Christianity and Greek Philosophy Part 46

[Footnote 842: Marcus Aurelius, bk. iii. -- II.]

It is obvious that this doctrine must lead to a social morality and a jurisprudence the very opposite of the Epicurean. If we must do that which is good--that is, that which is reasonable, regardless of all consequences, then it is not for the pleasurable or useful results which flow from it that justice should be practised, but because of its intrinsic excellence. Justice is const.i.tuted good, not by the law of man, but by the law of G.o.d. The highest pleasure is to do right; "this very thing is the virtue of the happy man, and the perfect happiness of life, when every thing is done according to a harmony of the genius of each individual to the will of the Universal Governor and Manager of all things."[843] Every thing which interferes with a purely rational existence is to be eschewed; the pleasures and pains of the body are to be despised. To triumph over emotion, over suffering, over pa.s.sion; to give the fullest ascendency to reason; to attain courage, moral energy, magnanimity, constancy, was to realize true manhood, nay, "to be G.o.dlike; for they have something in them which is, as it were, a G.o.d"[844]

The sublime heroism of the Stoic school is well expressed in the manly precept, "??e???"--_sustine_--endure. "Endure the sorrows engendered by the bitter struggle between the pa.s.sions support all the evils which fortune shall send thee--calumny, betrayal, poverty, exile, irons, death itself." In Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius this spirit seems to rise almost to the grandeur of Christian resignation. "Dare to lift up thine eyes to G.o.d and say, 'Use me hereafter to whatsoever thou pleasest. I agree, and am of the same mind with thee, indifferent to all things.

Lead me whither thou pleasest. Let me act what part thou wilt, either of a public or a private person, of a rich man or a beggar.'"[845] "Show those qualities," says Marcus Aurelius, "which G.o.d hath put in thy power--sincerity, gravity, endurance of labor, aversion to pleasure, contentment with thy portion and with few things, benevolence, frankness, no love of superfluity, freedom from trifling, magnanimity."[846]

[Footnote 843: Diogenes Laertius, "Lives of the Philosophers," bk. vii.

ch. liii.]

[Footnote 844: Id., ib., bk. vii. ch. xliv.]

[Footnote 845: Arrian, "Diss. Epict.," bk. ii. ch. xviii.]

[Footnote 846: "I read to-day part of the 'Meditations of Marcus Antonius' [Aurelius]. What a strange emperor! And what a strange heathen! Giving thanks to G.o.d for all the good things he enjoyed! In particular for his good inspirations, and for twice revealing to him, in dreams, things wherby he was cured of (otherwise) incurable distempers.

I make no doubt but this is one of the 'many' who shall come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,' while the 'children of the kingdom'--nominal Christians--are 'shut out.'"--Wesley's "Journal," vol. i, p. 353.]

Amid the fearful moral degeneracy of imperial Rome, Stoicism became the refuge of all n.o.ble spirits. But, in spite of its severity, and its apparent triumph over the feelings, it brought no real freedom and peace. "Stoical morality, strictly speaking, is, at bottom, only a slavish morality, excellent in Epictetus; admirable still, but useless to the world, in Marcus Aurelius." Pride takes the place of real disinterestedness. It stands alone in haughty grandeur and solitary isolation, tainted with an incurable egoism. Disheartened by its metaphysical impotence, which robs G.o.d of all personality, and man of all hope of immortality; defeated in its struggle to obtain purity of soul, it sinks into despair, and often terminates, as in the case of its two first leaders, Zeno and Cleanthes, and the two Romans, Cato and Seneca, in self-murder. "Thus philosophy is only an apprenticeship of death, and not of life; it tends to death by its image, _apathy_ and _ataraxy._"[847]

[Footnote 847: Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i.

p. 439.]

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PROPaeDEUTIC OFFICE OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.

"Philosophy, before the coming of the Lord, was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness, and it now proved useful for G.o.dliness, being in some part a preliminary discipline (p??pa?de?a t?? ??sa) for those who reap the fruits of faith through demonstration. Perhaps we may say it was given to the Greeks with this special object; for philosophy was to the Greeks what the Law was to the Jews, 'a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ.'"--CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS.

