t
that great fact as self evident and needing no demonstration. He will,
in like manner, take his stand upon the undeniable advantages of virtue
and good morals, defending the doctrine that pleasure should be the
object of life--pleasure of that pure kind which flows from a
cultivation of ennobling pursuits, or instinctive, as exhibited in the
life of brutes. But when he has thus cast aside demonstration as
needless for his purposes, and put his reliance in this manner on faith,
he has lost the restraining, the guiding principle that can set bounds
to his conduct. If he considers, with Socrates, who opens the third age
of Greek development--its age of faith--the existence of God as not
needing any proof, he may, in like manner, add thereto the existence of
matter and ideas. To faith there will be no difficulty in such
doctrines as those of Reminiscence, the double immortality of the soul,
the actual existence of universals; and, if such faith, unrestrained and
unrestricted, be directed to the regulation of personal life, there is
nothing to prevent a falling into excess and base egoism. For ethics, in
such an application, ends either in the attempt at the procurement of
extreme personal sanctity or the obtaining of individual pleasure--the
foundation of patriotism is sapped, the sentiment of friendship is
destroyed. So it was with the period of Grecian faith inaugurated by
Socrates, developed by Plato, and closed by the Sceptics. Antisthenes
and Diogenes of Sinope, in their outrages on society and their
self-mortifications, show to what end a period of faith, unrestrained by
reason, will come; and Epicurus demonstrated its tendency when guided by
self.

Thus closes the third period of Greek philosophical development.

[Sidenote: Age of Reason--its solutions.]

In introducing us to a fourth, Aristotle insists that, though we must
rely on reason, Reason itself must submit to be guided by Experience;
and Zeno, taking up the same thought, teaches us that we must appeal to
the decisions of common sense. He disposes of all doubt respecting the
criterion of truth by proclaiming that the distinctness of our sensuous
impressions is a sufficient guide. In all this, the essential condition
involved is altogether different from that of the speculative ages, and
also of the age of faith. Yet, though under the ostensible guidance of
reason, the human mind ever seeks to burst through such self-imposed
restraints, attempting to asce