e compare the beginning
with the close, we cannot fail to observe how great is the improvement.
The thoughts dealt with at the later period are intrinsically of a
higher order than those at the outset. From the puerilities and errors
with which we have thus been occupied, we learn that there is a definite
mode of progress for the mind of man; from the history of later times we
shall find that it is ever in the same direction.

CHAPTER V.

THE GREEK AGE OF FAITH.

RISE AND DECLINE OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY.

SOCRATES _rejects Physical and Mathematical Speculations, and
asserts the Importance of Virtue and Morality, thereby
inaugurating an Age of Faith.--His Life and Death.--The
schools originating from his Movement teach the Pursuit of
Pleasure and Gratification of Self._

PLATO _founds the Academy.--His three primal Principles.--The
Existence of a personal God.--Nature of the World and the
Soul.--The ideal Theory, Generals or
Types.--Reminiscence.--Transmigration.--Plato's political
Institutions.--His Republic.--His Proofs of the Immortality of
the Soul.--Criticism on his Doctrines._

RISE OF THE SCEPTICS, _who conduct the higher Analysis of
Ethical Philosophy.--Pyrrho demonstrates the Uncertainty of
Knowledge.--Inevitable Passage into tranquil Indifference,
Quietude, and Irreligion, as recommended by
Epicurus.--Decomposition of the Socratic and Platonic Systems
in the later Academies.--Their Errors and Duplicities.--End
of the Greek Age of Faith._

[Sidenote: Greek philosophy on the basis of ethics.]

The Sophists had brought on an intellectual anarchy. It is not in the
nature of humanity to be contented with such a state. Thwarted in its
expectations from physics, the Greek mind turned its attention to
morals. In the progress of life, it is but a step from the age of
Inquiry to the age of Faith.

[Sidenote: Socrates: his mode of teaching.]

[Sidenote: The doctrines of Socrates.]

[Sidenote: Opposes mathematics and physics.]

Socrates, who led the way in this movement, was born B.C. 469. He
exercised an influence in some respects felt to our times. Having
experienced the unprofitable results arising from physical speculation,
he set in contrast there with the solid advantages to be enjoyed from
the cultivation of virtue and morality. His life was a perpetual combat
with the Sophists. His manner of instruction