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tries from which it derived the rudiments of its culture—and indicates the commencement of that train of causes , with which the march of the human intellect may properly be said to be connected , and which , combining in its . progress with other elements , has gradually wrought out the knowledge and intelligence of modern Europe * €
* The spirit of inquiry among the Greeks / says Herder , was especially turned towards human and ethical philosophy , their age and their circumstances conspiring to lead it in this direction . All their speculations related to the nature and character of man . This was the prevailing tone of their poetry , history , and policy * The passions and energies of men had then a freer play ; even the dreaming philosopher participated in them ; to govern his
fellow-men , and co-operate actively in the affairs of society , was the great aim of every aspiring soul ; no wonder , then , that the philosophy of even abstract thinkers , such as Pythagoras , Plato , and Aristotle , should turn upon the rule of conduct and the government of the state . Pythagoras never filled any magisterial office , and his philosophy , for the most part , was speculation , almost bordering on superstition ; yet the pupils , who issued
from his school , exercised the most powerful influence on the states of Magna Graecia , and the league of his followers , could it have been lasting , would have proved a most powerful , at least a very unexceptionable , instrument , in promoting the improvement of the world . But this step , undertaken by a man who was very far before his age , was premature ; the tyrants of Sybaris and the associated states desired no such guardians of the public morals , and the Pythagoreans were murdered .
• It is a frequent , but , as it seems to me , an exaggerated commendation of the philanthropic Socrates , that he first drew philosophy down from heaven to earth , and brought it into friendly alliance with the moral life of man—at least the commendation must be limited to the narrow circle of the philosopher's own life .
Long before his time , there had been men who cultivated an ethical and practical philosophy ; indeed , from the age of the fabulous Orpheus , this had been the distinguishing character of Grecian civilization - Even Pythagoras had , through the medium of his disciples , contributed far more to the improvement of the morals of mankind , than Socrates with all his friends . That the
latter loved not the heights of abstraction was to be ascribed to his situation , the circle of his attainments , the period when he lived , and his peculiar mode of life . The systems of pure imagination , without further experimental inquiries into nature , might be considered as exhausted , and the Grecian wisdom had become the juggling prate of sophists ; so that it required no great force of mind to despise or abandon speculations , which it was not possible , with existing aids , to pursue any farther . Against the dazzling speciousness , of the sophists , Socrates was protected by
Untitled Article
176 The Philosophy of the History of Mankind .
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1832, page 176, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1808/page/32/
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