[The remaining two books of the treatise known by the title ‘De Cœlo,’ while connected with the foregoing, are still more closely connected with the two Books composing the treatise entitled ‘De Generatione et Corruptione.’ The discussion carried on throughout the two treatises is in truth one; but, if anywhere broken, it is at the end of Book II. De Cœlo, as above. From this point Aristotle proceeds to consider (in four Books) the particular phenomena presented by natural bodies — phenomena of Generation and Destruction (in the widest sense of these words) — dependent on the opposition of the upward and downward motions; bodies, thus light or heavy, being thence seen to be ultimately reducible to four elements variously combined. Treating of the Kosmos in its larger aspects, the first two Books of De Cœlo, here abstracted, are obviously those that alone correspond strictly to the name of the treatise.]
Our information from Epikurean writers respecting the doctrines of their sect is much less copious than that which we possess from Stoic writers in regard to Stoic opinions. We have no Epikurean writer on philosophy except Lucretius; whereas respecting the Stoical creed under the Roman Empire, the important writings of Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoninus, afford most valuable evidence.
The standard of Virtue and Vice is referred by Epikurus to Pleasure and Pain. Pain is the only evil, Pleasure is the only good. Virtue is no end in itself, to be sought; vice is no end in itself, to be avoided. The motive for cultivating virtue and banishing vice arises from the consequences of each, as the means of multiplying pleasures and averting or lessening pains. But to the attainment of this purpose, the complete supremacy of Reason is indispensable; in order that we may take a right comparative measure of the varieties of pleasure and pain, and pursue the course that promises the least amount of suffering.
This theory (taken in its most general sense, and apart from differences in the estimation of particular pleasures and pains), had been proclaimed long before the time of Epikurus. It is one of the various theories of Plato; for in his dialogue called Protagoras (though in other dialogues he reasons differently) we find it explicitly set forth and elaborately vindicated by his principal spokesman, Sokrates, against the Sophist Protagoras. It was also held by Aristippus (companion of Sokrates along with Plato) and by his followers after him, called the Kyrenaics. Lastly, it was maintained by Eudoxus, one of the most estimable philosophers contemporary with Aristotle. Epikurus was thus in no way the originator of the theory; but he had his own way of conceiving it, his own body of doctrine physical, cosmological, and theological, with which it was implicated, and his own comparative valuation of pleasures and pains.
Bodily feeling, in the Epikurean psychology, is prior in order of time to the mental element; the former is primordial, while the latter is derived from it by repeated processes of memory and association. But, though such is the order of sequence and generation, yet when we compare the two as constituents of happiness to the formed man, the mental element much outweighs the bodily, both as pain and as pleasure. Bodily pain or pleasure exists only in the present; when not felt, it is nothing. But mental feelings involve memory and hope, embrace the past as well as the future, endure for a long time, and may be recalled or put out of sight, to a great degree, at our discretion.
This last point is one of the most remarkable features of the Epikurean mental discipline. Epikurus deprecated the general habit of mankind in always hankering after some new satisfaction to come; always discontented with the present, and oblivious of past comforts as if they had never been. These past comforts ought to be treasured up by memory and reflection, so that they might become as it were matter for rumination, and might serve, in trying moments, even to counterbalance extreme physical suffering. The health of Epikurus himself was very bad during the closing years of his life. There remains a fragment of his last letter, to an intimate friend and companion, Idomeneus:— “I write this to you on the last day of my life, which, in spite of the severest internal bodily pains, is still a happy day, because I set against them in the balance all the mental pleasure felt in the recollection of my past conversations with you. Take care of the children left by Metrodorus, in a manner worthy of your demeanour from boyhood towards me and towards philosophy.� Bodily pain might thus be alleviated, when it occurred; it might be greatly lessened in occurrence, by prudent and moderate habits; lastly, even at the worst, if violent, it never lasted long; if not violent, it might be patiently borne, and was at any rate terminated, or terminable at pleasure, by death.
In the view of Epikurus, the chief miseries of life arose, not from bodily pains, but partly from delusions of hope and exaggerated aspirations for wealth, honours, power, &c., in all which the objects appeared most seductive from adistance, inciting man to lawless violence and treachery, while in the reality they were always disappointments and generally something worse; partly, and still more, from the delusions of fear. Of this last sort, were the two greatest torments of human existence — fear of Death and of eternal suffering after death, as announced by prophets and poets, and fear of the Gods. Epikurus, who did not believe in the continued existence of the soul separate from the body, declared that there could never be any rational ground for fearing death, since it was simply a permanent extinction of consciousness. Death was nothing to us (he said): when death comes,weare no more, either to suffer or to enjoy. Yet it was the groundless fear of this nothing that poisoned all the tranquillity of life, and held men imprisoned even when existence was a torment. Whoever had surmounted that fear was armed at once against cruel tyranny and against all the gravest misfortunes. Next, the fear of the gods was not less delusive, and hardly less tormenting, than the fear of death. It was a capital error (Epikurus declared) to suppose that the gods employed themselves as agents in working or superintending the march of the Kosmos; or in conferring favour on some men, and administering chastisement to others. The vulgar religious tales, which represented them in this character, were untrue and insulting as regards the gods themselves, and pregnant with perversion and misery as regards the hopes and fears of mankind. Epikurus believed sincerely in the gods; reverenced them as beings at once perfectly happy, immortal, and unchangeable; and took delight in the public religious festivals and ceremonies. But it was inconsistent with these attributes, and repulsive to his feelings of reverence, to conceive them as agents. The idea of agency is derived from human experience: we, as agents, act with a view to supply some want, to fulfil some obligation, to acquire some pleasure, to accomplish some object desired but not yet attained — in short, to fill up one or other of the many gaps in our imperfect happiness: the gods alreadyhaveall that agents strive to get, and more than agents ever do get; their condition is one not of agency, but of tranquil, self-sustaining, fruition. Accordingly, Epikurus thought (as Aristotle1had thought before him) that the perfect, eternal, and imperturbable well-being and felicity of the gods excluded the supposition of their being agents. He looked upon them as types of that unmolested safety and unalloyed satisfaction which was what he understood by pleasure or happiness, as objects of reverential envy, whose sympathy he was likely to obtain by assimilating his own temper and condition to theirs as far as human circumstances allowed.
