which persists throughout all change, that it most probably was 

 which Thales designated as water. 



The first part of the third statement is of special interest 

 because it provides a clue by means of which the historian may be 

 enabled to trace something of the origin of these conclusions. 

 "All things are full of gods", this is a statement which has religious 

 significance; it shows without doubt the influence of religious 

 views, and it may be quite possible that these early thinkers, 

 called by later writers, philosophers, were much more affected by 

 the religious views which had come down to them from the ages 

 of Homer and Hesiod and even earlier times than has generally 

 been supposed. 



When an effort is made, however, to trace the genesis of the 

 ideas of the early Greek philosophers, one is tempted to give up 

 in despair. The atmosphere one breathes, when he turns from the 

 mythical representations of Homer and Hesiod to the work of 

 Thales and his school, seems so much purer and clearer that one 

 is led, at first thought, to affirm that there is no relation between 

 the two periods except one of opposition and antipathy. It would, 

 however, be very strange if there could not be found some degree of 

 sympathy between the earlier period, called religious, and the 

 later period, called philosophic. Thales did not, like the Adam of 

 tradition, open innocent eyes upon a new and uninhabited world. 

 Men and women had been living and thinking long ages before 

 he taught that the principle of all things is water. From his pre- 

 decessors he had inherited certain traditional views, and, though 

 it was his task and his glory to advance upon that intellectual 

 environment, yet he could not and did not break away entirely 

 therefrom. 



It has often been held that Greek philosophy traces its origin 

 to Oriental influence. There, it is said, is to be found the true 

 background of Greek thought. It would be quite erroneous to 

 deny that Egyptian mathematics and Babylonian astronomy in- 

 fluenced the philosophy of the Greeks, but it would be an even 

 greater mistake to overlook the influence also of the religious 

 ideas of pre-Homeric and Homeric times. 



Now to depict the development of Greek religious ideas before 

 the time of Thales is not an essential part of the task to be under- 



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