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diff --git a/20500.txt b/20500.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6095089 --- /dev/null +++ b/20500.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7162 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A Short History of Greek Philosophy, by John Marshall + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Short History of Greek Philosophy + +Author: John Marshall + +Release Date: February 1, 2007 [EBook #20500] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEK PHILOSOPHY *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +A SHORT HISTORY + +OF + +GREEK PHILOSOPHY + + +BY + +JOHN MARSHALL + +M.A. OXON., LL.D. EDIN. + + +RECTOR OF THE ROYAL HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH + +FORMERLY PROFESSOR OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY + +IN THE YORKSHIRE COLLEGE, LEEDS + + + + +LONDON + +PERCIVAL AND CO. + +1891 + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + +PREFACE + +The main purpose which I have had in view in writing this book has been +to present an account of Greek philosophy which, within strict limits +of brevity, shall be at once authentic and interesting--_authentic_, as +being based on the original works themselves, and not on any secondary +sources; _interesting_, as presenting to the ordinary English reader, +in language freed as far as possible from technicality and +abstruseness, the great thoughts of the greatest men of antiquity on +questions of permanent significance and value. There has been no +attempt to shirk the really philosophic problems which these men tried +in their day to solve; but I have endeavoured to show, by a sympathetic +treatment of them, that these problems were no mere wars of words, but +that in fact the philosophers of twenty-four centuries ago were dealing +with exactly similar difficulties as to the bases of belief and of +right action as, under different forms, beset thoughtful men and women +to-day. + +In the general treatment of the subject, I have followed in the main +the order, and drawn chiefly on the selection of passages, in Ritter +and Preller's _Historia Philosophiae Graecae_. It is hoped that in +this way the little book may be found useful at the universities, as a +running commentary on that excellent work; and the better to aid +students in the use of it for that purpose, the corresponding sections +in Ritter and Preller are indicated by the figures in the margin. + +In the sections on Plato, and occasionally elsewhere, I have drawn to +some extent, by the kind permission of the Delegates of the Clarendon +Press and his own, on Professor Jowett's great commentary and +translation. + +JOHN MARSHALL. + + + + +Transcriber's notes: + +The passage numbers in the Ritter-Preller book mentioned in the second +paragraph above are indicated in this book with square brackets, e.g. +"[10]". In the original book they were formatted as sidenotes. In +this e-book they are embedded in the text approximately where they +appear in the original book, unless they are at the start of a +paragraph, in which case they appear immediately before that paragraph. + +Page numbers are indicated with curly brackets, e.g. "{5}". They are +embedded into the text where page breaks occurred in the original book. + +In the original book, pages had headings that varied with the material +being discussed on that pair of pages. In this e-book, those headings +have been collected into an "introductory" paragraph at the beginning +of each chapter. + + +The original book uses several Greek words. These words, the chapters +they are used in, and their transliterations are as follows: + +Chapter I (pages 3, 4, 12) - "arche" - alpha (with the soft-breathing +mark), rho, chi, eta; "phloios" - phi, lambda, omicron, iota, omicron, +final sigma. + +Chapter III (page 28) - "soma" - sigma, omega, mu, alpha; "sema" - +sigma, eta, mu, alpha. + +Chapter IV (page 33, 34 - "doxa" - delta, omicron, xi, alpha; "Peri" - +PI, epsilon, rho, iota; "Phueos" - PHI, upsilon, sigma, epsilon, omega, +final sigma. + +Chapter V (page 48) - "logos" - lambda, omicron, gamma, omicron, final +sigma; "hule" - upsilon with rough breathing mark, lambda, eta. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAP. + + I.--THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS-- + I. Thales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 + II. Anaximander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 + + II.--THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS (_concluded_)-- + III. Anaximenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 + IV. Heraclitus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 + + III.--PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS . . . . . . . . . 22 + + IV.--THE ELEATICS-- + I. Xenophanes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 + II. Parmenides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 + + V.--THE ELEATICS (_concluded_)-- + III. Zeno . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 + IV. Melissus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 + + VI.--THE ATOMISTS-- + I. Anaxagoras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 + + VII.--THE ATOMISTS (_continued_)-- + II. Empedocles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 + + VIII.--THE ATOMISTS (_concluded_)-- + III. Leucippus and Democritus . . . . . . . . . . 74 + + IX.--THE SOPHISTS-- + I. Protagoras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 + + X.--THE SOPHISTS (_concluded_)-- + II. Gorgias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 + + XI.--SOCRATES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 + + XII.--SOCRATES (concluded) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 + + XIII.--THE INCOMPLETE SOCRATICS-- + I. Aristippus and the Cyrenaics . . . . . . . . 124 + II. Antisthenes and the Cynics . . . . . . . . . 128 + III. Euclides and the Megarics . . . . . . . . . . 132 + + XIV.--PLATO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134 + + XV.--PLATO (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 + + XVI.--PLATO (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 + + XVII.--PLATO (_concluded_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 + + XVIII.--ARISTOTLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 + + XIX.--ARISTOTLE (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 + + XX.--ARISTOTLE (_concluded_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 + + XXI.--THE SCEPTICS AND EPICUREANS . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 + + XXII.--THE STOICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238 + + INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 + + + + +{1} + +CHAPTER I + +THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS + +_The question of Thales--Water the beginning of things--Soul in all +things--Mystery in science--Abstraction and reality--Theory of +development_ + + +I. THALES.--For several centuries prior to the great Persian invasions +of Greece, perhaps the very greatest and wealthiest city of the Greek +world was Miletus. Situate about the centre of the Ionian coasts of +Asia Minor, with four magnificent harbours and a strongly defensible +position, it gathered to itself much of the great overland trade, which +has flowed for thousands of years eastward and westward between India +and the Mediterranean; while by its great fleets it created a new world +of its own along the Black Sea coast. Its colonies there were so +numerous that Miletus was named 'Mother of Eighty Cities.' From Abydus +on the Bosphorus, past Sinope, and so onward to the Crimea and the Don, +and thence round to Thrace, a busy community of colonies, mining, +manufacturing, ship-building, corn-raising, owned Miletus for their +mother-city. Its {2} marts must therefore have been crowded with +merchants of every country from India to Spain, from Arabia to Russia; +the riches and the wonders of every clime must have become familiar to +its inhabitants. And fitly enough, therefore, in this city was born +the first notable Greek geographer, the first constructor of a map, the +first observer of natural and other curiosities, the first recorder of +varieties of custom among various communities, the first speculator on +the causes of strange phenomena,--Hecataeus. His work is in great part +lost, but we know a good deal about it from the frequent references to +him and it in the work of his rival and follower, Herodotus. + +The city naturally held a leading place politically as well as +commercially. Empire in our sense was alien to the instincts of the +Greek race; but Miletus was for centuries recognised as the foremost +member of a great commercial and political league, the political +character of the league becoming more defined, as first the Lydian and +then the Persian monarchy became an aggressive neighbour on its borders. + +[8] + +It was in this active, prosperous, enterprising state, and at the +period of its highest activity, that Thales, statesman, practical +engineer, mathematician, philosopher, flourished. Without attempting +to fix his date too closely, we may take it that he was a leading man +in Miletus for the greater part of the {3} first half of the sixth +century before Christ. We hear of an eclipse predicted by him, of the +course of a river usefully changed, of shrewd and profitable handling +of the market, of wise advice in the general councils of the league. +He seems to have been at once a student of mathematics and an observer +of nature, and withal something having analogy with both, an inquirer +or speculator into the _origin_ of things. To us nowadays this +suggests a student of geology, or physiography, or some such branch of +physical science; to Thales it probably rather suggested a theoretical +inquiry into the simplest _thinkable_ aspect of things as existing. +"Under what form known to us," he would seem to have asked, "may we +assume an identity in all known things, so as best to cover or render +explicable the things as we know them?" The 'beginning' of things (for +it was thus he described this assumed identity) was not conceived by +him as something which was long ages before, and which had ceased to +be; rather it meant the reality of things now. Thales then was the +putter of a question, which had not been asked expressly before, but +which has never ceased to be asked since. He was also the formulator +of a new meaning for a word; the word 'beginning' ((Greek) _arche_) got +the meaning of 'underlying reality' and so of 'ending' as well. In +short, he so dealt with a word, on the surface of it implying {4} time, +as to eliminate the idea of time, and suggest a method of looking at +the world, more profound and far-reaching than had been before +imagined.[1] + +It is interesting to find that the man who was thus the first +philosopher, the first observer who took a metaphysical, non-temporal, +analytical view of the world, and so became the predecessor of all +those votaries of 'other-world' ways of thinking,--whether as academic +idealist, or 'budge doctor of the Stoic fur,' or Christian ascetic or +what not, whose ways are such a puzzle to the 'hard-headed practical +man,'--was himself one of the shrewdest men of his day, so shrewd that +by common consent he was placed foremost in antiquity among the Seven +Sages, or seven shrewd men, whose practical wisdom became a world's +tradition, enshrined in anecdote and crystallised in proverb. + +[9] + +The chief record that we possess of the philosophic teaching of Thales +is contained in an interesting notice of earlier philosophies by +Aristotle, the main part of which as regards Thales runs as follows: + +"The early philosophers as a rule formulated the originative principle +((Greek) _arche_) of all things under some material expression. By the +originative principle or element of things they meant that of which all +{5} existing things are composed, that which determines their coming +into being, and into which they pass on ceasing to be. Where these +philosophers differed from each other was simply in the answer which +they gave to the question what was the nature of this principle, the +differences of view among them applying both to the number, and to the +character, of the supposed element or elements. + +"Thales, the pioneer of this philosophy, maintained that _Water_ was +the originative principle of all things. It was doubtless in this +sense that he said that the earth rested on water. What suggested the +conception to him may have been such facts of observation, as that all +forms of substance which promote life are moist, that heat itself seems +to be conditioned by moisture, that the life-producing seed in all +creatures is moist, and so on." + +Other characteristics of water, it is elsewhere suggested, may have +been in Thales' mind, such as its readiness to take various shapes, its +convertibility from water into vapour or ice, its ready mixture with +other substances, and so forth. What we have chiefly to note is, that +the more unscientific this theory about the universe may strike us as +being, the more completely out of accord with facts now familiar to +everybody, the more striking is it as marking a new mood of mind, in +which _unity_, though only very partially suggested or discoverable by +the senses, is {6} preferred to that infinite and indefinite _variety_ +and _difference_ which the senses give us at every moment. There is +here the germ of a new aspiration, of a determination not to rest in +the merely momentary and different, but at least to try, even against +the apparent evidence of the senses, for something more permanently +intelligible. As a first suggestion of what this permanent underlying +reality may be, _Water_ might very well pass. It is probable that even +to Thales himself it was only a symbol, like the figure in a +mathematical proposition, representing by the first passable physical +phenomenon which came to hand, that ideal reality underlying all +change, which is at once the beginning, the middle, and the end of all. +That he did not mean Water, in the ordinary prosaic sense, to be +identical with this, is suggested by some [10] other sayings of his. +"Thales," says Aristotle elsewhere, "thought the whole universe was +full of gods." "All things," he is recorded as saying, "have a _soul_ +in them, in virtue of which they move other things, and are themselves +moved, even as the magnet, by virtue of its life or soul, moves the +iron." Without pushing these fragmentary utterances too far, we may +well conclude that whether Thales spoke of the soul of the universe and +its divine indwelling powers, or gods, or of water as the origin of +things, he was only vaguely symbolising in different ways an idea as +yet formless and void, like the primeval chaos, but nevertheless, {7} +like it, containing within it a promise and a potency of greater life +hereafter. + +II. ANAXIMANDER.--Our information with respect to thinkers so remote as +these men is too scanty and too fragmentary, to enable us to say in +what manner or degree they influenced each other. We cannot say for +certain that any one of them was pupil or antagonist of another. They +appear each of them, one might say for a moment only, from amidst the +darkness of antiquity; a few sayings of theirs we catch vaguely across +the void, and then they disappear. There is not, consequently, any +very distinct progression or continuity observable among them, and so +far therefore one has to confess that the title 'School of Miletus' is +a misnomer. We have already quoted the words of Aristotle in which he +classes the Ionic philosophers together, as all of them giving a +_material_ aspect of some kind to the originative principle of the +universe (see above, P. 4). But while this is a characteristic +observable in some of them, it is not so obviously discoverable in the +second of their number, Anaximander. + +This philosopher is said to have been younger by [11] one generation +than Thales, but to have been intimate with him. He, like Thales, was +a native of Miletus, and while we do not hear of him as a person, like +Thales, of political eminence and activity, he was certainly the equal, +if not the superior, of Thales in {8} mathematical and scientific +ability. He is said to have either invented or at least made known to +Greece the construction of the sun-dial. He was associated with +Hecataeus in the construction of the earliest geographical charts or +maps; he devoted himself with some success to the science of astronomy. +His familiarity with the abstractions of mathematics perhaps accounts +for the more abstract form, in which he expressed his idea of the +principle of all things. + +[21] + +To Anaximander this principle was, as he expressed it, the _infinite_; +not water nor any other of the so-called elements, but a different +thing from any of them, something hardly namable, out of whose +formlessness the heavens and all the worlds in them came to be. And by +necessity into that same infinite or indefinite existence, out of which +they originally emerged, did every created thing return. Thus, as he +poetically expressed it, "Time brought its revenges, and for the +wrong-doing of existence all things paid the penalty of death." + +The momentary resting-place of Thales on the confines of the familiar +world of things, in his formulation of Water as the principle of +existence, is thus immediately removed. We get, as it were, to the +earliest conception of things as we find it in Genesis; before the +heavens were, or earth, or the waters under the earth, or light, or +sun, or moon, or grass, or the beast of the field, when the "earth was +without form, and void, and darkness was upon the {9} face of the +deep." Only, be it observed, that while in the primitive Biblical idea +this formless void precedes in _time_ an ordered universe, in +Anaximander's conception this formless infinitude is always here, is in +fact the only reality which ever is here, something without beginning +or ending, underlying all, enwrapping all, governing all. + +To modern criticism this may seem to be little better than verbiage, +having, perhaps, some possibilities of poetic treatment, but certainly +very unsatisfactory if regarded as science. But to this we have to +reply that one is not called upon to regard it as science. Behind +science, as much to-day when our knowledge of the details of phenomena +is so enormously increased, as in the times when science had hardly +begun, there lies a world of mystery which we cannot pierce, and yet +which we are compelled to assume. No scientific treatise can begin +without assuming Matter and Force as data, and however much we may have +learned about the relations of _forces_ and the affinities of _things_, +Matter and Force as such remain very much the same dim infinities, that +the originative 'Infinite' was to Anaximander. + +It is to be noted, however, that while modern science assumes +necessarily _two_ correlative data or originative principles,--Force, +namely, as well as Matter,--Anaximander seems to have been content {10} +with the formulation of but one; and perhaps it is just here that a +kinship still remains between him and Thales and other philosophers of +the school. He, no more than they, seems to have definitely raised the +question, How are we to account for, or formulate, the principle of +_difference_ or change? What is it that causes things to come into +being out of, or recalls them back from being into, the infinite void? +It is to be confessed, however, that our accounts on this point are +somewhat conflicting. One authority actually says that he formulated +motion as eternal also. So far as he attempted to grasp the idea of +difference in relation to that of unity, he seems to have regarded the +principle of change or difference as inhering in [13] the infinite +itself. Aristotle in this connection contrasts his doctrine with that +of Anaxagoras, who formulated _two_ principles of existence--Matter and +Mind (see below, p. 54). Anaximander, he points out, found all he +wanted in the one. + +As a mathematician Anaximander must have been familiar in various +aspects with the functions of the Infinite or Indefinable in the +organisation of thought. To the student of Euclid, for example, the +impossibility of adequately defining any of the fundamental elements of +the science of geometry--the point, the line, the surface--is a +familiar fact. In so far as a science of geometry is possible at all, +the exactness, which is its essential characteristic, is only {11} +attainable by starting from data which are in themselves impossible, as +of a point which has no magnitude, of a line which has no breadth, of a +surface which has no thickness. So in the science of abstract number +the fundamental assumptions, as that 1=1, _x=x_, etc., are contradicted +by every fact of experience, for in the world as we know it, absolute +equality is simply impossible to discover; and yet these fundamental +conceptions are in their development most powerful instruments for the +extension of man's command over his own experiences. Their +completeness of abstraction from the accidents of experience, from the +differences, qualifications, variations which contribute so largely to +the personal interests of life, this it is which makes the abstract +sciences demonstrative, exact, and universally applicable. In so far, +therefore, as we are permitted to grasp the conception of a perfectly +abstract existence prior to, and underlying, and enclosing, all +separate existences, so far also do we get to a conception which is +demonstrative, exact, and universally applicable throughout the whole +world of knowable objects. + +Such a conception, however, by its absolute emptiness of content, does +not afford any means in itself of progression; somehow and somewhere a +principle of movement, of development, of concrete reality, must be +found or assumed, to link this ultimate abstraction of existence to the +multifarious phenomena {12} of existence as known. And it was, +perhaps, because Anaximander failed to work out this aspect of the +question, that in the subsequent leaders of the school _movement_, +rather than mere existence, was the principle chiefly insisted upon. + +Before passing, however, to these successors of Anaximander, some +opinions of his which we have not perhaps the means of satisfactorily +correlating with his general conception, but which are not without +their individual interest, may here be noted. [14] The word _husk_ or +_bark_ ((Greek) _phloios_) seems to have been a favourite one with him, +as implying and depicting a conception of interior and necessary +development in things. Thus he seems to have postulated an inherent +tendency or law in the infinite, which compelled it to develop contrary +characters, as hot and cold, dry and moist. In consequence of this +fundamental tendency an envelope of fire, he says, came into being, +encircling another envelope of air, which latter in turn enveloped the +sphere of earth, each being like the 'husk' of the other, or like the +bark which encloses the tree. This concentric system he conceives as +having in some way been parted up into various systems, represented by +the sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth. The last he figured as +hanging in space, and deriving its stability from the inherent and +perfect balance or relation of its parts. + +{13} + +[16] + +Then, again, as to the origin of man, he seems to have in like manner +taught a theory of development from lower forms of life. In his view +the first living creatures must have come into being in moisture (thus +recalling the theory of Thales). As time went on, and these forms of +life reached their fuller possibilities, they came to be transferred to +the dry land, casting off their old nature like a husk or bark. More +particularly he insists that man must have developed out of other and +lower forms of life, because of his exceptional need, under present +conditions, of care and nursing in his earlier years. Had he come into +being at once as a human creature he could never have survived. + +The analogies of these theories with modern speculations are obvious +and interesting. But without enlarging on these, one has only to say +in conclusion that, suggestive and interesting as many of these poor +fragments, these _disjecti membra poetae_, are individually, they leave +us more and more impressed with a sense of incompleteness in our +knowledge of Anaximander's theory as a whole. It may be that as a +consistent and perfected system the theory never was worked out; it may +be that it never was properly understood. + + + +[1] By some authorities it is stated that Anaximander, the second +philosopher of this school, was the first to use the word _arche_ in +the philosophic sense. Whether this be so or not, Thales certainly had +the idea. + + + + +{14} + +CHAPTER II + +THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS (_concluded_) + +_Air the beginning of things--All things pass--The eternal and the +temporary--The weeping philosopher_ + + +[17] + +III. ANAXIMENES.--This philosopher was also a native of Miletus, and is +said to have been a hearer or pupil of Anaximander. As we have said, +the [19] tendency of the later members of the school was towards +emphasising the _motive_ side of the supposed underlying principle of +nature, and accordingly Anaximenes chose Air as the element which best +[18] represented or symbolised that principle. Its fluidity, readiness +of movement, wide extension, and absolute neutrality of character as +regards colour, taste, smell, form, etc., were obvious suggestions. +The breath also, whose very name to the ancients implied an identity +with the life or soul, was nothing but air; and the identification of +Air with Life supplied just that principle of productiveness and +movement, which was felt [20] to be necessary in the primal element of +being. The process of existence, then, he conceived as consisting in a +certain concentration of this diffused life-giving element into more or +less solidified forms, and the {15} ultimate separation and expansion +of these back into the formless air again. The contrary forces +previously used by Anaximander--heat and cold, drought and +moisture--are with Anaximenes also the agencies which institute these +changes. + +This is pretty nearly all that we know of Anaximenes. So far as the +few known facts reveal him, we can hardly say that except as supplying +a step towards the completer development of the _motive_ [22] idea in +being, he greatly adds to the chain of progressive thought. + +IV. HERACLITUS.--Although not a native of Miletus, but of Ephesus, +Heraclitus, both by his nationality as an Ionian and by his position in +the development of philosophic conceptions, falls naturally to be +classed with the philosophers of Miletus. His period may be given +approximately as from about 560 to 500 B.C., though others place him a +generation later. Few authentic particulars have been preserved of +him. We hear of extensive travels, of his return to his native city +only to refuse a share in its activities, of his retirement to a +hermit's life. He seems to have formed a contrast to the preceding +philosophers in his greater detachment from the ordinary interests of +civic existence; and much in his teaching suggests the ascetic if not +the misanthrope. He received the nickname of 'The Obscure,' from the +studied mystery in which he was supposed to involve his {16} [23] +teaching. He wrote not for the vulgar, but for the gifted few. 'Much +learning makes not wise' was the motto of his work; the man of gift, of +insight, that man is better than ten thousand. He was savage in his +criticism of other writers, even the greatest. Homer, he said, and +Archilochus too, deserved to be hooted from the platform and thrashed. +Even the main purport of his writings was differently interpreted. +Some named his work 'The Muses,' as though it were chiefly a poetic +vision; others named it 'The sure Steersman to the Goal of Life'; +others, more prosaically, 'A Treatise of Nature.' + +[26] + +The fundamental principle or fact of being Heraclitus formulated in the +famous dictum, 'All things pass.' In the eternal flux or flow of being +consisted its reality; even as in a river the water is ever changing, +and the river exists as a river only in virtue of this continual +change; or as in a living body, wherein while there is life there is no +stability or fixedness; stability and fixedness are the attributes of +the unreal image of life, not of life itself. Thus, as will be +observed, from the _material_ basis of being as conceived by Thales, +with only a very vague conception of the counter-principle of movement, +philosophy has wheeled round in Heraclitus to the other extreme; he +finds his permanent element in the negation of permanence; being or +reality consists in never 'being' but always 'becoming,' not in +stability but in change. + +{17} + +[27] + +This eternal movement he pictures elsewhere as an eternal strife of +opposites, whose differences nevertheless consummate themselves in +finest harmony. Thus oneness emerges out of multiplicity, multiplicity +out of oneness; and the harmony of the universe is of contraries, as of +the lyre and the bow. _War_ is the father and king and lord of all +things. Neither god nor man presided at the creation of anything that +is; that which was, is that which is, and that which ever shall be; +even an ever-living Fire, ever kindling and ever being extinguished. + +[28] + +Thus in _Fire_, as an image or symbol of the underlying reality of +existence, Heraclitus advanced to the furthest limit attainable on +physical lines, for the expression of its essentially _motive_ +character. That this Fire was no more than a symbol, suggested by the +special characteristics of fire in nature,--its subtlety, its mobility, +its power of penetrating all things and devouring all things, its +powers for beneficence in the warmth of living bodies and the +life-giving power of the sun,--is seen in the fact that he readily +varies his expression for this principle, calling it at times the +Thunderbolt, at others the eternal Reason, [29] or Law, or Fate. To +his mental view creation was a process eternally in action, the fiery +element descending by the law of its being into the cruder [30] forms +of water and earth, only to be resolved again by upward process into +fire; even as one sees the {18} vapour from the sea ascending and +melting into the [32] aether. As a kindred vapour or exhalation he +recognised the Soul or Breath for a manifestation of the essential +element. It is formless, ever changing with every breath we take, yet +it is the constructive and unifying force which keeps the body +together, and conditions its life and growth. At this point [33] +Heraclitus comes into touch with Anaximenes. In the act of breathing +we draw into our own being a portion of the all-pervading vital element +of all being; in this universal being we thereby live and move and have +our consciousness; the eternal and omnipresent wisdom becomes, through +the channels of our senses, and especially through the eyes, in +fragments at least our wisdom. In sleep we are not indeed cut off +wholly from this wisdom; through our breathing we hold as it were to +its root; but of its flower we are then deprived. On awaking again we +begin once more to partake according to our full measure of the living +thought; even as coals when brought near the fire are themselves made +partakers of it, but when taken away again become quenched. + +[34] + +Hence, in so far as man is wise, it is because his spirit is kindled by +union with the universal spirit; but there is a baser, or, as +Heraclitus termed it, a moister element also in him, which is the +element of unreason, as in a drunken man. And thus the trustworthiness +or otherwise of the senses, as the {19} channels of communication with +the divine, depends on the _dryness_ or _moistness_,--or, as we should +express it, using, after all, only another metaphor,--on the +_elevation_ or _baseness_ of the spirit that is within. To those whose +souls are base and barbarous, the eternal movement, the living fire, is +invisible; and thus what they do see is nothing but death. Immersed in +the mere appearances of things and their supposed stability, they, +whether sleeping or waking, behold only dead forms; their spirits are +dead. + +[35] + +For the guidance of life there is no law but the common sense, which is +the union of those fragmentary perceptions of eternal law, which +individual men [37] attain, in so far as their spirits are dry and +pure. Of absolute knowledge human nature is not capable, but only the +Divine. To the Eternal, therefore, alone all things are good and +beautiful and just, because to Him alone do things appear in their +totality. To the human partial reason some things are unjust and +others just. Hence life, by reason of the limitations [38] involved in +it, he sometimes spoke of as the death of the soul, and death as the +renewal of its life. And so, [39] in the great events of man's life +and in the small, as in the mighty circle of the heavens, good and +evil, life and death, growth and decay, are but the systole and +diastole, the outward and inward pulsation, of an eternal good, an +eternal harmony. Day and {20} night, winter and summer, war and peace, +satiety and hunger--each conditions the other, all are part of God. It +is sickness that makes health good and sweet, hunger that gives its +pleasure to feeding, weariness that makes sleep a good. + +[39] + +This vision of existence in its eternal flux and interchange, seems to +have inspired Heraclitus with a contemplative melancholy. In the +traditions of later times he was known as the _weeping_ philosopher. +Lucian represents him as saying, "To me it is a sorrow that there is +nothing fixed or secure, and that all things are thrown confusedly +together, so that pleasure and pain, knowledge and ignorance, the great +and the small, are the same, ever circling round and passing one into +the other in the sport of time." "Time," he says elsewhere, "is like a +child that plays with the dice." The highest good, therefore, for +mortals is that clarity of perception in respect of oneself and all +that is, whereby we shall learn to apprehend somewhat of the eternal +unity and harmony, that underlies the good and evil of time, the shock +and stress of circumstance and place. The highest virtue for man is a +placid and a quiet constancy, whatever the changes and chances of life +may bring. It is the pantheistic apathy. + +The sadder note of humanity, the note of Euripides and at times of +Sophocles, the note of Dante and of the _Tempest_ of Shakespeare, of +Shelley and Arnold {21} and Carlyle,--this note we hear thus early and +thus clear, in the dim and distant utterances of Heraclitus. The +mystery of existence, the unreality of what seems most real, the +intangibility and evanescence of all things earthly,--these thoughts +obscurely echoing to us across the ages from Heraclitus, have remained, +and always will remain, among the deepest and most insistent of the +world's thoughts, in its sincerest moments and in its greatest thinkers. + + + + +{22} + +CHAPTER III + +PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS + +_The Pythagorean Brotherhood--Number the master--God the soul of the +world--Music and morals_ + + +[41] + +The birthplace of Pythagoras is uncertain. He is generally called the +Samian, and we know, at all events, that he lived for some time in that +island, during or immediately before the famous tyranny [43] of +Polycrates. All manner of legends are told of the travels of +Pythagoras to Egypt, Chaldaea, Phoenicia, and even to India. Others +tell of a mysterious initiation at the sacred cave of Jupiter in Crete, +and of a similar ceremony at the Delphic oracle. What is certain is +that at some date towards the end of the sixth century B.C. he removed +to Southern Italy, which was then extensively colonised by Greeks, and +that there he became a great philosophic teacher, and ultimately even a +predominating political influence. + +[46] + +He instituted a school in the strictest sense, with its various grades +of learners, subject for years to a vow of silence, holding all things +in common, and admitted, according to their approved fitness, to {23} +[47] successive revelations of the true doctrine of the Master. Those +in the lower grades were called Listeners; those in the higher, +Mathematicians or Students; those in the most advanced stage, +Physicists or Philosophers. With the political relations of the school +we need not here concern ourselves. In Crotona and many other Greek +cities in Italy Pythagoreans became a predominant aristocracy, who, +having learned obedience under their master, applied what they had +learned in an anti-democratic policy of government. This lasted for +some thirty years, but ultimately democracy gained the day, and +Pythagoreanism as a political power was violently rooted out. + +Returning to the philosophy of Pythagoras, in its relation to the +general development of Greek theory, we may note, to begin with, that +it is not necessary, or perhaps possible, to disentangle the theory of +Pythagoras himself from that of his followers, Philolaus and others. +The teaching was largely oral, and was developed by successive leaders +of the school. The doctrine, therefore, is generally spoken of as +that, not of Pythagoras, but of the Pythagoreans. Nor can we fix for +certain on one fundamental conception, upon which the whole structure +of their doctrine was built. + +[52] + +One dictum we may start with because of its analogies with what has +been said of the earlier {24} philosophies. The universe, said the +Pythagoreans, was constituted of _indefinites_ and _definers_, _i.e._ +of that which has no character, but has infinite capacities of taking a +character; and secondly, of things or forces which impose a character +upon this. Out of the combination of these two elements or principles +all knowable [53] existences come into being. "All things," they said, +"as known have _Number_; and this number has two natures, the Odd and +the Even; the known thing is the Odd-Even or union of the two." + +[66] + +By a curious and somewhat fanciful development of this conception the +Pythagoreans drew up two parallel columns of antithetical principles in +nature, ten in each, thus:-- + + Definite Indefinite + Odd Even + One Many + Right Left + Male Female + Steadfast Moving + Straight Bent + Light Dark + Good Evil + Four Square Irregular + +Looking down these two lists we shall see that the first covers various +aspects of what is conceived as the ordering, defining, formative +principle in nature; and that the second in like manner comprises +various {25} aspects of the unordered, neutral, passive, or +disorganised element or principle; the first, to adopt a later method +of expression, is _Form_, the second _Matter_. How this antithesis was +worked out by Plato and Aristotle we shall see later on. + +[54] + +While, in a sense, then, even the indefinite has number, inasmuch as it +is capable of having number or order imposed upon it (and only in so +far as it has this imposed upon it, does it become knowable or +intelligible), yet, as a positive factor, Number belongs only to the +first class; as such it is the source of all knowledge and of all good. +In reality the Pythagoreans had not got any further by this +representation of nature than was reached, for example, by Anaximander, +and still more definitely by Heraclitus, when they posited an +Indefinite or Infinite principle in nature which by the clash of innate +antagonisms developed into a knowable universe (see above, pp. 12, 16). +But one can easily imagine that once the idea of Number became +associated with that of the knowable in things, a wide field of +detailed development and experiment, so to speak, in the arcana of +nature, seemed to be opened. Every arithmetical or geometrical theorem +became in this view another window giving light into the secret heart +of things. Number became a kind of god, a revealer; and the philosophy +of number a kind of religion or mystery. And this is why the {26} +second grade of disciples were called Mathematicians; mathematics was +the essential preparation for and initiation into philosophy. + +Whether that which truly exists was actually identical with Number or +Numbers, or whether it was something different from Number, but had a +certain relation to Number; whether if there were such a relation, this +was merely a relation of analogy or of conformability, or whether +Number were something actually embodied in that which truly +exists--these were speculative questions which were variously answered +by various teachers, and which probably interested the later more than +the earlier leaders of the school. + +[56] + +A further question arose: Assuming that ultimately the elements of +knowable existence are but two, the One or Definite, and the Manifold +or Indefinite, it was argued by some that there must be some third or +higher principle governing the relations of these; there must be some +law or harmony which shall render their intelligible union [57] +possible. This principle of union was God, ever-living, ever One, +eternal, immovable, self-identical. [58] This was the supreme reality, +the Odd-Even or Many in One, One in Many, in whom was gathered up, as +in an eternal harmony, all the contrarieties of lower [61] existence. +Through the interchange and intergrowth of these contrarieties God +realises Himself; the {27} universe in its evolution is the +self-picturing of God. [62] God is diffused as the seminal principle +throughout [68] the universe; He is the Soul of the world, and the +world itself is God in process. The world, therefore, is in a sense a +living creature. At its heart and circumference are purest fire; +between these circle the sun, the moon, and the five planets, whose +ordered movements, as of seven chords, produce an eternal music, the +'Music of the Spheres.' Earth, too, like the planets, is a celestial +body, moving like them around the central fire. + +[71] + +By analogy with this conception of the universe as the realisation of +God, so also the body, whether [72] of man or of any creature, is the +realisation for the time being of a soul. Without the body and the +life of the body, that soul were a blind and fleeting ghost. Of such +unrealised souls there are many in various degrees and states; the +whole air indeed is full of spirits, who are the causes of dreams and +omens. + +[73] + +Thus the change and flux that are visible in all else are visible also +in the relations of soul and body. Multitudes of fleeting ghosts or +spirits are continually seeking realisation through union with bodies, +passing at birth into this one and that, and at death issuing forth +again into the void. Like wax which takes now one impression now +another, yet remains in itself ever the same, so souls vary in the +outward {28} [74] form that envelops and realises them. In this bodily +life, the Pythagoreans are elsewhere described as saying, we are as it +were in bonds or in a prison, whence we may not justly go forth till +the Lord calls us. This idea Cicero mistranslated with a truly Roman +fitness: according to him they taught that in this life we are as +sentinels at our post, who may not quit it till our Commander orders. + +On the one hand, therefore, the union of soul with body was necessary +for the realisation of the former ((Greek) _soma, body_, being as it +were (Greek) _sema, expression_), even as the reality of God was not in +the Odd or Eternal Unity, but in the Odd-Even, the Unity in +Multiplicity. On the other hand this union implied a certain loss or +degradation. In other words, in so far as the soul became realised it +also became corporealised, subject to the influence of passion and [75] +change. In a sense therefore the soul as realised was double; in +itself it partook of the eternal reason, as associated with body it +belonged to the realm of unreason. + +This disruption of the soul into two the Pythagoreans naturally +developed in time into a threefold division, _pure thought_, +_perception_, and _desire_; or even more nearly approaching the +Platonic division (see below, p. 169), they divided it into _reason_, +_passion_, and _desire_. But the later developments were largely +influenced by Platonic and other doctrines, and need not be further +followed here. + +{29} [78] Music had great attractions for Pythagoras, not only for its +soothing and refining effects, but for the intellectual interest of its +numerical relations. Reference has already been made (see above, p. +27) to their quaint doctrine of the music of the spheres; and the same +idea of rhythmic harmony pervaded the whole system. The life of the +soul was a harmony; the virtues were perfect numbers; and the influence +of music on the soul was only one instance among many of the harmonious +relations of things throughout the universe. Thus we have Pythagoras +described as soothing mental afflictions, and bodily ones also, by +rhythmic measure and by song. With the morning's dawn he would be +astir, harmonising his own spirit to his lyre, and chanting ancient +hymns of the Cretan Thales, of Homer, and of Hesiod, till all the +tremors of his soul were calmed and still. + +Night and morning also he prescribed for himself and his followers an +examination, as it were a _tuning_ and testing of oneself. At these +times especially was it meet for us to take account of our soul and its +doings; in the evening to ask, "Wherein have I transgressed? What +done? What failed to do?" In the morning, "What must I do? Wherein +repair past days' forgetfulness?" + +But the first duty of all was truth,--truth to one's own highest, truth +to the highest beyond us. Through truth alone could the soul approach +the divine. {30} Falsehood was of the earth; the real life of the soul +must be in harmony with the heavenly and eternal verities. + +Pythagoreanism remained a power for centuries throughout the Greek +world and beyond. All subsequent philosophies borrowed from it, as it +in its later developments borrowed from them; and thus along with them +it formed the mind of the world, for further apprehensions, and yet +more authentic revelations, of divine order and moral excellence. + + + + +{31} + +CHAPTER IV + +THE ELEATICS + +_God and nature--Knowledge and opinion--Being and evolution--Love the +creator--The modern egotism_ + + +[79] + +I. XENOPHANES.