Although the system of Athenian life was deformed by many imperfections, yet never at an earlier period had so much energy, virtue, and beauty, been developed; never was blind force and obdurate will so disciplined and ennobled, as during the century which preceded the death of Socrates. If the early Pythian and Dodonean oracles tended to consolidate national union, the improved wisdom of later philosophers did much to cultivate the citizens. Many a Grecian, engarlanded with laurel, then adorned the various walks of secular and moral life. It is probable that some were self-deceived, when no unworthy fraud was intended. Vividly conscious of a calling to some great vocation, and seeking, in the depths of their own imperfect religiousness, for the means of fulfilling it, they felt what seemed to be veritable inspiration, and accepted as the voices of supernatural beings what was in fact only the promptings of their own minds. To this influence, in great part, must be accredited much of the sublimity of Homer, patriotism of Tyrtæus, enthusiasm of Pindar, terror of Æschylus, and tenderness of Sophocles. The presence of divinity was indeed so palpable and enduring, that many nations, invulnerable to Grecian arms, received her beautiful system of mythology, and crowded her temples with eagerness to listen to her sacred instruction. Lightning strikes only kindred matter, which it seeks and salutes in the vividness of its own flash; and thus do great and effulgent examples glow into genial hearts, strengthen their illuminating power as they extend, and burn with greater splendor the wider they are diffused.