Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/405

 GRECIAN RELIGIOUS BELIEF 373 The three eminent men just named, all essentially different from each other, may be taken as illustrations of the philosophical mind of Greece during the last half of tho fifth century B. c. Scientific pursuits had acquired a powerful hold, and adjusted themselves in various -ways with the prevalent religious feelings of the age. Both Hippocrates and Anaxagoras modified their ideas of the divine agency so as to suit their thirst for scientific research. According to the former, the gods were the really ef- ficient agents in the production of all phenomena, the mean and indifferent not less than the terrific or tutelary. Being thus alike connected with all phaenomena, they were specially asso- ciated with none and the proper task of the inquirer was, to find out those rules and conditions by which (he assumed) their agency was always determined, and according to which it might be fore- told. And this led naturally to the proceeding which Plato and Aristotle remark in Anaxagoras, that the all-governing and Infinite Mind, having been announced in sublime language at the beginning of his treatise, was afterward left out of sight, and never applied to the explanation of particular phenomena, be- ing as much consistent with one modification of nature as with fj.epijivuv~a ovdev JJTTOV rj 'Avafayopaf Trapetypovt/aev, 6 neytarov ETtl T ruf TUV -&iJv jUj^avaf e^T)yela-&at, etc. Compare Schaubach, Anax- agorte Fragment, p. 50-141 ; Plutarch, Kikias, 23, and Pcriklus, 6-32 ; Dio gen. Lafirt. ii. 10-14. The Ionic philosophy, from which Anaxagoras receded more in language than in spirit, seems to have been the least popular of all the schools, though some of the commentators treat it as conformable to vulgar opinion, because it confined itself for the most part to phenomenal explanations, and did not recognize the noumena of Plato, or the rd ev VOTJTOV of Pannenides, " qualis fuit lonicorum, quce turn dominabatur, ratio, vulgari opinione et communi sensu comprobata" (Karsten, Parmenidis Fragment., De Pannenidis Philo- sophia, p. 154). This is a mistake : the Ionic philosophers, who constantly searched for and insisted upon physical laws, came more directly into conflict with the sentiment of the multitude than the Eleatic school. The larger atmospheric phenomena were connected in the most intimate manner with Grecian religious feeling and uneasiness (see Demokritus ap. Sect. Empiric, ix. sect. 19-24. p. 552-554, Fabric.) : the attempts of Anax- agoras and Demokritus to explain them were more displeasing to the public than the Platonic speculations (Demokri'us ap. Aristot. Meteorol. ii 7: Siobceus, Eclog. Physic, p. 594 : compare Mullach, Democriti Fragments, lib. iv. j,. 394).