{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_20500/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_20500","id":"gutenberg_20500","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20500","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Ancient","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Philosophy","Philosophy, Ancient"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\nA SHORT HISTORY\n\nOF\n\nGREEK PHILOSOPHY\n\n\nBY\n\nJOHN MARSHALL\n\nM.A. OXON., LL.D. EDIN.\n\n\nRECTOR OF THE ROYAL HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH\n\nFORMERLY PROFESSOR OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY\n\nIN THE YORKSHIRE COLLEGE, LEEDS\n\n\n\n\nLONDON\n\nPERCIVAL AND CO.\n\n1891\n\n_All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\nThe main purpose which I have had in view in writing this book has been\nto present an account of Greek philosophy which, within strict limits\nof brevity, shall be at once authentic and interesting--_authentic_, as\nbeing based on the original works themselves, and not on any secondary\nsources; _interesting_, as presenting to the ordinary English reader,\nin language freed as far as possible from technicality and\nabstruseness, the great thoughts of the greatest men of antiquity on\nquestions of permanent significance and value.  There has been no\nattempt to shirk the really philosophic problems which these men tried\nin their day to solve; but I have endeavoured to show, by a sympathetic\ntreatment of them, that these problems were no mere wars of words, but\nthat in fact the philosophers of twenty-four centuries ago were dealing\nwith exactly similar difficulties as to the bases of belief and of\nright action as, under different forms, beset thoughtful men and women\nto-day.\n\nIn the general treatment of the subject, I have followed in the main\nthe order, and drawn chiefly on the selection of passages, in Ritter\nand Preller's _Historia Philosophiae Graecae_.  It is hoped that in\nthis way the little book may be found useful at the universities, as a\nrunning commentary on that excellent work; and the better to aid\nstudents in the use of it for that purpose, the corresponding sections\nin Ritter and Preller are indicated by the figures in the margin.\n\nIn the sections on Plato, and occasionally elsewhere, I have drawn to\nsome extent, by the kind permission of the Delegates of the Clarendon\nPress and his own, on Professor Jowett's great commentary and\ntranslation.\n\nJOHN MARSHALL.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's notes:\n\nThe passage numbers in the Ritter-Preller book mentioned in the second\nparagraph above are indicated in this book with square brackets, e.g.\n\"[10]\".  In the original book they were formatted as sidenotes.  In\nthis e-book they are embedded in the text approximately where they\nappear in the original book, unless they are at the start of a\nparagraph, in which case they appear immediately before that paragraph.\n\nPage numbers are indicated with curly brackets, e.g. \"{5}\".  They are\nembedded into the text where page breaks occurred in the original book.\n\nIn the original book, pages had headings that varied with the material\nbeing discussed on that pair of pages.  In this e-book, those headings\nhave been collected into an \"introductory\" paragraph at the beginning\nof each chapter.\n\n\nThe original book uses several Greek words.  These words, the chapters\nthey are used in, and their transliterations are as follows:\n\nChapter I (pages 3, 4, 12) - \"arche\" - alpha (with the soft-breathing\nmark), rho, chi, eta; \"phloios\" - phi, lambda, omicron, iota, omicron,\nfinal sigma.\n\nChapter III (page 28) - \"soma\" - sigma, omega, mu, alpha; \"sema\" -\nsigma, eta, mu, alpha.\n\nChapter IV (page 33, 34 - \"doxa\" - delta, omicron, xi, alpha; \"Peri\" -\nPI, epsilon, rho, iota; \"Phueos\" - PHI, upsilon, sigma, epsilon, omega,\nfinal sigma.\n\nChapter V (page 48) - \"logos\" - lambda, omicron, gamma, omicron, final\nsigma; \"hule\" - upsilon with rough breathing mark, lambda, eta.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAP.\n\n     I.--THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS--\n            I. Thales  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   1\n           II. Anaximander . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7\n\n    II.--THE SCHOOL OF MILETUS (_concluded_)--\n          III. Anaximenes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14\n           IV. Heraclitus  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15\n\n   III.--PYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS   . . . . . . . . .  22\n\n    IV.--THE ELEATICS--\n            I. Xenophanes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31\n           II. Parmenides  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  33\n\n     V.--THE ELEATICS (_concluded_)--\n          III. Zeno  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  42\n           IV. Melissus  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  46\n\n    VI.--THE ATOMISTS--\n            I. Anaxagoras  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  52\n\n   VII.--THE ATOMISTS (_continued_)--\n           II. Empedocles  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  58\n\n  VIII.--THE ATOMISTS (_concluded_)--\n          III. Leucippus and Democritus  . . . . . . . . . .  74\n\n    IX.--THE SOPHISTS--\n            I. Protagoras  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  85\n\n     X.--THE SOPHISTS (_concluded_)--\n           II. Gorgias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  92\n\n    XI.--SOCRATES  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101\n\n   XII.--SOCRATES (concluded)  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116\n\n  XIII.--THE INCOMPLETE SOCRATICS--\n            I. Aristippus and the Cyrenaics  . . . . . . . . 124\n           II. Antisthenes and the Cynics  . . . . . . . . . 128\n          III. Euclides and the Megarics . . . . . . . . . . 132\n\n   XIV.--PLATO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134\n\n    XV.--PLATO (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146\n\n   XVI.--PLATO (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154\n\n  XVII.--PLATO (_concluded_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162\n\n XVIII.--ARISTOTLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172\n\n   XIX.--ARISTOTLE (_continued_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187\n\n    XX.--ARISTOTLE (_concluded_) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199\n\n   XXI.--THE SCEPTICS AND EPICUREANS . . . . . . . . . . . . 210\n\n  XXII.--THE STOICS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238\n\n         INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245\n\n\n\n\n{1}\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE SCHOOL OF MILETUS\n\n_The question of Thales--Water the beginning of things--Soul in all\nthings--Mystery in science--Abstraction and reality--Theory of\ndevelopment_\n\n\nI. THALES.--For several centuries prior to the great Persian invasions\nof Greece, perhaps the very greatest and wealthiest city of the Greek\nworld was Miletus.  Situate about the centre of the Ionian coasts of\nAsia Minor, with four magnificent harbours and a strongly defensible\nposition, it gathered to itself much of the great overland trade, which\nhas flowed for thousands of years eastward and westward between India\nand the Mediterranean; while by its great fleets it created a new world\nof its own along the Black Sea coast.  Its colonies there were so\nnumerous that Miletus was named 'Mother of Eighty Cities.'  From Abydus\non the Bosphorus, past Sinope, and so onward to the Crimea and the Don,\nand thence round to Thrace, a busy community of colonies, mining,\nmanufacturing, ship-building, corn-raising, owned Miletus for their\nmother-city.  Its {2} marts must therefore have been crowded with\nmerchants of every country from India to Spain, from Arabia to Russia;\nthe riches and the wonders of every clime must have become familiar to\nits inhabitants.  And fitly enough, therefore, in this city was born\nthe first notable Greek geographer, the first constructor of a map, the\nfirst observer of natural and other curiosities, the first recorder of\nvarieties of custom among various communities, the first speculator on\nthe causes of strange phenomena,--Hecataeus.  His work is in great part\nlost, but we know a good deal about it from the frequent references to\nhim and it in the work of his rival and follower, Herodotus.\n\nThe city naturally held a leading place politically as well as\ncommercially.  Empire in our sense was alien to the instincts of the\nGreek race; but Miletus was for centuries recognised as the foremost\nmember of a great commercial and political league, the political\ncharacter of the league becoming more defined, as first the Lydian and\nthen the Persian monarchy became an aggressive neighbour on its borders.\n\n[8]\n\nIt was in this active, prosperous, enterprising state, and at the\nperiod of its highest activity, that Thales, statesman, practical\nengineer, mathematician, philosopher, flourished.  Without attempting\nto fix his date too closely, we may take it that he was a leading man\nin Miletus for the greater part of the {3} first half of the sixth\ncentury before Christ.  We hear of an eclipse predicted by him, of the\ncourse of a river usefully changed, of shrewd and profitable handling\nof the market, of wise advice in the general councils of the league.\nHe seems to have been at once a student of mathematics and an observer\nof nature, and withal something having analogy with both, an inquirer\nor speculator into the _origin_ of things.  To us nowadays this\nsuggests a student of geology, or physiography, or some such branch of\nphysical science; to Thales it probably rather suggested a theoretical\ninquiry into the simplest _thinkable_ aspect of things as existing.\n\"Under what form known to us,\" he would seem to have asked, \"may we\nassume an identity in all known things, so as best to cover or render\nexplicable the things as we know them?\"  The 'beginning' of things (for\nit was thus he described this assumed identity) was not conceived by\nhim as something which was long ages before, and which had ceased to\nbe; rather it meant the reality of things now.  Thales then was the\nputter of a question, which had not been asked expressly before, but\nwhich has never ceased to be asked since.  He was also the formulator\nof a new meaning for a word; the word 'beginning' ((Greek) _arche_) got\nthe meaning of 'underlying reality' and so of 'ending' as well.  In\nshort, he so dealt with a word, on the surface of it implying {4} time,\nas to eliminate the idea of time, and suggest a method of looking at\nthe world, more profound and far-reaching than had been before\nimagined.[1]\n\nIt is interesting to find that the man who was thus the first\nphilosopher, the first observer who took a metaphysical, non-temporal,\nanalytical view of the world, and so became the predecessor of all\nthose votaries of 'other-world' ways of thinking,--whether as academic\nidealist, or 'budge doctor of the Stoic fur,' or Christian ascetic or\nwhat not, whose ways are such a puzzle to the 'hard-headed practical\nman,'--was himself one of the shrewdest men of his day, so shrewd that\nby common consent he was placed foremost in antiquity among the Seven\nSages, or seven shrewd men, whose practical wisdom became a world's\ntradition, enshrined in anecdote and crystallised in proverb.\n\n[9]\n\nThe chief record that we possess of the philosophic teaching of Thales\nis contained in an interesting notice of earlier philosophies by\nAristotle, the main part of which as regards Thales runs as follows:\n\n\"The early philosophers as a rule formulated the originative principle\n((Greek) _arche_) of all things under some material expression.  By the\noriginative principle or element of things they meant that of which all\n{5} existing things are composed, that which determines their coming\ninto being, and into which they pass on ceasing to be.  Where these\nphilosophers differed from each other was simply in the answer which\nthey gave to the question what was the nature of this principle, the\ndifferences of view among them applying both to the number, and to the\ncharacter, of the supposed element or elements.\n\n\"Thales, the pioneer of this philosophy, maintained that _Water_ was\nthe originative principle of all things.  It was doubtless in this\nsense that he said that the earth rested on water.  What suggested the\nconception to him may have been such facts of observation, as that all\nforms of substance which promote life are moist, that heat itself seems\nto be conditioned by moisture, that the life-producing seed in all\ncreatures is moist, and so on.\"\n\nOther characteristics of water, it is elsewhere suggested, may have\nbeen in Thales' mind, such as its readiness to take various shapes, its\nconvertibility from water into vapour or ice, its ready mixture with\nother substances, and so forth.  What we have chiefly to note is, that\nthe more unscientific this theory about the universe may strike us as\nbeing, the more completely out of accord with facts now familiar to\neverybody, the more striking is it as marking a new mood of mind, in\nwhich _unity_, though only very partially suggested or discoverable by\nthe senses, is {6} preferred to that infinite and indefinite _variety_\nand _difference_ which the senses give us at every moment.  There is\nhere the germ of a new aspiration, of a determination not to rest in\nthe merely momentary and different, but at least to try, even against\nthe apparent evidence of the senses, for something more permanently\nintelligible.  As a first suggestion of what this permanent underlying\nreality may be, _Water_ might very well pass.  It is probable that even\nto Thales himself it was only a symbol, like the figure in a\nmathematical proposition, representing by the first passable physical\nphenomenon which came to hand, that ideal reality underlying all\nchange, which is at once the beginning, the middle, and the end of all.\nThat he did not mean Water, in the ordinary prosaic sense, to be\nidentical with this, is suggested by some [10] other sayings of his.\n\"Thales,\" says Aristotle elsewhere, \"thought the whole universe was\nfull of gods.\"  \"All things,\" he is recorded as saying, \"have a _soul_\nin them, in virtue of which they move other things, and are themselves\nmoved, even as the magnet, by virtue of its life or soul, moves the\niron.\"  Without pushing these fragmentary utterances too far, we may\nwell conclude that whether Thales spoke of the soul of the universe and\nits divine indwelling powers, or gods, or of water as the origin of\nthings, he was only vaguely symbolising in different ways an idea as\nyet formless and void, like the primeval chaos, but nevertheless, {7}\nlike it, containing within it a promise and a potency of greater life\nhereafter.\n\nII. ANAXIMANDER.--Our information with respect to thinkers so remote as\nthese men is too scanty and too fragmentary, to enable us to say in\nwhat manner or degree they influenced each other.  We cannot say for\ncertain that any one of them was pupil or antagonist of another.  They\nappear each of them, one might say for a moment only, from amidst the\ndarkness of antiquity; a few sayings of theirs we catch vaguely across\nthe void, and then they disappear.  There is not, consequently, any\nvery distinct progression or continuity observable among them, and so\nfar therefore one has to confess that the title 'School of Miletus' is\na misnomer.  We have already quoted the words of Aristotle in which he\nclasses the Ionic philosophers together, as all of them giving a\n_material_ aspect of some kind to the originative principle of the\nuniverse (see above, P. 4).  But while this is a characteristic\nobservable in some of them, it is not so obviously discoverable in the\nsecond of their number, Anaximander.\n\nThis philosopher is said to have been younger by [11] one generation\nthan Thales, but to have been intimate with him.  He, like Thales, was\na native of Miletus, and while we do not hear of him as a person, like\nThales, of political eminence and activity, he was certainly the equal,\nif not the superior, of Thales in {8} mathematical and scientific\nability.  He is said to have either invented or at least made known to\nGreece the construction of the sun-dial.  He was associated with\nHecataeus in the construction of the earliest geographical charts or\nmaps; he devoted himself with some success to the science of astronomy.\nHis familiarity with the abstractions of mathematics perhaps accounts\nfor the more abstract form, in which he expressed his idea of the\nprinciple of all things.\n\n[21]\n\nTo Anaximander this principle was, as he expressed it, the _infinite_;\nnot water nor any other of the so-called elements, but a different\nthing from any of them, something hardly namable, out of whose\nformlessness the heavens and all the worlds in them came to be.  And by\nnecessity into that same infinite or indefinite existence, out of which\nthey originally emerged, did every created thing return.  Thus, as he\npoetically expressed it, \"Time brought its revenges, and for the\nwrong-doing of existence all things paid the penalty of death.\"\n\nThe momentary resting-place of Thales on the confines of the familiar\nworld of things, in his formulation of Water as the principle of\nexistence, is thus immediately removed.  We get, as it were, to the\nearliest conception of things as we find it in Genesis; before the\nheavens were, or earth, or the waters under the earth, or light, or\nsun, or moon, or grass, or the beast of the field, when the \"earth was\nwithout form, and void, and darkness was upon the {9} face of the\ndeep.\"  Only, be it observed, that while in the primitive Biblical idea\nthis formless void precedes in _time_ an ordered universe, in\nAnaximander's conception this formless infinitude is always here, is in\nfact the only reality which ever is here, something without beginning\nor ending, underlying all, enwrapping all, governing all.\n\nTo modern criticism this may seem to be little better than verbiage,\nhaving, perhaps, some possibilities of poetic treatment, but certainly\nvery unsatisfactory if regarded as science.  But to this we have to\nreply that one is not called upon to regard it as science.  Behind\nscience, as much to-day when our knowledge of the details of phenomena\nis so enormously increased, as in the times when science had hardly\nbegun, there lies a world of mystery which we cannot pierce, and yet\nwhich we are compelled to assume.  No scientific treatise can begin\nwithout assuming Matter and Force as data, and however much we may have\nlearned about the relations of _forces_ and the affinities of _things_,\nMatter and Force as such remain very much the same dim infinities, that\nthe originative 'Infinite' was to Anaximander.\n\nIt is to be noted, however, that while modern science assumes\nnecessarily _two_ correlative data or originative principles,--Force,\nnamely, as well as Matter,--Anaximander seems to have been content {10}\nwith the formulation of but one; and perhaps it is just here that a\nkinship still remains between him and Thales and other philosophers of\nthe school.  He, no more than they, seems to have definitely raised the\nquestion, How are we to account for, or formulate, the principle of\n_difference_ or change?  What is it that causes things to come into\nbeing out of, or recalls them back from being into, the infinite void?\nIt is to be confessed, however, that our accounts on this point are\nsomewhat conflicting.  One authority actually says that he formulated\nmotion as eternal also.  So far as he attempted to grasp the idea of\ndifference in relation to that of unity, he seems to have regarded the\nprinciple of change or difference as inhering in [13] the infinite\nitself.  Aristotle in this connection contrasts his doctrine with that\nof Anaxagoras, who formulated _two_ principles of existence--Matter and\nMind (see below, p. 54).  Anaximander, he points out, found all he\nwanted in the one.\n\nAs a mathematician Anaximander must have been familiar in various\naspects with the functions of the Infinite or Indefinable in the\norganisation of thought.  To the student of Euclid, for example, the\nimpossibility of adequately defining any of the fundamental elements of\nthe science of geometry--the point, the line, the surface--is a\nfamiliar fact.  In so far as a science of geometry is possible at all,\nthe exactness, which is its essential characteristic, is only {11}\nattainable by starting from data which are in themselves impossible, as\nof a point which has no magnitude, of a line which has no breadth, of a\nsurface which has no thickness.  So in the science of abstract number\nthe fundamental assumptions, as that 1=1, _x=x_, etc., are contradicted\nby every fact of experience, for in the world as we know it, absolute\nequality is simply impossible to discover; and yet these fundamental\nconceptions are in their development most powerful instruments for the\nextension of man's command over his own experiences.  Their\ncompleteness of abstraction from the accidents of experience, from the\ndifferences, qualifications, variations which contribute so largely to\nthe personal interests of life, this it is which makes the abstract\nsciences demonstrative, exact, and universally applicable.  In so far,\ntherefore, as we are permitted to grasp the conception of a perfectly\nabstract existence prior to, and underlying, and enclosing, all\nseparate existences, so far also do we get to a conception which is\ndemonstrative, exact, and universally applicable throughout the whole\nworld of knowable objects.\n\nSuch a conception, however, by its absolute emptiness of content, does\nnot afford any means in itself of progression; somehow and somewhere a\nprinciple of movement, of development, of concrete reality, must be\nfound or assumed, to link this ultimate abstraction of existence to the\nmultifarious phenomena {12} of existence as known.  And it was,\nperhaps, because Anaximander failed to work out this aspect of the\nquestion, that in the subsequent leaders of the school _movement_,\nrather than mere existence, was the principle chiefly insisted upon.\n\nBefore passing, however, to these successors of Anaximander, some\nopinions of his which we have not perhaps the means of satisfactorily\ncorrelating with his general conception, but which are not without\ntheir individual interest, may here be noted.  [14] The word _husk_ or\n_bark_ ((Greek) _phloios_) seems to have been a favourite one with him,\nas implying and depicting a conception of interior and necessary\ndevelopment in things.  Thus he seems to have postulated an inherent\ntendency or law in the infinite, which compelled it to develop contrary\ncharacters, as hot and cold, dry and moist.  In consequence of this\nfundamental tendency an envelope of fire, he says, came into being,\nencircling another envelope of air, which latter in turn enveloped the\nsphere of earth, each being like the 'husk' of the other, or like the\nbark which encloses the tree.  This concentric system he conceives as\nhaving in some way been parted up into various systems, represented by\nthe sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth.  The last he figured as\nhanging in space, and deriving its stability from the inherent and\nperfect balance or relation of its parts.\n\n{13}\n\n[16]\n\nThen, again, as to the origin of man, he seems to have in like manner\ntaught a theory of development from lower forms of life.  In his view\nthe first living creatures must have come into being in moisture (thus\nrecalling the theory of Thales).  As time went on, and these forms of\nlife reached their fuller possibilities, they came to be transferred to\nthe dry land, casting off their old nature like a husk or bark.  More\nparticularly he insists that man must have developed out of other and\nlower forms of life, because of his exceptional need, under present\nconditions, of care and nursing in his earlier years.  Had he come into\nbeing at once as a human creature he could never have survived.\n\nThe analogies of these theories with modern speculations are obvious\nand interesting.  But without enlarging on these, one has only to say\nin conclusion that, suggestive and interesting as many of these poor\nfragments, these _disjecti membra poetae_, are individually, they leave\nus more and more impressed with a sense of incompleteness in our\nknowledge of Anaximander's theory as a whole.  It may be that as a\nconsistent and perfected system the theory never was worked out; it may\nbe that it never was properly understood.\n\n\n\n[1] By some authorities it is stated that Anaximander, the second\nphilosopher of this school, was the first to use the word _arche_ in\nthe philosophic sense.  Whether this be so or not, Thales certainly had\nthe idea.\n\n\n\n\n{14}\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nTHE SCHOOL OF MILETUS (_concluded_)\n\n_Air the beginning of things--All things pass--The eternal and the\ntemporary--The weeping philosopher_\n\n\n[17]\n\nIII. ANAXIMENES.--This philosopher was also a native of Miletus, and is\nsaid to have been a hearer or pupil of Anaximander.  As we have said,\nthe [19] tendency of the later members of the school was towards\nemphasising the _motive_ side of the supposed underlying principle of\nnature, and accordingly Anaximenes chose Air as the element which best\n[18] represented or symbolised that principle.  Its fluidity, readiness\nof movement, wide extension, and absolute neutrality of character as\nregards colour, taste, smell, form, etc., were obvious suggestions.\nThe breath also, whose very name to the ancients implied an identity\nwith the life or soul, was nothing but air; and the identification of\nAir with Life supplied just that principle of productiveness and\nmovement, which was felt [20] to be necessary in the primal element of\nbeing.  The process of existence, then, he conceived as consisting in a\ncertain concentration of this diffused life-giving element into more or\nless solidified forms, and the {15} ultimate separation and expansion\nof these back into the formless air again.  The contrary forces\npreviously used by Anaximander--heat and cold, drought and\nmoisture--are with Anaximenes also the agencies which institute these\nchanges.\n\nThis is pretty nearly all that we know of Anaximenes.  So far as the\nfew known facts reveal him, we can hardly say that except as supplying\na step towards the completer development of the _motive_ [22] idea in\nbeing, he greatly adds to the chain of progressive thought.\n\nIV. HERACLITUS.--Although not a native of Miletus, but of Ephesus,\nHeraclitus, both by his nationality as an Ionian and by his position in\nthe development of philosophic conceptions, falls naturally to be\nclassed with the philosophers of Miletus.  His period may be given\napproximately as from about 560 to 500 B.C., though others place him a\ngeneration later.  Few authentic particulars have been preserved of\nhim.  We hear of extensive travels, of his return to his native city\nonly to refuse a share in its activities, of his retirement to a\nhermit's life.  He seems to have formed a contrast to the preceding\nphilosophers in his greater detachment from the ordinary interests of\ncivic existence; and much in his teaching suggests the ascetic if not\nthe misanthrope.  He received the nickname of 'The Obscure,' from the\nstudied mystery in which he was supposed to involve his {16} [23]\nteaching.  He wrote not for the vulgar, but for the gifted few.  'Much\nlearning makes not wise' was the motto of his work; the man of gift, of\ninsight, that man is better than ten thousand.  He was savage in his\ncriticism of other writers, even the greatest.  Homer, he said, and\nArchilochus too, deserved to be hooted from the platform and thrashed.\nEven the main purport of his writings was differently interpreted.\nSome named his work 'The Muses,' as though it were chiefly a poetic\nvision; others named it 'The sure Steersman to the Goal of Life';\nothers, more prosaically, 'A Treatise of Nature.'\n\n[26]\n\nThe fundamental principle or fact of being Heraclitus formulated in the\nfamous dictum, 'All things pass.'  In the eternal flux or flow of being\nconsisted its reality; even as in a river the water is ever changing,\nand the river exists as a river only in virtue of this continual\nchange; or as in a living body, wherein while there is life there is no\nstability or fixedness; stability and fixedness are the attributes of\nthe unreal image of life, not of life itself.  Thus, as will be\nobserved, from the _material_ basis of being as conceived by Thales,\nwith only a very vague conception of the counter-principle of movement,\nphilosophy has wheeled round in Heraclitus to the other extreme; he\nfinds his permanent element in the negation of permanence; being or\nreality consists in never 'being' but always 'becoming,' not in\nstability but in change.\n\n{17}\n\n[27]\n\nThis eternal movement he pictures elsewhere as an eternal strife of\nopposites, whose differences nevertheless consummate themselves in\nfinest harmony.  Thus oneness emerges out of multiplicity, multiplicity\nout of oneness; and the harmony of the universe is of contraries, as of\nthe lyre and the bow.  _War_ is the father and king and lord of all\nthings.  Neither god nor man presided at the creation of anything that\nis; that which was, is that which is, and that which ever shall be;\neven an ever-living Fire, ever kindling and ever being extinguished.\n\n[28]\n\nThus in _Fire_, as an image or symbol of the underlying reality of\nexistence, Heraclitus advanced to the furthest limit attainable on\nphysical lines, for the expression of its essentially _motive_\ncharacter.  That this Fire was no more than a symbol, suggested by the\nspecial characteristics of fire in nature,--its subtlety, its mobility,\nits power of penetrating all things and devouring all things, its\npowers for beneficence in the warmth of living bodies and the\nlife-giving power of the sun,--is seen in the fact that he readily\nvaries his expression for this principle, calling it at times the\nThunderbolt, at others the eternal Reason, [29] or Law, or Fate.  To\nhis mental view creation was a process eternally in action, the fiery\nelement descending by the law of its being into the cruder [30] forms\nof water and earth, only to be resolved again by upward process into\nfire; even as one sees the {18} vapour from the sea ascending and\nmelting into the [32] aether.  As a kindred vapour or exhalation he\nrecognised the Soul or Breath for a manifestation of the essential\nelement.  It is formless, ever changing with every breath we take, yet\nit is the constructive and unifying force which keeps the body\ntogether, and conditions its life and growth.  At this point [33]\nHeraclitus comes into touch with Anaximenes.  In the act of breathing\nwe draw into our own being a portion of the all-pervading vital element\nof all being; in this universal being we thereby live and move and have\nour consciousness; the eternal and omnipresent wisdom becomes, through\nthe channels of our senses, and especially through the eyes, in\nfragments at least our wisdom.  In sleep we are not indeed cut off\nwholly from this wisdom; through our breathing we hold as it were to\nits root; but of its flower we are then deprived.  On awaking again we\nbegin once more to partake according to our full measure of the living\nthought; even as coals when brought near the fire are themselves made\npartakers of it, but when taken away again become quenched.\n\n[34]\n\nHence, in so far as man is wise, it is because his spirit is kindled by\nunion with the universal spirit; but there is a baser, or, as\nHeraclitus termed it, a moister element also in him, which is the\nelement of unreason, as in a drunken man.  And thus the trustworthiness\nor otherwise of the senses, as the {19} channels of communication with\nthe divine, depends on the _dryness_ or _moistness_,--or, as we should\nexpress it, using, after all, only another metaphor,--on the\n_elevation_ or _baseness_ of the spirit that is within.  To those whose\nsouls are base and barbarous, the eternal movement, the living fire, is\ninvisible; and thus what they do see is nothing but death.  Immersed in\nthe mere appearances of things and their supposed stability, they,\nwhether sleeping or waking, behold only dead forms; their spirits are\ndead.\n\n[35]\n\nFor the guidance of life there is no law but the common sense, which is\nthe union of those fragmentary perceptions of eternal law, which\nindividual men [37] attain, in so far as their spirits are dry and\npure.  Of absolute knowledge human nature is not capable, but only the\nDivine.  To the Eternal, therefore, alone all things are good and\nbeautiful and just, because to Him alone do things appear in their\ntotality.  To the human partial reason some things are unjust and\nothers just.  Hence life, by reason of the limitations [38] involved in\nit, he sometimes spoke of as the death of the soul, and death as the\nrenewal of its life.  And so, [39] in the great events of man's life\nand in the small, as in the mighty circle of the heavens, good and\nevil, life and death, growth and decay, are but the systole and\ndiastole, the outward and inward pulsation, of an eternal good, an\neternal harmony.  Day and {20} night, winter and summer, war and peace,\nsatiety and hunger--each conditions the other, all are part of God.  It\nis sickness that makes health good and sweet, hunger that gives its\npleasure to feeding, weariness that makes sleep a good.\n\n[39]\n\nThis vision of existence in its eternal flux and interchange, seems to\nhave inspired Heraclitus with a contemplative melancholy.  In the\ntraditions of later times he was known as the _weeping_ philosopher.\nLucian represents him as saying, \"To me it is a sorrow that there is\nnothing fixed or secure, and that all things are thrown confusedly\ntogether, so that pleasure and pain, knowledge and ignorance, the great\nand the small, are the same, ever circling round and passing one into\nthe other in the sport of time.\"  \"Time,\" he says elsewhere, \"is like a\nchild that plays with the dice.\"  The highest good, therefore, for\nmortals is that clarity of perception in respect of oneself and all\nthat is, whereby we shall learn to apprehend somewhat of the eternal\nunity and harmony, that underlies the good and evil of time, the shock\nand stress of circumstance and place.  The highest virtue for man is a\nplacid and a quiet constancy, whatever the changes and chances of life\nmay bring.  It is the pantheistic apathy.\n\nThe sadder note of humanity, the note of Euripides and at times of\nSophocles, the note of Dante and of the _Tempest_ of Shakespeare, of\nShelley and Arnold {21} and Carlyle,--this note we hear thus early and\nthus clear, in the dim and distant utterances of Heraclitus.  The\nmystery of existence, the unreality of what seems most real, the\nintangibility and evanescence of all things earthly,--these thoughts\nobscurely echoing to us across the ages from Heraclitus, have remained,\nand always will remain, among the deepest and most insistent of the\nworld's thoughts, in its sincerest moments and in its greatest thinkers.\n\n\n\n\n{22}\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nPYTHAGORAS AND THE PYTHAGOREANS\n\n_The Pythagorean Brotherhood--Number the master--God the soul of the\nworld--Music and morals_\n\n\n[41]\n\nThe birthplace of Pythagoras is uncertain.  He is generally called the\nSamian, and we know, at all events, that he lived for some time in that\nisland, during or immediately before the famous tyranny [43] of\nPolycrates.  All manner of legends are told of the travels of\nPythagoras to Egypt, Chaldaea, Phoenicia, and even to India.  Others\ntell of a mysterious initiation at the sacred cave of Jupiter in Crete,\nand of a similar ceremony at the Delphic oracle.  What is certain is\nthat at some date towards the end of the sixth century B.C. he removed\nto Southern Italy, which was then extensively colonised by Greeks, and\nthat there he became a great philosophic teacher, and ultimately even a\npredominating political influence.\n\n[46]\n\nHe instituted a school in the strictest sense, with its various grades\nof learners, subject for years to a vow of silence, holding all things\nin common, and admitted, according to their approved fitness, to {23}\n[47] successive revelations of the true doctrine of the Master.  Those\nin the lower grades were called Listeners; those in the higher,\nMathematicians or Students; those in the most advanced stage,\nPhysicists or Philosophers.  With the political relations of the school\nwe need not here concern ourselves.  In Crotona and many other Greek\ncities in Italy Pythagoreans became a predominant aristocracy, who,\nhaving learned obedience under their master, applied what they had\nlearned in an anti-democratic policy of government.  This lasted for\nsome thirty years, but ultimately democracy gained the day, and\nPythagoreanism as a political power was violently rooted out.\n\nReturning to the philosophy of Pythagoras, in its relation to the\ngeneral development of Greek theory, we may note, to begin with, that\nit is not necessary, or perhaps possible, to disentangle the theory of\nPythagoras himself from that of his followers, Philolaus and others.\nThe teaching was largely oral, and was developed by successive leaders\nof the school.  The doctrine, therefore, is generally spoken of as\nthat, not of Pythagoras, but of the Pythagoreans.  Nor can we fix for\ncertain on one fundamental conception, upon which the whole structure\nof their doctrine was built.\n\n[52]\n\nOne dictum we may start with because of its analogies with what has\nbeen said of the earlier {24} philosophies.  The universe, said the\nPythagoreans, was constituted of _indefinites_ and _definers_, _i.e._\nof that which has no character, but has infinite capacities of taking a\ncharacter; and secondly, of things or forces which impose a character\nupon this.  Out of the combination of these two elements or principles\nall knowable [53] existences come into being.  \"All things,\" they said,\n\"as known have _Number_; and this number has two natures, the Odd and\nthe Even; the known thing is the Odd-Even or union of the two.\"\n\n[66]\n\nBy a curious and somewhat fanciful development of this conception the\nPythagoreans drew up two parallel columns of antithetical principles in\nnature, ten in each, thus:--\n\n  Definite              Indefinite\n  Odd                   Even\n  One                   Many\n  Right                 Left\n  Male                  Female\n  Steadfast             Moving\n  Straight              Bent\n  Light                 Dark\n  Good                  Evil\n  Four Square           Irregular\n\nLooking down these two lists we shall see that the first covers various\naspects of what is conceived as the ordering, defining, formative\nprinciple in nature; and that the second in like manner comprises\nvarious {25} aspects of the unordered, neutral, passive, or\ndisorganised element or principle; the first, to adopt a later method\nof expression, is _Form_, the second _Matter_.  How this antithesis was\nworked out by Plato and Aristotle we shall see later on.\n\n[54]\n\nWhile, in a sense, then, even the indefinite has number, inasmuch as it\nis capable of having number or order imposed upon it (and only in so\nfar as it has this imposed upon it, does it become knowable or\nintelligible), yet, as a positive factor, Number belongs only to the\nfirst class; as such it is the source of all knowledge and of all good.\nIn reality the Pythagoreans had not got any further by this\nrepresentation of nature than was reached, for example, by Anaximander,\nand still more definitely by Heraclitus, when they posited an\nIndefinite or Infinite principle in nature which by the clash of innate\nantagonisms developed into a knowable universe (see above, pp. 12, 16).\nBut one can easily imagine that once the idea of Number became\nassociated with that of the knowable in things, a wide field of\ndetailed development and experiment, so to speak, in the arcana of\nnature, seemed to be opened.  Every arithmetical or geometrical theorem\nbecame in this view another window giving light into the secret heart\nof things.  Number became a kind of god, a revealer; and the philosophy\nof number a kind of religion or mystery.  And this is why the {26}\nsecond grade of disciples were called Mathematicians; mathematics was\nthe essential preparation for and initiation into philosophy.\n\nWhether that which truly exists was actually identical with Number or\nNumbers, or whether it was something different from Number, but had a\ncertain relation to Number; whether if there were such a relation, this\nwas merely a relation of analogy or of conformability, or whether\nNumber were something actually embodied in that which truly\nexists--these were speculative questions which were variously answered\nby various teachers, and which probably interested the later more than\nthe earlier leaders of the school.\n\n[56]\n\nA further question arose: Assuming that ultimately the elements of\nknowable existence are but two, the One or Definite, and the Manifold\nor Indefinite, it was argued by some that there must be some third or\nhigher principle governing the relations of these; there must be some\nlaw or harmony which shall render their intelligible union [57]\npossible.  This principle of union was God, ever-living, ever One,\neternal, immovable, self-identical.  [58] This was the supreme reality,\nthe Odd-Even or Many in One, One in Many, in whom was gathered up, as\nin an eternal harmony, all the contrarieties of lower [61] existence.\nThrough the interchange and intergrowth of these contrarieties God\nrealises Himself; the {27} universe in its evolution is the\nself-picturing of God.  [62] God is diffused as the seminal principle\nthroughout [68] the universe; He is the Soul of the world, and the\nworld itself is God in process.  The world, therefore, is in a sense a\nliving creature.  At its heart and circumference are purest fire;\nbetween these circle the sun, the moon, and the five planets, whose\nordered movements, as of seven chords, produce an eternal music, the\n'Music of the Spheres.'  Earth, too, like the planets, is a celestial\nbody, moving like them around the central fire.\n\n[71]\n\nBy analogy with this conception of the universe as the realisation of\nGod, so also the body, whether [72] of man or of any creature, is the\nrealisation for the time being of a soul.  Without the body and the\nlife of the body, that soul were a blind and fleeting ghost.  Of such\nunrealised souls there are many in various degrees and states; the\nwhole air indeed is full of spirits, who are the causes of dreams and\nomens.\n\n[73]\n\nThus the change and flux that are visible in all else are visible also\nin the relations of soul and body.  Multitudes of fleeting ghosts or\nspirits are continually seeking realisation through union with bodies,\npassing at birth into this one and that, and at death issuing forth\nagain into the void.  Like wax which takes now one impression now\nanother, yet remains in itself ever the same, so souls vary in the\noutward {28} [74] form that envelops and realises them.  In this bodily\nlife, the Pythagoreans are elsewhere described as saying, we are as it\nwere in bonds or in a prison, whence we may not justly go forth till\nthe Lord calls us.  This idea Cicero mistranslated with a truly Roman\nfitness: according to him they taught that in this life we are as\nsentinels at our post, who may not quit it till our Commander orders.\n\nOn the one hand, therefore, the union of soul with body was necessary\nfor the realisation of the former ((Greek) _soma, body_, being as it\nwere (Greek) _sema, expression_), even as the reality of God was not in\nthe Odd or Eternal Unity, but in the Odd-Even, the Unity in\nMultiplicity.  On the other hand this union implied a certain loss or\ndegradation.  In other words, in so far as the soul became realised it\nalso became corporealised, subject to the influence of passion and [75]\nchange.  In a sense therefore the soul as realised was double; in\nitself it partook of the eternal reason, as associated with body it\nbelonged to the realm of unreason.\n\nThis disruption of the soul into two the Pythagoreans naturally\ndeveloped in time into a threefold division, _pure thought_,\n_perception_, and _desire_; or even more nearly approaching the\nPlatonic division (see below, p. 169), they divided it into _reason_,\n_passion_, and _desire_.  But the later developments were largely\ninfluenced by Platonic and other doctrines, and need not be further\nfollowed here.\n\n{29} [78] Music had great attractions for Pythagoras, not only for its\nsoothing and refining effects, but for the intellectual interest of its\nnumerical relations.  Reference has already been made (see above, p.\n27) to their quaint doctrine of the music of the spheres; and the same\nidea of rhythmic harmony pervaded the whole system.  