(i.) In the field of THEISTIC conceptions.
(ii.) In the department of ETHICAL ideas and principles.
(iii.) In the region of RELIGIOUS sentiment.
In the field of theistic conception the propædeutic office of Grecian philosophy is seen--
I. In the release of the popular mind from Polytheistic notion, and the purifying and spiritualizing of the Theistic idea.
The idea of a Supreme Power, a living Personality, energizing in nature, and presiding over the affairs of men, is not the product of philosophy. It is the immanent, spontaneous thought of humanity. It has, therefore, existed in all ages, and revealed itself in all minds, even when it has not been presented to the understanding as a definite conception, and expressed by human language in a logical form. It is the thought which instinctively arises in the opening reason of childhood, as the dim and shadowy consciousness of a living mind behind all the movement and change of the universe. Then comes the period of doubt, of anxious questioning, and independent inquiry. The youth seeks to account to himself for this peculiar sentiment. He turns his earnest gaze towards nature, and through this living vesture of the infinite he seeks to catch some glimpses of the living Soul. In some fact appreciable to sense, in some phenomenon he can see, or hear, or touch, he would fain grasp the cause and reason of all that is. But in this field of inquiry and by this method he finds only a "receding God," who falls back as he approaches, and is ever still beyond; and he sinks down in exhaustion and feebleness, the victim of doubt, perhaps despair. Still the sentiment of the Divine remains, a living force, in the centre of his moral being. He turns his scrutinizing gaze within, and by self-reflection seeks for some rational ground for his instinctive faith. There he finds some convictions he can not doubt, some ideas he can not call in question, some thoughts he is compelled to think, some necessary and universal principles which in their natural and logical development ally him to an unseen world, and correlate and bind him fast to an invisible, but real God. The more his mind is disciplined by abstract thought, the clearer do these necessary and universal principles become, and the purer and more spiritual his ideas of God. God is now for him the First Principle of all principles, the First Truth of all truths; the Eternal Reason, the Immutable Righteousness, the Supreme Good. The normal and healthy development of reason, the maturity of thought, conduct to the recognition of the true God.
And so it has been in the universal consciousness of our race as revealed in history. There was first a period of spontaneous and unreflective Theism, in which man felt the consciousness of God, but could not or did not attempt a rational explanation of his instinctive faith. He saw God in clouds and heard Him in the wind. His smile nourished the corn, and cheered the vine. The lightnings were the flashes of his vengeful ire, and the thunder was his angry voice. But the unity of God was feebly grasped, the rays of the Divinity seemed divided and scattered amidst the separate manifestations of power, and wisdom, and goodness, and retribution, which nature presented. Then plastic art, to aid and impress the imagination, created its symbols of these separate powers and principles, chiefly in human form, and gods were multiplied. But all this polytheism still rested on a dim monotheistic background, and all the gods were subordinated to Zeus--"the Father of gods and men." Humanity had still the sense of the dependence of all finite being on one great fountain-head of Intelligence and Power, and all the "generated gods" were the subjects and ministers of that One Supreme. This was the childhood of humanity so vividly represented in Homeric poetry.
Then came a period of incipient reflection, and speculative thought, in which the attention of man is drawn outward to the study of nature, of which he can yet only recognize himself as an integral part. He searches for some ἀρχή--some first principle, appreciable to sense, which in its evolution shall furnish an explanation of the problem of existence. He tries the hypothesis of "water" then of "air" then of "fire" as the primal element, which either is itself, or in some way infolds within itself an informing Soul, and out of which, by vital transformation, all things else are produced. But here he failed to find an adequate explanation; his reason was not satisfied. Then he sought his first principle in "numbers" as symbols, and, in some sense, as the embodiment of the rational conceptions of order, proportion, and harmony,--God is the original µονάς--unity--One;--or else he sought it in purely abstract "ideas" as unity, infinity, identity, and all things are the evolution of an eternal thought, one and identical, which is God. And here again he fails. Then he supposes an unlimited µῑγµα--a chaotic mixture of elements existing from eternity, which was separated, combined, and organized by the energy of a Supreme Mind, the νοῦς of Anaxagoras. But he holds not firmly to this great principle; "he recurs again to air, and ether, and water, as causes for the ordering of all things." [876] And after repeated attempts and failures, he is disappointed in his inquiry, and falls a prey to doubt and skepticism. This was the early youth of our humanity, the period that opens with Thales and ends with the Sophists.
[Footnote 876: ][ (return) ] Thus Socrates complains of Anaxagoras. See "Phædo," § 108.