Historian J. B. Bury argued that thought in ancient Greece was dominated by the theory of world-cycles or the doctrine of eternal return, and was steeped in a [[belief]] parallel to the Judaic "fall of man," but rather from a preceding "Golden Age" of innocence and simplicity. [[Time]] was generally regarded as the enemy of [[humanity]] which depreciates the [[value]] of the world. He credits the [[Epicureans]] with having had a potential for leading to the [[foundation]] of a theory of Progress through their [[materialistic]] acceptance of the atomism of Democritus as the explanation for a world without an intervening [[Deity]]. "For them, the earliest condition of men resembled that of the beasts, and from this primitive and miserable condition they laboriously reached the existing fragile [[state]] of [[civilization]], not by external guidance or as a consequence of some initial [[design]], but simply by the exercise of human [[intelligence]] throughout a long period." | Historian J. B. Bury argued that thought in ancient Greece was dominated by the theory of world-cycles or the doctrine of eternal return, and was steeped in a [[belief]] parallel to the Judaic "fall of man," but rather from a preceding "Golden Age" of innocence and simplicity. [[Time]] was generally regarded as the enemy of [[humanity]] which depreciates the [[value]] of the world. He credits the [[Epicureans]] with having had a potential for leading to the [[foundation]] of a theory of Progress through their [[materialistic]] acceptance of the atomism of Democritus as the explanation for a world without an intervening [[Deity]]. "For them, the earliest condition of men resembled that of the beasts, and from this primitive and miserable condition they laboriously reached the existing fragile [[state]] of [[civilization]], not by external guidance or as a consequence of some initial [[design]], but simply by the exercise of human [[intelligence]] throughout a long period." |