--Xenophanes was a native of Colophon, one of the Ionian +cities of Asia Minor, but having been forced at the age of twenty-five +to leave his native city owing to some political revolution, he +wandered to various cities of Greece, and ultimately to Zancle and +Catana, Ionian colonies in Sicily, and thence to Elea or Velia, a Greek +city on the coast of Italy. This city had, like Miletus, reached a +high pitch of commercial prosperity, and like it also became a centre +of philosophic teaching. For there Xenophanes remained and founded a +school, so that he and his successors received the name of Eleatics. +His date is uncertain; but he seems to have been contemporary with +Anaximander [80] and Pythagoras, and to have had some knowledge of the +doctrine of both. He wrote in various poetic measures, using against +the poets, and especially against Homer and Hesiod, their own weapons, +to [83] denounce their anthropomorphic theology. If oxen {32} or lions +had hands, he said, they would have fashioned gods after their likeness +which would have been as [85] authentic as Homer's. As against these +poets, and the popular mythology, he insisted that God must be one, +eternal, incorporeal, without beginning or ending. [87] As Aristotle +strikingly expresses it, "He looked forth over the whole heavens and +said that God is one, [88] that that which is one is God." The +favourite antitheses of his time, the definite and the indefinite, +movable and immovable, change-producing and by change produced--these +and such as these, he maintained, were inapplicable to the eternally +and [86] essentially existent. In this there was no partition of +organs or faculties, no variation or shadow of turning; the Eternal +Being was like a sphere, everywhere equal; everywhere self-identical. + +[84] + +His proof of this was a logical one; the absolutely self-existent could +not be thought in conjunction with attributes which either admitted any +external influencing Him, or any external influenced by Him. The +prevailing dualism he considered to be, as an ultimate theory of the +universe, unthinkable and therefore false. Outside the Self-existent +there could be no second self-existent, otherwise each would be +conditioned by the existence of the other, and the Self-existent would +be gone. Anything different from the Self-existent must be of the +non-existent, _i.e._ must be nothing. + +{33} + +One can easily see in these discussions some adumbration of many +theological or metaphysical difficulties of later times, as of the +origin of evil, of freewill in man, of the relation of the created +world to its Creator. If these problems cannot be said to be solved +yet, we need not be surprised that Xenophanes did not solve them. He +was content to emphasise that which seemed to him to be necessary and +true, that God was God, and not either a partner with, or a function +of, matter. + +[89] + +At the same time he recognised a world of phenomena, or, as he +expressed it, a world of guesswork or opinion ((Greek) _doxa_). As to +the origin of things within this sphere he was ready enough to borrow +[90] from the speculations of his predecessors. Earth and water are +the sources from which we spring; and he imagined a time when there was +neither sea nor land, but an all-pervading slough and slime; nay, many +such periods of inundation and emergence had been, hence the sea-shells +on the tops of mountains and the fossils in the rocks. Air and fire +also as agencies of change are sometimes referred to by him; +anticipations in fact are visible of the fourfold classification of the +elements which was formally made by some of his successors. + +[91] + +II. PARMENIDES.--The pupil and successor of Xenophanes was PARMENIDES, +a native of Elea. In a celebrated dialogue of Plato bearing the name +of {34} this philosopher he is described as visiting Socrates when the +latter was very young. "He was then already advanced in years, very +hoary, yet noble to look upon, in years some sixty and five." Socrates +was born about 479 B.C. The birth of Parmenides might therefore, if +this indication be authentic, be about 520. He was of a wealthy and +noble family, and able therefore to devote himself to a learned +leisure. Like his master he expounded his views in verse, and +fragments of his poem of considerable length and importance have been +preserved. The title of the work was _Peri Phueos_--_Of Nature_. + +[93] + +The exordium of the poem is one of some grandeur. The poet describes +himself as soaring aloft to the sanctuary of wisdom where it is set in +highest aether, the daughters of the Sun being his guides; under whose +leading having traversed the path of perpetual day and at length +attained the temple of the goddess, he from her lips received +instruction in the eternal verities, and had shown to him the deceptive +guesses of mortals. "'Tis for thee," she says, "to hear of both,--to +have disclosed to thee on the one hand the sure heart of convincing +verity, on the other hand the guesses of mortals wherein is no +ascertainment. Nevertheless thou shalt learn of these also, that +having gone through them all thou may'st see by what unsureness of path +must he go who goeth the way of opinion. From such a way of searching +{35} restrain thou thy thought, and let not the much-experimenting +habit force thee along the path wherein thou must use thine eye, yet +being sightless, and the ear with its clamorous buzzings, and the +chattering tongue. 'Tis by Reason that thou must in lengthened trial +judge what I shall say to thee." + +[94] + +Thus, like Xenophanes, Parmenides draws a deep division between the +world of reason and the world of sensation, between probative argument +and the guess-work of sense-impressions. The former is the world of +Being, the world of that which truly is, self-existent, uncreated, +unending, unmoved, unchanging, ever self-poised and self-sufficient, +like a sphere. [98] Knowledge is of this, and of this only, and as +such, knowledge is identical with its object; for outside this known +reality there is nothing. In other words, Knowledge can only be of +that which is, and that which is alone can know. All things which +mortals have imagined to be realities are but words; as of the birth +and death of things, of things which were and have ceased to be, of +here and there, of now and then. + +It is obvious enough that in all this, and in much more to the same +effect reiterated throughout the poem, we have no more than a +statement, in various forms of negation, of the inconceivability by +human reason of that passage from _being_ as such, to that world of +phenomena which is now, but was not before, {36} and will cease to +be,--from _being_ to _becoming_, from eternity to time, from the +infinite to the finite (or, as Parmenides preferred to call it, from +the perfect to the imperfect, the definite to the indefinite). In all +this Parmenides was not contradicting such observed facts as +generation, or motion, or life, or death; he was talking of a world +which has nothing to do with observation; he was endeavouring to grasp +what was assumed or necessarily implied as a prior condition of +observation, or of a world to observe. + +What he and his school seem to have felt was that there was a danger in +all this talk of water or air or other material symbol, or even of the +_indefinite_ or _characterless_ as the original of all,--the danger, +namely, that one should lose sight of the idea of law, of rationality, +of eternal self-centred force, and so be carried away by some vision of +a gradual process of evolution from mere emptiness to fulness of being. +Such a position would be not dissimilar to that of many would-be +metaphysicians among evolutionists, who, not content with the doctrine +of evolution as a theory in science, an ordered and organising view of +observed facts, will try to elevate it into a vision of what is, and +alone is, behind the observed facts. They fail to see that the more +blind, the more accidental, so to speak, the process of differentiation +may be; the more it is shown that the struggle for existence drives the +wheels of progress along the {37} lines of least resistance by the most +commonplace of mechanical necessities, in the same proportion must a +law be posited behind all this process, a reason in nature which +gathers up the beginning and the ending. The protoplasmic cell which +the imagination of evolutionists places at the beginning of time as the +starting-point of this mighty process is not merely this or that, has +not merely this or that quality or possibility, it _is_; and in the +power of that little word is enclosed a whole world of thought, which +is there at the first, remains there all through the evolutions of the +protoplasm, will be there when these are done, is in fact independent +of time and space, has nothing to do with such distinctions, expresses +rather their ultimate unreality. So far then as Parmenides and his +school kept a firm grip on this other-world aspect of nature as implied +even in the simple word _is_, or _be_, so far they did good service in +the process of the world's thought. On the other hand, he and they +were naturally enough disinclined, as we all are disinclined, to remain +in the merely or mainly negative or defensive. He would not lose his +grip of heaven and eternity, but he would fain know the secrets of +earth and time as well. And hence was fashioned the second part of his +poem, in which he expounds his theory of the world of opinion, or +guess-work, or observation. + +[99] + +In this world he found two originative principles {38} at work, one +pertaining to light and heat, the other to darkness and cold. From the +union of these two principles all observable things in creation come, +and over this union a God-given power presides, whose name is Love. Of +these two principles, the bright one being analogous to _Fire_, the +dark one to _Earth_, he considered the former to be the male or +formative element, the latter the female or passive element; the former +therefore had analogies to Being as such, the latter to Non-being. The +heavenly existences, the sun, the moon, the stars, are of pure Fire, +have therefore an eternal and unchangeable being; they are on the +extremest verge of the universe, and corresponding to them at the +centre is another fiery sphere, which, itself unmoved, is the cause of +all motion and generation in the mixed region between. The motive and +procreative power, sometimes called Love, is at other times called by +Parmenides Necessity, Bearer of the Keys, Justice, Ruler, etc. + +But while in so far as there was union in the production of man or any +other creature, the [102] presiding genius might be symbolised as +_Love_; on the other hand, since this union was a union of opposites +(Light and Dark), _Discord_ or _Strife_ also had her say in the union. +Thus the nature and character in every creature was the resultant of +two antagonistic forces, and depended for its particular excellence or +defect on the proportions in which these two elements--the {39} light +and the dark, the fiery and the earthy--had been commingled. + +No character in Greek antiquity, at least in the succession of +philosophic teachers, held a more honoured position than Parmenides. +He was looked on with almost superstitious reverence by his +fellow-countrymen. Plato speaks of him as his "Father Parmenides," +whom he "revered and honoured more than all the other philosophers +together." To quote Professor Jowett in his introduction to Plato's +dialogue _Parmenides_, he was "the founder of idealism and also of +dialectic, or in modern phraseology, of metaphysics and of logic." Of +the logical aspect of his teaching we shall see a fuller +exemplification in his pupil and successor Zeno; of his metaphysics, by +way of summing up what has been already said, it may be remarked that +its substantial excellence consists in the perfect clearness and +precision with which Parmenides enunciated as fundamental in any theory +of the knowable universe the priority of Existence itself, not in time +merely or chiefly, but as a condition of having any problem to inquire +into. He practically admits that he does not see how to bridge over +the partition between Existence in itself and the changeful, temporary, +existing things which the senses give us notions of. But whatever the +connection may be, if there is a connection, he is convinced that +nothing would be more absurd than {40} to make the data of sense in any +way or degree the measure of the reality of existence, or the source +from which existence itself comes into being. + +On this serenely impersonal position he took his stand; we find little +or nothing of the querulous personal note so characteristic of much +modern philosophy. We never find him asking, "What is to become of +_me_ in all this?" "What is _my_ position with regard to this +eternally-existing reality?" + +Of course this is not exclusively a characteristic of Parmenides, but +of the time. The idea of personal relation to an eternal Rewarder was +only vaguely held in historical times in Greece. The conception of +personal immortality was a mere pious opinion, a doctrine whispered +here and there in secret mystery; it was not an influential force on +men's motives or actions. Thought was still occupied with the wider +universe, the heavens and their starry wonders, and the strange +phenomena of law in nature. In the succession of the seasons, the +rising and setting, the fixities and aberrations, of the heavenly +bodies, in the mysteries of coming into being and passing out of it, in +these and other similar marvels, and in the thoughts which they evoked, +a whole and ample world seemed open for inquiry. Men and their fate +were interesting enough to men, but as yet the egotism of man had not +attempted to isolate his destiny from the general problem of nature. +{41} To the _crux_ of philosophy as it appeared to Parmenides in the +relation of being as such to things which seem to be, modernism has +appended a sort of corollary, in the relation of being as such to _my_ +being. Till the second question was raised its answer, of course, +could not be attempted. But all those who in modern times have said +with Tennyson-- + + Thou wilt not leave us in the dust: + Thou madest man, he knows not why; + He thinks he was not made to die; + And Thou hast made him: Thou art just, + +may recognise in Parmenides a pioneer for them. Without knowing it, he +was fighting the battle of personality in man, as well as that of +reality in nature. + + + + +{42} + +CHAPTER V + +THE ELEATICS (_concluded_) + +_Zeno's dialectic--Achilles and the tortoise--The dilemma of being--The +all a sphere--The dilemmas of experience_ + + +[106] + +III. ZENO.--The third head of the Eleatic school was ZENO. He is +described by Plato in the _Parmenides_ as accompanying his master to +Athens on the visit already referred to (see above, p. 34), and as +being then "nearly forty years of age, of a noble figure and fair +aspect." In personal character he was a worthy pupil of his master, +being, like him, a devoted patriot. He is even said to have fallen a +victim to his patriotism, and to have suffered bravely the extremest +tortures at the hands of a tyrant Nearchus rather than betray his +country. + +His philosophic position was a very simple one. He had nothing to add +to or to vary in the doctrine of Parmenides. His function was +primarily that of an expositor and defender of that doctrine, and his +particular pre-eminence consists in the ingenuity of his dialectic +resources of defence. He is in fact pronounced by Aristotle to have +been the inventor of dialectic or systematic logic. The relation of +{43} the two is humorously expressed thus by Plato (Jowett, _Plato_, +vol. iv. p. 128); "I see, Parmenides, said Socrates, that Zeno is your +second self in his writings too; he puts what you say in another way, +and would fain deceive us into believing that he is telling us what is +new. For you, in your poems, say, All is one, and of this you adduce +excellent proofs; and he, on the other hand, says, There is no many; +and on behalf of this he offers overwhelming evidence." To this Zeno +replies, admitting the fact, and adds: "These writings of mine were +meant to protect the arguments of Parmenides against those who scoff at +him, and show the many ridiculous and contradictory results which they +suppose to follow from the affirmation of the One. My answer is an +address to the partisans of the many, whose attack I return with +interest by retorting upon them that their hypothesis of the being of +many if carried out appears in a still more ridiculous light than the +hypothesis of the being of one." + +The arguments of Zeno may therefore be regarded as strictly arguments +_in kind_; quibbles if you please, but in answer to quibbles. The +secret of his method was what Aristotle calls Dichotomy--that is, he +put side by side two contradictory propositions with respect to any +particular supposed real thing in experience, and then proceeded to +show that both these contradictories alike imply what is {44} [105] +inconceivable. Thus "a thing must consist either of a finite number of +parts or an infinite number." Assume the number of parts to be finite. +Between them there must either be something or nothing. If there is +something between them, then the whole consists of more parts than it +consists of. If there is nothing between them, then they are not +separated, therefore they are not parts; therefore the whole has no +parts at all; therefore it is nothing. If, on the other hand, the +number of parts is infinite, then, the same kind of argument being +applied, the magnitude of the whole is by infinite successive positing +of intervening parts shown to be infinite; therefore this one thing, +being infinitely large, is everything. + +[107] + +Take, again, any supposed fact, as that an arrow moves. An arrow +cannot move except in space. It cannot move in space without being in +space. At any moment of its supposed motion it must be in a particular +space. Being in that space, it must at the time during which it is in +it be at rest. But the total time of its supposed motion is made up of +the moments composing that time, and to each of these moments the same +argument applies; therefore either the arrow never was anywhere, or it +always was at rest. + +Or, again, take objects moving at unequal rates, as Achilles and a +tortoise. Let the tortoise have a start of any given length, then +Achilles, however {45} much he excel in speed, will never overtake the +tortoise. For, while Achilles has passed over the originally +intervening space, the tortoise will have passed over a certain space, +and when Achilles has passed over this second space the tortoise will +have again passed over some space, and so on _ad infinitum_; therefore +in an infinite time there must always be a space, though infinitely +diminishing, between the tortoise and Achilles, _i.e._ the tortoise +must always be at least a little in front. + +These will be sufficient to show the kind of arguments employed by +Zeno. In themselves they are of no utility, and Zeno never pretended +that they had any. But as against those who denied that existence as +such was a datum independent of experience, something different from a +mere sum of isolated things, his arguments were not only effective, but +substantial. The whole modern sensational or experiential school, who +derive our 'abstract ideas,' as they are called, from 'phenomena' or +'sensation,' manifest the same impatience of any analysis of what they +mean by phenomena or sensation, as no doubt Zeno's opponents manifested +of his analyses. As in criticising the one, modern critics are ready +with their answer that Zeno's quibbles are simply "a play of words on +the well-known properties of infinities," so they are quick to tell us +that sensation is an "affection of the sentient organism"; ignoring in +{46} the first case the prior question where the idea of infinity came +from, and in the second, where the idea of a sentient organism came +from. + +Indirectly, as we shall see, Zeno had a great effect on subsequent +philosophies by the development of a process of ingenious verbal +distinction, which in the hands of so-called sophists and others became +a weapon of considerable, if temporary, power. + +[109] + +IV. MELISSUS.--The fourth and last of the Eleatic philosophers was +Melissus, a native of Samos. His date may be fixed as about 440 B.C. +He took an active part in the politics of his native country, and on +one occasion was commander of the Samian fleet in a victorious +engagement with the Athenians, when Samos was being besieged by +Pericles. He belongs to the Eleatic school in respect of doctrine and +method, but we have no evidence of his ever having resided at Elea, nor +any reference to his connection with the philosophers there, except the +statement that he was a pupil of Parmenides. He developed very fully +what is technically called in the science of Logic [110] the _Dilemma_. +Thus, for example, he begins his treatise _On Existence_ or _On Nature_ +thus: "If nothing exists, then there is nothing for us to talk about. +But if there is such a thing as existence it must either come into +being or be ever-existing. If it come into being, it must come from +the existing or the non-existing. Now that anything which exists, {47} +above all, that which is absolutely existent, should come from what is +not, is impossible. Nor can it come from that which is. For then it +would be already, and would not come into being. That which exists, +therefore, comes not into being; it must therefore be ever-existing." + +[111] + +By similar treatment of other conceivable alternatives he proceeds to +show that as the existent had no beginning so it can have no ending in +time. From this, by a curious transition which Aristotle quotes as an +example of loose reasoning, he concludes that the existent can have no +limit in space [112] either. As being thus unlimited it must be one, +therefore immovable (there being nothing else into which it can move or +change), and therefore always self-identical in extent and character. +It cannot, therefore, have any body, for body has parts and is not +therefore one. + +[113] + +Being incapable of change one might perhaps conclude that the +absolutely existing being is incapable of any mental activity or +consciousness. We have no authority for assuming that Melissus came to +this conclusion; but there is a curious remark of Aristotle's +respecting this and previous philosophers of the school which certain +critics have [114] made to bear some such interpretation. He says: +"Parmenides seems to hold by a Unity in thought, Melissus by a Material +unity. Hence the first {48} defined the One as limited, the second +declared it to be unlimited. Xenophanes made no clear statement on +this question; he simply, gazing up to the arch of heaven, declared, +The One is God." + +But the difference between Melissus and his master can hardly be said +to be a difference of doctrine; point for point, they are identical. +The difference is a difference of vision or mental picture as to this +mighty All which is One. Melissus, so to speak, places himself at the +centre of this Universal being, and sees it stretching out infinitely, +unendingly, in space and in time. Its oneness comes to him as the +_sum_ of these infinities. Parmenides, on the other hand, sees all +these endless immensities as related to a centre; he, so to speak, +enfolds them all in the grasp of his unifying thought, and as thus +equally and necessarily related to a central unity he pronounces the +All a sphere, and therefore limited. The two doctrines, antithetical +in terms, are identical in fact. The absolutely unlimited and the +absolutely self-limited are only two ways of saying the same thing. + +This difference of view or vision Aristotle in the passage quoted +expresses as a difference between _thought_ ((Greek) _logos_) and +_matter_ ((Greek) _hule_). This is just a form of his own radical +distinction between Essence and Difference, Form and Matter, of which +much will be said later on. It is like the difference {49} between +Deduction and Induction; in the first you start from the universal and +see within it the particulars; in the second you start from the +particulars and gather them into completeness and reality in a +universal. The substance remains the same, only the point of view is +different. To put the matter in modern mathematical form, one might +say, The universe is to be conceived as a _sphere_ (Parmenides) of +_infinite radius_ (Melissus). Aristotle is not blaming Melissus or +praising Parmenides. As for Xenophanes, Aristotle after his manner +finds in him the potentiality of both. He is prior both to the process +of thought from universal to particular, and to that from particular to +universal. He does not argue at all; his function is Intuition. "He +looks out on the mighty sky, and says, The One is God." + +Melissus applied the results of his analysis in an interesting way to +the question already raised by his predecessors, of the trustworthiness +of sensation. His argument is as follows: "If there were many real +existences, to each of them the same reasonings must apply as I have +already used with reference to the one existence. That is to say, if +earth really exists, and water and air and iron and gold and fire and +things living and things dead; and black and white, and all the various +things whose reality men ordinarily assume,--if all these really exist, +and our sight and our hearing give us _facts_, then each of these as +{50} really existing must be what we concluded the one existence must +be; among other things, each must be unchangeable, and can never become +other than it really is. But assuming that sight and hearing and +apprehension are true, we find the cold becoming hot and the hot +becoming cold; the hard changes to soft, the soft to hard; the living +thing dies; and from that which is not living, a living thing comes +into being; in short, everything changes, and what now is in no way +resembles what was. It follows therefore that we neither see nor +apprehend realities. + +"In fact we cannot pay the slightest regard to experience without being +landed in self-contradictions. We assume that there are all sorts of +really existing things, having a permanence both of form and power, and +yet we imagine these very things altering and changing according to +what we from time to time see about them. If they were realities as we +first perceived them, our sight must now be wrong. For if they were +real, they could not change. Nothing can be stronger than reality. +Whereas to suppose it changed, we must affirm that the real has ceased +to be, and that that which was not has displaced it." + +To Melissus therefore, as to his predecessors, the world of sense was a +world of illusion; the very first principles or assumptions of which, +as of the truthfulness of the senses and the reality of the various +objects which we see, are unthinkable and absurd. + +{51} + +The weakness as well as the strength of the Eleatic position consisted +in its purely negative and critical attitude. The assumptions of +ordinary life and experience could not stand for a moment when assailed +in detail by their subtle analysis. So-called facts were like a world +of ghosts, which the sword of truth passed through without resistance. +But somehow the sword might pierce them through and through, and show +by all manner of arguments their unsubstantiality, but there they were +still thronging about the philosopher and refusing to be gone. The +world of sense might be only illusion, but there the illusion was. You +could not lay it or exorcise it by calling it illusion or opinion. +What was this opinion? What was the nature of its subject matter? How +did it operate? And if its results were not true or real, what was +their nature? These were questions which still remained when the +analysis of the idea of absolute existence had been pushed to its +completion. These were the questions which the next school of +philosophy attempted to answer. After the Idealists, the Realists; +after the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of matter. + + + + +{52} + +CHAPTER VI + +THE ATOMISTS + +_Anaxagoras and the cosmos--Mind in nature--The seeds of existence_ + + +[129] + +I. ANAXAGORAS.--Anaxagoras was born at Clazomenae, a city of Ionia, +about the year 500 B.C. At the age of twenty he removed to Athens, of +which city Clazomenae was for some time a dependency. This step on his +part may have been connected with the circumstances attending the great +invasion of Greece by Xerxes in the year 480. For Xerxes drew a large +contingent of his army from the Ionian cities which he had subdued, and +many who were unwilling to serve against their mother-country may have +taken refuge about that time in Athens. At Athens he resided for +nearly fifty years, and during that period became the friend and +teacher of many eminent men, among the rest of Pericles, the great +Athenian [118] statesman, and of Euripides, the dramatist. Like most +of the Ionian philosophers he had a taste for mathematics and +astronomy, as well as for certain practical applications of +mathematics. Among other books he is said to have written a treatise +on the art {53} of scene-designing for the stage, possibly to oblige +his friend and pupil Euripides. In his case, as in that of his +predecessors, only fragments of his philosophic writings have been +preserved, and the connection of certain portions of his teaching as +they have come down to us remains somewhat uncertain. + +[119] + +With respect to the constitution of the universe we have the following: +"Origination and destruction are phrases which are generally +misunderstood among the Greeks. Nothing really is originated or +destroyed; the only processes which actually take place are combination +and separation of elements already existing. [120] These elements we +are to conceive as having been in a state of chaos at first, infinite +in number and infinitely small, forming in their immobility a confused +and characterless unity. About this chaos was spread the air and +aether, infinite also in the multitude of their particles, and +infinitely extended. Before separation commenced there was no clear +colour or appearance in anything, whether of moist or dry, of hot or +cold, of bright or dark, but only an infinite number of the seeds of +things, having concealed in them all manner of forms and colours and +savours." + +There is a curious resemblance in this to the opening verses of +Genesis, "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon +the face of the deep." Nor is the next step in his philosophy without +its resemblance to that in the Biblical record. [122] As summarised by +Diogenes Laertius it takes this form, "All things were as one: then +cometh Mind, and by division brought all things into order." [121] +"Conceiving," as Aristotle puts it, "that the original elements of +things had no power to generate or develop out of themselves things as +they exist, philosophers were forced by the facts themselves to seek +the immediate cause of this development. They were unable to believe +that fire, or earth, or any such principle was adequate to account for +the order and beauty visible in the frame of things; nor did they think +it possible to attribute these to mere innate necessity or chance. +_One_ (Anaxagoras) observing how in living creatures Mind is the +ordering force, declared that in nature also this must be the cause of +order and beauty, and in so declaring he seemed, when compared with +those before him, as one sober amidst a crowd of babblers." + +[122] + +Elsewhere, however, Aristotle modifies this commendation. +"Anaxagoras," he says, "uses Mind only as a kind of last resort, +dragging it in when he fails otherwise to account for a phenomenon, but +never thinking of it else." And in the _Phaedo_ Plato makes Socrates +speak of the high hopes with which he had taken to the works of +Anaxagoras, and how grievously he had been disappointed. "As I +proceeded," he says, "I found my philosopher altogether forsaking Mind +or any other principle of order, and having {55} recourse to air, and +aether, and water, and other eccentricities." + +Anaxagoras, then, at least on this side of his teaching, must be +considered rather as the author of a phrase than as the founder of a +philosophy. The phrase remained, and had a profound influence on +subsequent philosophies, but in his own hands it was little more than a +dead letter. His immediate interest was rather in the variety of +phenomena than in their conceived principle of unity; he is +theoretically, perhaps, 'on the side of the angels,' in practice he is +a materialist. + +[12] + +Mind he conceived as something apart, sitting throned like Zeus upon +the heights, giving doubtless the first impulse to the movement of +things, but leaving them for the rest to their own inherent tendencies. +As distinguished from them it was, he conceived, the one thing which +was absolutely pure and unmixed. All things else had intermixture with +every other, the mixtures increasing in complexity towards the centre +of things. On the outmost verge were distributed the finest and least +complex forms of things--the sun, the moon, the stars; the more dense +gathering together, to form as it were in the centre of the vortex, the +earth and its manifold existences. By the intermixture of air and +earth and water, containing in themselves the infinitely varied seeds +of things, plants and animals were {56} developed. The seeds +themselves are too minute to be apprehended by the senses, but we can +divine their character by the various characters of the visible things +themselves, each of these having a necessary correspondence with the +nature of the seeds from which they respectively were formed. + +[128] + +Thus for a true apprehension of things sensation and reason are both +necessary--sensation to certify to the apparent characters of objects, +reason to pass from these to the nature of the invisible seeds or atoms +which cause those characters. Taken by themselves our sensations are +false, inasmuch as they give us only combined impressions, yet they are +a necessary stage towards the truth, as providing the materials which +reason must separate into their real elements. + +From this brief summary we may gather that Mind was conceived, so to +speak, as placed at the _beginning_ of existence, inasmuch as it is the +first originator of the vortex motions of the atoms or seeds of things; +it was conceived also at the _end_ of existence as the power which by +analysis of the data of sensation goes back through the complexity of +actual being to the original unmingled or undeveloped nature of things. +But the whole process of nature itself between these limits Anaxagoras +conceived as a purely mechanical or at least physical development, the +uncertainty of his view as between these two alternative ways of +considering it being {57} typified in his use of the two expressions +_atoms_ and _seeds_. The analogies of this view with those of modern +materialism, which finds in the ultimate molecules of matter "the +promise and the potency of all life and all existence," need not be +here enlarged upon. + +After nearly half a century's teaching at Athens Anaxagoras was +indicted on a charge of inculcating doctrines subversive of religion. +It is obvious enough that his theories left no room for the popular +mythology, but the Athenians were not usually very sensitive as to the +bearing of mere theories upon their public institutions. It seems +probable that the accusation was merely a cloak for political +hostility. Anaxagoras was the friend and intimate of Pericles, leader +of the democratic party in the state, and the attack upon Anaxagoras +was really a political move intended to damage Pericles. As such +Pericles himself accepted it, and the trial became a contest of +strength, which resulted in a partial success and a partial defeat for +both sides. Pericles succeeded in saving his friend's life, but the +opposite party obtained a sentence of fine and banishment against him. +Anaxagoras retired to Lampsacus, a city on the Hellespont, and there, +after some five years, he died. + + + + +{58} + +CHAPTER VII + +THE ATOMISTS (_continued_) + +_Empedocles at Etna--Brief life and scanty vision--The four +elements--The philosophy of contradiction--Philosophy a form of +poesy--The philosopher a prophet--Sensation through kinship--The whole +creation groaneth_ + + +[129] + +II. EMPEDOCLES.--Empedocles was a native of Agrigentum, a Greek colony +in Sicily. At the time when he flourished in his native city (circa +440 B.C.) it was one of the wealthiest and most powerful communities in +that wealthy and powerful island. It had, however, been infested, like +its neighbours, by the designs of tyrants and the dissensions of rival +factions. Empedocles was a man of high family, and he exercised the +influence which his position and his abilities secured him in promoting +and maintaining the liberty of his fellow-countrymen. Partly on this +account, partly from a reputation which with or without his own will he +acquired for an almost miraculous skill in healing and necromantic +arts, Empedocles attained to a position of singular personal power over +his contemporaries, and was indeed regarded as semi-divine. His death +was hedged about with mystery. According to one story he gave a great +feast to his friends and offered a {59} sacrifice; then when his +friends went to rest he disappeared, and was no more seen. According +to a story less dignified and better known-- + + Deus immortalis haberi + Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Aetnam + Insiluit. HOR. _Ad Pisones_, 464 _sqq_. + +"Eager to be deemed a god, Empedocles coldly threw himself in burning +Etna." The fraud, it was said, was detected by one of his shoes being +cast up from the crater. Whatever the manner of his end, the Etna +story may probably be taken as an ill-natured joke of some sceptic wit; +and it is certain that no such story was believed by his +fellow-citizens, who rendered in after years divine honours to his name. + +Like Xenophanes, Parmenides, and other Graeco-Italian philosophers, he +expounded his views in verse; but he reached a poetic excellence +unattained by any predecessor. Aristotle characterises his gift as +Homeric, and himself as a master of style, employing freely metaphors +and other poetic forms. Lucretius also speaks of him in terms of high +admiration (_De Nat. Rer. i. 716 sqq._): "Foremost among them is +Empedocles of Agrigentum, child of the island with the triple capes, a +land wondrous deemed in many wise, and worthy to be viewed of all men. +Rich it is in all manner of good things, and strong {60} in the might +of its men, yet naught within its borders men deem more divine or more +wondrous or more dear than her illustrious son. Nay, the songs which +issued from his godlike breast are eloquent yet, and expound his +findings wondrous well, so that hardly is he thought to have been of +mortal clay." + +[180] + +Like the Eleatics he denies that the senses are an absolute test of +truth. "For straitened are the powers that have been shed upon our +frames, and many the frets that cross us and defeat our care, and short +the span of unsatisfying existence wherein 'tis given us to see. +Shortlived as a wreath of smoke men rise and fleet away, persuaded but +of that alone which each has chanced to light upon, driven hither and +thither, and vainly do they pray to find _the whole_. For this men may +not see or hear or grasp with the hand of thought." Yet that there is +a kind or degree of knowledge possible for man his next words suggest +when he continues: "Thou therefore since hither thou hast been borne, +hear, and thou shalt learn so much as 'tis given to mortal thought to +reach." Then follows an invocation in true Epic style to the +"much-wooed white-armed virgin Muse," wherein he prays that "folly and +impurity may be far from the lips of him the teacher, and that sending +forth her swift-reined chariot from the shrine of Piety, the Muse may +grant him to hear so much as is given to mortal hearing." + +{61} + +Then follows a warning uttered by the Muse to her would-be disciple: +"Thee the flowers of mortal distinctions shall not seduce to utter in +daring of heart more than thou mayest, that thereby thou mightest soar +to the highest heights of wisdom. And now behold and see, availing +thyself of every device whereby the truth may in each matter be +revealed, trusting not more to sight for thy learning than to hearing, +nor to hearing with its loud echoings more than to the revelations of +the tongue, nor to any one of the many ways whereby there is a path to +knowledge. Keep a check on the revelation of the hands also, and +apprehend each matter in the way whereby it is made plain to thee." + +The correction of the one sense by the others, and of all by reason, +this Empedocles deemed the surest road to knowledge. He thus +endeavoured to hold a middle place between the purely abstract +reasoning of the Eleatic philosophy and the unreasoned first guesses of +ordinary observation suggested by this or that sense, and chiefly by +the eyes. The senses might supply the raw materials of knowledge, +unordered, unrelated, nay even chaotic and mutually destructive; but in +their contradictions of each other he hoped to find a starting-point +for order amidst the seeming chaos; reason should weigh, reason should +reject, but reason also should find a residuum of truth. + +{62} + +[181] + +In our next fragment we have his enunciation in symbolical language of +the _four_ elements, by him first formulated: "Hear first of all what +are the root principles of all things, being four in number,--Zeus the +bright shiner (_i.e._ fire), and Hera (air), and life-bearing Aidoneus +(earth), and Nestis (water), who with her teardrops waters the fountain +of mortality. Hear also this other that I will tell thee. Nothing of +all that perisheth ever is created, nothing ever really findeth an end +in death. There is naught but a mingling, and a parting again of that +which was mingled, and this is what men call a coming into being. +Foolish they, for in them is no far-reaching thought, that they should +dream that what was not before can be, or that aught which is can +utterly perish and die." Thus again Empedocles shows himself an +Eclectic; in denying that aught can come into being, he holds with the +Eleatics (see above, p. 47); in identifying all seeming creation, and +ceasing to be with certain mixtures and separations of matter eternally +existing, he links himself rather to the doctrine of Anaxagoras (see +above, p. 53). + +[132] + +These four elements constitute the total _corpus_ of the universe, +eternal, as a whole unmoved and immovable, perfect like a sphere. But +within this sphere-like self-centred All there are eternally proceeding +separations and new unions of the elements of things; and every one of +these is at once a birth {63} and an infinity of dyings, a dying and an +infinity of births. Towards this perpetual life in death, and death in +life, two forces work inherent in the universe. One of these he names +Love, Friendship, Harmony, Aphrodite goddess of Love, Passion, Joy; the +other he calls Hate, Discord, Ares god of War, Envy, Strife. Neither +of the one nor of the other may man have apprehension by the senses; +they are spiritually discerned; yet of the first men have some +adumbration in the creative force within their own members, which they +name by the names of Love and Nuptial Joy. + +Somewhat prosaically summing up the teaching of Empedocles, Aristotle +says that he thus posited _six_ first principles in nature--four +material, two motive or efficient. And he goes on to remark that in +the working out of his theory of nature Empedocles, though using his +originative principles more consistently than Anaxagoras used his +principle of _Nous_ or Thought, not infrequently, nevertheless, resorts +to some natural force in the elements themselves, or even to chance or +necessity. "Nor," he continues, "has he clearly marked off the +functions of his two efficient forces, nay, he has so confounded them +that at times it is Discord that through separation leads to new +unions, and Love that through union causes diremption of that which was +before." At times, too, Empedocles seems to have had a vision of these +two forces, not as the counteracting yet {64} co-operative +_pulsations_, so to speak, of the universal life, but as rival forces +having had in time their periods of alternate supremacy and defeat. +While all things were in union under the influence of Love, then was +there neither Earth nor Water nor Air nor Fire, much less any of the +individual things that in eternal interchange are formed of them; but +all was in perfect sphere-like balance, enwrapped in the serenity of an +eternal silence. Then came the reign of Discord, whereby war arose in +heaven as of the fabled giants, and endless change,--endless birth, and +endless death. + +These inconsistencies of doctrine, which Aristotle notes as faults in +Empedocles, are perhaps rather proofs of the philosophic value of his +conceptions. Just as Hegel in modern philosophy could only adequately +formulate his conceptions through logical contradictions, so also, +perhaps, under the veil of antagonisms of utterance, Empedocles sought +to give a fuller vision,--Discord, in his own doctrine, not less than +in his conception of nature, being thus the co-worker with Love. The +ordinary mind for the ordinary purposes of science seeks exactness of +distinction in things, and language, being the creation of ordinary +experience, lends itself to such a purpose; the philosophic mind, +finding ready to its hand no forms of expression adapted to its +conceptions, which have for their final end Union and not Distinction, +{65} can only attain its purpose by variety, or even contradictoriness, +of representation. Thus to ordinary conception cause must precede +effect; to the philosophic mind, dealing as it does with the idea of an +organic whole, everything is at once cause and effect, is at once +therefore prior to and subsequent to every other, is at once the ruling +and the ruled, the conditioning and that which is conditioned. + +So, to Empedocles there are four elements, yet in the eternal +perfection, the silent reign of Love, there are none of them. There +are two forces working upon these and against each other, yet each is +like the other either a unifying or a separating force, as one pleases +to regard them; and in the eternal silence, the ideal perfectness, +there is no warfare at all. There is joy in Love which creates, and in +creating destroys; there is joy in the eternal Stillness, nay, this is +itself the ultimate joy. There are two forces working, Love and Hate, +yet is there but one force, and that force is Necessity. And for final +contradiction, the universe is self-balanced, self-conditioned, a +perfect sphere; therefore this Necessity is perfect self-realisation, +and consequently perfect freedom. + +The men who have had the profoundest vision of things--Heraclitus, +Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, ay, and Aristotle himself when he was the +thinker and not the critic; not to speak of the great moderns, whether +preachers or philosophers--have none of {66} them been greatly +concerned for consistency of expression, for a mere logical +self-identity of doctrine. Life in every form, nay, existence in any +form, is a union of contradictories, a complex of antagonisms; and the +highest and deepest minds are those that are most adequate to have the +vision of these antagonisms in their contrariety, and also in their +unity; to see and hear as Empedocles did the eternal war and clamour, +but to discern also, as he did in it and through it and behind it and +about it, the eternal peace and the eternal silence. + +Philosophy, in fact, is a form of poesy; it is, if one pleases so to +call it, 'fiction founded upon fact.' It is not for that reason the +less noble a form of human thought, rather is it the more noble, in the +same way as poetry is nobler than mere narrative, and art than +representation, and imagination than perception. Philosophy is indeed +one of the noblest forms of poetry, because the facts which are its +basis are the profoundest, the most eternally interesting, the most +universally significant. And not only has it nobility in respect of +the greatness of its subject matter, it has also possibilities of an +essential truth deeper and more far-reaching and more fruitful than any +demonstrative system of fact can have. A great poem or work of art of +any kind is an adumbration of truths which transcend any actual fact, +and as such it brings us nearer to the underlying fundamentals of {67} +reality which all actual occurrences only by accumulation _tend_ to +realise. Philosophy, then, in so far as it is great, is, like other +great art, prophetic in both interpretations of the word, both as +expounding the inner truth that is anterior to actuality, and also as +anticipating that final realisation of all things for which 'the whole +creation groaneth.' It is thus at the basis of religion, of art, of +morals; it is the accumulated sense of the highest in man with respect +to what is greatest and most mysterious in and about him. + +The facts, indeed, with which philosophy attempts to deal are so vital +and so vast that even the greatest intellects may well stagger +occasionally under the burden of their own conceptions of them. To +rise to the height of such an argument demands a more than Miltonic +imagination; and criticisms directed only at this or that fragment of +the whole are as irrelevant, if not as inept, as the criticism of the +mathematician directed against _Paradise Lost_, that it 'proved +nothing.' The mystery of being and of life, the true purport and +reality of this world of which we seem to be a part, and yet of which +we seem to have some apprehension as though we were other than a part; +the strange problems of creation and change and birth and death, of +love and sin and purification; of a heaven dreamt of or believed in, or +somehow actually apprehended; of life here, and of an immortality +yearned after and hoped for--these {68} problems, these mysteries, no +philosophy ever did or ever can empty of their strangeness, or bring +down to the level of the commonplace 'certainties' of daily life or of +science, which are no more than shadows after all, that seem +certainties because of the background of mystery on which they are cast. + +But just as an individual is a higher being, a fuller, more truly human +creature, when he has got so far removed from the merely animal +existence as to realise that there are such problems and mysteries, so +also the humanisation of the race, the development of its noblest +peoples and its noblest literatures, have been conditioned by the +successive visions of these mysteries in more and more complex +organisation by the great philosophers and poets and preachers. The +systems of such men may die, but such deaths mean, as Empedocles said +of the ordinary deaths of things, only an infinity of new births. +Being dead, their systems yet speak in the inherited language and ideas +and aspirations and beliefs that form the never-ending, still-renewing +material for new philosophies and new faiths. In Thales, Heraclitus, +Pythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles we have been touching hands with an +apostolic succession of great men and great thinkers and great +poets--men of noble life and lofty thoughts, true prophets and +revealers. And the apostolic succession even within the Greek world +does not fail for centuries yet. + +{69} + +Passing from the general conceptions of Empedocles to those more +particular rationalisations of particular problems which very largely +provided the motive of early philosophies, while scientific methods +were in an undeveloped and uncritical condition, we may notice such +interesting statements as the following: [135] "The earth, which is at +the centre of the sphere of the universe, remains firm, because the +spin of the universe as a whole keeps it in its place like the water in +a spinning cup." He has the same conception of the early condition of +the earth as in other cosmogonies. At first it was a chaos of watery +slough, which slowly, under the influence of sky and sun, parted off +into earth and sea. The sea was the 'sweat' of the earth, and by +analogy with the sweat it was salt. The heavens, on the other hand, +were formed of air and fire, and the sun was, as it were, a speculum at +which the effulgence and the heat of the whole heavens concentrated. +But that the aether and the fire had not been fully separated from +earth and water he held to be proved by the hot fountains and fiery +phenomena which must have been so familiar to a native of Sicily. +Curiously enough he imagined fire to possess a solidifying power, and +therefore attributed to it the solidity of the earth and the hardness +of the rocks. No doubt he had observed some effects of fire in +'metamorphic' formations in his own vicinity. + +{70} + +[137] + +He had also a conception of the gradual development on the earth of +higher and higher forms of life, the first being rude and imperfect, +and a 'struggle for existence' ensuing in which the monstrous and the +deficient gradually were eliminated--the "two-faced, the +double-breasted, the oxen-shaped with human prows, or human-shaped with +head of ox, or hemaphrodite," and so forth. Love and Strife worked out +their ends upon these varied forms; some procreated and reproduced +after their image, others were incapable of reproduction from mere +monstrosity or [138] weakness, and disappeared. Something other than +mere chance thus governed the development of things; there was a law, a +reason, a _Logos_ governing the process. This law or reason he perhaps +fancifully illustrated by attributing the different characters of flesh +and sinew and bone to the different numerical proportions, in which +they severally contain the different elements. + +On this Aristotle, keen-scented critic as he was, has a question, or +series of questions, to ask as to the relation between this Logos, or +principle of orderly combination, and Love as the ruling force in all +unions of things. "Is Love," he asks, "a cause of mixtures of any +sort, or only of such sorts as Logos dictates? And whether then is +Love identical with this Logos, or are they separate and distinct; and +if so, what settles their separate functions?" Questions {71} which +Empedocles did not answer, and perhaps would not have tried to answer +had he heard them. + +[139] + +The soul or life-principle in man Empedocles regarded as an ordered +composite of all the elements or principles of the life in nature, and +in this kinship of the elements in man and the elements in nature he +found a rationale of our powers of perception. "By the earth," said +he, "we have perception of earth; by water we have perception of water; +of the divine aether, by aether; of destructive fire, by fire; of love, +by love; of strife, by strife." He therefore, as Aristotle observes, +drew no radical distinction between sense-apprehension and thought. He +located the faculty of apprehension more specifically in the blood, +conceiving that in it the combination of the elements was most +complete. And the variety of apprehensive gift in different persons he +attributed to the greater or lesser perfectness of this blood mixture +in them individually. Those that were dull and stupid had a relative +deficiency of the lighter and more invisible elements; those that were +quick and impulsive had a relatively larger proportion of these. +Again, specific faculties depended on local perfection of mixture in +certain organs; orators having this perfectness in their tongues, +cunning craftsmen possessing it in their hands, and so on. And the +degrees of capacity of sensation, which he found in various animals, or +even plants, he explained in similar fashion. + +{72} The process of sensation he conceived to be conditioned by an +actual emission from the bodies perceived of elements or images of +themselves which found access to our apprehension through channels +[140] congruous to their nature. But ordering, criticising, organising +these various apprehensions was the Mind or _Nous_, which he conceived +to be of divine nature, to be indeed an expression or emanation of the +Divine. And here has been preserved a strangely interesting passage, +in which he incorporates and develops in characteristic fashion the +doctrine of transmigration [141] of souls: "There is a decree of +Necessity, a law given of old from the gods, eternal, sealed with +mighty oaths, that when any heavenly creature (daemon) of those that +are endowed with length of days, shall in waywardness of heart defile +his hands with sin of deed or speech, he shall wander for thrice ten +thousand seasons far from the dwellings of the blest, taking upon him +in length of time all manner of mortal forms, traversing in turn the +many toilsome paths of existence. Him the aetherial wrath hurries +onward to the deep, and the deep spews him forth on to the threshold of +earth, and unworn earth casts him up to the fires of the sun, and again +the aether hurls him into the eddies. One receives him, and then +another, but detested is he of them all. Of such am I also one, an +exile and a wanderer from God, a slave to strife and its madness." + +{73} + +Thus to his mighty conception the life of all creation, and not of man +only, was a great expiation, an eternal round of punishment for sin; +and in the unending flux of life each creature rose or fell in the +scale of existence according to the deeds of good or ill done in each +successive life; rising sometimes to the state of men, or among men to +the high functions of physicians and prophets and kings, or among +beasts to the dignity of the lion, or among trees to the beauty of the +laurel; or, on the contrary, sinking through sin to lowest forms of +bestial or vegetable life. Till at the last they who through obedience +and right-doing have expiated their wrong, are endowed by the blessed +gods with endless honour, to dwell for ever with them and share their +banquets, untouched any more with human care and sorrow and pain. + +[143] + +The slaying of any living creature, therefore, Empedocles, like +Pythagoras, abhorred, for all were kin. All foul acts were forms of +worse than suicide; life should be a long act of worship, of expiation, +of purification. And in the dim past he pictured a vision of a golden +age, in which men worshipped not many gods, but Love only, and not with +sacrifices of blood, but with pious images, and cunningly odorous +incense, and offerings of fragrant myrrh. With abstinence also, and +above all with that noblest abstinence, the abstinence from vice and +wrong. + + + + +{74} + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE ATOMISTS (_concluded_) + +_The laughing philosopher--Atoms and void--No god and no truth_ + + +[143] + +III. LEUCIPPUS AND DEMOCRITUS.--Leucippus is variously called a native +of Elea, of Abdera, of Melos, of Miletus. He was a pupil of Zeno the +Eleatic. [144] Democritus was a native of Abdera. They seem to have +been almost contemporary with Socrates. The two are associated as +thorough-going teachers of the 'Atomic Philosophy,' but Democritus, +'the laughing philosopher,' as he was popularly called in later times, +in distinction from Heraclitus, 'the weeping philosopher,' was much the +more famous. [145] He lived to a great age. He himself refers to his +travels and studies thus: "Above all the men of my time I travelled +farthest, and extended my inquiries to places the most distant. I +visited the most varied climates and countries, heard the largest +number of learned men, nor has any one surpassed me in the gathering +together of writings and their interpretation, no, not even the most +learned of the Egyptians, with whom I spent five years." We {75} are +also informed that, through desire of learning, he visited Babylon and +Chaldaea, to visit the astrologers and the priests. + +[146] + +Democritus was not less prolific as a writer than he was voracious as a +student, and in him first the division of philosophy into certain great +sections, such as physical, mathematical, ethical, was clearly [147] +drawn. We are, however, mainly concerned with his teaching in its more +strictly philosophical aspects. His main doctrine was professedly +antithetical to that of the Eleatics, who, it will be remembered, +worked out on abstract lines a theory of one indivisible, eternal, +immovable Being. Democritus, on the contrary, declared for two +co-equal elements, the Full and the Empty, or Being and Nonentity. The +latter, he maintained, was as real as the former. As we should put it, +Body is unthinkable except by reference to space which that body does +not occupy, as well as to space which it does occupy; and conversely +Space is unthinkable except by reference to body actually or +potentially filling or defining it. + +What Democritus hoped to get by this double or correlative system was a +means of accounting for or conceiving of _change_ in nature. The +difficulty with the Eleatics was, as we have seen, how to understand +whence or why the transition from that which absolutely is, to this +strange, at least apparent, system of eternal flux and transformation. +Democritus {76} hoped to get over this difficulty by starting as fully +with that which _is not_, in other words, with that which _wants_ +change in order to have any recognisable being at all, as with that +which _is_, and which therefore might be conceived as seeking and +requiring only to be what it is. + +[148] + +Having got his principle of stability and his principle of change on an +equal footing, Democritus next laid it down that all the differences +visible in things were differences either of shape, of arrangement, or +of position; practically, that is, he considered that what seem, to us +to be qualitative differences in things, _e.g._ hot or cold, sweet or +sour, green or yellow, are only resulting impressions from different +shapes, or different arrangements, or different modes of presentation, +among the atoms of which things are composed. + +Coming now to that which _is_, Democritus, as against the Eleatics, +maintained that this was not a unity, some one immovable, unchangeable +existence, but an innumerable number of atoms, invisible by reason of +their smallness, which career through empty space (that which _is +not_), and by their union bring objects into being, by their separation +bring these to destruction. The action of these atoms on each other +depended on the manner in which they were brought into contact; but in +any case the unity of any object was only an apparent unity, it being +really constituted of a multitude of interlaced and mutually related +{77} particles, and all growth or increase of the object being +conditioned by the introduction into the structure of additional atoms +from without. + +[149] + +For the motions of the atoms he had no anterior cause to offer, other +than necessity or fate. They existed, and necessarily and always had +existed, in a state of whirl; and for that which always had been he +maintained that no preceding cause could legitimately or reasonably be +demanded. + +[150] + +Nothing, then, could come out of nothing; all the visible structure of +the universe had its origin in the movements of the atoms that +constituted it, and conditioned its infinite changes. The atoms, by a +useful but perhaps too convenient metaphor, he called the _seeds_ of +all things. They were infinite in number, though not infinite in the +number, of their shapes. Many atoms were similar to each other, and +this similarity formed a basis of union among them, a warp, so to +speak, or solid foundation across which the woof of dissimilar atoms +played to constitute the differences of things. + +[151] + +Out of this idea of an eternal eddy or whirl Democritus developed a +cosmogony. The lighter atoms he imagined flew to the outmost rim of +the eddy, there constituting the heavenly fires and the heavenly +aether. The heavier atoms gathered at the centre, forming successively +air and water and the solid earth. Not that there was only one such +{78} system or world, but rather multitudes of them, all varying one +from the other; some without sun or moon, others with greater +luminaries than those of our system, others with a greater number. +All, however, had necessarily a centre; all as systems were necessarily +spherical. + +[152] + +As regards the atoms he conceived that when they differed in weight +this must be in respect of a difference in their essential size. In +this he was no doubt combating the notion that the atoms say of lead or +gold were in their substance, taking equal quantities, of greater +weight than atoms of water or air. The difference of weight in objects +depended on the proportion which the atoms in them bore to the amount +of empty space which was interlaced with them. On the other hand, a +piece of iron was lighter yet harder than a piece of lead of equal +size, because of the special way in which the atoms in it were linked +together. There were fewer atoms in it, but they were, in consequence +of their structure and arrangement, more tightly strung. + +[153] + +In all this Democritus was with great resolution working out what we +may call a strictly mechanical theory of the universe. Even the soul +or life-principle in living creatures was simply a structure of the +finest and roundest (and therefore most nimble) atoms, with which he +compared the extremely attenuated dust particles visible in their +never-ending {79} dance in a beam of light passed into a darkened room. +This structure of exceeding tenuity and nimbleness was the source of +the motion characteristic of living creatures, and provided that +elastic counteracting force to the inward-pressing nimble air, whereby +were produced the phenomena of respiration. Every object, in fact, +whether living or not, kept its form and distinctive existence by its +possession in degree of a kind of soul or spirit of resistance in its +structure, adequate to counteract the pressure of external forces upon +its particles. + +[155] + +Sensation and perception were forms in which these external forces +acted upon the more nimble and lively existences, more particularly on +living creatures. For every body was continually sending forth +emanations or images resembling itself sufficiently in form and +structure to affect perceptive bodies with an apprehension of that form +and structure. These images travelled by a process of successive +transmission, similar to that by which wave-motions are propagated in +water. They were, in other words, not movements of the _particles_ of +the objects, which latter must otherwise in time grow less and fade +away, but a modification in the arrangement of the particles +immediately next the object, which modification reproduced itself in +the next following, and so on right through the medium to the +perceptive body. + +{80} + +[156] + +These images tended by extension in all directions to reach vast +dimensions at times, and to influence the minds of men in sleep and on +other occasions in strange ways. Hence men imagined gods, and +attributed those mighty phenomena of nature--earthquakes, tempests, +lightning and thunder, and dire eclipses of sun and moon, to the +vaguely visible powers which they imagined they saw. There was indeed +a soul or spirit of the universe, as there was a soul or spirit of +every individual thing that constituted it. But this was only a finer +system of atoms after all. All else is convention or dream; the only +realities are Atoms and Emptiness, Matter and Space. + +[157] + +Of absolute verity through the senses we know nothing; our perceptions +are only conventional interpretations of we know not what. For to +other living creatures these same sensations have other meanings than +they have to us, and even the same person is not always affected alike +by the same thing; which then is the true of two differing perceptions +we cannot say. And therefore either there is no such thing as truth, +or, at all events, we know through the senses nothing of it. The only +genuine knowledge is that which transcends appearances, and reasons out +what is, irrespective of appearances,--in other words, the only genuine +knowledge is that of the (atomic) philosopher. And his knowledge is +{81} the result of the happy mixture of his atoms whereby all is in +equal balance, neither too hot nor too cold. Such a man seeing in the +mind's eye the whole universe a tissue of whirling and interlacing +atoms, with no real mystery or terror before or after, will live a life +of cheerful fearlessness, undisturbed by terrors of a world to come or +of powers unseen. His happiness is not in feastings or in gold, but in +a mind at peace. And three human perfections he will seek to attain: +to reason rightly, to speak graciously, to do his duty. + + + + +{82} + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SOPHISTS + +_Anarchic philosophy--Success not truth--Man the measure--All opinions +true--Reductio ad absurdum_ + + +A certain analogy may perhaps be discerned between the progression of +philosophic thought in Greece as we have traced it, and the political +development which had its course in almost every Greek state during the +same period. The Ionic philosophy may be regarded as corresponding +with the _kingly_ era in Greek politics. Philosophy sits upon the +heights and utters its authoritative dicta for the resolution of the +seeming contradictions of things. One principle is master, but the +testimony of the senses is not denied; a harmony of thought and +sensation is sought in the interpretation of appearances by the light +of a ruling idea. In Pythagoras and his order we have an +_aristocratic_ organisation of philosophy. Its truths are for the few, +the best men are the teachers, equal as initiated partakers in the +mysteries, supreme over all outside their society. A reasoned and +reasonable order and method are {83} symbolised by their theory of +Number; their philosophy is political, their politics oligarchic. In +the Eleatic school we have a succession of personal attempts to +construct a _domination_ in the theory of Nature; some ideal conception +is attempted to be so elevated above the data of sensation as to +override them altogether, and the general result we are now to see +throughout the philosophic world, as it was seen also throughout the +world of politics, in a total collapse of the principle of forced +authority, and a development, of successively nearer approaches to +anarchic individualism and doubt. The notion of an ultimately true and +real, whatever form it might assume in various theorists' hands, being +in its essence apart from and even antagonistic to the perceptions of +sense, was at last definitely cast aside as a delusion; what remained +were the individual perceptions, admittedly separate, unreasoned, +unrelated; Reason was dethroned, Chaos was king. In other words, what +_seemed_ to any individual sentient being at any moment to be, that for +him was, and nothing else was. The distinction between the real and +the apparent was definitely attempted to be abolished, not as hitherto +by rejecting the sensually apparent in favour of the rationally +conceived real, but by the denial of any such real altogether. + +The individualistic revolution in philosophy not {84} only, however, +had analogies with the similar revolution contemporaneously going on in +Greek politics, it was greatly facilitated by it. Each, in short, +acted and reacted on the other. Just as the sceptical philosophy of +the Encyclopaedists in France promoted the Revolution, and the +Revolution in its turn developed and confirmed the philosophic +scepticism, so also the collapse of contending philosophies in Greece +promoted the collapse of contending systems of political authority, and +the collapse of political authority facilitated the growth of that +individualism in thought with which the name of the Sophists is +associated. + +[178] + +Cicero (_Brut_. 12) definitely connects the rise of these teachers with +the expulsion of the tyrants and the establishment of democratic +republics in Sicily. From 466 to 406 B.C. Syracuse was democratically +governed, and a 'free career to talents,' as in revolutionary France, +so also in revolutionary Greece, began to be promoted by the +elaboration of a system of persuasive argument. Devices of method +called 'commonplaces' were constructed, whereby, irrespective of the +truth or falsehood of the subject-matter, a favourable vote in the +public assemblies, a successful verdict in the public courts, might +more readily be procured. Thus by skill of verbal rhetoric, the worse +might be made to appear the better reason; and philosophy, so far as it +continued its functions, {85} became a search, not for the real amidst +the confusions of the seeming and unreal, but a search for the seeming +and the plausible, to the detriment, or at least to the ignoring, of +any reality at all. + +The end of philosophy then was no longer universal truth, but +individual success; and consistently enough, the philosopher himself +professed the individualism of his own point of view, by teaching only +those who were prepared to pay him for his teaching. All over Greece, +with the growth of democracy, this philosophy of persuasion became +popular; but it was to Athens, under Pericles at this time the centre +of all that was most vivid and splendid in Greek life and thought, that +the chief teachers of the new philosophy flocked from every part of the +Greek world. + +[177] + +The first great leader of the Sophists was _Protagoras_. He, it is +said, was the first to teach for pay; he also was the first to adopt +the name of Sophist. In the word Sophist there was indeed latent the +idea which subsequently attached to it, but as first used it seems to +have implied this only, that _skill_ was the object of the teaching +rather than _truth_; the new teachers professed themselves 'practical +men,' not mere theorists. + +The Greek word, in short, meant an able cultivated man in any branch of +the arts; and the development of practical capacity was doubtless what +Protagoras {86} intended to indicate as the purpose of his teaching, +when he called himself a Sophist. But the ability he really undertook +to cultivate was ability to _persuade_, for Greece at this time was +nothing if not political; and persuasive oratory was the one road to +political success. And as Athens was the great centre of Greek +politics, as well as of Greek intellect, to Athens Protagoras came as a +teacher. + +He was born at Abdera, in Thrace (birthplace also of Democritus), in +480 B.C., began to teach at Athens about 451 B.C., and soon acquired +great influence with Pericles, the distinguished leader of the Athenian +democracy at this time. It is even alleged that when in 445 the +Athenians were preparing to establish a colony at Thurii in Italy, +Protagoras was requested to draw up a code of laws for the new state, +and personally to superintend its execution. + +After spending some time in Italy he returned to Athens, and taught +there with great success for a number of years. Afterwards he taught +for some time in Sicily, and died at the age of seventy, after [178] +about forty years of professional activity. He does not seem to have +contented himself with the merely practical task of teaching rhetoric, +but in a work which he, perhaps ironically, entitled _Truth_, he +enunciated the principles on which he based his teaching. Those +principles were summed up in the sentence, "Man (by which he meant +_each_ man) is {87} the measure of all things, whether of their +existence when they do exist, or of their non-existence when [179] they +do not." In the development of this doctrine Protagoras starts from a +somewhat similar analysis of things to that of Heraclitus and others. +Everything is in continual flux, and the apparently real objects in +nature are the mere temporary and illusory result of the in themselves +invisible movements and minglings of the elements of which they are +composed; and not only is it a delusion to attempt to give a factitious +reality to the things which appear, it is equally a delusion to attempt +to separate the (supposed) thing perceived from the perception itself. +A thing is only as and when it is perceived. And a third delusion is +to attempt to separate a supposed perceiving mind from the perception; +all three exist only in and through the momentary perception; the +supposed reality behind this, whether external in the object or +internal in the mind, is a mere imagination. Thus the Heraclitean flux +in Nature was extended to Mind also; only the sensation exists, and +that only at the moment of its occurrence; this alone is truth, this +alone is reality; all else is delusion. + +[180] + +It followed from this that as a man felt a thing to be, so for him it +veritably was. Thus abstract truth or falsity could not be; the same +statements could be indifferently true or false--to different {88} +individuals at the same time, to the same individual at different +times. It followed that all appearances were equally true: what seemed +to be to any man, that was alone the true for him. The relation of +such a doctrine as this to politics and to morals is not far to seek. +Every man's opinion was as good as another's; if by persuasion you +succeeded in altering a man's opinion, you had not deceived the man, +his new opinion was as true (to him) as the old one. Persuasiveness, +therefore, was the only wisdom. Thus if a man is ill what he eats and +drinks seems bitter to him, and it is so; when he is well it seems the +opposite, and is so. He is not a wiser man in the second state than in +the first, but the second state is pleasanter. If then you can +persuade him that what he thinks bitter is really sweet, you have done +him good. This is what the physician tries to do by his drugs; this is +what the Sophist tries to do by his words. Virtue then is teachable in +so far as it is possible to persuade a boy or a man by rhetoric that +that course of conduct which pleases others is a pleasant course for +him. But if any one happens not to be persuaded of this, and continues +to prefer his own particular course of conduct, this _is_ for him the +good course. You cannot blame him; you cannot say he is wrong. If you +punish him you simply endeavour to supply the dose of unpleasantness +which may {89} be needed to put the balance in his case on the same +side as it already occupies in the case of other people. + +It may be worth while to anticipate a little, and insert here in +summary the refutation of this position put into the mouth of Socrates +by Plato in the _Theaetetus_: "But I ought not to conceal from you that +there is a serious objection which may be urged against this doctrine +of Protagoras. For there are states, such as madness and dreaming, in +which perception is false; and half our life is spent in dreaming; and +who can say that at this instant we are not dreaming? Even the fancies +of madmen are real at the time. But if knowledge is perception, how +can we distinguish between the true and the false in such cases? . . . +Shall I tell you what amazes me in your friend Protagoras? 'What may +that be?' I like his doctrine that what appears is; but I wonder that +he did not begin his great work on truth with a declaration that a pig, +or a dog-faced baboon, or any other monster which has sensation, is a +measure of all things; then while we were reverencing him as a god he +might have produced a magnificent effect by expounding to us that he +was no wiser than a tadpole. For if truth is only sensation, and one +man's discernment is as good as another's, and every man is his own +judge, and everything that he judges is right and true, then {90} what +need of Protagoras to be our instructor at a high figure; and why +should we be less knowing than he is, or have to go to him, if every +man is the measure of all things?" . . . Socrates now resumes the +argument. As he is very desirous of doing justice to Protagoras, he +insists on citing his own words: 'What appears to each man is to him.' +"And how," asks Socrates, "are these words reconcilable with the fact +that all mankind are agreed in thinking themselves wiser than others in +some respects, and inferior to them in others? In the hour of danger +they are ready to fall down and worship any one who is their superior +in wisdom as if he were a god. And the world is full of men who are +asking to be taught and willing to be ruled, and of other men who are +willing to rule and teach them. All which implies that men do judge of +one another's impressions, and think some wise and others foolish. How +will Protagoras answer this argument? For he cannot say that no one +deems another ignorant or mistaken. If you form a judgment, thousands +and tens of thousands are ready to maintain the opposite. The +multitude may not and do not agree in Protagoras' own thesis, 'that man +is the measure of all things,' and then who is to decide? Upon hip own +showing must not his 'truth' depend on the number of suffrages, and be +more or less true in proportion as he has more or fewer of them? And +{91} [the majority being against him] he will be bound to acknowledge +that they speak truly who deny him to speak truly, which is a famous +jest. And if he admits that they speak truly who deny him to speak +truly, he must admit that he himself does not speak truly. But his +opponents will refuse to admit this as regards themselves, and he must +admit that they are right in their refusal. The conclusion is, that +all mankind, including Protagoras himself, will deny that he speaks +truly; and his truth will be true neither to himself nor to anybody +else" (Jowett, _Plato_, iv. pp. 239 _sqq._) + +The refutation seems tolerably complete, but a good deal had to happen +before Greece was ready to accept or Plato to offer such a refutation. + + + + +{92} + +CHAPTER X + +THE SOPHISTS (_concluded_) + +_Nothing knowable--The solitude of scepticism--The lawlessness of +scepticism--The good in scepticism_ + + +[183] + +Gorgias was perhaps even more eminent a Sophist than Protagoras. He +was a native of Leontini in Sicily, and came to Athens in the year 427 +B.C. on a public embassy from his native city. The splendid reputation +for political and rhetorical ability, which preceded him to Athens, he +fully justified both by his public appearances before the Athenian +assembly, and by the success of his private instructions to the crowds +of wealthy young men who resorted to him. He dressed in magnificent +style, and affected a lofty and poetical manner of speech, which +offended the more critical, but which pleased the crowd. + +[181] + +He also, like Protagoras, published a treatise in which he expounded +his fundamental principles, and like Protagoras, he preceded it with a +striking if somewhat ironical title, and an apophthegm in which he +summarised his doctrine. The title of his work was _Of the +Non-Existent_, that is, _Of Nature_, and {93} his dictum, "Nothing +exists, or if anything exists, it cannot be apprehended by man, and +even if it could be apprehended, the man who apprehended it could not +expound or explain it to his neighbour." In support of this strange +doctrine, Gorgias adopted the quibbling method of argument which had +been applied with some success to dialectical purposes by Zeno, +Melissus, and others (see above, pp. 44 _sqq._) + +[185] + +His chief argument to prove the first position laid down by him +depended on a double and ambiguous use of the word _is_; "That which is +not, _is_ the non-existent: the word _is_ must, therefore, be +applicable to it as truly as when we say That which is, _is_; +therefore, being is predicable of that which is not." So conversely he +proved not-being to be predicable of that which is. And in like manner +he made away with any possible assertions as to the finite or infinite, +the eternal or created, nature of that which is. Logic could supply +him with alternative arguments from whatever point he started, such as +would seem to land the question in absurdity. Hence his first position +was (he claimed) established, that 'Nothing is.' + +To prove the second, that even if anything is, it cannot be known to +man, he argued thus: "If what a man thinks is not identical with what +is, plainly what is cannot be thought. And that what a man thinks is +not identical with what is can be {94} shown from the fact that +thinking does not affect the facts. You may imagine a man flying, or a +chariot coursing over the deep, but you do not find these things to +occur because you imagine them. Again, if we assume that what we think +is identical with what is, then it must be impossible to think of what +is not. But this is absurd; for we can think of such admittedly +imaginary beings as Scylla and Chimaera, and multitudes of others. +There is therefore no necessary relation between our thoughts and any +realities; we may believe, but we cannot prove, which (if any) of our +conceptions have relation to an external fact and which have not." + +[187] + +Nor thirdly, supposing any man had obtained an apprehension of what is +real, could he possibly communicate it to any one else. If a man saw +anything, he could not possibly by verbal description make clear what +it is he sees to a man who has never seen. And so if a man has not +himself the apprehension of reality, mere words from another cannot +possibly give him any idea of it. He may imagine he has the same idea +as the speaker, but where is he going to get the common test by which +to establish the identity? + +Without attempting to follow Gorgias further, we can see plainly enough +the object and purport of the whole doctrine. Its main result is to +_isolate_. It isolates each man from his fellows; he cannot tell {95} +what they know or think, they cannot reach any common ground with him. +It isolates him from nature; he cannot tell what nature is, he cannot +tell whether he knows anything of nature or reality at all. It +isolates him from himself; he cannot tell for certain what relation +exists (if any) between what he imagines he perceives at any moment and +any remembered or imagined previous experiences; he cannot be sure that +there ever were any such experiences, or what that self was (if +anything) which had them, or whether there was or is any self +perceiving anything. + +Let us imagine the moral effect on the minds of the ablest youth of +Greece of such an absolute collapse of belief. The philosophic +scepticism did not deprive them of their appetites or passions; it did +not in the least alter their estimate of the prizes of success, or the +desirability of wealth and power. All it did was to shatter the +invisible social bonds of reverence and honour and truth and justice, +which in greater or less degree act as a restraining force upon the +purely selfish appetites of men. Not only belief in divine government +disappeared, but belief in any government external or internal; justice +became a cheating device to deprive a man of what was ready to his +grasp; good-faith was stupidity when it was not a more subtle form of +deceit; morality was at best a mere convention which a man might cancel +if {96} he pleased; the one reality was the appetite of the moment, the +one thing needful its gratification; society, therefore, was universal +war, only with subtler weapons. + +Of course Protagoras and Gorgias were only notable types of a whole +horde of able men who in various ways, and with probably less clear +notions than these men of the drift or philosophic significance of +their activity, helped all over Greece in the promulgation of this new +gospel of self-interest. Many Sophists no doubt troubled themselves +very little with philosophical questions; they were 'agnostics,' +know-nothings; all they professed to do was to teach some practical +skill of a verbal or rhetorical character. They had nothing to do with +the nature or value of ideals; they did not profess to say whether any +end or aim was in itself