It is, however, a matter of the deepest interest for us to find the evidence gleaming out here and there, on the pages of Aristotle, that he had some knowledge of the fact that the Pythagorean numbers were regarded assymbols. The "numbers" of Pythagoras are, in the mind of Aristotle, clearly identified with the "forms" of Plato. Now, in Chapter VI. of the First Book he says that Plato taught that these "forms" were παραδείγµατα--models, patterns, exemplars after which created things were framed. The numbers of Pythagoras, then, are also models and exemplars. This also is admitted by Aristotle. The Pythagoreans indeed affirm that entities subsist by animitation(µίµησις) of numbers.437Now if ideas, forms, numbers, were the models or paradigms after which "the Operator" formed all things, surely it can not be logical to say they were the "material" out of which all things were framed, much less the "efficient cause" of things. The most legitimate conclusion we can draw, even from the statements of Aristotle, is that the Pythagoreans regarded numbers as the best expression or representation of those laws of proportion, and order, and harmony, which seemed, to their eyes, to pervade the universe. Their doctrine was a faint glimpse of that grand discovery of modern science--that all the higher laws of nature assume the form of a precise quantitative statement.
Footnote 437:(return)Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. vi.
The fact seems to be this, the Pythagoreans busied themselves chiefly with what Aristotle designates "theformalcause," and gave little attention to the inquiry concerning "thematerialcause." This is admitted by Aristotle. Concerning fire, or earth, or the other bodies of such kind, they have declared nothing whatsoever, inasmuch as affirming, in my opinion, nothing that is peculiar concerningsensiblenatures.438They looked, as we have previously remarked, to the relations of phenomena, and having discovered certain "numerical similitudes," they imagined they had attained an universal principle, or law. "If all the essential properties and attributes of things were fully represented by the relations of numbers, the philosophywhich supplied such an explanation of the universe might well be excused from explaining, also, that existence of objects, which is distinct from the existence of all their qualities and properties. The Pythagorean doctrine of numbers might have been combined with the doctrine of atoms, and the combination might have led to results worthy of notice. But, so far as we are aware, no such combination was attempted, and perhaps we of the present day are only just beginning to perceive, through the disclosures of chemistry and crystallography, the importance of such an inquiry."439
Footnote 438:(return)Id., ib., bk. i. ch. ix.
Footnote 439:(return)Whewell's "History of Inductive Sciences," vol. i. p. 78.
These preliminary considerations will have cleared and prepared the way for a fuller presentation of the philosophic system of Pythagoras. The most comprehensive and satisfactory exposition of his "method" is that given by Wm Archer Butler in his "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," and we feel we can not do better than condense his pages.440
Footnote 440:(return)Lecture VI. vol. i.
Pythagoras had long devoted his intellectual adoration to the lofty idea oforder, which seemed to reveal itself to his mind, as the presiding genius of the serene and silent world. He had, from his youth, dwelt with delight upon the eternal relations of space, and determinate form, and number, in which the very idea ofproportionseems to find its first and immediate development, and without the latter of which (number), all proportion is absolutely inconceivable. To this ardent genius, whose inventive energies were daily adding new and surprising contributions to the sum of discoverable relations, it at length began to appear as if the whole secret of the universe was hidden in these mysterious correspondences.
In making this extensive generalization, Pythagoras may, on his known principles, be supposed to have reasoned as follows: The mind of man perceives the relations of an eternalorderin the proportions of space, and form, and number. That mind is, no doubt, a portion of the soul which animates and governs the universe; for on what other supposition shall we accountfor its internal principle of activity--the very principle which characterizes the prime mover, and can scarce be ascribed to an inferior nature? And on what other supposition are we to explain the identity which subsists between the principles of order, authenticated by the reason and the facts of order which are found to exist in the forms and multiplicities around us, and independent of us? Can this sameness be other than the sameness of the internal and external principles of a common nature? The proportions of the universe inhere in its divine soul; they are indeed its very essence, or at least, its attributes. The ideas or principles of Order which are implanted in the human reason, must inhere in the Divine Reason, and must be reflected in the visible world, which is its product. Man, then, can boldly affirm the necessary harmony of the world, because he has in his own mind a revelation which declares that the world, in its real structure, must be the image and copy of that divineproportionwhich he inwardly adores.441
Footnote 441:(return)It is an opinion which goes as far back as the time of Plato, and even Pythagoras, and has ever since been widely entertained, that beauty offormconsists in some sort ofproportionorharmonywhich may admit of a mathematical expression; and later and more scientific research is altogether in its favor. It is now established that complementary colors, that is, colors which when combined make up the full beam, are felt to be beautiful when seen simultaneously; that is, the mind is made to delight in the unities of nature. At the basis of music there are certain fixed ratios; and in poetry, of every description, there are measures, and correspondencies. Pythagoras has often been ridiculed for his doctrine of "the music of the spheres;" and probably his doctrine was somewhat fanciful, but later science shows that there is a harmony in all nature--in its forms, in its forces, and in its motions. The highest unorganized and all organized objects take definite forms which are regulated by mathematical laws. The forces of nature can be estimated in numbers, and light and heat go in undulations, whilst the movements of the great bodies in nature admit of a precise quantitative expression. The harmonies of nature in respect of color, of number, of form, and of time are forcibly exhibited in "Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation," by M'Cosh.
