resence of religion, have condemned it as
mischievous in itself, confounding in their unjust prejudice its use and
its abuse. But, for all serious thinkers, philosophy is one of the
highest titles of nobility that humanity possesses: and when we consider
its mission previous to Christianity, we feel convinced that it had its
place in the Divine plan. It was not religion in itself that philosophy,
through its noblest representatives, combated, but polytheism. It
dethroned the false gods. Adopting what was best in paganism, philosophy
employed it as an instrument to destroy paganism, and thus clear the way
for definite religion. Above all, it effectually contributed to purify
the idea of Divinity, though this purification was but an approximation.
If at times it caught glimpses of the highest spiritualism, yet it was
unable to protect itself against the return and reaction of Oriental
dualism. In spite of this imperfection, which in its way served the
cause of Christianity by demonstrating the necessity of revelation, men
like Socrates and Plato fulfilled amongst their people a really sublime
mission.

They were to the heathen world the great prophets of the human
conscience, which woke up at their call. And the awakening of the moral
sense was at once the glory and ruin of philosophy; for conscience, once
aroused, could only be satisfied by One greater than they, and must
necessarily reject all systems which proved themselves insufficient to
realize the moral idea they had evoked.

"But to perish thus, and for such a cause, is a high honor to a
philosophy. It was this made the philosophy of Greece, like the Hebrew
laws, though in an inferior sense, a schoolmaster that led to Jesus
Christ, according to the expression of Clement of Alexandria. Viewed in
this light, it was a true gift of God, and had, too, the shadow of good
things to come, awakening the presentiment and desire of them, though it
could not communicate them. Nor can we conceive a better way to prepare
for the advent of Him who was to be 'the Desire of Nations' before
becoming their Saviour."[873]

[Footnote 873: "Religions before Christ," pp. 101, 102.]

In previous chapters we have endeavored to sketch the history of the
development of metaphysical thought, of moral feeling and idea, and of
religious sentiment and want, which characterized Grecian civilization.
In now offering a brief _resume_ of the history of that development,
with the design of more