good or bad, but given an end or aim, they +were prepared to help those who hired them to acquire a skill which +would be useful towards attaining it. + +But whether a philosophy or ultimate theory of life be expressly stated +or realised by a nation or an individual, or be simply ignored by them, +there always is some such philosophy or theory underlying their action, +and that philosophy or theory tends to work itself out to its logical +issue in action, whether men openly profess it or no. And the theory +of negation of law in nature or in man which underlay {97} the +sophistic practice had its logical and necessary effect on the social +structure throughout Greece, in a loosening of the bonds of religion, +of family reverence and affection, of patriotism, of law, of honour. +Thucydides in a well-known passage (iii. 82) thus describes the +prevalent condition of thought in his own time, which was distinctively +that of the sophistic teaching: "The common meaning of words was turned +about at men's pleasure; the most reckless bravo was deemed the most +desirable friend; a man of prudence and moderation was styled a coward; +a man who listened to reason was a good-for-nothing simpleton. People +were trusted exactly in proportion to their violence and +unscrupulousness, and no one was so popular as the successful +conspirator, except perhaps one who had been clever enough to outwit +him at his own trade, but any one who honestly attempted to remove the +causes of such treacheries was considered a traitor to his party. As +for oaths, no one imagined they were to be kept a moment longer than +occasion required; it was, in fact, an added pleasure to destroy your +enemy if you had managed to catch him through his trusting to your +word." + +These are the words not of Plato, who is supposed often enough to allow +his imagination to carry him beyond his facts about the Sophists as +about others, nor are they the words of a satiric poet such as {98} +Aristophanes. They are the words of the most sober and philosophic of +Greek historians, and they illustrate very strikingly the tendency, +nay, the absolute necessity, whereby the theories of philosophers in +the closet extend themselves into the market-place and the home, and +find an ultimate realisation of themselves for good or for evil in the +'business and bosoms' of the common crowd. + +It is not to be said that the individualistic and iconoclastic movement +which the Sophists represented was wholly bad, or wholly unnecessary, +any more (to again quote a modern instance) than that the French +Revolution was. There was much, no doubt, in the traditional religion +and morality of Greece at that time which represented obsolete and +antiquated conditions, when every city lived apart from its neighbours +with its own narrow interests and local cults and ceremonials. Greece +was ceasing to be an unconnected crowd of little separate communities; +unconsciously it was preparing itself for a larger destiny, that of +conqueror and civiliser of East and West. This scepticism, utterly +untenable and unworkable on the lines extravagantly laid down by its +leading teachers, represented the birth of new conditions of thought +and action adapted to the new conditions of things. On the surface, +and accepted literally, it seemed to deny the possibility of knowledge; +it threatened to destroy humanity and {99} civilisation. But its +strength lay latent in an implied denial only of what was merely +traditional; it denied the finality of purely Greek preconceptions; it +was laying the foundations of a broader humanity. It represented the +claim of a new generation to have no dogma or assumption thrust on it +by mere force, physical or moral. "_I_ too am a man," it said; "_I_ +have rights; _my_ reason must be convinced." This is the fundamental +thought at the root of most revolutions and reformations and revivals, +and the thought is therefore a necessary and a just one. + +Unfortunately it seems to be an inevitable condition of human affairs +that nothing new, however necessary or good can come into being out of +the old, without much sorrow and many a birth-pang. The extravagant, +the impetuous, the narrow-minded on both sides seize on their points of +difference, raise them into battle-cries, and make what might be a +peaceful regeneration a horrid battlefield of contending hates. The +Christ when He comes brings not peace into the world, but a sword. And +men of evil passions and selfish ambitions are quick on both sides to +make the struggle of old and new ideals a handle for their own +indulgence or their own advancement; the Pharisees and the Judases +between them make the Advent in some of its aspects a sorry spectacle. + +A reconciler was wanted who should wed what {100} was true in the new +doctrine of individualism with what was valuable in the old doctrine of +universal and necessary truth; who should be able to say, "Yes, I +acknowledge that your individual view of things must be reckoned with, +and mine, and everybody else's; and for that very reason do I argue for +a universal and necessary truth, because the very truth for you as an +individual is just this universal." The union and identification of +the Individual and Universal,--this paradox of philosophy is the +doctrine of Socrates. + + + + +{101} + +CHAPTER XI + +SOCRATES + +_The crisis of philosophy--Philosophic midwifery--The wisest of +men--The gadfly of Athens--Justice, beauty, utility--Virtue is +knowledge_ + + +The sophistic teaching having forced philosophy to descend into the +practical interests and personal affairs of men, it followed that any +further step in philosophy, any reaction against the Sophists, could +only begin from the moral point of view. Philosophy, as an analysis of +the data of perception or of nature, had issued in a social and moral +chaos. Only by brooding on the moral chaos could the spirit of truth +evoke a new order; only out of the moral darkness could a new +intellectual light be made to shine. The social and personal anarchy +seemed to be a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the philosophy of nature; if +ever the philosophy of nature was to be recovered it must be through a +revision of the theory of morals. If it could be proved that the +doctrine of individualism, of isolation, which the analysis of a +Protagoras or a Gorgias had reached, was not only _unlivable_ but +unthinkable,--carried the seeds of its own destruction, theoretical as +well as practical, within {102} itself,--then the analysis of +_perception_, from which this moral individualism issued, might itself +be called to submit to revision, and a stable point of support in the +moral world might thus become a centre of stability for the +intellectual and the physical also. + +By a perfectly logical process, therefore, the crisis of philosophy +produced in Greece through the moral and social chaos of the sophistic +teaching had two issues, or perhaps we may call it one issue, carried +out on the one side with a less, on the other side with a greater +completeness. The less complete reaction from sophistic teaching +attempted only such reconstruction of the moral point of view as should +recover a law or principle of general and universally cogent character, +whereon might be built anew a _moral_ order without attempting to +extend the inquiry as to a universal principle into the regions of +abstract truth or into physics. The more complete and logical +reaction, starting, indeed, from a universal principle in morals, +undertook a logical reconstruction on the recovered universal basis all +along the line of what was knowable. + +To Socrates it was given to recover the lost point of stability in the +world of morals, and by a system of attack, invented by himself, to +deal in such a manner with the anarchists about him as to prepare the +way for his successors, when the time was ripe for a more extended +exposition of the new point of {103} view. Those who in succession to +him worked out a more limited theory of law, mainly or exclusively in +the world of morals, only were called the _Incomplete Socratics_. +Those who undertook to work it out through the whole field of the +knowable, the _Complete Socratics_, were the two giants of philosophy, +Plato and Aristotle. + +Greek philosophy then marks with the life of Socrates a parting of the +ways in two senses: _first_, inasmuch as with him came the reaction +from a physical or theoretical philosophy, having its issue in a moral +chaos; and _second_, inasmuch as from him the two great streams of +later philosophy issued--the one a philosophy of law or universals in +_action_, the other a philosophy of law or universals in _thought_ and +_nature_ as well. + +Socrates, son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Phaenarete a midwife, was +born at Athens in or about the year 469 B.C. His parents were probably +poor, for Socrates is represented as having been too poor to pay the +fees required for instruction by the Sophists of his time. But in +whatever way acquired or assimilated, it is certain that there was +little of the prevalent culture in cultivated Athens with which +Socrates had not ultimately a working acquaintance. + +Among a people distinguished generally for their handsome features and +noble proportions, Socrates was a notable exception. His face was +squat and {104} round, his eyes protruding, his lips thick; he was +clumsy and uncouth in appearance, careless of dress, a thorough +'Bohemian,' as we should call him. He was, however, gifted with an +uncommon bodily vigour, was indifferent to heat and cold, by +temperament moderate in food and drink, yet capable on occasion of +drinking most people 'under the table.' He was of an imperturbable +humour, not to be excited either by danger or by ridicule. His vein of +sarcasm was keen and trenchant, his natural shrewdness astonishing, all +the more astonishing because crossed with a strange vein of mysticism +and a curious self-forgetfulness. As he grew up he felt the visitation +of a mysterious internal voice, to which or to his own internal +communings he would sometimes be observed to listen in abstracted +stillness for hours. The voice within him was felt as a restraining +force, limiting his action in various ways, but leaving him free to +wander about among his fellows, to watch their doings and interpret +their thoughts, to question unweariedly his fellows of every class, +high and low, rich and poor, concerning righteousness and justice and +goodness and purity and truth. He did not enter on his philosophic +work with some grand general principle ready-made, to which he was +prepared to fit the facts by hook or by crook. Rather he compared +himself to his mother, the midwife; he sought to help others to {105} +express themselves; he had nothing to tell them, he wanted them to tell +him. This was the irony of Socrates, the eternal _questioning_, which +in time came to mean in people's minds what the word does now. For it +was hard, and grew every year harder, to convince people that so subtle +a questioner was as ignorant as he professed to be; or that the man who +could touch so keenly the weak point of all other men's answers, had no +answer to the problems of life himself. + +In striking contrast, then, to the method of all previous philosophies, +Socrates busied himself to begin with, not with some general +intellectual _principle_, but with a multitude of different _people_, +with their notions especially on moral ideas, with the meaning or +no-meaning which they attached to particular words,--in short, with the +individual, the particular, the concrete, the every-day. He did not at +all deny that he had a purpose in all this. On the contrary, he openly +professed that he was in search of the lost universal, the lost _law_ +of men's thoughts and actions. He was convinced that life was not the +chaos that the Sophists made out; that nobody really believed it to be +a chaos; that, on the contrary, everybody had a meaning and purport in +his every word and act, which could be made intelligible to himself and +others, if you could only get people to think out clearly what they +really meant. Philosophy {106} had met her destruction in the busy +haunts of men; there where had been the bane, Socrates' firm faith +sought ever and everywhere the antidote. + +This simple enough yet profound and far-reaching practice of Socrates +was theorised in later times as a logical method, known to us as +_Induction_, or the discovery of universal laws or principles out [195] +of an accumulation of particular facts. And thus Aristotle, with his +technical and systematising intellect, attributes two main innovations +in philosophy to Socrates; the _Inductive_ process of reasoning, and +the establishing of _General Ideas_ or Definitions upon or through this +process. This, true enough as indicating what was latent in the +Socratic method, and what was subsequently actually developed out of it +by Aristotle himself, is nevertheless probably an anachronism if one +seeks to represent it as consciously present in Socrates' mind. +Socrates adopted the method unconsciously, just because he wanted to +get at the people about him, and through them at what they thought. He +was the pioneer of Induction rather than its inventor; he created, so +to speak, the raw material for a theory of induction and definition; he +knew and cared nothing about such theories himself. + +A story which may or may not be true in fact is put in Socrates' mouth +by Plato, as to the cause which first started him on his "search for +definitions." {107} One of his friends, he tells us, named Chaerephon, +went to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, and asked whether there was +anybody wiser than Socrates. The answer was given that there was none +wiser. This answer was reported to Socrates, who was much astonished, +his own impression being that he had no wisdom or knowledge at all. So +with a view to prove the oracle wrong he went in succession to various +people of eminence and reputation in the various walks of +life,--statesmen and poets and handicraftsmen and others,--in the +expectation that they would show, on being questioned, such a knowledge +of the principles on which their work was based as would prove their +superior wisdom. But to his astonishment he found one after another of +these men wanting in any apprehension of principles at all. They +seemed to work by a kind of haphazard or 'rule of thumb,' and indeed +felt annoyed that anything more should be expected of them. From which +at the last Socrates came to the conclusion that perhaps the oracle was +right in this sense at least, that, if he himself knew nothing more +than his fellows, he was at least conscious of his own ignorance, +whereas they were not. + +Whether this tale may not itself be a specimen of Socrates' irony we +cannot tell, but at all events it illustrates from another point of +view the real meaning of Socrates' life. He, at least, was not content +{108} to rest in haphazard and rule of thumb; he was determined to go +on till he found out what was the law or principle of men's acts and +words. The ignorance of others as to any such law or principle in +their own case did not convince him that there was no such law or +principle; only it was there (he thought) working unconsciously, and +therefore in a way defencelessly. And so he compares himself at times +to a gadfly, whose function it is to sting and irritate people out of +their easy indifference, and force them to ask themselves what they +were really driving at. Or again, he compares himself to the +torpedo-fish, because he tried to give people a shock whenever they +attempted to satisfy him with shallow and unreal explanations of their +thoughts and actions. + +The disinterested self-sacrificing nobility of Socrates' life, thus +devoted to awakening them that sleep out of their moral torpor; the +enmities that his keen and trenchant questionings of quacks and +pretenders of every kind induced; the devotion of some of his friends, +the unhappy falling away of others; the calumnies of interested +enemies, the satires of poets; and lastly, the story of the final +attack by an ungrateful people on their one great teacher, of his +unjust condemnation and heroic death--all this we must pass over here. +The story is in outline, at least, a familiar one, and it is one of the +noblest in history. What is more to {109} the purpose for us is to +ascertain how far his search for definitions was successful; how far he +was able to + + Take arms against a sea of troubles + And by opposing end them; + +how far, in short, he was able to evolve a law, a universal principle, +out of the confused babel of common life and thought and speech, strong +enough and wide enough on which to build a new order for this world, a +new hope for the world beyond. + +We have said that Socrates made the individual and the concrete the +field of his search. And not only did he look to individuals for +light, he looked to each individual specifically in that aspect of his +character and faculty which was most particular to himself. That is to +say, if he met a carpenter, it was on his carpentering that he +questioned him; if a sculptor, on his practice as a sculptor; if a +statesman, on his statesmanship. In short, he did not want general +vague theories on subjects of which his interlocutors could not be +supposed to have any special experience or knowledge; he interrogated +each on the subject which he knew best. + +And what struck him, in contrast to the confusion and uncertainty and +isolation of the sophistic teaching 'in the air,' was that when you get +a man to talk on his own trade, which he _knows_, as is proved by the +actual work he produces, you find invariably two {110} things--_first_, +that the skill is the man's _individual_ possession no doubt, the +result of inborn capacity and continuous training and practice; but +_second_, that just in proportion to that individual skill is the man's +conviction that his skill has reference to a _law_ higher than himself, +outside himself. If the man whom Socrates interviewed was a skilful +statesman, he would tell you he sought to produce obedience to _law_ or +right among the citizens; if he was a skilful sculptor, he produced +_beautiful_ things; if he was a skilful handicraftsman, he produced +_useful_ things. Justice, beauty, utility; these three words in +different ways illustrated the existence of something always realising +itself no doubt in individuals and their works, but nevertheless +exercising a governing influence upon these to such a degree that this +ideal something might be conceived as _prior_ to the individual or his +work; or secondly, as _inherent_ in them and giving value to them; or +thirdly, as coming in at the end as the _perfection_ or completion of +them. This law or ideal then had a threefold aspect in its own nature, +being conceivable as Justice, as Beauty, as Utility; it had a threefold +aspect in relation to the works produced in accordance with it, as the +cause _producing_, the cause _inhering_, the cause completing or +_perfecting_. + +We may therefore conceive Socrates as arguing thus: "You clever +Sophists, when we let you take {111} us into the region of abstract +talk, have a knack of so playing with words that in the end we don't +seem to know anything for certain, especially on such subjects as we +have hitherto thought the most important, such as God and right and +truth and justice and purity. We seem to be perfectly defenceless +against you; and what is more, any smart youth, whose opinion on any +practical matter no one would think of taking, can very soon pick up +the trick from you, and bewilder plain people really far wiser than +himself by his clever argumentation; all going to prove that there is +nothing certain, nothing real, nothing binding; nothing but opinions +and conventions and conscious or unconscious humbug in the universe. + +"But when I go and have a quiet talk with any man who really is a known +master of some craft or skill, about that craft or skill, I find no +doubt whatever existing in his mind about there being a law, a +something absolutely real and beautiful and true in connection with it. +He, on the contrary, lives with no other purpose or hope or desire but +as far as he can to realise in what he works at something of this real +and beautiful and true, which was before him, will be after him, is the +only valuable thing in him, but yet which honours him with the function +of, in his day and generation, expressing it before the eyes of men." + +{112} "Have we not here a key to the great secret? If each man, in +respect of that which he knows best because he lives by it and for it, +knows with intimate knowledge and certainty that there at least there +is a Law working, not himself, but higher and greater than he,--have we +not here a hint of the truth for the universe as a whole; that there +also and in all its operations, great as well as small, there must be a +Law, a great Idea or Ideal working, which was before all things, works +in and gives value to all things, will be the consummation of all +things? Is not this what we mean by the Divine?" + +Thus Socrates, despising not the meaner things of life, but bending +from the airy speculations of the proud to the realities which true +labour showed him, laid his ear, so to speak, close to the breast of +nature, and caught there the sound of her very heart-beats. + +"Virtue is knowledge," thus he formulated his new vision of things. +Knowledge, yes; but _real_ knowledge; not mere head-knowledge or +lip-knowledge, but the knowledge of the skilled man, the man who by +obedience and teachableness and self-restraint has come to a knowledge +evidencing itself in _works_ expressive of the law that is in him, as +he is in it. _Virtue is knowledge_; on the one hand, therefore, not +something in the air, unreal, intangible; but something in me, in you, +in each man, something which you cannot handle except as individual and +{113} in individuals; on the other hand, something more than individual +or capricious or uncertain,--something which is absolute, over-ruling, +eternal. + +_Virtue is knowledge_. And so if a man is virtuous, he is realising +what is best and truest in himself, he is fulfilling also what is best +and truest without himself. He is free, for only the truth makes free; +he is obedient to law, but it is at once a law eternally valid, and a +law which he dictates to himself. And therefore virtue is teachable, +inasmuch as the law in the teacher, perfected in him, is also the law +in the taught, latent in him, by both individually possessed, but +possessed by both in virtue of its being greater than both, of its +being something more than individual. + +_Virtue is knowledge_. And therefore the law of virtuous growth is +expressed in the maxim engraved on the Delphic temple, 'Know thyself.' +Know thyself, that is, realise thyself; by obedience and self-control +come to your full stature; be in fact what you are in possibility; +satisfy yourself, in the only way in which true self-satisfaction is +possible, by realising in yourself the law which constitutes your real +being. + +_Virtue is knowledge_. And therefore all the manifold relations of +life,--the home, the market, the city, the state; all the multiform +activities of life,--labour and speech and art and literature and {114} +law; all the sentiments of life,--friendship and love and reverence and +courage and hope,--all these are parts of a knowable whole; they are +expressions of law; they are Reason realising itself through +individuals, and in the same process realising them. + + + + +{115} + +CHAPTER XII + +SOCRATES (_concluded_) + +_The dialectic method--Instruction through humiliation--Justice and +utility--Righteousness transcending rule_ + + +It must not be imagined that anywhere in the recorded conversations of +Socrates can we find thus in so many words expounded his fundamental +doctrine. Socrates was not an expositor but a questioner; he +disclaimed the position of a teacher, he refused to admit that any were +his pupils or disciples. But his questioning had two sides, each in +its way leading people on to an apprehension of the ideal in existence. +The first side may be called the negative or destructive, the second, +the positive or constructive. In the first, whose object was to break +down all formalism, all mere regard for rules or traditions or +unreasoned maxims, his method had considerable resemblance to that of +the Sophists; like them he descended not infrequently to what looked +very like quibbling and word-play. As Aristotle observes, the +dialectic method differed from that of the Sophists not so much in its +form, as in the purpose for which it was employed. The end of the +{116} Sophists was to confuse, the end of Socrates was through +confusion to reach a more real, because a more reasoned certainty; the +Sophists sought to leave the impression that there was no such thing as +truth; he wished to lead people to the conviction that there was a far +deeper truth than they were as yet possessed of. + +A specimen of his manner of conversation preserved for us by Xenophon +(_Memor_. IV. ii.) will make the difference clearer. Euthydemus was a +young man who had shown great industry in forming a collection of wise +sayings from poets and others, and who prided himself on his superior +wisdom because of his knowledge of these. Socrates skilfully manages +to get the ear of this young man by commending him for his collection, +and asks him what he expects his learning to help him to become? A +physician? No, Euthydemus answers. An architect? No. And so in like +manner with other practical skills,--the geometrician's, astronomer's, +professional reciter's. None of these he discovers is what Euthydemus +aims at. He hopes to become a great politician and statesman. Then of +course he hopes to be a just man himself? Euthydemus flatters himself +he is that already. "But," says Socrates, "there must be certain acts +which are the proper products of justice, as of other functions or +skills?"--"No doubt."--"Then of course you can tell us what {117} those +acts or products are?"--"Of course I can, and the products of injustice +as well."--"Very good; then suppose we write down in two opposite +columns what acts are products of justice and what of injustice."--"I +agree," says Euthydemus.--"Well now, what of falsehood? In which +column shall we put it?"--"Why, of course in the unjust column."--"And +cheating?"--"In the same column."--"And stealing?"--"In it too."--"And +enslaving?"--"Yes."--"Not one of these can go to the just +column?"--"Why, that would be an unheard-of thing." + +"Well but," says Socrates, "suppose a general has to deal with some +enemy of his country that has done it great wrong; if he conquer and +enslave this enemy, is that wrong?"--"Certainly not."--"If he carries +off the enemy's goods or cheats him in his strategy, what about these +acts?"--"Oh, of course they are quite right. But I thought you were +talking about deceiving or ill-treating friends."--"Then in some cases +we shall have to put these very same acts in both columns?"--"I suppose +so." + +"Well, now, suppose we confine ourselves to friends. Imagine a general +with an army under him discouraged and disorganised. Suppose he tells +them that reserves are coming up, and by cheating them into this belief +he saves them from their discouragement, and enables them to win a +victory. What about this cheating of one's friends?"--"Why, I {118} +suppose we shall have to put this too on the just side."--"Or suppose a +lad needs medicine, but refuses to take it, and his father cheats him +into the belief that it is something nice, and getting him to take it, +saves his life; what about that cheat?"--"That will have to go to the +just side too."--"Or suppose you find a friend in a desperate frenzy, +and steal his sword from him, for fear he should kill himself; what do +you say to that theft?"--"That will have to go there too."--"But I +thought you said there must be no cheating of friends?"--"Well, I must +take it all back, if you please."--"Very good. But now there is +another point I should like to ask you. Whether do you think the man +more unjust who is a voluntary violator of justice, or he who is an +involuntary violator of it?"--"Upon my word, Socrates, I no longer have +any confidence in my answers. For the whole thing has turned out to be +exactly the contrary of what I previously imagined. However, suppose I +say that the voluntary deceiver is the more unjust."--"Do you consider +that justice is a matter of knowledge just as much (say) as +writing?"--"Yes, I do."--"Well now, which do you consider the better +skilled as a writer, the man who makes a mistake in writing or in +reading what is written, because he chooses to do so, or the man who +does so because he can't help it?"--"Oh, the first; because he can put +it right whenever he likes."--"Very {119} well, if a man in the same +way breaks the rule of right, knowing what he is doing, while another +breaks the same rule because he can't help it, which by analogy must be +the better versed in justice?"--"The first, I suppose."--"And the man +who is better versed in justice must be the juster man?"--"Apparently +so; but really, Socrates, I don't know where I am. I have been +flattering myself that I was in possession of a philosophy which could +make a good and able man of me. But how great, think you, must now be +my disappointment, when I find myself unable to answer the simplest +question on the subject?" + +Many other questions are put to him, tending to probe his +self-knowledge, and in the end he is brought to the conclusion that +perhaps he had better hold his tongue, for it seems he knows nothing at +all. And so he went away deeply despondent, despising himself as an +absolute dolt. "Now many," adds Xenophon, "when brought into this +condition by Socrates, never came near him again. But Euthydemus +concluded that his only hope of ever being worth anything was in seeing +as much of Socrates as he could, and so he never quitted his side as +long as he had a chance, but tried to follow his mode of living. And +Socrates, when he perceived this to be his temper, no longer tormented +him, but sought with all simplicity and clearness to {120} show him +what he deemed it best for him to do and think." + +Was this cross-examination mere 'tormenting' with a purpose, or can we +discover underlying it any hint of what Socrates deemed to be the truth +about justice? + +Let us note that throughout he is in search of a _definition_, but that +as soon as any attempt is made to define or classify any particular +type of action as just or unjust, _special circumstances_ are suggested +which overturn the classification. Let us note further that while the +immediate result is apparently only to confuse, the remoter but more +permanent result is to raise a suspicion of any hard and fast +definitions, and to suggest that there is something deeper in life than +language is adequate to express, a 'law in the members,' a living +principle for good, which transcends forms and maxims, and which alone +gives real value to acts. Note further the suggestion that this living +principle has a character analogous to the knowledge or skill of an +accomplished artificer; it has relation on the one hand to law, as a +principle binding on the individual, it has relation on the other hand +to _utility_, as expressing itself, not in words, but in acts +beneficial to those concerned. Hence the Socratic formula, Justice is +equivalent to the _Lawful_ on the one hand, to the _Useful_ on the +other. + +{121} + +Socrates had thus solved by anticipation the apparently never-ending +controversy about morality. Is it a matter imposed by God upon the +heart and conscience of each individual? Is it dictated by the general +sense of the community? Is it the product of Utility? The Socratic +answer would be that it is all three, and that all three mean +ultimately the same thing. What God prescribes is what man when he is +truly man desires; and what God prescribes and man desires is that +which is good and useful for man. It is not a matter for verbal +definition but for vital realisation; the true morality is that which +_works_; the ideally desirable, is ultimately the only possible, course +of action, for all violations of it are ultimately suicidal. + +Note finally the suggestion that the man who _knows_ (in Socrates' +sense of knowledge) what is right, shows only more fully his +righteousness when he voluntarily sins; it is the 'unwilling sinner' +who is the wrongdoer. When we consider this strange doctrine in +relation to the instances given,--the general with his army, the father +with his son, the prudent friend with his friend in desperate +straits,--we see that what is meant is that 'sin' in the real sense is +not to be measured or defined by conformity or otherwise to some formal +standard, at least in the case of those who _know_, that is, in the +case of men who have realised goodness in its true nature in {122} +their characters and lives. As St. Paul expressed it (Rom. xiii. 10), +"Love is the fulfilling of the law." Or again (Gal. v. 23), after +enumerating the 'fruits of the spirit'--love, joy, peace, +longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance--he +adds, "Against such there is no law." + +In the domain of life, not less than in that of the arts, the highest +activity does not always or necessarily take the form of conformity to +rule. There are critical moments when rules fail, when, in fact, +obedience to rule would mean disobedience to that higher law, of which +rules and formulae are at best only an adumbration. The originality of +the great musician or painter consists in just such transcendence of +accepted formulae; this is why he invariably encounters opposition and +obloquy from the learned conventional pedants of his time. And in the +domain of morals the martyrs, reformers, prophets are in like manner +'willing sinners.' They are denounced, persecuted, crucified; for are +they not disturbers of society; do they not unsettle young men; do they +not come, as Christ came, not to bring peace into the world, but a +sword? And thus it is that the willing sinners of one generation are +the martyrs and heroes of the next. Through their life and death a +richer meaning has been given to the law of beauty or of rectitude, +only, alas! in its turn to be translated into new conventions, new +{123} formulae, which shall in due time require new martyrs to +transcend them. And thus, on the other hand, the perfectly honest +sticklers for the old and common-place, unwilling sinners all +unconscious of their sin, are fated to bear in history the brand of men +who have persecuted the righteous without cause. To each, according to +the strange sad law of life, time brings its revenges. + + + + +{124} + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE INCOMPLETE SOCRATICS + +_A philosopher at ease--The sensual sty--Citizens of the world--The tub +of Diogenes--A philosophy of abstracts_ + + +[204] + +I. ARISTIPPUS AND THE CYRENAICS.--Aristippus was a native of Cyrene, a +Greek colony on the north coast of Africa. He is said to have come to +Athens because of his desire to hear Socrates; but from the notices of +him which we find in Xenophon's memoirs he appears to have been from +the first a somewhat intractable follower, dissenting especially from +the poverty and self-denial of the master's mode of life. [205] He in +course of time founded a school of his own, called the Cyrenaic from +his own place of birth, and from the fact that many subsequent leaders +of the school also belonged to Cyrene. Among his notable disciples +were his daughter Arete, her son named Aristippus after his +grandfather, Ptolemaeus the Aethiopian, Antipater of Cyrene, and a long +succession of others. + +Aristippus was a man of considerable subtlety of mind, a ready speaker, +clever in adapting himself to persons and circumstances. On one +occasion, being {125} asked what benefit he considered philosophy had +conferred upon him, he answered, "The capacity of associating with +every one without embarrassment." Philosophy, in fact, was to +Aristippus a method of social culture, a means of making the best of +life as he found it. As Horace observes of him (_Epp_. i. 17. 23)-- + + Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res + Tentantem majora, fere praesentibus aequum. + +"Every aspect and manner of life and fortune fitted Aristippus; he +aimed at what was greater, yet kept an even, mind whatever his present +condition." + +[206] + +As we have already said, this school was _incompletely_ Socratic, +inasmuch as philosophy was not an end in itself, knowledge whether of +oneself or of other matters had no intrinsic interest for them; +philosophy was only a means towards pleasurable living, enabling them +so to analyse and classify the several experiences of life as to render +a theory of satisfactory [207] existence possible. With them first +came into prominence a phrase which held a large place in all +subsequent Greek philosophy, the _End_ of existence, by which was meant +that which summed up the good in existence, that which made life worth +living, that which was good and desirable in and for itself, and not +merely as a means to something else. What then according to the +Cyrenaics was the End of life? {126} Their answer was that life had at +each moment its own End, in the pleasure of that moment. The past was +gone, the future not yet with us; remembrance of the one, fear or hope +of the other, might contribute to affect the purity of the present +pleasure, but such as it was the present pleasure was a thing apart, +complete in and for itself. Nor was its perfection qualified by any +question of the means by which it was procured; the moment's pleasure +was pleasurable, whatever men might say as to the manner of its [208] +procuring. This pleasure was a tranquil activity of the being, like +the gently heaving sea, midway between violent motion which was pain, +and absolute calm which was insensibility. As a state of activity it +was something positive, not a mere release from [209] pain, not a +simple filling up of a vacuum. Nothing was in its essential nature +either just or noble or base; custom and convention pronounced them one +or other. The wise man made the best he could of his conditions; +valuing mental activity and friendship and wealth and bodily exercise, +and avoiding envy and excessive indulgence of passion and superstition, +not because the first were in themselves good or the second evil, but +because they were respectively helpers or hinderers of pleasure. He is +the master and possessor of pleasure not who abstains from it, but who +uses it and keeps his self-command in the using. Moderate +indulgence--this is wisdom. + +{127} + +[210] + +The one criterion, whether of good or of truth, is the feeling of the +moment for the man who feels it; all question of causes of feelings is +delusive. We can say with truth and certainty, I have the sensation of +white or the sensation of sweet. But that there is a white or a sweet +thing which is the cause of the sensation, that we cannot say for +certain. A man may very well have the sensation white or sweet from +something which has no such quality, as men in delusion or madness have +impressions that are true and real inasmuch as they have them, although +other people do not admit their reality. There is, therefore, no +criterion of truth as between man and man; we may employ the same +words, but each has his own impressions and his own individual +experiences. + +One can easily understand this as the doctrine of such a man as +Aristippus, the easy-going man of the world, the courtier and the wit, +the favourite of the tyrant Dionysius; it fits in well enough with a +life of genial self-indulgence; it always reappears whenever a man has +reconciled himself 'to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.' But life +is not always, nor for most persons at any time, a thing of ease and +soft enchantments, and the Cyrenaic philosophy must remain for the +general work-a-day world a stale exotic. 'Every man for himself and +the devil take the hindmost,' is a maxim which comes as a rule {128} +only to the lips of the worldly successful, while they think themselves +strong enough to stand alone. But this solitude of selfishness neither +works nor lasts; every man at some time becomes 'the hindmost,' if not +before, at least in the hour of death for him or his; at that hour he +is hardly disposed, for himself or those he loves, to repeat his maxim. + +II. ANTISTHENES AND THE CYNICS.--Aristippus, in his praises of pleasure +as the one good for man (see above, p. 126), remarks that there were +some who [209] refused pleasure "from perversity of mind," taking +pleasure, so to speak, in the denial of pleasure. The school of the +Cynics made this perverse mood, as Aristippus deemed it, the maxim of +their philosophy. As the Cyrenaic school was the school of the rich, +the courtly, the self-indulgent, so the Cynic was the school of the +poor, the exiles, the ascetics. Each was an extreme expression of a +phase of Greek life and thought, though there was this point of union +[215] between them, that _liberty_ of a kind was sought by both. The +Cyrenaics claimed liberty to please themselves in the choice of their +enjoyments; the Cynics sought liberty through denial of enjoyments. +[219] Both, moreover, were cosmopolitan; they mark the decay of the +Greek patriotism, which was essentially civic, and the rise of the +wider but less intense conception of humanity. Aristippus, in a +conversation with Socrates (Xenoph. _Memor_. II. i.) on the {129} +qualifications of those who are fitted to be magistrates, disclaims all +desire to hold such a position himself. "There is," he says, "to my +thinking, a middle way, neither of rule nor of slavery, but of freedom, +which leads most surely to true happiness. So to avoid all the evils +of partisanship and faction I nowhere take upon me the position of a +citizen, but in every city remain a sojourner and a stranger." And in +like manner Antisthenes the Cynic, being asked how a man should +approach politics, answered, "He will approach it as he will fire, not +too near, lest he be burnt; not too far away, lest he starve of cold." +And Diogenes, being asked of what city he was, answered, "I am a +citizen of the world." The Cynic ideal, in fact, was summed up in +these four words--wisdom, independence, free speech, liberty. + +[214] + +Antisthenes, founder of the school, was a native of Athens, but being +of mixed blood (his mother was a Thracian) he was not recognised as an +Athenian citizen. He was a student first under Gorgias, and acquired +from him a considerable elegance of literary style; subsequently he +became a devoted hearer of Socrates, and became prominent among his +followers for an asceticism surpassing his master's. One day, we are +told, he showed a great rent in the thread-bare cloak which was his +only garment, whereupon Socrates slily remarked, "I can see through +your cloak your love of glory." He carried a leathern {130} scrip and +a staff, and the 'scrip and staff' became distinctive marks of his +school. The name Cynic, derived from the Greek word for a dog, is +variously accounted for, some attributing it to the 'doglike' habits of +the school, others to their love of 'barking' criticism, others to the +fact that a certain gymnasium in the outskirts of Athens, called +Cynosarges, sacred to Hercules the patron-divinity of men in the +political position of Antisthenes, was a favourite resort of his. He +was a voluminous, some thought a too voluminous, [216] expounder of his +tenets. Like the other Incomplete Socratics, his teaching was mainly +on ethical questions. + +[215] + +His chief pupil and successor was the famous Diogenes, a native of +Sinope, a Greek colony on the Euxine Sea. He even bettered the +instructions of his master in the matter of extreme frugality of +living, claiming that he was a true follower of Hercules in preferring +independence to every other good. The tale of his living in a cask or +tub is well known. His theory was that the peculiar privilege of the +gods consisted in their need of nothing; men approached nearest the +life of the gods in needing as little as possible. + +[217] + +Many other sayings of one or other teacher are quoted, all tending to +the same conclusion. For example, "I had rather be mad than enjoying +myself!" "Follow the pleasures that come after pains, not those which +bring pains in their train." "There {131} are pains that are useless, +there are pains that are natural: the wise choose the latter, and thus +find happiness even through pain. For the very contempt of pleasure +comes with practice to be the highest pleasure." "When I wish a +treat," says Antisthenes, "I do not go and buy it at great cost in the +marketplace; I find my storehouse of pleasures in the soul." + +[218] + +The life of the wise man, therefore, was a training of mind and body to +despise pleasure and attain independence. In this way virtue was +teachable, and could be so acquired as to become an inseparable +possession. The man who had thus attained to wisdom, not of words, but +of deeds, was, as it were, in an impregnable fortress that could +neither crumble into ruin nor be lost by treachery. And so +Antisthenes, being asked what was the most essential point of learning, +answered, "To unlearn what is evil." That is to say, to the Cynic +conception, men were born with a root of evil in them in the love of +pleasure; the path of wisdom was a weaning of soul and body by practice +from the allurements of pleasure, until both were so perfectly +accustomed to its denial as to find an unalloyed pleasure in the very +act of [219] refusing it. In this way virtue became absolutely +sufficient for happiness, and so far was it from being necessary to +have wealth or the admiration of men in addition, that the true kingly +life was "to do well, {132} and be ill spoken of." All else but virtue +was a matter of indifference. + +The cosmopolitan temper of these men led them to hold of small account +the forms and prejudices of ordinary society: they despised the rites +of marriage; they thought no flesh unclean. They believed in no +multifarious theology; there was but one divinity--the power that ruled +all nature, the one absolutely self-centred independent being, whose +manner of [221] existence they sought to imitate. Nor had they any +sympathy with the subtleties of verbal distinction cultivated by some +of the Socratics, as by other philosophers or Sophists of their time. +Definitions and abstractions and classifications led to no good. A man +was a man; what was good was good; to say that a man was good did not +establish the existence of some abstract class of goods. As +Antisthenes once said to Plato, "A horse I see, but 'horseness' I do +not see." What the exact point of this criticism was we may reserve +for the present. + +[222] + +III. EUCLIDES THE MEGARIC.