Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/484

 478 MUNICIPAL REGIME DISAPPEARS. BOOK V.. those who to-day are the most degraded and the most ignorant among men. It would be an evident absm-- dity to cling to the opinions of those men." Aris- totle, like all the philosophers, absolutely disregards the religious origin of human society : he does not sjieak of the prytaneura ; he does not admit that these local worships were the foundation of the state. "The state," he says, " is nothing else but an association of equal beings seeking in common a happy and com- fortable existence." Thus philosophy rejects the old princii^les of society, and seeks a new foundation on which it may support social laws and the idea of country.' The Cynic school goes farther. It denies the ties of country itself Diogenes boasted that he had the rights of a citizen nowhere, and Crates said that his country was a contempt for the opinions of others. The Cynics added this truth, then quite new — that man is a citizen of the universe, and that his country is not the narrow territory of a city. They considered municipal patriotism as a prejudice, and excluded love of the city from the moral sentiments. From disgust or disdain, philosophers avoided pub- lic affairs more and more. Socrates had fulfilled the duties of a citizen ; and Plato had attempted to work for the state by reforming it. Aristotle, still more indifferent, confined himself to the part of an observer, and made the state an object of scientific study. The Epicureans paid no attention to public affairs, "Do not meddle with them," said Epicurus, " unless some higher power compels you to." The Cynics did not wish even to be citizens. ' Aristotle, Politics, II. 5, 12; IV. 5; 7, 2, VII. 4 (VI. 4).