of man were turned
to something beyond terrestrial life, to heaven instead of earth.
Philosophy, too, had failed to give complete satisfaction. Man had
realised his utter inability to find knowledge in himself by his
unaided efforts. He despaired to arrive at it without the help of some
transcendental power and its kind assistance. Salvation was not to be
found in man's own nature, but in a world beyond that of the senses.
Philosophy could not satisfy the cultured man by the presentation of its
ethical ideal of life, could not secure for him the promised happiness.
Philosophy, therefore, turned to religion for help. At Alexandria,
where, in the active work of its museum, all treasures of Grecian
culture were garnered, all religions and forms of worship crowded
together in the great throng of the commercial metropolis to seek a
scientific clarification of the feelings that surged and stormed within
them. The cosmopolitan spirit and broad-mindedness which had brought
nations together under the Egyptian government, which had gathered
scholars from all parts in the library and the museum, was favourable
also to the fusion and reconciliation in the evolution of thought.

If Alexandria was the birthplace of that intellectual movement which has
been described, this was not only the result of the prevailing spirit of
the age, but was due to the influence of ideas; salvation could only be
found in the reconciliation of ideas. The geographical centre of this
movement of fusion and reconciliation was, however, in Alexandria.
After having been the town of the museum and the library, of criticism
and literary erudition, Alexandria became once again the meeting-place
of philosophical schools and religious sects; communication had become
easier, and various fundamentally different inhabitants belonging to
distinct social groups met on the banks of the Nile. Not only goods and
products of the soil were exchanged, but also ideas and thoughts. The
mental horizon was widened, comparisons ensued, and new ideas were
suggested and formed. This mixture of ideas necessarily created a
complex spirit where two currents of thought, of critical scepticism and
superstitious credulity, mixed and mingled. Another powerful factor was
the close contact in which Occidentalism or Greek culture found itself
with Orientalism. Here it was where the Greek and Oriental spirit mixed
and mingled, producing doctrines and religious systems containing germs
of tra