Again, the world is assuredlyperfect, as being the sensible image and copy of the Divinity, the outward and multiple development of the Eternal Unity. It must, therefore, when thoroughly known and properly interpreted, answer to all whichwe can conceive as perfect; that is, it must be regulated by laws, of which we have the highest principles in those first and elementary properties of numbers which stand next tounity. "The world is then, through all its departments,a living arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose." It is a κόσµος (for the word is purely Pythagorean)--the expression ofharmony, the manifestation, to sense, of everlastingorder.
Though Pythagoras found in geometry the fitting initiative for abstract speculation, it is remarkable that he himself preferred to constitute the science of Numbers as the true representative of the laws of the universe. The reason appears to be this: that though geometry speaks indeed of eternal truths, yet when the notion of symmetry and proportion is introduced, it is often necessary to insist, in preference, upon the properties of numbers. Hence, though the universe displays the geometry of its Constructor or Animator, yet nature was eminently defined as the µίµησις τῶν ἀριθµῶν--the imitation of numbers.
The key to all the Pythagorean dogmas, then, seems to be the general formula ofunity in multiplicity:--unity either evolving itself into multiplicity, or unity discovered as pervading multiplicity. The principle of all things, the same principle which in this philosophy, as in others, was customarily calledDeity, is the primitive unit from which all proceeds in the accordant relations of the universal scheme. Into the sensible world of multitude, the all-pervading Unity has infused his own ineffable nature; he has impressed his own image upon that world which is to represent him in the sphere of sense and man. What, then, is that which is at once single and multiple, identical and diversified--which we perceive as the combination of a thousand elements, yet as the expression of a single spirit--which is a chaos to the sense, a cosmos to the reason? What is it but harmony--proportion--the one governing the many, the many lost in the one? The world is therefore aharmonyin innumerable degrees, from the most complicated to the most simple: it is now a Triad, combining the Monad and the Duad, and partaking of the nature of both; now a Tetrad,the form of perfection; now a Decad, which, in combining the four former, involves, in its mystic nature, all the possible accordances of the universe.442
The psychology of the Pythagoreans was greatly modified by their physical, and still more, by their moral tenets. The soul was ἀριθµὸς ἑαυτὸν κινῶν--a self-moving number or Monad, the copy (as we have seen) of that Infinite Monad which unfolds from its own incomprehensible essence all the relations of the universe. This soul has three elements, Reason (νοῦς), Intelligence (φρήν), and Passion (θυµός). The two last, man has in common with brutes, the first is his grand and peculiar characteristic. It has, hence, been argued that Pythagoras could not have held the doctrine of "transmigration." This clear separation of man from the brute, by this signal endowment of reason, which is sempiternal, seems a refutation of those who charge him with the doctrine.
In the department of morals, the legislator of Crotona found his appropriate sphere. In his use of numerical notation, moral good was essential unity--evil, essential plurality and division. In the fixed truths of mathematical abstractions he found the exemplars of social and personal virtue. The rule or law of all morality is resemblance to God; that is, the return of number to its root, to unity,443and virtue is thus a harmony.
Footnote 442:(return)That is, 1+2+3+4=10. There are intimations that the Pythagoreans regarded the Monad as God, the Duad as matter, the Triad as the complex phenomena of the world, the Tetrad as the completeness of all its relations, the Decad as the cosmos, or harmonious whole.
Footnote 443:(return)Aristotle, "Nichomachian Ethics," bk. i. ch. vi.
Thus have we, in Pythagoras, the dawn of anIdealistschool; for mathematics are founded upon abstractions, and there is consequently an intimate connection between mathematics and idealism. The relations of space, and number, and determinate form, are, like the relations of cause and effect, of phenomena and substance, perceptibleonly in thought; and the mind which has been disciplined to abstract thought by the study of mathematics, is prepared and disposed for purely metaphysical studies. "The looking into mathematical learning is a kindof prelude to the contemplation of real being."444Therefore Plato inscribed over the door of his academy, "Let none but Geometricians enter here." To the mind thus disciplined in abstract thinking, the conceptions and ideas of reason have equal authority, sometimes even superior authority, to the perceptions of sense.
Footnote 444:(return)Alcinous, "Introduction to the Doctrines of Plato," ch. vii.
Now if the testimony of both reason and sense, as given in consciousness, is accepted as of equal authority, and each faculty is regarded as, within its own sphere, a source of real, valid knowledge, then a consistent and harmonious system ofNatural RealismorNatural Dualismwill be the result. If the testimony of sense is questioned and distrusted, and the mind is denied any immediate knowledge of the sensible world, and yet the existence of an external world is maintained by various hypotheses and reasonings, the consequence will be a species ofHypothetical DualismorCosmothetic Idealism. But if the affirmations of reason, as to the unity of the cosmos, are alone accepted, and the evidence of the senses, as to the variety and multiplicity of the world, is entirely disregarded, then we have a system ofAbsolute Idealism. Pythagoras regarded the harmony which pervades the diversified phenomena of the outer world as a manifestation of the unity of its eternal principle, or as the perpetual evolution of that unity, and the consequenttendencyof his system was to depreciate thesensible. Following out this tendency, the Eleatics first neglected, and finally denied the variety of the universe--denied the real existence of the external world, and asserted an absolutemetaphysicalunity.
Xenophanes of Colophon, in Ionia (B.C. 616-516), was the founder of this celebrated school of Elea. He left Ionia, and arrived in Italy about the same time as Pythagoras, bringing with him to Italy his Ionian tendencies; he there amalgamated them with Pythagorean speculations.
