Much, has been said in praise of the Ionian philosophers; and justly, so far as their genius and loftiness of character are considered.  But what did they discover?  What truths did they arrive at to serve as foundation-stones of science?  They were among the greatest intellects of antiquity.  But their method was a wrong one.  Their philosophy was based on assumptions and speculations, and therefore was worthless, since they settled nothing.  Their science was based on inductions which were not reliable, because of a lack of facts.  They drew conclusions as to the origin of the universe from material phenomena.  Thales, seeing that plants are sustained by dew and rain, concluded that water was the first beginning of things.  Anaximenes, seeing that animals die without air, thought that air was the great primal cause.  Then Diogenes of Crete, making a fanciful speculation, imparted to air an intellectual energy.  Heraclitus of Ephesus substituted fire for air.  None of the illustrious Ionians reached anything higher, than that the first cause of all things must be intelligent.  The speculations of succeeding philosophers, living in a more material age, all pertained to the world of matter which they could see with their eyes.  And in close connection with speculations about matter, the cause of which they could not settle, was indifference to the spiritual nature of man, which they could not see, and all the wants of the soul, and the existence of the future state, where the soul alone was of any account.  So atheism, and the disbelief of the existence of the soul after death, characterized that materialism.  Without God and without a future, there was no stimulus to virtue and no foundation for anything.  They said, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,”—­the essence and spirit of all paganism.

Socrates, seeing how unsatisfactory were all physical inquiries, and what evils materialism introduced into society, making the body everything and the soul nothing, turned his attention to the world within, and “for physics substituted morals.”  He knew the uncertainty of physical speculation, but believed in the certainty of moral truths.  He knew that there was a reality in justice, in friendship, in courage.  Like Job, he reposed on consciousness.  He turned his attention to what afterwards gave immortality to Descartes.  To the scepticism of the Sophists he opposed self-evident truths.  He proclaimed the sovereignty of virtue, the universality of moral obligation.  “Moral certitude was the platform from which he would survey the universe.”  It was the ladder by which he would ascend to the loftiest regions of knowledge and of happiness.  “Though he was negative in his means, he was positive in his ends.”  He was the first who had glimpses of the true mission of philosophy,—­even to sit in judgment on all knowledge, whether it pertains to art, or politics, or science; eliminating the false and retaining the true.  It was his mission to