The life of the\nsoul was a harmony; the virtues were perfect numbers; and the influence\nof music on the soul was only one instance among many of the harmonious\nrelations of things throughout the universe.  Thus we have Pythagoras\ndescribed as soothing mental afflictions, and bodily ones also, by\nrhythmic measure and by song.  With the morning's dawn he would be\nastir, harmonising his own spirit to his lyre, and chanting ancient\nhymns of the Cretan Thales, of Homer, and of Hesiod, till all the\ntremors of his soul were calmed and still.\n\nNight and morning also he prescribed for himself and his followers an\nexamination, as it were a _tuning_ and testing of oneself.  At these\ntimes especially was it meet for us to take account of our soul and its\ndoings; in the evening to ask, \"Wherein have I transgressed?  What\ndone?  What failed to do?\"  In the morning, \"What must I do?  Wherein\nrepair past days' forgetfulness?\"\n\nBut the first duty of all was truth,--truth to one's own highest, truth\nto the highest beyond us.  Through truth alone could the soul approach\nthe divine.  {30} Falsehood was of the earth; the real life of the soul\nmust be in harmony with the heavenly and eternal verities.\n\nPythagoreanism remained a power for centuries throughout the Greek\nworld and beyond.  All subsequent philosophies borrowed from it, as it\nin its later developments borrowed from them; and thus along with them\nit formed the mind of the world, for further apprehensions, and yet\nmore authentic revelations, of divine order and moral excellence.\n\n\n\n\n{31}\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nTHE ELEATICS\n\n_God and nature--Knowledge and opinion--Being and evolution--Love the\ncreator--The modern egotism_\n\n\n[79]\n\nI. XENOPHANES.--Xenophanes was a native of Colophon, one of the Ionian\ncities of Asia Minor, but having been forced at the age of twenty-five\nto leave his native city owing to some political revolution, he\nwandered to various cities of Greece, and ultimately to Zancle and\nCatana, Ionian colonies in Sicily, and thence to Elea or Velia, a Greek\ncity on the coast of Italy.  This city had, like Miletus, reached a\nhigh pitch of commercial prosperity, and like it also became a centre\nof philosophic teaching.  For there Xenophanes remained and founded a\nschool, so that he and his successors received the name of Eleatics.\nHis date is uncertain; but he seems to have been contemporary with\nAnaximander [80] and Pythagoras, and to have had some knowledge of the\ndoctrine of both.  He wrote in various poetic measures, using against\nthe poets, and especially against Homer and Hesiod, their own weapons,\nto [83] denounce their anthropomorphic theology.  If oxen {32} or lions\nhad hands, he said, they would have fashioned gods after their likeness\nwhich would have been as [85] authentic as Homer's.  As against these\npoets, and the popular mythology, he insisted that God must be one,\neternal, incorporeal, without beginning or ending.  [87] As Aristotle\nstrikingly expresses it, \"He looked forth over the whole heavens and\nsaid that God is one, [88] that that which is one is God.\"  The\nfavourite antitheses of his time, the definite and the indefinite,\nmovable and immovable, change-producing and by change produced--these\nand such as these, he maintained, were inapplicable to the eternally\nand [86] essentially existent.  In this there was no partition of\norgans or faculties, no variation or shadow of turning; the Eternal\nBeing was like a sphere, everywhere equal; everywhere self-identical.\n\n[84]\n\nHis proof of this was a logical one; the absolutely self-existent could\nnot be thought in conjunction with attributes which either admitted any\nexternal influencing Him, or any external influenced by Him.  The\nprevailing dualism he considered to be, as an ultimate theory of the\nuniverse, unthinkable and therefore false.  Outside the Self-existent\nthere could be no second self-existent, otherwise each would be\nconditioned by the existence of the other, and the Self-existent would\nbe gone.  Anything different from the Self-existent must be of the\nnon-existent, _i.e._ must be nothing.\n\n{33}\n\nOne can easily see in these discussions some adumbration of many\ntheological or metaphysical difficulties of later times, as of the\norigin of evil, of freewill in man, of the relation of the created\nworld to its Creator.  If these problems cannot be said to be solved\nyet, we need not be surprised that Xenophanes did not solve them.  He\nwas content to emphasise that which seemed to him to be necessary and\ntrue, that God was God, and not either a partner with, or a function\nof, matter.\n\n[89]\n\nAt the same time he recognised a world of phenomena, or, as he\nexpressed it, a world of guesswork or opinion ((Greek) _doxa_).  As to\nthe origin of things within this sphere he was ready enough to borrow\n[90] from the speculations of his predecessors.  Earth and water are\nthe sources from which we spring; and he imagined a time when there was\nneither sea nor land, but an all-pervading slough and slime; nay, many\nsuch periods of inundation and emergence had been, hence the sea-shells\non the tops of mountains and the fossils in the rocks.  Air and fire\nalso as agencies of change are sometimes referred to by him;\nanticipations in fact are visible of the fourfold classification of the\nelements which was formally made by some of his successors.\n\n[91]\n\nII. PARMENIDES.--The pupil and successor of Xenophanes was PARMENIDES,\na native of Elea.  In a celebrated dialogue of Plato bearing the name\nof {34} this philosopher he is described as visiting Socrates when the\nlatter was very young.  \"He was then already advanced in years, very\nhoary, yet noble to look upon, in years some sixty and five.\"  Socrates\nwas born about 479 B.C.  The birth of Parmenides might therefore, if\nthis indication be authentic, be about 520.  He was of a wealthy and\nnoble family, and able therefore to devote himself to a learned\nleisure.  Like his master he expounded his views in verse, and\nfragments of his poem of considerable length and importance have been\npreserved.  The title of the work was _Peri Phueos_--_Of Nature_.\n\n[93]\n\nThe exordium of the poem is one of some grandeur.  The poet describes\nhimself as soaring aloft to the sanctuary of wisdom where it is set in\nhighest aether, the daughters of the Sun being his guides; under whose\nleading having traversed the path of perpetual day and at length\nattained the temple of the goddess, he from her lips received\ninstruction in the eternal verities, and had shown to him the deceptive\nguesses of mortals.  \"'Tis for thee,\" she says, \"to hear of both,--to\nhave disclosed to thee on the one hand the sure heart of convincing\nverity, on the other hand the guesses of mortals wherein is no\nascertainment.  Nevertheless thou shalt learn of these also, that\nhaving gone through them all thou may'st see by what unsureness of path\nmust he go who goeth the way of opinion.  From such a way of searching\n{35} restrain thou thy thought, and let not the much-experimenting\nhabit force thee along the path wherein thou must use thine eye, yet\nbeing sightless, and the ear with its clamorous buzzings, and the\nchattering tongue.  'Tis by Reason that thou must in lengthened trial\njudge what I shall say to thee.\"\n\n[94]\n\nThus, like Xenophanes, Parmenides draws a deep division between the\nworld of reason and the world of sensation, between probative argument\nand the guess-work of sense-impressions.  The former is the world of\nBeing, the world of that which truly is, self-existent, uncreated,\nunending, unmoved, unchanging, ever self-poised and self-sufficient,\nlike a sphere.  [98] Knowledge is of this, and of this only, and as\nsuch, knowledge is identical with its object; for outside this known\nreality there is nothing.  In other words, Knowledge can only be of\nthat which is, and that which is alone can know.  All things which\nmortals have imagined to be realities are but words; as of the birth\nand death of things, of things which were and have ceased to be, of\nhere and there, of now and then.\n\nIt is obvious enough that in all this, and in much more to the same\neffect reiterated throughout the poem, we have no more than a\nstatement, in various forms of negation, of the inconceivability by\nhuman reason of that passage from _being_ as such, to that world of\nphenomena which is now, but was not before, {36} and will cease to\nbe,--from _being_ to _becoming_, from eternity to time, from the\ninfinite to the finite (or, as Parmenides preferred to call it, from\nthe perfect to the imperfect, the definite to the indefinite).  In all\nthis Parmenides was not contradicting such observed facts as\ngeneration, or motion, or life, or death; he was talking of a world\nwhich has nothing to do with observation; he was endeavouring to grasp\nwhat was assumed or necessarily implied as a prior condition of\nobservation, or of a world to observe.\n\nWhat he and his school seem to have felt was that there was a danger in\nall this talk of water or air or other material symbol, or even of the\n_indefinite_ or _characterless_ as the original of all,--the danger,\nnamely, that one should lose sight of the idea of law, of rationality,\nof eternal self-centred force, and so be carried away by some vision of\na gradual process of evolution from mere emptiness to fulness of being.\nSuch a position would be not dissimilar to that of many would-be\nmetaphysicians among evolutionists, who, not content with the doctrine\nof evolution as a theory in science, an ordered and organising view of\nobserved facts, will try to elevate it into a vision of what is, and\nalone is, behind the observed facts.  They fail to see that the more\nblind, the more accidental, so to speak, the process of differentiation\nmay be; the more it is shown that the struggle for existence drives the\nwheels of progress along the {37} lines of least resistance by the most\ncommonplace of mechanical necessities, in the same proportion must a\nlaw be posited behind all this process, a reason in nature which\ngathers up the beginning and the ending.  The protoplasmic cell which\nthe imagination of evolutionists places at the beginning of time as the\nstarting-point of this mighty process is not merely this or that, has\nnot merely this or that quality or possibility, it _is_; and in the\npower of that little word is enclosed a whole world of thought, which\nis there at the first, remains there all through the evolutions of the\nprotoplasm, will be there when these are done, is in fact independent\nof time and space, has nothing to do with such distinctions, expresses\nrather their ultimate unreality.  So far then as Parmenides and his\nschool kept a firm grip on this other-world aspect of nature as implied\neven in the simple word _is_, or _be_, so far they did good service in\nthe process of the world's thought.  On the other hand, he and they\nwere naturally enough disinclined, as we all are disinclined, to remain\nin the merely or mainly negative or defensive.  He would not lose his\ngrip of heaven and eternity, but he would fain know the secrets of\nearth and time as well.  And hence was fashioned the second part of his\npoem, in which he expounds his theory of the world of opinion, or\nguess-work, or observation.\n\n[99]\n\nIn this world he found two originative principles {38} at work, one\npertaining to light and heat, the other to darkness and cold.  From the\nunion of these two principles all observable things in creation come,\nand over this union a God-given power presides, whose name is Love.  Of\nthese two principles, the bright one being analogous to _Fire_, the\ndark one to _Earth_, he considered the former to be the male or\nformative element, the latter the female or passive element; the former\ntherefore had analogies to Being as such, the latter to Non-being.  The\nheavenly existences, the sun, the moon, the stars, are of pure Fire,\nhave therefore an eternal and unchangeable being; they are on the\nextremest verge of the universe, and corresponding to them at the\ncentre is another fiery sphere, which, itself unmoved, is the cause of\nall motion and generation in the mixed region between.  The motive and\nprocreative power, sometimes called Love, is at other times called by\nParmenides Necessity, Bearer of the Keys, Justice, Ruler, etc.\n\nBut while in so far as there was union in the production of man or any\nother creature, the [102] presiding genius might be symbolised as\n_Love_; on the other hand, since this union was a union of opposites\n(Light and Dark), _Discord_ or _Strife_ also had her say in the union.\nThus the nature and character in every creature was the resultant of\ntwo antagonistic forces, and depended for its particular excellence or\ndefect on the proportions in which these two elements--the {39} light\nand the dark, the fiery and the earthy--had been commingled.\n\nNo character in Greek antiquity, at least in the succession of\nphilosophic teachers, held a more honoured position than Parmenides.\nHe was looked on with almost superstitious reverence by his\nfellow-countrymen.  Plato speaks of him as his \"Father Parmenides,\"\nwhom he \"revered and honoured more than all the other philosophers\ntogether.\"  To quote Professor Jowett in his introduction to Plato's\ndialogue _Parmenides_, he was \"the founder of idealism and also of\ndialectic, or in modern phraseology, of metaphysics and of logic.\"  Of\nthe logical aspect of his teaching we shall see a fuller\nexemplification in his pupil and successor Zeno; of his metaphysics, by\nway of summing up what has been already said, it may be remarked that\nits substantial excellence consists in the perfect clearness and\nprecision with which Parmenides enunciated as fundamental in any theory\nof the knowable universe the priority of Existence itself, not in time\nmerely or chiefly, but as a condition of having any problem to inquire\ninto.  He practically admits that he does not see how to bridge over\nthe partition between Existence in itself and the changeful, temporary,\nexisting things which the senses give us notions of.  But whatever the\nconnection may be, if there is a connection, he is convinced that\nnothing would be more absurd than {40} to make the data of sense in any\nway or degree the measure of the reality of existence, or the source\nfrom which existence itself comes into being.\n\nOn this serenely impersonal position he took his stand; we find little\nor nothing of the querulous personal note so characteristic of much\nmodern philosophy.  We never find him asking, \"What is to become of\n_me_ in all this?\"  \"What is _my_ position with regard to this\neternally-existing reality?\"\n\nOf course this is not exclusively a characteristic of Parmenides, but\nof the time.  The idea of personal relation to an eternal Rewarder was\nonly vaguely held in historical times in Greece.  The conception of\npersonal immortality was a mere pious opinion, a doctrine whispered\nhere and there in secret mystery; it was not an influential force on\nmen's motives or actions.  Thought was still occupied with the wider\nuniverse, the heavens and their starry wonders, and the strange\nphenomena of law in nature.  In the succession of the seasons, the\nrising and setting, the fixities and aberrations, of the heavenly\nbodies, in the mysteries of coming into being and passing out of it, in\nthese and other similar marvels, and in the thoughts which they evoked,\na whole and ample world seemed open for inquiry.  Men and their fate\nwere interesting enough to men, but as yet the egotism of man had not\nattempted to isolate his destiny from the general problem of nature.\n{41} To the _crux_ of philosophy as it appeared to Parmenides in the\nrelation of being as such to things which seem to be, modernism has\nappended a sort of corollary, in the relation of being as such to _my_\nbeing.  Till the second question was raised its answer, of course,\ncould not be attempted.  But all those who in modern times have said\nwith Tennyson--\n\n  Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:\n    Thou madest man, he knows not why;\n    He thinks he was not made to die;\n  And Thou hast made him: Thou art just,\n\nmay recognise in Parmenides a pioneer for them.  Without knowing it, he\nwas fighting the battle of personality in man, as well as that of\nreality in nature.\n\n\n\n\n{42}\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nTHE ELEATICS (_concluded_)\n\n_Zeno's dialectic--Achilles and the tortoise--The dilemma of being--The\nall a sphere--The dilemmas of experience_\n\n\n[106]\n\nIII. ZENO.--The third head of the Eleatic school was ZENO.  He is\ndescribed by Plato in the _Parmenides_ as accompanying his master to\nAthens on the visit already referred to (see above, p. 34), and as\nbeing then \"nearly forty years of age, of a noble figure and fair\naspect.\"  In personal character he was a worthy pupil of his master,\nbeing, like him, a devoted patriot.  He is even said to have fallen a\nvictim to his patriotism, and to have suffered bravely the extremest\ntortures at the hands of a tyrant Nearchus rather than betray his\ncountry.\n\nHis philosophic position was a very simple one.  He had nothing to add\nto or to vary in the doctrine of Parmenides.  His function was\nprimarily that of an expositor and defender of that doctrine, and his\nparticular pre-eminence consists in the ingenuity of his dialectic\nresources of defence.  He is in fact pronounced by Aristotle to have\nbeen the inventor of dialectic or systematic logic.  The relation of\n{43} the two is humorously expressed thus by Plato (Jowett, _Plato_,\nvol. iv. p. 128); \"I see, Parmenides, said Socrates, that Zeno is your\nsecond self in his writings too; he puts what you say in another way,\nand would fain deceive us into believing that he is telling us what is\nnew.  For you, in your poems, say, All is one, and of this you adduce\nexcellent proofs; and he, on the other hand, says, There is no many;\nand on behalf of this he offers overwhelming evidence.\"  To this Zeno\nreplies, admitting the fact, and adds: \"These writings of mine were\nmeant to protect the arguments of Parmenides against those who scoff at\nhim, and show the many ridiculous and contradictory results which they\nsuppose to follow from the affirmation of the One.  My answer is an\naddress to the partisans of the many, whose attack I return with\ninterest by retorting upon them that their hypothesis of the being of\nmany if carried out appears in a still more ridiculous light than the\nhypothesis of the being of one.\"\n\nThe arguments of Zeno may therefore be regarded as strictly arguments\n_in kind_; quibbles if you please, but in answer to quibbles.  The\nsecret of his method was what Aristotle calls Dichotomy--that is, he\nput side by side two contradictory propositions with respect to any\nparticular supposed real thing in experience, and then proceeded to\nshow that both these contradictories alike imply what is {44} [105]\ninconceivable.  Thus \"a thing must consist either of a finite number of\nparts or an infinite number.\"  Assume the number of parts to be finite.\nBetween them there must either be something or nothing.  If there is\nsomething between them, then the whole consists of more parts than it\nconsists of.  If there is nothing between them, then they are not\nseparated, therefore they are not parts; therefore the whole has no\nparts at all; therefore it is nothing.  If, on the other hand, the\nnumber of parts is infinite, then, the same kind of argument being\napplied, the magnitude of the whole is by infinite successive positing\nof intervening parts shown to be infinite; therefore this one thing,\nbeing infinitely large, is everything.\n\n[107]\n\nTake, again, any supposed fact, as that an arrow moves.  An arrow\ncannot move except in space.  It cannot move in space without being in\nspace.  At any moment of its supposed motion it must be in a particular\nspace.  Being in that space, it must at the time during which it is in\nit be at rest.  But the total time of its supposed motion is made up of\nthe moments composing that time, and to each of these moments the same\nargument applies; therefore either the arrow never was anywhere, or it\nalways was at rest.\n\nOr, again, take objects moving at unequal rates, as Achilles and a\ntortoise.  Let the tortoise have a start of any given length, then\nAchilles, however {45} much he excel in speed, will never overtake the\ntortoise.  For, while Achilles has passed over the originally\nintervening space, the tortoise will have passed over a certain space,\nand when Achilles has passed over this second space the tortoise will\nhave again passed over some space, and so on _ad infinitum_; therefore\nin an infinite time there must always be a space, though infinitely\ndiminishing, between the tortoise and Achilles, _i.e._ the tortoise\nmust always be at least a little in front.\n\nThese will be sufficient to show the kind of arguments employed by\nZeno.  In themselves they are of no utility, and Zeno never pretended\nthat they had any.  But as against those who denied that existence as\nsuch was a datum independent of experience, something different from a\nmere sum of isolated things, his arguments were not only effective, but\nsubstantial.  The whole modern sensational or experiential school, who\nderive our 'abstract ideas,' as they are called, from 'phenomena' or\n'sensation,' manifest the same impatience of any analysis of what they\nmean by phenomena or sensation, as no doubt Zeno's opponents manifested\nof his analyses.  As in criticising the one, modern critics are ready\nwith their answer that Zeno's quibbles are simply \"a play of words on\nthe well-known properties of infinities,\" so they are quick to tell us\nthat sensation is an \"affection of the sentient organism\"; ignoring in\n{46} the first case the prior question where the idea of infinity came\nfrom, and in the second, where the idea of a sentient organism came\nfrom.\n\nIndirectly, as we shall see, Zeno had a great effect on subsequent\nphilosophies by the development of a process of ingenious verbal\ndistinction, which in the hands of so-called sophists and others became\na weapon of considerable, if temporary, power.\n\n[109]\n\nIV. MELISSUS.--The fourth and last of the Eleatic philosophers was\nMelissus, a native of Samos.  His date may be fixed as about 440 B.C.\nHe took an active part in the politics of his native country, and on\none occasion was commander of the Samian fleet in a victorious\nengagement with the Athenians, when Samos was being besieged by\nPericles.  He belongs to the Eleatic school in respect of doctrine and\nmethod, but we have no evidence of his ever having resided at Elea, nor\nany reference to his connection with the philosophers there, except the\nstatement that he was a pupil of Parmenides.  He developed very fully\nwhat is technically called in the science of Logic [110] the _Dilemma_.\nThus, for example, he begins his treatise _On Existence_ or _On Nature_\nthus: \"If nothing exists, then there is nothing for us to talk about.\nBut if there is such a thing as existence it must either come into\nbeing or be ever-existing.  If it come into being, it must come from\nthe existing or the non-existing.  Now that anything which exists, {47}\nabove all, that which is absolutely existent, should come from what is\nnot, is impossible.  Nor can it come from that which is.  For then it\nwould be already, and would not come into being.  That which exists,\ntherefore, comes not into being; it must therefore be ever-existing.\"\n\n[111]\n\nBy similar treatment of other conceivable alternatives he proceeds to\nshow that as the existent had no beginning so it can have no ending in\ntime.  From this, by a curious transition which Aristotle quotes as an\nexample of loose reasoning, he concludes that the existent can have no\nlimit in space [112] either.  As being thus unlimited it must be one,\ntherefore immovable (there being nothing else into which it can move or\nchange), and therefore always self-identical in extent and character.\nIt cannot, therefore, have any body, for body has parts and is not\ntherefore one.\n\n[113]\n\nBeing incapable of change one might perhaps conclude that the\nabsolutely existing being is incapable of any mental activity or\nconsciousness.  We have no authority for assuming that Melissus came to\nthis conclusion; but there is a curious remark of Aristotle's\nrespecting this and previous philosophers of the school which certain\ncritics have [114] made to bear some such interpretation.  He says:\n\"Parmenides seems to hold by a Unity in thought, Melissus by a Material\nunity.  Hence the first {48} defined the One as limited, the second\ndeclared it to be unlimited.  Xenophanes made no clear statement on\nthis question; he simply, gazing up to the arch of heaven, declared,\nThe One is God.\"\n\nBut the difference between Melissus and his master can hardly be said\nto be a difference of doctrine; point for point, they are identical.\nThe difference is a difference of vision or mental picture as to this\nmighty All which is One.  Melissus, so to speak, places himself at the\ncentre of this Universal being, and sees it stretching out infinitely,\nunendingly, in space and in time.  Its oneness comes to him as the\n_sum_ of these infinities.  Parmenides, on the other hand, sees all\nthese endless immensities as related to a centre; he, so to speak,\nenfolds them all in the grasp of his unifying thought, and as thus\nequally and necessarily related to a central unity he pronounces the\nAll a sphere, and therefore limited.  The two doctrines, antithetical\nin terms, are identical in fact.  The absolutely unlimited and the\nabsolutely self-limited are only two ways of saying the same thing.\n\nThis difference of view or vision Aristotle in the passage quoted\nexpresses as a difference between _thought_ ((Greek) _logos_) and\n_matter_ ((Greek) _hule_).  This is just a form of his own radical\ndistinction between Essence and Difference, Form and Matter, of which\nmuch will be said later on.  It is like the difference {49} between\nDeduction and Induction; in the first you start from the universal and\nsee within it the particulars; in the second you start from the\nparticulars and gather them into completeness and reality in a\nuniversal.  The substance remains the same, only the point of view is\ndifferent.  To put the matter in modern mathematical form, one might\nsay, The universe is to be conceived as a _sphere_ (Parmenides) of\n_infinite radius_ (Melissus).  Aristotle is not blaming Melissus or\npraising Parmenides.  As for Xenophanes, Aristotle after his manner\nfinds in him the potentiality of both.  He is prior both to the process\nof thought from universal to particular, and to that from particular to\nuniversal.  He does not argue at all; his function is Intuition.  \"He\nlooks out on the mighty sky, and says, The One is God.\"\n\nMelissus applied the results of his analysis in an interesting way to\nthe question already raised by his predecessors, of the trustworthiness\nof sensation.  His argument is as follows: \"If there were many real\nexistences, to each of them the same reasonings must apply as I have\nalready used with reference to the one existence.  That is to say, if\nearth really exists, and water and air and iron and gold and fire and\nthings living and things dead; and black and white, and all the various\nthings whose reality men ordinarily assume,--if all these really exist,\nand our sight and our hearing give us _facts_, then each of these as\n{50} really existing must be what we concluded the one existence must\nbe; among other things, each must be unchangeable, and can never become\nother than it really is.  But assuming that sight and hearing and\napprehension are true, we find the cold becoming hot and the hot\nbecoming cold; the hard changes to soft, the soft to hard; the living\nthing dies; and from that which is not living, a living thing comes\ninto being; in short, everything changes, and what now is in no way\nresembles what was.  It follows therefore that we neither see nor\napprehend realities.\n\n\"In fact we cannot pay the slightest regard to experience without being\nlanded in self-contradictions.  We assume that there are all sorts of\nreally existing things, having a permanence both of form and power, and\nyet we imagine these very things altering and changing according to\nwhat we from time to time see about them.  If they were realities as we\nfirst perceived them, our sight must now be wrong.  For if they were\nreal, they could not change.  Nothing can be stronger than reality.\nWhereas to suppose it changed, we must affirm that the real has ceased\nto be, and that that which was not has displaced it.\"\n\nTo Melissus therefore, as to his predecessors, the world of sense was a\nworld of illusion; the very first principles or assumptions of which,\nas of the truthfulness of the senses and the reality of the various\nobjects which we see, are unthinkable and absurd.\n\n{51}\n\nThe weakness as well as the strength of the Eleatic position consisted\nin its purely negative and critical attitude.  The assumptions of\nordinary life and experience could not stand for a moment when assailed\nin detail by their subtle analysis.  So-called facts were like a world\nof ghosts, which the sword of truth passed through without resistance.\nBut somehow the sword might pierce them through and through, and show\nby all manner of arguments their unsubstantiality, but there they were\nstill thronging about the philosopher and refusing to be gone.  The\nworld of sense might be only illusion, but there the illusion was.  You\ncould not lay it or exorcise it by calling it illusion or opinion.\nWhat was this opinion?  What was the nature of its subject matter?  How\ndid it operate?  And if its results were not true or real, what was\ntheir nature?  These were questions which still remained when the\nanalysis of the idea of absolute existence had been pushed to its\ncompletion.  These were the questions which the next school of\nphilosophy attempted to answer.  After the Idealists, the Realists;\nafter the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of matter.\n\n\n\n\n{52}\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nTHE ATOMISTS\n\n_Anaxagoras and the cosmos--Mind in nature--The seeds of existence_\n\n\n[129]\n\nI. ANAXAGORAS.--Anaxagoras was born at Clazomenae, a city of Ionia,\nabout the year 500 B.C.  At the age of twenty he removed to Athens, of\nwhich city Clazomenae was for some time a dependency.  This step on his\npart may have been connected with the circumstances attending the great\ninvasion of Greece by Xerxes in the year 480.  For Xerxes drew a large\ncontingent of his army from the Ionian cities which he had subdued, and\nmany who were unwilling to serve against their mother-country may have\ntaken refuge about that time in Athens.  At Athens he resided for\nnearly fifty years, and during that period became the friend and\nteacher of many eminent men, among the rest of Pericles, the great\nAthenian [118] statesman, and of Euripides, the dramatist.  Like most\nof the Ionian philosophers he had a taste for mathematics and\nastronomy, as well as for certain practical applications of\nmathematics.  Among other books he is said to have written a treatise\non the art {53} of scene-designing for the stage, possibly to oblige\nhis friend and pupil Euripides.  In his case, as in that of his\npredecessors, only fragments of his philosophic writings have been\npreserved, and the connection of certain portions of his teaching as\nthey have come down to us remains somewhat uncertain.\n\n[119]\n\nWith respect to the constitution of the universe we have the following:\n\"Origination and destruction are phrases which are generally\nmisunderstood among the Greeks.  Nothing really is originated or\ndestroyed; the only processes which actually take place are combination\nand separation of elements already existing.  [120] These elements we\nare to conceive as having been in a state of chaos at first, infinite\nin number and infinitely small, forming in their immobility a confused\nand characterless unity.  About this chaos was spread the air and\naether, infinite also in the multitude of their particles, and\ninfinitely extended.  Before separation commenced there was no clear\ncolour or appearance in anything, whether of moist or dry, of hot or\ncold, of bright or dark, but only an infinite number of the seeds of\nthings, having concealed in them all manner of forms and colours and\nsavours.\"\n\nThere is a curious resemblance in this to the opening verses of\nGenesis, \"The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon\nthe face of the deep.\"  Nor is the next step in his philosophy without\nits resemblance to that in the Biblical record.  [122] As summarised by\nDiogenes Laertius it takes this form, \"All things were as one: then\ncometh Mind, and by division brought all things into order.\"  [121]\n\"Conceiving,\" as Aristotle puts it, \"that the original elements of\nthings had no power to generate or develop out of themselves things as\nthey exist, philosophers were forced by the facts themselves to seek\nthe immediate cause of this development.  They were unable to believe\nthat fire, or earth, or any such principle was adequate to account for\nthe order and beauty visible in the frame of things; nor did they think\nit possible to attribute these to mere innate necessity or chance.\n_One_ (Anaxagoras) observing how in living creatures Mind is the\nordering force, declared that in nature also this must be the cause of\norder and beauty, and in so declaring he seemed, when compared with\nthose before him, as one sober amidst a crowd of babblers.\"\n\n[122]\n\nElsewhere, however, Aristotle modifies this commendation.\n\"Anaxagoras,\" he says, \"uses Mind only as a kind of last resort,\ndragging it in when he fails otherwise to account for a phenomenon, but\nnever thinking of it else.\"  And in the _Phaedo_ Plato makes Socrates\nspeak of the high hopes with which he had taken to the works of\nAnaxagoras, and how grievously he had been disappointed.  \"As I\nproceeded,\" he says, \"I found my philosopher altogether forsaking Mind\nor any other principle of order, and having {55} recourse to air, and\naether, and water, and other eccentricities.\"\n\nAnaxagoras, then, at least on this side of his teaching, must be\nconsidered rather as the author of a phrase than as the founder of a\nphilosophy.  The phrase remained, and had a profound influence on\nsubsequent philosophies, but in his own hands it was little more than a\ndead letter.  His immediate interest was rather in the variety of\nphenomena than in their conceived principle of unity; he is\ntheoretically, perhaps, 'on the side of the angels,' in practice he is\na materialist.\n\n[12]\n\nMind he conceived as something apart, sitting throned like Zeus upon\nthe heights, giving doubtless the first impulse to the movement of\nthings, but leaving them for the rest to their own inherent tendencies.\nAs distinguished from them it was, he conceived, the one thing which\nwas absolutely pure and unmixed.  All things else had intermixture with\nevery other, the mixtures increasing in complexity towards the centre\nof things.  On the outmost verge were distributed the finest and least\ncomplex forms of things--the sun, the moon, the stars; the more dense\ngathering together, to form as it were in the centre of the vortex, the\nearth and its manifold existences.  By the intermixture of air and\nearth and water, containing in themselves the infinitely varied seeds\nof things, plants and animals were {56} developed.  The seeds\nthemselves are too minute to be apprehended by the senses, but we can\ndivine their character by the various characters of the visible things\nthemselves, each of these having a necessary correspondence with the\nnature of the seeds from which they respectively were formed.\n\n[128]\n\nThus for a true apprehension of things sensation and reason are both\nnecessary--sensation to certify to the apparent characters of objects,\nreason to pass from these to the nature of the invisible seeds or atoms\nwhich cause those characters.  Taken by themselves our sensations are\nfalse, inasmuch as they give us only combined impressions, yet they are\na necessary stage towards the truth, as providing the materials which\nreason must separate into their real elements.\n\nFrom this brief summary we may gather that Mind was conceived, so to\nspeak, as placed at the _beginning_ of existence, inasmuch as it is the\nfirst originator of the vortex motions of the atoms or seeds of things;\nit was conceived also at the _end_ of existence as the power which by\nanalysis of the data of sensation goes back through the complexity of\nactual being to the original unmingled or undeveloped nature of things.\nBut the whole process of nature itself between these limits Anaxagoras\nconceived as a purely mechanical or at least physical development, the\nuncertainty of his view as between these two alternative ways of\nconsidering it being {57} typified in his use of the two expressions\n_atoms_ and _seeds_.  The analogies of this view with those of modern\nmaterialism, which finds in the ultimate molecules of matter \"the\npromise and the potency of all life and all existence,\" need not be\nhere enlarged upon.\n\nAfter nearly half a century's teaching at Athens Anaxagoras was\nindicted on a charge of inculcating doctrines subversive of religion.\nIt is obvious enough that his theories left no room for the popular\nmythology, but the Athenians were not usually very sensitive as to the\nbearing of mere theories upon their public institutions.  It seems\nprobable that the accusation was merely a cloak for political\nhostility.  Anaxagoras was the friend and intimate of Pericles, leader\nof the democratic party in the state, and the attack upon Anaxagoras\nwas really a political move intended to damage Pericles.  As such\nPericles himself accepted it, and the trial became a contest of\nstrength, which resulted in a partial success and a partial defeat for\nboth sides.  Pericles succeeded in saving his friend's life, but the\nopposite party obtained a sentence of fine and banishment against him.\nAnaxagoras retired to Lampsacus, a city on the Hellespont, and there,\nafter some five years, he died.\n\n\n\n\n{58}\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTHE ATOMISTS (_continued_)\n\n_Empedocles at Etna--Brief life and scanty vision--The four\nelements--The philosophy of contradiction--Philosophy a form of\npoesy--The philosopher a prophet--Sensation through kinship--The whole\ncreation groaneth_\n\n\n[129]\n\nII. EMPEDOCLES.--Empedocles was a native of Agrigentum, a Greek colony\nin Sicily.  At the time when he flourished in his native city (circa\n440 B.C.) it was one of the wealthiest and most powerful communities in\nthat wealthy and powerful island.  It had, however, been infested, like\nits neighbours, by the designs of tyrants and the dissensions of rival\nfactions.  Empedocles was a man of high family, and he exercised the\ninfluence which his position and his abilities secured him in promoting\nand maintaining the liberty of his fellow-countrymen.  Partly on this\naccount, partly from a reputation which with or without his own will he\nacquired for an almost miraculous skill in healing and necromantic\narts, Empedocles attained to a position of singular personal power over\nhis contemporaries, and was indeed regarded as semi-divine.  His death\nwas hedged about with mystery.  According to one story he gave a great\nfeast to his friends and offered a {59} sacrifice; then when his\nfriends went to rest he disappeared, and was no more seen.  According\nto a story less dignified and better known--\n\n        Deus immortalis haberi\n  Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Aetnam\n  Insiluit.            HOR.  _Ad Pisones_, 464 _sqq_.\n\n\"Eager to be deemed a god, Empedocles coldly threw himself in burning\nEtna.\"  The fraud, it was said, was detected by one of his shoes being\ncast up from the crater.  Whatever the manner of his end, the Etna\nstory may probably be taken as an ill-natured joke of some sceptic wit;\nand it is certain that no such story was believed by his\nfellow-citizens, who rendered in after years divine honours to his name.\n\nLike Xenophanes, Parmenides, and other Graeco-Italian philosophers, he\nexpounded his views in verse; but he reached a poetic excellence\nunattained by any predecessor.  Aristotle characterises his gift as\nHomeric, and himself as a master of style, employing freely metaphors\nand other poetic forms.  Lucretius also speaks of him in terms of high\nadmiration (_De Nat. Rer. i. 716 sqq._): \"Foremost among them is\nEmpedocles of Agrigentum, child of the island with the triple capes, a\nland wondrous deemed in many wise, and worthy to be viewed of all men.\nRich it is in all manner of good things, and strong {60} in the might\nof its men, yet naught within its borders men deem more divine or more\nwondrous or more dear than her illustrious son.  Nay, the songs which\nissued from his godlike breast are eloquent yet, and expound his\nfindings wondrous well, so that hardly is he thought to have been of\nmortal clay.\"\n\n[180]\n\nLike the Eleatics he denies that the senses are an absolute test of\ntruth.  \"For straitened are the powers that have been shed upon our\nframes, and many the frets that cross us and defeat our care, and short\nthe span of unsatisfying existence wherein 'tis given us to see.\nShortlived as a wreath of smoke men rise and fleet away, persuaded but\nof that alone which each has chanced to light upon, driven hither and\nthither, and vainly do they pray to find _the whole_.  For this men may\nnot see or hear or grasp with the hand of thought.\"  Yet that there is\na kind or degree of knowledge possible for man his next words suggest\nwhen he continues: \"Thou therefore since hither thou hast been borne,\nhear, and thou shalt learn so much as 'tis given to mortal thought to\nreach.\"  Then follows an invocation in true Epic style to the\n\"much-wooed white-armed virgin Muse,\" wherein he prays that \"folly and\nimpurity may be far from the lips of him the teacher, and that sending\nforth her swift-reined chariot from the shrine of Piety, the Muse may\ngrant him to hear so much as is given to mortal hearing.\"\n\n{61}\n\nThen follows a warning uttered by the Muse to her would-be disciple:\n\"Thee the flowers of mortal distinctions shall not seduce to utter in\ndaring of heart more than thou mayest, that thereby thou mightest soar\nto the highest heights of wisdom.  And now behold and see, availing\nthyself of every device whereby the truth may in each matter be\nrevealed, trusting not more to sight for thy learning than to hearing,\nnor to hearing with its loud echoings more than to the revelations of\nthe tongue, nor to any one of the many ways whereby there is a path to\nknowledge.  Keep a check on the revelation of the hands also, and\napprehend each matter in the way whereby it is made plain to thee.\"\n\nThe correction of the one sense by the others, and of all by reason,\nthis Empedocles deemed the surest road to knowledge.  He thus\nendeavoured to hold a middle place between the purely abstract\nreasoning of the Eleatic philosophy and the unreasoned first guesses of\nordinary observation suggested by this or that sense, and chiefly by\nthe eyes.  The senses might supply the raw materials of knowledge,\nunordered, unrelated, nay even chaotic and mutually destructive; but in\ntheir contradictions of each other he hoped to find a starting-point\nfor order amidst the seeming chaos; reason should weigh, reason should\nreject, but reason also should find a residuum of truth.\n\n{62}\n\n[181]\n\nIn our next fragment we have his enunciation in symbolical language of\nthe _four_ elements, by him first formulated: \"Hear first of all what\nare the root principles of all things, being four in number,--Zeus the\nbright shiner (_i.e._ fire), and Hera (air), and life-bearing Aidoneus\n(earth), and Nestis (water), who with her teardrops waters the fountain\nof mortality.  Hear also this other that I will tell thee.  Nothing of\nall that perisheth ever is created, nothing ever really findeth an end\nin death.  There is naught but a mingling, and a parting again of that\nwhich was mingled, and this is what men call a coming into being.\nFoolish they, for in them is no far-reaching thought, that they should\ndream that what was not before can be, or that aught which is can\nutterly perish and die.\"  Thus again Empedocles shows himself an\nEclectic; in denying that aught can come into being, he holds with the\nEleatics (see above, p. 47); in identifying all seeming creation, and\nceasing to be with certain mixtures and separations of matter eternally\nexisting, he links himself rather to the doctrine of Anaxagoras (see\nabove, p. 53).\n\n[132]\n\nThese four elements constitute the total _corpus_ of the universe,\neternal, as a whole unmoved and immovable, perfect like a sphere.  But\nwithin this sphere-like self-centred All there are eternally proceeding\nseparations and new unions of the elements of things; and every one of\nthese is at once a birth {63} and an infinity of dyings, a dying and an\ninfinity of births.  