Pythagoras had succeeded in fixing the attention of his countrymen on the harmony which pervades the material world,and had taught them to regard that harmony as the manifestation of the intelligence, and unity, and perfection of its eternal principle. Struck with this idea of harmony and of unity, Xenophanes, who was a poet, a rhapsodist, and therefore by native tendency, rather than by intellectual discipline, an Idealist, begins already to attach more importance tounitythan multiplicity in his philosophy of nature. He regards the testimony of reason as of more authority than the testimony of sense; "and he holds badly enough the balance between the unity of the Pythagoreans and the variety which Heraclitus and the Ionians had alone considered."445
We are not, however, to suppose that Xenophanes denied entirely the existence ofplurality. "The great Rhapsodist of Truth" was guided by the spontaneous intuitions of his mind (which seemed to partake of the character of an inspiration), to a clearer vision of the truth than were his successors of the same school by their discursive reasonings. "The One" of Xenophanes was clearly distinguished from the outward universe (τὰ πολλά) on the one hand, and from the "non-ens" on the other. It was his disciple, Parmenides, who imagined the logical necessity of identifying plurality with the "non-ens" and thus denying all immediate cognition of the phenomenal world. The compactness and logical coherence of the system of Parmenides seems to have had a peculiar charm for the Grecian mind, and to have diverted the eyes of antiquity from the views of the more earnest and devout Xenophanes, whose opinions were too often confounded with those of his successors of the Eleatic school. "Accordingly we find that Xenophanes has obtained credit for much that is, exclusively, the property of Parmenides and Zeno, in particular for denying plurality, and for identifying God with the universe."446
Footnote 445:(return)Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 440.
Footnote 446:(return)See note by editor, W.H. Thompson, M.A., on pages 331, 332 of Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. His authorities are "Fragments of Xenophanes" and the treatise "De Melisso, Xenophane, et Gorgia," by Aristotle.
In theology, Xenophanes was unquestionably aTheist. Hehad a profound and earnest conviction of the existence of a God, and he ridiculed with sarcastic force, the anthropomorphic absurdities of the popular religion. This one God, he taught, was self-existent, eternal, and infinite; supreme in power, in goodness, and intelligence.447These characteristics are ascribed to the Deity in the sublime words with which he opens his philosophic poem--
"There is one God, of all beings, divine and human, the greatest:Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in mind."
"There is one God, of all beings, divine and human, the greatest:Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in mind."
"There is one God, of all beings, divine and human, the greatest:
Neither in body alike unto mortals, neither in mind."
He has no parts, no organs, as men have, being
"All sight, all ear, all intelligence;Wholly exempt from toil, he sways all things bythoughtandwill."448
"All sight, all ear, all intelligence;Wholly exempt from toil, he sways all things bythoughtandwill."448
"All sight, all ear, all intelligence;
Wholly exempt from toil, he sways all things bythoughtandwill."448
Xenophanes also taught that God is "uncreated" or "uncaused," and that he is "excellent" as well as "all-powerful."449And yet, regardless of these explicit utterances, Lewes cautions his readers against supposing that, by the "one God," Xenophanes meant a Personal God; and he asserts that his Monotheism was Pantheism. A doctrine, however, which ascribes to the Divine Being moral as well as intellectual supremacy, which acknowledges an outward world distinct from Him, and which represents Him as causing the changes in that universe by the acts of an intelligent volition, can only by a strange perversion of language be called pantheism.
Footnote 447:(return)Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 38; Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 428, 429.
Footnote 448:(return)Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 432, 434.
Footnote 449:(return)Butler's "Lectures," vol. i. p. 331, note; Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 428.
Parmenides of Elea(born B.C. 536) was the philosopher who framed the psychological opinions of the Idealist school into a precise and comprehensive system. He was the first carefully to distinguish betweenTruth(ἀλήθειαν) andOpinion(δοξαν)--between ideas obtained through the reason and the simple perceptions of sense. Assuming that reason and sense are the only sources of knowledge, he held that they furnish the mind with two distinct classes of cognitions--one variable, fleeting,and uncertain; the other immutable, necessary, and eternal. Sense is dependent on the variable organization of the individual, and therefore its evidence is changeable, uncertain, and nothing but a mere "seeming." Reason is the same in all individuals, and therefore its evidence is constant, real, and true. Philosophy is, therefore, divided into two branches--PhysicsandMetaphysics; one, a science of absolute knowledge; the other, a science of mere appearances. The first science, Physics, is pronounced illusory and uncertain; the latter, Metaphysics, is infallible and immutable.450
Proceeding on these principles, he rejects the dualistic system of the universe, and boldly declared that all essences are fundamentallyone--that, in fact, there is no real plurality, and that all the diversity which "appears" is merely presented under a peculiar aesthetic or sensible law. The senses, it is true, teach us that there are "many things," but reason affirms that, at bottom, there exists only "the one." Whatever, therefore, manifests itself in the field of sense is merely illusory--the mental representation of a phenomenal world, which to experience seems diversified, but which reason can not possibly admit to be other than "immovable" and "one." There is but one Being in the universe, eternal, immovable, absolute; and of this unconditioned being all phenomenal existences, whether material or mental, are but the attributes and modes. Hence the two great maxims of the Eleatic school, derived from Parmenides--τὰ πάντα ἕν, "The All is One" and τὸ αὐτὸ νοεῖν τε καὶ εἶναι (Idem est cogitare atque esse), "Thought and Being are identical." The last remarkable dictum is the fundamental principle of the modern pantheistic doctrine of "absolute identity" as taught by Schelling and Hegel.451
Footnote 450:(return)Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 447, 451.
Footnote 451:(return)Id., ib., vol. i. pp. 450, 455.