1Aristot. De CÅ“lo, II. xii. p. 292, a. 22-b. 7: ἔοικε γὰρ τῷ μὲν ἄριστα ἔχοντι ὑπάρχειν τὸ εὖ ἄνευ πράξεως, τῷ δ’ ἐγγύτατα διὰ ὀλίγης καὶ μιᾶς, τοῖς δὲ ποῤῥωτάτω διὰ πλειόνων, — τῷ δ’ ὡς ἄριστα ἔχοντι οὐθὲν δεῖ πράξεως· ἔστι γὰρ αὐτὸ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα, ἡ δὲ πρᾶξις ἀεί ἐστιν ἐν δυσίν, ὅταν καὶ οὗ ἕνεκα ᾖ καὶ τὸ τούτου ἕνεκα. &c. Ibid. iii. p. 286, a. 9: θεοῦ δ’ ἐνέργεια ἀθανασία· τοῦτο δ’ ἐστὶ ζωὴ ἀΐδος, &c.In the Ethica, Aristotle assigns theorizing contemplation to the gods, as the only process worthy of their exalted dignity and supreme felicity.
1Aristot. De CÅ“lo, II. xii. p. 292, a. 22-b. 7: ἔοικε γὰρ τῷ μὲν ἄριστα ἔχοντι ὑπάρχειν τὸ εὖ ἄνευ πράξεως, τῷ δ’ ἐγγύτατα διὰ ὀλίγης καὶ μιᾶς, τοῖς δὲ ποῤῥωτάτω διὰ πλειόνων, — τῷ δ’ ὡς ἄριστα ἔχοντι οὐθὲν δεῖ πράξεως· ἔστι γὰρ αὐτὸ τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα, ἡ δὲ πρᾶξις ἀεί ἐστιν ἐν δυσίν, ὅταν καὶ οὗ ἕνεκα ᾖ καὶ τὸ τούτου ἕνεκα. &c. Ibid. iii. p. 286, a. 9: θεοῦ δ’ ἐνέργεια ἀθανασία· τοῦτο δ’ ἐστὶ ζωὴ ἀΐδος, &c.
In the Ethica, Aristotle assigns theorizing contemplation to the gods, as the only process worthy of their exalted dignity and supreme felicity.
These theological views were placed by Epikurus in the foreground of his ethical philosophy, as the only means of dispellingthose fears of the godsthat the current fables instilled into every one, and that did so much to destroy human comfort and security. He proclaimed that beings in immortal felicity neither suffered vexation in themselves nor caused vexation to others; neither showed anger nor favour to particular persons. The doctrine that they were the working managers in the affairs of the Kosmos, celestial and terrestrial, human and extra-human, he not only repudiated as incompatible with their attributes, but declared to be impious, considering the disorder, sufferings, and violence, everywhere visible. He disallowed all prophecy, divination, and oracular inspiration, by which the public around him believed that the gods were perpetually communicating special revelations to individuals, and for which Sokrates had felt so peculiarly thankful.
It is remarkable that Stoics and Epikureans, in spite of their marked opposition in dogma or theory, agreed so far in practical results, that both declared these two modes of uneasiness (fear of the gods and fear of death) to be the great torments of human existence, and both strove to remove or counterbalance them.
So far the teaching of Epikurus appears confined to the separate happiness of each individual, as dependent upon his own prudence, sobriety, and correct views of Nature. But this is not the whole of the Epikurean Ethics. The system also considered each man as in companionship with others: the precepts were shaped accordingly, first as to Justice, next as to Friendship. In both, these, the foundation whereon Epikurus built was Reciprocity — not pure sacrifice to others, but partnership with others, beneficial to all. He kept the ideas of self and of others inseparably knit together in one complexassociation: he did not expel or degrade either, in order to give exclusive ascendancy to the other. The dictate of Natural Justice was, that no man should hurt another: each was bound to abstain from doing harm to others; each, on this condition, was entitled to count on security and relief from the fear that others would do harm to him. Such double aspect, or reciprocity, was essential to social companionship: those that could not, or would not, accept this covenant, were unfit for society. If a man does not behave justly towards others, he cannot expect that they will behave justly towards him; to live a life of injustice, and expect that others will not find it out, is idle. The unjust man cannot enjoy a moment of security. Epikurus laid it down explicitly, that just and righteous dealing was the indispensable condition to every one’s comfort, and was the best means of attaining it.
The reciprocity of Justice was valid towards all the world; the reciprocity of Friendship went much farther: it involved indefinite and active beneficence, but could reach only to a select few. Epikurus insisted emphatically on the value of friendship, as a means of happiness to both the persons so united. He declared that a good friend was another self, and that friends ought to be prepared, in case of need, to die for each other. Yet he declined to recommend an established community of goods among the members of his fraternity, as prevailed in the Pythagorean brotherhood: for such an institution (he said) implied mistrust. He recommended efforts to please and to serve, and a forwardness to give, for the purpose of gaining and benefiting a friend, and he even declared that there was more pleasure in conferring favours than in receiving them; but he was no less strenuous in inculcating an intelligent gratitude on the receiver. No one except a wise man (he said) knew how to return a favour properly.2
2Seneca, Epist. p. 81.