Towards this perpetual life in death, and death in\nlife, two forces work inherent in the universe.  One of these he names\nLove, Friendship, Harmony, Aphrodite goddess of Love, Passion, Joy; the\nother he calls Hate, Discord, Ares god of War, Envy, Strife.  Neither\nof the one nor of the other may man have apprehension by the senses;\nthey are spiritually discerned; yet of the first men have some\nadumbration in the creative force within their own members, which they\nname by the names of Love and Nuptial Joy.\n\nSomewhat prosaically summing up the teaching of Empedocles, Aristotle\nsays that he thus posited _six_ first principles in nature--four\nmaterial, two motive or efficient.  And he goes on to remark that in\nthe working out of his theory of nature Empedocles, though using his\noriginative principles more consistently than Anaxagoras used his\nprinciple of _Nous_ or Thought, not infrequently, nevertheless, resorts\nto some natural force in the elements themselves, or even to chance or\nnecessity.  \"Nor,\" he continues, \"has he clearly marked off the\nfunctions of his two efficient forces, nay, he has so confounded them\nthat at times it is Discord that through separation leads to new\nunions, and Love that through union causes diremption of that which was\nbefore.\"  At times, too, Empedocles seems to have had a vision of these\ntwo forces, not as the counteracting yet {64} co-operative\n_pulsations_, so to speak, of the universal life, but as rival forces\nhaving had in time their periods of alternate supremacy and defeat.\nWhile all things were in union under the influence of Love, then was\nthere neither Earth nor Water nor Air nor Fire, much less any of the\nindividual things that in eternal interchange are formed of them; but\nall was in perfect sphere-like balance, enwrapped in the serenity of an\neternal silence.  Then came the reign of Discord, whereby war arose in\nheaven as of the fabled giants, and endless change,--endless birth, and\nendless death.\n\nThese inconsistencies of doctrine, which Aristotle notes as faults in\nEmpedocles, are perhaps rather proofs of the philosophic value of his\nconceptions.  Just as Hegel in modern philosophy could only adequately\nformulate his conceptions through logical contradictions, so also,\nperhaps, under the veil of antagonisms of utterance, Empedocles sought\nto give a fuller vision,--Discord, in his own doctrine, not less than\nin his conception of nature, being thus the co-worker with Love.  The\nordinary mind for the ordinary purposes of science seeks exactness of\ndistinction in things, and language, being the creation of ordinary\nexperience, lends itself to such a purpose; the philosophic mind,\nfinding ready to its hand no forms of expression adapted to its\nconceptions, which have for their final end Union and not Distinction,\n{65} can only attain its purpose by variety, or even contradictoriness,\nof representation.  Thus to ordinary conception cause must precede\neffect; to the philosophic mind, dealing as it does with the idea of an\norganic whole, everything is at once cause and effect, is at once\ntherefore prior to and subsequent to every other, is at once the ruling\nand the ruled, the conditioning and that which is conditioned.\n\nSo, to Empedocles there are four elements, yet in the eternal\nperfection, the silent reign of Love, there are none of them.  There\nare two forces working upon these and against each other, yet each is\nlike the other either a unifying or a separating force, as one pleases\nto regard them; and in the eternal silence, the ideal perfectness,\nthere is no warfare at all.  There is joy in Love which creates, and in\ncreating destroys; there is joy in the eternal Stillness, nay, this is\nitself the ultimate joy.  There are two forces working, Love and Hate,\nyet is there but one force, and that force is Necessity.  And for final\ncontradiction, the universe is self-balanced, self-conditioned, a\nperfect sphere; therefore this Necessity is perfect self-realisation,\nand consequently perfect freedom.\n\nThe men who have had the profoundest vision of things--Heraclitus,\nEmpedocles, Socrates, Plato, ay, and Aristotle himself when he was the\nthinker and not the critic; not to speak of the great moderns, whether\npreachers or philosophers--have none of {66} them been greatly\nconcerned for consistency of expression, for a mere logical\nself-identity of doctrine.  Life in every form, nay, existence in any\nform, is a union of contradictories, a complex of antagonisms; and the\nhighest and deepest minds are those that are most adequate to have the\nvision of these antagonisms in their contrariety, and also in their\nunity; to see and hear as Empedocles did the eternal war and clamour,\nbut to discern also, as he did in it and through it and behind it and\nabout it, the eternal peace and the eternal silence.\n\nPhilosophy, in fact, is a form of poesy; it is, if one pleases so to\ncall it, 'fiction founded upon fact.'  It is not for that reason the\nless noble a form of human thought, rather is it the more noble, in the\nsame way as poetry is nobler than mere narrative, and art than\nrepresentation, and imagination than perception.  Philosophy is indeed\none of the noblest forms of poetry, because the facts which are its\nbasis are the profoundest, the most eternally interesting, the most\nuniversally significant.  And not only has it nobility in respect of\nthe greatness of its subject matter, it has also possibilities of an\nessential truth deeper and more far-reaching and more fruitful than any\ndemonstrative system of fact can have.  A great poem or work of art of\nany kind is an adumbration of truths which transcend any actual fact,\nand as such it brings us nearer to the underlying fundamentals of {67}\nreality which all actual occurrences only by accumulation _tend_ to\nrealise.  Philosophy, then, in so far as it is great, is, like other\ngreat art, prophetic in both interpretations of the word, both as\nexpounding the inner truth that is anterior to actuality, and also as\nanticipating that final realisation of all things for which 'the whole\ncreation groaneth.'  It is thus at the basis of religion, of art, of\nmorals; it is the accumulated sense of the highest in man with respect\nto what is greatest and most mysterious in and about him.\n\nThe facts, indeed, with which philosophy attempts to deal are so vital\nand so vast that even the greatest intellects may well stagger\noccasionally under the burden of their own conceptions of them.  To\nrise to the height of such an argument demands a more than Miltonic\nimagination; and criticisms directed only at this or that fragment of\nthe whole are as irrelevant, if not as inept, as the criticism of the\nmathematician directed against _Paradise Lost_, that it 'proved\nnothing.'  The mystery of being and of life, the true purport and\nreality of this world of which we seem to be a part, and yet of which\nwe seem to have some apprehension as though we were other than a part;\nthe strange problems of creation and change and birth and death, of\nlove and sin and purification; of a heaven dreamt of or believed in, or\nsomehow actually apprehended; of life here, and of an immortality\nyearned after and hoped for--these {68} problems, these mysteries, no\nphilosophy ever did or ever can empty of their strangeness, or bring\ndown to the level of the commonplace 'certainties' of daily life or of\nscience, which are no more than shadows after all, that seem\ncertainties because of the background of mystery on which they are cast.\n\nBut just as an individual is a higher being, a fuller, more truly human\ncreature, when he has got so far removed from the merely animal\nexistence as to realise that there are such problems and mysteries, so\nalso the humanisation of the race, the development of its noblest\npeoples and its noblest literatures, have been conditioned by the\nsuccessive visions of these mysteries in more and more complex\norganisation by the great philosophers and poets and preachers.  The\nsystems of such men may die, but such deaths mean, as Empedocles said\nof the ordinary deaths of things, only an infinity of new births.\nBeing dead, their systems yet speak in the inherited language and ideas\nand aspirations and beliefs that form the never-ending, still-renewing\nmaterial for new philosophies and new faiths.  In Thales, Heraclitus,\nPythagoras, Parmenides, Empedocles we have been touching hands with an\napostolic succession of great men and great thinkers and great\npoets--men of noble life and lofty thoughts, true prophets and\nrevealers.  And the apostolic succession even within the Greek world\ndoes not fail for centuries yet.\n\n{69}\n\nPassing from the general conceptions of Empedocles to those more\nparticular rationalisations of particular problems which very largely\nprovided the motive of early philosophies, while scientific methods\nwere in an undeveloped and uncritical condition, we may notice such\ninteresting statements as the following: [135] \"The earth, which is at\nthe centre of the sphere of the universe, remains firm, because the\nspin of the universe as a whole keeps it in its place like the water in\na spinning cup.\"  He has the same conception of the early condition of\nthe earth as in other cosmogonies.  At first it was a chaos of watery\nslough, which slowly, under the influence of sky and sun, parted off\ninto earth and sea.  The sea was the 'sweat' of the earth, and by\nanalogy with the sweat it was salt.  The heavens, on the other hand,\nwere formed of air and fire, and the sun was, as it were, a speculum at\nwhich the effulgence and the heat of the whole heavens concentrated.\nBut that the aether and the fire had not been fully separated from\nearth and water he held to be proved by the hot fountains and fiery\nphenomena which must have been so familiar to a native of Sicily.\nCuriously enough he imagined fire to possess a solidifying power, and\ntherefore attributed to it the solidity of the earth and the hardness\nof the rocks.  No doubt he had observed some effects of fire in\n'metamorphic' formations in his own vicinity.\n\n{70}\n\n[137]\n\nHe had also a conception of the gradual development on the earth of\nhigher and higher forms of life, the first being rude and imperfect,\nand a 'struggle for existence' ensuing in which the monstrous and the\ndeficient gradually were eliminated--the \"two-faced, the\ndouble-breasted, the oxen-shaped with human prows, or human-shaped with\nhead of ox, or hemaphrodite,\" and so forth.  Love and Strife worked out\ntheir ends upon these varied forms; some procreated and reproduced\nafter their image, others were incapable of reproduction from mere\nmonstrosity or [138] weakness, and disappeared.  Something other than\nmere chance thus governed the development of things; there was a law, a\nreason, a _Logos_ governing the process.  This law or reason he perhaps\nfancifully illustrated by attributing the different characters of flesh\nand sinew and bone to the different numerical proportions, in which\nthey severally contain the different elements.\n\nOn this Aristotle, keen-scented critic as he was, has a question, or\nseries of questions, to ask as to the relation between this Logos, or\nprinciple of orderly combination, and Love as the ruling force in all\nunions of things.  \"Is Love,\" he asks, \"a cause of mixtures of any\nsort, or only of such sorts as Logos dictates?  And whether then is\nLove identical with this Logos, or are they separate and distinct; and\nif so, what settles their separate functions?\"  Questions {71} which\nEmpedocles did not answer, and perhaps would not have tried to answer\nhad he heard them.\n\n[139]\n\nThe soul or life-principle in man Empedocles regarded as an ordered\ncomposite of all the elements or principles of the life in nature, and\nin this kinship of the elements in man and the elements in nature he\nfound a rationale of our powers of perception.  \"By the earth,\" said\nhe, \"we have perception of earth; by water we have perception of water;\nof the divine aether, by aether; of destructive fire, by fire; of love,\nby love; of strife, by strife.\"  He therefore, as Aristotle observes,\ndrew no radical distinction between sense-apprehension and thought.  He\nlocated the faculty of apprehension more specifically in the blood,\nconceiving that in it the combination of the elements was most\ncomplete.  And the variety of apprehensive gift in different persons he\nattributed to the greater or lesser perfectness of this blood mixture\nin them individually.  Those that were dull and stupid had a relative\ndeficiency of the lighter and more invisible elements; those that were\nquick and impulsive had a relatively larger proportion of these.\nAgain, specific faculties depended on local perfection of mixture in\ncertain organs; orators having this perfectness in their tongues,\ncunning craftsmen possessing it in their hands, and so on.  And the\ndegrees of capacity of sensation, which he found in various animals, or\neven plants, he explained in similar fashion.\n\n{72} The process of sensation he conceived to be conditioned by an\nactual emission from the bodies perceived of elements or images of\nthemselves which found access to our apprehension through channels\n[140] congruous to their nature.  But ordering, criticising, organising\nthese various apprehensions was the Mind or _Nous_, which he conceived\nto be of divine nature, to be indeed an expression or emanation of the\nDivine.  And here has been preserved a strangely interesting passage,\nin which he incorporates and develops in characteristic fashion the\ndoctrine of transmigration [141] of souls: \"There is a decree of\nNecessity, a law given of old from the gods, eternal, sealed with\nmighty oaths, that when any heavenly creature (daemon) of those that\nare endowed with length of days, shall in waywardness of heart defile\nhis hands with sin of deed or speech, he shall wander for thrice ten\nthousand seasons far from the dwellings of the blest, taking upon him\nin length of time all manner of mortal forms, traversing in turn the\nmany toilsome paths of existence.  Him the aetherial wrath hurries\nonward to the deep, and the deep spews him forth on to the threshold of\nearth, and unworn earth casts him up to the fires of the sun, and again\nthe aether hurls him into the eddies.  One receives him, and then\nanother, but detested is he of them all.  Of such am I also one, an\nexile and a wanderer from God, a slave to strife and its madness.\"\n\n{73}\n\nThus to his mighty conception the life of all creation, and not of man\nonly, was a great expiation, an eternal round of punishment for sin;\nand in the unending flux of life each creature rose or fell in the\nscale of existence according to the deeds of good or ill done in each\nsuccessive life; rising sometimes to the state of men, or among men to\nthe high functions of physicians and prophets and kings, or among\nbeasts to the dignity of the lion, or among trees to the beauty of the\nlaurel; or, on the contrary, sinking through sin to lowest forms of\nbestial or vegetable life.  Till at the last they who through obedience\nand right-doing have expiated their wrong, are endowed by the blessed\ngods with endless honour, to dwell for ever with them and share their\nbanquets, untouched any more with human care and sorrow and pain.\n\n[143]\n\nThe slaying of any living creature, therefore, Empedocles, like\nPythagoras, abhorred, for all were kin.  All foul acts were forms of\nworse than suicide; life should be a long act of worship, of expiation,\nof purification.  And in the dim past he pictured a vision of a golden\nage, in which men worshipped not many gods, but Love only, and not with\nsacrifices of blood, but with pious images, and cunningly odorous\nincense, and offerings of fragrant myrrh.  With abstinence also, and\nabove all with that noblest abstinence, the abstinence from vice and\nwrong.\n\n\n\n\n{74}\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nTHE ATOMISTS (_concluded_)\n\n_The laughing philosopher--Atoms and void--No god and no truth_\n\n\n[143]\n\nIII. LEUCIPPUS AND DEMOCRITUS.--Leucippus is variously called a native\nof Elea, of Abdera, of Melos, of Miletus.  He was a pupil of Zeno the\nEleatic.  [144] Democritus was a native of Abdera.  They seem to have\nbeen almost contemporary with Socrates.  The two are associated as\nthorough-going teachers of the 'Atomic Philosophy,' but Democritus,\n'the laughing philosopher,' as he was popularly called in later times,\nin distinction from Heraclitus, 'the weeping philosopher,' was much the\nmore famous.  [145] He lived to a great age.  He himself refers to his\ntravels and studies thus: \"Above all the men of my time I travelled\nfarthest, and extended my inquiries to places the most distant.  I\nvisited the most varied climates and countries, heard the largest\nnumber of learned men, nor has any one surpassed me in the gathering\ntogether of writings and their interpretation, no, not even the most\nlearned of the Egyptians, with whom I spent five years.\"  We {75} are\nalso informed that, through desire of learning, he visited Babylon and\nChaldaea, to visit the astrologers and the priests.\n\n[146]\n\nDemocritus was not less prolific as a writer than he was voracious as a\nstudent, and in him first the division of philosophy into certain great\nsections, such as physical, mathematical, ethical, was clearly [147]\ndrawn.  We are, however, mainly concerned with his teaching in its more\nstrictly philosophical aspects.  His main doctrine was professedly\nantithetical to that of the Eleatics, who, it will be remembered,\nworked out on abstract lines a theory of one indivisible, eternal,\nimmovable Being.  Democritus, on the contrary, declared for two\nco-equal elements, the Full and the Empty, or Being and Nonentity.  The\nlatter, he maintained, was as real as the former.  As we should put it,\nBody is unthinkable except by reference to space which that body does\nnot occupy, as well as to space which it does occupy; and conversely\nSpace is unthinkable except by reference to body actually or\npotentially filling or defining it.\n\nWhat Democritus hoped to get by this double or correlative system was a\nmeans of accounting for or conceiving of _change_ in nature.  The\ndifficulty with the Eleatics was, as we have seen, how to understand\nwhence or why the transition from that which absolutely is, to this\nstrange, at least apparent, system of eternal flux and transformation.\nDemocritus {76} hoped to get over this difficulty by starting as fully\nwith that which _is not_, in other words, with that which _wants_\nchange in order to have any recognisable being at all, as with that\nwhich _is_, and which therefore might be conceived as seeking and\nrequiring only to be what it is.\n\n[148]\n\nHaving got his principle of stability and his principle of change on an\nequal footing, Democritus next laid it down that all the differences\nvisible in things were differences either of shape, of arrangement, or\nof position; practically, that is, he considered that what seem, to us\nto be qualitative differences in things, _e.g._ hot or cold, sweet or\nsour, green or yellow, are only resulting impressions from different\nshapes, or different arrangements, or different modes of presentation,\namong the atoms of which things are composed.\n\nComing now to that which _is_, Democritus, as against the Eleatics,\nmaintained that this was not a unity, some one immovable, unchangeable\nexistence, but an innumerable number of atoms, invisible by reason of\ntheir smallness, which career through empty space (that which _is\nnot_), and by their union bring objects into being, by their separation\nbring these to destruction.  The action of these atoms on each other\ndepended on the manner in which they were brought into contact; but in\nany case the unity of any object was only an apparent unity, it being\nreally constituted of a multitude of interlaced and mutually related\n{77} particles, and all growth or increase of the object being\nconditioned by the introduction into the structure of additional atoms\nfrom without.\n\n[149]\n\nFor the motions of the atoms he had no anterior cause to offer, other\nthan necessity or fate.  They existed, and necessarily and always had\nexisted, in a state of whirl; and for that which always had been he\nmaintained that no preceding cause could legitimately or reasonably be\ndemanded.\n\n[150]\n\nNothing, then, could come out of nothing; all the visible structure of\nthe universe had its origin in the movements of the atoms that\nconstituted it, and conditioned its infinite changes.  The atoms, by a\nuseful but perhaps too convenient metaphor, he called the _seeds_ of\nall things.  They were infinite in number, though not infinite in the\nnumber, of their shapes.  Many atoms were similar to each other, and\nthis similarity formed a basis of union among them, a warp, so to\nspeak, or solid foundation across which the woof of dissimilar atoms\nplayed to constitute the differences of things.\n\n[151]\n\nOut of this idea of an eternal eddy or whirl Democritus developed a\ncosmogony.  The lighter atoms he imagined flew to the outmost rim of\nthe eddy, there constituting the heavenly fires and the heavenly\naether.  The heavier atoms gathered at the centre, forming successively\nair and water and the solid earth.  Not that there was only one such\n{78} system or world, but rather multitudes of them, all varying one\nfrom the other; some without sun or moon, others with greater\nluminaries than those of our system, others with a greater number.\nAll, however, had necessarily a centre; all as systems were necessarily\nspherical.\n\n[152]\n\nAs regards the atoms he conceived that when they differed in weight\nthis must be in respect of a difference in their essential size.  In\nthis he was no doubt combating the notion that the atoms say of lead or\ngold were in their substance, taking equal quantities, of greater\nweight than atoms of water or air.  The difference of weight in objects\ndepended on the proportion which the atoms in them bore to the amount\nof empty space which was interlaced with them.  On the other hand, a\npiece of iron was lighter yet harder than a piece of lead of equal\nsize, because of the special way in which the atoms in it were linked\ntogether.  There were fewer atoms in it, but they were, in consequence\nof their structure and arrangement, more tightly strung.\n\n[153]\n\nIn all this Democritus was with great resolution working out what we\nmay call a strictly mechanical theory of the universe.  Even the soul\nor life-principle in living creatures was simply a structure of the\nfinest and roundest (and therefore most nimble) atoms, with which he\ncompared the extremely attenuated dust particles visible in their\nnever-ending {79} dance in a beam of light passed into a darkened room.\nThis structure of exceeding tenuity and nimbleness was the source of\nthe motion characteristic of living creatures, and provided that\nelastic counteracting force to the inward-pressing nimble air, whereby\nwere produced the phenomena of respiration.  Every object, in fact,\nwhether living or not, kept its form and distinctive existence by its\npossession in degree of a kind of soul or spirit of resistance in its\nstructure, adequate to counteract the pressure of external forces upon\nits particles.\n\n[155]\n\nSensation and perception were forms in which these external forces\nacted upon the more nimble and lively existences, more particularly on\nliving creatures.  For every body was continually sending forth\nemanations or images resembling itself sufficiently in form and\nstructure to affect perceptive bodies with an apprehension of that form\nand structure.  These images travelled by a process of successive\ntransmission, similar to that by which wave-motions are propagated in\nwater.  They were, in other words, not movements of the _particles_ of\nthe objects, which latter must otherwise in time grow less and fade\naway, but a modification in the arrangement of the particles\nimmediately next the object, which modification reproduced itself in\nthe next following, and so on right through the medium to the\nperceptive body.\n\n{80}\n\n[156]\n\nThese images tended by extension in all directions to reach vast\ndimensions at times, and to influence the minds of men in sleep and on\nother occasions in strange ways.  Hence men imagined gods, and\nattributed those mighty phenomena of nature--earthquakes, tempests,\nlightning and thunder, and dire eclipses of sun and moon, to the\nvaguely visible powers which they imagined they saw.  There was indeed\na soul or spirit of the universe, as there was a soul or spirit of\nevery individual thing that constituted it.  But this was only a finer\nsystem of atoms after all.  All else is convention or dream; the only\nrealities are Atoms and Emptiness, Matter and Space.\n\n[157]\n\nOf absolute verity through the senses we know nothing; our perceptions\nare only conventional interpretations of we know not what.  For to\nother living creatures these same sensations have other meanings than\nthey have to us, and even the same person is not always affected alike\nby the same thing; which then is the true of two differing perceptions\nwe cannot say.  And therefore either there is no such thing as truth,\nor, at all events, we know through the senses nothing of it.  The only\ngenuine knowledge is that which transcends appearances, and reasons out\nwhat is, irrespective of appearances,--in other words, the only genuine\nknowledge is that of the (atomic) philosopher.  And his knowledge is\n{81} the result of the happy mixture of his atoms whereby all is in\nequal balance, neither too hot nor too cold.  Such a man seeing in the\nmind's eye the whole universe a tissue of whirling and interlacing\natoms, with no real mystery or terror before or after, will live a life\nof cheerful fearlessness, undisturbed by terrors of a world to come or\nof powers unseen.  His happiness is not in feastings or in gold, but in\na mind at peace.  And three human perfections he will seek to attain:\nto reason rightly, to speak graciously, to do his duty.\n\n\n\n\n{82}\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nTHE SOPHISTS\n\n_Anarchic philosophy--Success not truth--Man the measure--All opinions\ntrue--Reductio ad absurdum_\n\n\nA certain analogy may perhaps be discerned between the progression of\nphilosophic thought in Greece as we have traced it, and the political\ndevelopment which had its course in almost every Greek state during the\nsame period.  The Ionic philosophy may be regarded as corresponding\nwith the _kingly_ era in Greek politics.  Philosophy sits upon the\nheights and utters its authoritative dicta for the resolution of the\nseeming contradictions of things.  One principle is master, but the\ntestimony of the senses is not denied; a harmony of thought and\nsensation is sought in the interpretation of appearances by the light\nof a ruling idea.  In Pythagoras and his order we have an\n_aristocratic_ organisation of philosophy.  Its truths are for the few,\nthe best men are the teachers, equal as initiated partakers in the\nmysteries, supreme over all outside their society.  A reasoned and\nreasonable order and method are {83} symbolised by their theory of\nNumber; their philosophy is political, their politics oligarchic.  In\nthe Eleatic school we have a succession of personal attempts to\nconstruct a _domination_ in the theory of Nature; some ideal conception\nis attempted to be so elevated above the data of sensation as to\noverride them altogether, and the general result we are now to see\nthroughout the philosophic world, as it was seen also throughout the\nworld of politics, in a total collapse of the principle of forced\nauthority, and a development, of successively nearer approaches to\nanarchic individualism and doubt.  The notion of an ultimately true and\nreal, whatever form it might assume in various theorists' hands, being\nin its essence apart from and even antagonistic to the perceptions of\nsense, was at last definitely cast aside as a delusion; what remained\nwere the individual perceptions, admittedly separate, unreasoned,\nunrelated; Reason was dethroned, Chaos was king.  In other words, what\n_seemed_ to any individual sentient being at any moment to be, that for\nhim was, and nothing else was.  The distinction between the real and\nthe apparent was definitely attempted to be abolished, not as hitherto\nby rejecting the sensually apparent in favour of the rationally\nconceived real, but by the denial of any such real altogether.\n\nThe individualistic revolution in philosophy not {84} only, however,\nhad analogies with the similar revolution contemporaneously going on in\nGreek politics, it was greatly facilitated by it.  Each, in short,\nacted and reacted on the other.  Just as the sceptical philosophy of\nthe Encyclopaedists in France promoted the Revolution, and the\nRevolution in its turn developed and confirmed the philosophic\nscepticism, so also the collapse of contending philosophies in Greece\npromoted the collapse of contending systems of political authority, and\nthe collapse of political authority facilitated the growth of that\nindividualism in thought with which the name of the Sophists is\nassociated.\n\n[178]\n\nCicero (_Brut_. 12) definitely connects the rise of these teachers with\nthe expulsion of the tyrants and the establishment of democratic\nrepublics in Sicily.  From 466 to 406 B.C. Syracuse was democratically\ngoverned, and a 'free career to talents,' as in revolutionary France,\nso also in revolutionary Greece, began to be promoted by the\nelaboration of a system of persuasive argument.  Devices of method\ncalled 'commonplaces' were constructed, whereby, irrespective of the\ntruth or falsehood of the subject-matter, a favourable vote in the\npublic assemblies, a successful verdict in the public courts, might\nmore readily be procured.  Thus by skill of verbal rhetoric, the worse\nmight be made to appear the better reason; and philosophy, so far as it\ncontinued its functions, {85} became a search, not for the real amidst\nthe confusions of the seeming and unreal, but a search for the seeming\nand the plausible, to the detriment, or at least to the ignoring, of\nany reality at all.\n\nThe end of philosophy then was no longer universal truth, but\nindividual success; and consistently enough, the philosopher himself\nprofessed the individualism of his own point of view, by teaching only\nthose who were prepared to pay him for his teaching.  All over Greece,\nwith the growth of democracy, this philosophy of persuasion became\npopular; but it was to Athens, under Pericles at this time the centre\nof all that was most vivid and splendid in Greek life and thought, that\nthe chief teachers of the new philosophy flocked from every part of the\nGreek world.\n\n[177]\n\nThe first great leader of the Sophists was _Protagoras_.  He, it is\nsaid, was the first to teach for pay; he also was the first to adopt\nthe name of Sophist.  In the word Sophist there was indeed latent the\nidea which subsequently attached to it, but as first used it seems to\nhave implied this only, that _skill_ was the object of the teaching\nrather than _truth_; the new teachers professed themselves 'practical\nmen,' not mere theorists.\n\nThe Greek word, in short, meant an able cultivated man in any branch of\nthe arts; and the development of practical capacity was doubtless what\nProtagoras {86} intended to indicate as the purpose of his teaching,\nwhen he called himself a Sophist.  But the ability he really undertook\nto cultivate was ability to _persuade_, for Greece at this time was\nnothing if not political; and persuasive oratory was the one road to\npolitical success.  And as Athens was the great centre of Greek\npolitics, as well as of Greek intellect, to Athens Protagoras came as a\nteacher.\n\nHe was born at Abdera, in Thrace (birthplace also of Democritus), in\n480 B.C., began to teach at Athens about 451 B.C., and soon acquired\ngreat influence with Pericles, the distinguished leader of the Athenian\ndemocracy at this time.  It is even alleged that when in 445 the\nAthenians were preparing to establish a colony at Thurii in Italy,\nProtagoras was requested to draw up a code of laws for the new state,\nand personally to superintend its execution.\n\nAfter spending some time in Italy he returned to Athens, and taught\nthere with great success for a number of years.  Afterwards he taught\nfor some time in Sicily, and died at the age of seventy, after [178]\nabout forty years of professional activity.  He does not seem to have\ncontented himself with the merely practical task of teaching rhetoric,\nbut in a work which he, perhaps ironically, entitled _Truth_, he\nenunciated the principles on which he based his teaching.  Those\nprinciples were summed up in the sentence, \"Man (by which he meant\n_each_ man) is {87} the measure of all things, whether of their\nexistence when they do exist, or of their non-existence when [179] they\ndo not.\"  In the development of this doctrine Protagoras starts from a\nsomewhat similar analysis of things to that of Heraclitus and others.\nEverything is in continual flux, and the apparently real objects in\nnature are the mere temporary and illusory result of the in themselves\ninvisible movements and minglings of the elements of which they are\ncomposed; and not only is it a delusion to attempt to give a factitious\nreality to the things which appear, it is equally a delusion to attempt\nto separate the (supposed) thing perceived from the perception itself.\nA thing is only as and when it is perceived.  And a third delusion is\nto attempt to separate a supposed perceiving mind from the perception;\nall three exist only in and through the momentary perception; the\nsupposed reality behind this, whether external in the object or\ninternal in the mind, is a mere imagination.  Thus the Heraclitean flux\nin Nature was extended to Mind also; only the sensation exists, and\nthat only at the moment of its occurrence; this alone is truth, this\nalone is reality; all else is delusion.\n\n[180]\n\nIt followed from this that as a man felt a thing to be, so for him it\nveritably was.  Thus abstract truth or falsity could not be; the same\nstatements could be indifferently true or false--to different {88}\nindividuals at the same time, to the same individual at different\ntimes.  It followed that all appearances were equally true: what seemed\nto be to any man, that was alone the true for him.  The relation of\nsuch a doctrine as this to politics and to morals is not far to seek.\nEvery man's opinion was as good as another's; if by persuasion you\nsucceeded in altering a man's opinion, you had not deceived the man,\nhis new opinion was as true (to him) as the old one.  Persuasiveness,\ntherefore, was the only wisdom.  Thus if a man is ill what he eats and\ndrinks seems bitter to him, and it is so; when he is well it seems the\nopposite, and is so.  He is not a wiser man in the second state than in\nthe first, but the second state is pleasanter.  If then you can\npersuade him that what he thinks bitter is really sweet, you have done\nhim good.  This is what the physician tries to do by his drugs; this is\nwhat the Sophist tries to do by his words.  Virtue then is teachable in\nso far as it is possible to persuade a boy or a man by rhetoric that\nthat course of conduct which pleases others is a pleasant course for\nhim.  But if any one happens not to be persuaded of this, and continues\nto prefer his own particular course of conduct, this _is_ for him the\ngood course.  You cannot blame him; you cannot say he is wrong.  If you\npunish him you simply endeavour to supply the dose of unpleasantness\nwhich may {89} be needed to put the balance in his case on the same\nside as it already occupies in the case of other people.\n\nIt may be worth while to anticipate a little, and insert here in\nsummary the refutation of this position put into the mouth of Socrates\nby Plato in the _Theaetetus_: \"But I ought not to conceal from you that\nthere is a serious objection which may be urged against this doctrine\nof Protagoras.  For there are states, such as madness and dreaming, in\nwhich perception is false; and half our life is spent in dreaming; and\nwho can say that at this instant we are not dreaming?  Even the fancies\nof madmen are real at the time.  But if knowledge is perception, how\ncan we distinguish between the true and the false in such cases? . . .\nShall I tell you what amazes me in your friend Protagoras?  'What may\nthat be?'  I like his doctrine that what appears is; but I wonder that\nhe did not begin his great work on truth with a declaration that a pig,\nor a dog-faced baboon, or any other monster which has sensation, is a\nmeasure of all things; then while we were reverencing him as a god he\nmight have produced a magnificent effect by expounding to us that he\nwas no wiser than a tadpole.  For if truth is only sensation, and one\nman's discernment is as good as another's, and every man is his own\njudge, and everything that he judges is right and true, then {90} what\nneed of Protagoras to be our instructor at a high figure; and why\nshould we be less knowing than he is, or have to go to him, if every\nman is the measure of all things?\" . . .  Socrates now resumes the\nargument.  As he is very desirous of doing justice to Protagoras, he\ninsists on citing his own words: 'What appears to each man is to him.'\n\"And how,\" asks Socrates, \"are these words reconcilable with the fact\nthat all mankind are agreed in thinking themselves wiser than others in\nsome respects, and inferior to them in others?  In the hour of danger\nthey are ready to fall down and worship any one who is their superior\nin wisdom as if he were a god.  And the world is full of men who are\nasking to be taught and willing to be ruled, and of other men who are\nwilling to rule and teach them.  All which implies that men do judge of\none another's impressions, and think some wise and others foolish.  How\nwill Protagoras answer this argument?  For he cannot say that no one\ndeems another ignorant or mistaken.  If you form a judgment, thousands\nand tens of thousands are ready to maintain the opposite.  The\nmultitude may not and do not agree in Protagoras' own thesis, 'that man\nis the measure of all things,' and then who is to decide?  Upon hip own\nshowing must not his 'truth' depend on the number of suffrages, and be\nmore or less true in proportion as he has more or fewer of them?  And\n{91} [the majority being against him] he will be bound to acknowledge\nthat they speak truly who deny him to speak truly, which is a famous\njest.  And if he admits that they speak truly who deny him to speak\ntruly, he must admit that he himself does not speak truly.  But his\nopponents will refuse to admit this as regards themselves, and he must\nadmit that they are right in their refusal.  The conclusion is, that\nall mankind, including Protagoras himself, will deny that he speaks\ntruly; and his truth will be true neither to himself nor to anybody\nelse\" (Jowett, _Plato_, iv. pp. 239 _sqq._)\n\nThe refutation seems tolerably complete, but a good deal had to happen\nbefore Greece was ready to accept or Plato to offer such a refutation.\n\n\n\n\n{92}\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nTHE SOPHISTS (_concluded_)\n\n_Nothing knowable--The solitude of scepticism--The lawlessness of\nscepticism--The good in scepticism_\n\n\n[183]\n\nGorgias was perhaps even more eminent a Sophist than Protagoras.  He\nwas a native of Leontini in Sicily, and came to Athens in the year 427\nB.C. on a public embassy from his native city.  The splendid reputation\nfor political and rhetorical ability, which preceded him to Athens, he\nfully justified both by his public appearances before the Athenian\nassembly, and by the success of his private instructions to the crowds\nof wealthy young men who resorted to him.  He dressed in magnificent\nstyle, and affected a lofty and poetical manner of speech, which\noffended the more critical, but which pleased the crowd.\n\n[181]\n\nHe also, like Protagoras, published a treatise in which he expounded\nhis fundamental principles, and like Protagoras, he preceded it with a\nstriking if somewhat ironical title, and an apophthegm in which he\nsummarised his doctrine.  The title of his work was _Of the\nNon-Existent_, that is, _Of Nature_, and {93} his dictum, \"Nothing\nexists, or if anything exists, it cannot be apprehended by man, and\neven if it could be apprehended, the man who apprehended it could not\nexpound or explain it to his neighbour.\"  In support of this strange\ndoctrine, Gorgias adopted the quibbling method of argument which had\nbeen applied with some success to dialectical purposes by Zeno,\nMelissus, and others (see above, pp. 44 _sqq._)\n\n[185]\n\nHis chief argument to prove the first position laid down by him\ndepended on a double and ambiguous use of the word _is_; \"That which is\nnot, _is_ the non-existent: the word _is_ must, therefore, be\napplicable to it as truly as when we say That which is, _is_;\ntherefore, being is predicable of that which is not.\"  So conversely he\nproved not-being to be predicable of that which is.  And in like manner\nhe made away with any possible assertions as to the finite or infinite,\nthe eternal or created, nature of that which is.  Logic could supply\nhim with alternative arguments from whatever point he started, such as\nwould seem to land the question in absurdity.  Hence his first position\nwas (he claimed) established, that 'Nothing is.'\n\nTo prove the second, that even if anything is, it cannot be known to\nman, he argued thus: \"If what a man thinks is not identical with what\nis, plainly what is cannot be thought.  And that what a man thinks is\nnot identical with what is can be {94} shown from the fact that\nthinking does not affect the facts.  You may imagine a man flying, or a\nchariot coursing over the deep, but you do not find these things to\noccur because you imagine them.  Again, if we assume that what we think\nis identical with what is, then it must be impossible to think of what\nis not.  But this is absurd; for we can think of such admittedly\nimaginary beings as Scylla and Chimaera, and multitudes of others.\nThere is therefore no necessary relation between our thoughts and any\nrealities; we may believe, but we cannot prove, which (if any) of our\nconceptions have relation to an external fact and which have not.\"\n\n[187]\n\nNor thirdly, supposing any man had obtained an apprehension of what is\nreal, could he possibly communicate it to any one else.  If a man saw\nanything, he could not possibly by verbal description make clear what\nit is he sees to a man who has never seen.  And so if a man has not\nhimself the apprehension of reality, mere words from another cannot\npossibly give him any idea of it.  He may imagine he has the same idea\nas the speaker, but where is he going to get the common test by which\nto establish the identity?\n\nWithout attempting to follow Gorgias further, we can see plainly enough\nthe object and purport of the whole doctrine.  Its main result is to\n_isolate_.  It isolates each man from his fellows; he cannot tell {95}\nwhat they know or think, they cannot reach any common ground with him.\nIt isolates him from nature; he cannot tell what nature is, he cannot\ntell whether he knows anything of nature or reality at all.  It\nisolates him from himself; he cannot tell for certain what relation\nexists (if any) between what he imagines he perceives at any moment and\nany remembered or imagined previous experiences; he cannot be sure that\nthere ever were any such experiences, or what that self was (if\nanything) which had them, or whether there was or is any self\nperceiving anything.\n\nLet us imagine the moral effect on the minds of the ablest youth of\nGreece of such an absolute collapse of belief.  The philosophic\nscepticism did not deprive them of their appetites or passions; it did\nnot in the least alter their estimate of the prizes of success, or the\ndesirability of wealth and power.  All it did was to shatter the\ninvisible social bonds of reverence and honour and truth and justice,\nwhich in greater or less degree act as a restraining force upon the\npurely selfish appetites of men.  Not only belief in divine government\ndisappeared, but belief in any government external or internal; justice\nbecame a cheating device to deprive a man of what was ready to his\ngrasp; good-faith was stupidity when it was not a more subtle form of\ndeceit; morality was at best a mere convention which a man might cancel\nif {96} he pleased; the one reality was the appetite of the moment, the\none thing needful its gratification; society, therefore, was universal\nwar, only with subtler weapons.\n\nOf course Protagoras and Gorgias were only notable types of a whole\nhorde of able men who in various ways, and with probably less clear\nnotions than these men of the drift or philosophic significance of\ntheir activity, helped all over Greece in the promulgation of this new\ngospel of self-interest.  Many Sophists no doubt troubled themselves\nvery little with philosophical questions; they were 'agnostics,'\nknow-nothings; all they professed to do was to teach some practical\nskill of a verbal or rhetorical character.  