Metaphysics, the science of man's
intimate nature, and logic, or the grammar and elementary principles
of that science received from the latter philosophers of the Periclean
age a firm basis. All our more exact philosophy is built upon the
labours of these great men, and many of the words which we employ
in metaphysical distinctions were invented by them to give accuracy
and system to their reasonings. The science of morals, or the
voluntary conduct of men in relation to themselves or others, dates
from this epoch. How inexpressibly bolder and more pure were the
doctrines of those great men, in comparison with the timid maxims
which prevail in the writings of the most esteemed modern moralists!
They were such as Phocion, and Epaminondas, and Timoleon, who formed
themselves on their influence, were to the wretched heroes of our
own age.
Their political and religious institutions are more difficult to
bring into comparison with those of other times. A summary idea
may be formed of the worth of any political and religious system,
by observing the comparative degree of happiness and of intellect
produced under its influence. And whilst many institution and
opinions, which in ancient Greece were obstacles to the improvement
of the human race, have been abolished among modern nations, how
many pernicious superstitions and new contrivances of misrule, and
unheard-of complications of public mischief, have not been invented
among them by the ever-watchful spirit of avarice and tyranny!
The modern nations of the civilized world owe the progress which
they have made--as well in those physical sciences in which they
have already excelled their masters, as in the moral and intellectual
inquiries, in which, with all the advantage of the experience of
the latter, it can scarcely be said that they have yet equalled
them,--to what is called the revival of learning; that is, the study
of the writers of the age which preceded and immediately followed
the government of Pericles, or of subsequent writers, who were,
so to speak, the rivers flowing from those immortal fountains.
Pages:
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66