Philosophy, says Cousin, is the effort of _reflection_--the attempt of the human mind to develop in systematic and logical form that which has dimly revealed itself in the spontaneous thought of ages, and to account to itself in some manner for its native and instinctive beliefs. We may further add, it is the effort of the human mind to attain to truth and cert.i.tude on purely rational grounds, uncontrolled by traditional authorities. The sublime era of Greek philosophy was, in fact, an independent effort of human reason to solve the great problems of existence, of knowledge, and of duty. It was an attempt to explain the phenomenal history of the universe, to interpret the fundamental ideas and laws of human reason, to comprehend the utterances of conscience, and to ascertain what Ultimate and Supreme Reality underlies the world of phenomena, of thought, and of moral feeling.[848] And it is this which, for us, const.i.tutes its especial value; that it was, as far as possible, a result of simple reason; or, if at any time Faith a.s.serted its authority, the distinction is clearly marked: If this inquiry was fully, and honestly, and logically conducted, we are ent.i.tled to presume that the results attain by this effort of speculative thought must harmonize with the positive utterances of the Divine Logos--the Eternal Reason, whose revelations are embalmed and transmitted to us in the Word of G.o.d. If the great truth that man is "the _offspring of G.o.d"_ and as such "_the image and glory of G.o.d_" which is a.s.serted, alike, by Paul and the poet-philosophers of Tarsus and Mysia, be admitted, then we may expect that the reason of man shall have some correlation with the Divine reason. The mind of man is the _chef-d'uvre_ of Divine art. It is fashioned after the model which the Divine nature supplies. "Let us make man in _our_ image after _our_ likeness." That image consists in ?p????s??--_knowledge;_ d??a??s???--_justice_; and ?s??t??--_benevolence._ It is not merely the _capacity_ to know, to be just, and to be beneficent; it is _actual_ knowledge, justice, and benevolence. It supposes, first, that the fundamental ideas of the true, the just, and the good, are connate to the human mind; second, that the native determination of the mind is towards the realization of these ideas in every mental state and every form of human activity; third, that there is a const.i.tutional sympathy of reason with the ideas of truth, and righteousness, and goodness, as they dwell in the reason of G.o.d. And though man be now fallen, there is still within his heart some vestige of his primal nature. There is still a sense of the divine, a religious apt.i.tude, "a feeling after G.o.d," and some longing to return to Him. There are still ideas in the reason, which, in their natural and logical development compel him to recognize a G.o.d. There is within his conscience a sense of duty, of obligation, and accountability to a Superior Power--"a law of the mind," thought opposed and antagonized by depraved pa.s.sions and appet.i.tes--"the law in the members." There is yet a natural, const.i.tutional sympathy of reason with the law of G.o.d--"it delights in that law," and consents "that it is good," but it is overborne and obstructed by pa.s.sion. Man, even as unregenerate, "wills to do that which is good," but "how to perform that which is good he finds not," and in the agony of his soul he exclaims, "Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me!"[849]

[Footnote 848: Plato sought also to attain to the Ultimate Reality underlying all aesthetic feeling--the Supreme Beauty as well as the Supreme Good.]

[Footnote 849: Romans, ch. vii.]

The Author of nature is also the Author of revelation. The Eternal Father of the Eternal Son, who is the grand medium of all G.o.d's direct communications to our race--the revealer of G.o.d, is also "the Father of the spirits of all flesh." That divine inbreathing which first const.i.tuted man "a living soul"--that "inspiration of the Almighty which giveth man understanding," and still "teacheth him knowledge," proceeds from the same Spirit as that which inspires the prophets and seers of the Old Testament Church, and the Apostles and teachers of the new. That "true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" shone on the mind of Anaxagoras, and Socrates, and Plato, as well as on the mind of Abraham and Rahab, Cornelius and the Syro-Phoenician woman, and, in a higher form, and with a clearer and richer effulgence, on the mind of Moses, Isaiah, Paul and John. It is not to be wondered at, then, if, in the teaching of Socrates and Plato, we should find a striking _harmony_ of sentiment, and even form of expression, with some parts of the Christian revelation. No short-sighted jealousy ought to impugn the honesty of our judgment, if, in the speculations of Plato, we catch glimpses of a world of ideas not unlike that which Christianity discloses, and hear words not unfamiliar to those who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

If, then, there exists some correlation between Divine and human reason, and if the light which illuminates all minds in Christian and in heathen lands is the _same_ "true light," though differing in degrees of brightness, it is most natural and reasonable to expect some connection and some correspondence between the discoveries of philosophy and the revelations of the Sacred Oracles.

