Thus the public life was in danger of being swamped by private interests and mere enjoyment, by gain and the struggle for existence. The old belief in the gods, the vigorous political activity for great ends, the pleasure in free scientific inquiry had disappeared. The only refuge for the reflective mind was within itself and the study of its own moral problems. Yet for this a definite science of ethics was necessary, if the individual was to be systematically independent of external things. Plato and Aristotle had prepared the way for such retirement, and the tendency toward ethical separation from the world of political events was an aspect of the cosmopolitanism of the time. Ethical individuality and cosmopolitanism go together. The development of the inner life belongs to those individuals who dwell together in spiritual community. The same cosmopolitanism was sought by the skeptics of the period through the abandonment of all knowledge. =The Schools.= The beginning of the Ethical Period is marked by the rise of the Schools into prominence, the end of that period by the fusion of the Schools with one another through either eclecticism or skepticism. At the beginning of the period each School had its distinctive doctrine and was in open controversy with the others; at the end their doctrines were much alike. The Epicurean School was an exception, for it always remained isolated from the other Schools. While each School had a host of notable representatives, it would be difficult to find a creative thinker among them. Illustration: MAP OF ATHENS, SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE FOUR SCHOOLS (The Academy was three quarters of a mile from the city, the Lyceum just outside the city, while the Porch was a colonnade on the market place (Agora). The location of the Gardens is not precisely known, but it was on the road to the Academy, just inside the walls.)