exception of the Academic, they never diverged far from the principles of their founders. In the time of Marcus Aurelius, after Athens had been for ages a mere Roman university, they were placed under State patronage, and supported by public funds, and there is no record to show that this was discontinued until they were finally closed by the Emperor Justinian in A.D. 529. Not long after the death of Aristotle, Athens was supplanted by Alexandria, as the centre of Greek influence. Here the rhetorical and philosophic schools established themselves, and could soon boast a numerous discipleship. This, however, was no longer exclusively, or even mainly, Greek, but was recruited from all the nations of the known world, more especially those of the East. Phœnicians, Syrians, Jews, Persians, etc., not to speak of Egyptians, now became students of Greek philosophy, and members of philosophic sects, whose members not only studied together, but often, to a large extent, lived together in communities. About the year B.C. 300 were founded the famous Museum and Library of Alexandria--the first university and the first public library in the world. Round these the various sects gathered, to study, to discuss, and to exchange opinions. Nor was it Greek thought alone that engaged their attention. The opinions and beliefs of Egypt and the East came in for a share, and, in the end, for the largest share. Nor is this wonderful, when we consider the direction that thought and life were then taking. We have already seen that, as Greek civic life lost the conditions of its existence, the thoughtful portion of the people came more and more to seek for life-principles in the supersensible world of intellect. The nature of this world Plato and Aristotle had done their best to reveal. But the event proved that neither an ordered host of ideas commanded by the Good, nor a Supreme Intelligence served by a host of lower intelligences, could yield the principles which the life of the time demanded; and thus we find the philosophers of Alexandria striving to people their intelligible world with forms drawn from all the religions of the East, including Judaism. Thus there grew up the various forms of Alexandrine philosophy, compounds of Greek thought and Oriental religion. On the basis of these again were organized, at the same time, various forms of social life, all tending more or less to religious communism. Hence came the Essenes (see p. 59), the Therapeuts, the Neopythagoreans, and the Neoplatonists, all of whom, notwithstanding certain shortcomings, did much to purify life, and to pave the way for a higher civilization.