Evening star., 1925-08-25

is a philosopher-and g. pretty one,
too.
The ancient philosophers, in our
| sense of the term, particularly appeal
to me because they talked man to man
with their pupils, usually beneath the
blue sky. They closely approximated
that ideal of modern education set
forth in the sentence about THE best
school is that in which the teacher sits
on one end of log and the pupil on
the other
The ancient philosophers were the
first men who wondered. Men have
been doing it ever since. They did
not accept the facts of nature upon
their face, or as their mythologies
had It, nor did they allow too free
play of human emotions.
Jove threw the thunderbolts, their
mythologies said; but determined men
arose to attempt to explain thunder
as phenomenon Of Nature. They
| even attempted to explain who made
! Nature.
They could not rest with being
angry at their fellow men, but tried
to reason out the passion. and why
men should take steps to curb II.
| In the full yigor Of their primitive
i brains they achieved grand results,
| and enthroned the human mind once
and for all on the pedestal from
which it has never been knocked
| down.
The mind is the only king that
reigns as Of old, whose sway Is even
greater today than in the ancient
| times.
The original philosophers, those old
| lovers of knowledge, did their work
| so well that today we can but marvel,
when we read words set down cen
turies and centuries ago, SO full OF
truth so felicitiously put they might
have been written but yesterday.
Philosophy, the universal love of
wisdom, probably had it's origin in
Greece in the sixth century Be, ac-
cording to authorities, but it seems TO
me Egypt deserves the honor, for
some of her ancient books are begin.
nings at philosophy, and were written
probably long before Greece knew
how to set down characters.
Thales of Miletus is given the dis.
tinction of having been among the
first Greek philosophers. Pythagoras
was another. Heraclitus taught the
everlasting change going on in nature,
and the Sophists later preached that
the individual is the criterion of all
things.
These concepts seem simple today,
but think of being the first men 10
| strike them off, Socrates and Plato
had great sport in refuting the Soph.
lists. The ideas of these two men still
live in the world.
Zeno founded the Stoical school and
Epicurus the one named after him.
| The former is something branded ma
terialistic pantheism. a terrible-sound-
| ing indictment. but not as bad as 1t
sounds Nor is il true.
Stoicism applied by Christian people
of today is softened into those finer
virtues which distinguish the better
| civilized peoples of the earth. Seneca
the great Roman Stole essayist. was
by many said to be a Christian, and
there is d tradition of his having eX.
changed a dozen letters with st. Paul
In truth, the separate names of all
PHILOSOPHERS vanish when applied to-
day by d person with average com.
mon sense. He takes the best from
each system, as he is given to see the
best, and YIELDS II all together into a
life.
The fine art of living, with some, is
a lost art.
To such, Seneca is the name of a
tribe of American Indians and philoso
ply is a stuffy something interesting
to a set of high-brows locked up in a
library.
To all. those, however, who are in
terested in the art Of living well, Sen,
eca is still a great man, and philosophy
a great help.