The Greek 

 ritus at Memphis, Plato at Heliopolis, Solon at Sais. They schools - 

 did at first little more than expound the doctrines they had learned. 

 Their mode of instruction seems to have been, in many instances, found- 

 ed on the Egyptian model. The Pythagorean establishment at Crotona 

 may be regarded as a partial imitation of the African colleges. 



It is not my intention to enter on an examination, or even enumera- 

 tion, of ancient philosophical opinions, nor to show that many of the doc- 

 trines which have been brought forward within the last thtee centuries 

 existed in embryo in those times. It may, however, be observed that, 

 in the midst of much error, there were those who held just views of the 

 various problems of theology, law, politics, philosophy, and particularly 

 of the fundamental doctrines of natural science, the constitution of the so- 

 lar system, the geological history of the earth, the nature of chemical 

 forces, the physiological relations of animals and plants. 



It is supposed by many, whose attention has been casually drawn to 

 the philosophical opinions of antiquity, that the doctrines which we still 

 retain as true came to the knowledge of the old philosophers not so much 

 by processes of legitimate investigation as by mere guessing or crude 

 speculation, for which there was an equal chance whether they were right 

 or wrong ; but a closer examination will show that many of them must 

 have depended on results previously determined or observed by the Af- 

 ricans or Asiatics, and thus they seem to indicate that the human mind 

 has undergone in twenty centuries but little change in its manner of ac- 

 tion, and that, commencing with the same data, it always comes to the 

 same conclusions. Nor is this at all dependent on any inherent logic of 

 truth. Very many of the errors of antiquity have reappeared in our 

 times. If the Greek schools were infected with materialism, pantheism, 

 and atheism, the later progress of philosophy has shown the same char- 

 acters. To a certain extent, such doctrines will receive an impression 

 from the prevailing creeds, but the arguments which have been appealed 

 to in their favor have always been the same. The distinction between 

 these heresies in ancient and modern times lies chiefly in the grosser 

 characters which they formerly assumed, arising partly from the reflected 

 influence of the existing mythology, and partly from the imperfections 

 of exact knowledge. Even the errors of early antiquity are venerable. 



