when the Greek first demonstrated that reasoning might often err, but reason never. That is the only medium through which truth is conveyed, and Greek philosophy was truly precious when it became to mankind the translation of the instinctive consciousness of God into reasoning. This was first applied to fathom the depths of physical speculation; and, then, in the consecrated soul of Socrates, it labored to possess the bosom of universal humanity, that thereby it might unfold to all the highest science. Shem transformed figurative signs into simple letters, and invented the Alphabet; but that greater prophet of the human race, Japhet, did vastly more, by translating the hieroglyphics of thought into simple elements, thereby inventing dialectical philosophy. This changed myths, legends, and visions, as well as more authentic annals into the heirloom of mankind by reason, and became at once and for all time the great organon for dealing with both conception and existence of all kinds everywhere. There was military activity enough among the Greeks to preserve them from intellectual and moral torpor, but fortunately it did not exist in sufficient force to engross the faculties of superior minds. Therefore, energies of the highest order were thrown back upon intellectual pursuits; and the masses, so led, were also inclined to like culture, especially in the direction of æsthetics and philosophy. The bold writers of the Republic shrunk not from propounding all those problems in science and morals most interesting to man; and, whatever may have been their skill in solving them, they certainly were the first to point the way to true greatness. But for the restless spirit of inquiry which was awakened by Greek philosophers, the western nations might still have been slumbering in barbarian ignorance. Ancient dialectics prepared the way for modern progress, by teaching intellect to discipline and comprehend itself, in order that it may accurately scan nature and bind her forces to the car of human welfare. Such was the idea expressed by Aristotle, when he said: "The order of the universe is like that of a family, of which each member has its part not arbitrarily or capriciously enforced, but prefixed and appointed; all in their diversified functions conspiring to the harmony of the whole." Philosophy, like the literature, art, and science of the ancients, had its origin among the Asiatic Greeks. The same region that gave existence and character to Homer and Herodotus, produced also Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus, founders of the Ionic school. They belonged to the same region, studied under like auspices, and formed continuous links in the great chain of perpetual progress. To the same source is to be accredited those who extended the Ionic doctrines to Magna Grecia and southern Italy, such as the poet Zenophanes, and that mighty founder of the most erudite confederacy, Pythagoras.