ver, it is conceived that
being is primarily not affirmation or self-sufficiency, but the _good_
or _ideal_. There are few great metaphysical systems that have not been
deeply influenced by Platonism; hence the importance of understanding it
in its purity. To this end we must return again to the early Greek
conception of the philosopher; for Platonism, like Eleaticism, is a
sequel to the philosopher's self-consciousness.

[Sidenote: Early Greek Philosophers not Self-critical.]

Sect. 155. Although the first Greek philosophers, such men as Thales,
Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Empedocles, were clearly aware of their
distinction and high calling, it by no means follows that they were good
judges of themselves. Their sense of intellectual power was
unsuspecting; and they praised philosophy without definitely raising the
question of its meaning. They were like unskilled players who try all
the stops and scales of an organ, and know that somehow they can make a
music that exceeds the noises, monotones or simple melodies of those who
play upon lesser instruments. They knew their power rather than their
instrument or their art. The first philosophers, in short, were
self-conscious but not self-critical.

[Sidenote: Curtailment of Philosophy in the Age of the Sophists.]

Sect. 156. The immediately succeeding phase in the history of Greek
philosophy was a curtailment, but only in the most superficial sense a
criticism, of the activity of the philosopher. In the Periclean Age
philosophy suffered more from inattention than from refutation. The
scepticism of the sophists, who were the knowing men of this age, was
not so much conviction as indisposition. They failed to recognize the
old philosophical problem; it did not _appeal_ to them as a genuine
problem. The sophists were the intellectual men of an age of _humanism_,
_individualism_, and _secularism_. These were years in which the circle
of human society, the state with its institutions, citizenship with its
manifold activities and interests, bounded the horizon of thought. What
need to look beyond? Life was not a problem, but an abundant opportunity
and a sense of capacity. The world was not a mystery, but a place of
entertainment and a sphere of action. Of this the sophists were faithful
witnesses. In their love of novelty, irreverence, impressionism,
elegance of speech, and above all in their praise of individual
efficiency, they preached and pandered to their age. Their pub