THREE:In the preceding chapter we traced the rise and progress of physical philosophy among the ancient Greeks. We showed how a few great thinkers, borne on by an unparalleled development of intellectual activity, worked out ideas respecting the order of nature and the constitution of matter which, after more than two thousand years, still remain as fresh and fruitful as ever; and we found that, in achieving these results, Greek thought was itself determined by ascertainable laws. Whether controlling artistic imagination or penetrating to the objective truth of things, it remained always essentially homogeneous, and worked under the same forms of circumscription, analysis, and opposition. It began with external nature, and with a far distant past; nor could it begin otherwise, for only so could the subjects of its later meditations be reached. Only after less sacred beliefs have been shaken can ethical dogmas be questioned. Only when discrepancies of opinion obtrude themselves on mans notice is the need of an organising logic experienced. And the minds eye, originally focussed for distant objects alone, has to be gradually restricted in its range by the pressure of accumulated experience before it can turn from past to present, from successive to contemporaneous phenomena. We have now to undertake the not less interesting task of showing how the new culture, the new conceptions, the new power to think obtained through those earliest54 speculations, reacted on the life from which they sprang, transforming the moral, religious, and political creeds of Hellas, and preparing, as nothing else could prepare, the vaster revolution which has given a new dignity to existence, and substituted, in however imperfect a form, for the adoration of animalisms which lie below man, the adoration of an ideal which rises above him, but only personifies the best elements of his own nature, and therefore is possible for a perfected humanity to realise.Neither can we admit Grotes further contention, that in no Greek city but Athens would Socrates have been permitted to carry on his cross-examining activity for so long a168 period. On the contrary, we agree with Colonel Mure,113 that in no other state would he have been molested. Xenophanes and Parmenides, Heracleitus and Democritus, had given utterance to far bolder opinions than his, opinions radically destructive of Greek religion, apparently without running the slightest personal risk; while Athens had more than once before shown the same spirit of fanatical intolerance, though without proceeding to such a fatal extreme, thanks, probably, to the timely escape of her intended victims. M. Ernest Renan has quite recently contrasted the freedom of thought accorded by Roman despotism with the narrowness of old Greek Republicanism, quoting what he calls the Athenian Inquisition as a sample of the latter. The word inquisition is not too strong, only the lecturer should not have led his audience to believe that Greek Republicanism was in this respect fairly represented by its most brilliant type, for had such been the case very little free thought would have been left for Rome to tolerate.
作为一个上班族的你，是否经常感觉到工作生活压力巨大，时刻感觉自己快要HOLD不住了，有时候甚至一度怀疑自己得了抑郁症？别担心，其实没那么可怕，这都是慢性疲劳的症状。但是当你意