Although Christianity is confessedly something which is above reason and nature--something communicated from above, and therefore in the fullest sense supernatural and superhuman, yet it must stand in _relation_ to reason and nature, and to their historic development; otherwise it could not operate on man at all. "We have no knowledge of a dynamic influence, spiritual or natural, without a dynamic reaction." Matter can only be moved by forces, and according to laws, as it has properties which correlate it with these forces and laws. And mind can not be determined from without to any specific form of cognition, unless it have powers of apprehension and conception which are governed by uniform laws. If man is to be instructed by a verbal revelation, he must, at least, be capacitated for the reception of divine communication--must have a power of forming supersensuous conceptions, and there must be some original community of thought and idea between the mind that teaches and the mind that is taught. A revelation from an invisible G.o.d--a being "whom no man has ever seen or ever can see" with the eye of sense--would have no affinity for, and no power to affect and enlighten, a being who had no presentiment of an invisible Power to which he is in some way related. A revealed law promulgated from an unseen and utterly unknown Power would have no constraining authority, if man had no idea of right, no sense of duty, no feeling of obligation to a Supreme Being. If, therefore, religious instruction be not already preceded by an innate consciousness of G.o.d, and of obligation to G.o.d, as an operative predisposition, there would be nothing for revelation to act upon. Some relation between the reason which planned the universe, and which has expressed its thoughts in the numerical relations and archetypal forms which are displayed therein, and the reason of man, with its ideas of form and number, proportion and harmony, is necessarily supposed in the statement of Paul that "the invisible things of G.o.d from the creation are seen." Nature to us could be no symbol of the Divine Thought, if there were no correlation between the reason of man and the reason of G.o.d. All revelation, indeed, supposes some community of nature, some affinities of thought, some correlation of ideas, between the mind communicating spiritual knowledge, and the mind to which the communication is made. In approaching man, it must traverse ground already occupied by man; it must employ phrases already employed, and a.s.sume forms of thought already familiar to man. It must address itself to some ideas, sentiments, and feelings already possessed by man. If religion is the great end and destination of man, then the nature of man must be const.i.tuted for religion. Now religion, in its inmost nature, is a communion, a fellowship with G.o.d. But no creature can be brought into this communion "save one that is const.i.tutionally related to G.o.d in terms that admit of correspondence." There must be intelligence offered to his intelligence, sentiment to his sentiment, reason to his reason, thought to his thought. There must be implanted in the human mind some fundamental ideas and determinations grounded upon this fact, that the real end and destination of man is for religion, so that when that higher sphere of life and action is presented to man, by an outward verbal revelation, there shall be a recognized harmony between the inner idea and determination, and the outer revelation. We can not doubt that such a relation between human nature and reason, and Christianity, exists. We see evidences of this in the perpetual strivings of humanity to attain to some fuller and clearer apprehension of that Supreme Power which is consciously near to human thought, and in the historic development of humanity towards those higher forms of thought and existence which demand a revelation in order to their completion. This original capacity, and this historical development, have unquestionably prepared the way for the reception of Christianity.

Christianity, then, must have some connection with the reason of man, and it must also have some relation to the progressive developments of human thought in the ages which preceded the advent of Christ.

Christianity did not break suddenly upon the world as a new commencement altogether unconnected with the past, and wanting in all points of sympathy and contact with the then present. It proceeded along lines of thought which had been laid through ages of preparation; it clothed itself in forms of speech which had been moulded by centuries of education, and it appropriated to itself a moral and intellectual culture which had been effected by long periods of severest discipline.

It was, in fact, the consummation of the whole moral and religious history of the world.