--Euclides, a native of Megara on the +Corinthian isthmus, was a devoted hearer of Socrates, making his way to +hear him, sometimes even at the 'risk of his life, in defiance of a +decree of his native city forbidding intercourse with Athens. When +Plato and other Athenian followers of Socrates thought well to quit +Athens for {133} a time after Socrates' execution, they were kindly +entertained by Euclides at Megara. + +The exact character of the development which the Socratic teaching +received from Euclides and his school is a matter of considerable +doubt. The allusions to the tenets of the school in Plato and [223] +others are only fragmentary. We gather, however, from them that +Euclides was wholly antithetical to the personal turn given to +philosophy, both by the Cyrenaics and the Cynics. He revived and +developed with much dialectical subtlety the metaphysical system of +Parmenides and the Eleatics, maintaining that there is but one absolute +existence, and that sense and sense-perceptions as against this [224] +are nothing. This one absolute existence was alone absolutely good, +and the good for man could only be found in such an absorption of +himself in this one absolute good through reason and contemplation, as +would bring his spirit into perfectness of union with it. Such +absorption raised a man above the troubles and pains of life, and thus, +in insensibility to these through reason, man attained his highest good. + +The school is perhaps interesting only in so far as it marks the +continued survival of the abstract dialectic method of earlier +philosophy. As such it had a very definite influence, sometimes +through agreement, sometimes by controversy, on the systems of Plato +and Aristotle now to be dealt with. + + + + +{134} + +CHAPTER XIV + +PLATO + +_Student and wanderer--The Dialogues--Immortal longings--Art is +love--Knowledge through remembrance--Platonic love_ + + +[239] + +This great master, the Shakespeare of Greek philosophy, as one may call +him, for his fertility, his variety, his humour, his imagination, his +poetic grace, was born at Athens in the year 429 B.C. He was of noble +family, numbering among his ancestors no less a man than the great +lawgiver Solon, and tracing back his descent even further to the [240] +legendary Codrus, last king of Athens. At a very early age he seems to +have begun to study the philosophers, Heraclitus more particularly, and +before he was twenty he had written a tragedy. About that time, +however, he met Socrates; and at once giving up all thought of poetic +fame he burnt his poem, and devoted himself to the hearing of Socrates. +For ten years he was his constant companion. When Socrates met his +death in 399, Plato and other followers of the master fled at first to +Megara, as already mentioned (above, p. 132); he then entered on a +period of extended travel, first to Cyrene and {135} Egypt, thence to +Italy and Sicily. In Italy he devoted himself specially to a study of +the doctrine of Pythagoras. It is said that at Syracuse he offended +the tyrant Dionysius the elder by his freedom of speech, and was +delivered up to the Spartans, who were then at war with Athens. [241] +Ultimately he was ransomed, and found his way back to Athens, but he is +said to have paid a second visit to Sicily when the younger Dionysius +became tyrant. He seems to have entertained the hope that he might so +influence this young man as to be able to realise through him the dream +of his life, a government in accordance with the dictates of [242] +philosophy. His dream, however, was disappointed of fruition, and he +returned to Athens, there in the 'groves of Academus' a mythic hero of +Athens, to spend the rest of his days in converse with his followers, +and there at the ripe age of eighty-one he died. From the scene of his +labours his philosophy has ever since been known as the Academic [243] +philosophy. Unlike Socrates, he was not content to leave only a memory +of himself and his conversations. He was unwearied in the redaction +and correction of his written dialogues, altering them here and there +both in expression and in structure. It is impossible, therefore, to +be absolutely certain as to the historical order of composition or +publication among his numerous {136} dialogues, but a certain +approximate order may be fixed. + +We may take first a certain number of comparatively short dialogues, +which are strongly Socratic in the following respects: _first_, they +each seek a definition of some particular virtue or quality; _second_, +each suggests some relation between it and knowledge; _third_, each +leaves the answer somewhat open, treating the matter suggestively +rather than dogmatically. These dialogues are _Charmides_, which +treats of Temperance (_mens sana in corpore sano_); _Lysis_, which +treats of Friendship; _Laches_, Of Courage; _Ion_, Of Poetic +Inspiration; _Meno_, Of the teachableness of Virtue; _Euthyphro_, Of +Piety. + +The last of these may be regarded as marking a transition to a second +series, which are concerned with the trial and death of Socrates. The +_Euthyphro_ opens with an allusion by Socrates to his approaching +trial, and in the _Apology_ we have a Platonic version of Socrates' +speech in his own defence; in _Crito_ we have the story of his noble +self-abnegation and civic obedience after his condemnation; in _Phaedo_ +we have his last conversation with his friends on the subject of +Immortality, and the story of his death. + +Another series of the dialogues may be formed of those, more or less +satirical, in which the ideas and methods of the Sophists are +criticised: _Protagoras_, {137} in which Socrates suggests that all +virtues are essentially one; _Euthydemus_, in which the assumption and +'airs' of some of the Sophists are made fun of; _Cratylus_, Of the +sophistic use of words; _Gorgias_, Of the True and the False, the truly +Good and the truly Evil; _Hippias_, Of Voluntary and Involuntary Sin; +_Alcibiades_, Of Self-Knowledge; _Menexenus_, a (possibly ironical) set +oration after the manner of the Sophists, in praise of Athens. + +The whole of this third series are characterised by humour, dramatic +interest, variety of personal type among the speakers, keenness rather +than depth of philosophic insight. There are many suggestions of +profounder thoughts, afterwards worked out more fully; but on the whole +these dialogues rather stimulate thought than satisfy it; the great +poet-thinker is still playing with his tools. + +A higher stage is reached in the _Symposium_, which deals at once +humorously and profoundly with the subject of Love, human and divine, +and its relations to Art and Philosophy, the whole consummated in a +speech related by Socrates as having been spoken to him by Diotima, a +wise woman of Mantineia. From this speech an extract as translated by +Professor Jowett may be quoted here. It marks the transition point +from the merely playful and critical to the relatively serious and +dogmatic stage in the mind of Plato:-- + +{138} "Marvel not," she said, "if you believe that love is of the +immortal, as we have already several times acknowledged; for here +again, and on the same principle too, the mortal nature is seeking as +far as is possible to be everlasting and immortal: and this is only to +be attained by generation, because generation always leaves behind a +new existence in the place of the old. Nay even in the life of the +same individual there is succession and not absolute unity: a man is +called the same, and yet in the short interval which elapses between +youth and age, and in which every animal is said to have life and +identity, he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and +reparation--hair, flesh, bones, blood, and the whole body are always +changing. Which is true not only of the body, but also of the soul, +whose habits, tempers, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears, +never remain the same in any one of us, but are always coming and +going; and equally true of knowledge, which is still more +surprising--for not only do the sciences in general come and go, so +that in respect of them we are never the same; but each of them +individually experiences a like change. For what is implied in the +word 'recollection,' but the departure of knowledge, which is ever +being forgotten and is renewed and preserved by recollection, and +appears to be the same although in reality new, according to that law +of succession by which all mortal things are preserved, not absolutely +the same, but by substitution, the old worn-out mortality leaving +another new and similar existence behind--unlike the divine, which is +always the same and not another? And in this way, Socrates, the mortal +body, or mortal anything, partakes of immortality; but the immortal in +another way. Marvel not then at the love which all men have of their +offspring; for that universal love and interest is for the sake of +immortality." + +I was astonished at her words, and said: "Is this really true, O thou +wise Diotima?" And she answered with all the authority of a sophist: +"Of that, Socrates, you may be assured;--think only of the ambition of +men, and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you +consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame. +They are ready to run risks greater far than they would have run for +their children, and to spend money and undergo any sort of {139} toil, +and even to die for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall +be eternal. Do you imagine that Alcestis would have died to save +Admetus, or Achilles to avenge Patroclus, or your own Codrus in order +to preserve the kingdom for his sons, if they had not imagined that the +memory of their virtues, which is still retained among us, would be +immortal? Nay," she said, "I am persuaded that all men do all things, +and the better they are the more they do them, in hope of the glorious +fame of immortal virtue; for they desire the immortal. + +"They whose bodies only are creative, betake themselves to women and +beget children--this is the character of their love; their offspring, +as they hope, will preserve their memory and give them the blessedness +and immortality which they desire in the future. But creative +souls--for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls +than in their bodies--conceive that which is proper for the soul to +conceive or retain. And what are these conceptions?--wisdom and virtue +in general. And such creators are poets and all artists who are +deserving of the name inventor. But the greatest and fairest sort of +wisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states +and families, and which is called temperance and justice. And he who +in youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself +inspired, when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate. He +wanders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring--for in +deformity he will beget nothing--and naturally embraces the beautiful +rather than the deformed body; above all when he finds a fair and noble +and well-nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such +an one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of +a good man; and he tries to educate him; and at the touch of the +beautiful which is ever present to his memory, even when absent, he +brings forth that which he had conceived long before, and in company +with him tends that which he brings forth; and they are married by a +far nearer tie and have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal +children, for the children who are their common offspring are fairer +and more immortal. Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other +great poets, {140} would not rather have their children than ordinary +human ones? Who would not emulate them in the creation of children +such as theirs, which have preserved their memory and given them +everlasting glory? Or who would not have such children as Lycurgus +left behind him to be the saviours, not only of Lacedaemon, but of +Hellas, as one may say? There is Solon, too, who is the revered father +of Athenian laws; and many others there are in many other places, both +among Hellenes and barbarians. All of them have given to the world +many noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind, +and many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of their +children; which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of +his mortal children. + +"These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates, +may enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of +these, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will +lead, I know not whether you will be able to attain. But I will do my +utmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can. For he who would +proceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful +forms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one +such form only--out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he +will of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the +beauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his +pursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognise that the beauty in +every form is one and the same! And when he perceives this he will +abate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a +small thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the +next stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more +honourable than the beauty of the outward form. So that if a virtuous +soul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend +him, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may +improve the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the +beauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of +them all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and +after laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may +see their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of +one youth or man or {141} institution, himself a slave mean and +narrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of +beauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in +boundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes +strong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, +which is the science of beauty everywhere. To this I will proceed; +please to give me your very best attention. + +"He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has +learned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes +toward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and +this, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)--a nature +which in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or +waxing and waning, in the next place not fair in one point of view and +foul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place +fair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul, +as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or +hands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech +or knowledge, or existing in any other being; as for example, in an +animal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in any other place, but beauty +only, absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without +diminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the +ever-growing and perishing beauties of all other things. He who under +the influence of true love rising upward from these begins to see that +beauty, is not far from the end. And the true order of going or being +led by another to the things of love, is to use the beauties of earth +as steps along which he mounts upwards for the sake of that other +beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from +fair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions, +until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty, +and at last knows what the essence of beauty is. This, my dear +Socrates," said the stranger of Mantineia, "is that life above all +others which a man should live, in the contemplation of beauty +absolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be +after the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths, +whose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be +content to live seeing only and conversing with them without meat or +drink, {142} if that were possible--you only want to be with them and +to look at them. But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty--the +divine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with +the pollutions of mortality, and all the colours and vanities of human +life--thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty divine +and simple? Do you not see that in that communion only, beholding +beauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not +images of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of +a reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the +friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may. Would that be an +ignoble life?" (Jowett, _Plato_, vol. ii. p. 58). + + +Closely connected in subject with the _Symposium_ is the _Phaedrus_. +As Professor Jowett observes: "The two dialogues together contain the +whole philosophy of Plato on the nature of love, which in _The +Republic_ and in the later writings of Plato is only introduced +playfully or as a figure of speech. But in the _Phaedrus_ and +_Symposium_ love and philosophy join hands, and one is an aspect of the +other. The spiritual and emotional is elevated into the ideal, to +which in the _Symposium_ mankind are described as looking forward, and +which in the _Phaedrus_, as well as in the _Phaedo_, they are seeking +to recover from a former state of existence." + +We are here introduced to one of the most famous conceptions of Plato, +that of _Reminiscence_, or Recollection, based upon a theory of the +prior existence of the soul. In the _Meno_, already alluded to, +Socrates is representing as eliciting from one of Meno's slaves {143} +correct answers to questions involving a knowledge or apprehension of +certain axioms of the science of mathematics, which, as Socrates +learns, the slave had never been taught. Socrates argues that since he +was never taught these axioms, and yet actually knows them, he must +have known them before his birth, and concludes from this to the +immortality of the soul. In the _Phaedo_ this same argument is worked +out more fully. As we grow up we discover in the exercise of our +senses that things are equal in certain respects, unequal in many +others; or again, we appropriate to things or acts the qualities, for +example, of beauty, goodness, justice, holiness. At the same time we +recognise that these are _ideals_, to which in actual experience we +never find more than an approximation, for we never discover in any +really existing thing or act _absolute_ equality, or justice, or +goodness. In other words, any act of judgment on our part of actual +experiences consists in a measuring of these experiences by standards +which we give or apply to them, and which no number of experiences can +give to us because they do not possess or exemplify them. We did not +consciously possess these notions, or ideals, or _ideas_, as he prefers +to call them, at birth; they come into consciousness in connection with +or in consequence of the action of the senses; but since the senses +could not give these ideas, the process of {144} knowledge must be a +process of _Recollection_. Socrates carries the argument a step +further. "Then may we not say," he continues, "that if, as we are +always repeating, there is an absolute beauty and goodness and other +similar ideas or essences, and to this standard, which is now +discovered to have existed in our former state, we refer all our +sensations, and with this compare them--assuming these ideas to have a +prior existence, then our souls must have had a prior existence, but if +not, not? There is the same proof that these ideas must have existed +before we were born, as that our souls existed before we were born; and +if not the ideas, then not the souls." + +In the _Phaedrus_ this conception of a former existence is embodied in +one of the _Myths_ in which Plato's imaginative powers are seen at +their highest. In it the soul is compared to a charioteer driving two +winged steeds, one mortal, the other immortal; the one ever tending +towards the earth, the other seeking ever to soar into the sky, where +it may behold those blessed visions of loveliness and wisdom and +goodness, which are the true nurture of the soul. When the chariots of +the gods go forth in mighty and glorious procession, the soul would +fain ride forth in their train; but alas! the mortal steed is ever +hampering the immortal, and dragging it down. + +If the soul yields to this influence and descends to earth, there she +takes human form, but in higher {145} or lower degree, according to the +measure of her vision of the truth. She may become a philosopher, a +king, a trader, an athlete, a prophet, a poet, a husbandman, a sophist, +a tyrant. But whatever her lot, according to her manner of life in it, +may she rise, or sink still further, even to a beast or plant. + +Only those souls take the form of humanity that have had _some_ vision +of eternal truth. And this vision they retain in a measure, even when +clogged in mortal clay. And so the soul of man is ever striving and +fluttering after something beyond; and specially is she stirred to +aspiration by the sight of bodily loveliness. Then above all comes the +test of good and evil in the soul. The nature that has been corrupted +would fain rush to brutal joys; but the purer nature looks with +reverence and wonder at this beauty, for it is an adumbration of the +celestial joys which he still remembers vaguely from the heavenly +vision. And thus pure and holy love becomes an opening back to heaven; +it is a source of happiness unalloyed on earth; it guides the lovers on +upward wings back to the heaven whence they came. + + + + +{146} + +CHAPTER XV + +PLATO (_continued_) + +_The Republic--Denizens of the cave--The Timaeus--A dream of creation_ + + +And now we pass to the central and crowning work of Plato, _The +Republic_, or _Of Justice_--the longest with one exception, and +certainly the greatest of all his works. It combines the humour and +irony, the vivid characterisation and lively dialogue of his earlier +works, with the larger and more serious view, the more constructive and +statesmanlike aims of his later life. The dialogue opens very +beautifully. There has been a festal procession at the Piraeus, the +harbour of Athens, and Socrates with a companion is wending his way +homeward, when he is recalled by other companions, who induce him to +visit the house of an aged friend of his, Cephalus, whom he does not +visit too often. Him he finds seated in his court, crowned, as the +custom was, for the celebration of a family sacrifice, and beholds +beaming on his face the peace of a life well spent and reconciled. +They talk of the happiness that comes in old age to those who have done +good and not evil, and who are not too severely {147} tried in the +matter of worldly cares. Life to this good old man seems a very simple +matter; duty to God, duty to one's neighbours, each according to what +is prescribed and orderly; this is all, and this is sufficient. + +Then comes in the questioning Socrates, with his doubts and +difficulties as to what is one's duty in special circumstances; and the +discussion is taken up, not by the good old man, "who goes away to the +sacrifice," but by his son, who can quote the authorities; and by +Thrasymachus, the Sophist, who will have nothing to do with authority, +but maintains that _interest_ is the only real meaning of justice, and +that Might is Right. Socrates, by analogy of the arts, shows that +Might absolutely without tincture of justice is mere weakness, and that +there is honour even among thieves. Yet the exhibition of the 'law +working in the members' seems to have its weak side so long as we look +to individual men, in whom there are many conflicting influences, and +many personal chances and difficulties, which obscure the relation +between just action and happiness. + +Socrates therefore will have justice 'writ large' in the community as a +whole, first pictured in its simpler, and then in its more complex and +luxurious forms. The relation of the individual to the community is +represented chiefly as one of education and training; and many strange +theories--as of the equal {148} training of men and women, and the +community of wives, ideas partially drawn from Sparta--are woven into +the ideal structure. Then the dialogue rises to a larger view of +education, as a preparation of the soul of man, not for a community on +earth, but for that heavenly life which was suggested above (p. 144) in +the myth of the steeds. + +The purely earthly unideal life is represented as a life of men tied +neck and heels from birth in a cave, having their backs to the light, +and their eyes fixed only on the shadows which are cast upon the wall. +These they take for the only realities, and they may acquire much skill +in interpreting the shadows. Turn these men suddenly to the true +light, and they will be dazzled and blinded. They will feel as though +they had lost the realities, and been plunged into dreams. And in pain +and sorrow they will be tempted to grope back again to the familiar +darkness. + +Yet if they hold on in patience, and struggle up the steep till the sun +himself breaks on their vision, what pain and dazzling once more, yet +at the last what glorious revelation! True, if they revisit their old +dwelling-place, they will not see as well as their fellows who are +still living contentedly there, knowing nothing other than the shadows. +They may even seem to these as dreamers who have lost their senses; and +should they try to enlighten these denizens of the cave, they may be +persecuted or {149} even put to death. Such are the men who have had a +sight of the heavenly verities, when compared with the children of +earth and darkness. + +Yet the world will never be right till those who have had this vision +come back to the things of earth and order them according to the +eternal verities; the philosopher must be king if ever the perfect life +is to be lived on earth, either by individual or community. As it +would be expressed in Scriptural language, "The kingdoms of this world +must become the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ." + +For the training of these ideal rulers an ideal education is required, +which Plato calls dialectic; something of its nature is described later +on (p. 170), and we need not linger over it here. + +The argument then seems to fall to a lower level. There are various +approximations in actual experience to the ideal community, each more +or less perfect according to the degree in which the good of the +individual is also made the good of all, and the interests of governors +and governed are alike. Parallel with each lower form of state is a +lower individual nature, the worst of all being that of the tyrant, +whose will is his only law, and his own self-indulgence his only +motive. In him indeed Might is Right; but his life is the very +antithesis of happiness. Nay, pleasure of any kind can give no law to +reason; reason can judge of pleasure, but not _vice versa_. There is +no profit to a {150} man though he gain the whole world, if _himself_ +be lost; if he become worse; if the better part of him be silenced and +grow weaker. And after this 'fitful fever' is over, may there not be a +greater bliss beyond? There have been stories told us, visions of +another world, where each man is rewarded according to his works. And +the book closes with a magnificent Vision of Judgment. It is the story +of Er, son of Armenius, who being wounded in battle, after twelve days' +trance comes back to life, and tells of the judgment seat, of heavenly +bliss and hellish punishments, and of the renewal of life and the new +choice given to souls not yet purified wholly of sin. "God is +blameless; Man's Soul is immortal; Justice and Truth are the only +things eternally good." Such is the final revelation. + +The _Timaeus_ is an attempt by Plato, under the guise of a Pythagorean +philosopher, to image forth as in a vision or dream the actual framing +of the universe, conceived as a realisation of the Eternal Thought or +Idea. It will be remembered that in the analysis already given (p. +143) of the process of knowledge in individual men, Plato found that +prior to the suggestions of the senses, though not coming into +consciousness except in connection with sensation, men had _ideas_ that +gave them a power of rendering their sensations intelligible. In the +_Timaeus_ Plato attempts a vision of the universe as though he saw +{151} it working itself into actuality on the lines of those ideas. +The vision is briefly as follows: There is the Eternal Creator, who +desired to make the world because He was good and free from jealousy, +and therefore willed that all things should be like Himself; that is, +that the formless, chaotic, unrealised void might receive form and +order, and become, in short, real as He was. Thus creation is the +process by which the Eternal Creator works out His own image, His own +ideas, in and through that which is formless, that which has no name, +which is nothing but possibility,--dead earth, namely, or _Matter_. +And first the world-soul, image of the divine, is formed, on which as +on a "diamond network" the manifold structure of things is +fashioned--the stars, the seven planets with their sphere-music, the +four elements, and all the various creatures, aetherial or fiery, +aerial, aqueous, and earthy, with the consummation of them all in +microcosm, in the animal world, and specially in man. + +One can easily see that this is an attempt by Plato to carry out the +reverse process in thought to that which first comes to thinking man. +Man has sensations, that is, he comes first upon that which is +conceivably last in creation, on the immediate and temporary things or +momentary occurrences of earth. In these sensations, as they +accumulate into a kind of habitual or unreasoned knowledge or opinion, +he discovers elements which have been active to {152} correlate the +sensations, which have from the first exercised a governing influence +upon the sensations, without which, indeed, no two sensations could be +brought together to form anything one could name. These regulative, +underlying, permanent elements are Ideas, _i.e._ General Forms or +Notions, which, although they may come second as regards time into +consciousness, are by reason known to have been there before, because +through them alone can the sensations become intelligibly possible, or +thinkable, or namable. Thus Plato is led to the conception of an order +the reverse of our individual experience, the order of creation, the +order of God's thought, which is equivalent to the order of God's +working; for God's thought and God's working are inseparable. + +Of course Plato, in working out his dream of creation absolutely +without any scientific knowledge, the further he travels the more +obviously falls into confusion and absurdity; where he touches on some +ideas having a certain resemblance to modern scientific discoveries, as +the law of gravitation, the circulation of the blood, the quantitative +basis of differences of quality, etc., these happy guesses are apt to +lead more frequently wrong than right, because they are not kept in +check by any experimental tests. But taken as a 'myth,' which is +perhaps all that Plato intended, the work offers much that is +profoundly interesting. + +{153} + +With the _Timaeus_ is associated another dialogue called the _Critias_, +which remains only as a fragment. In it is contained a description of +the celebrated visionary kingdom of Atlantis, lying far beyond the +pillars of Hercules, a land of splendour and luxury and power, a land +also of gentle manners and wise orderliness. "The fiction has +exercised a great influence over the imagination of later ages. As +many attempts have been made to find the great island as to discover +the country of the lost tribes. Without regard to the description of +Plato, and without a suspicion that the whole narrative is a +fabrication, interpreters have looked for the spot in every part of the +globe--America, Palestine, Arabia Felix, Ceylon, Sardinia, Sweden. The +story had also an effect on the early navigators of the sixteenth +century" (Jowett, _Plato_, vol. iii. p. 679). + + + + +{154} + +CHAPTER XVI + +PLATO (_continued_) + +_Metaphysics and psychology--Reason and pleasure--Criticism of the +ideas--Last ideals_ + + +We now come to a series of highly important dialogues, marked as a +whole by a certain diminution in the purely artistic attraction, having +less of vivid characterisation, less humour, less dramatic interest, +less perfect construction in every way, but, on the other hand, +peculiarly interesting as presenting a kind of after-criticism of his +own philosophy. In them Plato brings his philosophic conceptions into +striking relation with earlier or rival theories such as the Eleatic, +the Megarian, the Cyrenaic, and the Cynic, and touches in these +connections on many problems of deep and permanent import. + +The most remarkable feature in these later dialogues is the +disappearance, or even in some cases the apparently hostile criticism, +of the doctrine of Ideas, and consequently of Reminiscence as the +source of knowledge, and even, apparently, of Personal {155} +Immortality, so far as the doctrine of Reminiscence was imagined to +guarantee it. This, however, is perhaps to push the change of view too +far. We may say that Plato in these dialogues is rather the +psychologist than the metaphysician; he is attempting a revised +analysis of mental processes. From this point of view it was quite +intelligible that he should discover difficulties in his former theory +of our mental relation to the external reality, without therefore +seeing reason to doubt the existence of that reality. The position is +somewhat similar to that of a modern philosopher who attempts to think +out the psychological problem of Human Will in relation to Almighty and +Over-ruling Providence. One may very clearly see the psychological +difficulties, without ceasing to believe either in the one or the other +as facts. + +Throughout Plato's philosophy, amidst every variation of expression, we +may take these three as practically fixed points of belief or of faith, +or at least of hope; _first_, that Mind is eternally master of the +universe; _second_, that Man in realising what is most truly himself is +working in harmony with the Eternal Mind, and is in this way a master +of nature, reason governing experience and not being a product of +experience; and _thirdly_ (as Socrates said before his judges), that at +death we go to powers who are wise and good, and to men departed who in +their day shared in the divine wisdom and goodness,--that, in short, +there is something remaining for the dead, and better for those that +have done good than for those that have done evil. + +The first of the 'psychological dialogues,' as we have called them, is +the _Philebus_. The question here is of the _summum bonum_ or chief +good. What is it? Is it pleasure? Is it wisdom? Or is it both? In +the process of answering these questions Plato lays down rules for true +definition, and establishes classifications which had an immense +influence on his successor Aristotle, but which need not be further +referred to here. + +The general gist of the argument is as follows. Pleasure could not be +regarded as a sufficient or perfect good if it was entirely emptied of +the purely intellectual elements of anticipation and consciousness and +memory. This would be no better than the pleasure of an oyster. On +the other hand, a purely intellectual existence can hardly be regarded +as perfect and sufficient either. The perfect life must be a union of +both. + +But this union must be an orderly and rational union; in other words, +it must be one in which Mind is master and Pleasure servant; the +finite, the regular, the universal must govern the indefinite, +variable, particular. Thus in the perfect life there are four +elements; in the body, earth, water, air, fire; in the soul, the +finite, the indefinite, the union of the {157} two, and the cause of +that union. If this be so, he argues, may we not by analogy argue for +a like four-fold order in the universe? There also we find regulative +elements, and indefinite elements, and the union of the two. Must +there not also be the Great Cause, even Divine Wisdom, ordering and +governing all things? + +The second of the psychological series is the _Parmenides_, in which +the great Eleatic philosopher, in company with his disciple Zeno, is +imagined instructing the youthful Socrates when the two were on a visit +to Athens, which may or may not be historical (see above, p. 34). The +most striking portion of this dialogue is the criticism already alluded +to of Plato's own theory of Ideas, put into the mouth of Parmenides. +Parmenides ascertains from Socrates that he is quite clear about there +being Ideas of Justice, Beauty, Goodness, eternally existing, but how +about Ideas of such common things as hair, mud, filth, etc.? Socrates +is not so sure; to which Parmenides rejoins that as he grows older +philosophy will take a surer hold of him, and that he will recognise +the same law in small things and in great. + +But now as to the nature of these Ideas. What, Parmenides asks, is the +relation of these, as eternally existing in the mind of God, to the +same ideas as possessed by individual men? Does each individual +actually _partake_ in the thought of God through {158} the ideas, or +are his ideas only _resemblances_ of the eternal? If he partakes, then +the eternal ideas are not one but many, as many as the persons who +possess them. If his ideas only resemble, then there must be some +basis of reference by which the resemblance is established, a _tertium +quid_ or third existence resembling both, and so _ad infinitum_. +Socrates is puzzled by this, and suggests that perhaps the Ideas are +only notions in our minds. But to this it is replied that there is an +end in that case of any reality in our ideas. Unless in some way they +have a true and causal relation with something beyond our minds, there +is an end of mind altogether, and with mind gone everything goes. + +This, as Professor Jowett remarks, "remains a difficulty for us as well +as for the Greeks of the fourth century before Christ, and is the +stumbling-block of Kant's _Critic_, and of the Hamiltonian adaptation +of Kant as well as of the Platonic ideas. It has been said that 'you +cannot criticise Revelation.' 'Then how do you know what is +Revelation, or that there is one at all?' is the immediate rejoinder. +'You know nothing of things in themselves.'