26 THE GREEK SCHOOL PHILOSOPHY. 



when it came to be clearly felt by such persons that 

 their endeavours were suggested by the love of 

 knowledge, a motive different from those which lead 

 to the wisdom of active life, a name was adopted of 

 a more appropriate, as well as of a more modest 

 signification, and they were termed philosophers, or 

 lovers of wisdom. This appellation is said 1 to have 

 been first assumed by Pythagoras. Yet he, in 

 Herodotus, instead of having this title, is called a 



powerful Sophist 'EXX^iwi' ou TW da-OevecrTaTw ao- 



<ncrTri TlvOayoprj 2 ', the historian using this word, as 

 it would seem, without intending to imply that 

 misuse of reason which the term afterwards came 

 to denote. The historians of literature place Pytha- 

 goras at the origin of the Italic School, one of the 

 two main lines of succession of the early Greek 

 philosophers: but the other, the Ionic School, which 

 more peculiarly demands our attention, in conse- 

 quence of its character and subsequent progress, is 

 deduced from Thales, who preceded the age of Phi- 

 losophy, and was one of the sophi, or "wise men 

 of Greece." 



The Ionic School was succeeded in Greece by 

 several others ; and the subjects which occupied the 

 attention of these schools became very extensive. 

 In fact, the first attempts were, to form systems 

 which should explain ,the laws and causes of the 

 material universe; and to these were soon added all 

 the great questions which our moral condition and 



1 ,Cic. Tusc. v. 3. 2 Herod, iv. 95. 