2Seneca, Epist. p. 81.
These exhortations to active friendship were not unfruitful. We know, even by the admission of witnesses adverse to the Epikurean doctrines, that the harmony among the members of the sect, with common veneration for the founder, was more marked and more enduring than that exhibited by any of the other philosophical sects. Epikurus himself was a man of amiable personal qualities: his testament, still remaining, shows an affectionate regard both for his surviving friends, and for the permanent attachment of each to the others as well as of all to the school. Diogenes Laertius tells us — nearly 200 years after Christ, and 450 years after the death of Epikurus — that the Epikurean sect still continued its numbers and dignity, having outlasted its contemporaries and rivals. The harmony among the Epikureans may be explained, not merely from the temper of the master, but partly from the doctrines and plan of life that he recommended. Ambition and love of power were discouraged; rivalry among the members for success, either political or rhetorical, was at any rate a rare exception; all were taught to confine themselves to that privacy of life and love of philosophical communion which alike required and nourished the mutual sympathies of the brotherhood. In regard to politics, Epikurus advised quiet submission to established authority, without active meddling beyond what necessity required.
Virtue and happiness, in the theory of Epikurus, were inseparable. A man could not be happy until he had surmounted the fear of death and the fear of gods instilled by the current fables, which disturbed all tranquillity of mind; until he had banished those factitious desires that pushed him into contention for wealth, power, or celebrity; nor unless he behaved with justice to all, and with active devoted friendship towards a few. Such a mental condition, which he thought it was in every man’s power to acquire by appropriate teaching and companionship, constituted virtue; and was the sure as well as the only precursor of genuine happiness. A mind thus undisturbed and purified was sufficient to itself. The mere satisfaction of the wants of life, and the conversation of friends, became then felt pleasures: if more could be had without preponderant mischief, so much the better; but Nature, disburthened of her corruptions and prejudices, required no more to be happy. This at least was as much as the conditions of humanity admitted: a tranquil, undisturbed, innocuous, non-competitive fruition, which approached most nearly to the perfect happiness of the Gods.
When we read the explanations given by Epikurus and Lucretius of what the Epikurean theory really was, and compare them with the numerous attacks upon it made by opponents, we cannot but remark that the title and formula of the theory was ill-chosen, and really a misnomer. What Epikurus meant by Pleasure was not what most people meant by it, but something very different — a tranquil and comfortable state of mind and body; much the same as what Demokritus had expressed before him by the phrase εὐθυμία. This last phrase would have expressed what Epikurusaimed at, neither more nor less. It would at least have preserved his theory from much misplaced sarcasm and aggressive rhetoric.
The Physics of Epikurus was borrowed in the main from the atomic theory of Demokritus, but modified by him in a manner subservient and contributory to his ethical scheme. To that scheme it was essential that those celestial, atmospheric, or terrestrial phenomena which the public around him ascribed to agency and purposes of the gods, should be understood as being produced by physical causes. An eclipse, an earthquake, a storm, a shipwreck, unusual rain or drought, a good or a bad harvest — and not merely these, but many other occurrences far smaller and more unimportant, as we may see by the eighteenth chapter of the ‘Characters’ of Theophrastus — were then regarded as visitations of the gods, requiring to be interpreted by recognized prophets, and to be appeased by ceremonial expiations. When once a man became convinced that all these phenomena proceeded from physical agencies, a host of terrors and anxieties would disappear from the mind; and this Epikurus asserted to be the beneficent effect and real recommendation of physical philosophy. He took little or no thought for scientific curiosity as a motiveper se, which both Demokritus and Aristotle put so much in the foreground.
He composed a treatise called ‘Kanonicon’ (now lost), which seems to have been a sort of Logic of Physics — a summary of the principles of evidence. In his system, Psychology was to a great extent a branch — though a peculiar and distinct branch — of Physics, since the soul was regarded as a subtle but energetic material compound (air, vapour, heat, and another nameless ingredient), with its best parts concentrated in the chest, yet pervading and sustaining the whole body — still, however, depending for its support on the body, and incapable of separate or disembodied continuance.