Lewes asserts that "Parmenides did not, with Xenophanes, call 'the One' God; he called it Being.452In support of this statement he, however, cites no ancient authorities. We aretherefore justified in rejecting his opinion, and receiving the testimony of Simplicius, "the only authority for the fragments of the Eleatics,"453and who had a copy of the philosophic poems of Parmenides. He assures us that Parmenides and Xenophanes "affirmed that 'the One,' or unity, was the first Principle of all,....they meaning by this Onethat highest or supreme God, as being the cause of unity to all things.... It remaineth, therefore, that thatIntelligencewhich is the cause of all things, and therefore of mind and understanding also, in which all things are comprehended in unity, was Parmenides' one Ens or Being.454Parmenides was, therefore, a spiritualistic or idealistic Pantheist.
Zeno of Elea(born B.C. 500) was the logician of the Eleatic school. He was, says Diogenes Laertius, "the inventor of Dialectics."455Logic henceforth becomes the ὄργανον456--organon of the Eleatics.
Footnote 452:(return)"Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 50.
Footnote 453:(return)Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Simplicius."
Footnote 454:(return)Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 511.
Footnote 455:(return)"Lives," p. 387 (Bohn's edition).
Footnote 456:(return)Plato in "Parmen."
This organon, however, Zeno used very imperfectly. In his hands it was simply the "reductio ad absurdum" of opposing opinions as the means of sustaining the tenets of his own sect. Parmenides had asserted, onà priorigrounds, the existence of "the One." Zeno would prove by his dialectic the non-existence of "the many." His grand position was that all phenomena, all that appears to sense, is but amodificationof the absolute One. And he displays a vast amount of dialectic subtilty in the effort to prove that all "appearances" are unreal, and that all movement and change is a mere "seeming"--not a reality. What men call motion is only a name given to a series of conditions, each of which, considered separately, is rest. "Rest is force resistant; motion is force triumphant."457The famous puzzle of "Achilles and the Tortoise," by which he endeavored to prove the unreality of motion, has been rendered familiar to the English reader.458
Footnote 457:(return)Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 60.
Footnote 458:(return)Ritter's "History of Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 475, 476.
Aristotle assures us that Zeno, "by his one Ens, which neither was moved nor movable, meaneth God." And he also informs us that "Zeno endeavored to demonstrate that there is but one God, from the idea which all men have of him, as that which is the best, supremest, most powerful of all, or an absolutely perfect being" ("De Xenophane, Zenone, et Gorgia").459
With Zeno we close our survey of the second grand line of independent inquiry by which philosophy sought to solve the problem of the universe. The reader will be struck with the resemblance which subsists between the history of its development and that of the modern Idealist school. Pythagoras was the Descartes, Parmenides the Spinoza, and Zeno the Hegel of the Italian school.
In this survey of the speculations of the pre-Socratic schools of philosophy, we have followed the course of two opposite streams of thought which had their common origin in one fundamental principle or law of the human mind--theintuition of unity--"or the desire to comprehend all the facts of the universe in a single formula, and consummate all conditional knowledge in the unity of unconditioned existence." The history of this tendency is, in fact, the history of all philosophy. "The end of all philosophy," says Plato, "is the intuition of unity." "All knowledge," said the Platonists, "is the gathering up into one."460
Footnote 459:(return)Cudworth's "Intellectual System," vol. i. p. 518.
Footnote 460:(return)Hamilton's "Metaphysics," vol. i. pp. 67-70 (English edition).
Starting from this fundamental idea,that, beneath the endless flux and change of the visible universe, there must be a permanent principle of unity, we have seen developed two opposite schools of speculative thought. As the traveller, standing on the ridges of the Andes, may see the head-waters of the great South American rivers mingling in one, so the student of philosophy, standing on the elevated plane of analytic thought, may discover,in this fundamental principle, the common source of the two great systems of speculative thought which divided the ancient world. Here are the head-waters of the sensational and the idealist schools. The Ionian school started its course of inquiry in the direction ofsense; it occupied itself solely with the phenomena of the external world, and it sought this principle of unity in aphysicalelement. The Italian school started its course of inquiry in the direction ofreason; it occupied itself chiefly with rational conceptions orà prioriideas, and it sought this principle of unity in purelymetaphysicalbeing. And just as the Amazon and La Plata sweep on, in opposite directions, until they reach the extremities of the continent, so these two opposite streams of thought rush onward, by the force of a logical necessity, until they terminate in the two Unitarian systems ofAbsolute MaterialismandAbsolute Idealism, and, in their theological aspects, in a pantheism which, on the one hand, identifies God with matter, or, on the other hand, swallows up the universe in God.
The radical error of both these systems is at once apparent. The testimony of the primary faculties of the mind was not regarded as each, within its sphere, final and decisive. The duality of consciousness was not accepted in all its integrity; one school rejected the testimony of reason, the other denied the veracity of the senses, and both prepared the way for theskepticismof the Sophists.
We must not, however, lose sight of the fact that there were some philosophers of the pre-Socratic school, as Anaxagoras and Empedocles, who recognized the partial and exclusive character of both these systems, and sought, by a method which Cousin would designate as Eclecticism, to combine the element of truth contained in each.
Anaxagoras of Clazomencœ(B.C. 500-428) added to the Ionian philosophy of a material element or elements the Italian idea of aspiritdistinct from, and independent of the world, which has within itself the principle of a spontaneous activity--Νοῦς αὐτοκρατής, and which is the first cause of motion in the universe--ἀρχὴ τῆς κινήσεως.461
Footnote 461:(return)Cousin, "History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 411.
