sophers, to Zankle and Catana, whence he migrated to Velia or Elia on the coasts of South Italy. At this celebrated home of free thought he settled for some years, if not for the rest of his life, and established the famous Eleatic school. The date of his death is as uncertain as that of his birth. If we may accept the evidence of a poem which purports to have been written by himself, he was alive in the reign of Darius, when he must have been over ninety years of age.

The Skeptical method may be said to consist generally in the aggressive action of the critical and inquiring intellect upon a given belief or body of beliefs already in existence. Hence, as a needful preliminary to a due estimate of any Skeptical thinker, we must determine as far as possible the amount and coherence of those current opinions and beliefs to which he feels compelled to oppose himself. In treating, therefore, of Xenophanes and his successors in the same school, our first endeavour must be to ascertain what were the chief convictions of an Ionian or Dorian Greek of average culture and information in the sixth century before the Christian era. First and foremost we must place that great body of mythological tradition which we find expressed in the poems of Homer and Hesiod. It is difficult for us to realise the exact position which these myths occupied in the mind and heart of the old Greek. Nothing analogous to them exists in modern European civilisation. They formed the common and prolific soil of his ideas, his convictions, and his phantasies. They furnished the nutriment of his religious beliefs, his literature and poetry, his intense love of art and natural beauty, and even, to some extent, of his political opinions. Such was,' says Grote, 'the intellectual and imaginative reach of an ordinary Greek. . . . It was an aggregate of religion, of social and patriotic retrospect, and of romantic fancy, blended into one indivisible faith.' Added to this general mythological dogmatism, there were numerous special influences of a similar kind. Not only had each tribe its own collection of local myths and traditions, the cherishing of which was deemed indispensable to genuine patriotism, but it also pos

shown by the structure of his poems, and his habit of reciting them publicly.

1 Grote's History of Greece, 4th edit. vol. i. p. 411. It may, however, be needful to warn the reader that all general estimates as to Greek religion must be received with caution, and with due allowance for differences of date, locality, &c. Comp. Grote's History with Welcker, Griechische Götterlehre; and for an admirable résumé of the subject, see Petersen's article on Greek Mythology in vol. lxxxii. sect. i. of Ersch and Grüber.

sessed one or more sacred localities, each with its own history, its peculiar cultus, and its consecrated hierarchy. Another centre of Greek belief of a private and esoteric kind is to found in the old mysteries of Orpheus and others, with their dread and unutterable rites of initiation, their mysterious modes of nature-worship, the full and unswerving allegiance to certain definite dogmas exacted of their votaries-all veiled under the garb of an inviolable secrecy. We may readily suppose that the operation of such select and incommunicable beliefs was of a comparatively limited nature; still for systematic elaboration and coherency the mysteries and the beliefs generated by them probably far exceeded the more fluctuating traditions of popular mythology. Such were, so far as we are able to determine, some of the more prominent centres of Greek dogmatic faith at the period of which we are writing. The tenacity with which the Greeks clung to their religious beliefs is sufficiently attested by the whole of their history, so that whatever influence the Skeptical teaching of Xenophanes and his numerous successors can be shown to have obtained, must not be ascribed to any such causes as a facile adoption and lax retention of religious and mythological dogmas.2 Contemporaneously, however, with the formation of this not inconsiderable mass of current beliefs, such as probably existed in the time of Xenophanes, there were causes at work which not only rendered the disintegration commenced by the Eleatics comparatively easy, but which served to prove the native susceptibility of the Greek mind for critical processes and Skeptical conclusions.3 First among these must be placed the keen and inextinguishable love of inquiry and discussion which was a primary feature of the Greek intellect. In no other nation, ancient or modern, was this love for intellectual gymnastics -reasoned argument for its own sake, and irrespective, for the

Of course, anything like a national homogeneous faith the Greeks could not be said to possess, either now or for many centuries to come, and therefore they had no general religious creed or system of dogmas. To this cause, among others, Zeller ascribes the intellectual freedom of the Greeks, Phil. d. Griechen, i. p. 45. We must, however, not forget that the influence of an hereditary priesthood, the oracle at Delphi, the worship of a Pan-Hellenic Zeus, and a vague floating tradition derived from the common origin of the different Hellenic tribes, partly compensated for this want of dogmatic fixity.

2 The contemptuous tolerance which the Roman Empire in the plenitude of its power extended to foreign deities, was dictated by its comprehensive Imperial policy. The tolerance of Athens was the outcome of its intellectual freedom.

3 For some excellent remarks on the negative tendencies of the Greek Philosophy, see Grote's Plato, vol. i. pp. 242–244.

most part, of the conclusions to which it might lead—so fully developed. Neologianism, the propounding of novel doctrines,' which is the bugbear of our modern dogmatism, was to the old Greek thinker the welcomed opportunity for the renewed exercise of his mental faculties, and, at a later period, of his dialectical proficiency. It is only by bearing this characteristic in mind that we are able to explain the intellectual and religious tolerance which, on the whole, marks the mental history of Greece. Different attempts have been made to reconcile the incompatibility of a tenacious grasp of mythological belief co-existing with a freedom of thought and utterance which seems well-nigh unbounded. But, except to note its existence and influence, this primitive struggle of reason and faith does not come into the scope of our present inquiry. We may, however, be sure that in most cases where these antagonistic forces were nearly balanced, the native bent of the Greek intellect would secure a victory for Reason rather than for her adversary.