Epikurus recognized, as the primordial basis of the universe, Atoms, Vacuum, and Motion. The atoms were material solidminima, each too small to be apprehended separately by sense; they had figure, magnitude, and gravity, but no other qualities. They were infinite in number, and ever moving in an infinite vacuum. Their motions brought them into various coalitions and compounds, resulting in the perceptible bodies of nature; each of which in its combined state acquired new, specific, different qualities. In regard to the primordial movements of the atoms, out of which these endowed compounds grew, Epikurus differed from Demokritus who supposed the atoms originally to move with an indefinite variety of directions and velocities, rotatory as well as rectilineal; whereas Epikurus maintained that the only original movement common to all atoms was one and the same — in the direction of gravity straight down, and all with equal velocity in the infinite void. But it occurred to him that, upon this hypothesis only, there could never occur any collisions or combinations of the atoms — nothing but continued and unchangeable parallel lines. Accordingly he modified it by saying that the line of descent was not strictly rectilinear, but that each atom deflected a little from the straight line, each in its own direction and degree; so that it became possible to assume collisions, resiliences, adhesions, combinations, among them, as it had been possible under the variety of original movements ascribed to them by Demokritus. The opponents of Epikurus derided this auxiliary hypothesis, affirming that he invented the individual deflection of each atom without assigning any cause, and only because he was perplexed by the mystery of man’s freewill. But Epikurus was not more open to attack on this ground than other physical philosophers. Most of them (except perhaps the most consistent of the Stoic fatalists) believed that some among the phenomena of the universe occurred in regular and predictable sequence, while others were essentially irregular and unpredictable: each philosopher devised his hypothesis, and recognized some fundamental principle, to explain the latter class of phenomena as well as the former; thus, Plato admitted an invincible erratic necessity, Aristotle introduced Chance and Spontaneity, Demokritus multiplied indefinitely the varieties of atomic movements. The hypothetical deflection alleged by Epikurus was his way, not more unwarranted than the others, of providing a fundamental principle for the unpredictable phenomena of the universe. Among these are the volitional manifestations of men and animals; but there are many others besides, and there is no ground for believing that what is called the mystery of Free-Will (i. e., the question whether volition is governed by motives, acting upon a given state of the mind and body) was at all peculiarly present to his mind. Whatever theory may be adopted on this point, it is certain that the movements of an individual man or animal are not exclusively determined by the general law of gravitation, or by another cause extrinsic to himself; butto a great degree by his own separate volition, which is often imperfectly knowable beforehand and therefore not predictable. For these and many other phenomena, Epikurus provided a fundamental principle in his supplementary hypothesis of atomic deflection; and indeed not for these only, but also for the questions of opponents, how there could ever be any coalition between the atoms, if all followed only one single law of movement — rectilineal descent with equal velocity. Epikurus rejected the inexorable and all-comprehensive fatalism contained in the theories of some Stoics, though seemingly not construed in its full application even by them. He admitted a limited range of empire to Chance, or phenomena essentially irregular. But he maintained that the will, far from being among the phenomena essentially irregular, is under the influence of motives; for no man can insist more strenuously than he does (see the letter to Menœkeus) on the complete power of philosophy — if the student could be made to feel its necessity and desire the attainment of it, so as to meditate and engrain within himself sound views about the gods, death, and human life generally — to mould our volitions and character in a manner conformable to the exigencies of virtue and happiness.
All true belief, according to Epikurus, rested ultimately upon the impressions of sense, upon our internal feelings, and upon our correct apprehension of the meaning of terms. He did not suppose the significance of language to come by convention, but to be an inspiration of Nature, different among different people. The facts of sense were in themselves beyond all question. But truth, though founded upon these evidences, included various inferences, more than sense could directly testify. Even the two capital points of the Epikurean physical philosophy — Atoms and Void — were inferences from sense, and not capable of direct attestation. It was in these inferences, and in the superstructure built upon sense, that error was so frequently imposed upon us. We ought to test all affirmations or dogmas by the evidence of sensible phenomena; looking therein, if possible, for some positive grounds in support of them, but at any rate assuring ourselves that there were no grounds in contradiction of them, or, if there were such, rejecting the dogmas at once. Out of the particular impressions of sense, when often repeated, remembered, and compared, there grew certain general notions or anticipations (προλήψεις), which were applied to interpret or illustrate any new case when it arose. These general notions were not inborn or intuitive, but gradually formed (as Aristotle and the Stoics also conceived them) out of frequent remembrances and association.
Besides those conclusions which could be fully proved by the evidentiary data just enumerated, Epikurus recognized admissible hypotheses, which awaited farther evidence confirmative or refutative (τὸ πρόσμενον), and also other matters occult or as yet unexplained (τὰ ἄδηλα). Along with the intermediate or half-explained class, he reckoned those in which plurality of causes was to be invoked. A given effect might result from any one out of two, three, or more different causes, and there was often no counter-evidence of sense to exclude either of them in any particular case. This plural explanation (τὸ πλεοναχῶς) was not so complete or satisfactory as the singular (τὸ μοναχῶς); but it was often the best that we could obtain, and was quite sufficient, by showing a possible physical agency, to rescue the mind from those terrors of ignorance, which drove men to imagine visitations of the gods.
Epikurus agreed with Demokritus in believing that external objects produced their impressions on our senses by projecting thin images, outlines of their own shapes. He thought that the air was peopled with such images, which passed through it and still more through the infinite vacuum beyond it with prodigious velocity. Many of them became commingled, dissipated, recombined, during the transit, so that, when they reached us, the impressions produced were not conformable to any real object; hence the phenomena of dreams, madness, and the various delusions of waking men.
In setting forth the criterion of truth, Epikurus insisted chiefly upon the fundamental groundwork — particular facts of sense, as the data for proving or disproving general affirmations; and he had the merit of calling attention to refutative data as well as to probative. But, respecting the process of passing from these particulars to true generalities and avoiding the untrue, we can make out no clear idea from his writings that remain: his great work on Physical Philosophy is lost. It is certain that he disregarded the logical part of the process — the systematic study of propositions, and their relations of consistency with one another — which had made so prodigious a stride during his early years under Aristotle and Theophrastus. We can, indeed, detect in his remaining sentences one or two of those terms which Aristotle had stamped as technical in Logic; but he discouraged as useless all the verbal teaching and discussion of his day — all grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, beyond the lowest minimum. He disapproved of the poets as promulgators of mischievous fables and prejudices, the rhetoricians as furnishing weapons for the misleading career of political ambition, the dialecticians as wasting their time in useless puzzles. None of them were serviceable in promoting either the tranquillity of the mind, or the happiness of life, or the acquisition of truth. He himself composed a great number of treatises and epistles, on subjects of ethics and philosophy; but he is said to have written in haste, without taking time or trouble to correct his compositions. By the Alexandrine critic, Aristophanes of Byzantium, his style was censured as unpolished; yet it is declared to have been simple, unaffected, and easily understood. This last predicate is hardly applicable to the three epistles which alone remain from his pen; but those epistles are intended as brief abstracts of doctrine, on topics which he had already treated at length in formal works; and it is not easy to combine clearness with brevity.