In his physical theory, Anaxagoras was an Atomist. Instead of one element, he declared that the elements or first principles were numerous, or even infinite. No point in space is unoccupied by these atoms, which are infinitely divisible. He imagined that, in nature, there are as many kinds of principles as there are species of compound bodies, and that the peculiar form of the primary particles of which any body is composed is the same with the qualities of the compound body itself. This was the celebrated doctrine ofHomœomeria, of which Lucretius furnishes a luminous account in his philosophic poem "De Natura Rerum"--
"That bone from bonesMinute, and embryon; nerve from nerves arise;And blood from blood, by countless drops increased.Gold, too, from golden atoms, earths concrete,From earths extreme; from fiery matters, fire;And lymph from limpen dews. And thus throughoutFrom primal kinds that kinds perpetual spring."462
"That bone from bonesMinute, and embryon; nerve from nerves arise;And blood from blood, by countless drops increased.Gold, too, from golden atoms, earths concrete,From earths extreme; from fiery matters, fire;And lymph from limpen dews. And thus throughoutFrom primal kinds that kinds perpetual spring."462
"That bone from bones
Minute, and embryon; nerve from nerves arise;
And blood from blood, by countless drops increased.
Gold, too, from golden atoms, earths concrete,
From earths extreme; from fiery matters, fire;
And lymph from limpen dews. And thus throughout
From primal kinds that kinds perpetual spring."462
These primary particles were regarded by Anaxagoras as eternal; because he held the dogma, peculiar to all the Ionians, that nothing can be really created or annihilated (de nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil posse reverti). But he saw, nevertheless, that the simple existence of "inert" matter, even from eternity, could not explain the motion and the harmony of the material world. Hence he saw the necessity of another power--the power of Intelligence. "All things were in chaos; then came Intelligence and introduced Order."463
Anaxagoras, unlike the pantheistic speculators of the Ionian school, rigidly separated the Supreme Intelligence from the material universe. The Νοῦς of Anaxagoras is a principle, infinite, independent (αὺτοκρατές), omnipresent (ἐν παντὶ παντὸς µοίοα ἔνον), the subtilest and purest of things (λεπτότατον πάντων χρηµάτων καὶ καθαρώτατον); and incapable of mixture with aught besides; it is also omniscient (πάντα ἔγνω), and unchangeable (πᾶς ὁµοῖός ἐστι).--Simplicius, in "Arist. Phys." i. 33.464
Footnote 462:(return)Good's translation, bk. i. p. 325.
Footnote 463:(return)Diogenes Laertius, "Lives," p. 59.
Footnote 464:(return)Butler's "Lectures on Philosophy," vol. i. p. 305, note.
Thus did Anaxagoras bridge the chasm between the Ionian and the Italian schools. He accepted both doctrines with some modifications. He believed in the real existence of the phenomenal world, and he also believed in the real existence of "The Infinite Mind," whose Intelligence and Omnipotence were manifested in the laws and relations which pervade the world. He proclaimed the existence of the Infinite Intelligence ("the ONE"), who was the Architect and Governor of the Infinite Matter ("the MANY").
On the question as to the origin and certainty of human knowledge, Anaxagoras differed both from the Ionians and the Eleatics. Neither the sense alone, nor the reason alone, were for him a ground of certitude. He held that reason (λόγος) was the regulative faculty of the mind, as the Νοῦς, or Supreme Intelligence, was the regulative power of the universe. And he admitted that the senses were veracious in their reports; but they reported only in regard to phenomena. The senses, then, perceivephenomena, but it is the reason alone which recognizesnoumena, that is, the reason perceives being in and through phenomena, substance in and through qualities; an anticipation of the fundamental principle of modern psychology--"that every power or substance in existence is knowable to us, so far only, as we know its phenomena." Thus, again, does he bridge the chasm that separates between the Sensationalist and the Idealist. The Ionians relied solely on the intuitions of sense; the Eleatics accepted only the apperceptions of pure reason; he accepted the testimony of both, and in the synthesis of subject and object--the union of an element supplied by sensation, and an element supplied by reason, he found real, certain knowledge.
The harmony which the doctrine of Anaxagoras introduced into the philosophy of Athens, soon attracted attention and multiplied disciples. He was teaching when Socrates arrived in Athens, and the latter attended his school. The influence which the doctrine of Anaxagoras exerted upon the mind of Socrates (leading him to recognize Intelligence as the causeof order and special adaptation in the universe),465and also upon the course of philosophy in the Socratic schools, is the most enduring memorial of his name.466
Footnote 465:(return)"Phaedo," § 105.
Footnote 466:(return)Aristotle's "Metaphysics," bk. i. ch. iii.
We have devoted a much larger space than we originally designed to the ante-Socratic schools--quite out of proportion, indeed, with that we shall be able to appropriate to their successors. But inasmuch as all the great primary problems of thought, which are subsequently discussed by Plato and Aristotle, were started, and received, at least, typical answers in those schools, we can not hope to understand Plato, or Aristotle, or even Epicurus, or Zeno of Cittium, unless we have first mastered the doctrines of Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Parmenides, and Anaxagoras.467The attention we have bestowed on these early thinkers will, therefore, have been a valuable preparatory discipline for the study of
Footnote 467:(return)Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 114; Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. ii. pp. 87, 88.
