Theut, or Thoth, the founder of Egyptian wisdom, and philosophise with Abaris, Anacharsis, Toxaris, and Zamolxis, the learned Scythians. Passing by all these gallant gentlemen (for whose company I confess I have no very great relish), I shall descend at once upon Athens, where philosophy, as Milton says, came down from heaven to the low-roofed house of Socrates,

"from whose mouth issued forth

Mellifluous streams that watered all the schools
Of Academics old and new; with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe."

The morality of Socrates was reared upon the basis of religion. The principles of virtuous conduct which are common to all mankind, are, according to this wise. and good man, laws of God; and the argument by which he supports this opinion is, that no man departs from these principles with impunity. "It is frequently "possible," says he, "for men to screen themselves "from the penalty of human laws, but no man can be unjust or ungrateful without suffering for his crime"hence I conclude that these laws must have proceeded "from a more excellent legislator than man." Socrates taught that true felicity is not to be derived from external possessions, but from wisdom; which consists in the knowledge and practice of virtue; that the cultivation of virtuous manners is necessarily attended with pleasure, as well as profit;-that the honest man alone, is happy;-and that it is absurd to attempt to separate things which are in their nature so united as virtue and interest.

Socrates was, in truth, not very fond of subtle and refined speculations; and upon the intellectual part of our nature, little or nothing of his opinions is recorded. If we may infer anything from the clearness and simplicity of his opinions on moral subjects, and from the bent which his genius had received for the useful and

the practical, he would certainly have laid a strong foundation for rational metaphysics. The slight sketch I have given of his moral doctrines contains nothing very new or very brilliant, but comprehends those moral doctrines which every person of education has been accustomed to hear from his childhood;-but two thousand years ago they were great discoveries, two thousand years since, common sense was not invented. If Orpheus, or Linus, or any of those melodious moralists, sung, in bad verses, such advice as a grandmamma would now give to a child of six years old, he was thought to be inspired by the gods, and statues and altars were erected to his memory. In Hesiod there is a very grave exhortation to mankind to wash their faces and I have discovered a very strong analogy between the precepts of Pythagoras and Mrs. Trimmer ; -both think that a son ought to obey his father, and both are clear that a good man is better than a bad one. Therefore, to measure aright this extraordinary man, we must remember the period at which he lived; that he was the first who called the attention of mankind from the pernicious subtleties which engaged and perplexed their wandering understandings to the practical rules of life; he was the great father and inventor of common sense, as Ceres was of the plough, and Bacchus of intoxication. First he taught his contemporaries that they did not know what they pretended to know; then he showed them that they knew nothing; then he told them what they ought to know. Lastly, to sum up the praise of Socrates, remember that two thousand years ago, while men were worshipping the stones on which they trod, and the insects which crawled beneath their feet;-two thousand years ago, with the bowl of poison in his hand, Socrates said, "I am persuaded that my death, which is now just coming, will conduct me "into the presence of the gods, who are the most righ"teous governors, and into the society of just and good

men; and I derive confidence from the hope that "something of man remains after death, and that the "condition of good men will then be much better than "that of the bad." Soon after this he covered himself up with his cloak and expired.

From the Socratic school sprang the Cyrenaic, the Eliac, the Megaric, the Academic, and the Cynic. Of all these I shall notice only the Academic, because all the rest are of very inferior note.

Of all the disciples of Socrates, Plato, though he calls himself the least, was certainly the most celebrated. As long as philosophy continued to be studied among the Greeks and Romans, his doctrines were taught, and his name revered. Even to the present day his writings give a tinge to the language and speculations of philosophy and theology. Of the majestic beauty of Plato's style it is almost impossible to convey an adequate idea. He keeps the understanding up to a high pitch of enthusiasm longer than any existing writer; and, in reading Plato, zeal and animation seem rather to be the regular feelings than the casual effervescence of the mind. He appears almost disdaining the mutability and imperfection of the earth on which he treads, to be drawing down fire from heaven, and to be seeking among the gods above, for the permanent, the beautiful, and the grand! In contrasting the vigour and the magnitude of his conceptions with the extravagance of his philosophical tenets, it is almost impossible to avoid wishing that he had confined himself to the practice of eloquence; and, in this way giving range and expansion to the mind which was struggling within him, had become one of those famous orators who

"Wielded at will that fierce democratie,

Shook th' arsenal, and fulmined over Greece

To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne."

After having said so much of his language, I am afraid I must proceed to his philosophy; observing

always, that, in stating it, I do not always pretend to understand it, and do not even engage to defend it. In comparing the very few marks of sobriety and discretion with the splendour of his genius, I have often exclaimed as Prince Henry did about Falstaff's bill,"Oh, monstrous! but one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!"

His notion was, that the principles out of which the world was composed were three in number--the subject matter of things, their specific essences, and the sensible objects themselves. These last, he conceived to have no probable or durable existence, but to be always in a state of fluctuation:- but then there were certain everlasting patterns and copies, from which every thing had been made, and which he denominated their specific essences. For instance, the individual rose which I smell at this instant, or a particular pony upon which I cast my eye, are objects of sense which have no durable existence;—the individual idea I have of them this moment is not numerically the same as the idea which I had the moment before; just as the river which I pass now is not the same river which I passed half an hour before, because the individual water in which I trod has glided away: therefore these appearances of the rose, and the pony, are of very little importance; but there is somewhere or other an eternal pony, and an eternal rose, after the pattern of which one and the other have been created. The same with actions as with things. If Plato had seen one person make a bow to another, he would have said that the particular bow was a mere visible species; but there was an unchanging bow which had existed from all eternity, and which was the model and archetype and specific essence of all other bows. But, says Plato, all things in this world are individuals. We see this We see this man, and that man, and the other man; but a man-the general notion of a man-we do not, and cannot gain from our

senses therefore we have existed in some previous state, where we have gained these notions of universal natures. In childhood, where human creatures are governed by the feelings of the body, these general ideas are forgotten; but in proportion as reason assumes the reins of empire, we call to mind these eternal exemplars, of which our understanding had before taken notice in a previous state of existence. Thus, to form general ideas was merely an act of memory; - and in this manner Plato attempted to overcome a difficulty which, two thousand years afterwards, drove Malebranche to a theory equally extravagant, was too hard for Mr. Locke, and was settled, at last, by the extraordinary acuteness of Bishop Berkeley.

Plato's ideas of virtue were these: he divided the soul into three different natures reason, or the governing power; the passions founded on pride and resentment, or the irascible part of our nature; and the passions which have pleasure for their object, and which we commonly call by the name of appetites. Virtue, according to this system, then exhibited herself when each of these three faculties of the mind confined itself to its proper office, without attempting to encroach upon that of any other; when reason directed, and passion obeyed; and when each passion performed its proper duty easily, and without reluctance. Of this system it may be shortly remarked, that it is generally good as far as it goes, but that it does not go far enough; for if you tell me that prudence and propriety are the test of virtue, I ask you why are they the test of virtue? If you can give me no reason, why do you call them so? and if you can, the system does not reach the foundation of morals, or afford me the ultimate reason why one. action is better than another.

The school of Plato long continued famous, but passed through several changes; on account of which it was