seven hundred years before the Christian era. In his time lived seven philosophers, who were called the seven wise men of Greece; and Thales was considered the wisest of them all.

3. One night, while this great philosopher was taking a walk, he looked upward to contemplate the stars. Being much interested in this occupation, he strayed out of his path, and tumbled into a ditch. An old woman, who lived in his family, ran and helped him out, all covered with mud. "For the future, Thales," said she, "I advise you not to have your head among the stars, while your feet are on the earth!" Some people think that the old woman was the best philosopher of the two.

4. Another philosopher was named Pittacus. He was so temperate in his habits, that, though there were many sorts of delicious wines in his country, he never drank anything but water.

5. The philosopher Bias lived in the year 617 before Christ. Some fishermen once found a golden vase in the belly of a large fish. On the vase were engraved these words," To the wisest." It was therefore sent to Bias, who was thought to be at least as wise as anybody.

6. But Bias did not care for gold or riches. When his native city was taken by the enemy, all the other inhabitants endeavoured to hide their most valuable property. Bias alone gave himself no trouble. "Riches are but playthings," said he; "my only real treasures are my own thoughts."

7. Epimenides was a very great philosopher; but my readers must not put too much faith in the story which I am going to tell them. It is as follows:-One day, when Epimenides was young, his father sent him in search of a sheep that was lost. After finding the sheep, Epimenides entered a cave by the wayside, and sat down, for he was tired, and the sun was very hot. In this cave he fell asleep, and slept a good deal longer than he intended.

8. It was no less than fifty-seven years before he awoke. When he closed his eyes he was a young man, but he was old and gray when he opened them again. He left the cave, and went back to the town where he had formerly lived.

9. But his father had been long dead; his brother, who was a child when he went away, was now an old man, and the town was full of houses and people that he had never seen before. These were certainly very wonderful changes, considering that they had all happened while Epimenides was taking a nap.

10. The philosopher Pythagoras believed that, when people died, their souls migrated into the bodies of animals or birds, and he affirmed that his own soul had once lived in the body of a peacock.

11. Heraclitus of Ephesus was called the dark philosopher, because all his sayings were like riddles. He thought that nothing was wisdom which could be understood by common people.

12. This wise man considered the world as such a wretched place, that he never could look at anybody without shedding tears. At last he retired to a cave among the mountains, where he lived on herbs and roots, and was as miserable as his heart could wish.

13. Democritus, who lived not long after Heraclitus, was quite a different sort of philosopher. Instead of shedding tears, he laughed so continually, that his townsmen thought him mad; and, to say the truth, I think so too.

14. The philosopher Anaxagoras believed that the sky was made of stones, and that the sun was a great mass of red-hot iron. This may seem very strange, but in these ancient times the philosophers did not even know the shape of the earth.

15. The philosopher Empedocles went and lived near Mount Etna, in Sicily. He was a man of very grave

and majestic appearance, and everybody knew him, because he used to wear a crown of laurel on his head. People generally acknowledged him to be a very wise man; but, not content with this, he wanted to be thought a god.

16. One day, after he had prepared a great festival, Empedocles disappeared, and was never seen again. The people took it for granted that he had ascended to heaven, but shortly afterwards, there was an eruption of Mount Ætna, and a brazen slipper was thrown out of the crater. On examination, it was found out that this slipper had belonged to Empedocles: and it was now easy to guess at the fate of the foolish old man. He had thrown himself into the crater of the blazing volcano, in order that people might think him a god, and that he had gone to heaven.

17. Socrates was one of the wisest and best philosophers of Greece. Indeed he was so wise and good, that the profligate Athenians could not suffer him to live. They therefore compelled him to drink poison.

18. Diogenes was the strangest philosopher of all. He was called Diogenes the Dog,-either because he lived like a dog, or because he had a currish habit of snarling at everybody.

19. His doctrine was, that the fewer superfluities a man had, the happier he was likely to be. This philosopher went about barefoot, dressed in very shabby clothes, and carrying a bag, a jug, and a staff. He afterwards got a great tub, which he used to drag about with him all day long, and sleep in it at night.

20. One day, Alexander the Great came to see Diogenes, and found him mending his tub. It happened that Alexander stood in such a manner as to shade Diogenes from the sun, and he felt cold. "Diogenes," said Alexander, you must have a very hard time of it, living in a tub. Can I do anything to better your condition?" Nothing, except to get out of my sunshine," replied

66

Diogenes, who disdained to accept any other favour from the greatest monarch in the world.

QUESTIONS. 1. Who were the Greek philosophers ?

-2. Who was Thales? What of the seven wise men? How was Thales considered?- -3. Relate an anecdote of him.-4. What of Pittacus? -5. When did Bias live? Tell the story of the vase.- -6. What did Bias think of riches? -7. Tell the story of Epimenides. -10. What did Pythagoras believe?- -11. What of Heraclitus? -13. Of Democritus? How did he differ from Heraclitus?- -14. What did Anaxagoras believe ?- -15. Where did Empedocles live? What did he wish to be thought ?-16. What means did he take to make the people think him a god?-17. What of Socrates ? His death ?- 18. Of Diogenes? His doctrines? How did he live ?-19. Tell an anecdote of Diogenes.

CHAPTER LV. EUROPE continued.

Something more

about Philosophers. About the Greek Poets.

1. I COULD tell you much more about the Grecian philosophers, but I have not room. I must not forget, however, to mention Plato, who was born 429 years before Christ, and was for eight years the pupil of Socrates.

2. This great man, like many other Grecian philosophers, was a sort of schoolmaster, and many young men came to be taught by him. He delivered his lectures in a grove near Athens, called Academus, from which circumstance the word academy has since been applied to schools.

3. So great was his reputation, that young men of the highest ranks, from various parts of the world, came to be his pupils. He had very sublime ideas of religion, virtue, and truth, and he delivered these with so much sweetness and eloquence, that his listeners were enchanted. The Greeks spoke of him as the Divine Plato.

4. Greece produced many other celebrated philosophers, but I must now tell you of the poets. Homer, the noblest

poet of ancient times, I have already mentioned. When this great man was born, how he lived, or where he died, are matters of uncertainty. The general opinion is, that he lived about the year 900 before Christ, and was a wandering minstrel, who went about from place to place reciting and singing his verses. The Iliad and Odyssey, his two great poems, were composed in separate parts, and, but for the care of Lycurgus, who had them collected, would doubtless have been lost. The Iliad contains the events of the latter part of the Trojan war; the Odyssey is a narrative of the adventures of Ulysses.

5. Hesiod, another great poet, is supposed to have lived about the same time as Homer. There were a multitude of other poets in Greece, many of whom acquired great celebrity. Among these were Anacreon and Pindar, who wrote odes and lyric pieces; Theocritus, who sang the pleasures of a rural life; and Sophocles, Euripides, and Eschylus, dramatic authors.

6. You already know that the Greeks were in many respects very ignorant. They had not yet discovered that the earth is a globe or ball, that it turns round every day; and that the sun, moon, and stars, are also moving worlds. You would not therefore expect in their writings to find any useful information about geography and astronomy. Yet they lived in a beautiful country, and their mountains, streams, and valleys, were often the subject of their songs.

7. The objects of their idolatry, too, furnished materials for their poets. They described the gods and goddesses as dwelling upon the mountains, or skipping along the valleys, or gliding amidst the waters, and possessed of all the passions and failings of human beings. To this day the works of their poets are admired, and the places mentioned are often visited by travellers, who look upon them with interest, on account of the beautiful fictions to which they gave rise more than two thousand years ago.