II. THE SOCRATIC SCHOOL.
The first cycle of philosophy was now complete. That form of Grecian speculative thought which, during the first period of its development, was a philosophy of nature, had reached its maturity; it had sought "the first principles of all things" in the study of external nature, and had signally failed. In this pursuit of first principles as the basis of a true and certain knowledge of the system of the universe, the two leading schools had been carried to opposite poles of thought. One had asserted thatexperiencealone, the other, thatreasonalone was the sole criterion of truth. As the last consequence of this imperfect method, Leucippus had denied the existence of "the one," and Zeno had denied the existence of "the many." The Ionian school, in Democritus, had landed in Materialism; the Italian, in Parmenides, had ended in Pantheism; and, as the necessary result of this partial and defective method of inquiry, which ended in doubt and contradiction, a spirit of generalskepticism was generated in the Athenian mind. If doubt be cast upon the veracity of the primary cognitive faculties of the mind, the flood-gates of universal skepticism are opened. If the senses are pronounced to be mendacious and illusory in their reports regarding external phenomena, and if the intuitions of the reason, in regard to the ground and cause of phenomena, are delusive, then we have no ground of certitude. If one faculty is unveracious and unreliable, how can we determine that the other is not equally so? There is, then, no such thing as universal and necessary truth. Truth is variable and uncertain, as the variable opinion of each individual.
The Sophists, who belonged to no particular school, laid hold on the elements of skepticism contained in both the pre-Socratic schools of philosophy, and they declared that "the σοφία" was not only unattainable, but that no relative degree of it was possible for the human faculties.468Protagoras of Abdera accepted the doctrine of Heraclitus, that thought is identical with sensation, and limited by it; he therefore declared that there is no criterion of truth, andMan is the measure of all things.469Sextus Empiricus gives the psychological opinions of Protagoras with remarkable explicitness. "Matter is in a perpetual flux, whilst it undergoes augmentations and losses; the senses also are modified according to the age and disposition of the body. He said, also, that the reason of all phenomena resides in matter as substrata, so that matter, in itself, might be whatever it appeared to each. But men have different perceptions at different periods, according to the changes in the things perceived.... Man is, therefore, the criterion of that which exists; all that is perceived by him exists;that which is perceived by no man does not exist."470These conclusions were rigidly and fearlessly applied to ethics and political science. If there is no Eternal Truth, there can be no ImmutableRight. The distinction of right and wrong is solely a matter of human opinion and conventional usage.471"That whichappearsjust and honorable to each city, is so forthat city, so long as the opinion prevails."472
Footnote 468:(return)Encyclopædia Britannica, article "Sophist."
Footnote 469:(return)Plato's "Theætetus" (άνθρωπος--"the individual is the measure of all things"), vol. i. p. 381 (Bohn's edition).
Footnote 470:(return)Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 117.
Footnote 471:(return)"Gorgias," § 85-89.
Footnote 472:(return)Plato's "Theætetus," § 65-75.
There were others who laid hold on the weapons which Zeno had prepared to their hands. He had asserted that all the objects of sense were mere phantoms--delusive and transitory. By the subtilties of dialectic quibbling, he had attempted to prove that "change" meant "permanence," and "motion" meant "rest."473Words may, therefore, have the most opposite and contradictory meanings; and all language and all opinion may, by such a process, be rendered uncertain. One opinion is, consequently, for the individual, just as good as another; and all opinions are equally true and untrue. It was nevertheless desirable, for the good of society, that there should be some agreement, and that, for a time at least, certain opinions should prevail; and if philosophy had failed to secure this agreement, rhetoric, at least, was effectual; and, with the Sophist, rhetoric was "the art of making the worst appear the better reason." All wisdom was now confined to a species of "word jugglery," which in Athens was dignified as "the art of disputation."
Footnote 473:(return)"And do we not know that the Eleatic Palamedes (Zeno) spoke by art in such a manner that the same things appeared to be similar and dissimilar, one and many, at rest and in motion?"--"Phædrus," § 97.
SOCRATES (B.C. 469-399), the grand central figure in the group of ancient philosophers, arrived in Athens in the midst of this general skepticism. He had an invincible faith in truth. "He made her the mistress of his soul, and with patient labor, and unwearied energy, did his great and noble soul toil after perfect communion with her." He was disappointed and dissatisfied with the results that had been reached by the methods of his predecessors, and he was convinced that by these methods the problem of the universe could not be solved. He therefore turned away from physical inquiries, and devoted hiswhole attention to the study of the human mind, its fundamental beliefs, ideas, and laws. If he can not penetrate the mysteries of the outer world, he will turn his attention to the world within. He will "know himself," and find within himself the reason, and ground, and law of all existence. There he discovered certain truths which can not possibly be questioned. He felt he had within his own heart a faithful monitor--aconscience, which he regarded as the voice of God.474He believed "he had a divine teacher with him at all times. Though he did not possess wisdom, this teacher could put him on the road to seek it, could preserve him from delusions which might turn him out of the way, could keep his mind fixed upon the end for which he ought to act and live."475In himself, therefore, he sought that ground of certitude which should save him from the prevailing skepticism of his times. The Delphic inscription, Γνῶθι σεαντόν, "know thyself" becomes henceforth the fundamental maxim of philosophy.
Footnote 474:(return)The Dæmon of Socrates has been the subject of much discussion among learned men. The notion, once generally received, that hisδαίµωνwas "a familiar genius," is now regarded as an exploded error. "Nowhere does Socrates, in Plato or Xenophon, speak ofagenius or demon, but always of adœmoniac something (το δαιµόνιον, orδαιµόνιν τι), or of asign, avoice, adivine sign, adivine voice" (Lewes's "Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 166). "Socrates always speaks of adivine or supernatural somewhat('divinum quiddam,' as Cicero has it), the nature of which he does not attempt to divine, and to which he never attributes personality" (Butler's "Lectures on Ancient Philosophy," vol. i. p. 357). The scholar need not to be informed thatτο δαιµόνιον, in classic literature, means the divine Essence (Lat.numen), to which are attributed events beyond man's power, yet not to be assigned to any special god.
