XXVI

OF THE SECTS AMONGST THE GREEKS

IT APPEARS that amongst the Egyptians, amongst the Persians, amongst the Chaldeans, and amongst the Indians, there was but one sect of philosophy. The priests of these nations were all of a particular race; what was called wisdom belonged only to this race. Their sacred tongue, unknown to the people, confined all science to them. But in Greece, which was more free and happy, the avenues to reason were open to every one: all people gave vent to their ideas; and, by this means, the Greeks became the most ingenious people upon earth. And thus, in our time, the English nation is become the most enlightened, because men may think with impunity amongst them.

The Stoics adopted one universal soul of the world, wherein all the souls of living creatures were replunged. The Epicureans denied there was a soul, and were acquainted with nothing but physical principles. They maintained that the gods did not concern themselves with worldly affairs; and the Epicureans were left in peace, as they had left the gods.

The schools re-echoed from the time of Thales to the time of Plato and Aristotle, with philosophical disputes; which at once disclose the wisdom and folly of the human mind, its grandeur and weakness. They argued, almost constantly, without understanding one another, as we have done since the thirteenth century, when we began to reason.

Plato’s reputation does not astonish me; all philosophers were unintelligible; they were as much so as other people, and expressed themselves with greater eloquence. But what success would Plato have, if he were to appear now in the company of sensible men, and if he repeated to them those fine words which are in his Timaeus?

“Of divisible and indivisible substance, God composed a third kind of substance, between both, partaking of the nature of the same and the other; then taking these three natures together, he mixed them all into one form, and forced the nature of the soul to mix with the nature of the same; and having mixed them with the substance, and of these three having made an agent, he divided it into proper portions; each of these portions was mixed with the same and the other; and of the substance, he made his division.”

He afterwards explains with equal perspicuity, the quaternity of Pythagoras. It must be acknowledged, that reasonable men who had lately read Locke upon the Human Understanding, would desire Plato to go to his school.

These extravagances of the good Plato do not prevent our frequently meeting with beautiful ideas in his work. The Greeks had so much sense, that they trifled with it. But what does them great honor is, that none of their governments confined men’s thoughts: Socrates may, perhaps, be excepted, as his opinions cost him his life: but he was less the victim of his opinions than of a violent party, who formed themselves against him. The Athenians, indeed, made him drink gall; but we also know how much they repented of it: we know, that they punished his accusers, and that they erected a temple to him whom they had condemned. Athens did not only allow entire liberty to philosophy, but to all kinds of religion. It received all foreign gods, and it had even an altar dedicated to the unknown gods.

It is incontestable, that the Greeks acknowledged a supreme God, as well as all the nations we have mentioned. Their Zeus, their Jupiter, was the master of gods and men. This opinion never changed since Orpheus: we meet with it a hundred times in Homer: all the other gods are subordinate. They may be compared to the Peris of the Persians, and to the genii of the oriental nations. All philosophers, except the Stratonicians and the Epicureans, acknowledged the architect of the world, the Demiourgoi.

We need not fear building too much upon this great historical truth, that the dawn of human reason adored some power which was judged to be superior to common power, whether the sun, the moon, or the stars; that human reason being cultivated, notwithstanding all its errors, adored a God, supreme master of the elements and the other gods; and that all the polished people from the Indus to the extremities of Europe, believed, in general, in a future state; though many sects of philosophers were of a different opinion.