2. But if the earnestness of Greek religious faith was necessarily opposed to free thought and inquiry, this very tendency was aided in no small measure by the diversity which was no less a main characteristic of that faith. An elaborate polytheistic system, or rather congeries of systems, composed of manifold traditions diverse in origin, form, and cultus,3 must have possessed within it

'This, and not the mere avidity for 'news' in our sense of the word, is the probable meaning of the character ascribed to the Athenians in a subsequent period of Greek history. Cf. the passages collected by Wetstein, New Test. Acts xvii. 21.

2 Zeller has pointed out that the uniformity in religion, i.e. of any particular cultus, required by the Greeks was a uniformity of ritual, rather than of doctrine. (Phil. d. Griech. i. 46.) In the early development of religions, the ritual was regarded as the symbol of the worshipper's devotion, of his fulness of love, awe, or reverence; it was not then deemed the expression or exponent of his doctrinal judgments or his intellectual conclusions. It would be well for the peace of Christendom if this fact and its significance were borne in mind.

Even the cultus at a single shrine, as Prof. Curtius has remarked, frequently consisted of successive strata of religious usages and traditions; the newer overlying the older, as the beds of a geological formation. This was, indeed, the inevitable result of perpetual migrations and political changes. Never to destroy or suppress any worship, no matter what its origin or its nature, was an accepted maxim among the Hellenic tribes, as it was subsequently by the Romans. In either case, it was probably a silent acknowledgment of human ignorance, and of the unlimited possibilities of the universe. The unknown God' has ever had a far greater number of shrines and worshippers than is commonly supposed.

elements if not of antagonism yet at least of emulation and rivalry. Taking, e.g. the two highest Olympian divinities, Zeus and Hêre, we have under each designation several myths differing not only in locality, but in form and substance as well. The worshipper at his own local shrine would, by the inevitable tendencies of human nature, claim for its deity or its cultus a superior degree of reverence and virtue than he would concede to a rival deity or shrine. These rivalries of different creeds and modes of worship, each claiming supremacy over the rest, could not but induce, in logical minds, reflections which might easily lead, if not to absolute denial of their collective authority, at least to a guarded suspicion of the grounds on which it was sought to be established. Certainly, the various mythological systems could not all be true; the four or more rival deities bearing the name of Zeus, e.g. could not each be the supreme ruler of the universe. The Hêre of Argos-differing in origin, history, and worship, from her namesake of Samoscould by no possibility be deemed identical with her. Add to this the more peaceful, but yet unquestionable, rivalry existing between the deities of Olympus themselves, when they were fully recognised as differing in name and attributes from each other. No truth of Greek theology is more fully impressed on its literature from Homer to Menander. So long as the devout Hellene chose for his own particular worship one of the Olympian divinities, especially if the ruling deity of his tribe or family, he might fairly treat the others with more or less of neglect. It was not, therefore, a case like the different forms of Christianity, in which various sects possess a common ground of faith in the person and work of Christ. No such common indivisible nexus of belief can with any probability be assigned to the various successive and conflicting mythologies of Greece.1 At an earlier period of her history, before the commercial and social intercourse of the various races and their colonies was greatly developed, no doubt each Æolian or Ionian Greek worshipped at his own local shrine, and believed his own popular or local myths, without troubling himself much about the religious beliefs of his neighbours; but with the rapid expansion of commerce and mental culture, such religious and philosophical isolation was no longer possible.

A similar impetus to free discussion and Skepticism was no doubt imparted by the variety of philosophical theories and opinions

1 The primitive Aryan conceptions of which the myths of Greece are developments, were of a far more diversified kind than we are apt to suppose. Compare on this point Petersen's admirable article in Ersch and Grüber, sect. i. vol. lxxxii. p. 73, &c.

current among the Greeks from B.C. 450 to a late period in her history. At the time of Xenophanes, e.g. the several philosophers of the Ionic school had propounded their views as to the origin of the universe; and though it is conceivable that the diffusion of these early theories was limited, yet it is scarcely likely that there were not many Greeks dwelling in the centres of commerce, as, e.g. Miletus, to whom these and similar speculations were not fully known, and by whom they were not fully discussed. Hence, probably, arose in many cases temporary suspense, if not absolute Skepticism. Certainly such thinkers might urge, these incompatible theories could not all be true. If the 'air' of Anaximenes was the original element and source of all things, the same could not be predicated of the 'water' of Thales (the well-known conjoint operation of the four elements being the subsequent speculation of Empedokles). Besides which, opposition and dissonance were involved in the very rudiments of some of the earlier Hellenic thought-schemes. 'One said,' to quote Plato's words, 'that there were three principles warring in a manner with one another; and another spoke of two principles, a moist and dry, or hot and cold, &c. It is needless to pursue this subject further; enough has been said to prove, what our subsequent investigations will serve to confirm, that, other things being equal, Skepticism generally flourishes most in communities in which religious beliefs and intellectual speculations are of the most diversified character, and in which their various claims and mutual relations are discussed with freedom and independence.

It would be easy to prolong these preliminary considerations as to the pre-eminent fitness of Greece in this portion of her history to advance the cause of speculative freedom. Tennemann and others have pointed out the effect, e.g. which its political division into a number of small states must have had in inducing or accelerating philosophical inquiry. For the mutual rivalry thereby engendered, the diversity of various usages and customs, the collision of conflicting interests and not unfrequently antagonistic institutions, constituted a soil for inquiry and mental progress of the most fertile and stimulating kind. In passing, I may as well point out that we have similar examples of the intellectual activity induced by the juxtaposition of a number of small free states in Italy during the Renaissance, and in Germany and Switzerland at the time of the Reformation. At a later period of Greek history,

Comp. Sophistes, Steph. 242. A division of pre-Sokratic thinkers into 'Dualists' and 'Monists' has recently been made by S. A. Byk in his Vorsokratische Philosophie der Griechen. Leipzig, 1876-77.