Footnote 475:(return)Maurice's "Ancient Philosophy," p. 124.
Truth has a rational,à priorifoundation in the constitution of the human mind. There areideasconnatural to the human reason which are the copies of those archetypal ideas which belong to the Eternal Reason. The grand problem of philosophy, therefore, now is--What are these fundamentalIDEASwhich are unchangeable and permanent, amid all the diversifies of human opinion, connecting appearance with reality, and constituting a ground of certain knowledge or absolute truth? Socrates maynot have held the doctrine of ideas as exhibited by Plato, but he certainly believed that there were germs of truth latent in the human mind--principles which governed, unconsciously, the processes of thought, and that these could be developed by reflection and by questioning. These were embryonate in the womb of reason, coming to the birth, but needing the "maieutic" or "obstetric" art, that they might be brought forth.476He would, therefore, become the accoucheur of ideas, and deliver minds of that secret truth which lay in their mental constitution. And thusPsychologybecomes the basis of all legitimate metaphysics.
Footnote 476:(return)Plato's "Theætetus," § 22.
By the general consent of antiquity, as well as by the concurrent judgment of all modern historians of philosophy, Socrates is regarded as having effected a complete revolution in philosophic thought, and, by universal consent, he is placed at the commencement of a new era in philosophy. Schleiermacher has said, "the service which Socrates rendered tο philosophy consisted not so much in the truths arrived atas in theMETHODby which truth is sought." As Bacon inaugurated a new method in physical inquiry, so Socrates inaugurated a new method in metaphysical inquiry.
What, then, was thisnew method? It was no other than theinductivemethod applied to the facts of consciousness. This method is thus defined by Aristotle: "Induction is the process from particulars to generals;" that is, it is the process of discovering laws from facts, causes from effects, being from phenomena. But how is this process of induction conducted? By observing and enumerating the real facts which are presented in consciousness, by noting their relations of resemblance or difference, and by classifying these facts by the aid of these relations. In other words, it isanalysisapplied to the phenomena of mind.477Now Socrates gave this method of psychological analysis to Greek philosophy. There are two things of which Socrates must justly be regarded as the author,--theinductive reasoningandabstract definition.478We readily grant that Socrates employed this method imperfectly, for methods are the last things perfected in science; but still, the Socratic movement was a vast movement in the right direction.
Footnote 477:(return)Cousin's "Lectures on the History of Philosophy," vol. i. p. 30.
Footnote 478:(return)Aristotle's "Metaphysics," vol. xii. ch. iv. p. 359 (Bohn's edition).
In what are usually regarded as the purely Socratic dialogues,479Plato evidently designs to exhibit this method of Socrates. They proceed continually on the firm conviction that there is a standard or criterion of truth in the reason of man, and that, byreflection, man can apprehend and recognize the truth. To awaken this power of reflection; to compel men to analyze their language and their thoughts; to lead them from the particular and the contingent, to the universal and the necessary; and to teach them to test their opinions by the inward standard of truth, was the aim of Socrates. These dialogues are a picture of the conversations of Socrates. They are literally an education of the thinking faculty. Their purpose is to discipline men to think for themselves, rather than to furnish opinions for them. In many of these dialogues Socrates affirms nothing. After producing many arguments, and examining a question on all sides, he leaves it undetermined. At the close of the dialogue he is as far from a declaration of opinions as at the commencement. His grand effort, like that of Bacon's, is to furnish men a correct method of inquiry, rather than to apply that method and give them results.
Footnote 479:(return)"Laches," "Charmides," "Lysis," "The Rivals," "First and Second Alcibiades," "Theages," "Clitophon." See Whewell's translation, vol. i.
We must not, however, from thence conclude that Socrates did not himself attain any definite conclusions, or reach any specific and valuable results. When, in reply to his friends who reported the answer of the oracle of Delphi, that "Socrates was the wisest of men," he said, "he supposed the oracle declared him wisebecause he knew nothing," he did not mean that true knowledge was unattainable, for his whole life had been spent in efforts to attain it. He simply indicates the disposition of mind which is most befitting and most helpful to the seekerafter truth. He must be conscious of his own ignorance. He must not exalt himself. He must not put his own conceits in the way of the thing he would know. He must have an open eye, a single purpose, an honest mind, to prepare him to receive light when it comes. And that there is light, that there is a source whence light comes, he avowed in every word and act.
Socrates unquestionably believed in one Supreme God, the immaterial, infinite Governor of all. He cherished that instinctive, spontaneous faith in God and his Providence which is the universal faith of the human heart. He saw this faith revealed in the religious sentiments of all nations, and in the tendency to worship so universally characteristic of humanity.480He appealed to the consciousness of absolute dependence--the persuasion, wrought by God in the minds of all men, that "He is able to make men happy or miserable," and the consequent sense of obligation which teaches man he ought to obey God. And he regarded with some degree of affectionate tenderness the common sentiment of his countrymen, that the Divine Government was conducted through the ministry of subordinate deities or generated gods. But he sought earnestly to prevent the presence of these subordinate agents from intercepting the clear view of the Supreme God.
The faith of Socrates was not, however, grounded on mere feeling and sentiment. He endeavored to place the knowledge of God on a rational basis. We can not read the arguments he employed without being convinced that he anticipated all the subsequent writers on Natural Theology in his treatment of the argument fromspecial endsorfinal causes. We venture to abridge the account which is given by Xenophon of the conversation with Aristodemus:481
Footnote 480:(return)"Memorabilia," bk. i. ch. iv. § 16.
