Greek Thinkers (Volume 1); Book I. the Beginnings. Book II. from Metaphysics to Positive Science. Book III. the Age of Enlightenment. 1901 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Olympia held the foremost rank. The sanctuary at Delphi, sacred to Pythian Apollo, was situated in the shadow of steep, beetling crags. Thither would come, and there would meet, an endless line of pilgrims from all parts of Greece and her colonies?private citizens, representatives of whole states, and, since the middle of the seventh century at least, occasional envoys from foreign courts. They all came to consult the god; but the answers they received were mostly the result of the priest's ingenious manipulation of the stock of useful knowledge deposited by former Clients. And fw indeed can have departed from that romantic mountain glen without finding their imagination quickened and their experience augmented by contact with their companions on the road. The Games which we have mentioned were celebrated in the broad river-valley of the Alpheius, and the attractiveness of that brilliant spectacle increased with each generation. The programme was constantly extended by the inclusion of new kinds of competitions, and the spectators, who at first were drawn merely from the surrounding country, gradually began to arrive?as is shown by the winners' lists, extant since 776 B.C.?from all points in the circumference of the wide Hellenic world. Nor would their intercourse be confined to the exchange of news and information. Men would take one another's measure; opinions would be freely canvassed; the merits of the different institutions in that land of many subdivisions?their customs, habits, and beliefs?would form topics of general discussion. Comparison engendered judgment, and judgment brought reflection in its train to bear on the causes of the differences and on the permanent element in change. It induced, that is to say, an inquiry for the common canons which obtained in the comme...