10, cp.ii.2.An infinite number of times seems to imply the doctrine of cycles.] But the simple life of the first age, in which men were not worn with toil, and war and disease were unknown, was regarded as the ideal State to which man would lie only too fortunate if he could return.

He had indeed at a remote time ill the past succeeded in ameliorating some of the conditions of his lot, but such ancient discoveries as fire or ploughing or navigation or law-giving did not suggest the guess that new inventions might lead ultimately to conditions in which life would be more complex but as happy as the simple life of the primitive world.
But, if some relative progress might be admitted, the general view of Greek philosophers was that they were living in a period of inevitable degeneration and decay--inevitable because it was prescribed by the nature of the universe.

We have only an imperfect knowledge of the influential speculations of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, and Empedocles, but we may take Plato's tentative philosophy of history to illustrate the trend and the prejudices of Greek thought on this subject.

The world was created and set going by the Deity, and, as his work, it was perfect; but it was not immortal and had in it the seeds of decay.

The period of its duration is 72,000 solar years.