They had nothing to do with\nthe nature or value of ideals; they did not profess to say whether any\nend or aim was in itself good or bad, but given an end or aim, they\nwere prepared to help those who hired them to acquire a skill which\nwould be useful towards attaining it.\n\nBut whether a philosophy or ultimate theory of life be expressly stated\nor realised by a nation or an individual, or be simply ignored by them,\nthere always is some such philosophy or theory underlying their action,\nand that philosophy or theory tends to work itself out to its logical\nissue in action, whether men openly profess it or no.  And the theory\nof negation of law in nature or in man which underlay {97} the\nsophistic practice had its logical and necessary effect on the social\nstructure throughout Greece, in a loosening of the bonds of religion,\nof family reverence and affection, of patriotism, of law, of honour.\nThucydides in a well-known passage (iii. 82) thus describes the\nprevalent condition of thought in his own time, which was distinctively\nthat of the sophistic teaching: \"The common meaning of words was turned\nabout at men's pleasure; the most reckless bravo was deemed the most\ndesirable friend; a man of prudence and moderation was styled a coward;\na man who listened to reason was a good-for-nothing simpleton.  People\nwere trusted exactly in proportion to their violence and\nunscrupulousness, and no one was so popular as the successful\nconspirator, except perhaps one who had been clever enough to outwit\nhim at his own trade, but any one who honestly attempted to remove the\ncauses of such treacheries was considered a traitor to his party.  As\nfor oaths, no one imagined they were to be kept a moment longer than\noccasion required; it was, in fact, an added pleasure to destroy your\nenemy if you had managed to catch him through his trusting to your\nword.\"\n\nThese are the words not of Plato, who is supposed often enough to allow\nhis imagination to carry him beyond his facts about the Sophists as\nabout others, nor are they the words of a satiric poet such as {98}\nAristophanes.  They are the words of the most sober and philosophic of\nGreek historians, and they illustrate very strikingly the tendency,\nnay, the absolute necessity, whereby the theories of philosophers in\nthe closet extend themselves into the market-place and the home, and\nfind an ultimate realisation of themselves for good or for evil in the\n'business and bosoms' of the common crowd.\n\nIt is not to be said that the individualistic and iconoclastic movement\nwhich the Sophists represented was wholly bad, or wholly unnecessary,\nany more (to again quote a modern instance) than that the French\nRevolution was.  There was much, no doubt, in the traditional religion\nand morality of Greece at that time which represented obsolete and\nantiquated conditions, when every city lived apart from its neighbours\nwith its own narrow interests and local cults and ceremonials.  Greece\nwas ceasing to be an unconnected crowd of little separate communities;\nunconsciously it was preparing itself for a larger destiny, that of\nconqueror and civiliser of East and West.  This scepticism, utterly\nuntenable and unworkable on the lines extravagantly laid down by its\nleading teachers, represented the birth of new conditions of thought\nand action adapted to the new conditions of things.  On the surface,\nand accepted literally, it seemed to deny the possibility of knowledge;\nit threatened to destroy humanity and {99} civilisation.  But its\nstrength lay latent in an implied denial only of what was merely\ntraditional; it denied the finality of purely Greek preconceptions; it\nwas laying the foundations of a broader humanity.  It represented the\nclaim of a new generation to have no dogma or assumption thrust on it\nby mere force, physical or moral.  \"_I_ too am a man,\" it said; \"_I_\nhave rights; _my_ reason must be convinced.\"  This is the fundamental\nthought at the root of most revolutions and reformations and revivals,\nand the thought is therefore a necessary and a just one.\n\nUnfortunately it seems to be an inevitable condition of human affairs\nthat nothing new, however necessary or good can come into being out of\nthe old, without much sorrow and many a birth-pang.  The extravagant,\nthe impetuous, the narrow-minded on both sides seize on their points of\ndifference, raise them into battle-cries, and make what might be a\npeaceful regeneration a horrid battlefield of contending hates.  The\nChrist when He comes brings not peace into the world, but a sword.  And\nmen of evil passions and selfish ambitions are quick on both sides to\nmake the struggle of old and new ideals a handle for their own\nindulgence or their own advancement; the Pharisees and the Judases\nbetween them make the Advent in some of its aspects a sorry spectacle.\n\nA reconciler was wanted who should wed what {100} was true in the new\ndoctrine of individualism with what was valuable in the old doctrine of\nuniversal and necessary truth; who should be able to say, \"Yes, I\nacknowledge that your individual view of things must be reckoned with,\nand mine, and everybody else's; and for that very reason do I argue for\na universal and necessary truth, because the very truth for you as an\nindividual is just this universal.\"  The union and identification of\nthe Individual and Universal,--this paradox of philosophy is the\ndoctrine of Socrates.\n\n\n\n\n{101}\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nSOCRATES\n\n_The crisis of philosophy--Philosophic midwifery--The wisest of\nmen--The gadfly of Athens--Justice, beauty, utility--Virtue is\nknowledge_\n\n\nThe sophistic teaching having forced philosophy to descend into the\npractical interests and personal affairs of men, it followed that any\nfurther step in philosophy, any reaction against the Sophists, could\nonly begin from the moral point of view.  Philosophy, as an analysis of\nthe data of perception or of nature, had issued in a social and moral\nchaos.  Only by brooding on the moral chaos could the spirit of truth\nevoke a new order; only out of the moral darkness could a new\nintellectual light be made to shine.  The social and personal anarchy\nseemed to be a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the philosophy of nature; if\never the philosophy of nature was to be recovered it must be through a\nrevision of the theory of morals.  If it could be proved that the\ndoctrine of individualism, of isolation, which the analysis of a\nProtagoras or a Gorgias had reached, was not only _unlivable_ but\nunthinkable,--carried the seeds of its own destruction, theoretical as\nwell as practical, within {102} itself,--then the analysis of\n_perception_, from which this moral individualism issued, might itself\nbe called to submit to revision, and a stable point of support in the\nmoral world might thus become a centre of stability for the\nintellectual and the physical also.\n\nBy a perfectly logical process, therefore, the crisis of philosophy\nproduced in Greece through the moral and social chaos of the sophistic\nteaching had two issues, or perhaps we may call it one issue, carried\nout on the one side with a less, on the other side with a greater\ncompleteness.  The less complete reaction from sophistic teaching\nattempted only such reconstruction of the moral point of view as should\nrecover a law or principle of general and universally cogent character,\nwhereon might be built anew a _moral_ order without attempting to\nextend the inquiry as to a universal principle into the regions of\nabstract truth or into physics.  The more complete and logical\nreaction, starting, indeed, from a universal principle in morals,\nundertook a logical reconstruction on the recovered universal basis all\nalong the line of what was knowable.\n\nTo Socrates it was given to recover the lost point of stability in the\nworld of morals, and by a system of attack, invented by himself, to\ndeal in such a manner with the anarchists about him as to prepare the\nway for his successors, when the time was ripe for a more extended\nexposition of the new point of {103} view.  Those who in succession to\nhim worked out a more limited theory of law, mainly or exclusively in\nthe world of morals, only were called the _Incomplete Socratics_.\nThose who undertook to work it out through the whole field of the\nknowable, the _Complete Socratics_, were the two giants of philosophy,\nPlato and Aristotle.\n\nGreek philosophy then marks with the life of Socrates a parting of the\nways in two senses: _first_, inasmuch as with him came the reaction\nfrom a physical or theoretical philosophy, having its issue in a moral\nchaos; and _second_, inasmuch as from him the two great streams of\nlater philosophy issued--the one a philosophy of law or universals in\n_action_, the other a philosophy of law or universals in _thought_ and\n_nature_ as well.\n\nSocrates, son of Sophroniscus a sculptor and Phaenarete a midwife, was\nborn at Athens in or about the year 469 B.C.  His parents were probably\npoor, for Socrates is represented as having been too poor to pay the\nfees required for instruction by the Sophists of his time.  But in\nwhatever way acquired or assimilated, it is certain that there was\nlittle of the prevalent culture in cultivated Athens with which\nSocrates had not ultimately a working acquaintance.\n\nAmong a people distinguished generally for their handsome features and\nnoble proportions, Socrates was a notable exception.  His face was\nsquat and {104} round, his eyes protruding, his lips thick; he was\nclumsy and uncouth in appearance, careless of dress, a thorough\n'Bohemian,' as we should call him.  He was, however, gifted with an\nuncommon bodily vigour, was indifferent to heat and cold, by\ntemperament moderate in food and drink, yet capable on occasion of\ndrinking most people 'under the table.'  He was of an imperturbable\nhumour, not to be excited either by danger or by ridicule.  His vein of\nsarcasm was keen and trenchant, his natural shrewdness astonishing, all\nthe more astonishing because crossed with a strange vein of mysticism\nand a curious self-forgetfulness.  As he grew up he felt the visitation\nof a mysterious internal voice, to which or to his own internal\ncommunings he would sometimes be observed to listen in abstracted\nstillness for hours.  The voice within him was felt as a restraining\nforce, limiting his action in various ways, but leaving him free to\nwander about among his fellows, to watch their doings and interpret\ntheir thoughts, to question unweariedly his fellows of every class,\nhigh and low, rich and poor, concerning righteousness and justice and\ngoodness and purity and truth.  He did not enter on his philosophic\nwork with some grand general principle ready-made, to which he was\nprepared to fit the facts by hook or by crook.  Rather he compared\nhimself to his mother, the midwife; he sought to help others to {105}\nexpress themselves; he had nothing to tell them, he wanted them to tell\nhim.  This was the irony of Socrates, the eternal _questioning_, which\nin time came to mean in people's minds what the word does now.  For it\nwas hard, and grew every year harder, to convince people that so subtle\na questioner was as ignorant as he professed to be; or that the man who\ncould touch so keenly the weak point of all other men's answers, had no\nanswer to the problems of life himself.\n\nIn striking contrast, then, to the method of all previous philosophies,\nSocrates busied himself to begin with, not with some general\nintellectual _principle_, but with a multitude of different _people_,\nwith their notions especially on moral ideas, with the meaning or\nno-meaning which they attached to particular words,--in short, with the\nindividual, the particular, the concrete, the every-day.  He did not at\nall deny that he had a purpose in all this.  On the contrary, he openly\nprofessed that he was in search of the lost universal, the lost _law_\nof men's thoughts and actions.  He was convinced that life was not the\nchaos that the Sophists made out; that nobody really believed it to be\na chaos; that, on the contrary, everybody had a meaning and purport in\nhis every word and act, which could be made intelligible to himself and\nothers, if you could only get people to think out clearly what they\nreally meant.  Philosophy {106} had met her destruction in the busy\nhaunts of men; there where had been the bane, Socrates' firm faith\nsought ever and everywhere the antidote.\n\nThis simple enough yet profound and far-reaching practice of Socrates\nwas theorised in later times as a logical method, known to us as\n_Induction_, or the discovery of universal laws or principles out [195]\nof an accumulation of particular facts.  And thus Aristotle, with his\ntechnical and systematising intellect, attributes two main innovations\nin philosophy to Socrates; the _Inductive_ process of reasoning, and\nthe establishing of _General Ideas_ or Definitions upon or through this\nprocess.  This, true enough as indicating what was latent in the\nSocratic method, and what was subsequently actually developed out of it\nby Aristotle himself, is nevertheless probably an anachronism if one\nseeks to represent it as consciously present in Socrates' mind.\nSocrates adopted the method unconsciously, just because he wanted to\nget at the people about him, and through them at what they thought.  He\nwas the pioneer of Induction rather than its inventor; he created, so\nto speak, the raw material for a theory of induction and definition; he\nknew and cared nothing about such theories himself.\n\nA story which may or may not be true in fact is put in Socrates' mouth\nby Plato, as to the cause which first started him on his \"search for\ndefinitions.\"  {107} One of his friends, he tells us, named Chaerephon,\nwent to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, and asked whether there was\nanybody wiser than Socrates.  The answer was given that there was none\nwiser.  This answer was reported to Socrates, who was much astonished,\nhis own impression being that he had no wisdom or knowledge at all.  So\nwith a view to prove the oracle wrong he went in succession to various\npeople of eminence and reputation in the various walks of\nlife,--statesmen and poets and handicraftsmen and others,--in the\nexpectation that they would show, on being questioned, such a knowledge\nof the principles on which their work was based as would prove their\nsuperior wisdom.  But to his astonishment he found one after another of\nthese men wanting in any apprehension of principles at all.  They\nseemed to work by a kind of haphazard or 'rule of thumb,' and indeed\nfelt annoyed that anything more should be expected of them.  From which\nat the last Socrates came to the conclusion that perhaps the oracle was\nright in this sense at least, that, if he himself knew nothing more\nthan his fellows, he was at least conscious of his own ignorance,\nwhereas they were not.\n\nWhether this tale may not itself be a specimen of Socrates' irony we\ncannot tell, but at all events it illustrates from another point of\nview the real meaning of Socrates' life.  He, at least, was not content\n{108} to rest in haphazard and rule of thumb; he was determined to go\non till he found out what was the law or principle of men's acts and\nwords.  The ignorance of others as to any such law or principle in\ntheir own case did not convince him that there was no such law or\nprinciple; only it was there (he thought) working unconsciously, and\ntherefore in a way defencelessly.  And so he compares himself at times\nto a gadfly, whose function it is to sting and irritate people out of\ntheir easy indifference, and force them to ask themselves what they\nwere really driving at.  Or again, he compares himself to the\ntorpedo-fish, because he tried to give people a shock whenever they\nattempted to satisfy him with shallow and unreal explanations of their\nthoughts and actions.\n\nThe disinterested self-sacrificing nobility of Socrates' life, thus\ndevoted to awakening them that sleep out of their moral torpor; the\nenmities that his keen and trenchant questionings of quacks and\npretenders of every kind induced; the devotion of some of his friends,\nthe unhappy falling away of others; the calumnies of interested\nenemies, the satires of poets; and lastly, the story of the final\nattack by an ungrateful people on their one great teacher, of his\nunjust condemnation and heroic death--all this we must pass over here.\nThe story is in outline, at least, a familiar one, and it is one of the\nnoblest in history.  What is more to {109} the purpose for us is to\nascertain how far his search for definitions was successful; how far he\nwas able to\n\n  Take arms against a sea of troubles\n  And by opposing end them;\n\nhow far, in short, he was able to evolve a law, a universal principle,\nout of the confused babel of common life and thought and speech, strong\nenough and wide enough on which to build a new order for this world, a\nnew hope for the world beyond.\n\nWe have said that Socrates made the individual and the concrete the\nfield of his search.  And not only did he look to individuals for\nlight, he looked to each individual specifically in that aspect of his\ncharacter and faculty which was most particular to himself.  That is to\nsay, if he met a carpenter, it was on his carpentering that he\nquestioned him; if a sculptor, on his practice as a sculptor; if a\nstatesman, on his statesmanship.  In short, he did not want general\nvague theories on subjects of which his interlocutors could not be\nsupposed to have any special experience or knowledge; he interrogated\neach on the subject which he knew best.\n\nAnd what struck him, in contrast to the confusion and uncertainty and\nisolation of the sophistic teaching 'in the air,' was that when you get\na man to talk on his own trade, which he _knows_, as is proved by the\nactual work he produces, you find invariably two {110} things--_first_,\nthat the skill is the man's _individual_ possession no doubt, the\nresult of inborn capacity and continuous training and practice; but\n_second_, that just in proportion to that individual skill is the man's\nconviction that his skill has reference to a _law_ higher than himself,\noutside himself.  If the man whom Socrates interviewed was a skilful\nstatesman, he would tell you he sought to produce obedience to _law_ or\nright among the citizens; if he was a skilful sculptor, he produced\n_beautiful_ things; if he was a skilful handicraftsman, he produced\n_useful_ things.  Justice, beauty, utility; these three words in\ndifferent ways illustrated the existence of something always realising\nitself no doubt in individuals and their works, but nevertheless\nexercising a governing influence upon these to such a degree that this\nideal something might be conceived as _prior_ to the individual or his\nwork; or secondly, as _inherent_ in them and giving value to them; or\nthirdly, as coming in at the end as the _perfection_ or completion of\nthem.  This law or ideal then had a threefold aspect in its own nature,\nbeing conceivable as Justice, as Beauty, as Utility; it had a threefold\naspect in relation to the works produced in accordance with it, as the\ncause _producing_, the cause _inhering_, the cause completing or\n_perfecting_.\n\nWe may therefore conceive Socrates as arguing thus: \"You clever\nSophists, when we let you take {111} us into the region of abstract\ntalk, have a knack of so playing with words that in the end we don't\nseem to know anything for certain, especially on such subjects as we\nhave hitherto thought the most important, such as God and right and\ntruth and justice and purity.  We seem to be perfectly defenceless\nagainst you; and what is more, any smart youth, whose opinion on any\npractical matter no one would think of taking, can very soon pick up\nthe trick from you, and bewilder plain people really far wiser than\nhimself by his clever argumentation; all going to prove that there is\nnothing certain, nothing real, nothing binding; nothing but opinions\nand conventions and conscious or unconscious humbug in the universe.\n\n\"But when I go and have a quiet talk with any man who really is a known\nmaster of some craft or skill, about that craft or skill, I find no\ndoubt whatever existing in his mind about there being a law, a\nsomething absolutely real and beautiful and true in connection with it.\nHe, on the contrary, lives with no other purpose or hope or desire but\nas far as he can to realise in what he works at something of this real\nand beautiful and true, which was before him, will be after him, is the\nonly valuable thing in him, but yet which honours him with the function\nof, in his day and generation, expressing it before the eyes of men.\"\n\n{112} \"Have we not here a key to the great secret?  If each man, in\nrespect of that which he knows best because he lives by it and for it,\nknows with intimate knowledge and certainty that there at least there\nis a Law working, not himself, but higher and greater than he,--have we\nnot here a hint of the truth for the universe as a whole; that there\nalso and in all its operations, great as well as small, there must be a\nLaw, a great Idea or Ideal working, which was before all things, works\nin and gives value to all things, will be the consummation of all\nthings?  Is not this what we mean by the Divine?\"\n\nThus Socrates, despising not the meaner things of life, but bending\nfrom the airy speculations of the proud to the realities which true\nlabour showed him, laid his ear, so to speak, close to the breast of\nnature, and caught there the sound of her very heart-beats.\n\n\"Virtue is knowledge,\" thus he formulated his new vision of things.\nKnowledge, yes; but _real_ knowledge; not mere head-knowledge or\nlip-knowledge, but the knowledge of the skilled man, the man who by\nobedience and teachableness and self-restraint has come to a knowledge\nevidencing itself in _works_ expressive of the law that is in him, as\nhe is in it.  _Virtue is knowledge_; on the one hand, therefore, not\nsomething in the air, unreal, intangible; but something in me, in you,\nin each man, something which you cannot handle except as individual and\n{113} in individuals; on the other hand, something more than individual\nor capricious or uncertain,--something which is absolute, over-ruling,\neternal.\n\n_Virtue is knowledge_.  And so if a man is virtuous, he is realising\nwhat is best and truest in himself, he is fulfilling also what is best\nand truest without himself.  He is free, for only the truth makes free;\nhe is obedient to law, but it is at once a law eternally valid, and a\nlaw which he dictates to himself.  And therefore virtue is teachable,\ninasmuch as the law in the teacher, perfected in him, is also the law\nin the taught, latent in him, by both individually possessed, but\npossessed by both in virtue of its being greater than both, of its\nbeing something more than individual.\n\n_Virtue is knowledge_.  And therefore the law of virtuous growth is\nexpressed in the maxim engraved on the Delphic temple, 'Know thyself.'\nKnow thyself, that is, realise thyself; by obedience and self-control\ncome to your full stature; be in fact what you are in possibility;\nsatisfy yourself, in the only way in which true self-satisfaction is\npossible, by realising in yourself the law which constitutes your real\nbeing.\n\n_Virtue is knowledge_.  And therefore all the manifold relations of\nlife,--the home, the market, the city, the state; all the multiform\nactivities of life,--labour and speech and art and literature and {114}\nlaw; all the sentiments of life,--friendship and love and reverence and\ncourage and hope,--all these are parts of a knowable whole; they are\nexpressions of law; they are Reason realising itself through\nindividuals, and in the same process realising them.\n\n\n\n\n{115}\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nSOCRATES (_concluded_)\n\n_The dialectic method--Instruction through humiliation--Justice and\nutility--Righteousness transcending rule_\n\n\nIt must not be imagined that anywhere in the recorded conversations of\nSocrates can we find thus in so many words expounded his fundamental\ndoctrine.  Socrates was not an expositor but a questioner; he\ndisclaimed the position of a teacher, he refused to admit that any were\nhis pupils or disciples.  But his questioning had two sides, each in\nits way leading people on to an apprehension of the ideal in existence.\nThe first side may be called the negative or destructive, the second,\nthe positive or constructive.  In the first, whose object was to break\ndown all formalism, all mere regard for rules or traditions or\nunreasoned maxims, his method had considerable resemblance to that of\nthe Sophists; like them he descended not infrequently to what looked\nvery like quibbling and word-play.  As Aristotle observes, the\ndialectic method differed from that of the Sophists not so much in its\nform, as in the purpose for which it was employed.  The end of the\n{116} Sophists was to confuse, the end of Socrates was through\nconfusion to reach a more real, because a more reasoned certainty; the\nSophists sought to leave the impression that there was no such thing as\ntruth; he wished to lead people to the conviction that there was a far\ndeeper truth than they were as yet possessed of.\n\nA specimen of his manner of conversation preserved for us by Xenophon\n(_Memor_. IV. ii.) will make the difference clearer.  Euthydemus was a\nyoung man who had shown great industry in forming a collection of wise\nsayings from poets and others, and who prided himself on his superior\nwisdom because of his knowledge of these.  Socrates skilfully manages\nto get the ear of this young man by commending him for his collection,\nand asks him what he expects his learning to help him to become?  A\nphysician?  No, Euthydemus answers.  An architect?  No.  And so in like\nmanner with other practical skills,--the geometrician's, astronomer's,\nprofessional reciter's.  None of these he discovers is what Euthydemus\naims at.  He hopes to become a great politician and statesman.  Then of\ncourse he hopes to be a just man himself?  Euthydemus flatters himself\nhe is that already.  \"But,\" says Socrates, \"there must be certain acts\nwhich are the proper products of justice, as of other functions or\nskills?\"--\"No doubt.\"--\"Then of course you can tell us what {117} those\nacts or products are?\"--\"Of course I can, and the products of injustice\nas well.\"--\"Very good; then suppose we write down in two opposite\ncolumns what acts are products of justice and what of injustice.\"--\"I\nagree,\" says Euthydemus.--\"Well now, what of falsehood?  In which\ncolumn shall we put it?\"--\"Why, of course in the unjust column.\"--\"And\ncheating?\"--\"In the same column.\"--\"And stealing?\"--\"In it too.\"--\"And\nenslaving?\"--\"Yes.\"--\"Not one of these can go to the just\ncolumn?\"--\"Why, that would be an unheard-of thing.\"\n\n\"Well but,\" says Socrates, \"suppose a general has to deal with some\nenemy of his country that has done it great wrong; if he conquer and\nenslave this enemy, is that wrong?\"--\"Certainly not.\"--\"If he carries\noff the enemy's goods or cheats him in his strategy, what about these\nacts?\"--\"Oh, of course they are quite right.  But I thought you were\ntalking about deceiving or ill-treating friends.\"--\"Then in some cases\nwe shall have to put these very same acts in both columns?\"--\"I suppose\nso.\"\n\n\"Well, now, suppose we confine ourselves to friends.  Imagine a general\nwith an army under him discouraged and disorganised.  Suppose he tells\nthem that reserves are coming up, and by cheating them into this belief\nhe saves them from their discouragement, and enables them to win a\nvictory.  What about this cheating of one's friends?\"--\"Why, I {118}\nsuppose we shall have to put this too on the just side.\"--\"Or suppose a\nlad needs medicine, but refuses to take it, and his father cheats him\ninto the belief that it is something nice, and getting him to take it,\nsaves his life; what about that cheat?\"--\"That will have to go to the\njust side too.\"--\"Or suppose you find a friend in a desperate frenzy,\nand steal his sword from him, for fear he should kill himself; what do\nyou say to that theft?\"--\"That will have to go there too.\"--\"But I\nthought you said there must be no cheating of friends?\"--\"Well, I must\ntake it all back, if you please.\"--\"Very good.  But now there is\nanother point I should like to ask you.  Whether do you think the man\nmore unjust who is a voluntary violator of justice, or he who is an\ninvoluntary violator of it?\"--\"Upon my word, Socrates, I no longer have\nany confidence in my answers.  For the whole thing has turned out to be\nexactly the contrary of what I previously imagined.  However, suppose I\nsay that the voluntary deceiver is the more unjust.\"--\"Do you consider\nthat justice is a matter of knowledge just as much (say) as\nwriting?\"--\"Yes, I do.\"--\"Well now, which do you consider the better\nskilled as a writer, the man who makes a mistake in writing or in\nreading what is written, because he chooses to do so, or the man who\ndoes so because he can't help it?\"--\"Oh, the first; because he can put\nit right whenever he likes.\"--\"Very {119} well, if a man in the same\nway breaks the rule of right, knowing what he is doing, while another\nbreaks the same rule because he can't help it, which by analogy must be\nthe better versed in justice?\"--\"The first, I suppose.\"--\"And the man\nwho is better versed in justice must be the juster man?\"--\"Apparently\nso; but really, Socrates, I don't know where I am.  I have been\nflattering myself that I was in possession of a philosophy which could\nmake a good and able man of me.  But how great, think you, must now be\nmy disappointment, when I find myself unable to answer the simplest\nquestion on the subject?\"\n\nMany other questions are put to him, tending to probe his\nself-knowledge, and in the end he is brought to the conclusion that\nperhaps he had better hold his tongue, for it seems he knows nothing at\nall.  And so he went away deeply despondent, despising himself as an\nabsolute dolt.  \"Now many,\" adds Xenophon, \"when brought into this\ncondition by Socrates, never came near him again.  But Euthydemus\nconcluded that his only hope of ever being worth anything was in seeing\nas much of Socrates as he could, and so he never quitted his side as\nlong as he had a chance, but tried to follow his mode of living.  And\nSocrates, when he perceived this to be his temper, no longer tormented\nhim, but sought with all simplicity and clearness to {120} show him\nwhat he deemed it best for him to do and think.\"\n\nWas this cross-examination mere 'tormenting' with a purpose, or can we\ndiscover underlying it any hint of what Socrates deemed to be the truth\nabout justice?\n\nLet us note that throughout he is in search of a _definition_, but that\nas soon as any attempt is made to define or classify any particular\ntype of action as just or unjust, _special circumstances_ are suggested\nwhich overturn the classification.  Let us note further that while the\nimmediate result is apparently only to confuse, the remoter but more\npermanent result is to raise a suspicion of any hard and fast\ndefinitions, and to suggest that there is something deeper in life than\nlanguage is adequate to express, a 'law in the members,' a living\nprinciple for good, which transcends forms and maxims, and which alone\ngives real value to acts.  Note further the suggestion that this living\nprinciple has a character analogous to the knowledge or skill of an\naccomplished artificer; it has relation on the one hand to law, as a\nprinciple binding on the individual, it has relation on the other hand\nto _utility_, as expressing itself, not in words, but in acts\nbeneficial to those concerned.  Hence the Socratic formula, Justice is\nequivalent to the _Lawful_ on the one hand, to the _Useful_ on the\nother.\n\n{121}\n\nSocrates had thus solved by anticipation the apparently never-ending\ncontroversy about morality.  Is it a matter imposed by God upon the\nheart and conscience of each individual?  Is it dictated by the general\nsense of the community?  Is it the product of Utility?  The Socratic\nanswer would be that it is all three, and that all three mean\nultimately the same thing.  What God prescribes is what man when he is\ntruly man desires; and what God prescribes and man desires is that\nwhich is good and useful for man.  It is not a matter for verbal\ndefinition but for vital realisation; the true morality is that which\n_works_; the ideally desirable, is ultimately the only possible, course\nof action, for all violations of it are ultimately suicidal.\n\nNote finally the suggestion that the man who _knows_ (in Socrates'\nsense of knowledge) what is right, shows only more fully his\nrighteousness when he voluntarily sins; it is the 'unwilling sinner'\nwho is the wrongdoer.  When we consider this strange doctrine in\nrelation to the instances given,--the general with his army, the father\nwith his son, the prudent friend with his friend in desperate\nstraits,--we see that what is meant is that 'sin' in the real sense is\nnot to be measured or defined by conformity or otherwise to some formal\nstandard, at least in the case of those who _know_, that is, in the\ncase of men who have realised goodness in its true nature in {122}\ntheir characters and lives.  As St. Paul expressed it (Rom. xiii. 10),\n\"Love is the fulfilling of the law.\"  Or again (Gal. v. 23), after\nenumerating the 'fruits of the spirit'--love, joy, peace,\nlongsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance--he\nadds, \"Against such there is no law.\"\n\nIn the domain of life, not less than in that of the arts, the highest\nactivity does not always or necessarily take the form of conformity to\nrule.  There are critical moments when rules fail, when, in fact,\nobedience to rule would mean disobedience to that higher law, of which\nrules and formulae are at best only an adumbration.  The originality of\nthe great musician or painter consists in just such transcendence of\naccepted formulae; this is why he invariably encounters opposition and\nobloquy from the learned conventional pedants of his time.  And in the\ndomain of morals the martyrs, reformers, prophets are in like manner\n'willing sinners.'  They are denounced, persecuted, crucified; for are\nthey not disturbers of society; do they not unsettle young men; do they\nnot come, as Christ came, not to bring peace into the world, but a\nsword?  And thus it is that the willing sinners of one generation are\nthe martyrs and heroes of the next.  Through their life and death a\nricher meaning has been given to the law of beauty or of rectitude,\nonly, alas! in its turn to be translated into new conventions, new\n{123} formulae, which shall in due time require new martyrs to\ntranscend them.  And thus, on the other hand, the perfectly honest\nsticklers for the old and common-place, unwilling sinners all\nunconscious of their sin, are fated to bear in history the brand of men\nwho have persecuted the righteous without cause.  To each, according to\nthe strange sad law of life, time brings its revenges.\n\n\n\n\n{124}\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nTHE INCOMPLETE SOCRATICS\n\n_A philosopher at ease--The sensual sty--Citizens of the world--The tub\nof Diogenes--A philosophy of abstracts_\n\n\n[204]\n\nI. ARISTIPPUS AND THE CYRENAICS.--Aristippus was a native of Cyrene, a\nGreek colony on the north coast of Africa.  He is said to have come to\nAthens because of his desire to hear Socrates; but from the notices of\nhim which we find in Xenophon's memoirs he appears to have been from\nthe first a somewhat intractable follower, dissenting especially from\nthe poverty and self-denial of the master's mode of life.  [205] He in\ncourse of time founded a school of his own, called the Cyrenaic from\nhis own place of birth, and from the fact that many subsequent leaders\nof the school also belonged to Cyrene.  Among his notable disciples\nwere his daughter Arete, her son named Aristippus after his\ngrandfather, Ptolemaeus the Aethiopian, Antipater of Cyrene, and a long\nsuccession of others.\n\nAristippus was a man of considerable subtlety of mind, a ready speaker,\nclever in adapting himself to persons and circumstances.  On one\noccasion, being {125} asked what benefit he considered philosophy had\nconferred upon him, he answered, \"The capacity of associating with\nevery one without embarrassment.\"  Philosophy, in fact, was to\nAristippus a method of social culture, a means of making the best of\nlife as he found it.  As Horace observes of him (_Epp_. i. 17. 23)--\n\n  Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res\n  Tentantem majora, fere praesentibus aequum.\n\n\"Every aspect and manner of life and fortune fitted Aristippus; he\naimed at what was greater, yet kept an even, mind whatever his present\ncondition.\"\n\n[206]\n\nAs we have already said, this school was _incompletely_ Socratic,\ninasmuch as philosophy was not an end in itself, knowledge whether of\noneself or of other matters had no intrinsic interest for them;\nphilosophy was only a means towards pleasurable living, enabling them\nso to analyse and classify the several experiences of life as to render\na theory of satisfactory [207] existence possible.  With them first\ncame into prominence a phrase which held a large place in all\nsubsequent Greek philosophy, the _End_ of existence, by which was meant\nthat which summed up the good in existence, that which made life worth\nliving, that which was good and desirable in and for itself, and not\nmerely as a means to something else.  What then according to the\nCyrenaics was the End of life?  {126} Their answer was that life had at\neach moment its own End, in the pleasure of that moment.  The past was\ngone, the future not yet with us; remembrance of the one, fear or hope\nof the other, might contribute to affect the purity of the present\npleasure, but such as it was the present pleasure was a thing apart,\ncomplete in and for itself.  Nor was its perfection qualified by any\nquestion of the means by which it was procured; the moment's pleasure\nwas pleasurable, whatever men might say as to the manner of its [208]\nprocuring.  This pleasure was a tranquil activity of the being, like\nthe gently heaving sea, midway between violent motion which was pain,\nand absolute calm which was insensibility.  As a state of activity it\nwas something positive, not a mere release from [209] pain, not a\nsimple filling up of a vacuum.  Nothing was in its essential nature\neither just or noble or base; custom and convention pronounced them one\nor other.  The wise man made the best he could of his conditions;\nvaluing mental activity and friendship and wealth and bodily exercise,\nand avoiding envy and excessive indulgence of passion and superstition,\nnot because the first were in themselves good or the second evil, but\nbecause they were respectively helpers or hinderers of pleasure.  He is\nthe master and possessor of pleasure not who abstains from it, but who\nuses it and keeps his self-command in the using.  Moderate\nindulgence--this is wisdom.\n\n{127}\n\n[210]\n\nThe one criterion, whether of good or of truth, is the feeling of the\nmoment for the man who feels it; all question of causes of feelings is\ndelusive.  We can say with truth and certainty, I have the sensation of\nwhite or the sensation of sweet.  But that there is a white or a sweet\nthing which is the cause of the sensation, that we cannot say for\ncertain.  A man may very well have the sensation white or sweet from\nsomething which has no such quality, as men in delusion or madness have\nimpressions that are true and real inasmuch as they have them, although\nother people do not admit their reality.  There is, therefore, no\ncriterion of truth as between man and man; we may employ the same\nwords, but each has his own impressions and his own individual\nexperiences.\n\nOne can easily understand this as the doctrine of such a man as\nAristippus, the easy-going man of the world, the courtier and the wit,\nthe favourite of the tyrant Dionysius; it fits in well enough with a\nlife of genial self-indulgence; it always reappears whenever a man has\nreconciled himself 'to roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.'  But life\nis not always, nor for most persons at any time, a thing of ease and\nsoft enchantments, and the Cyrenaic philosophy must remain for the\ngeneral work-a-day world a stale exotic.  'Every man for himself and\nthe devil take the hindmost,' is a maxim which comes as a rule {128}\nonly to the lips of the worldly successful, while they think themselves\nstrong enough to stand alone.  But this solitude of selfishness neither\nworks nor lasts; every man at some time becomes 'the hindmost,' if not\nbefore, at least in the hour of death for him or his; at that hour he\nis hardly disposed, for himself or those he loves, to repeat his maxim.\n\nII. ANTISTHENES AND THE CYNICS.--Aristippus, in his praises of pleasure\nas the one good for man (see above, p. 126), remarks that there were\nsome who [209] refused pleasure \"from perversity of mind,\" taking\npleasure, so to speak, in the denial of pleasure.  The school of the\nCynics made this perverse mood, as Aristippus deemed it, the maxim of\ntheir philosophy.  As the Cyrenaic school was the school of the rich,\nthe courtly, the self-indulgent, so the Cynic was the school of the\npoor, the exiles, the ascetics.  Each was an extreme expression of a\nphase of Greek life and thought, though there was this point of union\n[215] between them, that _liberty_ of a kind was sought by both.  The\nCyrenaics claimed liberty to please themselves in the choice of their\nenjoyments; the Cynics sought liberty through denial of enjoyments.\n[219] Both, moreover, were cosmopolitan; they mark the decay of the\nGreek patriotism, which was essentially civic, and the rise of the\nwider but less intense conception of humanity.  Aristippus, in a\nconversation with Socrates (Xenoph. _Memor_. II. i.) on the {129}\nqualifications of those who are fitted to be magistrates, disclaims all\ndesire to hold such a position himself.  \"There is,\" he says, \"to my\nthinking, a middle way, neither of rule nor of slavery, but of freedom,\nwhich leads most surely to true happiness.  So to avoid all the evils\nof partisanship and faction I nowhere take upon me the position of a\ncitizen, but in every city remain a sojourner and a stranger.\"  And in\nlike manner Antisthenes the Cynic, being asked how a man should\napproach politics, answered, \"He will approach it as he will fire, not\ntoo near, lest he be burnt; not too far away, lest he starve of cold.\"\nAnd Diogenes, being asked of what city he was, answered, \"I am a\ncitizen of the world.\"  The Cynic ideal, in fact, was summed up in\nthese four words--wisdom, independence, free speech, liberty.\n\n[214]\n\nAntisthenes, founder of the school, was a native of Athens, but being\nof mixed blood (his mother was a Thracian) he was not recognised as an\nAthenian citizen.  He was a student first under Gorgias, and acquired\nfrom him a considerable elegance of literary style; subsequently he\nbecame a devoted hearer of Socrates, and became prominent among his\nfollowers for an asceticism surpassing his master's.  One day, we are\ntold, he showed a great rent in the thread-bare cloak which was his\nonly garment, whereupon Socrates slily remarked, \"I can see through\nyour cloak your love of glory.\"  He carried a leathern {130} scrip and\na staff, and the 'scrip and staff' became distinctive marks of his\nschool.  The name Cynic, derived from the Greek word for a dog, is\nvariously accounted for, some attributing it to the 'doglike' habits of\nthe school, others to their love of 'barking' criticism, others to the\nfact that a certain gymnasium in the outskirts of Athens, called\nCynosarges, sacred to Hercules the patron-divinity of men in the\npolitical position of Antisthenes, was a favourite resort of his.  He\nwas a voluminous, some thought a too voluminous, [216] expounder of his\ntenets.  Like the other Incomplete Socratics, his teaching was mainly\non ethical questions.\n\n[215]\n\nHis chief pupil and successor was the famous Diogenes, a native of\nSinope, a Greek colony on the Euxine Sea.  He even bettered the\ninstructions of his master in the matter of extreme frugality of\nliving, claiming that he was a true follower of Hercules in preferring\nindependence to every other good.  The tale of his living in a cask or\ntub is well known.  His theory was that the peculiar privilege of the\ngods consisted in their need of nothing; men approached nearest the\nlife of the gods in needing as little as possible.\n\n[217]\n\nMany other sayings of one or other teacher are quoted, all tending to\nthe same conclusion.  For example, \"I had rather be mad than enjoying\nmyself!\"  \"Follow the pleasures that come after pains, not those which\nbring pains in their train.\"  \"There {131} are pains that are useless,\nthere are pains that are natural: the wise choose the latter, and thus\nfind happiness even through pain.  