ABSTRACT
Democracy in Greece was, in the first place, a slave-owning democracy with all the tremendous weaknesses, intellectual as well as moral, that such a society inevitably induces. Morally, the progressives had little that they could oppose to the high-sounding ethical "idealism" of the conservatives. These social ambiguities are clearly reflected in progressive Greek thought. Beginning as it did with a profound interest in change and process, the philosophy of the progressives endeavored to build up a philosophical opposition to the conservative emphasis on the changeless, the static, and the eternal. All the tendencies of the early materialism found their climax and consummation in the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus. The social development of Ionia, it should be remembered, was somewhat different from that of Attica. And so, the break-up of the tribal structure in Ionia fostered a class of wealthy merchants.
