Philosophy Of Alexendria
( Originally Published Early 1900's )
At first the mental activities of Alexandria centred upon the Museum, and were mainly scientific. Philosophy, which in a more vigorous age had been a doctrine of power over self and the material world, without abandoning these pretensions, became in reality a doctrine of secret consolation. The stimulant changed into an opiate. The philosopher let the world, as the vulgar say, rip the world of which was a part, and consoled himself by saying in very beautiful and elaborate forms that the world world was illusion and that there was in him, something quintessential and sublime, outside and above the world, Athens, politically insignficant, but still great and crowded mart throughout the fourth century, decaying almost imperceptibly so far as outer seeming went and treated with a strange respect that was half contempt by all the warring powers and adventurers of the world, was the fitting centre of snob philosophical teaching. It was quite a couple of centuries before the schools of Alexandria philosophical discussion.