one and the same Unknowable. But, so far as our evidence goes, he made
no such attempt as the modern philosopher did, to persuade the religious
instinct that this Unknowable could supply the place of all the gods.

[Sidenote: Xenophanes of Elea, about 570 to 480 B.C.]

[Sidenote: His Pantheism Disputed but well Established.]

[Sidenote: His Religion.]

The position of Xenophanes, who, toward the latter part of the sixth
century B.C. migrated, apparently for political reasons, in fear of
Persian imperialism, from Colophon in Asia Minor to Elea in Italy, was a
little different, and, for our purpose, more interesting. For the few
fragments which are unfortunately all that is left to us of his
philosophical poetry, are strongly suggestive of Pantheism, and the
interpretation put upon them by later classical and sub-classical
writers, who had his works before them, would appear decisive. True, the
distinguished and enlightened scholar, Simon Karsten, who, in the first
quarter of the nineteenth century, found a labour of love in collecting
and editing the remains of early Greek philosophers, deprecated such a
judgment. Yet, while the motives for his special pleading were
honourable, seeing the odious misrepresentations of Pantheism still
prevalent in the Dutch scholar's native land,--misrepresentations
undissipated even by the splendour of Spinoza,--his protest remains
special pleading still. And he himself candidly quotes at large from an
alleged work of Aristotle--possibly, only a student's notes of the
latter's lectures--and also from Simplicius, as reported by Theophrastus
in a comment on Aristotle's Physics, sentences which describe the system
of Xenophanos as unquestionably Pantheistic. From, which description I