THE END OF PHILOSOPHY 401 system of paganism intended to stand against the polemics of the Christians. It is usual to leave these last out of the accounts of Greek literature. Their intimate dependence, indeed, on ancient Greek speculation and habits of thought is obvious upon the most casual reading. But the connection, if treated at all, needs to be traced in detail ; and there is a certain sense in which the death and failure of the Emperor Julian marks an epoch, amounting almost to the final extinction of ancient cuhure and untheological ideals. The career of that extraordinary man was well matched with a character which would appear theatrical but for its almost excessive frankness and sincerity, and which seems to typify the ancient heroic spirit struggling helplessly in the toils of the decadence. He seeks to be a philosopher, and ends in mysticism. He champions enlightenment, and becomes almost more superstitious than the fanatics with whom he wars. He fires his soldiers and dependents with the love of justice and temperance and strict discipline, and then debauches them by continual sacrifices to the gods. He preaches toleration on the house-tops, and men answer him by a new persecution. The prince of saintly life, who spends his nights in prayer and medi- tation, who lives like a pauper because he has given up all his privy purse to the relief of distress in the provinces, and who seems to find his only real con- solation in blindly following always the very highest and noblest course abstractly possible, regardless of practical considerations, is curiously near to some of those wild Christian anchorites to whom he so strongly objected. There was something very great and true
