From the prolific intelligence which his fame and researches called into being, sprang a new race of thoughts, which continued in unbroken succession until they begat descendants illustrious and immortal.

Without the hardy errors of Thales, Socrates might have spent his life in spoiling marble, Plato might have been only a tenth-rate poet, and Aristotle an intriguing pedagogue.
XVI.

With this I close my introductory chapters, and proceed from dissertation into history;--pleased that our general survey of Greece should conclude with an acknowledgment of our obligations to the Ionian colonies.

Soon, from the contemplation of those enchanting climes; of the extended commerce and the brilliant genius of the people--the birthplace of the epic and the lyric muse, the first home of history, of philosophy, of art;--soon, from our survey of the rise and splendour of the Asiatic Ionians, we turn to the agony of their struggles--the catastrophe of their fall.

Those wonderful children of Greece had something kindred with the precocious intellect that is often the hectic symptom of premature decline.