Philosophy has always existed. Religions--all religions--are
philosophies. They are indeed the most complete. But, apart from religions,
men have sought the causes and principles of everything and endeavoured to
acquire general ideas. These researches apart from religious dogmas in
pagan antiquity are the only ones with which we are here to be concerned.

THE IONIAN SCHOOL: THALES.--The Ionian School is the most ancient
school of philosophy known. It dates back to the seventh century before
Christ. Thales of Miletus, a natural philosopher and astronomer, as we
should describe him, believed matter--namely, that of which all things and
all beings are made--to be in perpetual transformation, and that these
transformations are produced by powerful beings attached to every portion
of matter. These powerful beings were gods. Everything, therefore, was full
of gods. His philosophy was a mythology. He also thought that the
essential element of matter was water, and that it was water, under the
influence of the gods, which transformed itself into earth, air, and fire,
whilst from water, earth, air, and fire came everything that is in nature.

ANAXIMANDER; HERACLITUS.--Anaximander of Miletus, an astronomer
also, and a geographer, believed that the principle of all things is
_indeterminate_--a kind of chaos wherein nothing has form or shape;
that from chaos come things and beings, and that they return thither in
order to emerge again. One of his particular theories was that fish were
the most ancient of animals, and that all animals had issued from them
through successive transformations. This theory was revived for a while
about fifty years ago.

Heraclitus of Ephesus (very obscure, and with this epithet attached
permanently to his name) saw all things as a perpetual growth--in an
indefinite state of becoming. Nothing is; all things grow and are destined