The Stoics were one of the four sects of philosophy recognized and conspicuous at Athens during the three centuries preceding the Christian era and during the century or more following. Among these four sects, the most marked antithesis of ethical dogma was between the Stoics and the Epikureans.
The Stoics agreed with the Peripatetics (anterior to Epikurus, not specially againsthim) that the first principle of nature is (not pleasure or relief from pain, but) Self-preservation or Self-love; in other words, the natural appetite or tendency of all creatures is, to preserve their existing condition with its inherent capacities, and to keep clear of destruction or disablement. This appetite (they said) manifests itself in little children before any pleasure or pain is felt, and is moreover a fundamental postulate, pre-supposed in all desires of particular pleasures, as well as in all aversions to particular pains. We begin by loving our own vitality; and we come, by association, to love what promotes or strengthens our vitality; we hate destruction or disablement, and come (by secondary association) to hate whatever produces that effect.
This doctrine associated, and brought under one view, what was common to man not merely with the animal, but also with the vegetable world; a plant was declared to have an impulse or tendency to maintain itself, without feeling pain or pleasure. Aristotle (in the tenth Book of the Ethica) says that he will not determine whether we love life for the sake of pleasure, or pleasure for the sake of life; for he affirms the two to be essentially yoked together and inseparable: pleasure is the consummation of our vital manifestations. The Peripatetics, after him, put pleasure down to a lower level, as derivative and accidental. The Stoics went farther in the same direction — possibly from antithesis against the growing school of Epikurus.
The primaryofficium(in a larger sense than our word duty) of man is (they said) to keep himself in the State of Nature; the second or derivativeofficiumis to keep to such things as are according to nature, and to avert those that are contrary to nature; our gradually increasing experience enables as to discriminate the two. The youth learns, as he grows up, to value bodily accomplishments, mental cognitions and judgments, good conduct towards those around him, — as powerful aids towards keeping up that state of nature. When his experience is so far enlarged as to make him aware of the order and harmony of nature and human society, and to impress upon him the comprehension of this greatidéal, his emotions as well as his reason becomes absorbed by it. He recognizes this as the only true Bonum or Honestum, to which all other desirable things are referable; as the only thing desirable for itself and in its own nature. He drops or dismisses all theseprima naturæthat he had begun by desiring. He no longer considers any of them as worthy of being desired in itself, or for its own sake.
While, therefore, (according to Peripatetics as well as Stoics) the love of self and of preserving one’s own vitality and activity is the primary element, intuitive and connate, to which all rational preference (officium) was at first referred, they thought it not the less true that in process of time, by experience, association, and reflection, there grows up in the mind a grand acquired sentiment or notion, a new and later light, which extinguishes and puts out of sight the early beginning. It was important to distinguish the feeble and obscure elements from the powerful and brilliant after-growth; which indeed was fully realized only in chosen minds, and in them hardly before old age. This idea, when once formed in the mind, was The Good — the only thing worthy of desire for its own sake. The Stoics called it the only good, being sufficient in itself for happiness; other things being not good, nor necessary to happiness, but simply preferable or advantageous when they could be had: the Peripatetics recognized it as the first and greatest good, but said also that it was not sufficient in itself; there were two other inferior varieties of good, of which something must be had as complementary(what the Stoics calledpræpositaorsumenda).1Thus the Stoics said about the origin of the Idea of Bonum or Honestum, much the same as what Aristotle says about ethical Virtue. It is not implanted in us by nature; but we have at birth certain initial tendencies and capacities, which, if aided by association and training, enable us (and that not in all cases) to acquire it.
1Aristotle and the Peripatetics held that there weretria genera bonorum: (1) Those of the mind (mens sana); (2) Those of the body; and (3) External advantages. The Stoics altered this theory by saying that only the first of the three wasbonum; the others were merelypræpositaorsumenda. The opponents of the Stoics contended that this was an alteration in words rather than in substance.The earlier Stoics laid it down that there were no graduating marks below the level of wisdom: all shortcomings were on a par. Good was a point, Evil was a point; there were gradations in thepræpositaorsumenda(none of which were good), and in therejectaorrejicienda(none of which were evil), but there was no more or less good.
1Aristotle and the Peripatetics held that there weretria genera bonorum: (1) Those of the mind (mens sana); (2) Those of the body; and (3) External advantages. The Stoics altered this theory by saying that only the first of the three wasbonum; the others were merelypræpositaorsumenda. The opponents of the Stoics contended that this was an alteration in words rather than in substance.
The earlier Stoics laid it down that there were no graduating marks below the level of wisdom: all shortcomings were on a par. Good was a point, Evil was a point; there were gradations in thepræpositaorsumenda(none of which were good), and in therejectaorrejicienda(none of which were evil), but there was no more or less good.