A revelation of new truths, presented in entirely new forms of thought and speech, would have defeated its own ends, and, practically, would have been no revelation at all. The divine light, in pa.s.sing through such a medium, would have been darkened and obscured. The lens through which the heavenly rays are to be transmitted must first be prepared and polished. The intellectual eye itself must be gradually accustomed to the light. Hence it is that all revelation has been _progressive_, commencing, in the infancy of our race, with images and symbols addressed to sense, and advancing, with the education of the race, to abstract conceptions and spiritual ideas. The first communications to the patriarchs were always accompanied by some external, sensible appearance; they were often made through some preternatural personage in human form. Subsequently, as human thought becomes a.s.similated to the Divine idea, G.o.d uses man as his organ, and communicates divine knowledge as an internal and spiritual gift. The theistic conception of the earliest times was therefore more or less anthropomorphic, in the prophetic age it was unquestionably more spiritual. The education of Hebraic, Mosaic, and prophetic ages had gradually developed a purer theism, and prepared the Jewish mind for that sublime announcement of our Lord's--"G.o.d is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship in spirit." For ages the Jews had worshipped in Samaria and Jerusalem, and the inevitable tendency of thought was to localize the divine presence; but the gradual withdrawment from these localities of all visible tokens of Jehovah's presence, prepared the way for the Saviour's explicit declaration that "neither in this mountain of Samaria, nor yet at Jerusalem, shall men worship the Father," to the exclusion of any other spot on earth; the real temple of the living G.o.d is now the heart of man. The _Holiness_ of G.o.d was an idea too lofty for human thought to grasp at once. The light of G.o.d's ineffable purity was too bright and dazzling to burst at once on human eyes. Therefore it was gradually displayed. The election of a chosen seed in Abraham's race to a nearer approach to G.o.d than the rest of pagan humanity; the announcement of the Decalogue at Sinai amidst awe-inspiring wonders; the separation of a single tribe to the priestly office, who were dedicated to, and purified in an especial manner for the service of the tabernacle; the sanctification of the High-priest by sacrifice and l.u.s.tration before he dared to enter "the holiest place"--the presence-chamber of Jehovah: and then the direct and explicit teaching of the prophets--were all advancing steps by which the Jewish mind was lifted up to the clearer apprehension of the holiness of G.o.d, the impurity of man, the distance of man from G.o.d, and the need of Mediation.

The ideas of _Redemption_ and _Salvation_--of atonement, expiation, pardon, adoption, and regeneration--are unique and _sui-generis_. Before these conceptions could be presented in the fullness and maturity of the Christian system, there was needed the culture and education of the ages of Mosaic ritualism, with its sacrificial system, its rights of purification, its priestly absolution, and its family of G.o.d.[850]

Redemption itself, as an economy, is a development, and has consequently, a history--a history which had its commencement in the first Eden, and which shall have its consummation in the second Eden of a regenerated world. It was germinally infolded in the first promise, gradually unfolded in successive types and prophecies, more fully developed in the life, and sayings, and sufferings of the Son of G.o.d, and its ripened fruit is presented to the eye of faith in the closing scenic representations of the grand Apocalypse of John. "Judaism was not given as a perfect religion. Whatever may have been its superiority over surrounding forms of worship, it was, notwithstanding, a provisional form only. The consciousness that it was a preparatory, and not a definite dispensation, is evident throughout. It points to an end beyond itself, suggests a grander thought than any in itself; its glory precisely consists in its constant looking forward to a glorious future destined to surpa.s.s it."[851]

[Footnote 850: Romans, IX 4-6.]

[Footnote 851: Pressense, "Religions before Christ," p. 202.]

Thus the determinations which, through Redemption, fall to the lot of history, as Nitzsch justly remarks, obey the emanc.i.p.ating law of _gradual progress_.[852] Christianity was preceded by ages of preparation, in which we have a gradual development of religious phrases and ideas, of forms of social life and intellectual culture, and of national and political inst.i.tutions most favorable to its advent and its promulgation; and "in the fullness of time"--the maturity and fitness of the age--"G.o.d sent his own Son into the world."

[Footnote 852: "System of Doctrine," p. 73.]

This work of preparation was not confined alone to Judaism. The divine plan of redemption comprehended all the race; its provisions are made in view of the wants of all the race; and we must therefore believe that the entire history of the race, previous to the coming of the Redeemer, was under a divine supervision, and directed towards the grand centre of our world's history. Greek philosophy and Grecian civilization must therefore have a place in the divine plan of history, and they must stand in an important relation to Christianity. He who "determined the time of each nation's existence, and fixed the geographical boundaries of their habitation in order that they may seek the Lord," can not have been unmindful of the Greek nation, and of its grandest age of philosophy. "The Father of the spirits of all flesh" could not be unconcerned in the moral and spiritual welfare of any of his children.

He was as deeply interested in the Athenian as in the Hebrew. He is the G.o.d of the Gentile as well as the Jew. His tender mercies are over all his works. If the Hebrew race was selected to be the agent of his providence in one special field, and if the Jewish theocracy was one grand instrument of preparatory discipline, it was simply because, through these, G.o.d designed to bless all the nations of the earth. And surely no one will presume to say that a civilization and an intellectual culture which was second only to the Hebrew, and, in some of its aspects, even in advance of the Hebrew, was not determined and supervised by Divine Providence, and made subservient to the education and development of the whole race. The grand results of Hebrew civilization were appropriated and a.s.similated by Christianity, and remain to this day. And no one can deny that the same is true of Greek civilization. Through a kind of historic preparation the heathen world was made ready for Christ, as a soil is prepared to receive the seed, and some precious fruits of knowledge, of truth, and of righteousness, even, were largely matured, which have been reaped, and appropriated, and vitalized by the heaven-descended life of Christianity.

