History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand Russell [20]
'The new religion—for in one sense it was new, though in another as old as mankind—reached its highest point of development with the foundation of the Orphic communities. So far as we can see, the original home of these was Attica; but they spread with extraordinary rapidity, especially in Southern Italy and Sicily. They were first of all associations for the worship of Dionysus; but they were distinguished by two features which were new among the Hellenes. They looked to revelation as the source of religious authority, and they were organized as artificial communities. The poems which contained their theology were ascribed to the Thracian Orpheus, who had himself descended into Hades, and was therefore a safe guide through the perils which beset the disembodied soul in the next world.'
Burnet goes on to state that there is a striking similarity between Orphic beliefs and those prevalent in India at about the same time, though he holds that there cannot have been any contact. He then comes on to the original meaning of the word 'orgy', which was used by the Orphics to mean 'sacrament', and was intended to purify the believer's soul and enable it to escape from the wheel of birth. The Orphics, unlike the priests of Olympian cults, founded what we may call 'churches', i.e. religious communities to which anybody, without distinction of race or sex, could be admitted by initiation, and from their influence arose the conception of philosophy as a way of life.
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2
THE MILESIAN SCHOOL
In every history of philosophy for students, the first thing mentioned is that philosophy began with Thales, who said that everything is made of water. This is discouraging to the beginner, who is struggling—perhaps not very hard—to feel that respect for philosophy which the curriculum seems to expect. There is, however, ample reason to feel respect for Thales, though perhaps rather as a man of science than as a philosopher in the modern sense of the word.
Thales was a native of Miletus, in Asia Minor, a flourishing commercial city, in which there was a large slave population, and a bitter class struggle between the rich and poor among the free population. 'At Miletus the people were at first victorious and murdered the wives and children of the aristocrats; then the aristocrats prevailed and burned their opponents alive, lighting up the open spaces of the city with live torches.'1 Similar conditions prevailed in most of the cities of Asia Minor at the time of Thales.
Miletus, like other commercial cities of Ionia, underwent important economic and political developments during the seventh and sixth centuries. At first, political power belonged to a landowning aristocracy, but this was gradually replaced by a plutocracy of merchants. They, in turn, were replaced by a tyrant, who (as was usual) achieved power by the support of the democratic party. The kingdom of Lydia lay to the east of the Greek coast towns, but remained on friendly terms with them until the fall of Nineveh (606 B.C.). This left Lydia free to turn its attention to the West, but Miletus usually succeeded in preserving friendly relations, especially with Croesus, the last Lydian king, who was conquered by Cyrus in 546 B.C. There were also
important relations with Egypt, where the king depended upon Greek mercenaries, and had opened certain cities to Greek trade. The first Greek settlement in Egypt was a fort occupied by a Milesian garrison; but the most important, during the period 610–560 B.C., was Daphnae. Here Jeremiah and many other Jewish fugitives took refuge from Nebuchadrezzar (Jeremiah xliii, 5 ff); but while Egypt undoubtedly influenced the Greeks, the Jews did not, nor can we suppose that Jeremiah felt anything but horror towards the sceptical Ionians.
As regards the date of Thales, the best evidence, as we saw, is that he was famous for predicting an eclipse which, according to