For the very contempt of pleasure\ncomes with practice to be the highest pleasure.\"  \"When I wish a\ntreat,\" says Antisthenes, \"I do not go and buy it at great cost in the\nmarketplace; I find my storehouse of pleasures in the soul.\"\n\n[218]\n\nThe life of the wise man, therefore, was a training of mind and body to\ndespise pleasure and attain independence.  In this way virtue was\nteachable, and could be so acquired as to become an inseparable\npossession.  The man who had thus attained to wisdom, not of words, but\nof deeds, was, as it were, in an impregnable fortress that could\nneither crumble into ruin nor be lost by treachery.  And so\nAntisthenes, being asked what was the most essential point of learning,\nanswered, \"To unlearn what is evil.\"  That is to say, to the Cynic\nconception, men were born with a root of evil in them in the love of\npleasure; the path of wisdom was a weaning of soul and body by practice\nfrom the allurements of pleasure, until both were so perfectly\naccustomed to its denial as to find an unalloyed pleasure in the very\nact of [219] refusing it.  In this way virtue became absolutely\nsufficient for happiness, and so far was it from being necessary to\nhave wealth or the admiration of men in addition, that the true kingly\nlife was \"to do well, {132} and be ill spoken of.\"  All else but virtue\nwas a matter of indifference.\n\nThe cosmopolitan temper of these men led them to hold of small account\nthe forms and prejudices of ordinary society: they despised the rites\nof marriage; they thought no flesh unclean.  They believed in no\nmultifarious theology; there was but one divinity--the power that ruled\nall nature, the one absolutely self-centred independent being, whose\nmanner of [221] existence they sought to imitate.  Nor had they any\nsympathy with the subtleties of verbal distinction cultivated by some\nof the Socratics, as by other philosophers or Sophists of their time.\nDefinitions and abstractions and classifications led to no good.  A man\nwas a man; what was good was good; to say that a man was good did not\nestablish the existence of some abstract class of goods.  As\nAntisthenes once said to Plato, \"A horse I see, but 'horseness' I do\nnot see.\"  What the exact point of this criticism was we may reserve\nfor the present.\n\n[222]\n\nIII. EUCLIDES THE MEGARIC.--Euclides, a native of Megara on the\nCorinthian isthmus, was a devoted hearer of Socrates, making his way to\nhear him, sometimes even at the 'risk of his life, in defiance of a\ndecree of his native city forbidding intercourse with Athens.  When\nPlato and other Athenian followers of Socrates thought well to quit\nAthens for {133} a time after Socrates' execution, they were kindly\nentertained by Euclides at Megara.\n\nThe exact character of the development which the Socratic teaching\nreceived from Euclides and his school is a matter of considerable\ndoubt.  The allusions to the tenets of the school in Plato and [223]\nothers are only fragmentary.  We gather, however, from them that\nEuclides was wholly antithetical to the personal turn given to\nphilosophy, both by the Cyrenaics and the Cynics.  He revived and\ndeveloped with much dialectical subtlety the metaphysical system of\nParmenides and the Eleatics, maintaining that there is but one absolute\nexistence, and that sense and sense-perceptions as against this [224]\nare nothing.  This one absolute existence was alone absolutely good,\nand the good for man could only be found in such an absorption of\nhimself in this one absolute good through reason and contemplation, as\nwould bring his spirit into perfectness of union with it.  Such\nabsorption raised a man above the troubles and pains of life, and thus,\nin insensibility to these through reason, man attained his highest good.\n\nThe school is perhaps interesting only in so far as it marks the\ncontinued survival of the abstract dialectic method of earlier\nphilosophy.  As such it had a very definite influence, sometimes\nthrough agreement, sometimes by controversy, on the systems of Plato\nand Aristotle now to be dealt with.\n\n\n\n\n{134}\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nPLATO\n\n_Student and wanderer--The Dialogues--Immortal longings--Art is\nlove--Knowledge through remembrance--Platonic love_\n\n\n[239]\n\nThis great master, the Shakespeare of Greek philosophy, as one may call\nhim, for his fertility, his variety, his humour, his imagination, his\npoetic grace, was born at Athens in the year 429 B.C.  He was of noble\nfamily, numbering among his ancestors no less a man than the great\nlawgiver Solon, and tracing back his descent even further to the [240]\nlegendary Codrus, last king of Athens.  At a very early age he seems to\nhave begun to study the philosophers, Heraclitus more particularly, and\nbefore he was twenty he had written a tragedy.  About that time,\nhowever, he met Socrates; and at once giving up all thought of poetic\nfame he burnt his poem, and devoted himself to the hearing of Socrates.\nFor ten years he was his constant companion.  When Socrates met his\ndeath in 399, Plato and other followers of the master fled at first to\nMegara, as already mentioned (above, p. 132); he then entered on a\nperiod of extended travel, first to Cyrene and {135} Egypt, thence to\nItaly and Sicily.  In Italy he devoted himself specially to a study of\nthe doctrine of Pythagoras.  It is said that at Syracuse he offended\nthe tyrant Dionysius the elder by his freedom of speech, and was\ndelivered up to the Spartans, who were then at war with Athens.  [241]\nUltimately he was ransomed, and found his way back to Athens, but he is\nsaid to have paid a second visit to Sicily when the younger Dionysius\nbecame tyrant.  He seems to have entertained the hope that he might so\ninfluence this young man as to be able to realise through him the dream\nof his life, a government in accordance with the dictates of [242]\nphilosophy.  His dream, however, was disappointed of fruition, and he\nreturned to Athens, there in the 'groves of Academus' a mythic hero of\nAthens, to spend the rest of his days in converse with his followers,\nand there at the ripe age of eighty-one he died.  From the scene of his\nlabours his philosophy has ever since been known as the Academic [243]\nphilosophy.  Unlike Socrates, he was not content to leave only a memory\nof himself and his conversations.  He was unwearied in the redaction\nand correction of his written dialogues, altering them here and there\nboth in expression and in structure.  It is impossible, therefore, to\nbe absolutely certain as to the historical order of composition or\npublication among his numerous {136} dialogues, but a certain\napproximate order may be fixed.\n\nWe may take first a certain number of comparatively short dialogues,\nwhich are strongly Socratic in the following respects: _first_, they\neach seek a definition of some particular virtue or quality; _second_,\neach suggests some relation between it and knowledge; _third_, each\nleaves the answer somewhat open, treating the matter suggestively\nrather than dogmatically.  These dialogues are _Charmides_, which\ntreats of Temperance (_mens sana in corpore sano_); _Lysis_, which\ntreats of Friendship; _Laches_, Of Courage; _Ion_, Of Poetic\nInspiration; _Meno_, Of the teachableness of Virtue; _Euthyphro_, Of\nPiety.\n\nThe last of these may be regarded as marking a transition to a second\nseries, which are concerned with the trial and death of Socrates.  The\n_Euthyphro_ opens with an allusion by Socrates to his approaching\ntrial, and in the _Apology_ we have a Platonic version of Socrates'\nspeech in his own defence; in _Crito_ we have the story of his noble\nself-abnegation and civic obedience after his condemnation; in _Phaedo_\nwe have his last conversation with his friends on the subject of\nImmortality, and the story of his death.\n\nAnother series of the dialogues may be formed of those, more or less\nsatirical, in which the ideas and methods of the Sophists are\ncriticised: _Protagoras_, {137} in which Socrates suggests that all\nvirtues are essentially one; _Euthydemus_, in which the assumption and\n'airs' of some of the Sophists are made fun of; _Cratylus_, Of the\nsophistic use of words; _Gorgias_, Of the True and the False, the truly\nGood and the truly Evil; _Hippias_, Of Voluntary and Involuntary Sin;\n_Alcibiades_, Of Self-Knowledge; _Menexenus_, a (possibly ironical) set\noration after the manner of the Sophists, in praise of Athens.\n\nThe whole of this third series are characterised by humour, dramatic\ninterest, variety of personal type among the speakers, keenness rather\nthan depth of philosophic insight.  There are many suggestions of\nprofounder thoughts, afterwards worked out more fully; but on the whole\nthese dialogues rather stimulate thought than satisfy it; the great\npoet-thinker is still playing with his tools.\n\nA higher stage is reached in the _Symposium_, which deals at once\nhumorously and profoundly with the subject of Love, human and divine,\nand its relations to Art and Philosophy, the whole consummated in a\nspeech related by Socrates as having been spoken to him by Diotima, a\nwise woman of Mantineia.  From this speech an extract as translated by\nProfessor Jowett may be quoted here.  It marks the transition point\nfrom the merely playful and critical to the relatively serious and\ndogmatic stage in the mind of Plato:--\n\n{138} \"Marvel not,\" she said, \"if you believe that love is of the\nimmortal, as we have already several times acknowledged; for here\nagain, and on the same principle too, the mortal nature is seeking as\nfar as is possible to be everlasting and immortal: and this is only to\nbe attained by generation, because generation always leaves behind a\nnew existence in the place of the old.  Nay even in the life of the\nsame individual there is succession and not absolute unity: a man is\ncalled the same, and yet in the short interval which elapses between\nyouth and age, and in which every animal is said to have life and\nidentity, he is undergoing a perpetual process of loss and\nreparation--hair, flesh, bones, blood, and the whole body are always\nchanging.  Which is true not only of the body, but also of the soul,\nwhose habits, tempers, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, fears,\nnever remain the same in any one of us, but are always coming and\ngoing; and equally true of knowledge, which is still more\nsurprising--for not only do the sciences in general come and go, so\nthat in respect of them we are never the same; but each of them\nindividually experiences a like change.  For what is implied in the\nword 'recollection,' but the departure of knowledge, which is ever\nbeing forgotten and is renewed and preserved by recollection, and\nappears to be the same although in reality new, according to that law\nof succession by which all mortal things are preserved, not absolutely\nthe same, but by substitution, the old worn-out mortality leaving\nanother new and similar existence behind--unlike the divine, which is\nalways the same and not another?  And in this way, Socrates, the mortal\nbody, or mortal anything, partakes of immortality; but the immortal in\nanother way.  Marvel not then at the love which all men have of their\noffspring; for that universal love and interest is for the sake of\nimmortality.\"\n\nI was astonished at her words, and said: \"Is this really true, O thou\nwise Diotima?\"  And she answered with all the authority of a sophist:\n\"Of that, Socrates, you may be assured;--think only of the ambition of\nmen, and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you\nconsider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame.\nThey are ready to run risks greater far than they would have run for\ntheir children, and to spend money and undergo any sort of {139} toil,\nand even to die for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall\nbe eternal.  Do you imagine that Alcestis would have died to save\nAdmetus, or Achilles to avenge Patroclus, or your own Codrus in order\nto preserve the kingdom for his sons, if they had not imagined that the\nmemory of their virtues, which is still retained among us, would be\nimmortal?  Nay,\" she said, \"I am persuaded that all men do all things,\nand the better they are the more they do them, in hope of the glorious\nfame of immortal virtue; for they desire the immortal.\n\n\"They whose bodies only are creative, betake themselves to women and\nbeget children--this is the character of their love; their offspring,\nas they hope, will preserve their memory and give them the blessedness\nand immortality which they desire in the future.  But creative\nsouls--for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls\nthan in their bodies--conceive that which is proper for the soul to\nconceive or retain.  And what are these conceptions?--wisdom and virtue\nin general.  And such creators are poets and all artists who are\ndeserving of the name inventor.  But the greatest and fairest sort of\nwisdom by far is that which is concerned with the ordering of states\nand families, and which is called temperance and justice.  And he who\nin youth has the seed of these implanted in him and is himself\ninspired, when he comes to maturity desires to beget and generate.  He\nwanders about seeking beauty that he may beget offspring--for in\ndeformity he will beget nothing--and naturally embraces the beautiful\nrather than the deformed body; above all when he finds a fair and noble\nand well-nurtured soul, he embraces the two in one person, and to such\nan one he is full of speech about virtue and the nature and pursuits of\na good man; and he tries to educate him; and at the touch of the\nbeautiful which is ever present to his memory, even when absent, he\nbrings forth that which he had conceived long before, and in company\nwith him tends that which he brings forth; and they are married by a\nfar nearer tie and have a closer friendship than those who beget mortal\nchildren, for the children who are their common offspring are fairer\nand more immortal.  Who, when he thinks of Homer and Hesiod and other\ngreat poets, {140} would not rather have their children than ordinary\nhuman ones?  Who would not emulate them in the creation of children\nsuch as theirs, which have preserved their memory and given them\neverlasting glory?  Or who would not have such children as Lycurgus\nleft behind him to be the saviours, not only of Lacedaemon, but of\nHellas, as one may say?  There is Solon, too, who is the revered father\nof Athenian laws; and many others there are in many other places, both\namong Hellenes and barbarians.  All of them have given to the world\nmany noble works, and have been the parents of virtue of every kind,\nand many temples have been raised in their honour for the sake of their\nchildren; which were never raised in honour of any one, for the sake of\nhis mortal children.\n\n\"These are the lesser mysteries of love, into which even you, Socrates,\nmay enter; to the greater and more hidden ones which are the crown of\nthese, and to which, if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will\nlead, I know not whether you will be able to attain.  But I will do my\nutmost to inform you, and do you follow if you can.  For he who would\nproceed aright in this matter should begin in youth to visit beautiful\nforms; and first, if he be guided by his instructor aright, to love one\nsuch form only--out of that he should create fair thoughts; and soon he\nwill of himself perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to the\nbeauty of another; and then if beauty of form in general is his\npursuit, how foolish would he be not to recognise that the beauty in\nevery form is one and the same!  And when he perceives this he will\nabate his violent love of the one, which he will despise and deem a\nsmall thing, and will become a lover of all beautiful forms; in the\nnext stage he will consider that the beauty of the mind is more\nhonourable than the beauty of the outward form.  So that if a virtuous\nsoul have but a little comeliness, he will be content to love and tend\nhim, and will search out and bring to the birth thoughts which may\nimprove the young, until he is compelled to contemplate and see the\nbeauty of institutions and laws, and to understand that the beauty of\nthem all is of one family, and that personal beauty is a trifle; and\nafter laws and institutions he will go on to the sciences, that he may\nsee their beauty, being not like a servant in love with the beauty of\none youth or man or {141} institution, himself a slave mean and\nnarrow-minded, but drawing towards and contemplating the vast sea of\nbeauty, he will create many fair and noble thoughts and notions in\nboundless love of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and waxes\nstrong, and at last the vision is revealed to him of a single science,\nwhich is the science of beauty everywhere.  To this I will proceed;\nplease to give me your very best attention.\n\n\"He who has been instructed thus far in the things of love, and who has\nlearned to see the beautiful in due order and succession, when he comes\ntoward the end will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty (and\nthis, Socrates, is the final cause of all our former toils)--a nature\nwhich in the first place is everlasting, not growing and decaying, or\nwaxing and waning, in the next place not fair in one point of view and\nfoul in another, or at one time or in one relation or at one place\nfair, at another time or in another relation or at another place foul,\nas if fair to some and foul to others, or in the likeness of a face or\nhands or any other part of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech\nor knowledge, or existing in any other being; as for example, in an\nanimal, or in heaven, or in earth, or in any other place, but beauty\nonly, absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting, which without\ndiminution and without increase, or any change, is imparted to the\never-growing and perishing beauties of all other things.  He who under\nthe influence of true love rising upward from these begins to see that\nbeauty, is not far from the end.  And the true order of going or being\nled by another to the things of love, is to use the beauties of earth\nas steps along which he mounts upwards for the sake of that other\nbeauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from\nfair forms to fair practices, and from fair practices to fair notions,\nuntil from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty,\nand at last knows what the essence of beauty is.  This, my dear\nSocrates,\" said the stranger of Mantineia, \"is that life above all\nothers which a man should live, in the contemplation of beauty\nabsolute; a beauty which if you once beheld, you would see not to be\nafter the measure of gold, and garments, and fair boys and youths,\nwhose presence now entrances you; and you and many a one would be\ncontent to live seeing only and conversing with them without meat or\ndrink, {142} if that were possible--you only want to be with them and\nto look at them.  But what if man had eyes to see the true beauty--the\ndivine beauty, I mean, pure and clear and unalloyed, not clogged with\nthe pollutions of mortality, and all the colours and vanities of human\nlife--thither looking, and holding converse with the true beauty divine\nand simple?  Do you not see that in that communion only, beholding\nbeauty with the eye of the mind, he will be enabled to bring forth, not\nimages of beauty, but realities (for he has hold not of an image but of\na reality), and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the\nfriend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.  Would that be an\nignoble life?\" (Jowett, _Plato_, vol. ii. p. 58).\n\n\nClosely connected in subject with the _Symposium_ is the _Phaedrus_.\nAs Professor Jowett observes: \"The two dialogues together contain the\nwhole philosophy of Plato on the nature of love, which in _The\nRepublic_ and in the later writings of Plato is only introduced\nplayfully or as a figure of speech.  But in the _Phaedrus_ and\n_Symposium_ love and philosophy join hands, and one is an aspect of the\nother.  The spiritual and emotional is elevated into the ideal, to\nwhich in the _Symposium_ mankind are described as looking forward, and\nwhich in the _Phaedrus_, as well as in the _Phaedo_, they are seeking\nto recover from a former state of existence.\"\n\nWe are here introduced to one of the most famous conceptions of Plato,\nthat of _Reminiscence_, or Recollection, based upon a theory of the\nprior existence of the soul.  In the _Meno_, already alluded to,\nSocrates is representing as eliciting from one of Meno's slaves {143}\ncorrect answers to questions involving a knowledge or apprehension of\ncertain axioms of the science of mathematics, which, as Socrates\nlearns, the slave had never been taught.  Socrates argues that since he\nwas never taught these axioms, and yet actually knows them, he must\nhave known them before his birth, and concludes from this to the\nimmortality of the soul.  In the _Phaedo_ this same argument is worked\nout more fully.  As we grow up we discover in the exercise of our\nsenses that things are equal in certain respects, unequal in many\nothers; or again, we appropriate to things or acts the qualities, for\nexample, of beauty, goodness, justice, holiness.  At the same time we\nrecognise that these are _ideals_, to which in actual experience we\nnever find more than an approximation, for we never discover in any\nreally existing thing or act _absolute_ equality, or justice, or\ngoodness.  In other words, any act of judgment on our part of actual\nexperiences consists in a measuring of these experiences by standards\nwhich we give or apply to them, and which no number of experiences can\ngive to us because they do not possess or exemplify them.  We did not\nconsciously possess these notions, or ideals, or _ideas_, as he prefers\nto call them, at birth; they come into consciousness in connection with\nor in consequence of the action of the senses; but since the senses\ncould not give these ideas, the process of {144} knowledge must be a\nprocess of _Recollection_.  Socrates carries the argument a step\nfurther.  \"Then may we not say,\" he continues, \"that if, as we are\nalways repeating, there is an absolute beauty and goodness and other\nsimilar ideas or essences, and to this standard, which is now\ndiscovered to have existed in our former state, we refer all our\nsensations, and with this compare them--assuming these ideas to have a\nprior existence, then our souls must have had a prior existence, but if\nnot, not?  There is the same proof that these ideas must have existed\nbefore we were born, as that our souls existed before we were born; and\nif not the ideas, then not the souls.\"\n\nIn the _Phaedrus_ this conception of a former existence is embodied in\none of the _Myths_ in which Plato's imaginative powers are seen at\ntheir highest.  In it the soul is compared to a charioteer driving two\nwinged steeds, one mortal, the other immortal; the one ever tending\ntowards the earth, the other seeking ever to soar into the sky, where\nit may behold those blessed visions of loveliness and wisdom and\ngoodness, which are the true nurture of the soul.  When the chariots of\nthe gods go forth in mighty and glorious procession, the soul would\nfain ride forth in their train; but alas! the mortal steed is ever\nhampering the immortal, and dragging it down.\n\nIf the soul yields to this influence and descends to earth, there she\ntakes human form, but in higher {145} or lower degree, according to the\nmeasure of her vision of the truth.  She may become a philosopher, a\nking, a trader, an athlete, a prophet, a poet, a husbandman, a sophist,\na tyrant.  But whatever her lot, according to her manner of life in it,\nmay she rise, or sink still further, even to a beast or plant.\n\nOnly those souls take the form of humanity that have had _some_ vision\nof eternal truth.  And this vision they retain in a measure, even when\nclogged in mortal clay.  And so the soul of man is ever striving and\nfluttering after something beyond; and specially is she stirred to\naspiration by the sight of bodily loveliness.  Then above all comes the\ntest of good and evil in the soul.  The nature that has been corrupted\nwould fain rush to brutal joys; but the purer nature looks with\nreverence and wonder at this beauty, for it is an adumbration of the\ncelestial joys which he still remembers vaguely from the heavenly\nvision.  And thus pure and holy love becomes an opening back to heaven;\nit is a source of happiness unalloyed on earth; it guides the lovers on\nupward wings back to the heaven whence they came.\n\n\n\n\n{146}\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nPLATO (_continued_)\n\n_The Republic--Denizens of the cave--The Timaeus--A dream of creation_\n\n\nAnd now we pass to the central and crowning work of Plato, _The\nRepublic_, or _Of Justice_--the longest with one exception, and\ncertainly the greatest of all his works.  It combines the humour and\nirony, the vivid characterisation and lively dialogue of his earlier\nworks, with the larger and more serious view, the more constructive and\nstatesmanlike aims of his later life.  The dialogue opens very\nbeautifully.  There has been a festal procession at the Piraeus, the\nharbour of Athens, and Socrates with a companion is wending his way\nhomeward, when he is recalled by other companions, who induce him to\nvisit the house of an aged friend of his, Cephalus, whom he does not\nvisit too often.  Him he finds seated in his court, crowned, as the\ncustom was, for the celebration of a family sacrifice, and beholds\nbeaming on his face the peace of a life well spent and reconciled.\nThey talk of the happiness that comes in old age to those who have done\ngood and not evil, and who are not too severely {147} tried in the\nmatter of worldly cares.  Life to this good old man seems a very simple\nmatter; duty to God, duty to one's neighbours, each according to what\nis prescribed and orderly; this is all, and this is sufficient.\n\nThen comes in the questioning Socrates, with his doubts and\ndifficulties as to what is one's duty in special circumstances; and the\ndiscussion is taken up, not by the good old man, \"who goes away to the\nsacrifice,\" but by his son, who can quote the authorities; and by\nThrasymachus, the Sophist, who will have nothing to do with authority,\nbut maintains that _interest_ is the only real meaning of justice, and\nthat Might is Right.  Socrates, by analogy of the arts, shows that\nMight absolutely without tincture of justice is mere weakness, and that\nthere is honour even among thieves.  Yet the exhibition of the 'law\nworking in the members' seems to have its weak side so long as we look\nto individual men, in whom there are many conflicting influences, and\nmany personal chances and difficulties, which obscure the relation\nbetween just action and happiness.\n\nSocrates therefore will have justice 'writ large' in the community as a\nwhole, first pictured in its simpler, and then in its more complex and\nluxurious forms.  The relation of the individual to the community is\nrepresented chiefly as one of education and training; and many strange\ntheories--as of the equal {148} training of men and women, and the\ncommunity of wives, ideas partially drawn from Sparta--are woven into\nthe ideal structure.  Then the dialogue rises to a larger view of\neducation, as a preparation of the soul of man, not for a community on\nearth, but for that heavenly life which was suggested above (p. 144) in\nthe myth of the steeds.\n\nThe purely earthly unideal life is represented as a life of men tied\nneck and heels from birth in a cave, having their backs to the light,\nand their eyes fixed only on the shadows which are cast upon the wall.\nThese they take for the only realities, and they may acquire much skill\nin interpreting the shadows.  Turn these men suddenly to the true\nlight, and they will be dazzled and blinded.  They will feel as though\nthey had lost the realities, and been plunged into dreams.  And in pain\nand sorrow they will be tempted to grope back again to the familiar\ndarkness.\n\nYet if they hold on in patience, and struggle up the steep till the sun\nhimself breaks on their vision, what pain and dazzling once more, yet\nat the last what glorious revelation!  True, if they revisit their old\ndwelling-place, they will not see as well as their fellows who are\nstill living contentedly there, knowing nothing other than the shadows.\nThey may even seem to these as dreamers who have lost their senses; and\nshould they try to enlighten these denizens of the cave, they may be\npersecuted or {149} even put to death.  Such are the men who have had a\nsight of the heavenly verities, when compared with the children of\nearth and darkness.\n\nYet the world will never be right till those who have had this vision\ncome back to the things of earth and order them according to the\neternal verities; the philosopher must be king if ever the perfect life\nis to be lived on earth, either by individual or community.  As it\nwould be expressed in Scriptural language, \"The kingdoms of this world\nmust become the kingdoms of the Lord and of His Christ.\"\n\nFor the training of these ideal rulers an ideal education is required,\nwhich Plato calls dialectic; something of its nature is described later\non (p. 170), and we need not linger over it here.\n\nThe argument then seems to fall to a lower level.  There are various\napproximations in actual experience to the ideal community, each more\nor less perfect according to the degree in which the good of the\nindividual is also made the good of all, and the interests of governors\nand governed are alike.  Parallel with each lower form of state is a\nlower individual nature, the worst of all being that of the tyrant,\nwhose will is his only law, and his own self-indulgence his only\nmotive.  In him indeed Might is Right; but his life is the very\nantithesis of happiness.  Nay, pleasure of any kind can give no law to\nreason; reason can judge of pleasure, but not _vice versa_.  There is\nno profit to a {150} man though he gain the whole world, if _himself_\nbe lost; if he become worse; if the better part of him be silenced and\ngrow weaker.  And after this 'fitful fever' is over, may there not be a\ngreater bliss beyond?  There have been stories told us, visions of\nanother world, where each man is rewarded according to his works.  And\nthe book closes with a magnificent Vision of Judgment.  It is the story\nof Er, son of Armenius, who being wounded in battle, after twelve days'\ntrance comes back to life, and tells of the judgment seat, of heavenly\nbliss and hellish punishments, and of the renewal of life and the new\nchoice given to souls not yet purified wholly of sin.  \"God is\nblameless; Man's Soul is immortal; Justice and Truth are the only\nthings eternally good.\"  Such is the final revelation.\n\nThe _Timaeus_ is an attempt by Plato, under the guise of a Pythagorean\nphilosopher, to image forth as in a vision or dream the actual framing\nof the universe, conceived as a realisation of the Eternal Thought or\nIdea.  It will be remembered that in the analysis already given (p.\n143) of the process of knowledge in individual men, Plato found that\nprior to the suggestions of the senses, though not coming into\nconsciousness except in connection with sensation, men had _ideas_ that\ngave them a power of rendering their sensations intelligible.  In the\n_Timaeus_ Plato attempts a vision of the universe as though he saw\n{151} it working itself into actuality on the lines of those ideas.\nThe vision is briefly as follows: There is the Eternal Creator, who\ndesired to make the world because He was good and free from jealousy,\nand therefore willed that all things should be like Himself; that is,\nthat the formless, chaotic, unrealised void might receive form and\norder, and become, in short, real as He was.  Thus creation is the\nprocess by which the Eternal Creator works out His own image, His own\nideas, in and through that which is formless, that which has no name,\nwhich is nothing but possibility,--dead earth, namely, or _Matter_.\nAnd first the world-soul, image of the divine, is formed, on which as\non a \"diamond network\" the manifold structure of things is\nfashioned--the stars, the seven planets with their sphere-music, the\nfour elements, and all the various creatures, aetherial or fiery,\naerial, aqueous, and earthy, with the consummation of them all in\nmicrocosm, in the animal world, and specially in man.\n\nOne can easily see that this is an attempt by Plato to carry out the\nreverse process in thought to that which first comes to thinking man.\nMan has sensations, that is, he comes first upon that which is\nconceivably last in creation, on the immediate and temporary things or\nmomentary occurrences of earth.  In these sensations, as they\naccumulate into a kind of habitual or unreasoned knowledge or opinion,\nhe discovers elements which have been active to {152} correlate the\nsensations, which have from the first exercised a governing influence\nupon the sensations, without which, indeed, no two sensations could be\nbrought together to form anything one could name.  These regulative,\nunderlying, permanent elements are Ideas, _i.e._ General Forms or\nNotions, which, although they may come second as regards time into\nconsciousness, are by reason known to have been there before, because\nthrough them alone can the sensations become intelligibly possible, or\nthinkable, or namable.  Thus Plato is led to the conception of an order\nthe reverse of our individual experience, the order of creation, the\norder of God's thought, which is equivalent to the order of God's\nworking; for God's thought and God's working are inseparable.\n\nOf course Plato, in working out his dream of creation absolutely\nwithout any scientific knowledge, the further he travels the more\nobviously falls into confusion and absurdity; where he touches on some\nideas having a certain resemblance to modern scientific discoveries, as\nthe law of gravitation, the circulation of the blood, the quantitative\nbasis of differences of quality, etc., these happy guesses are apt to\nlead more frequently wrong than right, because they are not kept in\ncheck by any experimental tests.  But taken as a 'myth,' which is\nperhaps all that Plato intended, the work offers much that is\nprofoundly interesting.\n\n{153}\n\nWith the _Timaeus_ is associated another dialogue called the _Critias_,\nwhich remains only as a fragment.  In it is contained a description of\nthe celebrated visionary kingdom of Atlantis, lying far beyond the\npillars of Hercules, a land of splendour and luxury and power, a land\nalso of gentle manners and wise orderliness.  \"The fiction has\nexercised a great influence over the imagination of later ages.  As\nmany attempts have been made to find the great island as to discover\nthe country of the lost tribes.  Without regard to the description of\nPlato, and without a suspicion that the whole narrative is a\nfabrication, interpreters have looked for the spot in every part of the\nglobe--America, Palestine, Arabia Felix, Ceylon, Sardinia, Sweden.  The\nstory had also an effect on the early navigators of the sixteenth\ncentury\" (Jowett, _Plato_, vol. iii. p. 679).\n\n\n\n\n{154}\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nPLATO (_continued_)\n\n_Metaphysics and psychology--Reason and pleasure--Criticism of the\nideas--Last ideals_\n\n\nWe now come to a series of highly important dialogues, marked as a\nwhole by a certain diminution in the purely artistic attraction, having\nless of vivid characterisation, less humour, less dramatic interest,\nless perfect construction in every way, but, on the other hand,\npeculiarly interesting as presenting a kind of after-criticism of his\nown philosophy.  In them Plato brings his philosophic conceptions into\nstriking relation with earlier or rival theories such as the Eleatic,\nthe Megarian, the Cyrenaic, and the Cynic, and touches in these\nconnections on many problems of deep and permanent import.\n\nThe most remarkable feature in these later dialogues is the\ndisappearance, or even in some cases the apparently hostile criticism,\nof the doctrine of Ideas, and consequently of Reminiscence as the\nsource of knowledge, and even, apparently, of Personal {155}\nImmortality, so far as the doctrine of Reminiscence was imagined to\nguarantee it.  This, however, is perhaps to push the change of view too\nfar.  We may say that Plato in these dialogues is rather the\npsychologist than the metaphysician; he is attempting a revised\nanalysis of mental processes.  From this point of view it was quite\nintelligible that he should discover difficulties in his former theory\nof our mental relation to the external reality, without therefore\nseeing reason to doubt the existence of that reality.  The position is\nsomewhat similar to that of a modern philosopher who attempts to think\nout the psychological problem of Human Will in relation to Almighty and\nOver-ruling Providence.  One may very clearly see the psychological\ndifficulties, without ceasing to believe either in the one or the other\nas facts.\n\nThroughout Plato's philosophy, amidst every variation of expression, we\nmay take these three as practically fixed points of belief or of faith,\nor at least of hope; _first_, that Mind is eternally master of the\nuniverse; _second_, that Man in realising what is most truly himself is\nworking in harmony with the Eternal Mind, and is in this way a master\nof nature, reason governing experience and not being a product of\nexperience; and _thirdly_ (as Socrates said before his judges), that at\ndeath we go to powers who are wise and good, and to men departed who in\ntheir day shared in the divine wisdom and goodness,--that, in short,\nthere is something remaining for the dead, and better for those that\nhave done good than for those that have done evil.\n\nThe first of the 'psychological dialogues,' as we have called them, is\nthe _Philebus_.  The question here is of the _summum bonum_ or chief\ngood.  What is it?  Is it pleasure?  Is it wisdom?  Or is it both?  In\nthe process of answering these questions Plato lays down rules for true\ndefinition, and establishes classifications which had an immense\ninfluence on his successor Aristotle, but which need not be further\nreferred to here.\n\nThe general gist of the argument is as follows.  Pleasure could not be\nregarded as a sufficient or perfect good if it was entirely emptied of\nthe purely intellectual elements of anticipation and consciousness and\nmemory.  This would be no better than the pleasure of an oyster.  On\nthe other hand, a purely intellectual existence can hardly be regarded\nas perfect and sufficient either.  The perfect life must be a union of\nboth.\n\nBut this union must be an orderly and rational union; in other words,\nit must be one in which Mind is master and Pleasure servant; the\nfinite, the regular, the universal must govern the indefinite,\nvariable, particular.  Thus in the perfect life there are four\nelements; in the body, earth, water, air, fire; in the soul, the\nfinite, the indefinite, the union of the {157} two, and the cause of\nthat union.  If this be so, he argues, may we not by analogy argue for\na like four-fold order in the universe?  There also we find regulative\nelements, and indefinite elements, and the union of the two.  Must\nthere not also be the Great Cause, even Divine Wisdom, ordering and\ngoverning all things?\n\nThe second of the psychological series is the _Parmenides_, in which\nthe great Eleatic philosopher, in company with his disciple Zeno, is\nimagined instructing the youthful Socrates when the two were on a visit\nto Athens, which may or may not be historical (see above, p. 34).  The\nmost striking portion of this dialogue is the criticism already alluded\nto of Plato's own theory of Ideas, put into the mouth of Parmenides.\nParmenides ascertains from Socrates that he is quite clear about there\nbeing Ideas of Justice, Beauty, Goodness, eternally existing, but how\nabout Ideas of such common things as hair, mud, filth, etc.?  Socrates\nis not so sure; to which Parmenides rejoins that as he grows older\nphilosophy will take a surer hold of him, and that he will recognise\nthe same law in small things and in great.\n\nBut now as to the nature of these Ideas.  What, Parmenides asks, is the\nrelation of these, as eternally existing in the mind of God, to the\nsame ideas as possessed by individual men?  Does each individual\nactually _partake_ in the thought of God through {158} the ideas, or\nare his ideas only _resemblances_ of the eternal?  If he partakes, then\nthe eternal ideas are not one but many, as many as the persons who\npossess them.  If his ideas only resemble, then there must be some\nbasis of reference by which the resemblance is established, a _tertium\nquid_ or third existence resembling both, and so _ad infinitum_.\nSocrates is puzzled by this, and suggests that perhaps the Ideas are\nonly notions in our minds.  But to this it is replied that there is an\nend in that case of any reality in our ideas.  Unless in some way they\nhave a true and causal relation with something beyond our minds, there\nis an end of mind altogether, and with mind gone everything goes.\n\nThis, as Professor Jowett remarks, \"remains a difficulty for us as well\nas for the Greeks of the fourth century before Christ, and is the\nstumbling-block of Kant's _Critic_, and of the Hamiltonian adaptation\nof Kant as well as of the Platonic ideas.  It has been said that 'you\ncannot criticise Revelation.'  'Then how do you know what is\nRevelation, or that there is one at all?' is the immediate rejoinder.\n'You know nothing of things in themselves.'--'Then how do you know that\nthere are things in themselves?'  In some respects the difficulty\npressed harder upon the Greek than upon ourselves.  For conceiving of\nGod more under the attribute of knowledge than we do, he was more under\nthe necessity of {159} separating the divine from the human, as two\nspheres which had no communication with one another.\"\n\nNext follows an extraordinary analysis of the ideas of 'Being' and\n'Unity,' remarkable not only for its subtlety, but for the relation\nwhich it historically bears to the modern philosophic system of Hegel.\n\"Every affirmation is _ipso facto_ a negation;\" \"the negation of a\nnegation is an affirmation;\" these are the psychological (if not\nmetaphysical) facts, on which the analysis of Parmenides and the\nphilosophy of Hegel are both founded.\n\nWe may pass more rapidly by the succeeding dialogues of the series: the\n_Theaetetus_ (already quoted from above, p. 89), which is a close and\npowerful investigation of the nature of knowledge on familiar Platonic\nlines; the _Sophist_, which is an analysis of fallacious reasoning; and\nthe _Statesman_, which, under the guise of a dialectical search for the\ntrue ruler of men, represents once more Plato's ideal of government,\nand contrasts this with the ignorance and charlatanism of actual\npolitics.\n\nIn relation to subsequent psychology, and more particularly to the\nlogical system of Aristotle, these dialogues are extremely important.\nWe may indeed say that the systematic logic of Aristotle, as contained\nin the _Organon_, is little more than an abstract {160} or digest of\nthe logical theses of these dialogues.  Definition and division, the\nnature and principle of classification, the theory of predication, the\nprocesses of induction and deduction, the classification and criticism\nof fallacies,--all these are to be found in them.  The only addition\nreally made by Aristotle was the systematic theory of the syllogism.\n\nThe _Laws_, the longest of Plato's works, seems to have been composed\nby him in the latest years of his long life, and was probably not\npublished till after his death.  It bears traces of its later origin in\nthe less artful juncture of its parts, in the absence of humour, in the\ngreater overloading of details, in the less graphic and appropriate\ncharacterisation of the speakers.  These speakers are three--an\nAthenian, a Cretan, and a Spartan.  A new colony is to be led forth\nfrom Crete, and the Cretan takes advice of the others as to the\nordering of the new commonwealth.  We are no longer, as in _The\nRepublic_, in an ideal world, a city coming down from, or set in, the\nheavens.  There is no longer a perfect community; nor are philosophers\nto be its kings.  Laws more or less similar to those of Sparta fill\nabout half the book.  But the old spirit of obedience and\nself-sacrifice and community is not forgotten; and on all men and\nwomen, noble and humble alike, the duty is cast, to bear in common the\ncommon burden of life.\n\n{161}\n\nThus, somewhat in sadness and decay, yet with a dignity and moral\ngrandeur not unworthy of his life's high argument, the great procession\nof the Ideal Philosopher's dialogues closes.\n\n\n\n\n{162}\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nPLATO (_concluded_)\n\n_Search for universals--The thoughts of God--God cause and\nconsummation--Dying to earth--The Platonic education_\n\n\nIf we attempt now, by way of appendix to this very inadequate summary\nof the dialogues, to give in brief review some account of the main\ndoctrines of Plato, as they may be gathered from a general view of\nthem, we are at once met by difficulties many and serious.  