--'Then how do you know that +there are things in themselves?' In some respects the difficulty +pressed harder upon the Greek than upon ourselves. For conceiving of +God more under the attribute of knowledge than we do, he was more under +the necessity of {159} separating the divine from the human, as two +spheres which had no communication with one another." + +Next follows an extraordinary analysis of the ideas of 'Being' and +'Unity,' remarkable not only for its subtlety, but for the relation +which it historically bears to the modern philosophic system of Hegel. +"Every affirmation is _ipso facto_ a negation;" "the negation of a +negation is an affirmation;" these are the psychological (if not +metaphysical) facts, on which the analysis of Parmenides and the +philosophy of Hegel are both founded. + +We may pass more rapidly by the succeeding dialogues of the series: the +_Theaetetus_ (already quoted from above, p. 89), which is a close and +powerful investigation of the nature of knowledge on familiar Platonic +lines; the _Sophist_, which is an analysis of fallacious reasoning; and +the _Statesman_, which, under the guise of a dialectical search for the +true ruler of men, represents once more Plato's ideal of government, +and contrasts this with the ignorance and charlatanism of actual +politics. + +In relation to subsequent psychology, and more particularly to the +logical system of Aristotle, these dialogues are extremely important. +We may indeed say that the systematic logic of Aristotle, as contained +in the _Organon_, is little more than an abstract {160} or digest of +the logical theses of these dialogues. Definition and division, the +nature and principle of classification, the theory of predication, the +processes of induction and deduction, the classification and criticism +of fallacies,--all these are to be found in them. The only addition +really made by Aristotle was the systematic theory of the syllogism. + +The _Laws_, the longest of Plato's works, seems to have been composed +by him in the latest years of his long life, and was probably not +published till after his death. It bears traces of its later origin in +the less artful juncture of its parts, in the absence of humour, in the +greater overloading of details, in the less graphic and appropriate +characterisation of the speakers. These speakers are three--an +Athenian, a Cretan, and a Spartan. A new colony is to be led forth +from Crete, and the Cretan takes advice of the others as to the +ordering of the new commonwealth. We are no longer, as in _The +Republic_, in an ideal world, a city coming down from, or set in, the +heavens. There is no longer a perfect community; nor are philosophers +to be its kings. Laws more or less similar to those of Sparta fill +about half the book. But the old spirit of obedience and +self-sacrifice and community is not forgotten; and on all men and +women, noble and humble alike, the duty is cast, to bear in common the +common burden of life. + +{161} + +Thus, somewhat in sadness and decay, yet with a dignity and moral +grandeur not unworthy of his life's high argument, the great procession +of the Ideal Philosopher's dialogues closes. + + + + +{162} + +CHAPTER XVII + +PLATO (_concluded_) + +_Search for universals--The thoughts of God--God cause and +consummation--Dying to earth--The Platonic education_ + + +If we attempt now, by way of appendix to this very inadequate summary +of the dialogues, to give in brief review some account of the main +doctrines of Plato, as they may be gathered from a general view of +them, we are at once met by difficulties many and serious. In the case +of a genius such as Plato's, at once ironical, dramatic, and +allegorical, we cannot be absolutely certain that in any given passage +Plato is expressing, at all events adequately and completely, his own +personal views, even at the particular stage of his own mental +development then represented. And when we add to this that in a long +life of unceasing intellectual development, Plato inevitably grew out +of much that once satisfied him, and attained not infrequently to new +points of view even of doctrines or conceptions which remained +essentially unchanged, a Platonic dogma in the strict sense must +clearly not be expected. One may, however, attempt in rough outline to +summarise the main {163} _tendencies_ of his thought, without +professing to represent its settled and authenticated results. + +[251] + +We may begin by an important summary of Plato's philosophy given by +Aristotle (_Met_. A. 6): "In immediate succession to the Pythagorean +and Eleatic philosophies came the work of Plato. In many respects his +views coincided with these; in some respects, however, he is +independent of the Italians. For in early youth he became a student of +Cratylus and of the school of Heraclitus, and accepted from them the +view that the objects of sense are in eternal flux, and that of these, +therefore, there can be no absolute knowledge. Then came Socrates, who +busied himself only with questions of morals, and not at all with the +world of physics. But in his ethical inquiries his search was ever for +universals, and he was the first to set his mind to the discovery of +definitions. Plato following him in this, came to the conclusion that +these universals could not belong to the things of sense, which were +ever changing, but to some other kind of existences. Thus he came to +conceive of universals as forms or _ideas_ of real existences, by +reference to which, and in consequence of analogies to which, the +things of sense in every case received their names, and became +thinkable objects." + +From this it followed to Plato that in so far as the senses took an +illusive appearance of themselves giving {164} the knowledge which +really was supplied by reason as the organ of ideas, in the same degree +the body which is the instrument of sense can only be a source of +illusion and a hindrance to knowledge. The wise man, therefore, will +seek to free himself from the bonds of the body, and die while he lives +by philosophic contemplation, free as far as possible from the +disturbing influence of the senses. This process of _rational_ +realisation Plato called Dialectic. The objects contemplated by the +reason, brought into consciousness on the occurrence of sensible +perception, but never caused by these, were not mere notions in the +mind of the individual thinker, nor were they mere properties of +individual things; this would be to make an end of science on the one +hand, of reality on the other. Nor had they existence in any mere +place, not even beyond the heavens. Their home was Mind, not this mind +or that, but Mind Universal, which is God. + +In these 'thoughts of God' was the root or essence which gave reality +to the things of sense; they were the Unity which realised itself in +multiplicity. It is because things partake of the Idea that we give +them a name. The thing as such is seen, not known; the idea as such is +known, not seen. + +[252] + +The whole conception of Plato in this connection is based on the +assumption that there is such a thing as knowledge. If all things are +ever in change, then knowledge is impossible; but conversely, if there +is {165} such a thing as knowledge, then there must be a continuing +object of knowledge; and beauty, goodness, [253] reality are then no +dreams. The process of apprehension of these 'thoughts of God,' these +eternal objects of knowledge, whether occasioned by sensation or not, +is essentially a process of self-inquiry, or, as he in one stage called +it, of Reminiscence. The process is the same in essence, whether going +on in thought or expressed in speech; it is a process of _naming_. Not +that names ever resemble realities fully; they are only approximations, +limited by the conditions [254] of human error and human convention. +There is nevertheless an inter-communion between ideas and things. We +must neither go entirely with those who affirm the one (the Eleatics), +nor with those who affirm the many (the Heracliteans), but accept both. +There is a union in all that exists both of That Which _Is_, and of +that concerning which all we can say is that it is _Other_ than what +is. This 'Other,' through union with what is, attains to being of a +kind; while on the other hand, What Is by union with the 'Other' +attains to variety, and thus more fully realises itself. + +[258] + +That which Plato here calls 'What Is' he elsewhere calls 'The Limiting +or Defining'; the 'Other' he calls 'The Unlimited or Undefined.' Each +has a function in the divine process. The thoughts of God attain +realisation in the world of things which change and pass, through the +infusion {166} of themselves in, or the superimposing of themselves +upon, that which is Nothing apart from them,--the mere negation of what +is, and yet necessary as the 'Other' or correlative of what is. Thus +we get, in fact, _four_ forms of existence: there is the Idea or +Limiting (apart); there is the Negative or Unlimited (apart), there is +the Union of the two (represented in language by subject and +predicate), which as a whole is this frame of things as we know it; and +fourthly, there is the _Cause_ of the Union, which is God. And God is +cause not only as the beginning of all things, but also as the measure +and law of their perfection, and the end towards which they go. He is +the Good, and the cause of Good, and the consummation and realisation +of Good. + +This absolute Being, this perfect Good, we cannot see, blinded as we +are, like men that have been dwelling in a cave, by excess of light. +We must, therefore, look on Him indirectly, as on an image of Him, in +our own souls and in the world, in so far as in either we discern, by +reason, that which is rational and good. + +[269] + +Thus God is not only the cause and the end of all good, He is also the +cause and the end of all knowledge. Even as the sun is not only the +most glorious of all visible objects, but is also the cause of the life +and beauty of all other things, and the provider of the light whereby +we see them, so also {167} is it for the eye of the soul. God is its +light, God is the most glorious object of its contemplation, God we +behold imaged forth in all the objects which the soul by reason +contemplates. + +[260] + +The ideas whereof the 'Other' (or, as he again calls it, the 'Great and +Small' or 'More and Less,' meaning that which is unnamable, or wholly +neutral in character, and which may therefore be represented equally by +contradictory attributes) by participation becomes a resemblance, Plato +compared to the 'Numbers' of the Pythagoreans (cf. above, p. 25). +Hence, Aristotle remarks (_Met_. A. 6), Plato found in the ideas the +originative or formative Cause of things, that which made them what +they were or could be called,--their _Essence_; in the 'Great and +Small' he found the opposite principle or _Matter_ (Raw Material) of +things. + +In this way the antithesis of Mind and Matter, whether on the great +scale in creation or on the small in rational perception, is not an +antithesis of unrelated opposition. Each is correlative of the other, +so to speak as the male and the female; the one is generative, +formative, active, positive; the other is capable of being impregnated, +receptive, passive, negative; but neither can realise itself apart from +the other. + +[262] + +This relation of 'Being' with that which is 'Other than Being' is +Creation, wherein we can {168} conceive of the world as coming to be, +yet not in [261] Time. And in the same way Plato speaks of a third +form, besides the Idea and that which receives it, namely, 'Formless +Space, the mother of all things.' As Kant might have formulated it, +Time and Space are not prior to creation, they are forms under which +creation becomes thinkable. + +[271] + +The 'Other' or Negative element, Plato more or less vaguely connected +with the evil that is in the world. This evil we can never expect to +perish utterly from the world; it must ever be here as the antithesis +of the good. But with the gods it dwells not; here in this mortal +nature, and in this region of mingling, it must of necessity still be +found. The wise man will therefore seek to die to the evil, and while +yet in this world of mortality, to think immortal things, and so as far +as may be flee from the evil. Thereby shall he liken himself to the +divine. For it is a likening to the divine to be just and holy and +true. + +[273] + +This, then, is the _summum bonum_, the end of life. For as the +excellence or end of any organ or instrument consists in that +perfection of its parts, whereby each separately and the whole together +work well towards the fulfilling of that which it is designed to +accomplish, so the excellence of man must consist in a perfect ordering +of all his parts to the perfect working of his whole organism as a +{169} [276] rational being. The faculties of man are three: the Desire +of the body, the Passion of the heart, the Thought of the soul; the +perfect working of all three, Temperance, Courage, Wisdom, and +consequently the perfect working of the whole man, is Righteousness. +From this springs that ordered tranquillity which is at once true +happiness and perfect virtue. + +[277] + +Yet since individual men are not self-sufficient, but have separate +capacities, and a need of union for mutual help and comfort, the +perfect realisation of this virtue can only be in a perfect civic [278] +community. And corresponding with the three parts of the man there +will be three orders in the community: the Workers and Traders, the +Soldiers, and the Ruling or Guardian class. When all these perform +their proper functions in perfect harmony, then is the perfection of +the whole realised, in Civic Excellence or Justice. + +[281] + +To this end a careful civic education is necessary, _first_, because to +_know_ what is for the general good is difficult, for we have to learn +not only in general but in detail that even the individual good can be +secured only through the general; and _second_, because few, if any, +are capable of seeking the general good, even if they know it, without +the guidance of discipline and the restraints of law. Thus, with a +view to its own perfection, and the good of all {170} its members, +Education is the chief work of the State. + +It will be remembered (see foregoing page) that in Plato's division of +the soul of man there are three faculties, Desire, Passion, Reason; in +the division of the soul's perfection three corresponding virtues, +Temperance, Courage, Wisdom; and in the division of the state three +corresponding orders, Traders, Soldiers, Guardians. So in Education +there are three stages. First, _Music_ (including all manner of +artistic and refining influences), whose function it is so to attemper +the desires of the heart that all animalism and sensualism may be +eliminated, and only the love and longing for that which is lovely and +of good report may remain. Second, _Gymnastic_, whose function it is +through ordered labour and suffering so to subdue and rationalise the +passionate part of the soul, that it may become the willing and +obedient servant of that which is just and true. And third, +_Mathematics_, by which the rational element of the soul may be trained +to realise itself, being weaned, by the ordered apprehension of the +'diamond net' of laws which underlie all the phenomena of nature, away +from the mere surface appearances of things, the accidental, +individual, momentary,--to the deep-seated realities, which are +necessary, universal, eternal. + +And just as there was a perfectness of the soul {171} transcending all +particular virtues, whether of Temperance or Courage or Wisdom, namely, +that absolute Rightness or Righteousness which gathered them all into +itself, so at the end of these three stages of education there is a +higher mood of thought, wherein the soul, purified, chastened, +enlightened, in communing with itself through _Dialectic_ (the Socratic +art of questioning transfigured) communes also with the Divine, and in +thinking out its own deepest thoughts, thinks out the thoughts of the +great Creator Himself, becomes one with Him, finds its final +realisation through absorption into Him, and in His light sees light. + + + + +{172} + +CHAPTER XVIII + +ARISTOTLE + +_An unruly pupil--The philosopher's library--The predominance of +Aristotle--Relation to Plato--The highest philosophy--Ideas and +things--The true realism_ + + +Plato before his death bequeathed his Academy to his nephew Speusippus, +who continued its president for eight years; and on his death the +office passed to Xenocrates, who held it for twenty-five years. From +him it passed in succession to Polemo, Crates, Crantor, and others. +Plato was thus the founder of a school or sect of teachers who busied +themselves with commenting, expanding, modifying here and there the +doctrines of the master. Little of their works beyond the names has +been preserved, and indeed we can hardly regret the loss. These men no +doubt did much to popularise the thoughts of their master, and in this +way largely influenced the later development of philosophy; but they +had nothing substantial to add, and so the stern pruning-hook of time +has cut them off from remembrance. + +[297] + +Aristotle was the son of a Greek physician, member of the colony of +Stagira in Thrace. His father, Nicomachus by name, was a man of such +{173} eminence in his profession as to hold the post of physician to +Amyntas, king of Macedonia, father of Philip the subverter of Greek +freedom. Not only was his father an expert physician, he was also a +student of natural history, and wrote several works on the subject. We +shall find that the fresh element which Aristotle brought to the +Academic philosophy was in a very great measure just that minute +attention to details and keen apprehension of vital phenomena which we +may consider he inherited from his father. He was born 384 B.C., and +on the death of his father, in his eighteenth year, he came to Athens, +and became a student of philosophy under Plato, whose pupil he +continued to be for twenty years,--indeed till the death of the master. +That he, undoubtedly a far greater man than Speusippus or Xenocrates, +should not have been nominated to the succession has been variously +explained; he is said to have been lacking in respect and gratitude to +the master; Plato is said to have remarked of him that he needed the +curb as much as Xenocrates needed the spur. The facts really need no +explanation. The original genius is never sufficiently subordinate and +amenable to discipline. He is apt to be critical, to startle his +easy-going companions with new and seemingly heterodox views, he is the +'ugly duckling' whom all the virtuous and commonplace brood must cackle +{174} at. The Academy, when its great master died, was no place for +Aristotle. He retired to Atarneus, a city of Mysia opposite to Lesbos, +where a friend named Hermias was tyrant, and there he married Hermias' +niece. After staying at Atarneus some three years he was invited by +Philip, now king of Macedon, to undertake the instruction of his son +Alexander, the future conqueror, who was then thirteen years old. He +remained with Alexander for eight years, though of course he could +hardly be regarded as Alexander's tutor during all that time, since +Alexander at a very early age was called to take a part in public +affairs. However a strong friendship was formed between the +philosopher and the young prince, and in after years Alexander loaded +his former master with benefits. Even while on his march of conquest +through Asia he did not forget him, but sent him from every country +through which he passed specimens which might help him in his projected +History of Animals, as well as an enormous sum of money to aid him in +his investigations. + +After the death of Philip, Aristotle returned to Athens, and opened a +school of philosophy on his own account in the Lyceum. Here some +authorities tell us he lectured to his pupils while he paced up and +down before them; hence the epithet applied to the school, the +_Peripatetics_. Probably, however, the name is derived from the +'Peripati' or covered {175} walks in the neighbourhood of that temple +in which he taught. He devoted his mornings to lectures of a more +philosophical and technical character; to these only the abler and more +advanced students were admitted. In the afternoons he lectured on +subjects of a more popular kind--rhetoric, the art of politics, +etc.--to larger audiences. Corresponding with this division, he also +was in the habit of classifying his writings as Acroatic or technical, +and Exoteric or popular. He accumulated a large library and museum, to +which he contributed an astonishing number of works of his own, on +every conceivable branch of knowledge. + +The after history of Aristotle's library, including the MSS. of his own +works, is interesting and even romantic. Aristotle's successor in the +school was Theophrastus, who added to the library bequeathed him by +Aristotle many works of his own, and others purchased by him. +Theophrastus bequeathed the entire library to Neleus, his friend and +pupil, who, on leaving Athens to reside at Scepsis in the Troad, took +the library with him. There it remained for nearly two hundred years +in possession of the Neleus family, who kept the collection hidden in a +cellar for fear it should be seized to increase the royal library of +Pergamus. In such a situation the works suffered much harm from worms +and damp, till at last (_circa_ 100 B.C.) they were brought out {176} +and sold to one Apellicon, a rich gentleman resident in Athens, himself +a member of the Peripatetic school. In 86 B.C. Sulla, the Roman +dictator, besieged and captured Athens, and among other prizes conveyed +the library of Apellicon to Rome, and thus many of the most important +works of Aristotle for the first time were made known to the Roman and +Alexandrian schools. It is a curious circumstance that the philosopher +whose influence was destined to be paramount for more than a thousand +years in the Christian era, was thus deprived by accident of his +legitimate importance in the centuries immediately following his own. + +But his temporary and accidental eclipse was amply compensated in the +effect upon the civilised world which he subsequently exercised. So +all-embracing, so systematic, so absolutely complete did his philosophy +appear, that he seemed to after generations to have left nothing more +to discover. He at once attained a supremacy which lasted for some two +thousand years, not only over the Greek-speaking world, but over every +form of the civilisation of that long period, Greek, Roman, Syrian, +Arabic, from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, from Africa to Britain. +His authority was accepted equally by the learned doctors of Moorish +Cordova and the Fathers of the Church; to know Aristotle was to have +all {177} knowledge; not to know him was to be a boor; to deny him was +to be a heretic. + +His style has nothing of the grace of Plato; he illuminates his works +with no myths or allegories; his manner is dry, sententious, familiar, +without the slightest attempt at ornament. There are occasional +touches of caustic humour, but nothing of emotion, still less of +rhapsody. His strength lies in the vast architectonic genius by which +he correlates every domain of the knowable in a single scheme, and in +the extraordinary faculty for illustrative detail with which he fills +the scheme in every part. He knows, and can shrewdly criticise every +thinker and writer who has preceded him; he classifies them as he +classifies the mental faculties, the parts of logical speech, the parts +of sophistry, the parts of rhetoric, the parts of animals, the parts of +the soul, the parts of the state; he defines, distinguishes, combines, +classifies, with the same sureness and minuteness of method in them +all. He can start from a general conception, expand it into its parts, +separate these again by distinguishing details till he brings the +matter down to its lowest possible terms, or _infimae species_. Or he +can start from these, find analogies among them constituting more +general species, and so in ascending scale travel surely up to a +general conception, or _summum genus_. + +In his general conception of philosophy he was {178} to a large extent +in agreement with Plato; but he endeavoured to attain to a more +technical precision; he sought to systematise into greater +completeness; he pared off everything which he considered merely +metaphorical or fanciful, and therefore non-essential. The operations +of nature, the phenomena of life, were used in a much fuller and more +definite way to illustrate or even formulate the theory; but in its +main ideas Aristotle's philosophy is Plato's philosophy. The one +clothed it in poetry, the other in formulae; the one had a more +entrancing vision, the other a clearer and more exact apprehension; but +there is no essential divergence. + +Aristotle's account of the origin or foundation of [300] philosophy is +as follows (_Met_. A. 2): "Wonder is and always has been the first +incentive to philosophy. At first men wondered at what puzzled them +near at hand, then by gradual advance they came to notice and wonder at +things still greater, as at the phases of the moon, the eclipses of sun +and moon, the wonders of the stars, and the origin of the universe. +Now he who is puzzled and in a maze regards himself as a know-nothing; +wherefore the philosopher is apt to be fond of wondrous tales or myths. +And inasmuch as it was a consciousness of ignorance that drove men to +philosophy, it is for the correction of this ignorance, and not for any +material utility, that the pursuit of knowledge exists. Indeed it is, +{179} as a rule, only when all other wants are well supplied that, by +way of ease and recreation, men turn to this inquiry. And thus, since +no satisfaction beyond itself is sought by philosophy, we speak of it +as we speak of the freeman. We call that man free whose existence is +for himself and not for another; so also philosophy is of all the +sciences the only one that is free, for it alone exists for itself. + +"Moreover, this philosophy, which is the investigation of the first +causes of things, is the most truly educative among the sciences. For +instructors are persons who show us the causes of things. And +knowledge for the sake of knowledge belongs most properly to that +inquiry which deals with what is most truly a matter of knowledge. For +he who is seeking knowledge for its own sake will choose to have that +knowledge which most truly deserves the name, the knowledge, namely, of +what most truly appertains to knowledge. Now the things that most +truly appertain to knowledge are the first causes; for in virtue of +one's possession of these, and by deduction from these, all else comes +to be known; we do not come to know them through what is inferior to +them and underlying them. . . . The wise man ought therefore to know +not only those things which are the outcome and product of first +causes, he must be possessed of the truth as to the first causes +themselves. And wisdom indeed is just this {180} thoughtful science, a +science of what is highest, not truncated of its head." + +[301] + +"To the man, therefore, who has in fullest measure this knowledge of +universals, all knowledge must lie to hand; for in a way he knows all +that underlies them. Yet in a sense these universals are what men find +hardest to apprehend, because they stand at the furthest extremity from +the perceptions of sense." + +[302] + +"Yet if anything exist which is eternal, immovable, freed from gross +matter, the contemplative science alone can apprehend this. Physical +science certainly cannot, for physics is of that which is ever in flux; +nor can mathematical science apprehend it; we must look to a mode of +science prior to and higher than both. The objects of physics are +neither unchangeable nor free from matter; the objects of mathematics +are indeed unchangeable, but we can hardly say they are free from +matter; they have certainly relations with matter. But the first and +highest science has to do with that which is unmoved and apart from +matter; its function is with the eternal first causes of things. There +are therefore three modes of theoretical inquiry: the science of +physics, the science of mathematics, the science of God. For it is +clear that if the divine is anywhere, it must be in that form of +existence I have spoken of (_i.e._ in first causes). . . . If, +therefore, there be {181} any form of existence immovable, this we must +regard as prior, and the philosophy of this we must consider the first +philosophy, universal for the same reason that it is first. It deals +with existence as such, inquiring what it is and what are its +attributes as pure existence." + +This is somewhat more technical than the language of Plato, but if we +compare it with what was said above (p. 142) we shall find an essential +identity. Yet Aristotle frequently impugns Plato's doctrine of ideas, +sometimes on the lines already [322] taken by Plato himself (above, p. +158), sometimes in other ways. Thus (_Met_. Z. 15, 16) he says: "That +which is _one_ cannot be in many places at one time, but that which is +common or general is in many places at one time. Hence it follows that +no universal exists apart from the individual things. But those who +hold the doctrine of ideas, on one side are right, viz. in maintaining +their separate existence, if they are to be substances or existences at +all. On the other side they are wrong, because by the idea or form +which they maintain to be separate they mean the one attribute +predicable of many things. The reason why they do this is because they +cannot indicate what these supposed imperishable essences are, apart +from the individual substances which are the objects of perception. +The result is that they simply represent them under the same forms as +{182} those of the perishable objects of sensation which are familiar +to our senses, with the addition of a phrase--_i.e._ they say 'man as +such,' 'horse as such,' or 'the absolute man,' 'the absolute horse.'" + +Aristotle here makes a point against Plato and his school, inasmuch as, +starting from the assumption that of the world of sense there could be +no knowledge, no apprehension fixed or certain, and setting over +against this a world of general forms which were fixed and certain, +they had nothing with which to fill this second supposed world except +the data of sense as found in individuals. Plato's mistake was in +confusing the mere 'this,' which is the conceived starting-point of any +sensation, but which, like a mathematical point, has nothing which can +be said about it, with individual objects as they exist and are known +in all the manifold and, in fact, infinite relations of reality. The +bare subject 'this' presents at the one extreme the same emptiness, the +same mere possibility of knowledge, which is presented at the other by +the bare predicate 'is.' But Plato, having an objection to the former, +as representing to him the merely physical and therefore the passing +and unreal, clothes it for the nonce in the various attributes which +are ordinarily associated with it when we say, 'this man,' 'this +horse,' only to strip them off successively as data of sensation, and +so at last get, by an illusory process of {183} abstraction and +generalisation, to the ultimate generality of being, which is the mere +'is' of bare predication converted into a supposed eternal substance. + +Aristotle was as convinced as Plato that there must be some fixed and +immovable object or reality corresponding to true and certain +knowledge, but with his scientific instincts he was not content to have +it left in a condition of emptiness, attractive enough to the more +emotional and imaginative Plato. And hence we have elsewhere quite as +strong and definite statements as those quoted above about universals +[316] (p. 180), to the effect that existence is in the fullest and most +real sense to be predicated of _individual_ things, and that only in a +secondary sense can existence be predicated of universals, in virtue of +their being found in individual things. Moreover, among universals the +_species_, he maintains, has more of existence in it than the genus, +because it is nearer to the individual or primary existence. For if +you predicate of an individual thing of what species it is, you supply +a statement more full of information and more closely connected with +the thing than if you predicate to what genus it belongs; for example, +if asked, "What is this?" and you answer, "A man," you give more +information than if you say, "A living creature." + +How did Aristotle reconcile these two points of {184} view, the one, in +which he conceives thought as starting from first causes, the most +universal objects of knowledge, and descending to particulars; the +other, in which thought starts from the individual objects, and +predicates of them by apprehension of their properties? The antithesis +is no accidental one; on the contrary, it is the governing idea of his +Logic, with its ascending process or Induction, and its descending +process or Syllogism. Was thought a mere process in an unmeaning +circle, the 'upward and downward way' of Plato? + +As to this we may answer first that while formally Aristotle displays +much the same 'dualism' or unreconciled separation of the 'thing' and +the 'idea' as Plato, his practical sense and his scientific instincts +led him to occupy himself largely not with either the empty 'thing' or +the equally empty 'idea,' but with the true _individuals_, which are at +the same time the true universals, namely, real objects as known, +having, so far as they are known, certain forms or categories under +which you can class them, having, so far as they are not yet fully +known, a certain raw material for further inquiry through observation. +In this way Thought and Matter, instead of being in eternal and +irreconcilable antagonism as the Real and the Unreal, become parts of +the same reality, the first summing up the knowledge of things already +attained, the second symbolising the infinite {185} [317] possibilities +of further ascertainment. And thus the word 'Matter' is applied by +Aristotle to the highest genus, as the relatively indefinite compared +with the more fully defined species included under it; it is also +applied by him to the individual object, in so far as that object +contains qualities not yet fully brought into predication. + +[319] + +And second, we observe that Aristotle introduced a new conception which +to his view established a _vital relation_ between the universal and +the individual. This conception he formulated in the correlatives, +_Potentiality_ and _Actuality_. With these he closely connected the +idea of _Final Cause_. The three to Aristotle constituted a single +reality; they are organically correlative. In a living creature we +find a number of members or organs all closely interdependent and +mutually conditioning each other. Each has its separate function, yet +none of them can perform its particular function well unless all the +others are performing theirs well, and the effect of the right +performance of function by each is to enable the others also to perform +theirs. The total result of all these mutually related functions is +_Life_; this is their End or Final Cause, which does not exist apart +from them, but is constituted at every moment by them. This Life is at +the same time the condition on which alone each and every one of the +functions constituting it can be performed. Thus {186} life in an +organism is at once the end and the middle and the beginning; it is the +cause final, the cause formal, the cause efficient. Life then is an +_Entelechy_, as Aristotle calls it, by which he means the realisation +in unity of the total activities exhibited in the members of the living +organism. + +In such an existence every part is at once a potentiality and an +actuality, and so also is the whole. We can begin anywhere and travel +out from that point to the whole; we can take the whole and find in it +all the parts. + + + + +{187} + +CHAPTER XIX + +ARISTOTLE (_continued_) + +_Realisation and reminiscence--The crux of philosophy--Reason in +education--The chief good--Origin of communities_ + + +If we look closely at this conception of Aristotle's we shall see that +it has a nearer relation to the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, and even to +the doctrine of Reminiscence, than perhaps even Aristotle himself +realised. The fundamental conception of Plato, it will be remembered, +is that of an eternally existing 'thought of God,' in manifold forms or +'ideas,' which come into the consciousness of men in connection with or +on occasion of sensations, which are therefore in our experience later +than the sensations, but which we nevertheless by reason recognise as +necessarily prior to the sensations, inasmuch as it is through these +ideas alone that the sensations are knowable or namable at all. Thus +the final end for man is by contemplation and 'daily dying to the world +of sense,' to come at last into the full inheritance in conscious +knowledge of that 'thought of God' which was latent from the first in +his soul, and of which in its fulness God Himself is eternally and +necessarily possessed. + +{188} + +[311] + +This is really Aristotle's idea, only Plato expresses it rather under a +psychological, Aristotle under a vital, formula. God, Aristotle says, +is eternally and necessarily Entelechy, absolute realisation. _To us_, +that which is first _in time_ (the individual perception) is not first +in _essence_, or absolutely. What is first in essence or absolutely, +is the universal, that is, the form or idea, the datum of reason. And +this distinction between time and the absolute, between our individual +experience and the essential or ultimate reality, runs all through the +philosophy of Aristotle. The 'Realisation' of Aristotle is the +'Reminiscence' of Plato. + +This conception Aristotle extended to Thought, to the various forms of +life, to education, to morals, to politics. + +_Thought_ is an entelechy, an organic whole, in which every process +conditions and is conditioned by every other. If we begin with +sensation, the sensation, blank as regards predication, has relations +to that which is infinitely real,--the object, the real thing before +us,--which relations science will never exhaust. If we start from the +other end, with the datum of thought, consciousness, existence, mind, +this is equally blank as regards predication, yet it has relations to +another existence infinitely real,--the subject that thinks,--which +relations religion and morality and sentiment and love will never +exhaust. Or, as {189} Aristotle and as common sense prefers to do, if +we, with our developed habits of thought and our store of accumulated +information, choose to deal with things from a basis midway between the +two extremes, in the ordinary way of ordinary people, we shall find +both processes working simultaneously and in organic correlation. That +is to say, we shall be increasing the _individuality_ of the objects +known, by the operation of true thought and observation in the +discovery of new characters or qualities in them; we shall be +increasing by the same act the _generality_ of the objects known, by +the discovery of new relations, new genera under which to bring them. +Individualisation and generalisation are only opposed, as mutually +conditioning factors of the same organic function. + +[316] + +This analysis of thought must be regarded rather as a paraphrase of +Aristotle than as a literal transcript. He is hesitating and obscure, +and at times apparently self-contradictory. He has not, any more than +Plato, quite cleared himself of the confusion between the mutually +contrary individual and universal in _propositions_, and the +organically correlative individual and universal in _things as known_. +But on the whole the tendency of his analysis is towards an +apprehension of the true realism, which neither denies matter in favour +of mind nor mind in favour of matter, but recognises that both mind and +matter are organically correlated, and ultimately identical. + +{190} + +The crux of philosophy, so far as thus apprehended by Aristotle, is no +longer in the supposed dualism of mind and matter, but there is a crux +still. What is the meaning of this 'Ultimately'? Or, putting it in +Aristotle's formula, Why this relation of potentiality and actuality? +Why this eternal coming to be, even if the coming to be is no +unreasoned accident, but a coming to be of that which is vitally or in +germ _there_? Or theologically, Why did God make the world? Why this +groaning and travailing of the creature? Why this eternal 'By and by' +wherein all sin is to disappear, all sorrow to be consoled, all the +clashings and the infinite deceptions of life to be stilled and +satisfied? An illustration of Aristotle's attempt to answer this +question will be given later on (p. 201). That the answer is a failure +need not surprise us. If we even now 'see only as in a glass darkly' +on such a question, we need not blame Plato or Aristotle for not seeing +'face to face.' + +[326] + +_Life_ is an entelechy, not only abstractedly, as already shown (above, +p. 186), but in respect of the varieties of its manifestations. We +pass from the elementary life of mere growth common to plants and +animals, to the animal life of impulse and sensation, thence we rise +still higher to the life of rational action which is the peculiar +function of man. Each is a _potentiality_ to that which is immediately +above it; in {191} other words, each contains in germ the possibilities +which are realised in that stage which is higher. Thus is there a +touch of nature which makes the whole world kin, a purpose running +through all the manifestations of life; each is a preparation for +something higher. + +[339] + +_Education_ is in like manner an entelechy. For what is the +_differentia_, the distinguishing character of the life of man? +Aristotle answers, the possession of reason. It is the action of +reason upon the desires that raises the life of man above the brutes. +This, observe, is not the restraining action of something wholly alien +to the desires, which is too often how Plato represents the matter. +This would be to lose the dynamic idea. The desires, as Aristotle +generally conceives them, are there in the animal life, prepared, so to +speak, to receive the organic perfection which reason alone can give +them. Intellect, on the other hand, is equally in need of the desires, +for thought without desire cannot supply motive. If intellect is +_logos_ or reason, desire is that which is fitted to be obedient to +reason. + +It will be remembered that the question to which Plato addressed +himself in one of his earlier dialogues, already frequently referred +to, the _Meno_, was the teachableness of Virtue; in that dialogue he +comes to the conclusion that Virtue is teachable, but that there are +none capable of teaching it; for the {192} wise men of the time are +guided not by knowledge but by right opinion, or by a divine instinct +which is incommunicable. Plato is thus led to seek a machinery of +education, and it is with a view to this that he constructs his ideal +_Republic_. Aristotle took up this view of the state as educative of +the individual citizens, and brought it under the dynamic formula. In +the child reason is not actual; there is no rational law governing his +acts, these are the immediate result of the strongest impulse. Yet +only when a succession of virtuous acts has formed the virtuous habit +can a man be said to be truly good. How is this process to begin? The +answer is that the reason which is only latent or dynamic in the child +is actual or realised in the parent or teacher, or generally in the +community which educates the child. The law at first then is imposed +on the child from without, it has an appearance of unnaturalness, but +only an appearance. For the law is there in the child, prepared, as he +goes on in obedience, gradually to answer from within to the summons +from without, till along with the virtuous habit there emerges also +into the consciousness of the child, no longer a child but a man, the +apprehension of the law as his own truest nature. + +These remarks on education are sufficient to show that in Morals also, +as conceived by Aristotle, there is a law of vital development. It may +be {193} sufficient by way of illustration to quote the introductory +sentences of Aristotle's _Ethics_, in which the question of the nature +of the chief good is, in his usual tentative manner, discussed: "If +there be any end of what we do which we desire for itself, while all +other ends are desired for it, that is, if we do not in every case have +some ulterior end (for if that were so we should go on to infinity, and +our efforts would be vain and useless), this ultimate end desired for +itself will clearly be the chief good and the ultimate best. Now since +every activity, whether of knowing or doing, aims at some good, it is +for us to settle what the good is which the civic activity aims +at,--what, in short, is the ultimate end of all 'goods' connected with +conduct? So far as the name goes all are pretty well agreed as to the +answer; gentle and simple alike declare it to be happiness, involving, +however, in their minds on the one hand well-living, on the other hand, +well-doing. When you ask them, however, to define this happiness more +exactly, you find that opinions are divided, and the many and the +philosophers have different answers. + +"But if you ask a musician or a sculptor or any man of skill, any +person, in fact, who has some special work and activity, what the chief +good is for him, he will tell you that the chief good is in the work +well done. If then man has any special work or function, we may assume +that the chief good for man {194} will be in the well-doing of that +function. What now is man's special function? It cannot be mere +living, for that he has in common with plants, and we are seeking what +is peculiar to him. The mere life of nurture and growth must therefore +be put on one side. We come next to life as sensitive to pleasure and +pain. But this man shares with the horse, the ox, and other animals. +What remains is the life of action of a reasonable being. Now of +reason as it is in man there are two parts, one obeying, one possessing +and considering. And there are also two aspects in which the active or +moral life may be taken, one potential, one actual. Clearly for our +definition of the chief good we must take the moral life in its full +actual realisation, since this is superior to the other. + +"If our view thus far be correct, it follows that the chief good for +man consists in the full realisation and perfection of the life of man +as man, in accordance with the specific excellence belonging to that +life, and if there be more specific excellences than one, then in +accordance with that excellence which is the best and the most rounded +or complete. We must add, however, the qualification, 'in a rounded +life.' For one swallow does not make a summer, nor yet one day. And +so one day or some brief period of attainment is not sufficient to make +a man happy and blest." + +{195} + +The close relation of this to the teaching of Socrates and Plato need +hardly be insisted on, or the way in which he correlates their ideas +with his own conception of an actualised perfection. + +[340] + +Aristotle then proceeds to a definition of the 'specific excellence' or +virtue of man, which is to be the standard by which we decide how far +he has fully and perfectly realised the possibilities of his being. To +this end he distinguishes in man's nature three modes of existence: +first, _feelings_ such as joy, pain, anger; second, _potentialities_ or +capacities for such feelings; third, _habits_ which are built upon +these potentialities, but with an element of reason or deliberation +superadded. He has no difficulty in establishing that the virtue of +man must be a habit. And the test of the excellence of that habit, as +of every other developed capacity, will be twofold; it will make the +worker good, it will cause him to produce good work. + +So far Aristotle's analysis of virtue is quite on the lines of his +general philosophy. Here, however, he diverges into what seems at +first a curiously mechanical conception. Pointing out that in +everything quantitative there are two extremes conceivable, and a +_mean_ or average between them, he proceeds to define virtue as a mean +between two extremes, a mean, however, having relation to no mere +numerical standard, but having reference _to us_. In this last {196} +qualification he perhaps saves