128 GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



according to regular rules, 1 of which we know enough to see that the 

 cynicism or pedantry, which frequently induces such as would be ac- 

 counted deep thinkers to despise the elegancies or even the decencies 

 of life was strongly discountenanced. 2 In these days, especially in 

 England, where so many different elements combine to produce social 

 intercourse in its highest perfection, it is difficult to estimate the im- 

 portant effect which must have been brought about by a custom such 

 as that just mentioned. " To enjoy leisure gracefully and creditably," 

 is not easy for any one at any time, but for the Athenian in the days 

 Athenian o f Aristotle was a task of the greatest difficulty. Deprived of that 

 course" 1 * 6 ' " kind of female intercourse which in modern social life is the great in- 

 strument for humanizing the other sex, softening, as it does, through 

 the affections, the disposition to ferocity and rudeness, and checking 

 the licentious passions by the dignity of matronly or maidenly purity, 

 the youth of ancient Greece almost universally fell either into a ruffianly 

 asceticism, or a low and vulgar profligacy. Some affected the austere 

 manner and sordid garb of the Lacedaemonians, 3 regarding as effeminate 

 all geniality of disposition, all taste for the refinements of life, every- 

 thing in short which did not directly tend to the production of mere 

 energy : while others entirely quenched the moral will and the higher 

 mental faculties in a debauchery of the coarsest kind. 4 To open a new 

 region of enjoyment to the choicer spirits of the time, and thus save 

 them from the distortion or corruption to which they otherwise seemed 

 doomed, was a highly- important service to the cause of civilization. 

 The pleasure and utility resulting from the institution was very gene- 

 rally recognised. Xenocrates, the friend of Aristotle, adopted it. 

 Theophrastus, his successor, left a sum of money in his will to be 

 applied to defraying the expenses of these meetings ; and there were 

 in after times similar periodical gatherings of the followers of the Stoic 

 philosophers, Diogenes, Antipater, and Panastius. 5 If some of these, 

 or others of similar nature, in the course of time degenerated into mere 

 excuses for sensual indulgence, as Athenaeus seems to hint, no argu- 

 ment can be thence derived against their great utility while the spirit 

 of the institution was preserved. 



Their public Another arrangement made by Aristotle in the management of his 



exercises. instructions appears particularly worthy of notice. In imitation, as 



some say, of a practice of Xenocrates, he appointed one of his scholars 



1 Athenseus, p. 186. 



2 'Agiffrorthfis $i oiXourov ttcti xoviogrov TX^>j JJxi/v rivet \<xi TO trvfAvrotriov K<TT^\S 

 tivai (ffifh. Athenseus, p. 186, E. 



3 That the Aaxwv^av/a so admirably hit off by Aristophanes (Av. 1729, et seq.) 

 lasted long after his time is clear, not to mention other arguments, from the evident 

 prevalence of the views which Aristotle takes so much pains to controvert. 



offns yt Vivsiv ol$t XK\ $m~v p-ovov. Aristoph. Ran. 751. 



The manners of the latter comedy, as preserved in Terence's plays, are a sufficient 

 evidence that this sarcasm was little less applicable at Athens throughout the fourth 

 century before the Christian era. 

 * Athenaeus, p. 186. 



