Beacon Lights of History, Volume 01: The Old Pagan Civilizations

In preparing a new edition of Dr. Lord's great work, the "Beacon Lights of History," it has been necessary to make some rearrangement of lectures and volumes. Dr. Lord began wit...

We cannot then utterly despise the religion of Egypt, in spite of the absurdities mingled with it,--the multiplicity of gods and the doctrine of metempsychosis,--since it includ...

It is a pleasant thing to remember that the religions thus far treated, as known to the Jews, and by which they were more or less contaminated, have all passed away with the fal...

Fire, caloric, or heat in some form was, among the ancient nations, supposed to be the _animus mundi_. In Egypt, as we have seen, Osiris, the principal deity, was a form of Ra,...

Siddârtha's full enlightenment, however, has not yet come. Under the shade of the Bôdhi tree he devotes himself again to religious contemplation, and falls into rapt ecstasies....

This polytheism of Greece was exceedingly complicated, but was not so degrading as that of Egypt, since the gods were not represented by the forms of hideous animals, and the wo...

Among the Greeks there were no sacred books like the Hindu Vedas or Hebrew Scriptures, in which the people could learn duties and religious truths. The priests taught nothing; t...

At twenty years of age Confucius entered upon political duties, being the superintendent of cattle, from which, for his fidelity and ability, he was promoted to the higher offic...

Such are some of the sayings of Confucius, on account of which he was regarded as the wisest of his countrymen; and as his conduct was in harmony with his principles, he was jus...

The progress of philosophy from Thales to Plato is the most stupendous triumph of the human intellect. The reason of man soared to the loftiest flights that it has ever attained...

Zeno of Elea, the friend and pupil of Parmenides, born 500 B.C., brought nothing new to the system, but invented _Dialectics_, the art of disputation,--that department of logic...

Plato made philosophy to consist in the discussion of general terms, or abstract ideas. General terms were synonymous with real existences, and these were the only objects of ph...

Zeno lived to the extreme old age of ninety-eight, although his constitution was not strong. He retained his powers by great abstemiousness, living chiefly on figs, honey, and b...

And yet there were defects in Socrates. He was most provokingly sarcastic; he turned everything to ridicule; he remorselessly punctured every gas-bag he met; he heaped contempt...

It very rarely happens that a great benefactor escapes persecution, especially if he is persistent in denouncing false opinions which are popular, or prevailing follies and sins...

The artists of Greece did not live for utilities any more than did the Ionian philosophers, but in those glorious thoughts and creations which were their chosen joy. Whatever ca...

Painting, being strictly a decoration, did not reach a high degree of art, like sculpture, until architecture was perfected. But painting is very ancient. The walls of Babylon,...

The fame of Sophocles is scarcely less than that of Aeschylus. He was twenty-seven years of age when he publicly appeared as a poet. He was born in Colonus, in the suburbs of At...

In satire the Romans transcended both the Greeks and the moderns. Satire arose with Lucilius, 148 B.C., in the time of Marius, an age when freedom of speech was tolerated. Horac...

But it is taking a narrow view of history to make all writers after the same pattern, even as it would be bigoted to make all Christians belong to the same sect. Some will be re...

There were other classical writers of immense fame, but they do not represent any particular class in the field of literature which can be compared with the modern. I can only d...