In the case\nof a genius such as Plato's, at once ironical, dramatic, and\nallegorical, we cannot be absolutely certain that in any given passage\nPlato is expressing, at all events adequately and completely, his own\npersonal views, even at the particular stage of his own mental\ndevelopment then represented.  And when we add to this that in a long\nlife of unceasing intellectual development, Plato inevitably grew out\nof much that once satisfied him, and attained not infrequently to new\npoints of view even of doctrines or conceptions which remained\nessentially unchanged, a Platonic dogma in the strict sense must\nclearly not be expected.  One may, however, attempt in rough outline to\nsummarise the main {163} _tendencies_ of his thought, without\nprofessing to represent its settled and authenticated results.\n\n[251]\n\nWe may begin by an important summary of Plato's philosophy given by\nAristotle (_Met_. A. 6): \"In immediate succession to the Pythagorean\nand Eleatic philosophies came the work of Plato.  In many respects his\nviews coincided with these; in some respects, however, he is\nindependent of the Italians.  For in early youth he became a student of\nCratylus and of the school of Heraclitus, and accepted from them the\nview that the objects of sense are in eternal flux, and that of these,\ntherefore, there can be no absolute knowledge.  Then came Socrates, who\nbusied himself only with questions of morals, and not at all with the\nworld of physics.  But in his ethical inquiries his search was ever for\nuniversals, and he was the first to set his mind to the discovery of\ndefinitions.  Plato following him in this, came to the conclusion that\nthese universals could not belong to the things of sense, which were\never changing, but to some other kind of existences.  Thus he came to\nconceive of universals as forms or _ideas_ of real existences, by\nreference to which, and in consequence of analogies to which, the\nthings of sense in every case received their names, and became\nthinkable objects.\"\n\nFrom this it followed to Plato that in so far as the senses took an\nillusive appearance of themselves giving {164} the knowledge which\nreally was supplied by reason as the organ of ideas, in the same degree\nthe body which is the instrument of sense can only be a source of\nillusion and a hindrance to knowledge.  The wise man, therefore, will\nseek to free himself from the bonds of the body, and die while he lives\nby philosophic contemplation, free as far as possible from the\ndisturbing influence of the senses.  This process of _rational_\nrealisation Plato called Dialectic.  The objects contemplated by the\nreason, brought into consciousness on the occurrence of sensible\nperception, but never caused by these, were not mere notions in the\nmind of the individual thinker, nor were they mere properties of\nindividual things; this would be to make an end of science on the one\nhand, of reality on the other.  Nor had they existence in any mere\nplace, not even beyond the heavens.  Their home was Mind, not this mind\nor that, but Mind Universal, which is God.\n\nIn these 'thoughts of God' was the root or essence which gave reality\nto the things of sense; they were the Unity which realised itself in\nmultiplicity.  It is because things partake of the Idea that we give\nthem a name.  The thing as such is seen, not known; the idea as such is\nknown, not seen.\n\n[252]\n\nThe whole conception of Plato in this connection is based on the\nassumption that there is such a thing as knowledge.  If all things are\never in change, then knowledge is impossible; but conversely, if there\nis {165} such a thing as knowledge, then there must be a continuing\nobject of knowledge; and beauty, goodness, [253] reality are then no\ndreams.  The process of apprehension of these 'thoughts of God,' these\neternal objects of knowledge, whether occasioned by sensation or not,\nis essentially a process of self-inquiry, or, as he in one stage called\nit, of Reminiscence.  The process is the same in essence, whether going\non in thought or expressed in speech; it is a process of _naming_.  Not\nthat names ever resemble realities fully; they are only approximations,\nlimited by the conditions [254] of human error and human convention.\nThere is nevertheless an inter-communion between ideas and things.  We\nmust neither go entirely with those who affirm the one (the Eleatics),\nnor with those who affirm the many (the Heracliteans), but accept both.\nThere is a union in all that exists both of That Which _Is_, and of\nthat concerning which all we can say is that it is _Other_ than what\nis.  This 'Other,' through union with what is, attains to being of a\nkind; while on the other hand, What Is by union with the 'Other'\nattains to variety, and thus more fully realises itself.\n\n[258]\n\nThat which Plato here calls 'What Is' he elsewhere calls 'The Limiting\nor Defining'; the 'Other' he calls 'The Unlimited or Undefined.'  Each\nhas a function in the divine process.  The thoughts of God attain\nrealisation in the world of things which change and pass, through the\ninfusion {166} of themselves in, or the superimposing of themselves\nupon, that which is Nothing apart from them,--the mere negation of what\nis, and yet necessary as the 'Other' or correlative of what is.  Thus\nwe get, in fact, _four_ forms of existence: there is the Idea or\nLimiting (apart); there is the Negative or Unlimited (apart), there is\nthe Union of the two (represented in language by subject and\npredicate), which as a whole is this frame of things as we know it; and\nfourthly, there is the _Cause_ of the Union, which is God.  And God is\ncause not only as the beginning of all things, but also as the measure\nand law of their perfection, and the end towards which they go.  He is\nthe Good, and the cause of Good, and the consummation and realisation\nof Good.\n\nThis absolute Being, this perfect Good, we cannot see, blinded as we\nare, like men that have been dwelling in a cave, by excess of light.\nWe must, therefore, look on Him indirectly, as on an image of Him, in\nour own souls and in the world, in so far as in either we discern, by\nreason, that which is rational and good.\n\n[269]\n\nThus God is not only the cause and the end of all good, He is also the\ncause and the end of all knowledge.  Even as the sun is not only the\nmost glorious of all visible objects, but is also the cause of the life\nand beauty of all other things, and the provider of the light whereby\nwe see them, so also {167} is it for the eye of the soul.  God is its\nlight, God is the most glorious object of its contemplation, God we\nbehold imaged forth in all the objects which the soul by reason\ncontemplates.\n\n[260]\n\nThe ideas whereof the 'Other' (or, as he again calls it, the 'Great and\nSmall' or 'More and Less,' meaning that which is unnamable, or wholly\nneutral in character, and which may therefore be represented equally by\ncontradictory attributes) by participation becomes a resemblance, Plato\ncompared to the 'Numbers' of the Pythagoreans (cf. above, p. 25).\nHence, Aristotle remarks (_Met_. A. 6), Plato found in the ideas the\noriginative or formative Cause of things, that which made them what\nthey were or could be called,--their _Essence_; in the 'Great and\nSmall' he found the opposite principle or _Matter_ (Raw Material) of\nthings.\n\nIn this way the antithesis of Mind and Matter, whether on the great\nscale in creation or on the small in rational perception, is not an\nantithesis of unrelated opposition.  Each is correlative of the other,\nso to speak as the male and the female; the one is generative,\nformative, active, positive; the other is capable of being impregnated,\nreceptive, passive, negative; but neither can realise itself apart from\nthe other.\n\n[262]\n\nThis relation of 'Being' with that which is 'Other than Being' is\nCreation, wherein we can {168} conceive of the world as coming to be,\nyet not in [261] Time.  And in the same way Plato speaks of a third\nform, besides the Idea and that which receives it, namely, 'Formless\nSpace, the mother of all things.'  As Kant might have formulated it,\nTime and Space are not prior to creation, they are forms under which\ncreation becomes thinkable.\n\n[271]\n\nThe 'Other' or Negative element, Plato more or less vaguely connected\nwith the evil that is in the world.  This evil we can never expect to\nperish utterly from the world; it must ever be here as the antithesis\nof the good.  But with the gods it dwells not; here in this mortal\nnature, and in this region of mingling, it must of necessity still be\nfound.  The wise man will therefore seek to die to the evil, and while\nyet in this world of mortality, to think immortal things, and so as far\nas may be flee from the evil.  Thereby shall he liken himself to the\ndivine.  For it is a likening to the divine to be just and holy and\ntrue.\n\n[273]\n\nThis, then, is the _summum bonum_, the end of life.  For as the\nexcellence or end of any organ or instrument consists in that\nperfection of its parts, whereby each separately and the whole together\nwork well towards the fulfilling of that which it is designed to\naccomplish, so the excellence of man must consist in a perfect ordering\nof all his parts to the perfect working of his whole organism as a\n{169} [276] rational being.  The faculties of man are three: the Desire\nof the body, the Passion of the heart, the Thought of the soul; the\nperfect working of all three, Temperance, Courage, Wisdom, and\nconsequently the perfect working of the whole man, is Righteousness.\nFrom this springs that ordered tranquillity which is at once true\nhappiness and perfect virtue.\n\n[277]\n\nYet since individual men are not self-sufficient, but have separate\ncapacities, and a need of union for mutual help and comfort, the\nperfect realisation of this virtue can only be in a perfect civic [278]\ncommunity.  And corresponding with the three parts of the man there\nwill be three orders in the community: the Workers and Traders, the\nSoldiers, and the Ruling or Guardian class.  When all these perform\ntheir proper functions in perfect harmony, then is the perfection of\nthe whole realised, in Civic Excellence or Justice.\n\n[281]\n\nTo this end a careful civic education is necessary, _first_, because to\n_know_ what is for the general good is difficult, for we have to learn\nnot only in general but in detail that even the individual good can be\nsecured only through the general; and _second_, because few, if any,\nare capable of seeking the general good, even if they know it, without\nthe guidance of discipline and the restraints of law.  Thus, with a\nview to its own perfection, and the good of all {170} its members,\nEducation is the chief work of the State.\n\nIt will be remembered (see foregoing page) that in Plato's division of\nthe soul of man there are three faculties, Desire, Passion, Reason; in\nthe division of the soul's perfection three corresponding virtues,\nTemperance, Courage, Wisdom; and in the division of the state three\ncorresponding orders, Traders, Soldiers, Guardians.  So in Education\nthere are three stages.  First, _Music_ (including all manner of\nartistic and refining influences), whose function it is so to attemper\nthe desires of the heart that all animalism and sensualism may be\neliminated, and only the love and longing for that which is lovely and\nof good report may remain.  Second, _Gymnastic_, whose function it is\nthrough ordered labour and suffering so to subdue and rationalise the\npassionate part of the soul, that it may become the willing and\nobedient servant of that which is just and true.  And third,\n_Mathematics_, by which the rational element of the soul may be trained\nto realise itself, being weaned, by the ordered apprehension of the\n'diamond net' of laws which underlie all the phenomena of nature, away\nfrom the mere surface appearances of things, the accidental,\nindividual, momentary,--to the deep-seated realities, which are\nnecessary, universal, eternal.\n\nAnd just as there was a perfectness of the soul {171} transcending all\nparticular virtues, whether of Temperance or Courage or Wisdom, namely,\nthat absolute Rightness or Righteousness which gathered them all into\nitself, so at the end of these three stages of education there is a\nhigher mood of thought, wherein the soul, purified, chastened,\nenlightened, in communing with itself through _Dialectic_ (the Socratic\nart of questioning transfigured) communes also with the Divine, and in\nthinking out its own deepest thoughts, thinks out the thoughts of the\ngreat Creator Himself, becomes one with Him, finds its final\nrealisation through absorption into Him, and in His light sees light.\n\n\n\n\n{172}\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nARISTOTLE\n\n_An unruly pupil--The philosopher's library--The predominance of\nAristotle--Relation to Plato--The highest philosophy--Ideas and\nthings--The true realism_\n\n\nPlato before his death bequeathed his Academy to his nephew Speusippus,\nwho continued its president for eight years; and on his death the\noffice passed to Xenocrates, who held it for twenty-five years.  From\nhim it passed in succession to Polemo, Crates, Crantor, and others.\nPlato was thus the founder of a school or sect of teachers who busied\nthemselves with commenting, expanding, modifying here and there the\ndoctrines of the master.  Little of their works beyond the names has\nbeen preserved, and indeed we can hardly regret the loss.  These men no\ndoubt did much to popularise the thoughts of their master, and in this\nway largely influenced the later development of philosophy; but they\nhad nothing substantial to add, and so the stern pruning-hook of time\nhas cut them off from remembrance.\n\n[297]\n\nAristotle was the son of a Greek physician, member of the colony of\nStagira in Thrace.  His father, Nicomachus by name, was a man of such\n{173} eminence in his profession as to hold the post of physician to\nAmyntas, king of Macedonia, father of Philip the subverter of Greek\nfreedom.  Not only was his father an expert physician, he was also a\nstudent of natural history, and wrote several works on the subject.  We\nshall find that the fresh element which Aristotle brought to the\nAcademic philosophy was in a very great measure just that minute\nattention to details and keen apprehension of vital phenomena which we\nmay consider he inherited from his father.  He was born 384 B.C., and\non the death of his father, in his eighteenth year, he came to Athens,\nand became a student of philosophy under Plato, whose pupil he\ncontinued to be for twenty years,--indeed till the death of the master.\nThat he, undoubtedly a far greater man than Speusippus or Xenocrates,\nshould not have been nominated to the succession has been variously\nexplained; he is said to have been lacking in respect and gratitude to\nthe master; Plato is said to have remarked of him that he needed the\ncurb as much as Xenocrates needed the spur.  The facts really need no\nexplanation.  The original genius is never sufficiently subordinate and\namenable to discipline.  He is apt to be critical, to startle his\neasy-going companions with new and seemingly heterodox views, he is the\n'ugly duckling' whom all the virtuous and commonplace brood must cackle\n{174} at.  The Academy, when its great master died, was no place for\nAristotle.  He retired to Atarneus, a city of Mysia opposite to Lesbos,\nwhere a friend named Hermias was tyrant, and there he married Hermias'\nniece.  After staying at Atarneus some three years he was invited by\nPhilip, now king of Macedon, to undertake the instruction of his son\nAlexander, the future conqueror, who was then thirteen years old.  He\nremained with Alexander for eight years, though of course he could\nhardly be regarded as Alexander's tutor during all that time, since\nAlexander at a very early age was called to take a part in public\naffairs.  However a strong friendship was formed between the\nphilosopher and the young prince, and in after years Alexander loaded\nhis former master with benefits.  Even while on his march of conquest\nthrough Asia he did not forget him, but sent him from every country\nthrough which he passed specimens which might help him in his projected\nHistory of Animals, as well as an enormous sum of money to aid him in\nhis investigations.\n\nAfter the death of Philip, Aristotle returned to Athens, and opened a\nschool of philosophy on his own account in the Lyceum.  Here some\nauthorities tell us he lectured to his pupils while he paced up and\ndown before them; hence the epithet applied to the school, the\n_Peripatetics_.  Probably, however, the name is derived from the\n'Peripati' or covered {175} walks in the neighbourhood of that temple\nin which he taught.  He devoted his mornings to lectures of a more\nphilosophical and technical character; to these only the abler and more\nadvanced students were admitted.  In the afternoons he lectured on\nsubjects of a more popular kind--rhetoric, the art of politics,\netc.--to larger audiences.  Corresponding with this division, he also\nwas in the habit of classifying his writings as Acroatic or technical,\nand Exoteric or popular.  He accumulated a large library and museum, to\nwhich he contributed an astonishing number of works of his own, on\nevery conceivable branch of knowledge.\n\nThe after history of Aristotle's library, including the MSS. of his own\nworks, is interesting and even romantic.  Aristotle's successor in the\nschool was Theophrastus, who added to the library bequeathed him by\nAristotle many works of his own, and others purchased by him.\nTheophrastus bequeathed the entire library to Neleus, his friend and\npupil, who, on leaving Athens to reside at Scepsis in the Troad, took\nthe library with him.  There it remained for nearly two hundred years\nin possession of the Neleus family, who kept the collection hidden in a\ncellar for fear it should be seized to increase the royal library of\nPergamus.  In such a situation the works suffered much harm from worms\nand damp, till at last (_circa_ 100 B.C.) they were brought out {176}\nand sold to one Apellicon, a rich gentleman resident in Athens, himself\na member of the Peripatetic school.  In 86 B.C. Sulla, the Roman\ndictator, besieged and captured Athens, and among other prizes conveyed\nthe library of Apellicon to Rome, and thus many of the most important\nworks of Aristotle for the first time were made known to the Roman and\nAlexandrian schools.  It is a curious circumstance that the philosopher\nwhose influence was destined to be paramount for more than a thousand\nyears in the Christian era, was thus deprived by accident of his\nlegitimate importance in the centuries immediately following his own.\n\nBut his temporary and accidental eclipse was amply compensated in the\neffect upon the civilised world which he subsequently exercised.  So\nall-embracing, so systematic, so absolutely complete did his philosophy\nappear, that he seemed to after generations to have left nothing more\nto discover.  He at once attained a supremacy which lasted for some two\nthousand years, not only over the Greek-speaking world, but over every\nform of the civilisation of that long period, Greek, Roman, Syrian,\nArabic, from the Euphrates to the Atlantic, from Africa to Britain.\nHis authority was accepted equally by the learned doctors of Moorish\nCordova and the Fathers of the Church; to know Aristotle was to have\nall {177} knowledge; not to know him was to be a boor; to deny him was\nto be a heretic.\n\nHis style has nothing of the grace of Plato; he illuminates his works\nwith no myths or allegories; his manner is dry, sententious, familiar,\nwithout the slightest attempt at ornament.  There are occasional\ntouches of caustic humour, but nothing of emotion, still less of\nrhapsody.  His strength lies in the vast architectonic genius by which\nhe correlates every domain of the knowable in a single scheme, and in\nthe extraordinary faculty for illustrative detail with which he fills\nthe scheme in every part.  He knows, and can shrewdly criticise every\nthinker and writer who has preceded him; he classifies them as he\nclassifies the mental faculties, the parts of logical speech, the parts\nof sophistry, the parts of rhetoric, the parts of animals, the parts of\nthe soul, the parts of the state; he defines, distinguishes, combines,\nclassifies, with the same sureness and minuteness of method in them\nall.  He can start from a general conception, expand it into its parts,\nseparate these again by distinguishing details till he brings the\nmatter down to its lowest possible terms, or _infimae species_.  Or he\ncan start from these, find analogies among them constituting more\ngeneral species, and so in ascending scale travel surely up to a\ngeneral conception, or _summum genus_.\n\nIn his general conception of philosophy he was {178} to a large extent\nin agreement with Plato; but he endeavoured to attain to a more\ntechnical precision; he sought to systematise into greater\ncompleteness; he pared off everything which he considered merely\nmetaphorical or fanciful, and therefore non-essential.  The operations\nof nature, the phenomena of life, were used in a much fuller and more\ndefinite way to illustrate or even formulate the theory; but in its\nmain ideas Aristotle's philosophy is Plato's philosophy.  The one\nclothed it in poetry, the other in formulae; the one had a more\nentrancing vision, the other a clearer and more exact apprehension; but\nthere is no essential divergence.\n\nAristotle's account of the origin or foundation of [300] philosophy is\nas follows (_Met_. A. 2): \"Wonder is and always has been the first\nincentive to philosophy.  At first men wondered at what puzzled them\nnear at hand, then by gradual advance they came to notice and wonder at\nthings still greater, as at the phases of the moon, the eclipses of sun\nand moon, the wonders of the stars, and the origin of the universe.\nNow he who is puzzled and in a maze regards himself as a know-nothing;\nwherefore the philosopher is apt to be fond of wondrous tales or myths.\nAnd inasmuch as it was a consciousness of ignorance that drove men to\nphilosophy, it is for the correction of this ignorance, and not for any\nmaterial utility, that the pursuit of knowledge exists.  Indeed it is,\n{179} as a rule, only when all other wants are well supplied that, by\nway of ease and recreation, men turn to this inquiry.  And thus, since\nno satisfaction beyond itself is sought by philosophy, we speak of it\nas we speak of the freeman.  We call that man free whose existence is\nfor himself and not for another; so also philosophy is of all the\nsciences the only one that is free, for it alone exists for itself.\n\n\"Moreover, this philosophy, which is the investigation of the first\ncauses of things, is the most truly educative among the sciences.  For\ninstructors are persons who show us the causes of things.  And\nknowledge for the sake of knowledge belongs most properly to that\ninquiry which deals with what is most truly a matter of knowledge.  For\nhe who is seeking knowledge for its own sake will choose to have that\nknowledge which most truly deserves the name, the knowledge, namely, of\nwhat most truly appertains to knowledge.  Now the things that most\ntruly appertain to knowledge are the first causes; for in virtue of\none's possession of these, and by deduction from these, all else comes\nto be known; we do not come to know them through what is inferior to\nthem and underlying them. . . .  The wise man ought therefore to know\nnot only those things which are the outcome and product of first\ncauses, he must be possessed of the truth as to the first causes\nthemselves.  And wisdom indeed is just this {180} thoughtful science, a\nscience of what is highest, not truncated of its head.\"\n\n[301]\n\n\"To the man, therefore, who has in fullest measure this knowledge of\nuniversals, all knowledge must lie to hand; for in a way he knows all\nthat underlies them.  Yet in a sense these universals are what men find\nhardest to apprehend, because they stand at the furthest extremity from\nthe perceptions of sense.\"\n\n[302]\n\n\"Yet if anything exist which is eternal, immovable, freed from gross\nmatter, the contemplative science alone can apprehend this.  Physical\nscience certainly cannot, for physics is of that which is ever in flux;\nnor can mathematical science apprehend it; we must look to a mode of\nscience prior to and higher than both.  The objects of physics are\nneither unchangeable nor free from matter; the objects of mathematics\nare indeed unchangeable, but we can hardly say they are free from\nmatter; they have certainly relations with matter.  But the first and\nhighest science has to do with that which is unmoved and apart from\nmatter; its function is with the eternal first causes of things.  There\nare therefore three modes of theoretical inquiry: the science of\nphysics, the science of mathematics, the science of God.  For it is\nclear that if the divine is anywhere, it must be in that form of\nexistence I have spoken of (_i.e._ in first causes). . . .  If,\ntherefore, there be {181} any form of existence immovable, this we must\nregard as prior, and the philosophy of this we must consider the first\nphilosophy, universal for the same reason that it is first.  It deals\nwith existence as such, inquiring what it is and what are its\nattributes as pure existence.\"\n\nThis is somewhat more technical than the language of Plato, but if we\ncompare it with what was said above (p. 142) we shall find an essential\nidentity.  Yet Aristotle frequently impugns Plato's doctrine of ideas,\nsometimes on the lines already [322] taken by Plato himself (above, p.\n158), sometimes in other ways.  Thus (_Met_. Z. 15, 16) he says: \"That\nwhich is _one_ cannot be in many places at one time, but that which is\ncommon or general is in many places at one time.  Hence it follows that\nno universal exists apart from the individual things.  But those who\nhold the doctrine of ideas, on one side are right, viz.  in maintaining\ntheir separate existence, if they are to be substances or existences at\nall.  On the other side they are wrong, because by the idea or form\nwhich they maintain to be separate they mean the one attribute\npredicable of many things.  The reason why they do this is because they\ncannot indicate what these supposed imperishable essences are, apart\nfrom the individual substances which are the objects of perception.\nThe result is that they simply represent them under the same forms as\n{182} those of the perishable objects of sensation which are familiar\nto our senses, with the addition of a phrase--_i.e._ they say 'man as\nsuch,' 'horse as such,' or 'the absolute man,' 'the absolute horse.'\"\n\nAristotle here makes a point against Plato and his school, inasmuch as,\nstarting from the assumption that of the world of sense there could be\nno knowledge, no apprehension fixed or certain, and setting over\nagainst this a world of general forms which were fixed and certain,\nthey had nothing with which to fill this second supposed world except\nthe data of sense as found in individuals.  Plato's mistake was in\nconfusing the mere 'this,' which is the conceived starting-point of any\nsensation, but which, like a mathematical point, has nothing which can\nbe said about it, with individual objects as they exist and are known\nin all the manifold and, in fact, infinite relations of reality.  The\nbare subject 'this' presents at the one extreme the same emptiness, the\nsame mere possibility of knowledge, which is presented at the other by\nthe bare predicate 'is.'  But Plato, having an objection to the former,\nas representing to him the merely physical and therefore the passing\nand unreal, clothes it for the nonce in the various attributes which\nare ordinarily associated with it when we say, 'this man,' 'this\nhorse,' only to strip them off successively as data of sensation, and\nso at last get, by an illusory process of {183} abstraction and\ngeneralisation, to the ultimate generality of being, which is the mere\n'is' of bare predication converted into a supposed eternal substance.\n\nAristotle was as convinced as Plato that there must be some fixed and\nimmovable object or reality corresponding to true and certain\nknowledge, but with his scientific instincts he was not content to have\nit left in a condition of emptiness, attractive enough to the more\nemotional and imaginative Plato.  And hence we have elsewhere quite as\nstrong and definite statements as those quoted above about universals\n[316] (p. 180), to the effect that existence is in the fullest and most\nreal sense to be predicated of _individual_ things, and that only in a\nsecondary sense can existence be predicated of universals, in virtue of\ntheir being found in individual things.  Moreover, among universals the\n_species_, he maintains, has more of existence in it than the genus,\nbecause it is nearer to the individual or primary existence.  For if\nyou predicate of an individual thing of what species it is, you supply\na statement more full of information and more closely connected with\nthe thing than if you predicate to what genus it belongs; for example,\nif asked, \"What is this?\" and you answer, \"A man,\" you give more\ninformation than if you say, \"A living creature.\"\n\nHow did Aristotle reconcile these two points of {184} view, the one, in\nwhich he conceives thought as starting from first causes, the most\nuniversal objects of knowledge, and descending to particulars; the\nother, in which thought starts from the individual objects, and\npredicates of them by apprehension of their properties?  The antithesis\nis no accidental one; on the contrary, it is the governing idea of his\nLogic, with its ascending process or Induction, and its descending\nprocess or Syllogism.  Was thought a mere process in an unmeaning\ncircle, the 'upward and downward way' of Plato?\n\nAs to this we may answer first that while formally Aristotle displays\nmuch the same 'dualism' or unreconciled separation of the 'thing' and\nthe 'idea' as Plato, his practical sense and his scientific instincts\nled him to occupy himself largely not with either the empty 'thing' or\nthe equally empty 'idea,' but with the true _individuals_, which are at\nthe same time the true universals, namely, real objects as known,\nhaving, so far as they are known, certain forms or categories under\nwhich you can class them, having, so far as they are not yet fully\nknown, a certain raw material for further inquiry through observation.\nIn this way Thought and Matter, instead of being in eternal and\nirreconcilable antagonism as the Real and the Unreal, become parts of\nthe same reality, the first summing up the knowledge of things already\nattained, the second symbolising the infinite {185} [317] possibilities\nof further ascertainment.  And thus the word 'Matter' is applied by\nAristotle to the highest genus, as the relatively indefinite compared\nwith the more fully defined species included under it; it is also\napplied by him to the individual object, in so far as that object\ncontains qualities not yet fully brought into predication.\n\n[319]\n\nAnd second, we observe that Aristotle introduced a new conception which\nto his view established a _vital relation_ between the universal and\nthe individual.  This conception he formulated in the correlatives,\n_Potentiality_ and _Actuality_.  With these he closely connected the\nidea of _Final Cause_.  The three to Aristotle constituted a single\nreality; they are organically correlative.  In a living creature we\nfind a number of members or organs all closely interdependent and\nmutually conditioning each other.  Each has its separate function, yet\nnone of them can perform its particular function well unless all the\nothers are performing theirs well, and the effect of the right\nperformance of function by each is to enable the others also to perform\ntheirs.  The total result of all these mutually related functions is\n_Life_; this is their End or Final Cause, which does not exist apart\nfrom them, but is constituted at every moment by them.  This Life is at\nthe same time the condition on which alone each and every one of the\nfunctions constituting it can be performed.  Thus {186} life in an\norganism is at once the end and the middle and the beginning; it is the\ncause final, the cause formal, the cause efficient.  Life then is an\n_Entelechy_, as Aristotle calls it, by which he means the realisation\nin unity of the total activities exhibited in the members of the living\norganism.\n\nIn such an existence every part is at once a potentiality and an\nactuality, and so also is the whole.  We can begin anywhere and travel\nout from that point to the whole; we can take the whole and find in it\nall the parts.\n\n\n\n\n{187}\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nARISTOTLE (_continued_)\n\n_Realisation and reminiscence--The crux of philosophy--Reason in\neducation--The chief good--Origin of communities_\n\n\nIf we look closely at this conception of Aristotle's we shall see that\nit has a nearer relation to the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, and even to\nthe doctrine of Reminiscence, than perhaps even Aristotle himself\nrealised.  The fundamental conception of Plato, it will be remembered,\nis that of an eternally existing 'thought of God,' in manifold forms or\n'ideas,' which come into the consciousness of men in connection with or\non occasion of sensations, which are therefore in our experience later\nthan the sensations, but which we nevertheless by reason recognise as\nnecessarily prior to the sensations, inasmuch as it is through these\nideas alone that the sensations are knowable or namable at all.  Thus\nthe final end for man is by contemplation and 'daily dying to the world\nof sense,' to come at last into the full inheritance in conscious\nknowledge of that 'thought of God' which was latent from the first in\nhis soul, and of which in its fulness God Himself is eternally and\nnecessarily possessed.\n\n{188}\n\n[311]\n\nThis is really Aristotle's idea, only Plato expresses it rather under a\npsychological, Aristotle under a vital, formula.  God, Aristotle says,\nis eternally and necessarily Entelechy, absolute realisation.  _To us_,\nthat which is first _in time_ (the individual perception) is not first\nin _essence_, or absolutely.  What is first in essence or absolutely,\nis the universal, that is, the form or idea, the datum of reason.  And\nthis distinction between time and the absolute, between our individual\nexperience and the essential or ultimate reality, runs all through the\nphilosophy of Aristotle.  The 'Realisation' of Aristotle is the\n'Reminiscence' of Plato.\n\nThis conception Aristotle extended to Thought, to the various forms of\nlife, to education, to morals, to politics.\n\n_Thought_ is an entelechy, an organic whole, in which every process\nconditions and is conditioned by every other.  If we begin with\nsensation, the sensation, blank as regards predication, has relations\nto that which is infinitely real,--the object, the real thing before\nus,--which relations science will never exhaust.  If we start from the\nother end, with the datum of thought, consciousness, existence, mind,\nthis is equally blank as regards predication, yet it has relations to\nanother existence infinitely real,--the subject that thinks,--which\nrelations religion and morality and sentiment and love will never\nexhaust.  Or, as {189} Aristotle and as common sense prefers to do, if\nwe, with our developed habits of thought and our store of accumulated\ninformation, choose to deal with things from a basis midway between the\ntwo extremes, in the ordinary way of ordinary people, we shall find\nboth processes working simultaneously and in organic correlation.  That\nis to say, we shall be increasing the _individuality_ of the objects\nknown, by the operation of true thought and observation in the\ndiscovery of new characters or qualities in them; we shall be\nincreasing by the same act the _generality_ of the objects known, by\nthe discovery of new relations, new genera under which to bring them.\nIndividualisation and generalisation are only opposed, as mutually\nconditioning factors of the same organic function.\n\n[316]\n\nThis analysis of thought must be regarded rather as a paraphrase of\nAristotle than as a literal transcript.  He is hesitating and obscure,\nand at times apparently self-contradictory.  He has not, any more than\nPlato, quite cleared himself of the confusion between the mutually\ncontrary individual and universal in _propositions_, and the\norganically correlative individual and universal in _things as known_.\nBut on the whole the tendency of his analysis is towards an\napprehension of the true realism, which neither denies matter in favour\nof mind nor mind in favour of matter, but recognises that both mind and\nmatter are organically correlated, and ultimately identical.\n\n{190}\n\nThe crux of philosophy, so far as thus apprehended by Aristotle, is no\nlonger in the supposed dualism of mind and matter, but there is a crux\nstill.  What is the meaning of this 'Ultimately'?  Or, putting it in\nAristotle's formula, Why this relation of potentiality and actuality?\nWhy this eternal coming to be, even if the coming to be is no\nunreasoned accident, but a coming to be of that which is vitally or in\ngerm _there_?  Or theologically, Why did God make the world?  Why this\ngroaning and travailing of the creature?  Why this eternal 'By and by'\nwherein all sin is to disappear, all sorrow to be consoled, all the\nclashings and the infinite deceptions of life to be stilled and\nsatisfied?  An illustration of Aristotle's attempt to answer this\nquestion will be given later on (p. 201).  That the answer is a failure\nneed not surprise us.  If we even now 'see only as in a glass darkly'\non such a question, we need not blame Plato or Aristotle for not seeing\n'face to face.'\n\n[326]\n\n_Life_ is an entelechy, not only abstractedly, as already shown (above,\np. 186), but in respect of the varieties of its manifestations.  We\npass from the elementary life of mere growth common to plants and\nanimals, to the animal life of impulse and sensation, thence we rise\nstill higher to the life of rational action which is the peculiar\nfunction of man.  Each is a _potentiality_ to that which is immediately\nabove it; in {191} other words, each contains in germ the possibilities\nwhich are realised in that stage which is higher.  Thus is there a\ntouch of nature which makes the whole world kin, a purpose running\nthrough all the manifestations of life; each is a preparation for\nsomething higher.\n\n[339]\n\n_Education_ is in like manner an entelechy.  For what is the\n_differentia_, the distinguishing character of the life of man?\nAristotle answers, the possession of reason.  It is the action of\nreason upon the desires that raises the life of man above the brutes.\nThis, observe, is not the restraining action of something wholly alien\nto the desires, which is too often how Plato represents the matter.\nThis would be to lose the dynamic idea.  The desires, as Aristotle\ngenerally conceives them, are there in the animal life, prepared, so to\nspeak, to receive the organic perfection which reason alone can give\nthem.  Intellect, on the other hand, is equally in need of the desires,\nfor thought without desire cannot supply motive.  If intellect is\n_logos_ or reason, desire is that which is fitted to be obedient to\nreason.\n\nIt will be remembered that the question to which Plato addressed\nhimself in one of his earlier dialogues, already frequently referred\nto, the _Meno_, was the teachableness of Virtue; in that dialogue he\ncomes to the conclusion that Virtue is teachable, but that there are\nnone capable of teaching it; for the {192} wise men of the time are\nguided not by knowledge but by right opinion, or by a divine instinct\nwhich is incommunicable.  Plato is thus led to seek a machinery of\neducation, and it is with a view to this that he constructs his ideal\n_Republic_.  Aristotle took up this view of the state as educative of\nthe individual citizens, and brought it under the dynamic formula.  In\nthe child reason is not actual; there is no rational law governing his\nacts, these are the immediate result of the strongest impulse.  Yet\nonly when a succession of virtuous acts has formed the virtuous habit\ncan a man be said to be truly good.  How is this process to begin?  The\nanswer is that the reason which is only latent or dynamic in the child\nis actual or realised in the parent or teacher, or generally in the\ncommunity which educates the child.  The law at first then is imposed\non the child from without, it has an appearance of unnaturalness, but\nonly an appearance.  For the law is there in the child, prepared, as he\ngoes on in obedience, gradually to answer from within to the summons\nfrom without, till along with the virtuous habit there emerges also\ninto the consciousness of the child, no longer a child but a man, the\napprehension of the law as his own truest nature.\n\nThese remarks on education are sufficient to show that in Morals also,\nas conceived by Aristotle, there is a law of vital development.  It may\nbe {193} sufficient by way of illustration to quote the introductory\nsentences of Aristotle's _Ethics_, in which the question of the nature\nof the chief good is, in his usual tentative manner, discussed: \"If\nthere be any end of what we do which we desire for itself, while all\nother ends are desired for it, that is, if we do not in every case have\nsome ulterior end (for if that were so we should go on to infinity, and\nour efforts would be vain and useless), this ultimate end desired for\nitself will clearly be the chief good and the ultimate best.  Now since\nevery activity, whether of knowing or doing, aims at some good, it is\nfor us to settle what the good is which the civic activity aims\nat,--what, in short, is the ultimate end of all 'goods' connected with\nconduct?  So far as the name goes all are pretty well agreed as to the\nanswer; gentle and simple alike declare it to be happiness, involving,\nhowever, in their minds on the one hand well-living, on the other hand,\nwell-doing.  When you ask them, however, to define this happiness more\nexactly, you find that opinions are divided, and the many and the\nphilosophers have different answers.\n\n\"But if you ask a musician or a sculptor or any man of skill, any\nperson, in fact, who has some special work and activity, what the chief\ngood is for him, he will tell you that the chief good is in the work\nwell done.  If then man has any special work or function, we may assume\nthat the chief good for man {194} will be in the well-doing of that\nfunction.  What now is man's special function?  It cannot be mere\nliving, for that he has in common with plants, and we are seeking what\nis peculiar to him.  The mere life of nurture and growth must therefore\nbe put on one side.  We come next to life as sensitive to pleasure and\npain.  But this man shares with the horse, the ox, and other animals.\nWhat remains is the life of action of a reasonable being.  Now of\nreason as it is in man there are two parts, one obeying, one possessing\nand considering.  And there are also two aspects in which the active or\nmoral life may be taken, one potential, one actual.  Clearly for our\ndefinition of the chief good we must take the moral life in its full\nactual realisation, since this is superior to the other.\n\n\"If our view thus far be correct, it follows that the chief good for\nman consists in the full realisation and perfection of the life of man\nas man, in accordance with the specific excellence belonging to that\nlife, and if there be more specific excellences than one, then in\naccordance with that excellence which is the best and the most rounded\nor complete.  We must add, however, the qualification, 'in a rounded\nlife.'  For one swallow does not make a summer, nor yet one day.  And\nso one day or some brief period of attainment is not sufficient to make\na man happy and blest.\"\n\n{195}\n\nThe close relation of this to the teaching of Socrates and Plato need\nhardly be insisted on, or the way in which he correlates their ideas\nwith his own conception of an actualised perfection.\n\n[340]\n\nAristotle then proceeds to a definition of the 'specific excellence' or\nvirtue of man, which is to be the standard by which we decide how far\nhe has fully and perfectly realised the possibilities of his being.  To\nthis end he distinguishes in man's nature three modes of existence:\nfirst, _feelings_ such as joy, pain, anger; second, _potentialities_ or\ncapacities for such feelings; third, _habits_ which are built upon\nthese potentialities, but with an element of reason or deliberation\nsuperadded.  He has no difficulty in establishing that the virtue of\nman must be a habit.  And the test of the excellence of that habit, as\nof every other developed capacity, will be twofold; it will make the\nworker good, it will cause him to produce good work.