r 
5 
* 
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= 
theism of antiquity. ‘The origin and 
from the Chaldean 
eks; any thing d 
GRE 
ss of the 
Grecian mythology, it is now impossible to trace with 
any probable degree of a poe ~ Whether it arose 
; of the planets and ele- 
ments being inferior divinities, and established media~ 
tors ‘between man and the one supreme God; or from 
‘the allegorical mode employed by the Egyptians of de- 
scribing the attributes of the Dey; or from a poetical 
Renee aS ten of nature; or from a 
o 
us embellishment of real events, in the first pe- 
riods of Grecian: hi ; or from mutilated traditions 
of the lives of the Hebrew’ patriarchs ; or rather, which 
seems the most likely, from a mixture of all these, and 
other unknown sources;—one thing seems evi- 
that if it ever possessed the symmetry of a philo- 
sophical system, its unity was destroyed before it was 
described by any writer of antiquity whose works are 
now extant. : ; 
The theogony of Hesiod may be considered as the 
earliest and most entire account of the religious tenets 
of the Greeks ; but it is affirmed by Herodotus, that, 
along with the divinities of the first inhabitants of 
Esp Thctapetatn i cect avsone 3 
system, in short, in some degree 
by the philosophers, assumed and altered by legislators, 
as’ best suited their p' , embellished and expand- 
at! an inextricable mass of m absurdities, 
and ideal beings, of which we cannot attempt to fur- 
nish any consistent account. Neither can we afford 
space for enumerating the ing sects, and distin- 
guishing tenets, and scientific attainments of the diffe- 
rent ph hers of Greece ; but the most important 
and authentic information on these topics will be found 
under the articles devoted to their respective names. 
_ particularly Acapemies, AromicaL ‘Puttosorny, 
ERIPATETICS, STorcs, ANAXAGORAS, ARISTOTLE, Epr- 
curvus, Prato, Pyruacoras, Socrates, Zeno.) It 
be observed, in general, that the great defect of 
there hysical science was, the want of experiment ; 
and thus, having no fixed principles upon which to 
Reecsed; they! be : ; 
conjecture, amusing themselves with framing fanciful 
systems, while they should have been employed in ac- 
tual observations.. Hence a taste for sophistry and sub- 
y prevailed in every school of Grecian ot year 
and it became the boast of their teachers of wisdom to 
be able to su either side of a question, and 
to give plausibility to the most opinions, 
This pernicious practice was soon transferred from the 
more abstruse speculations, to the more practical, po- 
litical, and moral obligations. Its prevalence natu- 
rally gave rise to the sect of the Pyrrhonists or Scep- 
tics, whose distinguishing principle was universal doubt, 
which they carried to such a degree of extravagance, as 
to pronounce every external object a mere illusion, and 
the life of man a dream. Neither the specu- 
lations of the phi hers, nor the fictions of the poets, 
were much calc to favour the obligations of mo- 
ral duty ; and, even where their tendency was most un- 
exceptionable, their influence was feeble. 
At no period of Grecian history does there appear 
had recourse to mere hypothesis and 
eserving the name of evidence to prove the 
existence of that virtuous age, which more modern de- 
claimers have delighted to describe rather in the spirit 
of ical romance, than of historic accuracy. In the 
earlier ages, violence and rapine, except in as far as 
they were occasionally restrained by the solemn obli- 
gation of oaths, form the prevailing feature of the peo- 
479 
has mingled the gods of Libya and. 
ed by thejpoets, as their imaginations pleased, became 
GRE 
ple and their leaders. In the more enlightened pe- 
riods, in the times even of Plato and his disciples, the 
clearest — we do not say of moral purity, but 
even of moral integrity, were not better understood, 
and still less better observed, than in the days of Homer. 
Philosophy relaxed the hold of superstition upon the 
conscience, without substituting any efficacious restraint 
in its place; and “ it is evident,” to use the words of 
Mitford, “ from the writings of Xenophon and Pilato, 
that, in their age, the boundaries of right and wrong, 
justice and injustice, honesty and dishonesty, were lit- 
tle determined by any generally received principle.” 
The philosophy of Epicurus had completely gained the 
ascendency in the age preceding the Christian era; 
and the greatest characters, and most learned scholars, 
wavered between the tenets of the theistical and atheis- 
tical systems. Corruption of manners, arid the subtil< 
ties of scepticism, had reached’ a height of extravagance, 
which it seemed scarcely possible to exceed. Human 
reason had lost itself in the labyrinths of philosophical 
lation ; and human virtue had been abandoned to 
e wayward direction of the fancy or the ions. 
The history of the world had demonstrated (and it is 
the best lesson, which a review of its most interestin 
portions can teach) the necessity of some surer and 
more authoritative guide to man than what the wisdom 
of the world had been able to afford him, either as a 
member of society, or a being formed for immortality. 
See Ancient Universal History; Millot’s Elements of 
General History, vol. i. ; Goldsmith’s History of Greece ; 
Rutherford’s Fiew of Ancient History ; Gillies’s Hise 
tory of Greece ; Gillies’s History of the World ; Potter's 
Antiquities of Greece ; Anacharsis’s Travels in Greece ; 
Leland’s History of Philip of Macedom; Pausanias’ 
Description of Greece ; Religion of the Ancient Greeks 
illustrated, by M. Le Clerc ; Newton’s Chronology ; Bos- 
suet’s Universal History; and particularly Mitford's 
History of Greece, a historical work, unequalled in mo- 
dern times for extensive research, judicious conclusions, 
and well- narrative. (q j 
- GREECE, Meprrn. See Turkey. 
GREEK Music, Ancient. It appears from the wri- 
tings of Aristoxenus, the earliest writer on the music 
of the Greeks whose works are extant, that before his 
time, their scale of music had been extended to two oc- 
taves, by the raising of a major tone, and then three 
succeeding minor fourths, upon the lowest of thé notes 
of this double octave, and by the descending of two 
such succeeding minor fourths, from the upper note of 
this double octave: each of these fourths, or diatessara, 
being exactly of the same magnitude, and alike con- 
stituted, as to the situations of its two interior notes, 
throughout each of their several genera; and the co« 
lours or species of each. 
The fourth being thus made the unvarying boundary 
of every one of the numerous Greek systems, as the oclave 
isnow with us, and as the major sixth was with Guido, 
in the formation of his scale: In the genus Diaronicum 
(which see) each fourth was made up of a semitone and 
two tones; in the us CuroMAticuM, of two semitones 
and a minor thirt: and in the genus EnHARMONICUM 
(see Genera) of two quarter tones or diesis, and a ma- 
jor third ; each.of which semitones, tones, thirds, and 
diesis, were varied, or have different values assigned 
them, by almost every different writer, as references to 
our articles above mentioned will shew ; but so as al- 
ways to preserve the fourth entire and perfect: and it 
has been concluded, that every one of these writers in- 
tended five of the fourths which he has described to be 
Groece 
li 
Greek 
Music. 
—_—— 
