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From, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. I, The early Presocratics and the Pythagoreans, Cambridge University Press, 1962, pp. 1-25.
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Page 20
In the early part of the new age, signs were not lacking of a spirit of optimism and confidence, of faith in human capacities and the triumph of reason. The enormous expansion of the Hellenic horizon, the facilities for travel to, and commerce with, what had been little-known and barbarian parts of the world, and the opportunities for a fresh start in new lands, increased the sense of activity and hopefulness. As time went on, however, the continual political struggles and wars between the dynasties, and the disconcerting effect of the sudden new contacts between Greek and Oriental modes of life, as well as the effective absorption of the cities in the new kingdoms, began to create a feeling of uncertainty and depression, which, together with the other general features of the age, was reflected in its philosophy. The growing sense of the unimportance and helplessness of the individual, and even of the long-familiar social and political units, in the face of great and intractable powers which seemed to mould events with the impersonal inevitability of fate, had an effect on the minds of men not unlike that of our own age.
On the one hand, those of studious bent were set free for the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, in which also they could find a refuge from the uncertainties of the present life. This did not manifest itself in bold and original flights of speculation like those of the dawn of philosophy. Scholarship and the special sciences, which had been given such a remarkable start by Aristotle and his collaborators, were industriously pursued first in the Lyceum itself by men like Theophrastus (Aristotle's friend and successor) and Strato, and then at Alexandria, whither Strato himself migrated to become tutor to the son of the reigning monarch of Egypt. Here at the beginning of the third century B.C. the Museum, with its great library and research centre, was founded by the early Ptolemies, possibly instigated by Demetrius of Phaleron. Exiled from Athens, this scholar-statesman, who was a friend of Theophrastus and had almost certainly attended the lectures of Aristotle himself, carried the spirit of the Lyceum to the Egyptian court of Ptolemy I about 295. A novel and characteristic feature of the age was a serious, well-documented study of the past, and in this the lives and works of previous philosophers had their share of attention. The application of science to technology, especially in the military sphere, also made notable advances in the Hellenistic age.
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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-Greece/guthrie-history-intro.asp?pg=20
