EARLY GREEK PHILOSOPHERS IN ITALY 



rather than the mother-land of Greece, the centre of 

 Hellenic influence. But all these men, it must con- 

 stantly be borne in mind, were Greeks by birth and 

 language, fully recognized as such in their own time 

 and by posterity. Yet the fact that they lived in a 

 land which was at no time a part of the geographical 

 territory of Greece must not be forgotten. They, or 

 their ancestors of recent generations, had been pioneers 

 among those venturesome colonists who reached out 

 into distant portions of the world, and made homes 

 for themselves in much the same spirit in which col- 

 onists from Europe began to populate America some 

 two thousand years later. In general, colonists from 

 the different parts of Greece localized themselves some- 

 what definitely in their new homes; yet there must 

 naturally have been a good deal of commingling among 

 the various families of pioneers, and, to a certain ex- 

 tent, a mingling also with the earlier inhabitants of 

 the country. This racial mingling, combined with the 

 well-known vitalizing influence of the pioneer life, led, 

 we may suppose, to a more rapid and more varied 

 development than occurred among the home-staying 

 Greeks. In proof of this, witness the remarkable 

 schools of philosophy which, as we have seen, were 

 thus developed at the confines of the Greek world, and 

 which were presently to invade and, as it were, take 

 by storm the mother-country itself. 



As to the personality of these pioneer philosophers 

 of the West, our knowledge is for the most part more or 

 less traditional. What has been said of Thales may 

 be repeated, in the main, regarding Pythagoras, Par- 

 menides, and Empedocles. That they were real per- 



