revelation. They profess to liberate the soul from the evils of mortal
life,--to arrive at eternal beatitudes. But the state of perfectibility
could be reached only by religious ceremonial observances and devout
contemplation. The Indian systems do not disdain logical discussions, or
a search after the principles of which the universe is composed; and
hence we find great refinements in sophistry, and a wonderful subtilty
of logical discussion, though these are directed to unattainable
ends,--to the connection of good with evil, and the union of the Supreme
with Nature. Nothing seemed to come out of these speculations but an
occasional elevation of mind among the learned, and a profound
conviction of the misery of man and the obstacles to his perfection. The
Greeks, starting from physical phenomena, went on in successive series
of inquiries, elevating themselves above matter, above experience, even
to the loftiest abstractions, until they classified the laws of thought.
It is curious how speculation led to demonstration, and how inquiries
into the world of matter prepared the way for the solution of
intellectual phenomena. Philosophy kept pace with geometry, and those
who observed Nature also gloried in abstruse calculations. Philosophy
and mathematics seem to have been allied with the worship of art among
the same men, and it is difficult to say which more distinguished
them,--aesthetic culture or power of abstruse reasoning.

We do not read of any remarkable philosophical inquirer until Thales
arose, the first of the Ionian school. He was born at Miletus, a Greek
colony in Asia Minor, about the year 636 B.C., when Ancus Martius was
king of Rome, and Josiah reigned at Jerusalem. He has left no writings
behind him, but was numbered as one of the seven wise men of Greece on
account of his political sagacity and wisdom in public affairs. I do not
here speak of his astronomical and geometrical labors, which were great,
and which have left their mark even upon our own daily life,--as, for