\n\nSo far Aristotle's analysis of virtue is quite on the lines of his\ngeneral philosophy.  Here, however, he diverges into what seems at\nfirst a curiously mechanical conception.  Pointing out that in\neverything quantitative there are two extremes conceivable, and a\n_mean_ or average between them, he proceeds to define virtue as a mean\nbetween two extremes, a mean, however, having relation to no mere\nnumerical standard, but having reference _to us_.  In this last {196}\nqualification he perhaps saves his definition from its mechanical turn,\nwhile he leaves himself scope for much curious and ingenious\nobservation on the several virtues regarded as means between two\nextremes.  He further endeavours to save it by adding, that it is\n\"defined by reason, and as the wise man would define it.\"\n\nReason then, as the impersonal ruler,--the wise man, as the\npersonification of reason,--this is the standard of virtue, and\ntherefore also of happiness.  How then shall we escape an externality\nin our standard, divesting it of that binding character which comes\nonly when the law without is also recognised and accepted as the law\nwithin?  The answer of Aristotle, as of his predecessors, is that this\nwill be brought about by wise training and virtuous surroundings, in\nshort, by the civic community being itself good and happy.  Thus we get\nanother dynamic relation; for regarded as a member of the body politic\neach individual becomes a potentiality along with all the other\nmembers, conditioned by the state of which he and they are members,\nbrought gradually into harmony with the reason which is in the state,\nand in the process realising not his own possibilities only, but those\nof the community also, which exists only in and through its members.\nThus each and all, in so far as they realise their own well-being by\nthe perfect development of the virtuous {197} habit in their lives,\ncontribute _ipso facto_ to the supreme end of the state, which is the\nperfect realisation of the whole possibilities of the total organism,\nand consequently of every member of it.\n\n[342]\n\nThe _State_ therefore is also an entelechy.  For man is not made to\ndwell alone.  \"There is first the fact of sex; then the fact of\nchildren; third, the fact of variety of capacity, implying variety of\nposition, some having greater powers of wisdom and forethought, and\nbeing therefore naturally the rulers; others having bodily powers\nsuitable for carrying out the rulers' designs, and being therefore\nnaturally subjects.  Thus we have as a first or simplest community the\nfamily, next the village, then the full or perfect state, which,\nseeking to realise an absolute self-sufficiency within itself, rises\nfrom mere living to well-living as an aim of existence.  This higher\nexistence is as natural and necessary as any simpler form, being, in\nfact, the end or final and necessary perfection of all such lower forms\nof existence.  Man therefore is by the natural necessity of his being a\n'political animal,' and he who is not a citizen,--that is, by reason of\nsomething peculiar in his nature and not by a mere accident,--must\neither be deficient or something superhuman.  And while man is the\nnoblest of animals when thus fully perfected in an ordered community,\non the other hand when deprived of law and justice he is the very\nworst.  {198} For there is nothing so dreadful as lawlessness armed.\nAnd man is born with the arms of thought and special capacities or\nexcellences, which it is quite possible for him to use for other and\ncontrary purposes.  And therefore man is the most wicked and cruel\nanimal living when he is vicious, the most lustful and the most\ngluttonous.  The justice which restrains all this is a civic quality;\nand law is the orderly arrangement of the civic community\" (Arist.\n_Pol_. i. p. 2).\n\n\n\n\n{199}\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nARISTOTLE (_concluded_)\n\n_God and necessity--The vital principle--Soul as realisation--Function\nand capacity--His method_\n\n\nThroughout Aristotle's physical philosophy the [334] same conception\nruns: \"All animals in their fully developed state require two members\nabove all--one whereby to take in nourishment, the other whereby to get\nrid of what is superfluous.  For no animal can exist or grow without\nnourishment.  And there is a third member in them all half-way between\nthese, in which resides the principle of their life.  This is the\nheart, which all blood-possessing animals have.  From it comes the\narterial system which Nature has made hollow to contain the liquid\nblood.  The situation of the heart is a commanding one, being near the\nmiddle and rather above than below, and rather towards the front than\nthe back.  For Nature ever establishes that which is most honourable in\nthe most honourable places, unless some supreme necessity overrules.\nWe see this most clearly in the case of man; but the same tendency for\nthe heart to occupy the centre is seen also in {200} other animals,\nwhen we regard only that portion of their body which is essential, and\nthe limit of this is at the place where superfluities are removed.  The\nlimbs are arranged differently in different animals, and are not among\nthe parts essential to life; consequently animals may live even if\nthese are removed. . . .  Anaxagoras says that man is the wisest of\nanimals because he possesses hands.  It would be more reasonable to say\nthat he possesses hands because he is the wisest.  For the hands are an\ninstrument; and Nature always assigns an instrument to the one fitted\nto use it, just as a sensible man would.  For it is more reasonable to\ngive a flute to a flute-player than to confer on a man who has some\nflutes the art of playing them.  To that which is the greater and\nhigher she adds what is less important, and not _vice versa_.\nTherefore to the creature fitted to acquire the largest number of\nskills Nature assigned the hand, the instrument useful for the largest\nnumber of purposes\" (Arist.  _De Part. An._ iv. p. 10).\n\n[332]\n\nAnd in the macrocosm, the visible and invisible world about us, the\nsame conception holds: \"The existence of God is an eternally perfect\nentelechy, a life everlasting.  In that, therefore, which belongs to\nthe divine there must be an eternally perfect movement.  Therefore the\nheavens, which are as it were the body of the Divine, are in form a\nsphere, of {201} necessity ever in circular motion.  Why then is not\nthis true of every portion of the universe?  Because there must of\nnecessity be a point of rest of the circling body at the centre.  Yet\nthe circling body cannot rest either as a whole or as regards any part\nof it, otherwise its motion could not be eternal, which by nature it\nis.  Now that which is a violation of nature cannot be eternal, but the\nviolation is posterior to that which is in accordance with nature, and\nthus the unnatural is a kind of displacement or degeneracy from the\nnatural, taking the form of a coming into being.\n\n\"Necessity then requires earth, as the element standing still at the\ncentre.  Now if there must be earth, there must be fire.  For if one of\ntwo opposites is natural or necessary, the other must be necessary too,\neach, in fact, implying the necessity of the other.  For the two have\nthe same substantial basis, only the positive form is naturally prior\nto the negative; for instance, warm is prior to cold.  And in the same\nway motionlessness and heaviness are predicated in virtue of the\nabsence of motion and lightness, _i.e._ the latter are essentially\nprior.\n\n\"Further, if there are fire and earth, there must also be the elements\nwhich lie between these, each having an antithetic relation to each.\nFrom this it follows that there must be a process of coming into being,\nbecause none of these elements can be eternal, {202} but each affects,\nand is affected by each, and they are mutually destructive.  Now it is\nnot to be argued that anything which can be moved can be eternal,\nexcept in the case of that which by its own nature has eternal motion.\nAnd if coming into being must be predicated of these, then other forms\nof change can also be predicated\" (Arist. _De Coelo_, ii. p. 3).\n\nThis passage is worth quoting as illustrating, not only Aristotle's\nconception of the divine entelechy, but also the ingenuity with which\nhe gave that appearance of logical completeness to the vague and\nill-digested scientific imaginations of the time, which remained so\nevil an inheritance for thousands of years.  It is to be observed, in\norder to complete Aristotle's theory on this subject, that the four\nelements, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, are all equally in a world which is\n\"contrary to nature,\" that is, the world of change, of coming into\nbeing, and going out of being.  Apart from these there is the element\nof the Eternal Cosmos, which is \"in accordance with nature,\" having its\nown natural and eternal motion ever the same.  This is the fifth or\ndivine element, the aetherial, by the schoolmen translated _Quinta\nEssentia_, whence by a curious degradation we have our modern word\nQuintessence, of that which is the finest and subtlest extract.\n\nStill more clearly is the organic conception carried {203} out in\nAristotle's discussion of the Vital principle or Soul in the various\ngrades of living creatures and in man.  It will be sufficient to quote\nat length a chapter of Aristotle's treatise on the subject (_De Anima_,\nii. p. 1) in which this fundamental conception of Aristotle's\nphilosophy is very completely illustrated:--\n\n\"Now as to Substance we remark that this is one particular category\namong existences, having three different aspects.  First there is, so\nto say, the raw material or Matter, having in it no definite character\nor quality; next the Form or Specific character, in virtue of which the\nthing becomes namable; and third, there is the Thing or Substance which\nthese two together constitute.  The Matter is, in other words, the\n_potentiality_ of the thing, the Form is the _realisation_ of that\npotentiality.  We may further have this realisation in two ways,\ncorresponding in character to the distinction between _knowledge_\n(which we have but are not necessarily using) and actual\n_contemplation_ or mental perception.\n\n\"Among substances as above defined those are most truly such which we\ncall _bodily objects_, and among these most especially objects which\nare the products of nature, inasmuch as all other bodies must be\nderived from them.  Now among such natural objects some are possessed\nof life, some are not; by _life_ I mean a process of spontaneous\nnourishment, growth, and decay.  Every natural {204} object having life\nis a substance compounded, so to say, of several qualities.  It is, in\nfact, a bodily substance defined in virtue of its having life.  Between\nthe living body thus defined and the Soul or Vital principle, a marked\ndistinction must be drawn.  The body cannot be said to 'subsist in'\nsomething else; rather must we say that it is the matter or substratum\nin which something else subsists.  And what we mean by the soul is just\nthis substance in the sense of the _form_ or specific character that\nsubsists in the natural body which is _potentially_ living.  In other\nwords, the Soul is substance as _realisation_, only, however, of such a\nbody as has just been defined.  Recalling now the distinction between\nrealisation as possessed knowledge and as actual contemplation, we\nshall see that in its essential nature the Soul or Vital principle\ncorresponds rather with the first than with the second.  For both sleep\nand waking depend on the Soul or Life being there, but of these waking\nonly can be said to correspond with the active form of knowledge; sleep\nis rather to be compared with the state of having without being\nimmediately conscious that we have.  Now if we compare these two states\nin respect of their priority of development in a particular person, we\nshall see that the state of latent possession comes first.  We may\ntherefore define the Soul or Vital principle as _The earliest {205}\nrealisation (entelechy) of a natural body having in it the potentiality\nof life_.\n\n\"To every form of organic structure this definition applies, for even\nthe parts of plants are organs, although very simple ones; thus the\nouter leaf is a protection to the pericarp, and the pericarp to the\nfruit.  Or, again, the roots are organs bearing an analogy to the mouth\nin animals, both serving to take in food.  Putting our definition,\nthen, into a form applicable to every stage of the Vital principle, we\nshall say that _The Soul is the earliest realisation of a natural body\nhaving organisation_.\n\n\"In this way we are relieved from the necessity of asking whether Soul\nand body are one.  We might as well ask whether the wax and the\nimpression are one, or, in short, whether the _matter_ of any object\nand that whereof it is the matter or substratum are one.  As has been\npointed out, unity and substantiality may have several significations,\nbut the truest sense of both is found in _realisation_.\n\n\"The general definition of the Soul or Vital principle above given may\nbe further explained as follows.  The Soul is the _rational_ substance\n(or function), that is to say, it is that which gives essential meaning\nand reality to a body as knowable.  Thus if an axe were a _natural_\ninstrument or organ, its rational substance would be found in its\nrealisation of what an axe means; this would be its _soul_.  Apart\n{206} from such realisation it would not be an axe at all, except in\nname.  Being, however, such as it is, the axe remains an axe\nindependently of any such realisation.  For the statement that the Soul\nis the _reason_ of a thing, that which gives it essential meaning and\nreality, does not apply to such objects as an axe, but only to natural\nbodies having power of spontaneous motion (including growth) and rest.\n\n\"Or we may illustrate what has been said by reference to the bodily\nmembers.  If the eye be a living creature, _sight_ will be its soul,\nfor this is the _rational_ substance (or function) of the eye.  On the\nother hand, the eye itself is the _material_ substance in which this\nfunction subsists, which function being gone, the eye would no longer\nbe an eye, except in name, just as we can speak of the eye of a statue\nor of a painted form.  Now apply this illustration from a part of the\nbody to the whole.  For as any one sense stands related to its organ,\nso does the vital sense in general to the whole sensitive organism as\nsuch, always remembering that we do not mean a dead body, but one which\nreally has in it potential life, as the seed or fruit has.  Of course\nthere is a form of realisation to which the name applies in a specially\nfull sense, as when the axe is actually cutting, the eye actually\nseeing, the man fully awake.  But the Soul or Vital principle\ncorresponds rather with the _function_ of sight, or the _capacity_ for\ncutting which {207} the axe has, the body, on the other hand, standing\nin a relation of _potentiality_ to it.  Now just as the eye may mean\nboth the actual organ or pupil, and also the function of sight, so also\nthe living creature means both the body and the soul.  We cannot,\ntherefore, think of body apart from soul, or soul apart from body.  If,\nhowever, we regard the soul as composed of parts, we can see that the\nrealisation to which we give the name of soul is in some cases\nessentially a realisation of certain parts of the body.  We may,\nhowever, conceive the soul as in other aspects separable, in so far as\nthe realisation cannot be connected with any bodily parts.  Nay, we\ncannot be certain whether the soul may not be the realisation or\nperfection of the body as the sailor is of his boat.\"\n\nObserve that at the last Aristotle, though very tentatively, leaves an\nopening for immortality, where, as in the case of man, there are\nfunctions of the soul, such as philosophic contemplation, which cannot\nbe related to bodily conditions.  He really was convinced that in man\nthere was a portion of that diviner aether which dwelt eternally in the\nheavens, and was the ever-moving cause of all things.  If there was in\nman a _passive_ mind, which became all things, as all things through\nsensation affected it, there was also, Aristotle argued, a _creative_\nmind in man, which is above, and unmixed with, that which it\napprehends, {208} gives laws to this, is essentially prior to all\nparticular knowledge, is therefore eternal, not subject to the\nconditions of time and space, consequently indestructible.\n\nFinally, as a note on Aristotle's method, one may observe in this\npassage, _first_, Aristotle's use of 'defining examples,' the wax, the\nleaf and fruit, the axe, the eye, etc.; _second_, his practice of\ndeveloping his distinctions gradually, Form and Matter in the abstract,\nthen in substances of every kind, then in natural bodies, then in\norganic bodies of various grades, in separate organs, in the body as a\nwhole, and in the Soul as separable in man; and _thirdly_, his method\nof approaching completeness in thought, by apparent contradictions or\nqualifications, which aim at meeting the complexity of nature by an\nequally organised complexity of analysis.  To this let us simply add,\nby way of final characterisation, that in the preceding pages we have\ngiven but the merest fragment here and there of Aristotle's vast\naccomplishment.  So wide is the range of his ken, so minute his\nobservation, so subtle and complicated and allusive his illustrations,\nthat it is doubtful if any student of his, through all the centuries in\nwhich he has influenced the world, ever found life long enough to\nfairly and fully grasp him.  Meanwhile he retains his grasp upon us.\nForm and matter, final and efficient causes, potential and actual\nexistences, {209} substance, accident, difference, genus, species,\npredication, syllogism, deduction, induction, analogy, and multitudes\nof other joints in the machinery of thought for all time, were forged\nfor us in the workshop of Aristotle.\n\n\n\n\n{210}\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nTHE SCEPTICS AND EPICUREANS\n\n_Greek decay--The praises of Lucretius--Canonics--Physics--The proofs\nof Lucretius--The atomic soul--Mental pleasures--Natural\npleasures--Lower philosophy and higher_\n\n\nPhilosophy, equally complete, equally perfect in all its parts, had its\nfinal word in Plato and Aristotle; on the great lines of universal\nknowledge no further really original structures were destined to be\nraised by Greek hands.  We have seen a parallelism between Greek\nphilosophy and Greek politics in their earlier phases (see above, p.\n82); the same parallelism continues to the end.  Greece broke the bonds\nof her intense but narrow civic life and civic thought, and spread\nherself out over the world in a universal monarchy and a cosmopolitan\nphilosophy; but with this widening of the area of her influence\nreaction came and disruption and decay; an immense stimulus was given\non the one hand to the political activity, on the other, to the thought\nand knowledge of the world as a whole, but at the centre Greece was\n'living Greece no more,' her politics sank to the level of a dreary\nfarce, her philosophy died down to a dull and spiritless scepticism, to\nan Epicureanism {211} that 'seasoned the wine-cup with the dust of\ndeath,' or to a Stoicism not undignified yet still sad and narrow and\nstern.  The hope of the world, alike in politics and in philosophy,\nfaded as the life of Greece decayed.\n\n[356]\n\nThe first phase of the change, _Scepticism_, or Pyrrhonism, as it was\nnamed from its first teacher, need not detain us long.  Pyrrho was\npriest of Elis; in earlier life he accompanied Alexander the Great as\nfar as India, and is said to have become acquainted with certain of the\nphilosophic sects in that country.  In his sceptical doctrine he had,\nlike his predecessors, a school with its succession of teachers; but\nthe [358] world has remembered little more of him or them than two\nphrases 'suspense of judgment'--this for the intellectual side of\nphilosophy; 'impassibility'--this for the moral.  The doctrine is a\nnegation of doctrine, the idle dream of idle men; even Pyrrho once,\nwhen surprised in some sudden access of fear, confessed that it was\nhard for him 'to get rid of the man in himself.'  Vigorous men and\ngrowing nations are never agnostic.  They decline to rest in mere\nsuspense; they are extremely the opposite of impassive; they believe\nearnestly, they feel strongly.\n\n[365]\n\nA more interesting, because more positive and constructive, personality\nwas that of Epicurus.  This philosopher was born at Samos, in the year\n341 B.C., of Athenian parents.  He came to Athens in his eighteenth\nyear.  Xenocrates was then teaching at {212} the Academy, Aristotle at\nthe Lyceum, but Epicurus heard neither the one nor the other.  After\nsome wanderings he returned to Athens and set up on his [366] own\naccount as a teacher of philosophy.  He made it a matter of boasting\nthat he was a self-taught philosopher; and Cicero (_De Nat. Deor._ i.\n26) sarcastically remarks that one could have guessed as much, even if\nEpicurus had not stated it himself; as one might of the proprietor of\nan ugly house, who should boast that he had employed no architect.  The\nstyle of Epicurus was, in fact, plain and unadorned, but he seems all\nthe same to have been able to say what he meant; and few if any writers\nancient or modern have ever had so splendid a literary tribute, as\nEpicurus had from the great Roman poet Lucretius, his follower and\nexpositor.\n\n\"Glory of the Greek race,\" he says, \"who first hadst power to raise\nhigh so bright a light in the midst of darkness so profound, shedding a\nbeam on all the interests of life, thee do I follow, and in the\nmarkings of thy track do I set my footsteps now.  Not that I desire to\nrival thee, but rather for love of thee would fain call myself thy\ndisciple.  For how shall the swallow rival the swan, or what speed may\nthe kid with its tottering limbs attain, compared with the brave might\nof the scampering steed?  Thou; O father, art the discoverer of nature,\nthou suppliest to us a father's teachings, and from thy pages, {213}\nillustrious one, even as bees sip all manner of sweets along the\nflowery glades, we in like manner devour all thy golden words, golden\nand right worthy to live for ever.  For soon as thy philosophy, birth\nof thy godlike mind, hath begun to declare the origin of things,\nstraightway the terrors of the soul are scattered, earth's walls are\nbroken apart, and through all the void I see nature in the working.  I\nbehold the gods in manifestation of their power, I discern their\nblissful seats, which never winds assail nor rain-clouds sprinkle with\ntheir showers, nor snow falling white with hoary frost doth buffet, but\ncloudless aether ever wraps them round, beaming in broad diffusion of\nglorious light.  For nature supplies their every want nor aught impairs\ntheir peace of soul.  But nowhere do I see any regions of hellish\ndarkness, nor does the earth impose a barrier to our sight of what is\ndone in the void beneath our feet.  Wherefore a holy ecstasy and thrill\nof awe possess me, while thus by thy power the secrets of nature are\ndisclosed to view\" (Lucret. _De Nat. Rer._ iii, 1-30).\n\n[367]\n\nThis devotion to the memory of Epicurus on the part of Lucretius was\nparalleled by the love felt for him by his contemporaries; he had\ncrowds of followers who loved him and who were proud to learn his words\nby heart.  He seems indeed to have been a man of exceptional kindness\nand amiability, and the 'garden of Epicurus' became proverbial as {214}\na place of temperate pleasures and wise delights.  Personally we may\ntake it that Epicurus was a man of simple tastes and moderate desires;\nand indeed throughout its history Epicureanism as a rule of conduct has\ngenerally been associated with the finer forms of enjoyment, rather\nthan the more sensual.  The 'sensual sty' is a nickname, not a\ndescription.\n\n[369]\n\nPhilosophy Epicurus defined as a process of thought and reasoning\ntending to the realisation of happiness.  Arts or sciences which had no\nsuch practical end he contemned; and, as will be observed in Lucretius'\npraises of him above, even physics had but one purpose or interest, to\nfree the soul from [370] terrors of the unseen.  Thus philosophy was\nmainly concerned with conduct, _i.e._ with Ethics, but secondarily and\nnegatively with Physics, to which was appended what Epicurus called\nCanonics, or the science of testing, that is, a kind of logic.\n\n[371]\n\nBeginning with _Canonics_, as the first part of philosophy in order of\ntime, from the point of view of human knowledge, Epicurus laid it down\nthat the only source of knowledge was the senses, which gave us an\nimmediate and true perception of that which actually came into contact\nwith them.  Even the visions of madmen or of dreamers he considered\nwere in themselves true, being produced by a physical cause of some\nkind, of which these visions were the direct and immediate report.\nFalsity came in with {215} people's interpretations or imaginations\nwith respect to these sensations.\n\nSensations leave a trace in the memory, and out of similarities or\nanalogies among sensations there are developed in the mind general\nnotions or types, such as 'man,' 'house,' which are also true, because\n[373] they are reproductions of sensations.  Thirdly, when a sensation\noccurs, it is brought into relation in the mind with one or more of\nthese types or notions; this is _predication_, true also in so far as\nits elements are true, but capable of falsehood, as subsequent or\nindependent sensation may prove.  If supported or not contradicted by\nsensation, it is or may be true; if contradicted or not supported by\nsensation, it is or may be false.  The importance of this statement of\nthe canon of truth or falsehood will be understood when we come to the\nphysics of Epicurus, at the basis of which is his theory of Atoms,\nwhich by their very nature can never be directly testified to by\nsensation.\n\n[374]\n\nThis and no more was what Epicurus had to teach on the subject of\nlogic.  He had no theory of definition, or division, or ratiocination,\nor refutation, or explication; on all these matters Epicurus was, as\nCicero said, 'naked and unarmed.'  Like most self-taught or ill-taught\nteachers, Epicurus trusted to his dogmas; he knew nothing and cared\nnothing for logical defence.\n\n{216}\n\n[375]\n\nIn his _Physics_ Epicurus did little more than reproduce the doctrine\nof Democritus.  He starts from the fundamental proposition that\n'nothing can be produced from nothing, nothing can really perish.'  The\nveritable existences in nature are the Atoms, which are too minute to\nbe discernible by the senses, but which nevertheless have a definite\nsize, and cannot further be divided.  They have also a definite weight\nand form, but no qualities other than these.  There is an infinity of\nempty space; this Epicurus proves on abstract grounds, practically\nbecause a limit to space is unthinkable.  It follows that there must be\nan infinite number of the atoms, otherwise they would disperse\nthroughout the infinite void and disappear.  There is a limit, however,\nto the number of varieties among the atoms in respect of form, size,\nand weight.  The existence of the void space is proved by the fact that\nmotion takes place, to which he adds the argument that it necessarily\nexists also to separate the atoms one from another.  So far Epicurus\nand Democritus are agreed.\n\nTo the Democritean doctrine, however, Epicurus made a curious addition,\nto which he himself is said to have attached much importance.  The\nnatural course (he said) for all bodies having weight is downwards in a\nstraight line.  It struck Epicurus that this being so, the atoms would\nall travel for ever in parallel lines, and those 'clashings and\ninterminglings' of {217} atoms out of which he conceived all visible\nforms to be produced, could never occur.  He therefore laid it down\nthat the atoms _deviated_ the least little bit from the straight, thus\nmaking a world possible.  And Epicurus considered that this supposed\ndeviation of the atoms not only made a world possible, but human\nfreedom also.  In the deviation, without apparent cause, of the\ndescending atoms, the law of necessity was broken, and there was room\non the one hand for man's free will, on the other, for prayer to the\ngods, and for hope of their interference on our behalf.\n\nIt may be worth while summarising the proofs which Lucretius in his\ngreat poem, professedly following in the footsteps of Epicurus, adduces\nfor these various doctrines.\n\nEpicurus' first dogma is, 'Nothing proceeds from nothing,' that is,\nevery material object has some matter previously existing exactly equal\nin quantity to it, out of which it was made.  To prove this Lucretius\nappeals to the _order of nature_ as seen in the seasons, in the\nphenomena of growth, in the fixed relations which exist between life\nand its environment as regards what is helpful or harmful, in the\nlimitation of size and of faculties in the several species and the\nfixity of the characteristics generally in each, in the possibilities\nof cultivation and improvement of species within certain limits and\nunder certain conditions.\n\n{218}\n\nTo prove his second position, 'Nothing passes into nothing,' Lucretius\npoints out to begin with that there is a law even in destruction;\n_force_ is required to dissolve or dismember anything; were it\notherwise the world would have disappeared long ago.  Moreover, he\npoints out that it is from the elements set free by decay and death\nthat new things are built up; there is no waste, no visible lessening\nof the resources of nature, whether in the generations of living\nthings, in the flow of streams and the fulness of ocean, or in the\neternal stars.  Were it not so, infinite time past would have exhausted\nall the matter in the universe, but Nature is clearly immortal.\nMoreover, there is a correspondence between the structure of bodies and\nthe forces necessary to their destruction.  Finally, apparent\nviolations of the law, when carefully examined, only tend to confirm\nit.  The rains no doubt disappear, but it is that their particles may\nreappear in the juices of the crops and the trees and the beasts which\nfeed on them.\n\nNor need we be surprised at the doctrine that the atoms, so\nall-powerful in the formation of things, are themselves invisible.  The\nsame is true of the forest-rending blasts, the 'viewless winds' which\nlash the waves and overwhelm great fleets.  There are odours also that\nfloat unseen upon the air; there are heat, and cold, and voices.  There\nis the process of evaporation, whereby we know that the water has gone,\n{219} yet cannot see its vapour departing.  There is the gradual\ninvisible detrition of rings upon the finger, of stones hollowed out by\ndripping water, of the ploughshare in the field, and the flags upon the\nstreets, and the brazen statues of the gods whose fingers men kiss as\nthey pass the gates, and the rocks that the salt sea-brine eats into\nalong the shore.\n\nThat there is Empty Space or Void he proves by all the varied motions\non land and sea which we behold; by the porosity even of hardest\nthings, as we see in dripping caves.  There is the food also which\ndisperses itself throughout the body, in trees and cattle.  Voices pass\nthrough closed doors, frost can pierce even to the bones.  Things equal\nin size vary in weight; a lump of wool has more of void in it than a\nlump of lead.  So much for Lucretius.\n\nFor abstract theories on physics, except as an adjunct and support to\nhis moral conceptions, Epicurus seems to have had very little\ninclination.  He thus speaks of the visible universe or Cosmos.  [373]\nThe Cosmos is a sort of skyey enclosure, which holds within it the\nstars, the earth, and all visible things.  It is cut off from the\ninfinite by a wall of division which may be either rare or dense, in\nmotion or at rest, round or three-cornered or any other form.  That\nthere is such a wall of division is quite admissible, for no object of\nwhich we have observation is without its limit.  Were this wall of\ndivision to {220} break, everything contained within it would tumble\nout.  We may conceive that there are an infinite number of such Cosmic\nsystems, with inter-cosmic intervals throughout the infinity of space.\n\nHe is very disinclined to assume that similar phenomena, _e.g._\neclipses of the sun or moon, always have the same cause.  The various\naccidental implications and interminglings of the atoms may produce the\nsame effect in various ways.  In fact Epicurus has the same impatience\nof theoretical physics as of theoretical philosophy.  He is a\n'practical man.'\n\n[378]\n\nHe is getting nearer his object when he comes to the nature of the\nsoul.  The soul, like everything else, is composed of atoms, extremely\ndelicate and fine.  It very much resembles the breath, with a mixture\nof heat thrown in, sometimes coming nearer in nature to the first,\nsometimes to the second.  Owing to the delicacy of its composition it\nis extremely subject to variation, as we see in its passions and\nliability to emotion, its phases of thought and the varied experiences\nwithout which we cannot live.  It is, moreover, the chief cause of\nsensation being possible for us.  Not that it could of itself have had\nsensation, without the enwrapping support of the rest of the structure.\nThe rest of the structure, in fact, having prepared this chief cause,\ngets from it a share of what comes to it, but not a share of all which\nthe soul has.\n\nThe soul being of material composition equally {221} with the other\nportions of the bodily structure, dies of course with it, that is, its\nparticles like the rest are dispersed, to form new bodies.  There is\nnothing dreadful therefore about death, for there is nothing left to\nknow or feel anything about it.\n\nAs regards the process of sensation, Epicurus, like Democritus,\nconceived bodies as having a power of emitting from their surface\nextremely delicate images of themselves.  These are composed of very\nfine atoms, but, in spite of their tenuity, they are able to maintain\nfor a considerable time their relative form and order, though liable\nafter a time to distortion.  They fly with great celerity through the\nvoid, and find their way through the windows of the senses to the soul,\nwhich by its delicacy of nature is in sympathy with them, and\napprehends their form.\n\n[379]\n\nThe gods are indestructible, being composed of the very finest and\nsubtlest atoms, so as to have not a body, but _as it were_ a body.\nTheir life is one of perfect blessedness and peace.  They are in number\ncountless; but the conceptions of the vulgar are erroneous respecting\nthem.  They are not subject to the passions of humanity.  Anger and joy\nare alike alien to their nature; for all such feelings imply a lack of\nstrength.  They dwell apart in the inter-cosmic spaces.  As Cicero\njestingly remarks: \"Epicurus by way of a joke introduced his gods so\npure that you could see through them, {222} so delicate that the wind\ncould blow through them, having their dwelling-place outside between\ntwo worlds, for fear of breakage.\"\n\n[380]\n\nComing finally to Epicurus' theory of Ethics, we find a general\nresemblance to the doctrine of Democritus and Aristippus.  The end of\nlife is pleasure or the absence of pain.  He differs, however, from the\nCyrenaics in maintaining that not the pleasure of the moment is the\nend, but pleasure throughout the whole of life, and that therefore we\nought in our conduct to have regard to the future.  Further he denies\nthat pleasure exists only in activity, it exists equally in rest and\nquiet; in short, he places more emphasis in his definition on the\nabsence of pain or disturbance, than on the presence of positive\npleasure.  And thirdly, while the Cyrenaics maintained that bodily\npleasures and pains were the keenest, Epicurus claimed these\ncharacteristics for the pleasures of the mind, which intensified the\npresent feeling by anticipations of the future and recollections of the\npast.  And thus the wise man might be happy, even on the rack.  Better\nindeed was it to be unlucky and wise, than lucky and foolish.  In a\nsimilar temper Epicurus on his death-bed wrote thus to a friend: \"In\nthe enjoyment of blessedness and peace, on this the last day of my life\nI write this letter to you.  Strangury has supervened, and the\nextremest agony of internal {223} pains, yet resisting these has been\nmy joy of soul, as I recalled the thoughts which I have had in the\npast.\"\n\n[381]\n\nWe must note, however, that while mental pleasures counted for much\nwith the Epicureans, these mental pleasures consisted not in thought\nfor thought's sake in any form; they had nothing to do with\ncontemplation.  They were essentially connected with bodily\nexperiences; they were the memory of past, the anticipation of future,\nbodily pleasures.  For it is to be remembered that thoughts were with\nEpicurus only converted sensations, and sensations were bodily\nprocesses.  Thus every joy of the mind was conditioned by a bodily\nexperience preceding it.  Or as Metrodorus, Epicurus' disciple, defined\nthe matter: \"A man is happy when his body is in good case, and he has\ngood hope that it will continue so.\"  Directly or indirectly,\ntherefore, every happiness came back, in the rough phrase of Epicurus,\nto one's belly at last.\n\n[382]\n\nThis theory did not, however, reduce morality to bestial\nself-indulgence.  If profligate pleasures could be had free from mental\napprehensions of another world and of death and pain and disease in\nthis, and if they brought with them guidance as to their own proper\nrestriction, there would be no reason whatever to blame a man for\nfilling himself to the full of pleasures, which brought no pain or\nsorrow, that is, {224} no evil, in their train.  But (Epicurus argues)\nthis is far from being the case.  Moreover there are many pleasures\nkeen enough at the time, which are by no means pleasant in the\nremembering.  And even when we have them they bring no enjoyment to the\nhighest parts of our nature.  What those 'highest parts' are, and by\nwhat standard their relative importance is determined, Epicurus does\nnot say.  He probably meant those parts of our nature which had the\nwidest range in space and time, our faculties, namely, of memory and\nhope, of conception, of sight and hearing.\n\nMoreover there are distinctions among desires; some are both natural\nand compulsory, such as thirst; some are natural but not compulsory, as\nthe desire for dainties; some are neither natural nor compulsory, such\nas the desire for crowns or statues.  The last of these the wise man\nwill contemn, the second he will admit, but so as to retain his\nfreedom.  For independence of such things is desirable, not necessarily\nthat we may reduce our wants to a minimum, but in order that if we\ncannot enjoy many things, we may be content with few.  \"For I am\nconvinced,\" Epicurus continues, \"that they have the greatest enjoyment\nof wealth, who are least dependent upon it for enjoyment.\"\n\nThus if Epicurus did not absolutely teach simplicity of living, he\ntaught his disciples the necessity of being capable of such simplicity,\nwhich they could {225} hardly be without practice.  So that in reality\nthe doctrine of Epicurus came very near that of his opponents.  As\nSeneca the Stoic observed, \"Pleasure with him comes to be something\nvery thin and pale.  In fact that law which we declare for virtue, the\nsame law he lays down for pleasure.\"\n\nOne of the chief and highest pleasures of life Epicurus found in the\npossession of friends, who provided for each other not only help and\nprotection, but a lifelong joy.  For the 'larger friendship' of the\ncivic community, Epicurus seems to have had only a very neutral regard.\nJustice, he says, is a convention of interests, with a view of neither\nhurting or being hurt.  The wise man will have nothing to do with\npolitics, if he can help it.\n\nIn spite of much that may offend in the doctrines of Epicurus, there is\nmuch at least in the man which is sympathetic and attractive.  What one\nobserves, however, when we compare such a philosophy with that of Plato\nor Aristotle, is first, a total loss of constructive imagination.  The\nparts of the 'philosophy,' if we are so to call it, of Epicurus hang\nbadly together, and neither the Canonics nor the Physics show any real\nfaculty of serious thinking at all.  The Ethics has a wider scope and a\nmore real relation to experience if not to reason.  But it can never\nsatisfy the deeper apprehension of mankind.\n\nThe truest and most permanently valid revelations {226} of life come\nnot to the many but to the one or the few, who communicate the truth to\nthe many, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, always at the cost\nof antagonism and ridicule.  A philosophy therefore which only\nrepresents in theoretical form the average practice of the average man,\ncomes into the world still-born.  It has nothing to say; its hearers\nknow it all, and the exact value of it all, already.  And in their\nheart of hearts, many even of those who have stooped to a lower ideal,\nand sold their birthright of hopes beyond the passing hour, for a mess\nof pottage in the form of material success and easy enjoyment, have a\nlurking contempt for the preachers of what they practise; as many a\nslaveholder in America probably had for the clerical defenders of the\n'divine institution.'\n\nThere is a wasting sense of inadequacy in this 'hand-to-mouth' theory\nof living, which compels most of those who follow it to tread softly\nand speak moderately.  They are generally a little weary if not\ncynical; they don't think much of themselves or of their success; but\nthey prefer to hold on as they have begun, rather than launch out into\nnew courses, which they feel they have not the moral force to continue.\n\"May I die,\" said the Cynic, \"rather than lead a life of pleasure.\"\n\"May I die,\" says the Epicurean, \"rather than make a fool of myself.\"\nThe Idealist is to them, if not {227} a hypocrite, at least a\nvisionary,--if not a Tartuffe, at least a Don Quixote tilting at\nwindmills.  Yet even for poor Don Quixote, with all his blindness and\nhis follies, the world retains a sneaking admiration.  It can spare a\nfew or a good many of its worldly-wisdoms, rather than lose altogether\nits enthusiasms and its dreams.  And the one thing which saves\nEpicureanism from utter extinction as a theory, is invariably the\nidealism which like a 'purple patch' adorns it here and there.  No man\nand no theory is wholly self-centred.  Pleasure is supplanted by\nUtility, and Utility becomes the greatest Happiness of the greatest\nNumber, and so, as Horace says (_Ep._ I. x. 24)--\n\n  Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret,\n\nNature (like Love) thrust out of the door, will come back by the\nwindow; and the Idealism which is not allowed to make pain a pleasure,\nis required at last to translate pleasure into pains.\n\n\n\n\n{228}\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nTHE STOICS\n\n_Semitic admixture--Closed fist and open hand--'Tabula rasa'--Necessity\nof evil--Hymn of Cleanthes--Things indifferent--Ideal and\nreal--Philosophy and humanity_\n\n\nZeno, the founder of the Stoic school of philosophy (born _circa_ 340\nB.C.), was a native of Citium in Cyprus.  The city was Greek, but with\na large Phoenician admixture.  And it is curious that in this last and\nsternest phase of Greek thought, not the founder only, but a large\nproportion of the successive leaders of the school, came from this and\nother places having Semitic elements in them.  Among these places\nnotable as nurseries of Stoicism was Tarsus in Cilicia, the birthplace\nof St. Paul.  The times of preparation were drawing to a close; and\nthrough these men, with their Eastern intensity and capacities of\nself-searching and self-abasement, the philosophy of Greece was linking\nitself on to the wisdom of the Hebrews.\n\nZeno came to Athens to study philosophy, and for twenty years he was a\npupil first of Crates the Cynic, and then of other teachers.  At length\nhe set up a school of his own in the celebrated _Stoa {229} Poecile_\n(Painted Colonnade), so named because it was adorned with frescoes by\nPolygnotus.  There he taught for nearly sixty years, and voluntarily\nended his life when close on a century old.  His life, as Antigonus,\nKing of Macedon, recorded on his tomb, was consistent with his\ndoctrine--abstemious, [386] frugal, laborious, dutiful.  He was\nsucceeded by Cleanthes, a native of Assos in Asia [387] Minor.  But the\ngreat constructor of the Stoic doctrine, without whom, as his\ncontemporaries said, there had been no Stoic school at all, was\nChrysippus, a native of Soli or of Tarsus in Cilicia.  He wrote at\nenormous length, supporting his teachings by an immense erudition, and\nculling liberally from the poets to illustrate and enforce his views.\nLearned and pedantic, his works had no inherent attraction, and nothing\nof them but fragments has been preserved.  