The chief points of excellence in the civilization of the Greeks are strikingly obvious, and may be readily presented. High perfection of the intellect and the imagination displaying itself in the various forms of art, poetry, literature, and philosophy. A wonderful freedom and activity of body and of mind, developed in trade, and colonization, in military achievement, and in subtile dialectics. A striking love of the beautiful, revealing itself in their sculpture and architecture, in the free music of prosaic numbers, and the graceful movement and measure of their poetry. A quickness of perception, a dignity of demeanor, a refinement of taste, a delicacy of moral sense, and a high degree of reverence for the divine in nature and humanity. And, in general, a ripe and all-pervading culture, which has made Athens a synonym for all that is greatest and best in the genius of man; so that literature, in its most flourishing periods has rekindled its torch at her altars, and art has looked back to the age of Pericles for her purest models.[853] All these enter into the very idea of Greek civilization. We can not resist the conviction that, by a Divine Providence, it was made subservient to the purpose of Redemption; it prepared the way for, and contributed to, the spread of the Gospel.

[Footnote 853: In Lord Brougham's celebrated letter to the father of the historian Macaulay in regard to the education of the latter, we read: "If he would be a great orator, he must go at once to the fountain-head, and be familiar with every one of the great orations of Demosthenes....

I know from experience that nothing is half so successful in these times (bad though they be) as what has been formed on the Greek models. I use poor ill.u.s.trations in giving my own experience, but I do a.s.sure you that both in courts and Parliament, and even to mobs, I have never made so much play (to use a very modern phrase) as when I was almost translating from the Greek. I composed the peroration of my speech for the Queen, in the Lords, after reading and repeating Demosthenes for three or four weeks."]

Its subserviency to this grand purpose is seen in the Greek tendency to trade and colonization. Their mental activity was accompanied by great physical freedom of movement. They displayed an inherent disposition to extensive emigration. "Without aiming at universal conquest, they developed (if we may use the word) a remarkable catholicity of character, and a singular power of adaptation to those whom they called Barbarians. In this respect they were strongly contrasted with the Egyptians, whose immemorial civilization was confined to the long valley which extended from the cataracts to the mouth of the Nile. The h.e.l.lenic tribes, on the other hand, though they despised the foreigners, were never unwilling to visit them and to cultivate their acquaintance. At the earliest period at which history enables us to discover them, we see them moving about in their ships on the sh.o.r.es and among the islands of their native seas; and, three or four centuries before the Christian era, Asia Minor, beyond which the Persians had not been permitted to advance, was bordered by a fringe of Greek colonies; and lower Italy, when the Roman Republic was just becoming conscious of its strength, had received the name of Greece itself. To all these places they carried their arts and literature, their philosophy, their mythology, and their amus.e.m.e.nts.... They were gradually taking the place of the Phnicians in the empire of the Mediterranean. They were, indeed, less exclusively mercantile than those old discoverers. Their voyages were not so long.

But their influence on general civilization was greater and more permanent. The earliest ideas of scientific navigation and geography are due to the Greeks. The later Greek travellers, Pausanias and Strabo, are our best sources of information on the topography of St. Paul's journeys.

"With this view of the h.e.l.lenic character before us, we are prepared to appreciate the vast results of Alexander's conquests. He took the meshes of the net of Greek civilization which were lying in disorder on the edge of the Asiatic sh.o.r.e, and spread them over all the countries he traversed in his wonderful campaigns. The East and the West were suddenly brought together. Separate tribes were united under a common government. New cities were built as the centres of political life. New lines of communication were opened as the channels of commercial activity. The new culture penetrated the mountain ranges of Pisidia and Lycaonia. The Tigris and Euphrates became Greek rivers. The language of Athens was heard among the Jewish colonies of Babylonia, and a Grecian Babylon was built by the conqueror in Egypt, and called by his name.

