Dic mihi, quis potuit lectum servare pudicum,
Quæ dea cum solo vivere sola deo?”
St. Augustine’s criticism of the famous passage in the Eunuchus of Terence (Act iii. sc. 5), where Chærea is encouraged in his clandestine amour by a picture of Jupiter and Danaë, is, of course, painfully justified by the facts as reported by the dramatist. (Confessiones, lib. i.)
[53] Plato: Phædo, 69 B.
[54] “Before the fifth century, philosophy had been entirely physical or metaphysical.”—Sir A. Grant: Aristotle. (Essay already quoted.) The word italicized is surely too sweeping. (The thought is repeated with some qualification on page 67.) Cf. Diogenes Laertius: i. 18, and i. 13. Cicero: Tusc. Quæst., v. 4; Acad., i. 4, 15. Aristotle speaks with greater truth and moderation.—Metaph., i. 6. The distinction between Socrates and previous philosophers lies not so much in the fact that they were not ethical philosophers as that he was not a physical philosopher.
[55] Herod. i. 75. Cf. the amusing story told by Plutarch (De Sollertia Animalium, 971 B, C), in which a mule laden with salt lightens its load in crossing a river by soaking its packages well under the water. Thales enters the ranks against the clever mule, and comes off easy winner by giving him a load of sponges and wool.
[56] Herod. i. 170. Cf. Plutarch: Cum Principibus Viris Philosopho esse disserendum, 779 A.
[57] Ritter and Preller, p. 10. (Quoting Simplicius: Physica, 6, a.)
[58] Simplicius: Physica. (Quoted by Ritter and Preller, p. 10.)
[59] “Heraclitus used to say that Homer, and Archilochus as well, ought to be expelled from the Contests and cudgelled.”—D. L., ix. 1.