We know the Stoic doctrine\nmainly from the testimony and criticisms of later times.\n\n[389]\n\nLike the Epicureans, Zeno and his successors made philosophy primarily\na search for the chief good, a doctrine of practice and morals.  But\nlike them they were impelled to admit a logic and a physics, at least\nby way of preliminary basis to their [390] ethics.  The relations of\nthe three they illustrated by various images.  Philosophy was like an\nanimal; logic was its bones and sinews, ethics its flesh, physics its\nlife or soul.  Or again, philosophy was {230} an egg; logic was the\nshell, ethics the white, physics, the yolk.  Or again, it was a\nfruitful field; logic was the hedge, ethics the crop, physics the soil.\nOr it was a city, well ordered and strongly fortified, and so on.  The\nimages seem somewhat confused, but the general idea is clear enough.\nMorality was the essential, the living body, of philosophy; physics\nsupplied its raw material, or the conditions under which a moral life\ncould be lived; logic secured that we should use that material rightly\nand wisely for the end desired.\n\n[391]\n\nLogic the Stoics divided into two parts--Rhetoric, the 'science of the\nopen hand,' and Dialectic, the 'science of the closed fist,' as Zeno\ncalled them.  They indulged in elaborate divisions and subdivisions of\neach, with which we need not meddle.  The only points of interest to us\nare contained in their analysis [392] of the processes of perception\nand thought.  A sensation, Zeno taught, was the result of an external\n_impulse_, which when combined with an internal _assent_, produced a\nmental state that revealed at the same time itself and the external\nobject producing it.  The perception thus produced he compared to the\ngrip which the hand took of a solid object; and real perceptions,\nthose, that is, which were caused by a real external object, and not by\nsome illusion, always testified to the reality of their cause by this\nsensation of 'grip.'\n\n{231}\n\nThe internal assent of the mind was voluntary, and at the same time\nnecessary; for the mind could not do otherwise than will the acceptance\nof that which it was fitted to receive.  The peculiarity of their\nphysics, which we shall have to refer to later on, namely, the denial\nof the existence of anything not material, implied that in some way\nthere was a material action of the external object on the structure of\nthe perceiving mind (itself also material).  What exactly the nature of\nthis action was the Stoics themselves were not quite agreed.  The idea\nof an 'impression' such as a seal makes upon wax was a tempting one,\nbut they had difficulty in comprehending how there could be a multitude\nof different impressions on the same spot without effacing each other.\nSome therefore preferred the vaguer and safer expression,\n'modification'; had they possessed our modern science, they might have\nillustrated their meaning by reference to the phenomena of magnetism or\nelectricity.\n\nAn interesting passage may be quoted from [393] Plutarch on the Stoic\ndoctrine of knowledge: \"The Stoics maintain,\" he says, \"that when a\nhuman being is born, he has the governing part of his soul like a sheet\nof paper ready prepared for the reception of writing, and on this the\nsoul inscribes in succession its various ideas.  The first form of the\nwriting is produced through the senses.  When we perceive, for example,\n{232} a white object, the recollection remains when the object is gone.\nAnd when many similar recollections have accumulated, we have what is\ncalled _experience_.  Besides the ideas which we get in this natural\nand quite undesigned way, there are other ideas which we get through\nteaching and information.  In the strict sense only these latter ought\nto be called ideas; the former should rather be called perceptions.\nNow the rational faculty, in virtue of which we are called reasoning\nbeings, is developed out of, or over and beyond, the mass of\nperceptions, in the second seven years' period of life.  In fact a\nthought may be defined as a kind of mental image, such as a rational\nanimal alone is capable of having.\"\n\nThus there are various gradations of mental apprehensions; first, those\nof sensible qualities obtained through the action of the objects and\nthe assent of the perceiving subject, as already described; then by\nexperience, by comparison, by analogy, by the combinations of the\nreasoning faculty, further and more general notions are arrived at, and\nconclusions formed, as, for example, that the gods exist and exercise a\nprovidential care over the world.  By this faculty also the wise man\nascends to the apprehension of the good and true.\n\nThe physics of the Stoics started from the fundamental [398]\nproposition that in the universe of things there were two elements--the\nactive and the passive.  {233} The latter was Matter or unqualified\nexistence; the former was the reason or qualifying element in Matter,\nthat is, God, who being eternal, is the fashioner of every individual\nthing throughout the universe of matter.  God is One; He is Reason, and\nFate, and Zeus.  In fact all the gods are only various representations\nof His faculties and powers.  He being from the beginning of things by\nHimself, turneth all existence through air to water.  And even as the\ngenital seed is enclosed in the semen, so also was the seed of the\nworld concealed in the water, making its matter apt for the further\nbirth of things; then first it brought into being the four\nelements--fire, water, air, earth.  For there was a finer fire or air\nwhich was the moving spirit of things; later and lower than this were\nthe material elements of fire and air.  It follows that the universe of\nthings is threefold; there is first God Himself, the source of all\ncharacter and individuality, who is indestructible and eternal, the\nfashioner of all things, who in certain cycles of ages gathers up all\nthings into Himself, and then out of Himself brings them again to\nbirth; there is the matter of the universe whereon God works; and\nthirdly, there is the union of the two.  Thus the world is governed by\nreason and forethought, and this reason extends through every part,\neven as the soul or life extends to every part of us.  The universe\ntherefore is a living thing, having a {234} soul or reason in it.  This\nsoul or reason one teacher likened to the air, another to the sky,\nanother to the sun.  For the soul of nature is, as it were, a finer air\nor fire, having a power of creation in it, and moving in an ordered way\nto the production of things.\n\n[399]\n\nThe universe is one and of limited extension, being spherical in form,\nfor this is the form which best adapts itself to movement.  Outside\nthis universe is infinite bodiless space; but within the universe there\nis no empty part; all is continuous and united, as is proved by the\nharmony of relation which exists between the heavenly bodies and those\nupon the earth.  The world as such is destructible, for its parts are\nsubject to change and to decay; yet is this change or destruction only\nin respect of the qualities imposed upon it from time to time by the\nReason inherent in it; the mere unqualified Matter remains\nindestructible.\n\n[408]\n\nIn the universe evil of necessity exists; for evil being the opposite\nof good, where no evil is there no good can be.  For just as in a\ncomedy there are absurdities, which are in themselves bad, but yet add\na certain attraction to the poem as a whole, so also one may blame evil\nregarded in itself, yet for the whole it is not without its use.  So\nalso God is the cause of death equally with birth; for even as cities\nwhen the inhabitants have multiplied overmuch, {235} remove their\nsuperfluous members by colonisation or by war, so also is God a cause\nof destruction.  In man in like manner good cannot exist save with\nevil; for wisdom being a knowledge of good and evil, remove the evil\nand wisdom itself goes.  Disease and other natural evils, when looked\nat in the light of their effects, are means not of evil but of good;\nthere is throughout the universe a balance and interrelation of good\nand evil.  Not that God hath in Himself any evil; the law is not the\ncause of lawlessness, nor God Himself responsible for any violation of\nright.\n\n[404]\n\nThe Stoics indulged in a strange fancy that the world reverted after a\nmighty cycle of years in all its parts to the same form and structure\nwhich it possessed at the beginning, so that there would be once more a\nSocrates, a Plato, and all the men that had lived, each with the same\nfriends and fellow-citizens, the same experiences, and the same\nendeavours.  At the termination of each cycle there was a burning up of\nall things, and thereafter a renewal of the great round of life.\n\n[408]\n\nNothing incorporeal, they maintained, can be affected by or affect that\nwhich is corporeal; body alone can affect body.  The soul therefore\nmust be corporeal.  Death is the separation of soul from body, but it\nis impossible to separate what is incorporeal from body; therefore,\nagain, the soul must {236} be corporeal.  In the belief of Cleanthes,\nthe souls of all creatures remained to the next period of cyclic\nconflagration; Chrysippus believed that only the souls of the wise and\ngood remained.\n\n[413]\n\nComing finally to the Ethics of the Stoic philosophy, we find for the\nchief end of life this definition, 'A life consistent with itself,' or,\nas it was otherwise expressed, 'A life consistent with Nature.'  The\ntwo definitions are really identical; for the law of nature is the law\nof our nature, and the reason in our being the reason which also is in\nGod, the supreme Ruler of the universe.  This is substantially in\naccordance with the celebrated law of right action laid down by Kant,\n\"Act so that the maxim of thine action be capable of being made a law\nof universal action.\"  Whether a man act thus or no, by evil if not by\ngood the eternal law will satisfy itself; the question is of import\nonly for the man's own happiness.  Let his will accord with the\nuniversal will, then the law will be fulfilled, and the man will be\nhappy.  Let his will resist the universal will, then the law will be\nfulfilled, but the man will bear the penalty.  This was expressed by\nCleanthes in a hymn which ran somewhat thus--\n\n      Lead me, O Zeus most great,\n      And thou, Eternal Fate:\n  What way soe'er thy will doth bid me travel\n  That way I'll follow without fret or cavil.\n  {237}\n      Or if I evil be\n      And spurn thy high decree,\n  Even so I still shall follow, soon or late.\n\n\nThus in the will alone consists the difference of good or ill for us;\nin either case Nature's great law fulfils itself infallibly.  To their\nview on this point we may apply the words of Hamlet: \"If it be now,\n'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not\nnow, yet it will come; the _readiness_ is all.\"\n\nThis universal law expresses itself in us in various successive\nmanifestations.  From the moment of birth it implants in us a supreme\nself-affection, whereby of infallible instinct we seek our own\nself-preservation, rejoice in that which is suitable to our existence,\nshrink from that which is unsuitable.  As we grow older, further and\nhigher principles manifest themselves--reason and reflection, a more\nand more careful and complete apprehension of that which is honourable\nand advantageous, a capacity of choice among goods.  Till finally the\nsurpassing glory of that which is just and honourable shines out so\nclear upon us, that any pain or loss is esteemed of no account, if only\nwe may attain to that.  Thus at last, by the very law of our being, we\ncome to know that nothing is truly and absolutely good but goodness,\nnothing absolutely bad but sin.  Other things, inasmuch as they have no\ncharacter of moral good {238} or moral evil, cannot be deemed really\ngood or bad; in comparison with the absolutely good, they are things\nindifferent, though in comparison with each other they may be\nrelatively preferable or relatively undesirable.  Even pleasure and\npain, so far as concerns the absolute end or happiness of our being,\nare things indifferent; we cannot call them either good or evil.  Yet\nhave they a relation to the higher law, for the consciousness of them\nwas so implanted in us at the first that our souls by natural impulse\nare drawn to pleasure, while they shrink from pain as from a deadly\nenemy.  Wherefore reason neither can nor ought to seek wholly to\neradicate these primitive and deep-seated affections of our nature; but\nso to exercise a resisting and ordering influence upon them, as to\nrender them obedient and subservient to herself.\n\n[415]\n\nThat which is absolutely good--wisdom, righteousness, courage,\ntemperance--does good only and never ill to us.  All other\nthings,--life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, reputation,\nbirth,--and their opposites,--death, disease, pain, deformity,\nweakness, poverty, contempt, humility of station,--these are in\nthemselves neither a benefit nor a curse.  They may do us good, they\nmay do us harm.  We may use them for good, we may use them for evil.\n\n[417]\n\nThus the Stoics worked out on ideal and absolute lines the thought of\nrighteousness as the chief and {239} only good.  Across this ideal\npicture were continually being drawn by opponents without or inquirers\nwithin, clouds of difficulty drawn from real experience.  'What,' it\nwas asked, 'of _progress_ in goodness?  Is this a middle state between\ngood and evil; or if a middle state between good and evil be a\ncontradiction, in terms, how may we characterise it?'  Here the wiser\nteachers had to be content to answer that it _tended_ towards good, was\ngood in possibility, would be absolutely good when the full attainment\ncame, and the straining after right had been swallowed up in the\nperfect calm of settled virtue.\n\n'How also of the wise man tormented by pain, or in hunger and poverty\nand rags, is his perfectness of wisdom and goodness really sufficient\nto make him happy?'  Here, again, the answer had to be hesitating and\nprovisional, through no fault of the Stoics.  In this world, while we\nare still under the strange dominion of time and circumstance, the\nideal can never wholly fit the real.  There must still be difficulty\nand incompleteness here, only to be solved and perfected 'when iniquity\nshall have an end.'  Our eyes may fail with looking upward, yet the\nupward look is well; and the jibes upon the Stoic 'king in rags' that\nHorace and others were so fond of, do not affect the question.  It may\nhave been, and probably often was, the case that Stoic teachers {240}\nwere apt to transfer to themselves personally the ideal attributes,\nwhich they justly assigned to the ideal man in whom wisdom was\nperfected.  The doctrine gave much scope for cant and mental pride and\nhypocrisy, as every ideal doctrine does, including the Christian.  But\nthe existence of these vices in individuals no more affected the\ndoctrine of an ideal goodness in its Stoic form, than it does now in\nits Christian one.  That only the good man is truly wise or free or\nhappy; that vice, however lavishly it surround itself with luxury and\nease and power, is inherently wretched and foolish and slavish;--these\nare things which are worth saying and worth believing, things, indeed,\nwhich the world dare not and cannot permanently disbelieve, however\ndifficult or even impossible it may be to mark men off into two\nclasses, the good and the bad, however strange the irony of\ncircumstance which so often shows the wicked who 'are not troubled as\nother men, neither are they plagued like other men; they have more than\ntheir heart could wish,' while good men battle with adversity, often in\nvain.  Still will the permanent, fruitful, progressive faith of man\n'look to the end'; still will the ideal be powerful to plead for the\npainful right, and spoil, even in the tasting, the pleasant wrong.\n\nThe doctrine, of course, like every doctrine worth anything, was pushed\nto extravagant lengths, and {241} thrust into inappropriate quarters,\nby foolish doctrinaires.  As that the wise man is the only orator,\ncritic, poet, physician, nay, cobbler if you please; that the wise man\nknows all that is to be known, and can do everything that is worth\ndoing, and so on.  The school was often too academic, too abstract, too\nfond of hearing itself talk.  This, alas! is what most schools are, and\nmost schoolmasters.\n\nYet the Stoics were not altogether alien to the ordinary interests and\nduties of life.  They admitted a duty of co-operating in politics, at\nleast in such states as showed some desire for, or approach to, virtue.\nThey approved of the wise man taking part in education, of his marrying\nand bringing up children, both for his own sake and his country's.  He\nwill be ready even to 'withdraw himself from life on behalf of his\ncountry or his friends.  This 'withdrawal,' which was their word for\nsuicide, came unhappily to be much in the mouths of later, and\nespecially of the Roman, Stoics, who, in the sadness and restraint of\nprevailing despotism, came to thank God that no one was compelled to\nremain in life; he might 'withdraw' when the burden of life, the\nhopelessness of useful activity, became too great.\n\nWith this sad, stern, yet not undignified note, the philosophy of\nGreece speaks its last word.  The later scepticism of the New Academy,\ndirected mainly to a negative criticism of the crude enough logic of\nthe {242} Stoics, or of the extravagances of their ethical doctrine,\ncontributed no substantial element to thought or morals.  As an\neclectic system it had much vogue, side by side with Stoicism and\nEpicureanism, among the Romans, having as its chief exponent Cicero, as\nEpicureanism had Lucretius, and Stoicism, Seneca.\n\nThe common characteristic of all these systems in their later\ndevelopments, is their _cosmopolitanism_.  _Homo sum, nil humani a me\nalienum puto_, 'I am a man; nothing appertaining to humanity do I deem\nalien from myself,' this was the true keynote of whatever was vital in\nany of them.  And the reason of this is not far to seek.  We have seen\nalready (p. 82) how the chaos of sophistic doctrine was largely\nconditioned, if not produced, by the breakdown of the old civic life of\nGreece.  The process hardly suffered delay from all the efforts of\nSocrates and Plato.  Cosmopolitanism was already a point of union\nbetween the Cynics and Cyrenaics (see p. 128).  And the march of\npolitics was always tending in the same direction.  First through great\nleagues, such as the Spartan or Athenian or Theban, each with a\npredominant or tyrannical city at the head; then later through the\nconquest of Greece by Alexander, and the leaguing of all Greek-speaking\npeoples in the great invasion of Asia; then through the spread of Greek\nletters all over the Eastern {243} world, and the influx upon Greek\ncentres such as Athens and Alexandria, of all manner of foreign\nintelligences; and finally, through the conquest of all this teeming\nworld of culture by the discipline and practical ability of Rome, and\nits incorporation in a universal empire of law, all the barriers which\nhad divided city from city and tribe from tribe and race from race\ndisappeared, and only a common humanity remained.\n\nThe only effective philosophies for such a community were those which\nregarded man as an _individual_, with a world politically omnipotent\nhedging him about, and driving him in upon himself.  Thus the New\nAcademy enlarged on the doubtfulness of all beyond the individual\nconsciousness; Stoicism insisted on individual dutifulness,\nEpicureanism on individual self-satisfaction.  The first sought to make\nlife worth living through culture, the second through indifference, the\nthird through a moderate enjoyment.  But all alike felt themselves very\nhelpless in face of the growing sadness of life, in face of the\ndeepening mystery of the world beyond.  All alike were controversial,\nand quick enough to ridicule their rivals; none was hopefully\nconstructive, or (unless in the poetic enthusiasm of a Lucretius) very\nconfident of the adequacy of its own conceptions.  They all rather\nquickened the sense of emptiness in human existence, than satisfied it;\n{244} at the best they enabled men to \"absent themselves a little while\nfrom the felicity of death.\"\n\nThus all over the wide area of Greek and Roman civilisation, the\nactivity of the later schools was effectual to familiarise humanity\nwith the language of philosophy, and to convince humanity of the\ninadequacy of its results.  Both of these things the Greeks taught to\nSaul of Tarsus; at a higher Source he found the satisfying of his soul;\nbut from the Greek philosophies he learned the language through which\nthe new Revelation was to be taught in the great world of Roman rule\nand Grecian culture.  And thus through the Pauline theology, Greek\nphilosophy had its part in the moral regeneration of the world; as it\nhas had, in later times, in every emancipation and renascence of its\nthought.\n\n\n\n\n{245}\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAbdera, birthplace of Democritus, 74; of Protagoras, 86\n\nAbsolute knowledge, unattainable by man, 19; absorption in, 133; no\nseparate existence, 182\n\nAbstract ideas not derivable from experience, 45; abstract truth\nimpossible, 87; of no value, 132; revival of, 133\n\nAcademus, grove of, 135\n\nAchilles and tortoise, 44; death of, 139\n\nAcroatic, kind of lectures, 175\n\nActuality, see _Realisation_.\n\nAgrigentum, birthplace of Empedocles, 59\n\nAir, beginning of things, 14\n\nAlcestis, referred to, 139\n\nAlcibiades, dialogue, 137\n\nAlexander, relations with Aristotle, 174; influence of conquests of, 242\n\nAnarchy, in politics and in philosophy, 83; reaction against, by\nSocrates, 102\n\nAnaxagoras, 52; relation of Empedocles to, 62; quoted by Aristotle, 200\n\nAnaximander, 7\n\nAnaximenes, 14\n\nAnthropomorphism, criticised, 32\n\nAntigonus, friend of Zeno, 229\n\nAntisthenes, 128\n\nApology, dialogue, 136\n\nAppetite, the only reality, 96\n\nArchilochus, criticised by Heraclitus, 16\n\nAristippus, 124\n\nAristocracy, in politics and in philosophy, 82\n\nAristotle, on Thales, 4; on Xenophanes, 32; on Zeno, 42; on Melissus,\n47; on Anaxagoras, 54; on Empedocles, 59, 63, 70; a complete Socratic,\n103; on Socrates, 106; on Sophists, 115; debt to Plato, 159; on Plato,\n163; chapters on, 172 _sqq._; his fresh contributions to Academic\nphilosophy, 173; two classes of lectures, 175; library, _ib._;\npredominance of, 176; style, 177; differences from Plato, 178\n\nArt, a greater revealer than science, 66; relation of Love to, 137; a\nmode of creation, 139\n\nAsceticism, of Cynics, 128; of Plato, 168; of Epicurus, 225\n\nAtarneus, residence of Aristotle, 174\n\nAthens, visited by Parmenides and Zeno, 34, 42, 157; residence of\nAnaxagoras, 52; centre of sophistry, 85; birthplace of Socrates, 103;\nvisited by Aristippus, 124; birthplace of Antisthenes, 129; and of\nPlato, 134; dialogue in praise of, 137; residence of Aristotle, 173; of\nEpicurus, 211\n\nAtlantis, kingdom of, 153\n\nAtomists, 52; revived theory of, 215\n\nAtoms, constituents of nature, 76, 216; deviation of, 216\n\n\nBeauty, one aspect of ideal, 110; relation to creative instinct, 139;\nscience of universal beauty, 141\n\nBecoming, the fundamental principle, 16; passage from Being to, 36, 39\n\nBeginning (_arche_), of Thales, 3; Aristotle's definition, 4;\ndifficulties of material theories of, 36l\n\nBeing, eternal being like a sphere, 32; passage from, to Becoming, 36,\n39; a co-equal element with Nonentity, 75; analysis of, 159; and the\nOther, 165\n\nBody, realisation of soul, 27; a prison, 28; unthinkable except with\nreference to space, 75; source of illusion, 164\n\n\nCanonics, form of logic, 215\n\nCause, three causes, 110; equals essence, 167; first causes subject of\nphilosophy, 179; relation of, to potentiality, 185\n\nCave, of this life, 148, 166\n\nChaldaea, visited by Pythagoras, 22; by Democritus, 74\n\nChange, how account for, 10, 35, 39, 75\n\nChaos, of the Atomists, 53; of Empedocles, 69; king in philosophy, 83;\nlife not a chaos, 105\n\nCharmides, dialogue, 136\n\nChrist, brings sword, 99; kingdom of, 149\n\nChrysippus, successor of Cleanthes, 229\n\nCicero, mistranslates Pythagoras, 28; criticises Epicurus, 212, 221;\nexponent of New Academy, 242\n\nCitium, birthplace of Zeno, 228\n\nClazomenae, birthplace of Anaxagoras, 52\n\nCleanthes, successor of Zeno, 229; hymn of, 236\n\nCodrus, Plato descended from, 134; sacrifice of, 139\n\nColophon, birthplace of Xenophanes, 31\n\nCommonplaces,  function of, in sophistry, 84\n\nCommunity of wives, 148; ideal community, 149 (and see _State_)\n\nContradiction, philosophy of, 65\n\nCosmogony, of Democritus, 77; of Plato, 150; of Aristotle, 200; of\nEpicurus, 219; of the Stoics, 231\n\nCosmopolitanism, of Cyrenaics and Cynics, 128; of later systems, 242\n\nCourage, treated of in _Laches_, 136\n\nCratylus, dialogue, 137\n\nCreation, a great expiation, 73; in the soul, 139; working out of God's\nimage, 151; union of Essence and Matter, 167\n\nCriterion, feeling the only, 127\n\nCritias, dialogue, 153\n\nCrito, dialogue, 136\n\nCrux, in philosophy, 190\n\nCynic, origin of name, 130; influence of school on Plato, 154; _v._\nEpicurean, 226\n\nCyrene, seat of Cyrenaic school, 124; visited by Plato, 134; influence\nof school on Plato, 154\n\n\nDeath, birth of the soul, 19\n\nDeduction, _v._ Induction, 48; function of, in Aristotle, 184\n\nDefinitions, search for, by Socrates, 106; of no value, 132; rules for,\nlaid down by Plato, 156\n\nDemocritus, 74; relation of Epicurus to, 216\n\nDemonstrative science, based on abstraction, 11\n\nDesire, part of soul, 28, 169; thought without, gives no motive, 191;\ndistinctions among, 224\n\nDestruction, meaning of, 53\n\nDialectic, Parmenides founder of, 39; Zeno inventor of, 42; Platonic\ntheory of, 164, 171\n\nDichotomy, invented by Zeno, 43\n\nDifference (see _Essence_), all difference quantitative, 76;\nconditioned by dissimilarity in atoms, 77\n\nDilemma, Melissus' use of, 46\n\nDiogenes, pupil of Antisthenes, 130\n\nDionysius, elder and younger, connection of Plato with, 135\n\nDiotima, conversation of, with Socrates, 137\n\nDry light, 19\n\nDualism, unthinkable, 32; in nature, 38; of Plato and Aristotle, 184\n\nDynamic, see _Potentiality_\n\n\nEarth, principle in nature, 38\n\nEducation, preparation for heaven, 148; ideal, 149; true function of,\n169; three stages, 170; an entelechy, 191\n\nEgypt, visited by Pythagoras, 22; Democritus, 74; Plato, 135\n\nElea, seat of Eleatic school, 30; birthplace of Parmenides, 33\n\nEleatics, relation of Empedocles to, 62; of Democritus, 75; of Plato,\n154, 165\n\nElements, the four, 62; in creation, 151; in body and in soul, 156\n\nEmpedocles, 58\n\nEnds of Life, indifference as to, 96; importance in later Greek\nphilosophy, 125; Plato's view of, 168; Aristotle's, 193; Epicurean, 222\n\nEntelechy, Life, 186, 190; God, 188; Thought, _ib._; Education, 191;\nMorality, 193; State, 197; physical world, 199; Soul, 203\n\nEphesus, birthplace of Heraclitus, 15\n\nEpicurus, 211; praises of, by Lucretius, 212; garden of, 213; relation\nto Democritus, 216\n\nEssence _v._ Difference, 48; equals Cause, 167\n\nEuclides, 132\n\nEuripides, friend of Anaxagoras, 52\n\nEuthydemus, conversation with Socrates, 116; dialogue, 137\n\nEuthyphro, dialogue, 136\n\nEven, _v._ Odd, 24\n\nEvil, origin of, 33; necessary on earth, 168; God cause of evil, but\nhath none, 234\n\nEvolution, Anaximander's conception of, 12; Xenophanes' theory of, 33;\nrelation of, to fundamental conception of Being, _ib._; view of\nEmpedocles, 70\n\nExistence, an idea prior to Time and Space, 37; not given by\nExperience, 45; four forms of, 166; philosophy treats of existence as\nsuch, 181\n\nExoteric kind of lectures, 175\n\n\nFemale, see _Male_\n\nFire, original of things, 17; one of two principles, 38\n\nFlux, of all things, 16; of life, 27, 73; sophistic theory of, 87\n\nForm _v._ Matter, 25, 48; Aristotle's theory of, 203\n\nFormulae, never adequate, 122\n\nFreewill, problem of, 33; relation to law, 113; and overruling\nprovidence, 155\n\nFriendship, treated of in _Lysis_, 136\n\n\nGenus, has less of existence than species, 183\n\nGod, soul of the world, 27; the Odd-Even, 26; the universe His\nself-picturing, 26; God is one, 32; not a function of matter, 33;\natomic origin of idea of, 80; the law or ideal in the universe, 112;\nMan the friend of God, 142; works out His image in creation, 151; God's\nthought and God's working, 152; is Mind universal, 164; cause of union\nin creation, 166; His visible images in Man and Nature, _ib._; cause\nboth of good and of knowledge, 166; thoughts of, eternally existing,\n187; an entelechy, 188; Epicurean theory of, 221; Stoic theory of, 233\n\nGolden age, 73\n\nGorgias, 92; Antisthenes pupil of, 129; dialogue, 137\n\nGreek _v._ Modern difficulties, 158\n\nGymnastic, function of, 170\n\n\nHabit, Aristotle's definition of, 195\n\nHappiness, chief good, 193; reason standard of, 196\n\nHarmony, the eternal, 19; soul a harmony, 29\n\nHecataeus, referred to by Herodotus, 2\n\nHegel, philosophic system of, 159\n\nHeraclitus, 15; _v._ Democritus, 74; Plato student of, 134; relation of\nPlato to, 163\n\nHercules, patron-god of Cynics, 130\n\nHerodotus, notices Hecataeus, 2\n\nHesiod, praised, 139\n\nHippias, dialogue, 137\n\nHomer, criticised by Heraclitus, 16; anthropomorphism of, 31; praised,\n139\n\nHorace, quoted, 125\n\nHumanitarianism, began in scepticism, 99\n\nHumanity, granted only to possessors of eternal truth, 145\n\nHusk, symbol of evolution, 12\n\n\nIdea, exists prior to sensation, 143; eternal in universe, 150;\nrational element in sensation, 152; Platonic criticism of, 157;\nuniversals are ideas of real existences, 163; things partake of, 164;\nrelation of, to Pythagorean 'Numbers,' 167; Aristotelian criticism of,\n181; necessarily prior to sensation, 187\n\nIdeal, struggle of old and new, 99; in the arts, 110; has three\naspects, Justice, Beauty, Utility, _ib._; great ideal in the universe,\n112; can never wholly fit the real, 239\n\nIdealism, _v._ Practicality, 4, 96; Parmenides founder of, 39; _v._\nRealism, 51; _v._ Epicureanism, 216\n\nImmortality, aspect of, to Greeks, 40; Parmenides pioneer for, 41;\n_Phaedo_ dialogue on, 136; Love and immortality, 138; of soul, 150;\nrelation of doctrine to Platonic recollection, 154; faith as to, 155;\nMan must put on, 168; Aristotle's view of, 207\n\nInconsistency, not forbidden in philosophy, 64\n\nIndividual, _v._ Universal, 99; relation of, to community, 147, 196;\nreality of, 184; importance of, in later systems, 243\n\nIndividualism, in philosophy, 83, 85; not wholly bad, 98; required\nreconciling with universalism, 100\n\nInduction (see Deduction); Socrates inventor of, 106; Plato's\ncontributions to, 160; function of, in Aristotle, 184\n\nInfinite or indefinite, origin of things, 8; function of, in\nmathematics, 10; relation to definite, 24, 26, 165\n\nInfinity, origin of idea of, 46\n\nIntellect, division of soul, 28, 169\n\nIon, dialogue, 136\n\nIrony, of Socrates, 105\n\n\nJowett, Prof., quoted, 39, 43, 89, 138, 142, 153, 158\n\nJudgment, vision of, 150\n\nJustice, a cheating device, 95; one form of ideal or universal, 110;\nrelated to law and to utility, 120; the fairest wisdom, 139; dialogue\non, 146; only interest of stronger, 147; writ large in state, 147;\nperfection of whole man, and of state, 169; a civic quality\nrestraining, 198; Epicurean theory of, 225\n\n\nKant, his _Critic_ referred to, 158; maxim of, 236\n\nKnowledge, _v._ Opinion, 33, 35, 51; impossible, 93; really exists,\n164; first causes pertain to, 179; must have real object, 183;\npotential and actual, 203\n\n'Know thyself,' 113; dialogue on, 137\n\n\nLaches, dialogue, 136\n\nLampsacus, place of death of Anaxagoras, 57\n\nLaughing philosopher, 74\n\nLaw, in universe, 112; relation to Freewill, 113; relation to Justice,\n120; fulfilled through Love, 122; Laws, dialogue, 160; potential and\nactual, 192\n\nLeontini, birthplace of Gorgias, 92\n\nLeucippus, 74\n\nLife, death of the soul, 19; a prison, 28; a sentinel-post, _ib._; a\nunion of contradictories, 66; a dwelling in cave, 148; organic idea of,\n185; an entelechy, 190; different kinds of, 194; Aristotle's\ndefinition, 203\n\nListeners, in Pythagorean system, 23\n\nLogic, Parmenides founder of, 39; Zeno inventor of, 42; contributions\nof Plato and Aristotle to, 159; governing idea of Aristotle's, 184; of\nEpicurus, 215; Stoic divisions of, 230\n\nLove, motive force in Nature, 38; one of two principles, 38, 63;\nfulfilling of the law, 122; dialogues on, 137, 144; pure and impure, 145\n\nLucretius, praises Empedocles, 59; Epicurus, 212; proofs by, of\nEpicurus' theory, 217; exponent of Roman Epicureanism, 242\n\nLyceum, school of Aristotle, 174\n\nLycurgus, praised, 140\n\nLysis, dialogue, 136\n\n\nMagnet, soul of, 6\n\nMale and Female, Pythagorean view of, 24; principles in Nature, 38;\nequality of, 148; correlative, 167; basis of State, 197\n\nMan, measure of truth, 87; working with Eternal Mind, 155; Does Man\npartake in God's ideas? 158; differentia of, possession of reason, 191;\nfunction of, 193; a political animal, 197; wisest of animals, why? 200\n\nMaterialism, ancient and modern, 57; of Epicureans, 220; of Stoics, 233\n\nMathematicians, in system of Pythagoras, 23\n\nMathematics, based on indefinables, 10; function of, in Pythagorean\nphilosophy, 25; and in Platonic, 170\n\nMatter (see _Mind_), _v._ Thought, 48; another name for the formless,\n151, 167; correlative of Mind, 167; what it symbolises, 184; relation\nto Form, 203\n\nMechanical theory, of universe, 56, 78; of virtue, 195\n\nMegara, birthplace of Euclides, 132; influence of school on Plato, 154\n\nMelissus, 46\n\nMenexenus, dialogue, 137\n\nMeno, dialogue, 136; relation to Aristotle's doctrine, 191\n\nMidwifery of Socrates, 104\n\nMight, without Right is weak, 147; is Right in tyrant, 149\n\nMiletus, birthplace of Thales, 1; of Anaximander, 7; of Anaximenes, 14\n\nMind, _v._ Matter, 51, 167; function of, in the universe, 54; God's\nmind working on matter, 151; ruler of universe, 155; must rule\npleasure, 156; home of ideas, 164; correlative of matter, 167; passive\nand creative, 207\n\nMoist or base element, 18\n\nMonarchy, in politics and in philosophy, 82\n\nMorality, a convention, 95, 126; traditional morality of Greece\nrequired remodelling, 98; question as to origin solved by Socrates,\n121; can never exhaust Subject, 188; an entelechy, 192; potential and\nactual, 194\n\nMotion, animal, how accounted for, 79\n\nMultiplicity, see _Unity_\n\nMusic, of the spheres, 27; of seven planets, 151; function of, in\neducation, 29, 170\n\nMyth, of Steeds, 144; of Judgment, 150; of Creation, 152; philosophers\nfond of, 178\n\n\nNames, approximations to reality, 165\n\nNature, treatises on, 16, 34, 46, 217; a reason in, 37; male and female\nprinciples in, 38; Love motive force in, _ib._; the non-existent, 92;\n'touch of nature,' 191; Aristotle's conception of, 199; violations of,\n201; order of, 217; clearly immortal, 218; a life consistent with, 236\n\nNecessity, creative power, 38, 63; how used by Democritus, 78;\nAristotle's conception of, 201\n\nNeleus, family (owners of Aristotle's library), 175\n\nNicomachus, father of Aristotle, 172\n\nNotions, Epicurus' view of, 215\n\nNumber, original of things, 24; relation of ideas to, 167\n\n\nObedience, through disobedience, 122\n\nObscure, epithet of Heraclitus, 15\n\nOdd, _v._ Even, 24\n\nOpinion, _v._ Knowledge, 33, 35\n\nOracle, answer of, respecting Socrates, 107; maxim engraved on, 113\n\nOrganism, idea of, in Aristotle, 185, 205\n\nOrganon, of Aristotle, 159\n\nOrigination, meaning of, 53, 62\n\nOther, the 'Other' of Plato, 165\n\n\nPains, classification of, 131; converted into pleasures, 131, 227;\nmoral function of, 238\n\nPantheistic apathy, 20\n\nParmenides, 33; relation of Zeno to, 42; visited Athens, 157; dialogue,\n_ib._\n\nParticular, see _Universal_\n\nPassion, part of soul, 28, 169\n\nPaul, St., influence of Stoicism on, 228; relation of, to Greek\nphilosophy, 244\n\nPericles, friend of Anaxagoras, 52; and of Protagoras, 86\n\nPeripatetics, origin of name, 174\n\nPersonality, absence of, in Greek thought, 40\n\nPersuasion, only true wisdom, 88\n\nPhaedo, quoted from, 54; dialogue, 136\n\nPhaedrus, dialogue, 142\n\nPhenomena, not source of abstract ideas, 15\n\nPhilebus, dialogue, 156\n\nPhilosophy, different from science, 9; does not forbid inconsistency,\n64; a form of poesy or fiction, 66; at the basis of religion, art, and\nmorals, 67; great philosophies never die, 68; first systematically\ndivided by Democritus, 75; relation to politics, 82, 97; paradox of,\n100; crisis of, _ib._; of nature and of moral, 101; a means of social\nculture, 125; relation of Love to, 137; must rule on earth, 149; only\nmakes happy guesses in science, 152; origin of, 178; investigates first\ncauses, 179; crux in, 190; Epicurus' definition of, 214; a search for\nchief good, 229\n\nPlato, criticism of Protagoras, 89; a _complete_ Socratic, 103: took\nrefuge with Euclides, 132, 134; compared to Shakespeare, 134; as\npsychologist, 155; central doctrines of, 155; dogma impossible, 162;\nAristotle on, 163; relation to Heraclitus, _ib._; and to the Eleatics,\n165; relation of Aristotle to, 178, 181; his mistake as to universals,\n182\n\nPleasure, end of life, 126; contempt of, 131; reason gives law to, 149;\nis it chief good? 156; Epicurean theory of, 222; moral function of, 238\n\nPolitics, relation to philosophy, 82, 97; influence of sophistry upon,\n88\n\nPoliticus, see _Statesman_\n\nPotentiality (Dynamic idea), how used by Aristotle, 185; of feeling,\n195; equals matter, 203\n\nPracticality, _v._ Idealism, 4\n\nPredication, Epicurus' view of, 215\n\nPropositions, _v._ Things, 189\n\nProtagoras, 85; Plato's criticism of, 89; dialogue, 136\n\nProtoplasm, explains nothing, 37\n\nPunishment, Sophistic theory of, 88\n\nPyrrho, founder of Scepticism, 211\n\nPythagoras, 23\n\n\nQuinta Essentia, origin of, 202\n\nQuixote, the world admires, 227\n\n\nRealisation (Actuality), correlative of potentiality, 185; relation to\nPlato's Recollection, 188; chief good, 194\n\nReality, standard of, 40, 51; distinction between, and appearance,\nabolished, 83, 87; no necessary relation between thought and reality,\n94; the only reality appetite, 96; thoughts of God the only reality,\n164; approximations to, 165; ideal can never wholly fit, 239\n\nReason, function of, 37, 56; corrector of the senses, 61; governs\nevolution, 70; worse made to appear better, 84; realises itself through\nindividuals, 114; gives law to pleasure, 149, 156; man possesses, 191;\nactual and latent, 192; partly obedient, partly contemplative, 194; an\nelement in Habit, 195; an impersonal ruler, 196\n\nRecollection (or Reminiscence), departure and renewal of knowledge,\n138; doctrine of, in Plato, 142; Platonic criticism of, 154; nature of,\n165; relation of Aristotle's theory to, 188\n\nReminiscence, see _Recollection_\n\nRepublic, dialogue, 146; relation of, to Aristotle's doctrine, 192\n\nRevelation, how criticise? 158\n\nRight, Might without, is weak, 147\n\n\nSamos, birthplace of Pythagoras, 23; of Melissus, 46; of Epicurus, 211\n\nScepticism, its isolating influence, 94; destroys not appetite, but\nmoral restraint, 95; represented birth of new conditions, 98; phase of\ndecay in distinctively Greek life, 211\n\nScience, philosophy different from, 9; happy guesses in,  152;\ndifferent kinds of, 180; can never exhaust object, 188\n\nScrip and staff, emblems of Cynics, 130\n\nSemitic elements in later Greek philosophy, 228\n\nSeneca, on Epicurus, 225; exponent of Roman Stoicism, 242\n\nSenses (or Sensation), channel for the eternal wisdom, 18; data of, no\nmeasure of reality, 40; not source of ideas, 45; untrustworthy, 49;\nnecessary to truth, 56; no test of truth, 60; relation to reason, 61;\nbased on composite character of body, 71; atomic theory of, 79; give no\nabsolute truth, 80; no distinction between, and thing or mind, 87;\nreaction of moral theory on theory of sensation, 102; invalid as\nagainst reason, 133; has rational elements conditioning, 151; universal\ncannot belong to, 163; universals  furthest  removed from, 180; only\nsource of knowledge, 214; Epicurean theory of emission, 221; Stoic\ntheory, 230\n\nShakespeare, Plato compared to, 134\n\nSicily, birthplace of Empedocles, 58; connection with rise of\nSophistry, 84, 86, 92; connection of Plato with, 135\n\nSin, willing and unwilling, 121\n\nSinope, birthplace of Diogenes, 130\n\nSleep, cuts us off from eternal wisdom, 18\n\nSocrates, 101; relation to Anaxagoras, 54; his doctrine in general,\n100; marks a parting of ways, 103; warning 'voice' or 'daemon' of, 104;\nphilosophic midwifery, _ib._; irony, 105; not an expositor, 115;\nrelation to Sophists, _ib._; Aristippus student of, 124; criticises\nAntisthenes, 129; Plato pupil of, 134; dialogue concerning, 136;\nconversation of Diotima with, 137; in _Republic_, 146\n\nSocratics, complete and incomplete, 103; incomplete, 125, 128\n\nSolon, Plato descended from, 134; praised, 140\n\nSophists, 82; name first used by Protagoras, 85; influence of, on\npolitics, 88, 97; refuted by the arts, 111; relation to Socrates, 115;\nPlatonic dialogues on, 136; dialogue so named, 159\n\nSoul of all things, 6; a fiery exhalation, 18; God soul of the world,\n27; soul realised in body, _ib._; soul double, 28; triple, 28, 169;\nlife of soul a harmony, 29; composed of finest atoms, 78; even that of\nuniverse, 80; loss of one's soul, 150; world-soul the first creation,\n151; divisions of, 169; an entelechy, 203; definition of, 204; _v._\nbody, 205; Epicurean theory of, 220\n\nSpace, existence prior to, 37, 167; unthinkable except with reference\nto body, 75\n\nSparta, ideas from, in _Republic_, 148; influence on Plato's Laws, 160\n\nSpecies, has more of existence than genus, 183\n\nSpeusippus, successor of Plato, 172\n\nStagira, birthplace of Aristotle, 172\n\nState, Justice writ large in, 147; classes in, 169; an entelechy, 196\n\nStatesman (or Politicus), dialogue, 159\n\nStoicism, Semitic element in, 228; origin of name, 229\n\nStrife, original of things, 17; one of two principles, 38, 63\n\nSubstance defined, 203\n\nSulla, brought Aristotle's library to Rome, 176\n\nSummum bonum, what? 156; relation of man's perfection, 168; philosophy\nsearch for, 229\n\nSymposium, dialogue, 137\n\n\nTabula rasa, Stoic theory of, 231\n\nTarsus, birthplace of St. Paul and (possibly) of Chrysippus, 229\n\nTemperance, treated of in _Charmides_, 136; fairest sort of wisdom, 139\n\nThales, 2\n\nTheaetetus, quoted from, 89; dialogue, 159\n\nTheophrastus, successor of Aristotle, 175\n\nThings, in themselves, how known? 158; partake in the idea, 164; _v._\nPropositions, 189\n\nThought, of God, 150; ideal elements in, 152; of God, source of\nreality, 164; relation to matter, 184; of God, eternally existing in\nideas,  187; an entelechy, 188; without desire, no motive, 191; arms\nof, 198; only converted sensation, 223\n\nThucydides, quoted, 97\n\nThurii, code for, drawn up by Protagoras, 86\n\nTimaeus, dialogue, 150\n\nTime, brings its revenges, 8; plays with the dice, 20; existence prior\nto, 37, 168\n\nTortoise, see _Achilles_\n\nTransmigration of souls, 27, 73\n\nTruth, first duty of man, 29 senses give no absolute, 80; title of work\nby Protagoras, 86; man measure of, 87; abstract truth impossible,\n_ib._; dialogue concerning, 137\n\nTyranny, in politics and in philosophy, 83\n\n\nUltimately, significance of word, 190\n\nUnity, _v._ Multiplicity, 28; of objects only apparent, 76; no absolute\nunity either of body or soul, 138; analysis of, 159; in thoughts of\nGod, 164\n\nUniversal, _v._ Particular, 48; _v._ Individual, 99; search after lost,\n105, 163; three forms, Justice, Beauty, Utility, 110; cannot belong to\nsense, 163; knowledge of, function of philosophy, 180; does not exist\napart from particulars, 181; has less of existence than particulars,\n183; they are not antithetical, 189\n\nUniverse, the self-picturing of God, 27; mechanical theory of, 56;\nideal working in, 112; origin of, 151, 165, 200, 216, 232\n\nUtility, relation to Justice, 120; philosophy does not seek, 178\n\n\nVirtue, teachable through persuasion, 88; is knowledge, 112, 118;\nteachable through training, 131; sufficient for happiness, _ib._;\nteachableness of, 136, 191; immortal product of soul, 139; a habit,\n195; a mean, _ib._; Reason standard of, 196; alone absolutely good, 238\n\nVoid, existence of, 75; proofs of, 219\n\n\nWater, beginning of things, 4\n\nWeeping philosopher, 20; _v._ laughing philosopher, 74\n\nWisdom, persuasion only true, 88; moderate indulgence, 126; a weaning\nof soul from pleasure, 131; temperance and justice the fairest, 139;\nheavenly and earthly, 148; Is it chief good? 156; Divine wisdom\ngovernor, 157; Aristotle's definition of, 180\n\nWise man, personification of reason, 196\n\nWithdrawal, Stoic name for suicide, 241\n\nWorld, a living creature, 27; why did God make? 190\n\n\nXenocrates, academic philosopher, 172\n\nXenophanes, 31, 48\n\nXenophon, quoted, 116\n\nXerxes, invasion of, 52\n\n\nZeno, the Eleatic, 42; the Stoic, 238","title":"A Short History of Greek Philosophy","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":60703}