In this point of view, all that is universally interesting in the character, life, and intellect of the Greeks will be best and most easily classed under three categories. The first is the _divine_ in their system of art, or the mythology that was so closely interwoven with their traditions and their fictions, their whole arrangement of life, their customs, and political institutions; and which so much excites our astonishment and admiration. The second is their science of Nature--a science so natural to them, and which embraced all the objects of Nature and the world, as well as of history, and even man himself, with the utmost clearness of perception, sagacity of intellect, and beauty and animation of expression--a science that, from its earliest infancy down to its complete perfection in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, has established the lasting glory of the Greeks, and has had a deep and abiding influence on the human mind, through all succeeding ages. The third and last category, in this portrait of the Greek intellect and character, is the political rationalism in Greece's latter days, founded on those maxims and principles which had finally triumphed after the most violent contest of parties, and under which the state was entirely swayed by the arts of eloquence and the power of rhetoric, now become a real political authority in society. All that can be said truly to the honour of the ancient Greek states, and their Republican virtues, has been briefly noticed above. Their decay and general anarchy, and final subjugation by Rome, may be well accounted for by the decline of the Greek philosophy, and the consequent corruption of morals and doctrine--by that dominion of sophists, unparalleled at least in ancient history, and whose pernicious art of a false rhetoric was the bane of public life, government, and all national greatness.