philosophic theory. It is mixed up with a
religion which really consists in a celebration of the beauty of nature,
and in a deification of the strong and brilliant qualities of human
nature. It is a morality uninfluenced by a regard for a future life. It
clings with intense enjoyment and love to the present world, and the
state after death looms up in the distance as a cold and repugnant
shadow. And yet it would often hold death preferable to disgrace. The
distinction between a noble and ignoble life is strongly marked in
Homer, and yet a sense of right and wrong about particular actions seems
fluctuating" and confused.[902] A sensuous conception of happiness is
the chief good, and mere temporal advantage the principal reward of
virtue. We hear nothing of the approving smile of conscience, of inward
self-satisfaction, and peace, and harmony, resulting from the practice
of virtue. Justice, energy, temperance, chastity, are enjoined, because
they secure temporal good. And yet, with all this imperfection, the
poets present "a remarkable picture of primitive simplicity, chastity,
justice, and practical piety, under the three-fold influence of right
moral feeling, mutual and fear of the divine displeasure."[903]

[Footnote 902: Grant's "Aristotle's Ethics," vol. i. p. 51.]

[Footnote 903: Tyler, "Theology of the Greek Poets," p. 167.]

The _transitional, skeptical_, or _sophistical era_ begins with
Protagoras. Poetry and proverbs had ceased to satisfy the reason of man.
The awakening intellect had begun to call in question the old maxims and
"wise saws," to dispute the arbitrary authority of the poets, and even
to arraign the institutions of society. It had already begun to seek for
some reasonable foundation of authority for the opinions, customs, laws,
and institutions which had descended to them from the past, and to ask
why men were obliged to do this or that? The question whether there is
at bottom any real difference between truth and error, right and wrong,
was now fairly before the human mind. The ultimate standard of all truth
and all right, was now the grand object of pursuit. These inquiries were
not, however, conducted by the Sophists with the best motives. They were
not always prompted by an earnest desire to know the truth, and an
earnest purpose to embrace and do the right. They talked and argued for
mere effect--to display their dialectic subtilty, or their rhetorical
power. They taught virtue for mere emol