A distinction was made by Epictetus and other Stoics between things in our power and things not in our power. In our power are our opinions and notions about objects, and all our affections, desires, and aversions: not in our power are our bodies, wealth, honour, rank, authority, &c., and their opposites; though, in regard to these last, it is in our power tothinkof them as unimportant. With this distinction we may connect the arguments between the Stoics and their opponents as to what is now called the Freedom of the Will. But we must first begin by distinguishing the two questions. By things in our power, the Stoics meant things that we could do or acquire if we willed: by things not in our power, they meant things that we could not do or acquire if we willed. In both cases, the volition was assumed as a fact: the question what determined it, or whether it was non-determined,i. e., self-determining, was not raised in the antithesis. But it was raised in other discussions between the Stoic theorist Chrysippus, and various opponents. These opponents denied that volition was determined by motives, and cited the cases of equal conflicting motives (what is known as the Ass of Buridan) as proving that the soul includes in itself, and exerts, a special supervenient power of deciding action in one way or the other — a power not determined by any causal antecedent, but self-originating, and belonging to the class of agency that Aristotle recognizes under the denomination of automatic, spontaneous (or essentially irregular and unpredictable). Chrysippus replied by denying not only the reality of this supervenient force said to be inherent in the soul, but also the reality of all that Aristotle called automatic or spontaneous agency generally. Chrysippus said that every movement was determined by antecedent motives; that in cases of equal conflict the exact equality did not long continue, because some new but slight motive slipped in unperceived and turned the scale on one side or the other.2Here, we see, the question now known as the Freedom of the Will is discussed, and Chrysippus declares against freedom, affirming that volition is always determined by motives.
2See Plutarch, De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, xxiii. p. 1045.
2See Plutarch, De Stoicorum Repugnantiis, xxiii. p. 1045.
But we also see that, while declaring this opinion, Chrysippus does not employ the terms Necessity or Freedom of the Will; neither did his opponents, so far as we can see: they had a different and less misleading phrase. By freedom, Chrysippus and the Stoics meant the freedom of doing what a man willed, if he willed it. A man is free as to the thing that is in his power, when he wills it: he is not free as to what is not in his power, under the same supposition. The Stoics laid great stress on this distinction. They pointed out how much it is really in a man’s power to transform or discipline his own mind — in the way of controlling or suppressing some emotions, generating or encouraging others, forming new intellectual associations, &c.; how much a man could do in these ways, if he willed it, and if he went through the lessons, habits of conduct, andmeditations, suitable to produce such an effect. The Stoics strove to create in a man’s mind the volitions appropriate for such mental discipline, by depicting the beneficial consequences resulting from it, and the misfortune and shame inevitable, if the mind were not so disciplined. Their purpose was to strengthen the governing reason of his mind, and to enthrone it as a fixed habit and character, which would control by counter suggestions the impulse arising at each special moment — particularly all disturbing terrors or allurements. This, in their view, is a free mind; not one wherein volition is independent of all motive, but one wherein the susceptibility to different motives is tempered by an ascendant reason, so as to give predominance to the better motive against the worse. One of the strongest motives that they endeavoured to enforce, was the prudence and dignity of bringing our volitions into harmony with the schemes of Providence; which (they said) were always arranged with a view to the happiness ofthe Kosmos on the whole. The bad man, whose volitions conflict with these schemes, is always baulked of his expectations, and brought at last against his will to see things carried by an over-ruling force, with aggravated pain and humiliation to himself: while the good man, who resigns himself to them from the first, always escapes with less pain, and often without any at all. As a portion of their view concerning Providence it may here be mentioned that the earlier Stoics, Zeno and Chrysippus, entertained high reverence for the divination, prophecy, and omens that were generally current in the ancient world. They considered that these were the methods whereby the gods were graciously pleased to make known beforehand revelations of their foreordained purposes. Herein lay one among the marked points of contrast between Stoics and Epikureans.
We have thus seen that in regard to the doctrine called in modern times the Freedom of the Will (i.e., that volitions are self-originating and unpredictable), the Stoic theorists not only denied it, but framed all their Ethics upon the assumption of the contrary. This same assumption of the contrary, indeed, was made also by Sokrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Epikurus; in short, by all the ethical teachers of antiquity. All of them believed that volitions depended on causes; that, under the ordinary conditions of men’s minds, the causes that volitions generally depended upon are often misleading and sometimes ruinous; but that, by proper stimulation from without and meditation within, the rational causes of volition might be made to overrule the impulsive. Plato, Aristotle, Epikurus, not less than the Stoics, wished to create new fixed habits and a new type of character. They differed, indeed, on the question what the proper type of character was; but each of them aimed at the same general end — a new type of character, regulating the grades of susceptibility to different motives. And the purpose of all and each of these moralists precludes the theory of free-will,i.e., the theory that our volitions are self-originating and unpredictable.
While the Epikureans declined, as much as possible, interference in public affairs, the Stoic philosophers urged men to the duties of active citizenship.3Chrysippus even said that the life of philosophical contemplation (such as Aristotle preferred and accounted godlike) was to be placed on the same level with the life of pleasure; though Plutarch observes that neither Chrysippus nor Zeno ever meddled personally with any public duty: both of them passed their lives in lecturing and writing. The truth is that both of them were foreigners residing at Athens, and at a time when Athens was dependent on foreign princes. Accordingly, neither Zeno nor Chrysippus had any sphere of political action open to them: they were, in this respect, like Epictetus afterwards, but in a position quite different from Seneca, the preceptor of Nero, who might hope to influence the great imperial power of Rome, and from Marcus Antoninus, who held that imperial power in his own hands.
3Tacitus says of the Stoics (Ann. xiv. 57): ‘Stoicorum secta, quæ turbidos et negotiorum appetentes facit.’
3Tacitus says of the Stoics (Ann. xiv. 57): ‘Stoicorum secta, quæ turbidos et negotiorum appetentes facit.’
Marcus Antoninus — not only a powerful emperor, but also the most gentle and amiable man of his day — talks of active beneficence both as a duty and a satisfaction. But in the creed of the Stoics generally, active beneficence did not occupy a prominent place. They adopted the four Cardinal Virtues — Wisdom, or the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Justice, Fortitude, Temperance — as part of their plan of the virtuous life, the life according to Nature. Justice, as the social virtue, was placed above all the rest. But the Stoics were not strenuous in requiring more than Justice, for the benefit of others beside the agent. They even reckoned compassion for the sufferings of others as a weakness, analogous to envy for the good fortune of others.
