^B Science Religion and Reality 



o{ physics. The overwhelming interest of Socrates, however, was 

 in the direction of conduct. In seeking guidance for right con- 

 duct he was led to suppose that the soul of man partook of the 

 divine. He reached the conception of an immortal soul which he 

 maintained as an article of faith, but not of knowledge. He thus 

 rejected the whole structure that the physicists had reared. Nor 

 would he have any parley with the conflicting theories of these men, 

 of whom " some conceived existence as a unity, others as a 

 plurality ; some affirmed perpetual motion, others perpetual rest ; 

 some declared coming into being and passing away to be universal, 

 others altogether denied such things." He thus regarded as futile 

 all attempts " to pursue knowledge for its own sake." Neverthe- 

 less, he recognised the existence of practical wisdom (Opovyjaif;), 

 leading to right action. It was phronesis against physis. This 

 phronesis bears some relation to the Wisdom of the later Jewish 

 " Wisdom Literature." In due course of time it went through 

 a process of development something like that which we have seen 

 with physis and tended to personification under various names. The 

 Wisdom Literature exhibits an interesting parallel to this process. 



The Socratic revolution depressed for a time the activity of 

 Greek physical philosophy, but did not destroy it. Out of the 

 conflict between the Socratics and the physical philosophers arose 

 the main streams of later Greek thought. One of these streams 

 exhibits a development of the characteristic Socratic interest ; this 

 stream leads on to Plato and to the doctrine of ideas. In its ultimate 

 development it expressed itself as a complete indifference to worldly 

 happenings. Its final stage in the pagan world is associated with 

 the Neoplatonists and the name of Plotinus. On the other hand, 

 the physical philosophy, having recovered from its submergence, 

 revived in even more dogmatic form and became associated with 

 the school to which Epicurus gave his name. It is extremely 

 interesting and significant to note that both the Neopla tonic and 

 the Epicurean schools became inimical to science, while neither 

 was conducive to the current practice of religion. The subsequent 

 development both of science and of religion is thus historically 

 associated with other systems of thought which chose a via media : 

 for science that of the Peripatetics and their successors in after ages j 

 for religion that of the great J udaeo- Christian system of thought. 



Surrounded by the amenities of our age, there is an aspect of 

 ancient life that we are liable to forget. It is the very incomplete 



