question was at once opened, respecting a great variety of particular phenomena, whether they were to be regarded as natural or miraculous. No constant or discernible test could be suggested to discriminate the two : every man was called upon to settle the doubt for himself, and each settled it according to the extent of his knowledge, the force of his logic, the state of his health, his hopes, his fears, and many other considerations affecting his separate conclusion. In a question thus perpetually arising, and full of practical consequences, instructed minds, like Periklês, Thucydidês, and Euripidês, tended more and more to the scientific point of view,[1] in cases where the general public were constantly gravitating towards the religious.
- ↑ See Plutarch, Perikl. capp. 5, 32, 38; Cicero, De Republ. i. 15-16, ed. Mail.
The phytologist Theophrastus, in his valuable collection of facts respecting vegetable organization, is often under the necessity of opposing his scientific interpretation of curious incidents in the vegetable world to the religious interpretation of them which he found current. Anomalous phsenomena in the growth or decay of trees were construed as signs from the gods, and submitted to a prophet for explanation (see Histor. Plantar, ii. 3, iv. 16; v. 3).
We may remark, however, that the old faith had still a certain hold over his mind. In commenting on the story of the willow-tree at Philippi, and the venerable old plane-tree at Antandros (more than sixty feet high, and requiring four men to grasp it round in the girth), having been blown down by a high wind, and afterwards spontaneously resuming their erect posture, he offers some explanations how such a phenomenon might have happened, but he admits, at the end, that there may be something extra-natural in the case, (
Greek characters), etc. (Dc Cans. Plant, v, 4) : see a similar miracle in reference to the cedar-tree of Vespasian (Tacit. Hist. ii. 78).
Euripides, in his lost tragedy called (
Greek characters), placed in the month
of Melanippe a formal discussion and confutation of the whole doctrine of
(Greek characters), or supernatural indications (Dionys. Halicar. Ars Rhetoric, p. 300-356, Reisk). Compare the Fables of Phædrus, iii. 3; Plutarch, Sept. Sap.
Conviv. ch. 3. p. 149; and the curious philosophical explanation by which
the learned men of Alexandria tranquillized the alarms of the vulgar, on
occasion of the serpent said to have been seen entwined round the head of
the crucified Kleomenes (Plutarch, Kleomen. c. 39).
It is one part of the duty of an able physician, according to the Hippocratic treatise called Prognosticon (c. 1. t ii. p. 112, ed. Littre), when he visits his patient, to examine whether there is anything divine in the malady, (
Greek characters) : this, however, does not agree
