618 ANALYTICAL MIND OF THE EUROPEAN. 



We must judge our predecessors by the same rules that we hope pos- 

 terity will judge us, making a generous allowance for the imperfections 

 of reason, the infirmities of character, and especially for the prejudices 

 of the times. To have devoutly believed in the existence of a human 

 soul, to have looked forward to its continuing after the death of the 

 body, to have expected a future state of rewards and punishments, and 

 to have drawn therefrom, as a philosophical conclusion, the necessity of 

 leading a virtuous life these, though they may be enveloped in a cloud 

 of errors, are noble results of the intellect of man. 



The analytical quality of the European mind already manifested itself 

 Analytical in this decomposition of knowledge derived from foreign coun- 

 Eurcfean **"* tries, in this establishment of a host of schools, this examina- 

 mind. tion and discussion of the fundamental elements of the im- 



ported philosophy. As there are differences in the physiognomy of 

 races, so there are differences in their intellectual endowments, which, 

 arising in peculiarities of cerebral construction, communicate peculiarities 

 to the processes of thinking. The physical science of Egypt, transported 

 to Greece, rapidly degenerated into speculative philosophy, and in so 

 doing produced an instability of opinion which entailed as its conse- 

 quence a laxity of morals. Such a social condition led naturally to the 

 results which history indicates. It is not surprising that the most em- 

 inent men were open to bribery, and that the glory of those ages was so 

 often the brilliancy of corruplion. These are the necessary results at- 

 tending such political conditions. Too often it fell out that the great 

 men of Greece accused, and too often convicted each other of being in- 

 fluenced by Persian intrigues and Persian gold. In the general demor- 

 alization, they seem to have taken for their guide a perverted interpreta- 

 tion of the admirable precept of Solon, " In every thing thou doest, con- 

 sider the end." 



Added to this, the public faith in things once implicitly believed was 

 shaken. Xerxes in a very unceremonious way violated the temples and 

 carried off their treasures, showing the same contempt for the gods of 

 Europe that Cambyses had shown for those of Africa. If there lingered 

 in the minds of the philosophers any latent belief in the national faith, a 

 relic of the impressions of childhood or of popular opinion, such a prac- 

 Greek irre- tical demonstration could scarcely be lost. During the fifty 

 ligion. years of that war, the philosophical opinions of the Persians 

 had full opportunity to find their way among a class of men quite open 

 to receive them, and from this time we perceive a striking similarity be- 

 tween many of the doctrines of the schools and the well-known dogmas 

 of the Orientals. The Greeks, like the Hindoos, in the possession of the 

 mere rudiments of science, passed at once to the discussion of the most 

 important and elevated problems with which the human mind can be en- 