The Stoic recognised the gods (or Universal Nature, equivalent expressions in his creed) as managing the affairs of the world, with a view to producing as much happiness as was attainable on the whole. Towards this end the gods did not want any positive assistance from him; but it was his duty and his strongest interest, to resign himself to their plans, and to abstain from all conduct tending to frustrate them. Such refractory tendencies were perpetually suggested to him by the unreasonable appetites, emotions, fears, antipathies, &c., of daily life; all claiming satisfaction at the expense of future mischief to himself and others. To countervail these misleading forces by means of a fixed rational character built up through meditation and philosophical teaching, was the grand purpose of the Stoic ethical creed. The emotional or appetitive self was to be starved or curbed, and retained only as an appendage to the rational self; an idea proclaimed before in general terms by Plato, but carried out into a system by the Stoics, though to a great extent also by the Epikureans.
The Stoic was taught to reflect howmuch that appears to be desirable, terror-striking, provocative, &c., is not really so, but is made to appear so by false and curable associations. And, while he thus discouraged those self-regarding emotions that placed him in hostility with others, he learnt to respect the self of another man as well as his own. Epictetus advises to deal mildly with a man that hurts us either by word or deed; and advises it upon the following very remarkable ground:— “Recollect that in what he says or does, he follows his own sense of propriety, not yours. He must do what appears to him right, not what appears to you: if he judges wrongly, it is he that is hurt, for he is the person deceived. Always repeat to yourself, in such a case: The man has acted on his own opinion.�
The reason here given by Epictetus is an instance, memorable in ethical theory, of respect for individual dissenting conviction, even in an extreme case; and it must be taken in conjunction with his other doctrine, that damage thus done to us unjustly is really little or no damage, except so far as we ourselves give pungency to it by our irrational susceptibilities and associations. We see that the Stoic submerges, as much as he can, the pre-eminence of his own individual self, and contemplates himself from the point of view of another, as only one among many. But he does not erect the happiness of others into a direct object of his own positive pursuit, beyond the reciprocities of family, citizenship, and common humanity. The Stoic theorists agreed with Epikurus in inculcating the reciprocities of Justice between all fellow-citizens; and they even went farther than he did, by extending the sphere of such duties beyond the limits of city, so as to comprehend all mankind. But as to the reciprocities of individual Friendship, Epikurus went beyond the Stoics in the amount of self-sacrifice and devotion that he enjoined for the benefit of a friend.
Abduction (Apagoge),202.
Abstract, and Concrete, appellatives not used by Aristotle,64.
Abstraction, belongs to the Noëtic function,486,487,492.
Absurdum,Reductio ad,seeReductio.
Accentuation, Fallacy of385; rare,408.
Accidens, Ensper&c.,seeAccident,Ens.
Accidentis Fallacia,386; not understood among Aristotle’s scientific contemporaries,390; how to solve,410.
Accident, Ens by,60,424,561,593; modern definition of62; an individual, allowed by Aristotle,63; no science of,98; one of the Predicables,276; thesis of, easiest to defend, hardest to upset,284,353; thirty-seven dialecticalLocibearing on,285seq.; why no science of,425,593,594; one, cannot be accident of another,586; opposed to the constant and the usual,594; Chance, principle or cause of,594;seeConcomitants.
Action (Agere), Category,65,73.
Actuality, as opposed to Potentiality,128,456,615seq.
Adoxa, opposed toEndoxa,269.
Æon, of the Heaven,636.
Æther, derivation of the name,632.
Affirmation, conjunction of predicate with subject,111; constituents of,118; ἐκ μεταθέσεως (Theophrastus),122,169.
Akroamatic books, opposed to Exoteric,50.
Alcuin, followed Aristotle on Universals,563.
Alexander of Macedon, taught by Aristotle from boyhood,5; came to the throne, and went on his first Persian expedition,6; his action towards Athens,8; correspondent, protector, patron, of Aristotle at Athens,7,8; later change in his character and alienation from Aristotle,9; his order for the recall of exiles throughout Greece,10; his death,7,12.
Alexandrine,literati, their knowledge of Aristotle,34,38,40,42.
Aliquid,Ad,seeRelation;Hoc, or the definite individual,seeEssence.
Alkmæon, his view of the soul,449.
Ammonius, put Relation above all the Categories,84; his opinion on last paragraph of De Interpretatione,134.
Amphiboly, Fallacy of,385; how to solve,407.
Amyntas, king of Macedon,2.
Analytica, referred to in Topica,56; presuppose contents of Categoriæ and De Interpretatione,56; terminology of, differs from that of De Interpretatione,141; purpose of,141.
Analytica Priora, different sections of Book I.,157,163; relation of the two books of,171.
Analytica Posteriora, applies Syllogism to Demonstration,142,207; relation of, to the Metaphysica,422.
Anaxagoras, doctrine of, inconsistent with Maxim of Contradiction,429,592; disregarded data of experience,436; his view of the soul,449; Maxim of Excluded Middle defended by Aristotle specially against,581; made intelligence dependent on sense,588; doctrine of, makes all propositions false,592; must yet admit an infinite number of true propositions,592; meant by his Unum — Ens Potentiâ, and thus got partial hold of the idea of Matter,620; in his doctrine of the Noûs, makes Actuality prior to Potentiality,623; declares Good to be the principle as Movent,628; called fire Æther,632; his reason for the stationariness of the Earth,649.
