s with the
intellectual activity of the Greek mind, we find it engaged in the
construction of various such schemes for an explanation of the
world--usually called cosmogonies.

It was at this stage of intellectual progress that what we might call an
interruption occurred in the normal process of evolution. Great
intellectual activity had for some time prevailed in the Greek
communities; several men of conspicuous genius--notably Heracleitus and
Parmenides--had carried speculation as to the origin and nature of the
world to a height hitherto undreamt of. These achievements and the
consciousness of continual progress had engendered in Athens
particularly what might be called an epidemic of intellectual pride.

On this scene Socrates appeared, plain, blunt, critical. His teaching
was in effect an appeal to men to reflect: to turn their attention away
from the world which they were supposed to be explaining to the
contemplation of their own Minds by which the explanation was
furnished. +gnothi seauton+ was his motto. All explanations of the
Universe or of Experience were, as he showed, vain unless the Cognitive
Faculty by which they were constructed were operating truly. In
particular, the process of Rational Discourse implied the use of
concrete general terms, which were recognised to be the essential
instruments of Cognition. Socrates therefore devoted his attention
specially to a critical examination of these general terms and also of
the abstract terms which were the familiar instruments of Discourse.

The Greeks of that day were endowed with a singular clearness of
intellectual vision. They readily recognised that Knowledge was an
intellectual process; they appreciated the activity of Thought or
Rational Discourse as essential to its formation. They quite understood
that Knowledge is not of the nature of a photograph--a resemblant
pictorial reproduction of the data furnished by sensation. Only very
casually and occasionally do we ever attempt to supply ourselves with a
resemblant reproduction of our sensations. Obviously such a reproduction
would only be of value memorially and could tell us nothing new.

These early Greeks realised this, and they appear to have realised also
pretty clearly that it would be impossible by means of such pictorial
impressions to establish any community of Knowledge. It is of the
essence of Knowledge that it is something which can be communicated to,
and which is the common possession