THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 139 
troduced into Athens at a time when that city was at the zenith of 
her glory. As to the causes which conduced to the greatness and 
splendor of the age of Pericles, it is not necessary here to enlarge. 
It was the age when literature and arts were cultivated with the 
greatest success. From the highest in the state to the humble 
citizen who attended the theatre at the public cost, intellectual 
activity was supreme. Could such a people accept a“philosophy, 
the corner stone of which was necessity or blind chance? 
The Gordian knot was cut by Anaxagoras, the father of 
Athenian philosophy. He placed, instead of the blind chance of 
the atomists, an overruling zows or mind. ‘This was considered asa 
moving force, ordering and uniting the atoms of chaos. But having 
succeeded in placing reason above matter, Anaxagoras failed to 
distinguish reason as particular or universal. This question was 
worked out by future philosophy in a manner that closely associates 
it with the history of Athenian life. 
Through the greatness of her exploits in the Persian wars, 
Athens, as we have seen, had become the centre of Greek life and 
culture. But with this position there had also developed in the 
mind of the individual citizen a high opinion of his own importance. 
New ideas of private rights and equality were taking the place of old 
maxims. ‘This necessarily led to a certain form of selfishness, both 
in politics and speculation. The result was, on the one hand, the 
party struggles of the Peloponnesian wars; on the other hand, the 
negative and individual philosophy of the Sophists. 
This exultation of self led philosophy, now turning from external 
nature and directing itself to the study of a spiritual force, to declare 
man to be the measure of all things, and thus to set up individual 
opinion as the standard of truth and right. This tendency of 
Sophistic teaching soon wrought its effect on existing thought. 
Looking upon knowledge as being relative to the subject, it at once 
attacked the dogmatism of all previous systems. These systems, 
having applied themselves directly to nature, were too one-sided to 
withstand the pruning knife of Sophistic doubt. 
But scepticism did not stop here. The old ideas of religion 
also came under this new inner standard of truth. ‘The result was 
that here too, all faith in former dogmas was overthrown. In like 
manner, old customs and laws were one by one allowed to fall into 
disuse. While, however, the Sophists were overthrowing all that was 