Anaximander, his reason for stationariness of the Earth,650.
Anaximenes, his reason for stationariness of the Earth,649.
Andronikus of Rhodes, source ofourAristotle,35; sorted and corrected the Aristotelian MSS. at Rome,37,39; Peripatetic Scholarch,39; difficulties of his task — the result appreciated,43; placed theological treatisesfirst,55; put Relation above all the Categories,84.
Animâ, Treatise de, referred to in the De Interpretatione,109.
Anonymus, his catalogue of Aristotle’s works, compared with that of Diogenes and with the extant works,29seq.
Antipater, friend and correspondent of Aristotle,7,8; victor in the Lamian war, occupied Athens,12; letter to, from Aristotle at Chalkis,16; letter of, in praise of Aristotle,16; executor under Aristotle’s Will,17.
Antiphasis, pair of contradictory opposites,111; rule of, as regards truth and falsity,112,113; made up of one affirmation and one negation corresponding,113; does not hold for events particular and future, because of irregularity in the Kosmos,113seq.; quaternions exhibiting each two related cases of,118seq.,170; forms of, in Modals,127; involves determination of quantity,135; not understood before Aristotle,136; the two members of, can neither be both true nor both false, argued at length by Aristotle in Metaph.Γ., ii.586-92.
Antisthenes, declared contradiction impossible,136,137; allowed definition only of compounds,611.
Antonius, Marcus, authority for Stoical creed,654; on active beneficence,662.
Apagoge(Abduction),202.
Apellikon, of Teos, a Peripatetic, bought Aristotle’s MSS., &c., from heirs of Neleus,36; exposed them at Athens and had copies taken,36; wrote a biography of Aristotle,37; library of, composite,43.
Aplanês, exterior sphere of the Kosmos,114,623.
Ἀπόφανσις, Enunciation, name for Proposition in De Interpretatione,141.
Appetite, the direct producing cause of movement in animals,492.
Archytas, madeHaberefifth Category,80.
Arguments, how to find, for different theses,157.
Arimnestus, brother of Aristotle,19.
Aristippus, anticipated Epikurus,654.
Aristomenes, friend of Aristotle,17.
Aristophanes, of Byzantium, arranged dialogues of Plato,34; on the style of Epikurus,658.
‘Aristoteles Pseudepigraphus,’ work by V. Rose,32.
Aristotle, birth and parentage,1,2; opportunities for physiological study,2; an orphan in youth, became ward of Proxenus,8; discrepant accounts as to his early life,3; medical practice,3; under Plato at Athens,4; went to Atarneus, on Plato’s death,4; married Pythias,5; driven out to Mitylene,5; invited by Philip of Macedon to become tutor to Alexander,5; life in Macedon,5; re-founded Stageira,6; taught in the Nymphæum of Mieza,6; returned to Athens, and set up his school in the Lykeium,7; lecturing and writing,7,25; correspondence,7; relation to Athenian polities,8; protected and patronized at Athens by Alexander and Antipater,8; in spite of estrangement between him and Alexander, regarded always as unfriendly to Athenian liberty,9,10; his relation to Nikanor, bearer of Alexander’s rescript to the Greek cities,11; indicted for impiety in his doctrines and his commemoration of the eunuch Hermeias,12,13; retired to Chalkis,14; died there, before he could return to Athens,15; wrote a defence against the charge of impiety,15; his judgment on Athens and Athenians,16; his person, habits, manners, &c.,16; his second wife, son, and daughter,17; last testament,17-19; his character as therein exhibited,19; reproaches against,20; his opposition to Plato misrepresented byPlatonists,20,21; a student and teacher of rhetoric,22; attacked Isokrates,24; assailed by three sets of enemies,26; difficulty in determining the Canon of his works as compared with Plato’s,27; extant works ascribed to,27; ancient authorities for his works,28; catalogue and extent of his works, according to Diogenes,29; according to Anonymus,29; the catalogues compared with each other, and with list of his extant works,29,30; ancient encomiums on his style,30; his principal works unknown to Cicero and others,31,40; dialogues and other works of, lost to us,31; works in the catalogue are declared by V. Rose not to belong to,32; different opinion of E. Heitz,32; allowance to be made for diversity of style, subject, &c., in the works of,33; works in the catalogue to be held as really composed by,34; extant works of, whence derived,35; fate of his library and MSS. on his death, till brought to Rome and cared for by Andronikus,35seq.; through Andronikus, became known as we know him,40; not thus known to the Alexandrine librarians,42; so-called Exoteric works of,44; his own use of the phrase “exoteric discourses,�46seq.; had not two doctrines — the Exoteric and Esoteric,52; the order of his extant works uncertain,54; his merit in noting equivocation of terms,57; not free from fascination by particularnumbers,74; first made logical analysis of Ens,97; first to treat Logic scientifically,130; what he did for theory of Proposition,136,139; claimed the theory of Syllogism as his own work,140,153,259,420; his expository manner, novel and peculiar,141; specialized the meaning of Syllogism,143; first to ask if a proposition could be converted,144; first used letters as symbols in exposition,148; proceeded upon, but modified, Platonic antithesis of Science and Opinion,207,264; specially claimed to be original in his theory of Dialectic,262,418; attended to current opinion, drew up list of proverbs,272,440; started in his philosophy from the common habit of speech,434,440; continued the work of Sokrates,439,441; devised a First Philosophy conformable to the habits of common speech, starting from the definite individual orHoc Aliquid,445; psychology of, must be compared with that of his predecessors,446; rejected all previous theories on Soul,452; advance made in the Ontology of,561; his view of pleasure,660; ethical purpose of,662.