tongues to which it bears such a resemblance, with all its
richness of imagery and its treasures of thought, has hitherto
been void of any influence on the development of general
literature. China contributed still less, Persia and Arabia were
alike isolated until they were brought in contact with the
European mind through the Crusaders, and the Moorish Empire in
Spain."

This independence and originality of Greek literature is due in
some measure to the freedom of their institutions from caste; but
another and more powerful cause was that, unlike the Oriental
nations, the Greeks for a long time kept no correct record of
their transactions in war or peace. This absence of authentic
history made their literature become what it is. By the purely
imaginary character of its poetry, and the freedom it enjoyed
from the trammels of particular truths, it acquired a quality
which led Aristotle to consider poetry as more philosophical than
history.

The Homeric poems are in a great measure the fountainhead from
which the refinement of the Ancients was derived. The history of
the Iliad and the Odyssey represent a state of society warlike it
is true, but governed by intellectual, literary and artistic
power. Philosophy was early cultivated by the Greeks, who first
among all nations distinguished it from religion and mythology.

Socrates is the founder of the philosophy that is still
recognized in the civilized world. He left no writings behind
him; but by means of lectures, that included question and answer,
his system, known as the dialectics, has come down to us.