PHILOSOPHY: THE STOICS AND THE EPICUREANS.--In the Greek world the progress of investigation and reflection tended to produce disbelief in the old mythological system. Social confusion and degeneracy tended to undermine all religious faith. _Pyrrho_ (about 330 B.C.) brought forward the skeptical doctrine, that the highest wisdom is to doubt every thing. _Euhemrus_ (315 B.C.) interpreted the whole mythology as an exaggeration, by imagination and invention, of historical events which form its slender nucleus. With the loss of liberty and the downfall of the Greek states, philosophy became, so to speak, more _cosmopolitan_. It no longer exalted, in the same narrow spirit, the _Greek_ above the _barbarian_. It looked at mankind more as one community. This was a feature of the first of the two principal sects, the _Stoics_, of whom _Zeno_ (about 330 B.C.), and Chrysippus (280-207 B.C.) were the founders. They taught that _virtue_ is the _only good_; that is consists _in living according to nature_; that reason should be dominant, and tranquillity of spirit be maintained by the complete subjugation of feeling. The emotions are to be kept down by the force of and iron will. This is the Stoic _apathy_. The world is wisely ordered: whatever is, is right; yet the cause of all things is not personal. Mankind form on great community, "one city." The _Epicureans_, the second of the prominent sects,--so called from _Epicurus_, their founder (342-370 B.C.),--made _pleasure_ the chief good, which is to be secured by _prudence_, or such a regulation of our desires as will yield, on the whole, the largest fruit of happiness. They believed that the gods exist, but _denied Providence_.