Footnote 481:(return)Ibid., bk. i. ch. iv.
"I will now relate the manner in which I once heard Socrates discoursing with Aristodemus concerning the Deity; for, observing that he never prayed nor sacrificed to the gods, but, on the contrary, ridiculed those who did, he said to him:
"'Tell me, Aristodemus, is there any man you admire onaccount of his merits? Aristodemus having answered, 'Many,--'Name some of them, I pray you,' said Socrates. 'I admire,' said Aristodemus, 'Homer for his Epic poetry, Melanippides for his dithyrambics, Sophocles for his tragedy, Polycletus for statuary, and Zeuxis for painting.'
"'But which seemed to you most worthy of admiration, Aristodemus--the artist who forms images void of motion and intelligence, or one who has skill to produce animals that are endued, not only with activity, but understanding?'
"'The latter, there can be no doubt,' replied Aristodemus, 'provided the production was not the effect of chance, but of wisdom and contrivance.'
"'But since there are many things, some of which we can easily see the use of, while we can not say of others to what purpose they are produced, which of these, Aristodemus, do you suppose the work of wisdom?'
"'It would seem the most reasonable to affirm it of those whose fitness and utility are so evidently apparent,' answered Aristodemus.
"'But it is evidently apparent that He who, at the beginning, made man, endued him with senses because they were good for him; eyes wherewith to behold what is visible, and ears to hear whatever was heard; for, say, Aristodemus, to what purpose should odor be prepared, if the sense of smelling had been denied or why the distinction of bitter or sweet, of savory or unsavory, unless a palate had been likewise given, conveniently placed to arbitrate between them and proclaim the difference? Is not that Providence, Aristodemus, in a most eminent manner conspicuous, which, because the eye of a man is so delicate in its contexture, hath therefore prepared eyelids like doors whereby to secure it, which extend of themselves whenever it is needful, and again close when sleep approaches? Are not these eyelids provided, as it were, with a fence on the edge of them to keep off the wind and guard the eye? Even the eyebrow itself is not without its office, but, as a penthouse, is prepared to turn off the sweat, which falling from the foreheadmight enter and annoy that no less tender than astonishing part of us. Is it not to be admired that the ears should take in sounds of every sort, and yet are not too much filled with them? That the fore teeth of the animal should be formed in such a manner as is evidently best for cutting, and those on the side for grinding it to pieces? That the mouth, through which this food is conveyed, should be placed so near the nose and eyes as to prevent the passing unnoticed whatever is unfit for nourishment?... And canst thou still doubt, Aristodemus, whether adisposition of parts like this should be a work of chance, or of wisdom and contrivance?'
"'I have no longer any doubt,' replied Aristodemus; 'and, indeed, the more I consider it, the more evident it appears to me that man must be the masterpiece of some great Artificer, carrying along with it infinite marks of the love and favor of Him who hath thus formed it.'
"'But, further (unless thou desirest to ask me questions), seeing, Aristodemus, thou thyself art conscious of reason and intelligence, supposest thou there is no intelligence elsewhere? Thou knowest thy body to be a small part of that wide-extended earth thou everywhere beholdest; the moisture contained in it thou also knowest to be a portion of that mighty mass of waters whereof seas themselves are but a part, while the rest of the elements contribute out of their abundance to thy formation. It is thesoul, then, alone, that intellectual part of us, which is come to thee by some lucky chance, from I know not where. If so, there is no intelligence elsewhere; and we must be forced to confess that this stupendous universe, with all the various bodies contained therein--equally amazing, whether we consider their magnitude or number, whatever their use, whatever their order--all have been produced by chance, not by intelligence!'
"'It is with difficulty that I can suppose otherwise,' returned Aristodemus; 'for I behold none of those gods whom you speak of as framing and governing the world; whereas I see the artists when at their work here among us.'
"'Neither yet seest thou thy soul, Aristodemus, which, however,most assuredly governs thy body; although it may well seem, by thy manner of talking, that it is chance and not reason which governs thee.'
"'I do not despise the gods,' said Aristodemus; 'on the contrary, I conceive so highly of their excellency, as to suppose they stand in no need of me or of my services.'
"'Thou mistakest the matter,' Aristodemus, 'the great magnificence they have shown in their care of thee, so much the more honor and service thou owest them.'
"'Be assured,' said Aristodemus, 'if I once could persuade myself the gods take care of man, I should want no monitor to remind me of my duty.'
"'And canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, if the gods take care of man? Hath not the glorious privilege of walking upright been alone bestowed on him, whereby he may with the better advantage survey what is around him, contemplate with more ease those splendid objects which are above, and avoid the numerous ills and inconveniences which would otherwise befall him? Other animals, indeed, they have provided with feet; but to man they have also given hands, with which he can form many things for use, and make himself happier than creatures of any other kind. A tongue hath been bestowed on every other animal; but what animal, except man, hath the power of forming words with it whereby to explain his thoughts and make them intelligible to others? But it is not with respect to the body alone that the gods have shown themselves bountiful to man. Their most excellent gift is that of a soul they have infused into him, which so far surpasses what is elsewhere to be found; for by what animal except man is even the existence of the gods discovered, who have produced and still uphold in such regular order this beautiful and stupendous frame of the universe? What other creature is to be found that can serve and adore them?... In thee, Aristodemus, has been joined to a wonderful soul a body no less wonderful; and sayest thou, after this, the gods take no thought for me? What wouldst thou, then, more to convince thee of their care?'