"The empire of Alexander was divided, but the effects of his campaigns and policy did not cease. The influence of these fresh elements of social life was rather increased by being brought into independent action within the sphere of distinct kingdoms. Our attention is particularly directed to two of the monarchical lines which descended from Alexander's generals--the Ptolemies, or the Greek kings of Egypt, and the Seleucidae, or the Greek kings of Syria. Their respective capitals, Alexandria and Antioch, became the metropolitan centres of commercial and civilized life in the East."[854] Antioch was for ages the home of science and philosophy. Here the religious opinions of the East and the West were blended and mutually modified. Here it was discovered by the heathen mind that a new religion had appeared, and a new revelation had been given.[855] In Alexandria all nations were invited to exchange their commodities and, with equal freedom, their opinions. The representatives of all religions met here. "Beside the Temple of Jupiter there rose the white marble Temple of Serapis, and close at hand stood the synagogue of the Jews." The Alexandrian library contained all the treasures of ancient culture, and even a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures.

[Footnote 854: Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul,"

vol. i. pp. 8-10.]

[Footnote 855: Acts, xi. 26.]

The spread of the Greek _language_ was one of the most important services which the cities of Antioch and Alexandria rendered to Christianity. The Greek tongue is intimately connected with the whole system of Christian doctrine.

This language, which, in symmetry of structure, in flexibility and compa.s.s of expression, in exactness and precision, in grace and elegance, exceeds every other language, became the language of theology.

Next in importance to the inspiration which communicates the superhuman thought, must be the gradual development of the language in which the thought can clothe itself. That development by which the Greek language became the adequate vehicle of Divine thought, the perfect medium of the mature revelation of truth contained in the Christian Scriptures, must be regarded as the subject of a Divine providence. Christianity waited for that development, and it awaited Christianity. "The Greek tongue became to the Christian more than it had been to the Roman or the Jew.

The mother-tongue of Ignatius at Antioch was that in which Philo composed his treatises at Alexandria, and which Cicero spoke at Athens.

It is difficult to state in a few words the important relation which Alexandria, more especially, was destined to bear to the whole Christian Church." In that city, the Old Testament was translated into Greek; there the writings of Plato were diligently studied; there Philo, the Platonizing Jew, had sought to blend into one system the teachings of the Old Testament theology and the dialectic speculations of Plato.

Numenius learns of Philo, and Plotinus of Numenius, and the ecstasy of Plotinus is the development of Philo's intuitions. A _theological language_ by this means was developed, rich in the phrases of various schools, and suited to convey the spiritual revelation of Christian ideas to all the world. "It was not an accident that the New Testament was written in Greek, the language which can best express the highest thoughts and worthiest feelings of the intellect and heart, and which is adapted to be the instrument of education for all nations; nor was it an accident that the composition of these books and the promulgation of the Gospels were delayed till the instruction of our Lord, and the writings of his Apostles could be expressed in the dialect [of Athens and] of Alexandria."[856] This must be ascribed to the foreordination of Him who, in the history of nations and of civilizations, "worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will."

[Footnote 856: Conybeare and Howson, "Life and Epistles of St. Paul,"

vol. i. p. 10.]

Now it is the doctrine of the best philologists that language is a _growth_. Gradually, and by combined efforts of successive generations, it has been brought to the perfection which we so much admire in the idioms of the Bible, the poetry of Homer, Dante, and Shakspeare, and the prose compositions of Demosthenes, Cicero, Johnson, and Macaulay. The material or root-element of language may have been the product of mental instinct, or perhaps the immediate gift of G.o.d by revelation; but the formal element must have been the creation of thought, and the result of rational combination. Language is really the incarnation of thought; consequently the growth of a language, its affluence, comprehension, and fullness must depend on the vigor and activity of thought, and the acquisition of general ideas. Language is thus the best index of intellectual progress, the best standard of the intellectual attainment of an age or nation. The language of barbaric tribes is exceedingly simple and meagre; the paucity of general terms clearly indicating the absence of all attempts at cla.s.sification and all speculative thought.

Whilst the language of educated peoples is characterized by great fullness and affluence of terms, especially such as are expressive of general notions and abstract ideas. All grammar, all philology, all scientific nomenclature are thus, in fact, _psychological deposits_, which register the progressive advancement of human thought and knowledge in the world of mind, as the geological strata bear testimony to the progressive development of the material world. "Language," says Trench, "is fossil poetry, fossil history," and, we will add, fossil philosophy. Many a single word is a concentrated poem. The record of great social and national revolutions is embalmed in a single term.[857]

And the history of an age of philosophic thought is sometimes condensed and deposited in one imperishable word.[858]

[Footnote 857: See Trench "On the Study of Words," p. 20, where the word "frank" is given as an ill.u.s.tration.]

[Footnote 858: For example, the ??s?? of the Pythagoreans, the e?d? of the Platonists, and the ?ta?a??a of the Stoics.]