16 GEEEK PHILOSOPHY. 



had descended from the car of poetry, that didactic philosophy sub- 

 mitted to deliver her doctrines in the sober language of common life ; 

 and it is very uncertain to what extent those philosophers, who first 

 bore the name, committed the results of their speculations to writing. 

 The verses of Orpheus, and Linus, and Musaeus, were undoubtedly 

 preserved by oral tradition. The persons who are commonly known 

 The Wise by the name of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, seem, with the ex- 

 ception of Thales, to have been indebted for that honourable distinction, 

 either to their political sagacity, or to their talent of expressing, with 

 an oracular brevity, the most important maxims of morality. They 

 are known to us chiefly by a few of their sayings ; and even of these 

 the individual property is not very clearly ascertained. It may per- 

 haps be contended, that a wise legislator is the greatest of all practical 

 philosophers : and on this account Solon occupies the very highest 

 station amongst those illustrious men, who have applied their wisdom 

 and experience to the great ends of promoting public virtue and 

 happiness. But, in the common acceptation of the term, Thales is the 

 only one of the seven sages, who can be considered as one of the real 

 fathers of Grecian philosophy. And it does not appear that he left any 

 writings behind him. Even ^Esop, the celebrated inventor of moral 

 apologues, probably committed none of his fables to writing. Many 

 of them were traditionally preserved, and mentioned by later writers ; 

 and furnished a basis for various superstructures, which were after- 

 wards raised, and dignified with his name. 



Since neither Thales, nor any of the earlier teachers of wisdom in 

 Greece, left any works to posterity, it is obviously very difficult to 

 form anything like an accurate notion of the state of philosophy in 

 Greece in the period during which they flourished. As from the 

 time of Thales there was a continued succession of philosophers, it 

 would of course happen in after times, that what the scholar had said 

 was attributed to the master ; sometimes perhaps even by the scholar 

 himself, when he was desirous of conciliating respect to his dogmas, 

 by stamping them with the authority of a greater name than his own. 

 The CLVTOQ etya of the Greek philosophical schools, especially of the 

 Pythagorean, was a compendious form of citation, which gave to the 

 founder of a sect the credit of many opinions of which he had never 

 dreamed. 



But for the whole account of the earlier philosophers, and for any 

 knowledge whatever of their doctrines, we are of course obliged to 

 trust to writers of a more recent date, who were probably not very 

 careful to discriminate between the claims of different individuals, nor 

 to separate the primitive philosophy of their earliest teachers from the 

 refinements of a later age. Indeed the principal sources from which 

 our knowledge of these subjects is derived, must be confessed to be 

 very corrupt. As far as we can collect our notions of the earlier 

 systems from the writings of Plato, we may feel ourselves tolerably 

 secure, although it is more than probable that the outlines are occasion- 



