Page:History of Greece Vol VIII.djvu/444

 422 mSTORY OF GKEECE. (he gods permitted to be learned ; and if, besides, he was assidu- ous in pious court to them, and in soliciting special information by way of prophecy, they would be gracious to him, and signify beforehand how they intended to act in putting the final hand and in settling the undecipherable portions of the problem. 1 The kindness of the gods in replying through their oracles, or sending information by sacrificial signs or prodigies, in cases of grave difficulty, was, in the view of Sokrates, one of the most signal evidences of their care for the human race. 2 To seek access to these prophecies, or indications of special divine intervention to come, was the proper supplementary business of any one who had done as much for himself as could be done by patient study. 3 But as it was madness in a man to solicit special information from the gods on matters which they allowed him to learn by his own diligence, so it was not less madness in him to investigate as a learner that which they chose to keep back for their own specialty of will. 4 Such was the capital innovation made by Sokrates in regard to the subject of Athenian study, bringing down philosophy, to use the expression of Cicero, 5 from the heavens to the earth ; and such his attempt to draw the line between that which was, and was not, scientifically discoverable ; an attempt remarkable, inas- much as it shows his conviction that the scientific and the religious point of view mutually excluded one another, so that where the latter began, the former ended. It was an innovation, inestima ble, in respect to the new matter which it let in ; of little import, as regards that which it professed to exclude. For in point of fact, physical science, though partially discouraged, was never absolutely excluded, through any prevalence of that systematic disapproval which he, in common with the multitude of his day, 1 Xenoph. Mem. i, 1, 9-19. "E^ 6e dslv, a ftev padovTaf TTOICIV edunav ol i?eot, iiav&uveiv a 5e fii) 6tj^a Tolf uv$ptli~oif EOT/, ireipu(r&ai 6iu irapu. rf-v deiJv irvv&u,vea-&at rot>f yap &oi>f, olf uv lh.i uai, 'Xenoph. Mem. i, 4, 15; iv, 3, 12. When Xenophon was deliberating whether he should take military service under Cyrus the younger, he con- sulted Sokrates, who advised him to go to Delphi and submit the case to the oracle (Xen. Anabas. iii, 1, 5). 3 Xenoph. Mem. iv, 7, 10. 4 Xenoph. Mem. 1, 9 ; iv, 7, S. * Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v, 4, 10