his definition from its mechanical turn, +while he leaves himself scope for much curious and ingenious +observation on the several virtues regarded as means between two +extremes. He further endeavours to save it by adding, that it is +"defined by reason, and as the wise man would define it." + +Reason then, as the impersonal ruler,--the wise man, as the +personification of reason,--this is the standard of virtue, and +therefore also of happiness. How then shall we escape an externality +in our standard, divesting it of that binding character which comes +only when the law without is also recognised and accepted as the law +within? The answer of Aristotle, as of his predecessors, is that this +will be brought about by wise training and virtuous surroundings, in +short, by the civic community being itself good and happy. Thus we get +another dynamic relation; for regarded as a member of the body politic +each individual becomes a potentiality along with all the other +members, conditioned by the state of which he and they are members, +brought gradually into harmony with the reason which is in the state, +and in the process realising not his own possibilities only, but those +of the community also, which exists only in and through its members. +Thus each and all, in so far as they realise their own well-being by +the perfect development of the virtuous {197} habit in their lives, +contribute _ipso facto_ to the supreme end of the state, which is the +perfect realisation of the whole possibilities of the total organism, +and consequently of every member of it. + +[342] + +The _State_ therefore is also an entelechy. For man is not made to +dwell alone. "There is first the fact of sex; then the fact of +children; third, the fact of variety of capacity, implying variety of +position, some having greater powers of wisdom and forethought, and +being therefore naturally the rulers; others having bodily powers +suitable for carrying out the rulers' designs, and being therefore +naturally subjects. Thus we have as a first or simplest community the +family, next the village, then the full or perfect state, which, +seeking to realise an absolute self-sufficiency within itself, rises +from mere living to well-living as an aim of existence. This higher +existence is as natural and necessary as any simpler form, being, in +fact, the end or final and necessary perfection of all such lower forms +of existence. Man therefore is by the natural necessity of his being a +'political animal,' and he who is not a citizen,--that is, by reason of +something peculiar in his nature and not by a mere accident,--must +either be deficient or something superhuman. And while man is the +noblest of animals when thus fully perfected in an ordered community, +on the other hand when deprived of law and justice he is the very +worst. {198} For there is nothing so dreadful as lawlessness armed. +And man is born with the arms of thought and special capacities or +excellences, which it is quite possible for him to use for other and +contrary purposes. And therefore man is the most wicked and cruel +animal living when he is vicious, the most lustful and the most +gluttonous. The justice which restrains all this is a civic quality; +and law is the orderly arrangement of the civic community" (Arist. +_Pol_. i. p. 2). + + + + +{199} + +CHAPTER XX + +ARISTOTLE (_concluded_) + +_God and necessity--The vital principle--Soul as realisation--Function +and capacity--His method_ + + +Throughout Aristotle's physical philosophy the [334] same conception +runs: "All animals in their fully developed state require two members +above all--one whereby to take in nourishment, the other whereby to get +rid of what is superfluous. For no animal can exist or grow without +nourishment. And there is a third member in them all half-way between +these, in which resides the principle of their life. This is the +heart, which all blood-possessing animals have. From it comes the +arterial system which Nature has made hollow to contain the liquid +blood. The situation of the heart is a commanding one, being near the +middle and rather above than below, and rather towards the front than +the back. For Nature ever establishes that which is most honourable in +the most honourable places, unless some supreme necessity overrules. +We see this most clearly in the case of man; but the same tendency for +the heart to occupy the centre is seen also in {200} other animals, +when we regard only that portion of their body which is essential, and +the limit of this is at the place where superfluities are removed. The +limbs are arranged differently in different animals, and are not among +the parts essential to life; consequently animals may live even if +these are removed. . . . Anaxagoras says that man is the wisest of +animals because he possesses hands. It would be more reasonable to say +that he possesses hands because he is the wisest. For the hands are an +instrument; and Nature always assigns an instrument to the one fitted +to use it, just as a sensible man would. For it is more reasonable to +give a flute to a flute-player than to confer on a man who has some +flutes the art of playing them. To that which is the greater and +higher she adds what is less important, and not _vice versa_. +Therefore to the creature fitted to acquire the largest number of +skills Nature assigned the hand, the instrument useful for the largest +number of purposes" (Arist. _De Part. An._ iv. p. 10). + +[332] + +And in the macrocosm, the visible and invisible world about us, the +same conception holds: "The existence of God is an eternally perfect +entelechy, a life everlasting. In that, therefore, which belongs to +the divine there must be an eternally perfect movement. Therefore the +heavens, which are as it were the body of the Divine, are in form a +sphere, of {201} necessity ever in circular motion. Why then is not +this true of every portion of the universe? Because there must of +necessity be a point of rest of the circling body at the centre. Yet +the circling body cannot rest either as a whole or as regards any part +of it, otherwise its motion could not be eternal, which by nature it +is. Now that which is a violation of nature cannot be eternal, but the +violation is posterior to that which is in accordance with nature, and +thus the unnatural is a kind of displacement or degeneracy from the +natural, taking the form of a coming into being. + +"Necessity then requires earth, as the element standing still at the +centre. Now if there must be earth, there must be fire. For if one of +two opposites is natural or necessary, the other must be necessary too, +each, in fact, implying the necessity of the other. For the two have +the same substantial basis, only the positive form is naturally prior +to the negative; for instance, warm is prior to cold. And in the same +way motionlessness and heaviness are predicated in virtue of the +absence of motion and lightness, _i.e._ the latter are essentially +prior. + +"Further, if there are fire and earth, there must also be the elements +which lie between these, each having an antithetic relation to each. +From this it follows that there must be a process of coming into being, +because none of these elements can be eternal, {202} but each affects, +and is affected by each, and they are mutually destructive. Now it is +not to be argued that anything which can be moved can be eternal, +except in the case of that which by its own nature has eternal motion. +And if coming into being must be predicated of these, then other forms +of change can also be predicated" (Arist. _De Coelo_, ii. p. 3). + +This passage is worth quoting as illustrating, not only Aristotle's +conception of the divine entelechy, but also the ingenuity with which +he gave that appearance of logical completeness to the vague and +ill-digested scientific imaginations of the time, which remained so +evil an inheritance for thousands of years. It is to be observed, in +order to complete Aristotle's theory on this subject, that the four +elements, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, are all equally in a world which is +"contrary to nature," that is, the world of change, of coming into +being, and going out of being. Apart from these there is the element +of the Eternal Cosmos, which is "in accordance with nature," having its +own natural and eternal motion ever the same. This is the fifth or +divine element, the aetherial, by the schoolmen translated _Quinta +Essentia_, whence by a curious degradation we have our modern word +Quintessence, of that which is the finest and subtlest extract. + +Still more clearly is the organic conception carried {203} out in +Aristotle's discussion of the Vital principle or Soul in the various +grades of living creatures and in man. It will be sufficient to quote +at length a chapter of Aristotle's treatise on the subject (_De Anima_, +ii. p. 1) in which this fundamental conception of Aristotle's +philosophy is very completely illustrated:-- + +"Now as to Substance we remark that this is one particular category +among existences, having three different aspects. First there is, so +to say, the raw material or Matter, having in it no definite character +or quality; next the Form or Specific character, in virtue of which the +thing becomes namable; and third, there is the Thing or Substance which +these two together constitute. The Matter is, in other words, the +_potentiality_ of the thing, the Form is the _realisation_ of that +potentiality. We may further have this realisation in two ways, +corresponding in character to the distinction between _knowledge_ +(which we have but are not necessarily using) and actual +_contemplation_ or mental perception. + +"Among substances as above defined those are most truly such which we +call _bodily objects_, and among these most especially objects which +are the products of nature, inasmuch as all other bodies must be +derived from them. Now among such natural objects some are possessed +of life, some are not; by _life_ I mean a process of spontaneous +nourishment, growth, and decay. Every natural {204} object having life +is a substance compounded, so to say, of several qualities. It is, in +fact, a bodily substance defined in virtue of its having life. Between +the living body thus defined and the Soul or Vital principle, a marked +distinction must be drawn. The body cannot be said to 'subsist in' +something else; rather must we say that it is the matter or substratum +in which something else subsists. And what we mean by the soul is just +this substance in the sense of the _form_ or specific character that +subsists in the natural body which is _potentially_ living. In other +words, the Soul is substance as _realisation_, only, however, of such a +body as has just been defined. Recalling now the distinction between +realisation as possessed knowledge and as actual contemplation, we +shall see that in its essential nature the Soul or Vital principle +corresponds rather with the first than with the second. For both sleep +and waking depend on the Soul or Life being there, but of these waking +only can be said to correspond with the active form of knowledge; sleep +is rather to be compared with the state of having without being +immediately conscious that we have. Now if we compare these two states +in respect of their priority of development in a particular person, we +shall see that the state of latent possession comes first. We may +therefore define the Soul or Vital principle as _The earliest {205} +realisation (entelechy) of a natural body having in it the potentiality +of life_. + +"To every form of organic structure this definition applies, for even +the parts of plants are organs, although very simple ones; thus the +outer leaf is a protection to the pericarp, and the pericarp to the +fruit. Or, again, the roots are organs bearing an analogy to the mouth +in animals, both serving to take in food. Putting our definition, +then, into a form applicable to every stage of the Vital principle, we +shall say that _The Soul is the earliest realisation of a natural body +having organisation_. + +"In this way we are relieved from the necessity of asking whether Soul +and body are one. We might as well ask whether the wax and the +impression are one, or, in short, whether the _matter_ of any object +and that whereof it is the matter or substratum are one. As has been +pointed out, unity and substantiality may have several significations, +but the truest sense of both is found in _realisation_. + +"The general definition of the Soul or Vital principle above given may +be further explained as follows. The Soul is the _rational_ substance +(or function), that is to say, it is that which gives essential meaning +and reality to a body as knowable. Thus if an axe were a _natural_ +instrument or organ, its rational substance would be found in its +realisation of what an axe means; this would be its _soul_. Apart +{206} from such realisation it would not be an axe at all, except in +name. Being, however, such as it is, the axe remains an axe +independently of any such realisation. For the statement that the Soul +is the _reason_ of a thing, that which gives it essential meaning and +reality, does not apply to such objects as an axe, but only to natural +bodies having power of spontaneous motion (including growth) and rest. + +"Or we may illustrate what has been said by reference to the bodily +members. If the eye be a living creature, _sight_ will be its soul, +for this is the _rational_ substance (or function) of the eye. On the +other hand, the eye itself is the _material_ substance in which this +function subsists, which function being gone, the eye would no longer +be an eye, except in name, just as we can speak of the eye of a statue +or of a painted form. Now apply this illustration from a part of the +body to the whole. For as any one sense stands related to its organ, +so does the vital sense in general to the whole sensitive organism as +such, always remembering that we do not mean a dead body, but one which +really has in it potential life, as the seed or fruit has. Of course +there is a form of realisation to which the name applies in a specially +full sense, as when the axe is actually cutting, the eye actually +seeing, the man fully awake. But the Soul or Vital principle +corresponds rather with the _function_ of sight, or the _capacity_ for +cutting which {207} the axe has, the body, on the other hand, standing +in a relation of _potentiality_ to it. Now just as the eye may mean +both the actual organ or pupil, and also the function of sight, so also +the living creature means both the body and the soul. We cannot, +therefore, think of body apart from soul, or soul apart from body. If, +however, we regard the soul as composed of parts, we can see that the +realisation to which we give the name of soul is in some cases +essentially a realisation of certain parts of the body. We may, +however, conceive the soul as in other aspects separable, in so far as +the realisation cannot be connected with any bodily parts. Nay, we +cannot be certain whether the soul may not be the realisation or +perfection of the body as the sailor is of his boat." + +Observe that at the last Aristotle, though very tentatively, leaves an +opening for immortality, where, as in the case of man, there are +functions of the soul, such as philosophic contemplation, which cannot +be related to bodily conditions. He really was convinced that in man +there was a portion of that diviner aether which dwelt eternally in the +heavens, and was the ever-moving cause of all things. If there was in +man a _passive_ mind, which became all things, as all things through +sensation affected it, there was also, Aristotle argued, a _creative_ +mind in man, which is above, and unmixed with, that which it +apprehends, {208} gives laws to this, is essentially prior to all +particular knowledge, is therefore eternal, not subject to the +conditions of time and space, consequently indestructible. + +Finally, as a note on Aristotle's method, one may observe in this +passage, _first_, Aristotle's use of 'defining examples,' the wax, the +leaf and fruit, the axe, the eye, etc.; _second_, his practice of +developing his distinctions gradually, Form and Matter in the abstract, +then in substances of every kind, then in natural bodies, then in +organic bodies of various grades, in separate organs, in the body as a +whole, and in the Soul as separable in man; and _thirdly_, his method +of approaching completeness in thought, by apparent contradictions or +qualifications, which aim at meeting the complexity of nature by an +equally organised complexity of analysis. To this let us simply add, +by way of final characterisation, that in the preceding pages we have +given but the merest fragment here and there of Aristotle's vast +accomplishment. So wide is the range of his ken, so minute his +observation, so subtle and complicated and allusive his illustrations, +that it is doubtful if any student of his, through all the centuries in +which he has influenced the world, ever found life long enough to +fairly and fully grasp him. Meanwhile he retains his grasp upon us. +Form and matter, final and efficient causes, potential and actual +existences, {209} substance, accident, difference, genus, species, +predication, syllogism, deduction, induction, analogy, and multitudes +of other joints in the machinery of thought for all time, were forged +for us in the workshop of Aristotle. + + + + +{210} + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE SCEPTICS AND EPICUREANS + +_Greek decay--The praises of Lucretius--Canonics--Physics--The proofs +of Lucretius--The atomic soul--Mental pleasures--Natural +pleasures--Lower philosophy and higher_ + + +Philosophy, equally complete, equally perfect in all its parts, had its +final word in Plato and Aristotle; on the great lines of universal +knowledge no further really original structures were destined to be +raised by Greek hands. We have seen a parallelism between Greek +philosophy and Greek politics in their earlier phases (see above, p. +82); the same parallelism continues to the end. Greece broke the bonds +of her intense but narrow civic life and civic thought, and spread +herself out over the world in a universal monarchy and a cosmopolitan +philosophy; but with this widening of the area of her influence +reaction came and disruption and decay; an immense stimulus was given +on the one hand to the political activity, on the other, to the thought +and knowledge of the world as a whole, but at the centre Greece was +'living Greece no more,' her politics sank to the level of a dreary +farce, her philosophy died down to a dull and spiritless scepticism, to +an Epicureanism {211} that 'seasoned the wine-cup with the dust of +death,' or to a Stoicism not undignified yet still sad and narrow and +stern. The hope of the world, alike in politics and in philosophy, +faded as the life of Greece decayed. + +[356] + +The first phase of the change, _Scepticism_, or Pyrrhonism, as it was +named from its first teacher, need not detain us long. Pyrrho was +priest of Elis; in earlier life he accompanied Alexander the Great as +far as India, and is said to have become acquainted with certain of the +philosophic sects in that country. In his sceptical doctrine he had, +like his predecessors, a school with its succession of teachers; but +the [358] world has remembered little more of him or them than two +phrases 'suspense of judgment'--this for the intellectual side of +philosophy; 'impassibility'--this for the moral. The doctrine is a +negation of doctrine, the idle dream of idle men; even Pyrrho once, +when surprised in some sudden access of fear, confessed that it was +hard for him 'to get rid of the man in himself.' Vigorous men and +growing nations are never agnostic. They decline to rest in mere +suspense; they are extremely the opposite of impassive; they believe +earnestly, they feel strongly. + +[365] + +A more interesting, because more positive and constructive, personality +was that of Epicurus. This philosopher was born at Samos, in the year +341 B.C., of Athenian parents. He came to Athens in his eighteenth +year. Xenocrates was then teaching at {212} the Academy, Aristotle at +the Lyceum, but Epicurus heard neither the one nor the other. After +some wanderings he returned to Athens and set up on his [366] own +account as a teacher of philosophy. He made it a matter of boasting +that he was a self-taught philosopher; and Cicero (_De Nat. Deor._ i. +26) sarcastically remarks that one could have guessed as much, even if +Epicurus had not stated it himself; as one might of the proprietor of +an ugly house, who should boast that he had employed no architect. The +style of Epicurus was, in fact, plain and unadorned, but he seems all +the same to have been able to say what he meant; and few if any writers +ancient or modern have ever had so splendid a literary tribute, as +Epicurus had from the great Roman poet Lucretius, his follower and +expositor. + +"Glory of the Greek race," he says, "who first hadst power to raise +high so bright a light in the midst of darkness so profound, shedding a +beam on all the interests of life, thee do I follow, and in the +markings of thy track do I set my footsteps now. Not that I desire to +rival thee, but rather for love of thee would fain call myself thy +disciple. For how shall the swallow rival the swan, or what speed may +the kid with its tottering limbs attain, compared with the brave might +of the scampering steed? Thou; O father, art the discoverer of nature, +thou suppliest to us a father's teachings, and from thy pages, {213} +illustrious one, even as bees sip all manner of sweets along the +flowery glades, we in like manner devour all thy golden words, golden +and right worthy to live for ever. For soon as thy philosophy, birth +of thy godlike mind, hath begun to declare the origin of things, +straightway the terrors of the soul are scattered, earth's walls are +broken apart, and through all the void I see nature in the working. I +behold the gods in manifestation of their power, I discern their +blissful seats, which never winds assail nor rain-clouds sprinkle with +their showers, nor snow falling white with hoary frost doth buffet, but +cloudless aether ever wraps them round, beaming in broad diffusion of +glorious light. For nature supplies their every want nor aught impairs +their peace of soul. But nowhere do I see any regions of hellish +darkness, nor does the earth impose a barrier to our sight of what is +done in the void beneath our feet. Wherefore a holy ecstasy and thrill +of awe possess me, while thus by thy power the secrets of nature are +disclosed to view" (Lucret. _De Nat. Rer._ iii, 1-30). + +[367] + +This devotion to the memory of Epicurus on the part of Lucretius was +paralleled by the love felt for him by his contemporaries; he had +crowds of followers who loved him and who were proud to learn his words +by heart. He seems indeed to have been a man of exceptional kindness +and amiability, and the 'garden of Epicurus' became proverbial as {214} +a place of temperate pleasures and wise delights. Personally we may +take it that Epicurus was a man of simple tastes and moderate desires; +and indeed throughout its history Epicureanism as a rule of conduct has +generally been associated with the finer forms of enjoyment, rather +than the more sensual. The 'sensual sty' is a nickname, not a +description. + +[369] + +Philosophy Epicurus defined as a process of thought and reasoning +tending to the realisation of happiness. Arts or sciences which had no +such practical end he contemned; and, as will be observed in Lucretius' +praises of him above, even physics had but one purpose or interest, to +free the soul from [370] terrors of the unseen. Thus philosophy was +mainly concerned with conduct, _i.e._ with Ethics, but secondarily and +negatively with Physics, to which was appended what Epicurus called +Canonics, or the science of testing, that is, a kind of logic. + +[371] + +Beginning with _Canonics_, as the first part of philosophy in order of +time, from the point of view of human knowledge, Epicurus laid it down +that the only source of knowledge was the senses, which gave us an +immediate and true perception of that which actually came into contact +with them. Even the visions of madmen or of dreamers he considered +were in themselves true, being produced by a physical cause of some +kind, of which these visions were the direct and immediate report. +Falsity came in with {215} people's interpretations or imaginations +with respect to these sensations. + +Sensations leave a trace in the memory, and out of similarities or +analogies among sensations there are developed in the mind general +notions or types, such as 'man,' 'house,' which are also true, because +[373] they are reproductions of sensations. Thirdly, when a sensation +occurs, it is brought into relation in the mind with one or more of +these types or notions; this is _predication_, true also in so far as +its elements are true, but capable of falsehood, as subsequent or +independent sensation may prove. If supported or not contradicted by +sensation, it is or may be true; if contradicted or not supported by +sensation, it is or may be false. The importance of this statement of +the canon of truth or falsehood will be understood when we come to the +physics of Epicurus, at the basis of which is his theory of Atoms, +which by their very nature can never be directly testified to by +sensation. + +[374] + +This and no more was what Epicurus had to teach on the subject of +logic. He had no theory of definition, or division, or ratiocination, +or refutation, or explication; on all these matters Epicurus was, as +Cicero said, 'naked and unarmed.' Like most self-taught or ill-taught +teachers, Epicurus trusted to his dogmas; he knew nothing and cared +nothing for logical defence. + +{216} + +[375] + +In his _Physics_ Epicurus did little more than reproduce the doctrine +of Democritus. He starts from the fundamental proposition that +'nothing can be produced from nothing, nothing can really perish.' The +veritable existences in nature are the Atoms, which are too minute to +be discernible by the senses, but which nevertheless have a definite +size, and cannot further be divided. They have also a definite weight +and form, but no qualities other than these. There is an infinity of +empty space; this Epicurus proves on abstract grounds, practically +because a limit to space is unthinkable. It follows that there must be +an infinite number of the atoms, otherwise they would disperse +throughout the infinite void and disappear. There is a limit, however, +to the number of varieties among the atoms in respect of form, size, +and weight. The existence of the void space is proved by the fact that +motion takes place, to which he adds the argument that it necessarily +exists also to separate the atoms one from another. So far Epicurus +and Democritus are agreed. + +To the Democritean doctrine, however, Epicurus made a curious addition, +to which he himself is said to have attached much importance. The +natural course (he said) for all bodies having weight is downwards in a +straight line. It struck Epicurus that this being so, the atoms would +all travel for ever in parallel lines, and those 'clashings and +interminglings' of {217} atoms out of which he conceived all visible +forms to be produced, could never occur. He therefore laid it down +that the atoms _deviated_ the least little bit from the straight, thus +making a world possible. And Epicurus considered that this supposed +deviation of the atoms not only made a world possible, but human +freedom also. In the deviation, without apparent cause, of the +descending atoms, the law of necessity was broken, and there was room +on the one hand for man's free will, on the other, for prayer to the +gods, and for hope of their interference on our behalf. + +It may be worth while summarising the proofs which Lucretius in his +great poem, professedly following in the footsteps of Epicurus, adduces +for these various doctrines. + +Epicurus' first dogma is, 'Nothing proceeds from nothing,' that is, +every material object has some matter previously existing exactly equal +in quantity to it, out of which it was made. To prove this Lucretius +appeals to the _order of nature_ as seen in the seasons, in the +phenomena of growth, in the fixed relations which exist between life +and its environment as regards what is helpful or harmful, in the +limitation of size and of faculties in the several species and the +fixity of the characteristics generally in each, in the possibilities +of cultivation and improvement of species within certain limits and +under certain conditions. + +{218} + +To prove his second position, 'Nothing passes into nothing,' Lucretius +points out to begin with that there is a law even in destruction; +_force_ is required to dissolve or dismember anything; were it +otherwise the world would have disappeared long ago. Moreover, he +points out that it is from the elements set free by decay and death +that new things are built up; there is no waste, no visible lessening +of the resources of nature, whether in the generations of living +things, in the flow of streams and the fulness of ocean, or in the +eternal stars. Were it not so, infinite time past would have exhausted +all the matter in the universe, but Nature is clearly immortal. +Moreover, there is a correspondence between the structure of bodies and +the forces necessary to their destruction. Finally, apparent +violations of the law, when carefully examined, only tend to confirm +it. The rains no doubt disappear, but it is that their particles may +reappear in the juices of the crops and the trees and the beasts which +feed on them. + +Nor need we be surprised at the doctrine that the atoms, so +all-powerful in the formation of things, are themselves invisible. The +same is true of the forest-rending blasts, the 'viewless winds' which +lash the waves and overwhelm great fleets. There are odours also that +float unseen upon the air; there are heat, and cold, and voices. There +is the process of evaporation, whereby we know that the water has gone, +{219} yet cannot see its vapour departing. There is the gradual +invisible detrition of rings upon the finger, of stones hollowed out by +dripping water, of the ploughshare in the field, and the flags upon the +streets, and the brazen statues of the gods whose fingers men kiss as +they pass the gates, and the rocks that the salt sea-brine eats into +along the shore. + +That there is Empty Space or Void he proves by all the varied motions +on land and sea which we behold; by the porosity even of hardest +things, as we see in dripping caves. There is the food also which +disperses itself throughout the body, in trees and cattle. Voices pass +through closed doors, frost can pierce even to the bones. Things equal +in size vary in weight; a lump of wool has more of void in it than a +lump of lead. So much for Lucretius. + +For abstract theories on physics, except as an adjunct and support to +his moral conceptions, Epicurus seems to have had very little +inclination. He thus speaks of the visible universe or Cosmos. [373] +The Cosmos is a sort of skyey enclosure, which holds within it the +stars, the earth, and all visible things. It is cut off from the +infinite by a wall of division which may be either rare or dense, in +motion or at rest, round or three-cornered or any other form. That +there is such a wall of division is quite admissible, for no object of +which we have observation is without its limit. Were this wall of +division to {220} break, everything contained within it would tumble +out. We may conceive that there are an infinite number of such Cosmic +systems, with inter-cosmic intervals throughout the infinity of space. + +He is very disinclined to assume that similar phenomena, _e.g._ +eclipses of the sun or moon, always have the same cause. The various +accidental implications and interminglings of the atoms may produce the +same effect in various ways. In fact Epicurus has the same impatience +of theoretical physics as of theoretical philosophy. He is a +'practical man.' + +[378] + +He is getting nearer his object when he comes to the nature of the +soul. The soul, like everything else, is composed of atoms, extremely +delicate and fine. It very much resembles the breath, with a mixture +of heat thrown in, sometimes coming nearer in nature to the first, +sometimes to the second. Owing to the delicacy of its composition it +is extremely subject to variation, as we see in its passions and +liability to emotion, its phases of thought and the varied experiences +without which we cannot live. It is, moreover, the chief cause of +sensation being possible for us. Not that it could of itself have had +sensation, without the enwrapping support of the rest of the structure. +The rest of the structure, in fact, having prepared this chief cause, +gets from it a share of what comes to it, but not a share of all which +the soul has. + +The soul being of material composition equally {221} with the other +portions of the bodily structure, dies of course with it, that is, its +particles like the rest are dispersed, to form new bodies. There is +nothing dreadful therefore about death, for there is nothing left to +know or feel anything about it. + +As regards the process of sensation, Epicurus, like Democritus, +conceived bodies as having a power of emitting from their surface +extremely delicate images of themselves. These are composed of very +fine atoms, but, in spite of their tenuity, they are able to maintain +for a considerable time their relative form and order, though liable +after a time to distortion. They fly with great celerity through the +void, and find their way through the windows of the senses to the soul, +which by its delicacy of nature is in sympathy with them, and +apprehends their form. + +[379] + +The gods are indestructible, being composed of the very finest and +subtlest atoms, so as to have not a body, but _as it were_ a body. +Their life is one of perfect blessedness and peace. They are in number +countless; but the conceptions of the vulgar are erroneous respecting +them. They are not subject to the passions of humanity. Anger and joy +are alike alien to their nature; for all such feelings imply a lack of +strength. They dwell apart in the inter-cosmic spaces. As Cicero +jestingly remarks: "Epicurus by way of a joke introduced his gods so +pure that you could see through them, {222} so delicate that the wind +could blow through them, having their dwelling-place outside between +two worlds, for fear of breakage." + +[380] + +Coming finally to Epicurus' theory of Ethics, we find a general +resemblance to the doctrine of Democritus and Aristippus. The end of +life is pleasure or the absence of pain. He differs, however, from the +Cyrenaics in maintaining that not the pleasure of the moment is the +end, but pleasure throughout the whole of life, and that therefore we +ought in our conduct to have regard to the future. Further he denies +that pleasure exists only in activity, it exists equally in rest and +quiet; in short, he places more emphasis in his definition on the +absence of pain or disturbance, than on the presence of positive +pleasure. And thirdly, while the Cyrenaics maintained that bodily +pleasures and pains were the keenest, Epicurus claimed these +characteristics for the pleasures of the mind, which intensified the +present feeling by anticipations of the future and recollections of the +past. And thus the wise man might be happy, even on the rack. Better +indeed was it to be unlucky and wise, than lucky and foolish. In a +similar temper Epicurus on his death-bed wrote thus to a friend: "In +the enjoyment of blessedness and peace, on this the last day of my life +I write this letter to you. Strangury has supervened, and the +extremest agony of internal {223} pains, yet resisting these has been +my joy of soul, as I recalled the thoughts which I have had in the +past." + +[381] + +We must note, however, that while mental pleasures counted for much +with the Epicureans, these mental pleasures consisted not in thought +for thought's sake in any form; they had nothing to do with +contemplation. They were essentially connected with bodily +experiences; they were the memory of past, the anticipation of future, +bodily pleasures. For it is to be remembered that thoughts were with +Epicurus only converted sensations, and sensations were bodily +processes. Thus every joy of the mind was conditioned by a bodily +experience preceding it. Or as Metrodorus, Epicurus' disciple, defined +the matter: "A man is happy when his body is in good case, and he has +good hope that it will continue so." Directly or indirectly, +therefore, every happiness came back, in the rough phrase of Epicurus, +to one's belly at last. + +[382] + +This theory did not, however, reduce morality to bestial +self-indulgence. If profligate pleasures could be had free from mental +apprehensions of another world and of death and pain and disease in +this, and if they brought with them guidance as to their own proper +restriction, there would be no reason whatever to blame a man for +filling himself to the full of pleasures, which brought no pain or +sorrow, that is, {224} no evil, in their train. But (Epicurus argues) +this is far from being the case. Moreover there are many pleasures +keen enough at the time, which are by no means pleasant in the +remembering. And even when we have them they bring no enjoyment to the +highest parts of our nature. What those 'highest parts' are, and by +what standard their relative importance is determined, Epicurus does +not say. He probably meant those parts of our nature which had the +widest range in space and time, our faculties, namely, of memory and +hope, of conception, of sight and hearing. + +Moreover there are distinctions among desires; some are both natural +and compulsory, such as thirst; some are natural but not compulsory, as +the desire for dainties; some are neither natural nor compulsory, such +as the desire for crowns or statues. The last of these the wise man +will contemn, the second he will admit, but so as to retain his +freedom. For independence of such things is desirable, not necessarily +that we may reduce our wants to a minimum, but in order that if we +cannot enjoy many things, we may be content with few. "For I am +convinced," Epicurus continues, "that they have the greatest enjoyment +of wealth, who are least dependent upon it for enjoyment." + +Thus if Epicurus did not absolutely teach simplicity of living, he +taught his disciples the necessity of being capable of such simplicity, +which they could {225} hardly be without practice. So that in reality +the doctrine of Epicurus came very near that of his opponents. As +Seneca the Stoic observed, "Pleasure with him comes to be something +very thin and pale. In fact that law which we declare for virtue, the +same law he lays down for pleasure." + +One of the chief and highest pleasures of life Epicurus found in the +possession of friends, who provided for each other not only help and +protection, but a lifelong joy. For the 'larger friendship' of the +civic community, Epicurus seems to have had only a very neutral regard. +Justice, he says, is a convention of interests, with a view of neither +hurting or being hurt. The wise man will have nothing to do with +politics, if he can help it. + +In spite of much that may offend in the doctrines of Epicurus, there is +much at least in the man which is sympathetic and attractive. What one +observes, however, when we compare such a philosophy with that of Plato +or Aristotle, is first, a total loss of constructive imagination. The +parts of the 'philosophy,' if we are so to call it, of Epicurus hang +badly together, and neither the Canonics nor the Physics show any real +faculty of serious thinking at all. The Ethics has a wider scope and a +more real relation to experience if not to reason. But it can never +satisfy the deeper apprehension of mankind. + +The truest and most permanently valid revelations {226} of life come +not to the many but to the one or the few, who communicate the truth to +the many, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, always at the cost +of antagonism and ridicule. A philosophy therefore which only +represents in theoretical form the average practice of the average man, +comes into the world still-born. It has nothing to say; its hearers +know it all, and the exact value of it all, already. And in their +heart of hearts, many even of those who have stooped to a lower ideal, +and sold their birthright of hopes beyond the passing hour, for a mess +of pottage in the form of material success and easy enjoyment, have a +lurking contempt for the preachers of what they practise; as many a +slaveholder in America probably had for the clerical defenders of the +'divine institution.' + +There is a wasting sense of inadequacy in this 'hand-to-mouth' theory +of living, which compels most of those who follow it to tread softly +and speak moderately. They are generally a little weary if not +cynical; they don't think much of themselves or of their success; but +they prefer to hold on as they have begun, rather than launch out into +new courses, which they feel they have not the moral force to continue. +"May I die," said the Cynic, "rather than lead a life of pleasure." +"May I die," says the Epicurean, "rather than make a fool of myself." +The Idealist is to them, if not {227} a hypocrite, at least a +visionary,--if not a Tartuffe, at least a Don Quixote tilting at +windmills. Yet even for poor Don Quixote, with all his blindness and +his follies, the world retains a sneaking admiration. It can spare a +few or a good many of its worldly-wisdoms, rather than lose altogether +its enthusiasms and its dreams. And the one thing which saves +Epicureanism from utter extinction as a theory, is invariably the +idealism which like a 'purple patch' adorns it here and there. No man +and no theory is wholly self-centred. Pleasure is supplanted by +Utility, and Utility becomes the greatest Happiness of the greatest +Number, and so, as Horace says (_Ep._ I. x. 24)-- + + Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret, + +Nature (like Love) thrust out of the door, will come back by the +window; and the Idealism which is not allowed to make pain a pleasure, +is required at last to translate pleasure into pains. + + + + +{228} + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE STOICS + +_Semitic admixture--Closed fist and open hand--'Tabula rasa'--Necessity +of evil--Hymn of Cleanthes--Things indifferent--Ideal and +real--Philosophy and humanity_ + + +Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy (born _circa_ 340 +B.C.), was a native of Citium in Cyprus. The city was Greek, but with +a large Phoenician admixture. And it is curious that in this last and +sternest phase of Greek thought, not the founder only, but a large +proportion of the successive leaders of the school, came from this and +other places having Semitic elements in them. Among these places +notable as nurseries of Stoicism was Tarsus in Cilicia, the birthplace +of St. Paul. The times of preparation were drawing to a close; and +through these men, with their Eastern intensity and capacities of +self-searching and self-abasement, the philosophy of Greece was linking +itself on to the wisdom of the Hebrews. + +Zeno came to Athens to study philosophy, and for twenty years he was a +pupil first of Crates the Cynic, and then of other teachers. At length +he set up a school of his own in the celebrated _Stoa {229} Poecile_ +(Painted Colonnade), so named because it was adorned with frescoes by +Polygnotus. There he taught for nearly sixty years, and voluntarily +ended his life when close on a century old. His life, as Antigonus, +King of Macedon, recorded on his tomb, was consistent with his +doctrine--abstemious, [386] frugal, laborious, dutiful. He was +succeeded by Cleanthes, a native of Assos in Asia [387] Minor. But the +great constructor of the Stoic doctrine, without whom, as his +contemporaries said, there had been no Stoic school at all, was +Chrysippus, a native of Soli or of Tarsus in Cilicia. He wrote at +enormous length, supporting his teachings by an immense erudition, and +culling liberally from the poets to illustrate and enforce his views. +Learned and pedantic, his works had no inherent attraction, and nothing +of them but fragments has been preserved. We know the Stoic doctrine +mainly from the testimony and criticisms of later times. + +[389] + +Like the Epicureans, Zeno and his successors made philosophy primarily +a search for the chief good, a doctrine of practice and morals. But +like them they were impelled to admit a logic and a physics, at least +by way of preliminary basis to their [390] ethics. The relations of +the three they illustrated by various images. Philosophy was like an +animal; logic was its bones