result was that the Olympian gods, shorn of some of their luxuri- 

 ance, remained to Athens and the mainland of Greece the objects 

 of worship and the centre of religion. 



Before this brief survey of the religious background to philo- 

 sophical speculation is closed, mention must be made of one 

 further important characteristic of this aspect of early history. 

 In the introduction to his classic work on "Greek Thinkers", 

 Gomperz, referring to the gods of Homer, says, "There was a 

 single peremptory exception to the chaos induced by the acts and 

 passions of the Immortals. Moira or Fate was supreme over gods 

 and man alike, and in its worship we recognize the faint and earliest 

 perception of the operation of law throughout the range of experi- 

 ence." l The first part of Cornford's work, "From Religion to 

 Philosophy," is devoted to showing the influence of this conception 

 upon the Greek religion and Greek philosophy. The gods of Homer 

 are not all-powerful. "They are limited by Destiny (Moira), 

 which they did not make and against which they cannot stand." 

 As the fifteenth Iliad goes to prove, the partition of the universe 

 into three territories for Zeus, Poseidon and Hades was made for 

 them not by them. "In three lots are all things divided and each 

 took his appointed domain." 3 Moira, originally meaning "part", 

 so Cornford claims, became generalized into the conception Des- 

 tiny, a conception based, no doubt, upon an, as yet, dimly per- 

 ceived, regular sequence, which, to the Greek mind, stood for that 

 which was believed to be behind and superior to all the Olympian 

 gods. 



It was in a religious environment such as this, then, that 

 Thales, called the first philosopher, lived. It is unreasonable to 

 suppose that he did not share some of the religious beliefs of his 

 fellows. There is nothing in the fragments, which refer to him, 

 to show that he initiated a reformation along religious lines such 

 as Xenophanes, a few decades later, attempted. If Thales did 

 not accept in toto the religion of his day, he deviated very little 

 therefrom. His attention was directed, mainly, however, upon 

 the world about him rather than upon Olympus and its mythical 

 inhabitants. He had separated out from the many interests of 



1 Gomperz, Greek Thinkers, Vol. I, P. 29. 



2 Op. Cit. P. 12. 



3 15th II. 1. 189. 



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