and sinews, ethics its flesh, physics its +life or soul. Or again, philosophy was {230} an egg; logic was the +shell, ethics the white, physics, the yolk. Or again, it was a +fruitful field; logic was the hedge, ethics the crop, physics the soil. +Or it was a city, well ordered and strongly fortified, and so on. The +images seem somewhat confused, but the general idea is clear enough. +Morality was the essential, the living body, of philosophy; physics +supplied its raw material, or the conditions under which a moral life +could be lived; logic secured that we should use that material rightly +and wisely for the end desired. + +[391] + +Logic the Stoics divided into two parts--Rhetoric, the 'science of the +open hand,' and Dialectic, the 'science of the closed fist,' as Zeno +called them. They indulged in elaborate divisions and subdivisions of +each, with which we need not meddle. The only points of interest to us +are contained in their analysis [392] of the processes of perception +and thought. A sensation, Zeno taught, was the result of an external +_impulse_, which when combined with an internal _assent_, produced a +mental state that revealed at the same time itself and the external +object producing it. The perception thus produced he compared to the +grip which the hand took of a solid object; and real perceptions, +those, that is, which were caused by a real external object, and not by +some illusion, always testified to the reality of their cause by this +sensation of 'grip.' + +{231} + +The internal assent of the mind was voluntary, and at the same time +necessary; for the mind could not do otherwise than will the acceptance +of that which it was fitted to receive. The peculiarity of their +physics, which we shall have to refer to later on, namely, the denial +of the existence of anything not material, implied that in some way +there was a material action of the external object on the structure of +the perceiving mind (itself also material). What exactly the nature of +this action was the Stoics themselves were not quite agreed. The idea +of an 'impression' such as a seal makes upon wax was a tempting one, +but they had difficulty in comprehending how there could be a multitude +of different impressions on the same spot without effacing each other. +Some therefore preferred the vaguer and safer expression, +'modification'; had they possessed our modern science, they might have +illustrated their meaning by reference to the phenomena of magnetism or +electricity. + +An interesting passage may be quoted from [393] Plutarch on the Stoic +doctrine of knowledge: "The Stoics maintain," he says, "that when a +human being is born, he has the governing part of his soul like a sheet +of paper ready prepared for the reception of writing, and on this the +soul inscribes in succession its various ideas. The first form of the +writing is produced through the senses. When we perceive, for example, +{232} a white object, the recollection remains when the object is gone. +And when many similar recollections have accumulated, we have what is +called _experience_. Besides the ideas which we get in this natural +and quite undesigned way, there are other ideas which we get through +teaching and information. In the strict sense only these latter ought +to be called ideas; the former should rather be called perceptions. +Now the rational faculty, in virtue of which we are called reasoning +beings, is developed out of, or over and beyond, the mass of +perceptions, in the second seven years' period of life. In fact a +thought may be defined as a kind of mental image, such as a rational +animal alone is capable of having." + +Thus there are various gradations of mental apprehensions; first, those +of sensible qualities obtained through the action of the objects and +the assent of the perceiving subject, as already described; then by +experience, by comparison, by analogy, by the combinations of the +reasoning faculty, further and more general notions are arrived at, and +conclusions formed, as, for example, that the gods exist and exercise a +providential care over the world. By this faculty also the wise man +ascends to the apprehension of the good and true. + +The physics of the Stoics started from the fundamental [398] +proposition that in the universe of things there were two elements--the +active and the passive. {233} The latter was Matter or unqualified +existence; the former was the reason or qualifying element in Matter, +that is, God, who being eternal, is the fashioner of every individual +thing throughout the universe of matter. God is One; He is Reason, and +Fate, and Zeus. In fact all the gods are only various representations +of His faculties and powers. He being from the beginning of things by +Himself, turneth all existence through air to water. And even as the +genital seed is enclosed in the semen, so also was the seed of the +world concealed in the water, making its matter apt for the further +birth of things; then first it brought into being the four +elements--fire, water, air, earth. For there was a finer fire or air +which was the moving spirit of things; later and lower than this were +the material elements of fire and air. It follows that the universe of +things is threefold; there is first God Himself, the source of all +character and individuality, who is indestructible and eternal, the +fashioner of all things, who in certain cycles of ages gathers up all +things into Himself, and then out of Himself brings them again to +birth; there is the matter of the universe whereon God works; and +thirdly, there is the union of the two. Thus the world is governed by +reason and forethought, and this reason extends through every part, +even as the soul or life extends to every part of us. The universe +therefore is a living thing, having a {234} soul or reason in it. This +soul or reason one teacher likened to the air, another to the sky, +another to the sun. For the soul of nature is, as it were, a finer air +or fire, having a power of creation in it, and moving in an ordered way +to the production of things. + +[399] + +The universe is one and of limited extension, being spherical in form, +for this is the form which best adapts itself to movement. Outside +this universe is infinite bodiless space; but within the universe there +is no empty part; all is continuous and united, as is proved by the +harmony of relation which exists between the heavenly bodies and those +upon the earth. The world as such is destructible, for its parts are +subject to change and to decay; yet is this change or destruction only +in respect of the qualities imposed upon it from time to time by the +Reason inherent in it; the mere unqualified Matter remains +indestructible. + +[408] + +In the universe evil of necessity exists; for evil being the opposite +of good, where no evil is there no good can be. For just as in a +comedy there are absurdities, which are in themselves bad, but yet add +a certain attraction to the poem as a whole, so also one may blame evil +regarded in itself, yet for the whole it is not without its use. So +also God is the cause of death equally with birth; for even as cities +when the inhabitants have multiplied overmuch, {235} remove their +superfluous members by colonisation or by war, so also is God a cause +of destruction. In man in like manner good cannot exist save with +evil; for wisdom being a knowledge of good and evil, remove the evil +and wisdom itself goes. Disease and other natural evils, when looked +at in the light of their effects, are means not of evil but of good; +there is throughout the universe a balance and interrelation of good +and evil. Not that God hath in Himself any evil; the law is not the +cause of lawlessness, nor God Himself responsible for any violation of +right. + +[404] + +The Stoics indulged in a strange fancy that the world reverted after a +mighty cycle of years in all its parts to the same form and structure +which it possessed at the beginning, so that there would be once more a +Socrates, a Plato, and all the men that had lived, each with the same +friends and fellow-citizens, the same experiences, and the same +endeavours. At the termination of each cycle there was a burning up of +all things, and thereafter a renewal of the great round of life. + +[408] + +Nothing incorporeal, they maintained, can be affected by or affect that +which is corporeal; body alone can affect body. The soul therefore +must be corporeal. Death is the separation of soul from body, but it +is impossible to separate what is incorporeal from body; therefore, +again, the soul must {236} be corporeal. In the belief of Cleanthes, +the souls of all creatures remained to the next period of cyclic +conflagration; Chrysippus believed that only the souls of the wise and +good remained. + +[413] + +Coming finally to the Ethics of the Stoic philosophy, we find for the +chief end of life this definition, 'A life consistent with itself,' or, +as it was otherwise expressed, 'A life consistent with Nature.' The +two definitions are really identical; for the law of nature is the law +of our nature, and the reason in our being the reason which also is in +God, the supreme Ruler of the universe. This is substantially in +accordance with the celebrated law of right action laid down by Kant, +"Act so that the maxim of thine action be capable of being made a law +of universal action." Whether a man act thus or no, by evil if not by +good the eternal law will satisfy itself; the question is of import +only for the man's own happiness. Let his will accord with the +universal will, then the law will be fulfilled, and the man will be +happy. Let his will resist the universal will, then the law will be +fulfilled, but the man will bear the penalty. This was expressed by +Cleanthes in a hymn which ran somewhat thus-- + + Lead me, O Zeus most great, + And thou, Eternal Fate: + What way soe'er thy will doth bid me travel + That way I'll follow without fret or cavil. + {237} + Or if I evil be + And spurn thy high decree, + Even so I still shall follow, soon or late. + + +Thus in the will alone consists the difference of good or ill for us; +in either case Nature's great law fulfils itself infallibly. To their +view on this point we may apply the words of Hamlet: "If it be now, +'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not +now, yet it will come; the _readiness_ is all." + +This universal law expresses itself in us in various successive +manifestations. From the moment of birth it implants in us a supreme +self-affection, whereby of infallible instinct we seek our own +self-preservation, rejoice in that which is suitable to our existence, +shrink from that which is unsuitable. As we grow older, further and +higher principles manifest themselves--reason and reflection, a more +and more careful and complete apprehension of that which is honourable +and advantageous, a capacity of choice among goods. Till finally the +surpassing glory of that which is just and honourable shines out so +clear upon us, that any pain or loss is esteemed of no account, if only +we may attain to that. Thus at last, by the very law of our being, we +come to know that nothing is truly and absolutely good but goodness, +nothing absolutely bad but sin. Other things, inasmuch as they have no +character of moral good {238} or moral evil, cannot be deemed really +good or bad; in comparison with the absolutely good, they are things +indifferent, though in comparison with each other they may be +relatively preferable or relatively undesirable. Even pleasure and +pain, so far as concerns the absolute end or happiness of our being, +are things indifferent; we cannot call them either good or evil. Yet +have they a relation to the higher law, for the consciousness of them +was so implanted in us at the first that our souls by natural impulse +are drawn to pleasure, while they shrink from pain as from a deadly +enemy. Wherefore reason neither can nor ought to seek wholly to +eradicate these primitive and deep-seated affections of our nature; but +so to exercise a resisting and ordering influence upon them, as to +render them obedient and subservient to herself. + +[415] + +That which is absolutely good--wisdom, righteousness, courage, +temperance--does good only and never ill to us. All other +things,--life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, reputation, +birth,--and their opposites,--death, disease, pain, deformity, +weakness, poverty, contempt, humility of station,--these are in +themselves neither a benefit nor a curse. They may do us good, they +may do us harm. We may use them for good, we may use them for evil. + +[417] + +Thus the Stoics worked out on ideal and absolute lines the thought of +righteousness as the chief and {239} only good. Across this ideal +picture were continually being drawn by opponents without or inquirers +within, clouds of difficulty drawn from real experience. 'What,' it +was asked, 'of _progress_ in goodness? Is this a middle state between +good and evil; or if a middle state between good and evil be a +contradiction, in terms, how may we characterise it?' Here the wiser +teachers had to be content to answer that it _tended_ towards good, was +good in possibility, would be absolutely good when the full attainment +came, and the straining after right had been swallowed up in the +perfect calm of settled virtue. + +'How also of the wise man tormented by pain, or in hunger and poverty +and rags, is his perfectness of wisdom and goodness really sufficient +to make him happy?' Here, again, the answer had to be hesitating and +provisional, through no fault of the Stoics. In this world, while we +are still under the strange dominion of time and circumstance, the +ideal can never wholly fit the real. There must still be difficulty +and incompleteness here, only to be solved and perfected 'when iniquity +shall have an end.' Our eyes may fail with looking upward, yet the +upward look is well; and the jibes upon the Stoic 'king in rags' that +Horace and others were so fond of, do not affect the question. It may +have been, and probably often was, the case that Stoic teachers {240} +were apt to transfer to themselves personally the ideal attributes, +which they justly assigned to the ideal man in whom wisdom was +perfected. The doctrine gave much scope for cant and mental pride and +hypocrisy, as every ideal doctrine does, including the Christian. But +the existence of these vices in individuals no more affected the +doctrine of an ideal goodness in its Stoic form, than it does now in +its Christian one. That only the good man is truly wise or free or +happy; that vice, however lavishly it surround itself with luxury and +ease and power, is inherently wretched and foolish and slavish;--these +are things which are worth saying and worth believing, things, indeed, +which the world dare not and cannot permanently disbelieve, however +difficult or even impossible it may be to mark men off into two +classes, the good and the bad, however strange the irony of +circumstance which so often shows the wicked who 'are not troubled as +other men, neither are they plagued like other men; they have more than +their heart could wish,' while good men battle with adversity, often in +vain. Still will the permanent, fruitful, progressive faith of man +'look to the end'; still will the ideal be powerful to plead for the +painful right, and spoil, even in the tasting, the pleasant wrong. + +The doctrine, of course, like every doctrine worth anything, was pushed +to extravagant lengths, and {241} thrust into inappropriate quarters, +by foolish doctrinaires. As that the wise man is the only orator, +critic, poet, physician, nay, cobbler if you please; that the wise man +knows all that is to be known, and can do everything that is worth +doing, and so on. The school was often too academic, too abstract, too +fond of hearing itself talk. This, alas! is what most schools are, and +most schoolmasters. + +Yet the Stoics were not altogether alien to the ordinary interests and +duties of life. They admitted a duty of co-operating in politics, at +least in such states as showed some desire for, or approach to, virtue. +They approved of the wise man taking part in education, of his marrying +and bringing up children, both for his own sake and his country's. He +will be ready even to 'withdraw himself from life on behalf of his +country or his friends. This 'withdrawal,' which was their word for +suicide, came unhappily to be much in the mouths of later, and +especially of the Roman, Stoics, who, in the sadness and restraint of +prevailing despotism, came to thank God that no one was compelled to +remain in life; he might 'withdraw' when the burden of life, the +hopelessness of useful activity, became too great. + +With this sad, stern, yet not undignified note, the philosophy of +Greece speaks its last word. The later scepticism of the New Academy, +directed mainly to a negative criticism of the crude enough logic of +the {242} Stoics, or of the extravagances of their ethical doctrine, +contributed no substantial element to thought or morals. As an +eclectic system it had much vogue, side by side with Stoicism and +Epicureanism, among the Romans, having as its chief exponent Cicero, as +Epicureanism had Lucretius, and Stoicism, Seneca. + +The common characteristic of all these systems in their later +developments, is their _cosmopolitanism_. _Homo sum, nil humani a me +alienum puto_, 'I am a man; nothing appertaining to humanity do I deem +alien from myself,' this was the true keynote of whatever was vital in +any of them. And the reason of this is not far to seek. We have seen +already (p. 82) how the chaos of sophistic doctrine was largely +conditioned, if not produced, by the breakdown of the old civic life of +Greece. The process hardly suffered delay from all the efforts of +Socrates and Plato. Cosmopolitanism was already a point of union +between the Cynics and Cyrenaics (see p. 128). And the march of +politics was always tending in the same direction. First through great +leagues, such as the Spartan or Athenian or Theban, each with a +predominant or tyrannical city at the head; then later through the +conquest of Greece by Alexander, and the leaguing of all Greek-speaking +peoples in the great invasion of Asia; then through the spread of Greek +letters all over the Eastern {243} world, and the influx upon Greek +centres such as Athens and Alexandria, of all manner of foreign +intelligences; and finally, through the conquest of all this teeming +world of culture by the discipline and practical ability of Rome, and +its incorporation in a universal empire of law, all the barriers which +had divided city from city and tribe from tribe and race from race +disappeared, and only a common humanity remained. + +The only effective philosophies for such a community were those which +regarded man as an _individual_, with a world politically omnipotent +hedging him about, and driving him in upon himself. Thus the New +Academy enlarged on the doubtfulness of all beyond the individual +consciousness; Stoicism insisted on individual dutifulness, +Epicureanism on individual self-satisfaction. The first sought to make +life worth living through culture, the second through indifference, the +third through a moderate enjoyment. But all alike felt themselves very +helpless in face of the growing sadness of life, in face of the +deepening mystery of the world beyond. All alike were controversial, +and quick enough to ridicule their rivals; none was hopefully +constructive, or (unless in the poetic enthusiasm of a Lucretius) very +confident of the adequacy of its own conceptions. They all rather +quickened the sense of emptiness in human existence, than satisfied it; +{244} at the best they enabled men to "absent themselves a little while +from the felicity of death." + +Thus all over the wide area of Greek and Roman civilisation, the +activity of the later schools was effectual to familiarise humanity +with the language of philosophy, and to convince humanity of the +inadequacy of its results. Both of these things the Greeks taught to +Saul of Tarsus; at a higher Source he found the satisfying of his soul; +but from the Greek philosophies he learned the language through which +the new Revelation was to be taught in the great world of Roman rule +and Grecian culture. And thus through the Pauline theology, Greek +philosophy had its part in the moral regeneration of the world; as it +has had, in later times, in every emancipation and renascence of its +thought. + + + + +{245} + +INDEX + + +Abdera, birthplace of Democritus, 74; of Protagoras, 86 + +Absolute knowledge, unattainable by man, 19; absorption in, 133; no +separate existence, 182 + +Abstract ideas not derivable from experience, 45; abstract truth +impossible, 87; of no value, 132; revival of, 133 + +Academus, grove of, 135 + +Achilles and tortoise, 44; death of, 139 + +Acroatic, kind of lectures, 175 + +Actuality, see _Realisation_. + +Agrigentum, birthplace of Empedocles, 59 + +Air, beginning of things, 14 + +Alcestis, referred to, 139 + +Alcibiades, dialogue, 137 + +Alexander, relations with Aristotle, 174; influence of conquests of, 242 + +Anarchy, in politics and in philosophy, 83; reaction against, by +Socrates, 102 + +Anaxagoras, 52; relation of Empedocles to, 62; quoted by Aristotle, 200 + +Anaximander, 7 + +Anaximenes, 14 + +Anthropomorphism, criticised, 32 + +Antigonus, friend of Zeno, 229 + +Antisthenes, 128 + +Apology, dialogue, 136 + +Appetite, the only reality, 96 + +Archilochus, criticised by Heraclitus, 16 + +Aristippus, 124 + +Aristocracy, in politics and in philosophy, 82 + +Aristotle, on Thales, 4; on Xenophanes, 32; on Zeno, 42; on Melissus, +47; on Anaxagoras, 54; on Empedocles, 59, 63, 70; a complete Socratic, +103; on Socrates, 106; on Sophists, 115; debt to Plato, 159; on Plato, +163; chapters on, 172 _sqq._; his fresh contributions to Academic +philosophy, 173; two classes of lectures, 175; library, _ib._; +predominance of, 176; style, 177; differences from Plato, 178 + +Art, a greater revealer than science, 66; relation of Love to, 137; a +mode of creation, 139 + +Asceticism, of Cynics, 128; of Plato, 168; of Epicurus, 225 + +Atarneus, residence of Aristotle, 174 + +Athens, visited by Parmenides and Zeno, 34, 42, 157; residence of +Anaxagoras, 52; centre of sophistry, 85; birthplace of Socrates, 103; +visited by Aristippus, 124; birthplace of Antisthenes, 129; and of +Plato, 134; dialogue in praise of, 137; residence of Aristotle, 173; of +Epicurus, 211 + +Atlantis, kingdom of, 153 + +Atomists, 52; revived theory of, 215 + +Atoms, constituents of nature, 76, 216; deviation of, 216 + + +Beauty, one aspect of ideal, 110; relation to creative instinct, 139; +science of universal beauty, 141 + +Becoming, the fundamental principle, 16; passage from Being to, 36, 39 + +Beginning (_arche_), of Thales, 3; Aristotle's definition, 4; +difficulties of material theories of, 36l + +Being, eternal being like a sphere, 32; passage from, to Becoming, 36, +39; a co-equal element with Nonentity, 75; analysis of, 159; and the +Other, 165 + +Body, realisation of soul, 27; a prison, 28; unthinkable except with +reference to space, 75; source of illusion, 164 + + +Canonics, form of logic, 215 + +Cause, three causes, 110; equals essence, 167; first causes subject of +philosophy, 179; relation of, to potentiality, 185 + +Cave, of this life, 148, 166 + +Chaldaea, visited by Pythagoras, 22; by Democritus, 74 + +Change, how account for, 10, 35, 39, 75 + +Chaos, of the Atomists, 53; of Empedocles, 69; king in philosophy, 83; +life not a chaos, 105 + +Charmides, dialogue, 136 + +Christ, brings sword, 99; kingdom of, 149 + +Chrysippus, successor of Cleanthes, 229 + +Cicero, mistranslates Pythagoras, 28; criticises Epicurus, 212, 221; +exponent of New Academy, 242 + +Citium, birthplace of Zeno, 228 + +Clazomenae, birthplace of Anaxagoras, 52 + +Cleanthes, successor of Zeno, 229; hymn of, 236 + +Codrus, Plato descended from, 134; sacrifice of, 139 + +Colophon, birthplace of Xenophanes, 31 + +Commonplaces, function of, in sophistry, 84 + +Community of wives, 148; ideal community, 149 (and see _State_) + +Contradiction, philosophy of, 65 + +Cosmogony, of Democritus, 77; of Plato, 150; of Aristotle, 200; of +Epicurus, 219; of the Stoics, 231 + +Cosmopolitanism, of Cyrenaics and Cynics, 128; of later systems, 242 + +Courage, treated of in _Laches_, 136 + +Cratylus, dialogue, 137 + +Creation, a great expiation, 73; in the soul, 139; working out of God's +image, 151; union of Essence and Matter, 167 + +Criterion, feeling the only, 127 + +Critias, dialogue, 153 + +Crito, dialogue, 136 + +Crux, in philosophy, 190 + +Cynic, origin of name, 130; influence of school on Plato, 154; _v._ +Epicurean, 226 + +Cyrene, seat of Cyrenaic school, 124; visited by Plato, 134; influence +of school on Plato, 154 + + +Death, birth of the soul, 19 + +Deduction, _v._ Induction, 48; function of, in Aristotle, 184 + +Definitions, search for, by Socrates, 106; of no value, 132; rules for, +laid down by Plato, 156 + +Democritus, 74; relation of Epicurus to, 216 + +Demonstrative science, based on abstraction, 11 + +Desire, part of soul, 28, 169; thought without, gives no motive, 191; +distinctions among, 224 + +Destruction, meaning of, 53 + +Dialectic, Parmenides founder of, 39; Zeno inventor of, 42; Platonic +theory of, 164, 171 + +Dichotomy, invented by Zeno, 43 + +Difference (see _Essence_), all difference quantitative, 76; +conditioned by dissimilarity in atoms, 77 + +Dilemma, Melissus' use of, 46 + +Diogenes, pupil of Antisthenes, 130 + +Dionysius, elder and younger, connection of Plato with, 135 + +Diotima, conversation of, with Socrates, 137 + +Dry light, 19 + +Dualism, unthinkable, 32; in nature, 38; of Plato and Aristotle, 184 + +Dynamic, see _Potentiality_ + + +Earth, principle in nature, 38 + +Education, preparation for heaven, 148; ideal, 149; true function of, +169; three stages, 170; an entelechy, 191 + +Egypt, visited by Pythagoras, 22; Democritus, 74; Plato, 135 + +Elea, seat of Eleatic school, 30; birthplace of Parmenides, 33 + +Eleatics, relation of Empedocles to, 62; of Democritus, 75; of Plato, +154, 165 + +Elements, the four, 62; in creation, 151; in body and in soul, 156 + +Empedocles, 58 + +Ends of Life, indifference as to, 96; importance in later Greek +philosophy, 125; Plato's view of, 168; Aristotle's, 193; Epicurean, 222 + +Entelechy, Life, 186, 190; God, 188; Thought, _ib._; Education, 191; +Morality, 193; State, 197; physical world, 199; Soul, 203 + +Ephesus, birthplace of Heraclitus, 15 + +Epicurus, 211; praises of, by Lucretius, 212; garden of, 213; relation +to Democritus, 216 + +Essence _v._ Difference, 48; equals Cause, 167 + +Euclides, 132 + +Euripides, friend of Anaxagoras, 52 + +Euthydemus, conversation with Socrates, 116; dialogue, 137 + +Euthyphro, dialogue, 136 + +Even, _v._ Odd, 24 + +Evil, origin of, 33; necessary on earth, 168; God cause of evil, but +hath none, 234 + +Evolution, Anaximander's conception of, 12; Xenophanes' theory of, 33; +relation of, to fundamental conception of Being, _ib._; view of +Empedocles, 70 + +Existence, an idea prior to Time and Space, 37; not given by +Experience, 45; four forms of, 166; philosophy treats of existence as +such, 181 + +Exoteric kind of lectures, 175 + + +Female, see _Male_ + +Fire, original of things, 17; one of two principles, 38 + +Flux, of all things, 16; of life, 27, 73; sophistic theory of, 87 + +Form _v._ Matter, 25, 48; Aristotle's theory of, 203 + +Formulae, never adequate, 122 + +Freewill, problem of, 33; relation to law, 113; and overruling +providence, 155 + +Friendship, treated of in _Lysis_, 136 + + +Genus, has less of existence than species, 183 + +God, soul of the world, 27; the Odd-Even, 26; the universe His +self-picturing, 26; God is one, 32; not a function of matter, 33; +atomic origin of idea of, 80; the law or ideal in the universe, 112; +Man the friend of God, 142; works out His image in creation, 151; God's +thought and God's working, 152; is Mind universal, 164; cause of union +in creation, 166; His visible images in Man and Nature, _ib._; cause +both of good and of knowledge, 166; thoughts of, eternally existing, +187; an entelechy, 188; Epicurean theory of, 221; Stoic theory of, 233 + +Golden age, 73 + +Gorgias, 92; Antisthenes pupil of, 129; dialogue, 137 + +Greek _v._ Modern difficulties, 158 + +Gymnastic, function of, 170 + + +Habit, Aristotle's definition of, 195 + +Happiness, chief good, 193; reason standard of, 196 + +Harmony, the eternal, 19; soul a harmony, 29 + +Hecataeus, referred to by Herodotus, 2 + +Hegel, philosophic system of, 159 + +Heraclitus, 15; _v._ Democritus, 74; Plato student of, 134; relation of +Plato to, 163 + +Hercules, patron-god of Cynics, 130 + +Herodotus, notices Hecataeus, 2 + +Hesiod, praised, 139 + +Hippias, dialogue, 137 + +Homer, criticised by Heraclitus, 16; anthropomorphism of, 31; praised, +139 + +Horace, quoted, 125 + +Humanitarianism, began in scepticism, 99 + +Humanity, granted only to possessors of eternal truth, 145 + +Husk, symbol of evolution, 12 + + +Idea, exists prior to sensation, 143; eternal in universe, 150; +rational element in sensation, 152; Platonic criticism of, 157; +universals are ideas of real existences, 163; things partake of, 164; +relation of, to Pythagorean 'Numbers,' 167; Aristotelian criticism of, +181; necessarily prior to sensation, 187 + +Ideal, struggle of old and new, 99; in the arts, 110; has three +aspects, Justice, Beauty, Utility, _ib._; great ideal in the universe, +112; can never wholly fit the real, 239 + +Idealism, _v._ Practicality, 4, 96; Parmenides founder of, 39; _v._ +Realism, 51; _v._ Epicureanism, 216 + +Immortality, aspect of, to Greeks, 40; Parmenides pioneer for, 41; +_Phaedo_ dialogue on, 136; Love and immortality, 138; of soul, 150; +relation of doctrine to Platonic recollection, 154; faith as to, 155; +Man must put on, 168; Aristotle's view of, 207 + +Inconsistency, not forbidden in philosophy, 64 + +Individual, _v._ Universal, 99; relation of, to community, 147, 196; +reality of, 184; importance of, in later systems, 243 + +Individualism, in philosophy, 83, 85; not wholly bad, 98; required +reconciling with universalism, 100 + +Induction (see Deduction); Socrates inventor of, 106; Plato's +contributions to, 160; function of, in Aristotle, 184 + +Infinite or indefinite, origin of things, 8; function of, in +mathematics, 10; relation to definite, 24, 26, 165 + +Infinity, origin of idea of, 46 + +Intellect, division of soul, 28, 169 + +Ion, dialogue, 136 + +Irony, of Socrates, 105 + + +Jowett, Prof., quoted, 39, 43, 89, 138, 142, 153, 158 + +Judgment, vision of, 150 + +Justice, a cheating device, 95; one form of ideal or universal, 110; +related to law and to utility, 120; the fairest wisdom, 139; dialogue +on, 146; only interest of stronger, 147; writ large in state, 147; +perfection of whole man, and of state, 169; a civic quality +restraining, 198; Epicurean theory of, 225 + + +Kant, his _Critic_ referred to, 158; maxim of, 236 + +Knowledge, _v._ Opinion, 33, 35, 51; impossible, 93; really exists, +164; first causes pertain to, 179; must have real object, 183; +potential and actual, 203 + +'Know thyself,' 113; dialogue on, 137 + + +Laches, dialogue, 136 + +Lampsacus, place of death of Anaxagoras, 57 + +Laughing philosopher, 74 + +Law, in universe, 112; relation to Freewill, 113; relation to Justice, +120; fulfilled through Love, 122; Laws, dialogue, 160; potential and +actual, 192 + +Leontini, birthplace of Gorgias, 92 + +Leucippus, 74 + +Life, death of the soul, 19; a prison, 28; a sentinel-post, _ib._; a +union of contradictories, 66; a dwelling in cave, 148; organic idea of, +185; an entelechy, 190; different kinds of, 194; Aristotle's +definition, 203 + +Listeners, in Pythagorean system, 23 + +Logic, Parmenides founder of, 39; Zeno inventor of, 42; contributions +of Plato and Aristotle to, 159; governing idea of Aristotle's, 184; of +Epicurus, 215; Stoic divisions of, 230 + +Love, motive force in Nature, 38; one of two principles, 38, 63; +fulfilling of the law, 122; dialogues on, 137, 144; pure and impure, 145 + +Lucretius, praises Empedocles, 59; Epicurus, 212; proofs by, of +Epicurus' theory, 217; exponent of Roman Epicureanism, 242 + +Lyceum, school of Aristotle, 174 + +Lycurgus, praised, 140 + +Lysis, dialogue, 136 + + +Magnet, soul of, 6 + +Male and Female, Pythagorean view of, 24; principles in Nature, 38; +equality of, 148; correlative, 167; basis of State, 197 + +Man, measure of truth, 87; working with Eternal Mind, 155; Does Man +partake in God's ideas? 158; differentia of, possession of reason, 191; +function of, 193; a political animal, 197; wisest of animals, why? 200 + +Materialism, ancient and modern, 57; of Epicureans, 220; of Stoics, 233 + +Mathematicians, in system of Pythagoras, 23 + +Mathematics, based on indefinables, 10; function of, in Pythagorean +philosophy, 25; and in Platonic, 170 + +Matter (see _Mind_), _v._ Thought, 48; another name for the formless, +151, 167; correlative of Mind, 167; what it symbolises, 184; relation +to Form, 203 + +Mechanical theory, of universe, 56, 78; of virtue, 195 + +Megara, birthplace of Euclides, 132; influence of school on Plato, 154 + +Melissus, 46 + +Menexenus, dialogue, 137 + +Meno, dialogue, 136; relation to Aristotle's doctrine, 191 + +Midwifery of Socrates, 104 + +Might, without Right is weak, 147; is Right in tyrant, 149 + +Miletus, birthplace of Thales, 1; of Anaximander, 7; of Anaximenes, 14 + +Mind, _v._ Matter, 51, 167; function of, in the universe, 54; God's +mind working on matter, 151; ruler of universe, 155; must rule +pleasure, 156; home of ideas, 164; correlative of matter, 167; passive +and creative, 207 + +Moist or base element, 18 + +Monarchy, in politics and in philosophy, 82 + +Morality, a convention, 95, 126; traditional morality of Greece +required remodelling, 98; question as to origin solved by Socrates, +121; can never exhaust Subject, 188; an entelechy, 192; potential and +actual, 194 + +Motion, animal, how accounted for, 79 + +Multiplicity, see _Unity_ + +Music, of the spheres, 27; of seven planets, 151; function of, in +education, 29, 170 + +Myth, of Steeds, 144; of Judgment, 150; of Creation, 152; philosophers +fond of, 178 + + +Names, approximations to reality, 165 + +Nature, treatises on, 16, 34, 46, 217; a reason in, 37; male and female +principles in, 38; Love motive force in, _ib._; the non-existent, 92; +'touch of nature,' 191; Aristotle's conception of, 199; violations of, +201; order of, 217; clearly immortal, 218; a life consistent with, 236 + +Necessity, creative power, 38, 63; how used by Democritus, 78; +Aristotle's conception of, 201 + +Neleus, family (owners of Aristotle's library), 175 + +Nicomachus, father of Aristotle, 172 + +Notions, Epicurus' view of, 215 + +Number, original of things, 24; relation of ideas to, 167 + + +Obedience, through disobedience, 122 + +Obscure, epithet of Heraclitus, 15 + +Odd, _v._ Even, 24 + +Opinion, _v._ Knowledge, 33, 35 + +Oracle, answer of, respecting Socrates, 107; maxim engraved on, 113 + +Organism, idea of, in Aristotle, 185, 205 + +Organon, of Aristotle, 159 + +Origination, meaning of, 53, 62 + +Other, the 'Other' of Plato, 165 + + +Pains, classification of, 131; converted into pleasures, 131, 227; +moral function of, 238 + +Pantheistic apathy, 20 + +Parmenides, 33; relation of Zeno to, 42; visited Athens, 157; dialogue, +_ib._ + +Particular, see _Universal_ + +Passion, part of soul, 28, 169 + +Paul, St., influence of Stoicism on, 228; relation of, to Greek +philosophy, 244 + +Pericles, friend of Anaxagoras, 52; and of Protagoras, 86 + +Peripatetics, origin of name, 174 + +Personality, absence of, in Greek thought, 40 + +Persuasion, only true wisdom, 88 + +Phaedo, quoted from, 54; dialogue, 136 + +Phaedrus, dialogue, 142 + +Phenomena, not source of abstract ideas, 15 + +Philebus, dialogue, 156 + +Philosophy, different from science, 9; does not forbid inconsistency, +64; a form of poesy or fiction, 66; at the basis of religion, art, and +morals, 67; great philosophies never die, 68; first systematically +divided by Democritus, 75; relation to politics, 82, 97; paradox of, +100; crisis of, _ib._; of nature and of moral, 101; a means of social +culture, 125; relation of Love to, 137; must rule on earth, 149; only +makes happy guesses in science, 152; origin of, 178; investigates first +causes, 179; crux in, 190; Epicurus' definition of, 214; a search for +chief good, 229 + +Plato, criticism of Protagoras, 89; a _complete_ Socratic, 103: took +refuge with Euclides, 132, 134; compared to Shakespeare, 134; as +psychologist, 155; central doctrines of, 155; dogma impossible, 162; +Aristotle on, 163; relation to Heraclitus, _ib._; and to the Eleatics, +165; relation of Aristotle to, 178, 181; his mistake as to universals, +182 + +Pleasure, end of life, 126; contempt of, 131; reason gives law to, 149; +is it chief good? 156; Epicurean theory of, 222; moral function of, 238 + +Politics, relation to philosophy, 82, 97; influence of sophistry upon, +88 + +Politicus, see _Statesman_ + +Potentiality (Dynamic idea), how used by Aristotle, 185; of feeling, +195; equals matter, 203 + +Practicality, _v._ Idealism, 4 + +Predication, Epicurus' view of, 215 + +Propositions, _v._ Things, 189 + +Protagoras, 85; Plato's criticism of, 89; dialogue, 136 + +Protoplasm, explains nothing, 37 + +Punishment, Sophistic theory of, 88 + +Pyrrho, founder of Scepticism, 211 + +Pythagoras, 23 + + +Quinta Essentia, origin of, 202 + +Quixote, the world admires, 227 + + +Realisation (Actuality), correlative of potentiality, 185; relation to +Plato's Recollection, 188; chief good, 194 + +Reality, standard of, 40, 51; distinction between, and appearance, +abolished, 83, 87; no necessary relation between thought and reality, +94; the only reality appetite, 96; thoughts of God the only reality, +164; approximations to, 165; ideal can never wholly fit, 239 + +Reason, function of, 37, 56; corrector of the senses, 61; governs +evolution, 70; worse made to appear better, 84; realises itself through +individuals, 114; gives law to pleasure, 149, 156; man possesses, 191; +actual and latent, 192; partly obedient, partly contemplative, 194; an +element in Habit, 195; an impersonal ruler, 196 + +Recollection (or Reminiscence), departure and renewal of knowledge, +138; doctrine of, in Plato, 142; Platonic criticism of, 154; nature of, +165; relation of Aristotle's theory to, 188 + +Reminiscence, see _Recollection_ + +Republic, dialogue, 146; relation of, to Aristotle's doctrine, 192 + +Revelation, how criticise? 158 + +Right, Might without, is weak, 147 + + +Samos, birthplace of Pythagoras, 23; of Melissus, 46; of Epicurus, 211 + +Scepticism, its isolating influence, 94; destroys not appetite, but +moral restraint, 95; represented birth of new conditions, 98; phase of +decay in distinctively Greek life, 211 + +Science, philosophy different from, 9; happy guesses in, 152; +different kinds of, 180; can never exhaust object, 188 + +Scrip and staff, emblems of Cynics, 130 + +Semitic elements in later Greek philosophy, 228 + +Seneca, on Epicurus, 225; exponent of Roman Stoicism, 242 + +Senses (or Sensation), channel for the eternal wisdom, 18; data of, no +measure of reality, 40; not source of ideas, 45; untrustworthy, 49; +necessary to truth, 56; no test of truth, 60; relation to reason, 61; +based on composite character of body, 71; atomic theory of, 79; give no +absolute truth, 80; no distinction between, and thing or mind, 87; +reaction of moral theory on theory of sensation, 102; invalid as +against reason, 133; has rational elements conditioning, 151; universal +cannot belong to, 163; universals furthest removed from, 180; only +source of knowledge, 214; Epicurean theory of emission, 221; Stoic +theory, 230 + +Shakespeare, Plato compared to, 134 + +Sicily, birthplace of Empedocles, 58; connection with rise of +Sophistry, 84, 86, 92; connection of Plato with, 135 + +Sin, willing and unwilling, 121 + +Sinope, birthplace of Diogenes, 130 + +Sleep, cuts us off from eternal wisdom, 18 + +Socrates, 101; relation to Anaxagoras, 54; his doctrine in general, +100; marks a parting of ways, 103; warning 'voice' or 'daemon' of, 104; +philosophic midwifery, _ib._; irony, 105; not an expositor, 115; +relation to Sophists, _ib._; Aristippus student of, 124; criticises +Antisthenes, 129; Plato pupil of, 134; dialogue concerning, 136; +conversation of Diotima with, 137; in _Republic_, 146 + +Socratics, complete and incomplete, 103; incomplete, 125, 128 + +Solon, Plato descended from, 134; praised, 140 + +Sophists, 82; name first used by Protagoras, 85; influence of, on +politics, 88, 97; refuted by the arts, 111; relation to Socrates, 115; +Platonic dialogues on, 136; dialogue so named, 159 + +Soul of all things, 6; a fiery exhalation, 18; God soul of the world, +27; soul realised in body, _ib._; soul double, 28; triple, 28, 169; +life of soul a harmony, 29; composed of finest atoms, 78; even that of +universe, 80; loss of one's soul, 150; world-soul the first creation, +151; divisions of, 169; an entelechy, 203; definition of, 204; _v._ +body, 205; Epicurean theory of, 220 + +Space, existence prior to, 37, 167; unthinkable except with reference +to body, 75 + +Sparta, ideas from, in _Republic_, 148; influence on Plato's Laws, 160 + +Species, has more of existence than genus, 183 + +Speusippus, successor of Plato, 172 + +Stagira, birthplace of Aristotle, 172 + +State, Justice writ large in, 147; classes in, 169; an entelechy, 196 + +Statesman (or Politicus), dialogue, 159 + +Stoicism, Semitic element in, 228; origin of name, 229 + +Strife, original of things, 17; one of two principles, 38, 63 + +Substance defined, 203 + +Sulla, brought Aristotle's library to Rome, 176 + +Summum bonum, what? 156; relation of man's perfection, 168; philosophy +search for, 229 + +Symposium, dialogue, 137 + + +Tabula rasa, Stoic theory of, 231 + +Tarsus, birthplace of St. Paul and (possibly) of Chrysippus, 229 + +Temperance, treated of in _Charmides_, 136; fairest sort of wisdom, 139 + +Thales, 2 + +Theaetetus, quoted from, 89; dialogue, 159 + +Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle, 175 + +Things, in themselves, how known? 158; partake in the idea, 164; _v._ +Propositions, 189 + +Thought, of God, 150; ideal elements in, 152; of God, source of +reality, 164; relation to matter, 184; of God, eternally existing in +ideas, 187; an entelechy, 188; without desire, no motive, 191; arms +of, 198; only converted sensation, 223 + +Thucydides, quoted, 97 + +Thurii, code for, drawn up by Protagoras, 86 + +Timaeus, dialogue, 150 + +Time, brings its revenges, 8; plays with the dice, 20; existence prior +to, 37, 168 + +Tortoise, see _Achilles_ + +Transmigration of souls, 27, 73 + +Truth, first duty of man, 29 senses give no absolute, 80; title of work +by Protagoras, 86; man measure of, 87; abstract truth impossible, +_ib._; dialogue concerning, 137 + +Tyranny, in politics and in philosophy, 83 + + +Ultimately, significance of word, 190 + +Unity, _v._ Multiplicity, 28; of objects only apparent, 76; no absolute +unity either of body or soul, 138; analysis of, 159; in thoughts of +God, 164 + +Universal, _v._ Particular, 48; _v._ Individual, 99; search after lost, +105, 163; three forms, Justice, Beauty, Utility, 110; cannot belong to +sense, 163; knowledge of, function of philosophy, 180; does not exist +apart from particulars, 181; has less of existence than particulars, +183; they are not antithetical, 189 + +Universe, the self-picturing of God, 27; mechanical theory of, 56; +ideal working in, 112; origin of, 151, 165, 200, 216, 232 + +Utility, relation to Justice, 120; philosophy does not seek, 178 + + +Virtue, teachable through persuasion, 88; is knowledge, 112, 118; +teachable through training, 131; sufficient for happiness, _ib._; +teachableness of, 136, 191; immortal product of soul, 139; a habit, +195; a mean, _ib._; Reason standard of, 196; alone absolutely good, 238 + +Void, existence of, 75; proofs of, 219 + + +Water, beginning of things, 4 + +Weeping philosopher, 20; _v._ laughing philosopher, 74 + +Wisdom, persuasion only true, 88; moderate indulgence, 126; a weaning +of soul from pleasure, 131; temperance and justice the fairest, 139; +heavenly and earthly, 148; Is it chief good? 156; Divine wisdom +governor, 157; Aristotle's definition of, 180 + +Wise man, personification of reason, 196 + +Withdrawal, Stoic name for suicide, 241 + +World, a living creature, 27; why did God make? 190 + + +Xenocrates, academic philosopher, 172 + +Xenophanes, 31, 48 + +Xenophon, quoted, 116 + +Xerxes, invasion of, 52 + + +Zeno, the Eleatic, 42; the Stoic, 238 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Short History of Greek Philosophy, by +John Marshall + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREEK PHILOSOPHY *** + +***** This file should be named 20500.txt or 20500.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/5/0/20500/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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